Tag Archives: geeky

Perseus Internship – Act I Comments

I started my internship with The Perseus Books Group last Wednesday, the 13th. Right now I’m working with Google Adwords. I didn’t have much practical experience with Adwords prior, so I’ve been learning a lot as I go.

The most exciting project we’re working to promote right now is the Cathy’s Book application for iPod Touch and iPhone. I’m intensely interested in developing storytelling technology, so I flipped my shit when I found out I would be helping to promote something this cutting edge. For those of you not immersed in the world of alternate reality gaming, the Cathy franchise comes from the brains of Sean Stewart and Jordan Weisman of I Love Bees fame. In short, these men are Olympic deities of the alternate reality gaming world. Fans of Bungie’s Halo series, take note.

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Published:
January 17, 2010 – 5:00 pm
Author:
By J. Mattocks

Brief Hiatus Comments

My brand new Acer laptop decided to have screen problems. Specifically, the back-lighting unit was faulty, so the screen is blacker than coal. Luckily it’s still under warranty. But it’ll be a couple weeks before I get it back in working condition. Considering all the terrible customer “support” I went through to get that far, plus the fact that I just got the laptop last month after my old one—also an Acer—decided to die of the same malady, I am just a little upset.

All this means I’ll be on a temporary blogging hiatus, probably until I’m settled in to my new home in New York City. City of Tides will be back in early January, and it will be so good. We’ve got fresh content cooking, a new focus I’m extremely excited about, and a couple surprises. Until then, everyone have a great holiday season and a happy winter solstice!

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Published:
December 3, 2009 – 1:34 am
Author:
By J. Mattocks

Distraction-Free Writing With WriteMonkey Comments

I love writing. It sustains me. But no matter how satisfying writing is, Internet access practically guarantees distraction. Oh sure, I could choose not to connect. But Google and Wikipedia are just too useful for grabbing those quick bits of information. But then “I’ll just check my email,” “I’ll just retweet this,” or “I wonder if Nedroid updated yet.” One thing leads to another, and oh wow look, I’ve lost four hours and I seem to have opened thirty Wikipedia tabs on Marvel super heroes. Great.

If only there were a minimalistic text editor for Windows that could keep me focused, but retained the features that are actually important to my productivity.

I’d like to introduce you to WriteMonkey. It’s a scaled-down text editor that runs in full screen mode so you can concentrate on your writing. It’s like a little home office for your operating system.

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Published:
November 28, 2009 – 12:37 am
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By J. Mattocks

I Am Not a Novelist Comments

Thanks to my existentialist leanings, I tend to define myself by what I do. Figuring out who I will be in this world means figuring out the actions I wish to take. So who do I choose to be?

It struck me today that I am not interested in being a traditional novelist. I feel like I’ve been struggling with this for years, trying to be something I don’t want to be just because I decided somewhere along the way that novel writing is a more legitimate profession than writing alternative forms of fiction.

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Published:
May 3, 2009 – 5:52 pm
Author:
By J. Mattocks

(Sort-of) Real Super Heroes Comments

I am an overweight child of eleven covered by a thin patina of twenty-somethingness. The slightest abrasion could scrape away the exterior of semi-maturity. So when I was informed that Cincinnati has a growing population of masked heroes, that twenty-somethingness film was washed away in a surge of youthful glee.

You know that noise young women make in anime when they’re really excited? I made that noise.

Upon viewing the above, I was overtaken by a deep sense of purpose. My destiny was revealed to me: I must go to them. I must understand them. Who wants to join me on a road trip to meet these super heroes? This is definitely a documentary film waiting to happen.

Recommended reading: Kick-Ass, a fictional comic book series about real life super heroes.

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Published:
April 30, 2009 – 10:08 pm
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By J. Mattocks

Is Facebook Ruining Your Life(stream)? Comments

Note: This has been cross-posted from one of my other blogs. Yes, I have another blog. No, you can’t see it. It’s private.

If Facebook wants my identity, it’s going to need to make some changes.

OpenID

Have you noticed that a lot of websites are giving users the option of logging in with Facebook Connect? In fact, I just implemented this feature when I switched from Intense Debate to Disqus (for the laymen, these are comment systems). It looks like Facebook is trying to become OpenID. I would much rather Facebook just adopted OpenID instead.

The Feeds Don’t Feed

Facebook seems to be gravitating towards lifestreaming. I have a problem with that. I don’t need Facebook to be a lifestreaming platform because I already have a lifestreaming platform—namely FriendFeed—and unlike Facebook, it plays well with others. Friendfeed works with the feeds that each of my services (YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, et al.) already generate, and from them it creates a new, universal feed (the eponymous “friend feed”). Facebook is simply becoming a redundant service that lacks the oh so necessary RSS or Atom feeds. In other words, there is my entire interconnected internet presence, and then there is a separate Facebook presence, and Facebook keeps these worlds apart. That is a very dated and frustrating way of doing things.

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Published:
April 13, 2009 – 12:26 pm
Author:
By J. Mattocks

Action Figure Psychologists Comments

Carissa gave me these killer-cool action figures just because she’s awesome.

Carl Gustav Jung Action Figure
Carl Jung Action Figure

Sigmund Freud Action Figure

Right now they adorn the bookshelf in my living room, right next to a couple dinosaurs.

By the way, Jung comes with a pipe accessory, which Freud assures me is sometimes just a pipe accessory. But we know better.

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Published:
March 22, 2009 – 1:00 pm
Author:
By J. Mattocks

Fruits of My Internetting Comments

How do I respond to being overstressed? Apparently, I lock myself in my room and Internet for hours. But you know what? I learned a lot today. So you don’t have to spend those same hours, here are the highlights:

Use a Plus Sign to Make Google Search for the Friggin Thing You Told it To
No, I didn’t mean “text,” you jerk, I meant “texter!” Why won’t you listen to me? What works: +texter

Texter
If you code at all, or simply type the same things over and over again. I use it for a lot of common HTML tags now, and it has taken a lot of pain out of blogging. Just make sure to turn auto-spell-correcting off. I hate that.

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Published:
March 9, 2009 – 7:01 pm
Author:
By J. Mattocks

Updates, Chrome, ChaCha, Netflix Comments

A brief update

  • I recently found myself some consistent employment working evenings at a candy shop. It’s a lot of fun; (almost) everyone who comes in is happy, because, you know, they’re in a candy shop.
  • This weekend I will be moving into my new apartment with three new room mates, one of which is a very old friend of mine, as well as a Modeus Designs collaborrator. The new place will be much closer to campus, and will have a higher bathroom-to-occupant ratio.
  • As I was planning out my classes for this quarter, I discovered I wasn’t as finished with my religious studies minor as I thought. I still need to take one more class. Luckily, I should still be able to graduate on time in the Spring. Good thing I double-checked! I’m actually happy about this, because I really wanted to take another religion class this year.
  • I’ve been playing with wikis lately. I set up two of my own, and have been learning a lot about how to work them. Now I feel I have something new to add to my resume.

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Published:
September 2, 2008 – 10:11 pm
Author:
By J. Mattocks

Star Trek Available Online for FREE Comments

It is my civic duty as net surfer, American citizen, and geek to announce that Star Trek, the original series which prophesied and inspired cell phones and created countless swarms of nerds of today, is available online gratis. Behold and be enlightened!

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Published:
June 13, 2008 – 7:05 pm
Author:
By J. Mattocks