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EndGame MiniCon April ’12

The great game store “EndGame” in Oakland hosts a “miniCon” a few times a year. I signed up for one last year, but ultimately chickened out and didn’t go. One of my goals for this year was to attend a gaming convention and actually play in a game. I arguably already met that objective in January when I attended FiascoCon at Endgame, but I really want to spend a day or two playing in several different games at a convention this year. I didn’t meet that objective, entirely, by attending this MiniCon either, but … one step at a time.

I attended some gaming convention in, I think, Alameda, back in the early ’90s. But I didn’t muster up the courage to actually join any games. I just wandered around and watched what people were doing. Even as a geek, it’s intimidating to join a group that you don’t know.

I drove all the way to Endgame, rather than taking BART as I usually do, mostly because I wanted to be able to get home as quickly as possible. The last session was slated to go until 7PM, and with light traffic that’s about a 90 minute trip by car. BART probably adds 45 minutes to an hour to that trip, which meant I was going to be getting home pretty late. Driving, though, led to the hassle of parking, which ended up being more stressful than I expected. Next time, I think I’ll just do BART.

There were some pre-session announcements from Chris Hanrahan and others. Chris let us know that he had almost pulled the plug on MiniCons, due to the amount of work. He mentioned that someone else (someone who most people seemed to know, but I didn’t — a recurring theme as you will see) had helped out with the registration process, which had allowed this MiniCon to proceed. I was just glad I hadn’t missed out.

My first session was Fiasco. Everyone at the table knew everyone else. I, of course, knew no one. That wasn’t a big challenge, but, combined with my novice-status as a Fiasco player, made me the odd guy at the table. Everyone was nice and generally tried to include me, which goes a long way in this type of situation.

We played a custom setting created by the GM. The focus was a political campaign. We used a new (to me, anyway) element called Moments; key emphases of a scene, like Locations, that get assigned to a relationship and create an expectation that the chosen Moment will occur during the game and have some particular significance.

It was fun, as Fiasco almost always is. The story was a bit disjointed and seemed to lack a bit of momentum. Ezra, who ran the game did a good job of filling in whenever an NPC or extra was required. That’s something I haven’t done yet in Fiasco but should feel empowered to do whenever a scene calls for it. I think I feel that I’m intruding by just jumping in as a waiter or clerk or whatever the scene calls for.

One of the players (one of two Erics in the game) did something clever with the aftermath, where, on his next-to-last montage scene, he showed his player doing something with an unnamed third party, then when it came back around, revealed that his character had taken a job with Santorum’s campaign. It was a nice touch, and something to think about.

In fact, that’s a key thing that I haven’t really worked out about Fiasco: how to really setup later stuff. Again, I think that in part is related to not imposing myself too much on the game; I don’t want to overly dictate how things should go. But when a game needs some narrative thrust, it needs it. I should just jump in when it’s called for.

We got done a bit early with Fiasco, plus there was an hour break between the morning and afternoon sessions. I took a walk, ate my lunch, then ended up at the decent brewpub across the street from Endgame. Yes. Endgame has a brewpub next door. Doesn’t your FLGS?

I had a couple beers while reviewing “Godlike,” my afternoon game. I’d never played Godlike, and it’s different enough that I felt a bit intimidated by it. The more I read it, the more I became apprehensive about the game in front of me. What if I was the only one who’d not played Godlike before? What if I slowed everyone down? What if, after a couple beers, I couldn’t grasp the rules well enough? What if we had to do character creation and I messed it up? I was about 50-50 on whether I should leave or actually go play.

Ultimately I got up the nerve to go play. As it turned out, out of the six of us at the table, only two had played before, and I was apparently the only one there with the book other than the guy running the game.

Godlike was fun. The GM pointed out that there are some holes in the mechanics, and some key issues, especially related to things like physical scale and range that are missing or ill-defined. But the key mechanic of the One Roll Engine (ORE) is pretty nifty. I enjoyed it and playing Godlike made me remember that “Monsters and Other Childish Things,” which I also own, is ORE-based. I should try to run that once or twice.

I have to say that, even for a gaming convention, this was a pretty geeky group. I’m not going to try to describe these guys, but a “Big Bang Theory”-style sitcom could be crafted using these guys as the characters; replacing physicists and engineers with (I’m guessing) software developers and itinerant World War 2 history “experts.”

Again, the group seemed to know each other; perhaps not as well as the Fiasco game, but I was definitely the outsider.

I enjoyed both games. I’m glad that I got a chance to play another Fiasco game. I’d like to at least play it a few more times. I’d be interested in playing Godlike again, though perhaps the more updated version of this system in a Supers setting, “Wild Talents” might be a better choice. The Supers in WWII angle is really cool, though.

I’m not ready to check the box of “Attended a con”, yet, but this is really the closest I’ve gotten.

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By admin – April 19, 2012

Resolution Check-In, April 1st, No Fooling

I’m at the point in my weight-loss program where I get a lot of compliments. A lot of “Are you losing weight?” and “You’ve really lost some weight, huh?” That feels good, but it’s hard to believe that it takes losing 35 pounds for people to notice. Which tells me I was kidding myself all along about how overweight I was… if I can drop 25-30 pounds and many people don’t notice… Damn.

The Withings scale has been great as a motivator. On a day-by-day basis, I can see the direct impact of what I ate the day before (and how much exercise I got). I know that some wisdom suggests that one shouldn’t weigh oneself every day, since there’s a natural fluctuation of weight and it might prove too discouraging. It is discouraging, sometimes, to see that my weight went up from the day before though I feel that I did a fair amount of exercise. But it’s pretty consistent: my weight goes up when I eat more than about 1500 calories in a day. Even on days like yesterday when I walked about 8 miles (according to the FitBit), too many calories consumed is what contributes to my weight gain.

I don’t doubt there’s some trailing indicator, where my weight might fall a bit more the next day or so as I metabolize the extra food intake, but that’s not easy to judge. Bottom line: if you want your weight to decrease, eat fewer calories.

I’ve walked 10,000 steps at least every day since my last check-in. I will, this week, reach 3,000,000 steps taken since I bought the FitBit last Summer.

Meditation: my string of 49 straight days having done some meditation ended in early March. For more about my meditation practice, see yesterday’s post. It’s a little concerning that there were 5 days in March (mostly scattered) where I didn’t meditate. My current chain is just 7 consecutive days having meditated.

Yoga: I did yoga every day in March. I’ve actually started an additional yoga routine in the mornings, which I don’t count in my Joe’s Goals tracking. I really enjoy it and have added a few bits to my routine over time. The current chain is 59 straight days of doing my yoga routine.

Bringing Lunch/Eating at Home: I did quite well in March bringing my lunch or otherwise not buying a lunch. On March 18th I had lunch with friends at a restaurant. Otherwise, I did not buy a lunch in March. I had chains of 17 and 14 days (the current stretch).

Writing Pomodoro: I had a chain of 42 straight days of doing my 20 minute writing pomodoro broken in early March. I’ve become a bit lazy about that since I finished the first draft of my fantasy short story. Since then, I’ve missed writing on 5 days and current chain of writing every day (including today) will only be 4 days.

Socializing: There were 19 days that I gave myself credit for socializing. Eight of those 19 days I clicked the box twice. It’s interesting that the percentage of days that I have socializing selected twice is so high (42%), given that I only socialize 62% of the time. It seems more likely on a given day if I take time to be around other people that I’ll do it again later the same day.

Starbucks and Amazon: I bought coffee at Starbucks exactly once in March (I had a Short Non-Fat Cappuccino) and I bought something for myself from Amazon twice. Most recently, I bought a <$5 business card case for a little hobby project I want to do.

I’m reading the excellent book (via Audible) “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg. I think that some of what I have fallen into, especially in regards exercise and logging my meals with the Lose It! site and iPhone app, have used time-tested habit-building techniques, though I knew nothing about such techniques until I started with Duhigg’s book. I’m hoping to mindfully use the habit-building stuff to work on my meditation habit (see what I did there?).

My weight, as of this morning, was 204.6 pounds. I’m zeroing in on my goal of 199. I feel pretty confident I’ll reach that before my end of April/May 1 post.

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By admin – April 1, 2012

On Meditation

I’ve been interested in meditation for decades. Going back to, probably, the first time I read Stranger in a Strange Land, I’ve thought that meditation would be something that I’d like to do. And I’ve tried. I’ve read several books about meditation and mindfulness. I’ve tried to practice on my own. I’ve attended a few meditation workshops offered by my employer.

But it’s been hard to incorporate meditation into my life as something that I make time to do. I think that’s primarily due to two reasons.

It’s hard. It is hard for me to sit there and not let my mind race off a million miles an hour on all the things going on in my life; and all the thoughts I seem to want to think; fantasies and imagined conversations, things I should have said or done. After about five minutes of trying to focus on my breathing and seeing my mind racing off in a direction and then reigning it back in, only to realize that I’m doing it again… I get frustrated and, I guess, a little exhausted by the chase and I then start focusing on just how much longer I have to keep this up. When is the little timer going to ding?

The other reason I think I haven’t been successful, related to the first, is: I’m not sure what the hell I’m doing. Or more precisely, what I expect to get out of this. What success will look like.

The typical approach to mindfulness meditation is to focus on one’s breath. That’s one thing that I’ve taken from meditation over the years, and something I have internalized. Kind of. I do focus on my breathing, especially during stressful or nervousness-inducing circumstances (speaking in front of group of strangers or a job interview) as a way of trying to control my emotions. I do that so much, in fact, that in a weird way I’ve become accustomed to doing it at times unconsciously. I often hear people commenting on hearing me sigh after returning from a meeting or task. I often don’t realize that I’m doing it; taking a large breath or two when switching from one event to the next. It started as a mindful exercise and turned into a basal ganglia-coopted habit.

Which is weird, right? My one “mindfulness” habit has become unmindful?

Meditation Image

Recently, I read the excellent “Mindfullness: An Eight Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic Word” by Williams and Penn. It is by far the best book on meditation that I have read. The book represents a clinical approach to mindfulness meditation and how the authors and others have successfully introduced a meditative habit into the lives of their clients to deal with depression, stress, anxiety, etc. It is the only book, to date, that I have read on meditation that doesn’t make ridiculous, supernatural claims for what meditation can do in people’s lives.

I don’t care about the religious or magical aspects of meditation. That’s all nonsense to me and puts me off discussions of meditation. I’m interested in real-world, reproducible benefits. That was my main problem with Bhante G.’s otherwise quite good Mindfulness in Plain English. Bhante made claims (or at least failed to distance himself from the claims of others) about people levitating and other nonsense.

The other thing that Williams and Penn get right is the guided meditation exercises they provide, with terrific MP3 files provided via the publisher’s website. I’ve copied them to my iPhone and used them and they really help a neophyte such as myself get started meditating.

I’ve been trying to do my yoga routine every night after our 8-year old goes to bed, and then go straight into meditation practice. That’s been a good way to do it, and I think it’s starting to stick. I flirted with yoga for about 18 months before I really “got” it (I think I’ve “got” it, anyway), and I look forward to my routine every day, to the extent that now I also do a quick sub-10 minute routine every morning as well. I want to give myself room to just stick with meditation and maybe it’ll click for me in the same way. Even if it takes a while, and a false start or two. It worked for my yoga practice.

But it still feels like work. It is a struggle to stay seated, cross-legged and not just get up and move on after about 5 minutes. And I keep expecting something to… happen. That if I get in a mindful groove or something that it will feel more natural and lead somewhere. But it just leads to more sitting and breathing. I mean, that’s the point, I suppose. That it’s kind of pointless.

I don’t mean that in an insulting way. But I am still struggling with it. I’ve been re-reading my copy of “The Miracle of Mindfulness” by Thich Nhat Hanh recently, which is a nice collection of essays. Thich really has a marvelous way with analogy that sort of defines how meditation is often taught. He repeats a Buddha story about two acrobatic street performers, one still a young girl. Their act included a bit where the older acrobat would balance a long pole on his head and the girl would climb up the pole and balance on top of it. The older acrobat suggested that they would be more effective if, instead of focusing on themselves, that each of the watched out for the other, warning them if they were starting to go awry. The girl, who we are told was wiser, said that, no, it would be best if they just focused on their own part of the act, and would thereby help the whole performance by doing their own job as best as they could.

Thich suggests that this is the mindful approach, not to try to correct others or worry about what they are doing, but to focus on what you are doing and to be the best person you can.

I’m going to keep going. It certainly doesn’t hurt to meditate (well, after a while you get stiff). But I’m not really sure what my expectations should be.

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By admin – March 31, 2012

Photo Button!

A while back, I saw the awesome great Make video for the “Awesome Button.” The author hacked a Staples “Easy Button”, with the use of a Teensy, an Arduino-like microcontroller. His project was to, at the push (or tap, in the case of the Staples device) of a button, to do a Search & Replace for the word “awesome” in his writing, substituting from a list of synonyms. It was a perfect example of what Make is all about; reusing existing technology to do something complicated and unnecessary.

I kid. I love Make.

More recently, I came across The Button which was a bit more detailed solution — also using a Teensy, for inserting text at the push of an external button. It had a detailed parts list, including links for each of the parts.

I liked the idea and began to think about how I might build a “Take Photo” button for Photobooth, to be used at parties. I ordered the parts recommended on Raster Web and began the interminable wait.

The recommended button was nice, but the article’s author also referenced a better, arcade-style button. I thought those arcade buttons looked great, and went ahead and got six of them, thinking I could have further uses (maybe I would build a MAME controller!). Of course, I failed to read the description clearly enough. The buttons showed up and looked awesome, and the Teensy also arrived just a few days later. It took several more days, however, before the enclosure arrived (I had ordered two, assuming I’d mess up the drilling on the first one). And it was too small.

The Raster Web author had mentioned that the high quality arcade buttons were too tall for the enclosure, and he was right. My buttons would never fit in the enclosures I had bought.

But, I figured I could go ahead and work out the circuit, such as it was, and the Arduino code and then figure out some alternative enclosure.

The original site doesn’t have a good, detailed picture of the button wiring. I spent a lot of time this weekend wrestling with problem solving before I realized that the button needed to be connected to pin 10 and Ground of the Teensy. I was making it way more complicated than it needed to be.

I thought I had to solve a problem on my Macbook with it not detecting the “right” kind of USB keyboard I had connected (it was just the Teensy, but the Arduino IDE was configured to set it up as a USB keyboard). That was a red herring.

In Photo Booth, the “take photo” shortcut is CMD-T. Because I had to use the CMD key, I couldn’t just use the stock code from Raster Web. But the Teensy documentation tells you how to use key combinations, using the “Keyboard.set_modifier(MODIFIERKEY_XXX” command.

Once I had the code and wiring both straightened out, I opened Photo Booth, set it to full screen and hit my shiny yellow button. Photo Booth gave me a 3-second countdown and CLICK! it snapped my picture.

I made my son stop playing video games and come try it for himself.

Then I decided to take on an enclosure. There’s a nice-looking green cardboard box that I think some tea came in. I cut a hole in the top using my Dremel, and then a small one on the bottom of the box for the USB cable. I put it together, plugged it back in and PHOTO BUTTON!

See for yourself:

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By admin – March 11, 2012

Home Brew 03-03-2012

Every winter I start thinking about making homebrew. I live here in the California Central Valley, where summer basically starts in late April and extends into early October. Our lagering period, then, is quite restricted.

I’ve not had a great track record at brewing. Not even a good track record, if I’m honest. I’ve probably brewed somewhere between ten and twelve batches over the last 15-20 years. I have not brewed one batch about which I was truly proud, and at least a couple of those batches were complete disasters. I stubbornly drank some of the early batches, though they were pretty bad. As I’ve been able to buy better equipment, my efforts have been more consistently mediocre. But I’ve never brewed anything that I really felt good about giving to someone else to try.

I’m a beer snob. I love beer the way wine snobs love wine. In the microbrew revolution of the early ’90′s I was willing to drink almost anything. I’ve since narrowed my scope, because I’ve found the beers that I love the most. I’m willing to try the occassional new beer, but mostly I drink Sam Adams Boston Lager, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Stone Brewing’s Arrogant Bastard. I also really love great German Hefe Weizen’s like Paulaner, though often they don’t fare well travelling around the world to me.

I think I brewed a complete failure of a beer last winter. Maybe it was two years ago. The yeast just seemed to never get going and there was essentially no fermention. No krausen, no bubbling in the airlock. It was really frustrating having gone through the expense and effort to have absolutely nothing to show for it.

Probably because my health endeavors and resolutions are going so well, and maybe due to some positivity brought about by daily yoga and meditation, I decided to brew a batch of beer again.

I like Williams Brewing’s web site and offerings, so I started my search there. I’ve tried a couple all grain batches in the past, but given my poor luck with extract, unless I can consistently get good results with them, I think the added complications of all grain are probably beyond me. I eventually settled on their “American IPA”. I really wanted something as much like Sierra Nevada Pale Ale as possible. They never say the words “Sierra Nevada” in their product description, but I’m reading between the lines, here.

The kit arrived earlier this week. It had four hop packages, labeled by number (not hop varieties, which is a little irritating), a packet of priming sugar, a Wyest packet (1272 “American Ale II”), an instruction sheet and the big plastic bag of malt extract. I popped the internal nutrient packet for the yeast yesterday morning to give the little, magical guys a head start. By last night the yeast was swollen and presumably ready to go.

Wyeast Packet

I cleaned everything. I had done a (hopefully) pretty good job last time I used the carboy and put it away, so there wasn't much to getting it cleaned. I washed it as good as you can those things (it's a 6.5 gallon glass guy) and then let it soak filled with iodopher solution, then let it drip dry.

Clean Gear

The brewing process went reasonably well. I had a quick boilover, though I was watching it and reacted right away. I think I've read that some folks keep a bag of ice handy to throw on the building boilover to help them combat it. I'll try that if do this again.

My copper cooling manifold has had its hoses failing for some time, and after the last attempt, I pulled them off and tossed them. Today I just put the manifold in to increase surface area, but didn't hook it up to any hoses. Instead, I put it in a bucket with ice in the bottom, once the wort had boiled for an hour.

The Boil

With water running in the bucket and swirling around the covered brewpot, it took about 30 minutes for the wort to cool to 80 degrees. I transferred the wort to the carboy and then topped up to approximately 5 gallons with bottled water.

Please Ferment!

The carboy is now in the garage, covered with a shirt, hopefully contemplating fermentation. I'll blog again when it's time to transfer to secondary, if I do. I worry that using two carboys creates additional risk of contamination that's perhaps unnecessary with an oversized carboy.

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By admin – March 3, 2012

Resolution Check-in Late February

Two significant events happened over the past 24 hours related to my resolution. The first one is that, for the first time, my Withings scale reported that I was down to 210 pounds. 210.2, to be precise. That’s been an intermediate weight goal I’ve had for a month or so and it feels good to get there. My primary goal has been to get to 199, but I’ve set intermediate goals along the way. My next goal, though, is 199.

The other event was, because we were out a friend’s house last night, I ended up breaking my chain of consecutive days meditating at 36. Thirty-six days is the longest streak for any of my resolution goals, but I’m a little bummed to have broken it. I finally started feeling this week that I was able to meditate effectively without the guided narration. I’ve been using the beanbag to sit on, and I’ve noticed that I need it less and less to support my lower back. I think if I continue to extend my meditation time (currently at 12 minutes), it’ll put more stress on my back. But if I do it incrementally, hopefully I’m building up the muscles in my back to compensate.

Yoga has likewise been going well. I’ve been doing my standard yoga routine, at least, for the past 21 days. Over the past few days, I’ve added a Sun Salutation mini-routine and some occasional ab work. My flexibility has noticeably improved over this stretch — I’ve been pretty consistently able to touch my nose to my knee in the lunge stretch, for example. I’ve put some effort into cleaning up the garage and making it look a little nicer, and with the change in the better for the weather, it’s made doing yoga in the “dojo” more pleasing.

I’ve done pretty well at bringing my lunch/making my lunch (i.e. not buying my lunch), which certainly has contributed to weight loss, and saves a few bucks. My longest streak was 17 days which ended on the 21st. Almost every time I’ve broken that chain, it’s been to have lunch with someone, so I get to record a “socialized” check mark. That’s definitely worth it.

I am currently on a 30 day streak for my 20 minute writing pomodoro. That’s working out very well. I’m near the end of the short story that I’m writing, tentatively called “The Joker and the Thief”. It’ll take some serious editing before it’s read for public viewing, but I like how it is playing out. I’ve tended to do the writing right before going to bed, with the theory that one is most creative when they are most tired. I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s worked out OK. My family has been very respectful to not bug me during the pomo. I’ve also used that period to record notes from our weekly D&D session, and to do occasional blog entries and journals.

The other three Resolution categories have all gone reasonably well, too. I don’t have that many opportunities to Socialize, but I’ve determined that I’m willing to sacrifice any of the other categories to do it. Well, the one unmentioned category — 10,000 steps a day is something I want to keep up, no matter what. But if I have to break a chain on lunches or even meditation, I think it’s still worthwhile.

I’ve only bought one personal item from Amazon since I started tracking, back in late January. I’ve only bought something from Starbucks twice, and the last time was a mindful attempt to see if our local Starbucks will make a “Short” coffee drink. It’s not on the menu, but you can order a Short Cappucino, at least, and they’ll give you an 8 oz (I think) beverage at a reduced cost from the Tall.

I feel healthier, though I am still quite careful with my back, happier and definitely feel that I look better. My clothes all fit me differently — some are one the edge of being too large.

I’ll check back in in late March, or earlier if something of note comes up.

Posted in diet, fitness, health, productivity, writings.

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By admin – February 25, 2012

iPad 3

This is not my “prediction” for what will come with the iPad 3.

I’ve heard the same things that you have, probably, about what features seem likely in the upcoming iPad 3. Higher resolution “Retina” display. Faster processor. Better cameras. That the iPad 2 may be kept around as a low-cost entry point into the iPad world. That all sounds likely. No doubt iCloud and iTunes Match and FaceTime will all be highlighted.

I’ve been using my iPad, still the First Generation device, since the first day that it went on sale. I’ve used it nearly every day since then for one thing or another. I take it to meetings so much, it’s no longer noteworthy. I’ve bought a ton of apps for it and have tried to build different workflows around it.

I’ve found, though, that recently I am using it a bit less. I’m playing “Ticket to Ride Pocket Edition” on it like crazy, mind you, but as a work and productivity tool… it doesn’t get used as much as it once did.

I’ve seen other co-workers who initially profess their love for the device, and who you see dragging their iPad in a shiny new case to meetings, but after a few meetings you don’t see it anymore. Or at best, the iPad and the case are there, but not used.

So what would I want out of an iPad 3? Note that the question is not: what do I think Apple will announce on March 6th, assuming that date is right. Or even, what Apple should announce. This is purely Yours Truly saying what I’d love to see in a new iPad.

The things that work about the iPad: the size is just about right, the weight likewise. The battery life is great. My iPad 1 seems really sluggish running iOS 5, but maybe that should be expected. It seemed super responsive when I first got it, and I assume that any new iPad will run the current iteration of the iOS as snappy as my iPad did when it first shipped.

I understand that the speaker on the iPad 2 got nerfed. I’d hate to have a worse speaker on a putative new iPad, but that’s hardly a core feature for me.

A higher resolution display would undoubtedly make dealing with work documents, particularly PDFs and spreadsheets easier. I wouldn’t have put adding a Retina display to the next iPad as a key feature, but now that I’ve assimilated the idea, it would be a shame if it doesn’t happen.

The key issues for the iPad as it exists today and what, in my view, keeps it from being more widely adopted have to do with dealing with work applications and documents. Specifically:

The OS needs to be smarter at helping the user navigate forms, whether web forms, PDF fillable forms.. whatever. It needs to be able to sense where the fields are and to make it seemless to move back and forth between them, and to zoom in and out while doing data entry. And there needs to be a rich infrastructure, an iBooks Creator, and iBooks Store/Publisher for forms. The iPad is the killer solution for filling out forms, and Apple needs to make it a no-brainer to create your forms, to have users fill them out and to collect the data on the back-end, in a secure fashion, from the forms. This could be some kind of hosted Business iCloud, similar to Google Apps for Domains, perhaps.

There needs to be an iPad-specific Terminal Server-like environment, where businesses can publish their line-of-business apps and to have them accessible over the Internet to their fleet of iPads. We use a Citrix-like product at work called 2X. And there is an iPad app for it. So, minimally, I can get into our key business app on my iPad via 2X. But, of course, it’s a Windows app, and expects the user has a mouse, and furthermore is optimized with all kinds of keyboard shortcuts, none of which work on the iPad.

That’s not Apple’s fault, at all. But if Apple made a real push for the business, and made it clear how to “iOSify” your app so that it can look clean and run smoothly on iPads and even iPhones, that would sell more devices which would push more vendors to try to get in line. I know that the “solution” to this is have the vendor write an iOS app. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a solution that provides a VPN and/or Terminal Services-style remote connection via the Internet, presumably to the iCloud, with some kind of back-end API and overlay that turns existing applications into iPad-friendly versions. Apple would do the heavy lifting for you, as an application vendor, you would just need to use their SDK to tie elements in the “published app” that iCloud will provide into the appropriate logic or database of your product. I realize that I’m making it sound much simpler than it would be, but Apple has a history of producing V1.0 products that are clean and feature-limited and then building on them over the course of a few years. I’d like to see that process start for an iCloud Business App service.

The last key feature that the iPad lacks (and this is at least as big an issue for the iPhone) is a really solid set of controls for businesses to manage their fleet of Apple devices. The iPad and iPhone need an “Intranet” app that allows businesses to push out documents: policies, procedures, newsletters, et cetera to their staff. Not just email attachments, but hyperlinked content that is a simple to provide as posting a page on an Intranet is. I know, of course, that the iOS devices have Safari and with a VPN the devices can access your existing Intranets. I’m talking about the ability to push data, do notifications of changes, and ensure that the most current content is always available to staff, even when their cellular/WiFi connection is sketchy or non-existent.

There needs to be a way to ensure that the departmental phone/contact roster is automatically kept current on all departmental devices. And to set up roles so that the contacts are pushed out to only those staff who should get them.

Apple needs to provide an iCloud control panel that lets departmental IT manage their devices that is elegant and feature-rich so that we can make the most effective use of these devices.

If we had better business tools for iPads and iPhones, I would be pushing to put one in the hands of every staff person. There’s a tremendous opportunity for Apple, here. Not just to replace other vendor’s smart phones… we only give phones out to a small percentage of our staff. But if we could really take things up a notch, use iPads for our line-of-business apps, for collecting data view forms, for creating flexible and attractive reports that can be interactive, we would go for iOS devices in a big way.

I know that Apple is primarily targeting the consumer space and is doing tremendously well at it. I know that Apple has an app for managing iPhones, via MDM servers. But it’s hardly elegant or feature-rich.

Again, I’m not saying that Apple will, or necessarily should do any of the things described above. They may not feel that there’s enough money to be made, or that it clashes with other strategies they are following. Or even that it’s not cool or fun enough. But I’ve seen iPads purchased for business and most of them are not getting used, and if they want to sell more, they have to make the iPad more capable as a business tool.

Or at least, I think they need to.

One more thing: The iPhone and the iPad should play off each other more. I love the way that in Keynote, I can use the iPhone to control slides that are running off the iPad or vice-versa. There should be a simple way to, either via Bluetooth or ad-hoc WiFi, have an iPhone and and iPad interact. An Apple TV can kind of be a bridge between them, today, but that also requires WiFi. So I have to carry an Apple TV with it’s power cord and HDMI cable, an Airport Express, an iPad and/or an iPhone in order to play video from iTunes on my hotel TV. I should be able to flick a picture or app or video from my iPhone and have it go to my iPad, or to the Apple TV without needing a Airport Express.

Get on it, Apple!

Posted in IT, productivity.

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By admin – February 18, 2012

Resolution Check-in Number 1: Late January 2012

My resolution this year was simply to track progress, day by day, of key changes I would like to see in my behavior and health. I am using the Joe’s Goals website to track the following categories:

  • Meditation
  • Yoga
  • Brought Lunch (to Work)/Ate at Home
  • Starbucks
  • Writing Pomodoro
  • Socialize
  • Amazon for Personal Purchases

I’ve been working through the book Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World It has taken more than 8 weeks for me to get through it; some days I just wasn’t finding the time to do the exercises, and I didn’t want to move onto the next week’s program unless I had at least had several consecutive days of successfully going through them. I’m using Joe’s Goals to track those days when I took the time to at least do eight minutes of exercises from the book. I want to up that to something like; at least two different meditation sessions, one of which was at least 10 minutes long; but for now; I give myself a check mark in the Meditation category for 8 minutes. Since I started tracking on 01/11 (my birthday), I have only missed two days, and have a chain of the last 10 days straight.

I have a basic yoga routine from the Beginner’s Program in the book Yoga for Beginners A great, great book for those interested in Yoga. Since 01/11 I have 10 checks, including a current chain of 3 days. My longest chain for yoga is 5 days.

I check the “Lunch” goal every time that I do not buy myself a lunch; that is any day when I either bring a lunch to work (not common) or go home for lunch and eat leftovers or make something for myself. The objective is primarily to save money, but I also tend to eat better when I’m not eating out. Since 01/11, I have 14 checks, like meditation, I have only missed two days. I had a chain of 11 days that ended yesterday when I had lunch with a friend. When I have lunch with someone, though, I give myself a “social” check (see below).

I’m trying to be more mindful about so casually getting coffee from Starbucks. There are several motivations at work here: I spend too much money on coffee; I often get coffee drinks that are high, or at least moderately high in calories, and if I’m going to spend money on coffee, I’d like it to go to local coffee shops, not a large chain. There’s an additional factor that I’m just starting to come to grips with: I drink too much coffee. I’m trying to get back into the habit of drinking tea rather than coffee. Since I stopped drinking soda, I’ve not decreased the amount of caffeine that I take in, though, obviously, I’ve reduced the amount of calories and artifical sweeteners that I consume. Since I began tracking, I’ve only bought coffee at Starbucks once, and my current chain of days without buying a coffee at Starbucks stands at 14.

I’m trying to spend at least 20 minutes every day writing something. Whether it’s a journal, fiction, blog post, it doesn’t matter. I’m interested in spending twenty minutes every day writing for myself. I use the spartan but perfect “Pomodoro” app from Ugo Landini on my Mac. Mostly I’ve been writing a story I’m currently calling “The Joker and the Thief” (a reference to, though not in any way related to the song by WolfMother, which itself references All Along the Watchtower). But this blog post, along with the occassional journal entry have all been subjects of the Pomodoro. I’ve done this 11 times since 01/11 and my current chain is three days including this post. My longest chain was five days of writing.

I am by nature an introvert, but I am happiest when I have some social interaction. Under the category “Social” I include things like our weekly gaming session, lunch with friends, attending any type of social/entertainment function (unless it’s by myself). This is the category that is hardest for me. I have twelve total checks in the Social category and the current chain is two. My longest chain is three.

Amazon is so alluring as an easy and convenient way to purchase things, that I have noticed that I simply spend too much; often because the purchasing process (and especially the anticipation of waiting for a package to arrive) itself is seductive. I give myself a negative check for any time that I use Amazon to buy something for myself. Purchases for others are allowed, though I obviously want to be careful about that as well. I have only made one such purchase since 01/11, a Withings WiFi Body Scale and (accidentally, more or less) a Fisher Space Pen. The Pen arrived yesterday, the scale is still on back order. I had gone 13 days without a purchase, and now have gone two days.

While I would feel great if I was perfect across the board on all of the good items and had zero checks in the two “bad” items (Starbucks and Amazon), there will be times that Amazon is simply the best choice for something I want or need, and I may find myself, particularly, on the road where Starbucks would be the safest choice. Or some times you simply need some caffeine and there’s a Starbucks drive through right there.

This resolution isn’t about perfection, it’s about cataloging what is. If trends emerge (like on game nights I often don’t write or do yoga), to be mindful of them and see what can be done (can I write at lunch on those days? can I do yoga as soon as I get home? would that require planning dinner preparation differently?) about them.

I decided to order the Withings scale because I feel that I am at a bit of plateau weight-wise, not because I am not walking my 10,000 steps but because I am not eating as carefully as I was previously. I’m also not doing much additional exercise, just the 10,000 steps. I feel that if I weigh myself every day, and if it is effortlessly reflected in the Lose It app, then I’ll be able to delude myself less about how my attempts to lose weight are going.

It’s about shining a light on what is really happening and then doing what I can to coax things in the right direction.

Posted in diet, fitness, health.

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By admin – January 28, 2012

FiascoCon

Today I attended a mini-con at the great game store in Oakland, Endgame. I had once or twice signed up to participate in similar mini conventions there, but it hadn’t worked out. They have a great space upstairs with ten-twelve tables for gaming, and they hold events like this througout the year.

I had bought Fiasco from Indie Press Revolution (in PDF) some time ago, and at some point last year I convinced my game group to play it. I was hoping it might be a gateway to finally playing some Prime Time Adventures. Unfortunately, it just didn’t go that well, partially because I didn’t have a good handle on how the game is meant to be played, partly because the dynamics of the Playset we used were probably not great for our group, but largely because they just weren’t into it that night. We’ve had a lot of fun with Inspectres, which has a similar free-form, scene-framing nature, and the one time we played Zombie Cinema we had a good time. But Fiasco did not go well.

In the meantime, Fiasco kept building more and more buzz and acclaim. It was becoming an instant Indie classic. It was frustrating to me that my group didn’t want to play. I proposed it more than once, but the group wouldn’t go for it.

So, when I saw (via Twitter) that Endgame was going to have a Fiasco Con, I thought this would both allow me to finally participate in an event at Endgame and play Fiasco. Presumably with people enthusiastic about playing it, and probably with some who knew it well.

It’s about a 90 minute drive to Endgame from my house. Not a big deal, but enough that you wouldn’t just slip away on a Saturday afternoon. Not if you have kids, anyway. I had signed up for the morning session (11-2:30) which meant I probably needed to leave by 9:00 to ensure I was there on time, allowing for traffic problems. This afternoon was the Giants-Packers game, which I wanted to watch, so I thought about trying to find someplace near Endgame to hole up after Fiasco where I could watch at least the second half by the time we were done.

I arrived at Endgame a bit earlier than I had intended, just shortly after 10:00. I bought a hardcopy of Fiasco and, what the hell, Dread then lingered about upstairs. At first it seemed that it was just going to be completely free-form with people (as I was told) coagulating into groups and playing Fiasco. But, as more folks showed up (including Fred Hicks, distinctive in his flowing mane of blue hair) some structure was imposed. I found myself joining first a table with Fred, but when the tables were re-balanced, at a table facilitated by Steve Segedy, the editor of Fiasco. There were two other noobs at the table, and a fifth veteran, who I gather was Jeremy Tidwell, to round things out.

Steve helped layout how the game was played, and did an excellent job leading us through it without letting us get caught up in the weeds, too much. Fiasco is a very straight-forward game, and it’s easy to maybe read a bit too much into things, to over-think it. That’s not to say that there are no rewards for thoughtful play. Jeremy not only did an absolutely first-class job role-playing his black widow character (my character’s predatory hot granny), but also subtly kept the story moving in a deft arc. I threw some things out there, in crafting my scenes, leaving key elements open-ended, but they didn’t really end up going anywhere.

I made sure that I had a scene with every character, and two with the guy who seemed to be having the hardest time with the improv aspects of the game, to make sure he was included. In one of my final scenes, I had to go toe-to-toe with Jeremy, and while he was great, I felt I held up my end OK.

The game was really a blast. Both Steve and Jeremy really brought their characters to life, creating edgy PCs who would have fit in in any Coehn brothers movie. They also kept the story moving for everyone else. Steve was very generous and patient with us noobs, and was smart enough to give Jeremy some NPCs to play so he could stretch out a bit. Jeremy’s Minister Bob character was a scene stealing, scenery-chewing beast.

Playing Fiasco at Endgame was exactly the experience that I had hoped it would be. I feel that I have a good handle on the mechanics of play, but I also began to figure out some things to look for at the table, for making my part of the story better cohere with the group narrative, and also to be more interesting on its own. In particular, it doesn’t pay to be too subtle. Don’t expect other people to spend their precious allotment of scenes working on resolving your character’s conflicts — they have their own conflicts to resolve. Move your story along, but leave attachment points for others to hook to, but don’t make your story too dependent on others. Be thinking about the Aftermath, especially in your last scene.

I’m not sure how I’m going to get more Fiasco-fix, but I’m hoping to get my players to give it one more shot.

It’s great, so soon in the New Year to get two RPG itches (an Endgame Minicon and some Fiasco play) scratched. I’m now more enthusiastic than ever to get back to Endgame for more play. Maybe the January Mini-con?

Posted in games.

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By admin – January 15, 2012

New Year’s Resolution 2012

As I wrote about previously, I’ve been thinking about what to do for a New Year’s resolution for this year. Some ideas in contention:

  • Give up Starbucks for the year
  • Give up buying anything on Amazon for myself for the year
  • Something health/fitness/diet/exercise-related
  • Something creative, like doing a 20-minute writing Pomodoro daily
  • Something social or charitable, perhaps once a week for a year

Those are all good. I’ve done the Starbucks thing, back in, I think, 2009. But I definitely bought too much Starbucks coffee last year, so it didn’t take in the same way that quitting soda in 2010 did.

Ultimately, I want to commit to recording what I did about those things every day. I’ve written before about Joe’s Goals. It’s a great, very simple website for tracking positive and negative activity daily. It’s built on the principle, often credited to Jerry Seinfeld, of marking off something positive (writing a joke, in his example) on a calendar and creating chains of consecutive days of having achieved that positive thing. Psychologically, it becomes tougher to break the chain, so the more you do the positive thing, the more you want to keep the chain going. It creates its own momentum, seeing that you have done whatever it is that you want to challenge yourself to do, for 5 days, 10 days, 100 days in a row.

I have created the following categories of positive and negative behaviors, that I want to, respectively, encourage myself to continue to demonstrate and minimize in my life:

  • Writing pomodoro
  • Yoga
  • Meditation
  • Socialize/charity
  • Made lunch (versus bought)
  • Starbucks

I’ll leave open the possibility of adding more later. Obviously, I want to find a way to do more of these activities (Starbucks is a negative behavior, it takes away a point). Rather than set some arbitrary or unrealistic goals, I just plan on recording how I did for each category every day.

I’ll try to check in monthly, at least initially, to report on things like changed behaviors, longest chains, best days, et cetera.

So, a rather modest resolution. This is going to be a big year for us all, given the Presidential election, and the (hopefully) rebounding economy. I’m not trying to make it any more complicated.

Posted in fitness, health, productivity.

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By admin – January 12, 2012