Fly on the Wall

I just had the incredible privilege of spending a few hours as a fly on the wall with a group of professionals privately remembering a colleague who died suddenly and unexpectedly the night before, at far too young of an age.

I sat and mostly listened to this group of a dozen or so extraordinary individuals, all at the top of their respective fields and specialties, talk of this person as a giant among themselves. "The best of any of us." "Irritating for all the right and good reasons." "Joy... fully... present." A small but incredibly meaningful collection of stories and memories of who she was. A work ethic beyond not just average people, beyond exceedingly extraordinary people. A consensus of how she would be pissed off if she knew they were gathering without her. Especially without drinking wine. A recognizance of just how many groups in her professional field would claim her as family.

I only had the small fortune to have spent a short dinner with this person a few weeks prior, so I barely knew her. I was incredibly moved by the collective view of her as various people reminisced about her character and actions. In just a few short hours, it quickly became clear this human was exceptional in every way, personally and professionally. I heard stories of uncompromising passion and principle, even in the smallest of moments of daily life. I heard stories of compassion and giving far and beyond what either her career required or what most people would be capable of. Of a dazzling intellect far beyond her peers, somehow combined with a fiercely loyal and selfless humanist ethos. Of a person who knew exactly who she was, what she stood for, and both were Good.

I have limited experience with death, but I'm not a stranger to it. In my experience, when someone dies, there are a million standard cliches and platitudes that get exchanged... but if we are honest, most people's lives are unremarkable. As a species, we are still severely rooted in self serving instinctual behaviors... we lie, we compromise, we fear others, because our lingering lizard brain biology tells us we must to survive, or for petty self-centered reward cycles. As a result, most people truly only really touch a small handful of their closest circle when they pass away.

However, the loss of this particular human is devastating to this group of people, for the sheer mass of humanity she affected, influenced, and made better, apparently with little to no regard of self gain. This group of remarkable, solid, well grounded humans, humans that are extremely well versed in life and death and all the misery and joy and sorrow and victory of everything that can happen in between... these people are devastated by the loss of this one individual.

Wow. There can be no more exact and honest measure of a person than what I just observed. How glorious to be remembered by your peers like that?! I am dumbfounded by the sheer height of just the shadow of her memory.

So why am I writing this? I'm not really sure. I feel like I could write for hours and process much more of what I just saw. The sorrow of her passing was palpable. The immediate gravity of the loss she represents directly and indirectly to what I can only imagine is literally thousands of people is something I've just never witnessed. It makes me sad that I didn't know her better. It makes me hopeful that my sons will someday be remembered even in a fraction of a light like that. It makes me want to do anything I can to prop up and support the people that held her dear.

Maybe most importantly, it inspires me. This human, who I don't know and spent less than a total of 3 hours with, in just an informal remembrance of who she was by others, inspires me with her example. The weight of her loss that I sense gives me hope that there can be and there are more humans like her. Humans that aren't regressing to build walls and define lines between other humans. Humans that spend every last ounce of energy making the world a better place in whatever way they can, big or small, instead of spending energy fighting weaker or gentler or just different humans because... I guess power or insanity or I don't know what.

I want to hold up this giant portrait of a human painted by her peers, and just shout to all of humanity, "THIS. Be like this. PLEASE, BE LIKE THIS. Everything will get better if you do." I want to be more like this person.

It's cliche, but I'll ask it anyway, because in the moment of today I'm asking myself: How are you going to be remembered by those who really knew you? When all you are and ever were, boils down to a couple of hours of memories in a small room of your peers?

I hope you like it. I hope it inspires another fly on the wall in some way. I hope your memory is a fucking unmistakable footprint on this universe for the better. Up to you... Cheers!

Divorce as the Death of Identity

I came across this comment tonight from "Karen", from a couple years old blog post on Divorce and Grief (with a lot of very insightful and helpful comments on it). Her experience and view resonate exactly with how I felt/feel, going on 6 months past finalizing a divorce of a 10+ year marriage. The commenter's blog seems to be long gone or I would just link to it, so I'm going to share it in its entirety here. As the commenter points out at the end... sharing is caring ;)

I feel like this sentiment, and especially recognizing and riding the "ebbing and flowing nature of feelings" is what gets me through every day in my own experience, more than any other piece of advice or any other factor.

Whoever "Karen" is... thanks for writing this, and I hope my repost helps someone else along the way too.

Karen Says [in response to the blog post at http://mightygirl.com/2012/06/26/divorce-and-grief/]: 

Lots of good insights here and I don’t know if I can add anything brilliant, but I will join the chorus anyway!

I’m on my third marriage, so I know this song far too well. I married far too young and divorced within a year. I felt sad and ashamed, but the relationship was too brief (for me anyway) to feel that much loss. My second relationship cratered 2 years into the marriage, ending 7 years after we started, and to this day it was the darkest two years of my entire life. I felt like I was losing everything, and in a way I was – just like so many people here, what I lost was my entire mental and emotional understanding of who I was and how my life worked. This is absolutely a death, if not a physical death – the loss of identity that comes with the dissolution of a major relationship is a death that is unlike any other.

Not more or worse, obviously – I’m sorry that people misunderstood your comparison there, because it was certainly clear to me. There are all kinds of deaths, we all go through them all the time, and it’s an accurate term. The concept of death isn’t remotely limited to the physical death of a person. For most of us, that is the worst form of death, but not for everyone, so I will join the ranks of those respectfully suggesting that we each own our experience and not try to impose our definitions on other people.

Again, many others have hit on this – the death is of identity and expectations, which cuts deeper than most of us ever expect. Very few people really understand how much their expectations of the future shape them, and the loss of the entire landscape of your life when your expectations explode is terrifying in a way that’s very hard to put into words. You literally don’t know who you are anymore – that’s how our identity as a partner (particularly a spouse) is woven through our being. That thread gets pulled and suddenly we’re just a collection of parts, falling to the ground, nothing connecting to anything else like it used to. Who knew all that was bound together by that thread, that word?

There’s always more there than we think at first, and usually the new entity that arises when the parts grow back together is a better one, but she’s indisputably different, and it’s a process that never truly “finishes”. I agree with everyone else that a separation of this magnitude diminishes over time but may not ever go away entirely – I think it’s a “long tail” type of thing, and that seems to be consistent with all major loss. I’m not sure it’s fair to ever expect anyone to “be over” something in the sense that it never hurts ever again in any way, for the rest of your life.

That being said, others have pointed out the real danger in nursing our wounds, too. I don’t get the impression (from this distant vantage point anyway) that you’re prone to that, but a lot of us do hang on to the hurt a long time past when it’s beneficial.

I think of our emotions as the tides of our oceanic beings, but our culture doesn’t support the “ebbing and flowing” nature of feelings (as someone else commented). We’re supposed to “manage” our emotions and keep them linear and organized, they’re supposed to be good servants to our busy little minds, and they must above all never be inconvenient.

I have never known this to work for anyone.

Letting those surges come up, and then fall back again, in their own time and to their own height, as much as possible seems to be a key element to healing. Clearly there are times we can’t just let our emotions do as they will, but those times are rarer than most of us believe. It’s also important to keep enough of a “watcher mind” to insure that you’re not getting into genuinely dangerous territory – if the ebbs get deeper and deeper, or start to outnumber the flows by an increasing amount, it’s important to change course and get help. If you’re basically functional, though, make as much room in yourself as you can to just let those tides come and go. You don’t need to do anything in response, almost always, and not blocking them, judging them, or trying to escape from them lets the emotions actually move through less destructively.

Beyond that, caring for ourselves in whatever positive ways we can is essential, but that’s so personal it’s hard to advise – each of us finds comfort and fortitude in such different things. The common elements of really understanding the magnitude of the loss and disorientation helps to give us permission to take as long as we need to take, and letting the emotions come up without fighting them, judging them, or needing to react to them is like emotional cleansing. Get feedback to make sure we’re not stuck in the hurt, comfort and tend to ourselves in whatever way works for us, and that’s about all any of us can do, I think.

Well, one more thing – we can share our own stories if we’re able, so that we can share the pain and share the fact that it always does get better. I’ll quote one of my favorite writers, Spider Robinson, who based his life and writing on the belief that “Shared pain is lessened; shared joy increased.” May that always be true for all of us.

Tough Mudder Training: PCP, PBJs and HOS

Hey you sexy mudder fuckers! There is always a constant debate/discussion about ways to get in shape, ways to eat healthy, etc. I thought I would share what I've been up to the last few years which has worked really well for me, hoping that it helps someone else (i.e. mostly my friends who are scared of running their first TM) in their own experience.

I've been putting together a spreadsheet of basically what I did to get in shape the last 3 years. Well I've done a lot more recently, but the spreadsheet reflects my first year pretty well. I've found it's pretty good prep for the Tough Mudder challenge specifically. I'm not selling anything other than common sense, and I wish more people would realize you don't need to buy anything or rely on external forces to make yourself healthy, stronger and happier.

You Are The Gym

You don't need fucking weights. You don't need a fucking gym membership (drop into the rec center for a pool). You just need the commitment to yourself, some good running shoes (I swear by Vibrams, I will never run in anything else again, this running schedule is pretty good for transitioning to them if you'd like), and a place for hanging/pull ups. Monkeybars and soccer goal posts on kid playgrounds are perfect for this, if you don't have a good place in your house/office.

For reference, when I started ~3 years ago, I could not do 10 pushups in a row, and I was running 11+ minute miles and getting extremely winded. Today I can do about 70 pushups over a few minutes, and I'm running sub 7 minute miles pretty regularly. I don't even bring water running less than 6ish miles. I don't feel like I've worked all that hard to get here, other than being consistent. I feel healthier and stronger than I've ever been in my life.


DISCLAIMER: You are responsible for your own body. I am not a personal trainer, I assume no liability if you follow this schedule and hurt yourself. Don't be dumb, if something hurts get it fixed or stop doing what makes it hurt. Listen to your body and adjust for your own situation.

Without further ado:
Ryan's Magical Fitness Spreadsheet for Tough Mudder Training for my Buddies

And accompanying explanations and thoughts...

Spreadsheet Key

PCP = Pushups, Crunches, Pull-ups. Active motion exercises. You can add variance to these, as long as you're doing the same idea of form. For example, a pushup could be narrow, on your fists, diamond shape hands, one leg up, etc. Crunches can be traditional crunches, leg lifts, scissor kicks, etc. Pull-ups you can change grips, forward, backward, sideways.
The numbers listed are daily totals of each kind of movement. Break them up however you need to but get the total done within that 24 hours (e.g. do 1 pushup every couple of minutes if you have to, to get to 10; or just bust out 2 sets of 5 or 1 set of 10).

PBJ = Planks, Boats, Jangles. Static hold exercises. Like a PBJ sandwich just holds itself together.

Plank is holding your body straight in a push up position. A boat is like a plank for your abs. Just like in yoga, sit on your butt, legs raised in front of you with feet off the floor, arms loose to the side, back at 45 degrees, making a boat shape and hold while balancing on your butt. Jangles just means hanging by your arms, like at the bottom of a pull up. I used Jangles because it makes a better acronym.
The numbers listed are daily totals of seconds to hold each kind of static hold. Again, break them up however you need to to do the totals within a single day.

HOS = Horse stance, Obliques, Slow ups. Supplemental exercises. Horse stance is simply standing in a squat with your knees wide, toes pointing out, balanced vertically, as low as you can go and holding it. Slow ups are pull ups, but done as slowly and smoothly as you can force yourself to do, both up and down. Obliques are sideways situps.
Numbers listed are daily totals, break them up as needed (horse is seconds to hold in horse stance).

If a calendar day lists PCP, do the PCP totals for that day. If it lists PBJ, do those. HOS, same. If you have questions on proper technique for any of these, lmgtfy.com or ask some exercisey/crossfitty friends or see a PT for a day.

If a calendar day lists "Miles xX", run that many miles. You don't have to run fast. You do have to not walk. To work on your lung capacity for altitude, sing while you run. I mean sing, not mouth or lipsync. Sing really fucking loud. Doesn't matter if you're off key, turn your earbuds up so you can't hear yourself. Enjoy that other people you run by will think you are batshit insane and have a story to tell their friends.

If a calendar day lists "Swim x lengths" go swim that many lengths in a normal sized pool, any stroke. Try to make a length underwater for lung capacity.

Don't Eat Crap All The Time

I mostly just tried to cut out processed foods (esp. anything with high fructose corn syrup) and soda where possible, and eat lots of different stuff on a weekly basis. The single best thing you can do is replace any consistent soda intake (yes even diet soda) with water. It's not that hard, get over it.

I still indulge in Krispy Kreme donuts, root beer floats and delicious junk whenever I feel like it. Just make sure it's not habitual and that your indulgences are equally balanced with lots of fresh veggies, fruits and meats and all of the things.

Diet wise, don't fucking calorie count, don't subscribe to any rigid diet unless your doctor tells you too. You'll just stress yourself out and create lots of ways to fail and feel bad about yourself. Don't buy expensive supplements other than maybe a daily multivitamin. Fresh food is generally cheaper and has more benefit of nutrient synergies that supplements don't. In fact, many supplements have been proven to go right through you with little benefit at all.

Drink lots of water. Gatorade is shit, you don't need it. Powerade is even worse. Almost all sports drinks are totally unnecessary unless you are a pro athlete competing at a top 1% level. Water, bananas, pretzels for hydration replenishment. And I hate bananas, but they are so cheap and easy to eat and they look funny.

Drink some booze now and again, don't cut it out. It does wonders for muscle and psychological relaxation. And booze is proven to make you more likely to have sex, which is also great for getting in shape in so many ways!

Philosophichalousness

Stick to this, and I guarantee the Tough Mudder will be not much of a challenge. It's an extremely gradual progression over 40ish weeks. Rearrange what things to do on what days to fit your schedule because real life is real. The key is doing something literally every single day.

Equally as important, learn to be still, don't be restless all the time. If you're restless, you're not resting... thus the word. Meditation or doing things that put you in a meditative state can really help your body recover from physical training. For example, take a quick nap after masturbating at work.

Also read Born to Run.

We've all got one life and one body to live it in. Use it well and discover its limits, before it's in a wheelchair and diapers. Don't do any of this for anyone else. Do this for yourself, and you'll surprise yourself constantly with what you are capable of. Start today.

The (Predictable) Passive Purity Patrol, On Duty One Sunday A Year

I just saw a few Facebook posts and ensuing threads engaging in discussion of the appropriateness of Beyonce's Superbowl Wardrobe. This spurred a few questions I'd like to pose to anyone seriously going there. Not that this post is going in any solid direction, but the echoes of the nipple incident are amusing to me.

Comments on Facebook include asking why the dancers have to always wear leotards, put their crotches in our faces, and be so hyper-sexualized. The concern for the impression it was suddenly setting for daughters everywhere seems pretty universal.

Right... because there's no tradition of flagrant crotch showing and skimpily clothed dancing in football. Luckily nobody in America is putting a daughter into cheerleading before the age of 18 though.

Hmm. Well, at least we're not exposed to this kind of filth in other highly popular sports with large female focus aired during daytime hours, such as Olympic ice skating.


Well... I mean, at least there's really no sex in the most popular forms of dancing in general...

From the official Dancing with the Stars page. Hey Concerned Mom! Watching DWTS at 8 Eastern, 7 Central every Sunday with your impressionable daughters? 

Hmmm. Maybe we should go back to the good old days of selling sex to kids in well clothed boy band form in the middle of a Disney stage? Because that's not messed up at all if you really think about it.

Side note: how many people remember any Superbowl half time show from the 90s or prior? 

NONE. BECAUSE... THEY. WERE. UNWATCHABLE. OK maybe I exaggerate a bit... but let's at least appreciate the production value people.

So all this fretting about our little kids' futures being corrupted due to a brief pause of the sport we've invited them to watch with us, where giant warrior men run at each other full speed and attempt to make brain smoothies with each other.

No one gets this upset that commercials featuring brutal combat and frivolous gun scenes, such as Jack Reacher movies and Call of Duty games, are spammed every Sunday afternoon throughout game times.

Keep in mind I'm saying this as a consumer of much of those violent media that I fight for every day as valid adult art experiences. I LOVE football and played it in my teens. I love action movies and games.

But the underlying message for anyone that seriously raises objections over a Superbowl halftime on grounds of family appropriateness is: "Sex BAD and UNUSUAL. Violence GOOD and NORMAL," unless you are also raising hell over what the NFL actually is and what's being marketed alongside the NFL product every day.

While we get all caught up in the importance of Beyonce's wardrobe and its effects on our kids, we usher them routinely into activities, toys and engagements that are just as if not more inappropriate.

In 2005, global sales were two billion dollars and by 2006 Bratz had about forty percent of the fashion-doll market (via Wikipedia).

'Merica!

Guns... Huh. What Are They Good For?

I've generally stayed on the Amendment 2 side of the gun control debate, even though I'll never own a gun personally. This is mostly for the same reasons as illegal drugs... making them illegal is impossible to enforce and creates a profitable black market for organized crime, only ones with guns are criminals etc. And having camped in the Rocky Mountains many times, I can definitely understand the desire for carrying a firearm there.

However, a friend on Facebook provoked the question how often do guns actually have a positive effect? Googling shows a few pages claiming relatively high incident rates (>100K) of gun use in self defense, so one could theoretically say there are some number of related saved lives due to guns. But no one really knows as it is very what-if, and the large majority of those seem to be petty robbery defense cases.

Then, as another friend from the UK and his limey kin will point out, there are virtually never handgun deaths/violence in the UK. This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate shows almost 2 orders of magnitude difference in firearm death between the USA (~9) and UK (~.2), per 100K population per year.

The UK as far as I know does not have a terrible black market gun problem, nor have I ever feared getting shot on many visits and many drunken nights through various cities and streets and alleys there. Mugged? yes. Shot? no.

I can't count the number of times I've feared being shot growing up in Alabama and Colorado (any of my high school friends from Aurora can sympathize), and in fact have had guns pulled on me two times, including once pointed at me from a foot away, and I know several people who have actually been shot.

So now I'm pondering...

Can anyone explain the difference between the US and the UK on this topic, if it is not gun control? I have a few theories on other factors that contribute (namely illicit drug policy and religious atmosphere), but I suspect they are marginal compared to simply not having 270 FUCKING MILLION guns laying around their country (http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/united-states#number_of_privately_owned_firearms).

And finally, what's the point of owning a gun anymore? 

Sorry hunters: I don't give a shit anymore about your joy of killing an animal with a tool that you had nothing to do with inventing, unless your name is Smith or Wesson and you're over 150 years old.
Sorry militia men: If the world's most well funded military wants to oppress us all someday, your fucking Glock isn't going to stack up against a $700B annual budget. Seriously. It's not 1776 anymore folks. We have lasers that will put a pin hole in your heart from a mile away, insta-kill.
Sorry inner city: I know there are cops that are bad people and assholes just like any other line of work. But maybe they'd be somewhat less on edge if they didn't think every small time asshole they have to deal with is more likely than not packing heat.
Sorry self-defense advocates: Learn kung-fu, kraw-maga, gymnastics, or get in shape so you can run zig zag patterns if you're that paranoid. The couple of times I've had guns pulled on me, there was zero chance if I would have been armed with a gun I could have done anything but got myself or someone I cared about killed. Had I known close quarter physical combat techniques however, in both cases I might have had a realistic option.

Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people... but guns make killing a lot of people quickly really easy. Try to demonstrate how any of the 3 major incidents in the last year are even close to the same magnitude with a non-firearm weapon.

So yeah. I'm pretty much done with guns.

Never, Ever Give Up

Watch this and I dare you to not be amazed: Arthur's Inspirational Transformation

This guy's story basically sums up the title of my blog and my ideal life philosophy. You are exactly who you think you are, no matter what anyone else tells you. Humans are incredible creatures and so few of us reach our true potential. Watch this and think about what you can do in your life if you believe in yourself and really try.

Arthur's story is highlighted from the beginning, in the upcoming documentary, INSPIRED: The Movie. http://www.inspiredthemovie.com and he used Diamond Dallas Page's yoga instruction.

(originally saw this via Jessica Brown on Facebook)

To My Boys

I know none of you can really read this right now (well maybe Brody can), but I wanted to tell you a few things, in case of tidal wave.  I believe placing this information in the hands of google is the safest way to make sure this message survives until the Earth crumbles.

Nothing makes me happier than looking into each of your eyes.  I know now that I never experienced true love until I met each of you.

In each of you I see a unique person so amazing it stuns me.

Brody, you are a kinetic joy.  Like me, I think you will never be comfortable if you are not in motion.  I'm sorry that I constantly ask you to sit back down when we eat dinner, it's just that I don't want you to choke.  Don't ever let anyone stop you, including yourself. Your potential is boundless, explore it.

Clyde, your mind is a laser.  I am constantly in awe of your ability to focus, problem solve, and organize.  I'm sorry that I have to limit your time with the iPad, it's just that I want you to find balance.  Never stop asking questions, and you will never be bored.  And never stop telling those knock-knocks, because life's a laugh and death's a joke. It's true.

Sully, you are as determined as a bulldozer.  You may actually be more persistent than me, which you will find is both a gift and a curse.  I'm sorry that I repeatedly carry you back into your bed, it's just that I want you to get some sleep, you need it at this age.  Keep laughing insanely not only when you take things apart, but also when you put them back together in new ways.  You will succeed in whatever you decide to succeed at, because I know you will never give up.

All three of you are so smart, so talented, and so ... tall.  I am so proud I can call myself your dad.

I've taken a few trips around the sun, and I've learned life can be anything you want it to be.  You will have rough times, you will have smooth sailing; you will be sad, you will be happy; you will face tragedy and you will celebrate. Through all of this, remain true to yourself, and you will triumph.

Here are some things I have gathered that I hope will help you get through easier, like during those cold winters when the corn is all gone and nobody feels like talking:

• Sunshine makes you happy; Rain makes you sad.  Use both of these as needed.
• A good chef keeps their workspace clean; mop up your messes as you go.
• When you are walking, keep your chin up and an eye in the sky.  Most people miss a lot because they forget to look up and around.
• You don't stop running because you get old; you get old because you stop running.
• Reversing any statement makes it sound wiser; but wisdom cannot be reversed.  Holy shit, I just made that up, pretty good right?
• Fear is a mind killer.  Fear is the little death that obliterates. You must not fear. Fear will pass through you and around you, and when it is gone, only you will remain.
• Hug like you mean it, but only if you mean it.
• One drink, one water.  (This will make more sense when you are older)
• If you decide to travel the world some day, for the love of Hank go somewhere tropical and not to a place with 10 months of rain per year.
• If someone hits your car and says not to call insurance because they have a friend that will fix it, call insurance.
• Don't do heroin.  Don't take any opiates if you can avoid it.
• Do some hallucinogens in high school so you can understand how easy it is for your brain to believe in things that don't exist.
• When you are eating a meal, don't multi-task.  Focus on smelling and tasting your food.  Apply this to all quality life experiences.
• A Lannister always pays his debts. 
• Learning Chinese would be a really good idea.
• If you have an opportunity to visit outer space, take it.
• Don't look for happiness from other people or things; Happiness comes from experiences and starts within yourself.
• Massages are real; Chiropractic is not.
• Diets are ridiculous. Eat whatever the hell you want, just eat lots of different stuff and go run and swim and bike and stuff.  
• Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.
• Play to win, but always respect your opponent.
• Even though mom will want to sell them at a garage sale, keep your best toys at all costs.
• Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy fast cars. Driving fast can definitely make you happy.
• Be safe if you drive fast.
• People that can dance are great in the sack.  (This will make more sense when you are older)
• While we're on the subject, learn to play the guitar.  It's so clear to me now...
• ALWAYS ASK QUESTIONS. ALWAYS. Anyone that asks you to accept something on faith is selling something that you don't want to buy (whether they know it or not).
• Nothing lasts longer in human relationships than memories, for better or worse.  Refresh them often.
• Scuba diving is TOTALLY RAD.
• Take risks. Be bold. Make mistakes. Get hurt. Fail often.
• Call your mother.  Tell her you love her.
• The one good piece of advice I got from my own dad: When you take pictures, take them with people in them.  You won't care about beautiful but empty landscape & architecture photos years later.
• Chase your passions to the end of time.

Well, that's just a few things off the top of my head.  I sincerely hope it helps.  If I think of any more, we can discuss out on the trampoline or something.

You each walk an infinite path; all of life's challenges are feathers before you.  

Remember each other, never leave your brothers behind.  Good luck on your journeys.

And know this: No matter what, I will always love you. Absolutely and without condition, I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

I love you.

Love, Dad

3D Printing for the Everyman

One of the coolest little doodads I stumbled across at CES was Cubify's 3D Home printer "Cube". Looks like they are listing it for about $1300, and for that you get your own mini manufacturing facility at home.  It can create a pretty impressive array of 3D designs, anything you can imagine pretty much up to 5.5” x 5.5” x 5.5”.  





Of course you can design components to make objects much larger than that.  At the show, one of the reps was wearing a chain-mail glove and a fully flexible backpack strap made out of tons of smaller pieces.  I'm imagining loads of practical and entertainment uses for this thing... lose a boardgame piece?  Just remake it.  While you're at it, make up your own board game.  Kids break off a piece of a toy?  Just make another one.


While probably too spendy still for the average consumer today, the trend here is pretty exciting for making small scale physical creation a reality for the average Joe.  I wonder how disruptive this will be to traditional toy industry, when these things get good enough and cheap enough for everyone to have them.  


Here are some other services that offer similar capabilities, mostly via uploading to them for manufacturing (thanks END Games team for pointing these out):

http://www.dimensionprinting.com/ 

http://www.shapeways.com/ 

http://www.ponoko.com/ 

How to Take over the World: Google Native Client

"Christian Stefansen, Google's product manager on NaCl, explained which kinds of applications work well with NaCl. These include, he said, hardware accelerated games, photo editing, 3D modeling, video training software, and computer-aided design. "Anything that you would classify as heavy numbers crunching is a good fit," he said."
http://download.cnet.com/8301-2007_4-57340015-12/native-client-turns-chrome-into-high-end-gaming-platform/

Besides the obvious win for gaming, I believe this will actually have huge implications for OS and software in general... imagine using "Google Photoshop" inside your chrome browser with performance as good as a desktop app, without ever having to install anything.  Your files/assets synched everywhere no matter if you work on your tablet/laptop/phone/desktop... with real time collaboration in everything.

Is Google basically setting themselves up to not only subversively overtake the OS market (by infiltrating and hijacking any OS with chrome), but also to take over the ENTIRE production/development software industry?  You can already can see it with Google Apps vs. MS Office... seems like a logical next step.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I for one welcome our new Google overlords.

A Sad Parent on the Closure of LEGO Universe

In a recent Facebook thread between former members of the LEGO Universe team, someone commented that losing LEGO Universe felt like losing a child.  My response to that was it only takes two people about 9 months (give or take with some crunch time) to make a baby.  Creating LEGO Universe involved over 250 people and over 5 years of development effort.

Hyperbole aside, those of us in the craft of entertainment creation tend to become very emotionally attached to our work.  It is anguishing to see a project fail; it is absolutely devastating to see a project that in almost every respect was succeeding suddenly get killed.

As close as a developer can be emotionally to a game, we often forget that the players that enjoy them can have just as intense of a connection to our brain children. This note from a parent of a child who played LEGO Universe makes me as sad as it does happy... happy to have created something that had such a positive effect on someone out there.

"for all of you at LEGO universe, know that you have been an inspiration to my son and he wishes on a star every night that perhaps it will be saved."

I've heard and read this sentiment many times over in person and on the internet, especially in the LEGO forums.  I will never understand why LEGO Universe is being shuttered.

I want to say thanks to all the parents, kids and players of the game who have expressed what the game meant to them over the last year.  Although it makes me extremely sad to think of the game closing and all the resulting broken hearts, it's really good to know that for it's blink of existence, it made a brighter day for a lot of people.

That's what I live for; my LEGO Universe team created some wonderful lasting memories in a few million brains that will resonate for the rest of the players' lives.  That feels like some small success to me, even if LEGO states the game cannot be a financial one--which I probably also will never understand why.

Great Moments In Daddying

Last night, I sat down for a quick game of Chutes and Ladders with Brody.  We were neck and neck until about half way and I hit a streak of chutes.  I kept getting sent lower and lower, until eventually I lamented, "Aw man, I'll never be able to catch up with you now."
To which, Brody reached for the spinner, gave me a sideways glance and reminded me, "Not with that attitude, Dad!"
So proud of my boy!

How to Defend Your Kids From Sex Abuse: Parents Please Read

This is a touchy subject (and a long post) but one worth spreading information on. With the 5 years of parent & kid research we did on my recent experience working on LEGO Universe, I've realized how important it is to spread accurate information about child safety and dispel myths that can be a dead end waste of concern for parents, or worse cause parents to not pay attention to a real risk. What better time then back to school to share this.

A few months ago I went to a little workshop on sex abuse and kids at Bal Swan, run by Feather Burkower. I have to admit right up front, I really didn't want to go. For one thing it was three hours long. I was expecting it to be a bunch of horribly slow paced cliche warnings and anecdotes that would remind me of going to church as a kid. Tangent: funny how church is so easily associated with this topic, but I digress.

Anyway, the session was actually really good and I came away feeling glad about going. While the pacing was slow, I saw a lot of parents needed to be eased into the topic at hand, there were certainly some emotional points for many there who hadn't had to confront the issue before. Getting past that, I thought Feather's approach was really sound. Her main thesis is that you can't prevent your kids from being in situations where an abuser will have access to them. Her quoted statistics say it is just too likely, something like 

1 in 3 girls are victims of some kind of sex abuse before age 18, and 1 in 7 boys in first world countries. 

Staggering stuff.

However what you can do is empower your kids with the confidence and language necessary to get out of the situation and make any would-be offender back off.

Here are the high level bullet points that I felt were really valuable to me as a dad, separated into techniques and factoids. A few of these I was definitely not doing, or falling into common parenting traps and assumptions that actually can enable an offender much more. Some of the examples are harsh, but important to understand. It may not be comfortable to think about, but its our job as parents to be strong and protect our kids. Take a deep breath and read on:

Factoids:

1. ~93% of  sex abuse happens from a person the child knows and trusts, NOT strangers, factoring in estimates from unreported.
2. As many as 47% of abuse cases are from family or extended family.
3. ~50% of abuse happens from an offender who is also under 18.
4. Estimated 88% of sex abuses are never reported to authorities.
5. Offenders can be family, neighbors, babysitters, religious leaders, teachers, coaches, or anyone else who has close contact with children. 
   1. NOTE: this does NOT mean that all of the people you interact with are going to abuse your child, the vast majority of people in the world are mentally healthy.  The point is simply that you can never predict where an offender will come from and you can't assume that because someone is in a certain category that they won't be an offender.
6. Offenders seek out children that are alienated.  They look for kids whose parents are too embarrassed to talk about sex with them.  They look for kids who need more positive attention from the loved ones in their lives.  Primarily, they look for kids whose parents just don't communicate openly with them.

A Few Techniques 

(these are geared towards younger kids as that's where my family is currently, but for older kids check out the links below):

1. Use anatomically correct language for genitals and all body parts.  Example of why this is important: little Alice tells her teacher one day, "My uncle ate my cookie last night."  Suppose Alice hasn't been taught the word vagina and Uncle has taught her this cute little metaphor.  Now the teacher may actually reinforce abuse by naively saying something like "I hope it was yummy."  Alice now thinks this is acceptable in the eyes of another trusted adult, and the offender has secured another hold on the child.
2. Practice Body Safety Rules and respect personal boundaries.  This means your kids understand every individual in the world has the right to be the boss of their own body.   Great example: Allow your kids to not give grandma a kiss or hug if they don't want to, and instead provide an alternate form of acknowledgment such as waving or just saying hi.  This lets them know it's OK to not be comfortable doing certain physical contacts, and they are in charge of their own comfort level and boundary, not anyone else.  Body Safety Rules can be summed up simply, and they go both ways-for your child and everyone else:
• Touching and physical play are healthy and important developmentally, BUT... we don't touch other people's private parts, and they don't touch ours.  With a few rare exceptions, such as we're at the doctor together and the doctor needs to examine or give medicine. Or if the child is young enough, when mom or dad has to clean them during a bath or diaper change, but only to get clean.
• We don't ever physically harm other people.  Straightforward.
• Practice giving and asking for privacy when appropriate (going to the bathroom, changing clothes, sleeping, etc.)
• We ALWAYS play with our clothes on.  At friends' houses or when we have friends or family at our house, playing naked with other people at a young age is not appropriate and opens the door for abusers.
• We don't take pictures or make movies or drawings of other people's private parts, and it's not OK for someone else to do any of those things with ours.
3. Give your child an out for authority figures, so they know it's OK to say "No" if their safety is being compromised.  This one I used to do all the time.  Example: "OK, the babysitter is in charge, so be good and do what she says."  You've just told your kid that good behavior is whatever the babysitter says, even if it's for example, to touch private parts.  Always let your kids know they can say no to any grown up or person in charge if they are being put in danger or if their body safety rules are being broken.
4. Don't keep secrets.  This one should be obvious but the language used is key.  Differentiate between secrets and surprises.  Secrets make you feel lonely and sad and nervous.  Surprises make you feel happy and bring you together with other people. Most importantly everyone knows about surprises and there is nothing to hide after the surprise happens.
5. Understand age appropriate sexual behavior.  Way too much depth to cover here, see the linkage below.
6. Listen to your kids.  Really listen.  When you converse, it's easy to dismiss your child's seemingly random comments, especially when they are younger.  Try to practice always asking probing questions in conversation with your children, get them to elicit more detail in every conversation you have.  The more they are comfortable explaining their lives to you, the more confident they'll be to approach you if something happens.

Let all the caregivers for your child know all the above and how much you communicate to your children.  

stopitnow.org is a pretty good website with a ton of more detailed information on the subject and actual references on statistics, etc.  

parentingsafechildren.com is Feather Burkower's site, where you can learn more about her background and her workshops.

If you are a parent, guardian, or care provider of children of any age, there is no reason not to be versed in these best practices.  It's never too late or too early to start empowering our kids to keep themselves safe and break the cycles of abuse.  I hope you get motivated to learn more about this subject and share with other parents, so all our kids will be as confident and empowered as possible should the unthinkable ever chance to happen.

Norway + Videogames = Sexual Predation + Religion?

Norway has had a terrible tragedy. The person behind it was clearly insane. The predictable nonsense of sensationalist mass media attempting to attach his affiliation with video games didn't take more than a day or two.

To illustrate the ridiculous nature of associating hobbies with psychosis: why doesn't "Bible Addiction" get the same scrutiny in how many child molestation cases every year? Or on a more equivalent level, remember the east coast sniper a few years back? He openly and directly attributed that motivation to scripture. Statistically speaking in fact, we should be a hell of a lot more worried about dogmatic believers of any given religion than all gamers combined, given actual crimes committed in human history, by orders of magnitude.

Maybe video games are threatening the dinosaur businesses of TV & Print? I don't know, just a thought. Got to have one conspiracy theory in here somewhere.

Back to the point: Ted Bundy was an avid snow skier. Ted Kaczynski loved camping and swore off technology. Unfortunately, broken people do many things besides commit atrocities. Some of them are going to play games, some are going to preach religion, some are going to be astronauts. Does that mean everyone else that does any of the things that the bad person did are also bad? How about we look a little deeper into this man's past and recent history and see if we can't uncover a few more lurking issues besides whatever he used as a distraction leading up to his breakdown.

Perhaps it is just part of being human that we have to constantly search for reason and pattern and connection, that we jump to such ridiculous conclusions and associations. Sometimes, maybe it's just a plain confluence of chaos. I suspect that idea is far more unsettling to many people than being able to point at something and say "yep, that's what it was, that's the reason."

On the bright side, this is the first time in my life I've actually seen several quotes from high ranking officials involved immediately dismissing the notion of video game "addiction" having any relevant part of this man's tragic story. Perhaps we finally have some rational thought creeping into global consciousness? I'd like to remain optimistic, but I'm just waiting for someone with authority and a microphone to point at Chat Roulette or maybe Spotify or whatever else is out there that is new and scary and hard to comprehend.

(ps: addiction should really be reserved as a clinical term as it applies to physical brain chemistry changes which are literally inescapable, unlike psychological compulsions which have proven to be conditionable)

How To Stop Skype Mood Messages

Do you get a chat channel appearing and notifying you there is new content called "Mood Messages" in Skype?  This has been driving me insane for like 6 months because I'll usually stop what I'm doing to look at new skype messages, since I use it for work.  So you disrupt your work flow to look at the new message to find so and so has been idle for 30 minutes.  Great.

Every time I've attempted to solve it, I'd get more frustrated as apparently there's no option for it.  I would leave conversation, hide conversation, rename it, add it as a contact and delete it... it would seem to go away for a while, and so I'd forget.  But like a bad horror movie, IT WOULD ALWAYS COME BACK!

But I finally figured it out.  Once again, Mac is to blame. ;)

On Mac only, there is an easy setting to find under Preferences->General to disable mood messages as chat.  This is the most common solution you'll find if you go googling for it.  Not much help for PC users who are seeing this problem though, right?  Because there is no such option you can find anywhere in the PC options menus.  Yet it still happened.

So here's what was happening to me: I use Skype on both PC and Mac, but it's only occasionally active on the Mac.  Like a naive pre-1990 goose, I assumed that my PC options would control my PC experience.  However, when the Mac was on and Skype was running, it had the default setting for mood messages enabled, thus creating a chat channel and faithfully broadcasting all annoying mood updates to it.  This would in turn notify the PC client I had a new chat channel, and it would download the mirror of the chat being broadcast on the Mac client.  Disabling this option on the Mac client seems to have killed it.

I hope this little nugget of info is useful.  If I can reduce just one person's urge to kill, then it was worth it!

Attention Dogs! Don't Stick your Nose Where It Doesn't Belong

Apparently there is something nasty lurking in the rocks in our backyard.  Furgie has been investigating and today she paid the price.  Not sure if it was yellow jackets or spiders, but something nailed her hard this morning.  She had 2 huge swell ups in the last couple of days on her nose and her jowels, but they went away after a few hours.

This on the other hand... I have never seen anything like this.   Apparently the vet hadn't either because he walked in and exclaimed "OH MY GOD!!!" upon seeing her face.  It was a little bit scary as she was having trouble breathing from the swelling but she got some shots and is passing out now.

Check the pics and video below for the horror.

What Furgie looks like on a normal day...

Furgie at Breakfast time today... not too bad, just looked like she took a left hook.

2 hours later at the vet, her eyes were completely shut and her head was literally 3x its normal size. 

Every dog's worst nightmare... The Cone of Shame.

Taking a picture of a black dog who is freaking out and trying to scratch her face off was kind of difficult, the pics don't really do this justice.  I made a quick video which you can see a little more clearly how F'd up this is.

She's doing ok now, passed out from the shots the vet gave her.  However, I just spent an hour combing through every rock in our backyard and couldn't find a thing.  So whatever did this to her is still out there, and I'm sure like a good lab she'll learn her lesson and go right back to it again. :\

Toot! Toot! Goes My Own Horn

Yours truly just ranked the #5 most influential person in MMOGs for 2010.  Sure it's just a scam to get 20 more people to buy the magazine, but let's ask the important question here. How many people on that list are also ranked top 5 in any Dance Central song? Answer: Just me, baby, just me.

As the beloved MacCoy would say in his adorable nordic/german-ish accent, "All ya'll haters better recognize!"  Actually I'm pretty sure the only reason I ranked in this list is because of the headshot I gave them:

PS- Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, don't feel bad about being ranked so much lower than me. I know your companies are struggling, so I'm happy to give you guys advice on social gaming, marketing, business or like, whatever.

;)

Link: Will we ever get out of debt?

Great blog post by my buddy Mr. Hermann Peterscheck, amateur economist and opera singer.  Excerpt:

We tend to concentrate on the total debt (which has pretty much always gone up), but we rarely look at the debt as a percentage of GDP, which in my opinion is much more interesting. Just like your credit cards and student loans, how much debt you have is relative to your wealth and income.

Too bad American government isn't powered by rational thought.

Read his whole post at http://lifegame.typepad.com/lifegame/2011/02/will-we-ever-get-out-of-debt.html

Now I know what a Creative Director looks like

Thanks facebook ad.  I've been doing it all wrong all these years with my jeans and t-shirts.  Apparently to be creative you have to look like Jonny Depp in a 3D movie.  I wonder how many pieces of flair is the bare minimum at this ad agency?

Consumer Disconnect and your Big Company

I just spent 5 minutes surfing around T-mobile.com looking for a way to report two simple bugs on the website.  It won't recognize my consulting email address of @glhf.biz, which is the way I pay for my phone service there.  Secondly, their easy pay sign up isn't working, and hasn't been for me for the last 3 months.  After trolling around, and getting constantly redirected into phone FAQs and then the forums (where I have to create an additional account on top of my already logged in account?!?), I gave up on trying to let this company know they had a problem in their software.

I mean seriously, t-mobile has no way that I could find to just shoot off a quick message "Hey this webpage is busted just FYI".  Think about the value that is lost in that fact.

Now I can imagine a business analyst or perhaps a consultant sitting somewhere in the pretzel and beer decorated hallways of T-mobile corporate sitting down and looking at conversion rates on their Easy Pay (automated payment) system.  Perhaps they are drawing conclusions that consumers just don't like automated bill paying.  Perhaps this further reduces resources for that system and team due to an analyst decision, thereby moving support away from something the consumer really does want.  Perhaps this is one of many factors that leads to overall customer dissatisfaction with a brand.

I don't know, but I know I wanted to help and I gave up trying so I could make this blog post and rant about it and hopefully make another penny on my google ads traffic!

So, companies playing in any service-oriented space, especially the big boys and I guess I'm looking at you T-mobile, ask yourself this:

1. How easy are you making it for your consumers to express what they like and don't like about your product?  What percent of your consumer population will bother to call or take the trouble to register and post on a forum for issues large or small?
2. How many barriers of entry before a consumer can access a touchpoint at your organization and have a voice?  Why not allow effortless fire-and-forget commenting at any time from your customers to your CS staff?  
3. Why in the hell would you ask your customer to create and manage multiple sign ins to aspects of your service?
4. How many problems are you failing to address, and more importantly how many opportunities are you missing everytime a casual consumer voice isn't heard?

But hey, the myTouch 4G is still pretty sweet.

Have you thanked your favorite teacher lately?

It's been almost 20 years since my 10th grade English class.  As I had a moment to reflect tonight, my tenth grade teacher left an unmistakable mark on my entire life and career in those 20 years.  I remember her not being a favorite at the time, but as the years have flown by, she stands out above so many forgotten names.  

So I just found her on facebook and wrote her a letter.  I thought sharing it here might inspire a few of you other yokels to do the same for one of your favorite teachers.  

(By the way, any of you RHS Raiders in that class remember those weird ass drawings posted on the wall?  "Da Lizard King likes Da Blue Bus" etc.?)

Dear Mrs. Hayes-

I am so happy to find you on Facebook!  I've thought of you often over the years and the difference you made in my life.

I'm not sure if you remember me, I was a student of yours at Rangeview back in the early 90s.  I just attended a parent info night at a local charter school, Westgate, as I consider where to enroll my oldest son in first grade next year.  The director was a passionate educator, with a philosophy of discovering gifts and talents in as many kids as possible.  She related several anecdotes from her experience, and discussed the many types of gifted children she came across.

Some of the classifications she noted included "underachiever" and "underground" kids.  This reminded me of you, as I recall you talking about smart kids sometimes.  You would point out how some kids would hide their smarts from the system so as to avoid insane expectations and stress, avoid getting additional work and avoid being labeled in uncomfortable ways in peer groups.

It was my senior year and I was no longer in your class.  I started in AP English that year but dropped it within a few weeks.  I don't really remember the exact reason except for a vague memory of not getting along with the AP teacher on some fundamental level.   I remember you hunting me down at my locker and refusing to let me snooze by in regular english class.  You wouldn't take no for an answer until I agreed to do an independent study research paper with you.

I agreed, but just to ruffle your feathers (because I knew you led a bible study group at the school), I picked the topic for my paper to be "Legalize Drugs".  Although I didn't know this at the time myself, I think this was a challenge from me to you to see how fair and committed you would really be.  May I say that you were all class, and objectively reviewed and edited my paper based on the facts and structures I proposed, without taking me to task for the opposite political stance I staked out.  I still have a copy of that paper today, I go back and read it once in a while.

Unfortunately, you created a monster that semester.  I now have an insatiable appetite for looking past the surface issues of any topic and a passion for researching everything.  I also have this incredibly annoying habit to push myself beyond what I think is just good enough.  This creates significant annoyance to my wife, colleagues and friends… that is, until I find something better than the easy/obvious choice of whatever topic is at hand.

So thank you Mrs. Hayes.  Thank you for never giving up on me even though you had no obligation to be my teacher that year.  Thank you for pushing me to do more than the educational system ever bothered to ask of me.  Thank you for igniting a fire in me that will never die.  I can only hope my three boys come across a teacher as unflinching and passionate as you were at some point in their life.

My sincerest wishes that you are happy in life and I hope you know what an impact you've had on certainly countless others like me.

Love,
-Ryan Seabury

Ps- I made cheat sheets for all your Word Wealth quizzes.  Funny thing is… by making the cheat sheets I pretty much learned all the vocabulary!  I have a feeling you knew this!