Carl Setzer

I'm part of a Facebook group titled Nerds. Been part of the group for years, along with about a hundred or so others. Most of these folks I hadn't met in real life. Well, one if the families decided to host a BBQ tonight, bringing a ton of us out if the woodwork/internet. Sadly, even with lures, there weren't any Pokemon. And this wasn't some farm in the country. Thus, to no-one's surprise, I'm sure, the PokeGods chose not to shine their blessings today.  It was a delightful evening, meeting the humans behind the personas, profiles and posts. Deepening connections that were in place for years. There is something enriching about that face to face interaction that's important. Even though many of these folks were connected with me on multiple channels, the in person interaction enriched I'm ways I couldn't have guessed. These intersections really are important and I've come to value them. I'm really delighted to have had the chance. I'm ...

I've been a fan of Wil Wheaton's Radio Free Burrito for years. It's hard to conceive he's been putting those things out for a decade. Anyway, today's episode: Radio Free Burrito 43: my next mistake , hits on a few things that I've been thinking about lately. He talks a bit about Taylor Swift and how crappily she's been treated by the media, and by a certain cadre of the internet. I, too, have been discovering more in her music than I expected. And what made me take a deeper look was the grace and humor she's shown while facing down the trollish brutes. Gotta love and admire anyone like that. When talking about Pax and the hater-vibe he was feeling, he struck a nerve that's been raw. In geek circles lately, there's this whole "gatekeeper" thing going on. I hate this mentality. Perhaps it’s because I’m an old school geek from back when geekiness lined you up for bullying (at best). When you found ANYONE who shared those interests an...

My son requested I download Minecraft at some point in history; I'm not sure when. The months (years perhaps) of watching him engage the game impressed me. This game engages creativity in a deep and significant way, in ways no shooter one can. With his current creation, he's taking into account architectural details like work and room flow (currently building a bakery). Then when I mentioned to him about how Boeing camouflaged their Seattle plant during World War II (built a fake neighborhood above), he announced that he was building his own Boeing factory. It delights me to see his brain working like this. And the standard gaming side-benefits (most noticeably better hand-eye coordination and dexterity) are nice, I love the creativity. His right brain is getting brilliantly stimulated. For that, I'm grateful.

This piece left by Kathy Sierra me disturbed. That Ms. Sierra went through this horror is unacceptable to civilized humanity. Yet, what's to be done? Can we reign in these trolls without losing the glorious free speech such venues as Twitter promote? I really don't know. This abuse is what will kill the Internet, of anything will. If the sociopaths win, we all lose, especially the sociopaths. Interesting conundrum.

Gracefully coding. Semicolons everywhere. C is beautiful.

(Introductory Note: this will make little sense if you're unfamiliar with the mythology of The Matrix trilogy ...my apologies) Morpheus is my favorite character from The Matrix . Smarter, and voluntarily committed, not the reluctant messiah of Neo. Which makes me wonder about messiahs...they either are reluctant, or unquestionably obedient to a vision. I'm more aligned with the reluctant, probably since I'm not inclined to a sense of moral certitude. Having heros who struggle with vision, with stretching themselves from ordinary to greatness feels much more sincere.  So what's the deal with Morpheus? A key piece of this character is his calm confidence in his vision, in who Neo is and what he will accomplish. He always works toward his vision, even (or especially) in the face of challenge and adversity. He is key as Neo's mentor, yet there comes the point where he no longer impacts the story, becoming somewhat a passive recipient of Neo's sacrifi...

Lots of folks are running around billing themselves as “social media” experts. Most of my cohort online finds them annoying at best, and fraudulent at worst. In the spirit of self-exploration, and a wee bit of sarcasm, I present reasons that I (little ol’ me) could bill myself thusly. Reasons I can call myself a Social Media Expert: I’ve been reading Wil Wheaton’s blog since before the term “blog” was invented. And I didn’t know what to think when he shifted to Word Press. Got a Facebook account back when you needed to request an invite, and the email had to be a .edu email address. Had a “blog” before the term was invented. Each update hand-coded (html, if you don’t know...but actually care), with my archive needing a great deal of thought and strategy. (It was hosted on my “free” webpage that came gratis with my Earthlink account.) With said blog, was excited to plug in a counter and delighted in watching it tick upward I had a Geocites site (multiple pages, so truly a “site) befo...

My, how the style of the franchise has changed.

Predictive text will add a new challenge to the historians of our future. Before, reading through journals, we just muddled our way through the occasional misspelling or illegible word. Now, we need to be ready for strange word transpositions. Words appearing at random. Historians will need to incorporate an understanding of querty, and the possible mis-adjustment contemporary predictive text programs can use for substitutes.