Cruftbox: My Box of Cruft

Test Entry – Please ignore.

I’ll go over a few things I observed at
SXSW. This was
my first time attending and I was a complete outsider. Despite all my attempts
to recruit a friend to go with me, I arrived in Austin alone and did not know
a single person at the event. During the event, learned a ton, met a bunch of
people and understood some of the etiquette. By next year, I will be an insider
somewhat and my views will be tainted.

I’m going to use the term blogger interchangeably with SXSW
attendee. It’s not completely accurate, but it’s a fairly reasonable
compromise. One of the first things I noticed was about the net ‘celebrities’.
In the realm of ‘blogging’ and the bleeding edge of internet community, there
are people that have become celebrities. In some cases it’s due to their 
well-considered opinions, with some due to that they have created new things, and
in some cases
due to their persona. Initially I looked forward to meeting these people
and getting a chance to shake their hands and discuss things with them. I’m an
outgoing type of person that always asks a question in groups when it’s Q&A
time. I am not shy. But not many bloggers are as extroverted as I am.
Actually, most of them seem a bit shy to me. Once they get to know you they
open up, but at first they keep their distance. It’s understandable. There are
a lot of freaks on the internet and you never know who is and isn’t a freak when
you meet them for the first time.

On the first day, I made a point to say hello to Ben & Mena
Trott and Cory Doctorow. IMHO, both the Trott‘s and Cory have done
extraordinary things that have made my life just a little bit better. They were
polite and knew who I was from previous online interaction, but I could tell
they were a little apprehensive.

With good reason.

Some guy that sent them a email once or
twice was trying to grab a slice of them. They had good friends at SXSW and if
the choice was between good friends and strangers, everyone is going to choose
friends. I gave it a little thought and decided that I wasn‘t going to be as
proactive as I usually am when I saw a ‘net celeb‘. If everyone at the show
stopped these people just for 5 minutes to shake hands and chat with them, the ‘celebs‘ would
never have a free moment. Their experience at SXSW would be endless polite but
boring conversations with strangers. I wouldn‘t want people to do that to me,
so people shouldn’t do it to them.

So, I started sitting quietly giving people around me their
own space, even when I knew who they were and wanted to chat with them. For
friends and family that know me, this is extremely un-Mike behavior. Amazingly,
once I stopped trying to meet everyone, I started meeting everyone.

People will strike up conversations about anything at SXSW
just to break down that initial barrier between strangers. Once the initial
barrier was broken, the conversation flowed easily. I was surprised to find
that some people knew who I was. Several times, people said ‘Hey, you‘re Argyle,
the geocaching guy.‘ All, because I had posted on the
sxswblog.com site about
seeing if anyone want to go geocaching. People had taken the time to read the
post, look up my picture, and remember me. Wow.

In one of the sessions, Cory Doctorow said ‘This
is my tribe.‘ He meant that the people who attend SXSW Interactive are his kind
of people. We may be scattered across the globe geographically, but in our
world view we are quite similar. He‘s right. Those people are my tribe. The
techno savvy, the web literate, those that add to the web instead of only
browsing it, those that make cool new things, those that are willing to talk to
strangers about wifi, and those that dream of the next gadget from Japan. The SXSW Tribe.

Here are my general observations about the SXSW Tribe.
They don‘t apply to everyone, but they give you basic idea of the vibe:

The SXSW Tribe like Macs
The SXSW Tribe likes to cut their hair short
The SXSW Tribe don‘t like to go more than an hour offline
The SXSW Tribe likes to smoke
The SXSW Tribe doesn’t like the war in Iraq
The SXSW Tribe likes to travel in packs
The SXSW Tribe loves to gossip about the rest of the SXSW
Tribe

Here a few things that I learned that may be useful to
others that come to SXSW for the first time:

Shiner Bock – Shiner Bock is a local Texas beer that you
find everywhere. Often referred to as simply ‘Shiner’.

ABC – Always Be Charging – If you bring a laptop, you need
to be charging it every single chance you get. No battery lasts long enough.

Sharpeners – There are no pencil sharpeners at SXSW.
People think writing on a pad of paper with a wooden pencil is a bit strange.

Secure connections – Wifi traffic is in the clear and
people are sniffing packets all the time. Arrange for secure email, FTP, and if
possible, secure browsing while at SXSW. It’s unlikely that a malicious hacker
is gunna do bad things, but it’s best to be prepared.

Street Signs – For some reason, downtown Austin has few
street signs. Get a map and study it before venturing out.

The Omni – The Omni hotel bar is a late night hangout for SXSW people.

Hotels – Stay at a hotel in easy walking distance of the
convention center. You don ‘t want to drive anywhere after a long night of
partying. The word was that the Hampton was the best place to stay due to
proximity and internet access. But since the Hampton lacks a bar, there is
debate if ‘The Hampton‘ is ‘the new Omni ‘.

Night Events – The best night events are the Fray Cafe,
20×2, and (so I’m told) Bruce Sterling ‘s party. Make time for these events.

Personal cards – Make up business cards with your name,
email, and website info on them to hand out. Bring your regular business cards
if you want, but what people really want is a card that ties you to your online
persona so they can find you after SXSW.

Food – Eat food. Austin has a great bar scene. You will
be drinking. Don‘t drink on an empty stomach.

Texas BBQ – IMHO, Texas BBQ pales in comparison to BBQ in other areas
like Kansas City and Carolina.  That chopped beef sandwich stuff just
doesn’t cut it…

Sound People – The people who run sound for the sessions
won ‘t leave the sound alone. They love to walk up while people are speaking,
twiddle with knobs, and make the room go silent.

Fray Cafe – If you are going to perform, practice beforehand.

Favorite quotes:

‘Stop solving for the extreme case, solve for the middle‘
– Lawrence Lessig

‘I trust Rinso because there are a reasonable amount of
spelling errors.‘ – Dave Weinerger

‘Because, you are wearing a Star Trek uniform because you
want to get stared at…‘ – Cory Doctorow, answering the question, ‘Why do
people in Star Trek uniforms get stared at?

‘We believe in the One Interface.‘ – Thomas Korte, Google

‘UO, EQ & DaoC are not games, they are fucking chatrooms’ – Warren Spector

‘If you can create this, you can fall in love with someone
online and know they are a girl’ – John Halcyon Styn, in regard to FOAF
discussions

‘Only 7% of American families consist of a father who
works and a mother who stays home with the children.‘ – Richard Florida

‘This too shall pass ‘ – Bruce Sterling

People I met and chatted with (in no particular order):

Dave Weinberger – I helped him get connected, we shared a
snack, and chatted off and on during the show. A great guy. While I had read
the Cluetrain Manifesto before, I had no idea who he was until we’d been
chatting a couple of hours.

Michael Alex Wasylik – Walked up to me and said, ‘I went
to school with your brother.‘, at the Kick event. Mike was interesting and
took the effort to include me in ‘the group ‘ until I got to know ‘the group ‘
myself. I owe him my thanks. He’s the kind of attorney whose number you keep in
your wallet ‘just in case’.

Michael/Griff from ultramicroscopic –
Poor guy won best weblog but got his bike
stolen

Christine of bigpinkcookie – Queen of the Texas bloggers. 
Many thanks to Christine dragging me along as the crew wandered through Austin.

Katie –
One of the first people I met part of the Texas Blog Mafia

Ernie the
attorney – We started commiserating about
the convention staff making unplug from the power outlets and began to discuss
the issues. He and I agreed that the idealism is good, but people need to
understand the reality of negotiation to find agreement in the middle. A nice
guy to chat with, too bad he left on Saturday.

Jason Nolan – He and I
chatted about stickers on laptops and the US centric internet. 

Chip – Met
Chip on the first night and although he’s with EFF Austin, he didn’t run me out
of town on a rail because I work for Disney.

Don Turnbull – part of
the EFF Austin crew

David Nunez –
another part of the EFF Austin crew

Michael Buffington – We talked about cameras and getting to
sessions on time.

Rannie – We kept
bumping into each other and chatting during the weekend.

Ernie Hsiung – It appears that Ernie and my wife are
related in the Hsiung family somehow. What a coincidence!

Alex Bischoff – We
hung out at 20×2 and drank Shiners.

Leia
Scofield – Met her in one of the many places I was with the Texas bloggers.

Rebecca Blood – Thanked her for her
book and chatted briefly.

Dan Gilmor –
We briefly discussed the impact of his breaking news
of Pyra/Google deal.

There are tons of other people I met, but I wasn’t taking notes every moment
at SXSW.

Obviously, I had a great time.  I’ve already decided to return again in
2004.  Of course, next time, I intend to drag others along with me, so I
never have to drive.

I left work early for Zoe’s Parent-Teacher Conference. As expected, Zoe’s doing great and Michele and I were all smiles.
I played with the girls a bit and checked work email from home. I think America’s productivity would be greatly enhanced if one day a week, no business email was allowed. Work Wednesday – Get your work done instead of answering email!
I forgot to mention that I finished my latest book, The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin, on the flight to Austin. The book is from 1974 and reflects some of the thinking on un-capitalist societies.
The story revolves around a world with an anarchtic, non-authoritarian communist society. There are no laws or government, but there is also no concept of property or ownership. Everything is shared, everything is voluntary. A member of this society visits a pure capitalist world and contrasts the two systems.
I read this at the behest of my friend Len during a night of drinking a political discussion.
While some of the concepts are interesting, the basic idea that people can conquer jealous and need to create such a society, is difficult for me to believe. I think these things are hardwired into our brains. On the other hand, there are several notable concepts such as people be willing to sacrifice more when they are not forced to sacrifice.
I see why it’s in the Sci-Fi canon of important books and won the Hugo and Nebula awards. It’s quite a social commentary wrapped into a science fiction story. The vantage point is about as opposite as you can get from Heinlein’s libertarian vision of the future as you can get.
It’s worth the read if you get a chance. At 400 pages, it will keep you occupied for a bit.

Going from five days of uber-geekdom, drinking, and going out at night to sitting in my office reading emails about meetings to plan meetings is agony.
I wanna win the lottery.

Like I have for the past few days, I am sitting on the floor with the computer plugged into a wall, stealing power. The difference is that I’m in the Dallas Airport, connected via wifi through Wayport. For $6.95 I get access. My dinner cost more than that and I was done eating in five minutes.
After 5 days, SXSW is over for me. The music and film festivals are just kicking in now. The Interactive events are over. Unbeknownst to me, Bruce Sterling (the author, one of my FAVORITE authors) invites everyone who attends his session over to his house for beers. Due to my flight I couldn’t go. I would absolutely love to go. But I can’t change my flight for a party. Perhaps next year…
The SXSW has invigorated me. Work has been in the background and cool new things have been in my mind. I met a ton of people and I can barely remember half of them. I took a ton of notes and hopfully will have a full report soon.
I need to take a break from the computer now….

A few notes from the GDC Recap at SXSW.
Warren Spector & Rich Vogel speaking. Brad King moderating.
Sequels can hurt & help. Depends if developers listen to comments it can be great. Or it can suck if the same thing is done over.
Even difficult subjects, like Scooby Doo, can be good if the gameplay and concepts are good.
Costs are spiraling, sales haven’t risen. Expectations are rising. Risk is escalating dramtically. They minimize risk by going with known quantities.
Online Gaming – What is the role of online games in consoles. Rich says that it will be the second gen consoles that will really enable it. Today it’s a little to difficult for most people. The inclusion of a keyboards is essential.
Persistent World vs. small group gaming – There’s a difference.
Disagreement over online games. Sims Online is an example of bad design, but not entirely. Warren & Rich disagree on why it’s not successful. Warren says most people don’t want to play online games to the degree hoped for. The audience is loud and excited, but it is small.
Warren wants next game to sell 5 million. Will there be enough hardware to run it? In consoles? Yes.
Mobile gaming – Lots of discussion at GDC. Phone games mainly used to kill time. Different in Japan where there is a phone gaming community. Discussed the failure of Majestic. Scary to regular people, not enough content.
“You won’t see EA or Eidos or Microsoft making phones games. Other small developers will make them.”
At GDC they discussed education. They talked about the role of games in education. In Star Wars Galaxies there will be connections to the game via phone, IM, web, etc. Many things to add access to the games.
The reason Warren hates online games is that they are not satisfying. He doesn’t want interact online, he wants real world.
Rich says they are great because you can live in the alternate universe. You can do thngs you can’t do in RL.
I just told Warren to play Neverwinter Nights.
I just thanked Rich for making Ultima Online.
Question about why dungeon master role hasn’t come to gaming. The guy doesn’t know about Neverwinter Nights.
At TSR in 1988, 15 million people ahd played D&D. Estimate 1/2 were gamemasters. 10% any good. How many could use a toolset 10%? 80,000 people worldwide? How many can make things and do a good thing?
The FPS mods are must simpler to create content/levels than roleplaying games.
Warren wants to find a way to provide episodic content. He wants to develop better methods of interaction with NPCs. The ability to interact with the AI needs to be more immersive. They both stress the importance of bots expressing emotion & mood.
The next step is probably from Valve. Halflife 2 will have very cool stuff. In Deus Ex Invisble War they have a new conversation system that will be reflected in the avatar. So will Star Wars Galaxies.
Warren speaks heresy and says framerate is not important. (OMFG. Burn him….)
There.com is a virtual world where emotions and expressions are well done.
Warren says UO, EQ & DaoC are “not games, they are fucking chatrooms”.
The importance of good writers is key to games getting better. “Writers are writing code, not prose.” Warren is finding programmers who can write. He doesn’t want to teach writers how to code anymore.
Developers need to get two hit games under their belt and then they are allowed to experiment. Creative stuff that people don’t get are hard to market.
They both seem focused on detail in the games. Things like limping in a football game are examples of good stuff. (I disagree completely)
Closing remarks – GDC this year had a theme this years. Lots of online discussion. Process of game development is an issue. Formalizing the design process. People may not like games like GTA3, but it is the best balanced game on the market. Online games allow balance and creation of new games. The GDC is getting better because it’s more aobut gamign and less about technology.
End of session.
A note on Warren Spector: Warren has been described as arrogant and offensive. I didn’t find that. He is clear in his opinions and firm in his stands. People may disagree with him (like me) but he’s not mean to simply be mean. He is simply very open with his views. Many aren’t comfortable with people that don’t hide their thoughts.

I had three good days wearing my contacts here at the show. My eyes have been giving me trouble lately and they get sore if I wear the lenses too much.
After the 2 PM session, I had to go take out my right lens. I was hurting and it was distracting me. I went into the men’s room and whipped out a bottle of saline and a lens case. Publically plucking a lens from my eye drew more than a few stares. Fuck it. It’s only a contact lens.
So now I’m half blind. The right side of the world is a blur. Hopefully after a little rest and Muro 128 tonight and I’ll being seeing fine tomorrow.

My employer did something right!

I’ll make an attempt at live reporting via the weblog.
The session is a panel with Google talking about organizing the web.
Google’s Mission:
Organize the world’s information to make it universally accessible and useful.
Nice, broad, and ambitious. Gotta like that.
After describing in detail how Google manages indexes, he says, “Managing all that is a little on the tricky side.” Understatement of the day.
Page Rank: A query independent measure of value for each page.
Linking to many pages lessens the ‘value’ of page rank that yor page has. The fewer links you have, the more emphasis on your links.
Designed on the concept that everyday machines are going to die. For scalability and reliability, they have 10s of thousands of machine constantly working. Considering consumer grade MTBF, they get plenty of failures and actually buy substandard RAM to save money.
Demo of https://labs.google.com and https://www.google.com/zeitgeist
Content-Targeted Advertising -Using the search words to choose appropriate advertisement to display that may be much more effective.
Google News – Auto-generated news from 4,500 news sources arranged in an unbiased, objective way.
Froogle – Aggregates products via page rank and relevance. Google makes no money from the products themselves, but they do advertise on the page.
Intro of Evan Williams of Pyra/Blogger/Google – “Blogger is now a Google product.”
Lots of speculation and theories as to why the purchase happened. What is the secret plan of ‘world domination’? No secret plan…
Plan:
Blogger and Google Join
Blogger services remain unchanged
Building a better Blogger
Help people find blog content
Commitment to unbiased, objectve search results
“Google is one of the few web giants that values personal opinion.”
What is desperately needed is enhanced ability to search blog content. Increasingly difficult to find intersting content. Google’s expertise in searching is the key to help find the intersting content.
Reading the assumptions would make you think there are now hundreds of people working on ‘Bloogle’. Not true. Same people, but the food’s much better. A couple new guys. Still constrained by people inside Google. ‘Never enough people, all the hardware they could imagine.’
After stablization of Blogger within Google, they can work on new ideas.
There is no interest to bias Google searches in favor of Blogger. They want to help the blogger community in general. They want to work with Radio, Movable Type, and other tools.
I just asked Evan, ‘How much did you get?’ He didn’t answer and said ‘Did I mention how good the food is?’ I didn’t expect that I’d get a number, but someone had to ask…
Metatags are problematic, since the page is telling the viewer one thing, and tells Google somethign else. For this reasons, Google doesn’t use meta-tags.
Google Answers – This is not a highly public site for Google, but the usage and popularity is rising.
Google Toolbar – Future directions (asked by Anil Dash) – They may get around to a Mozilla client since Google people all use linux.
Wireless oppurtunity – They have WAP and low bandwidth services, but they are not utilized much. Pages are proxied to reduce non-mobile content.
Google has systems for local country results to allow graphics to be displayed correctly. Blogger would like to take advantage of the global reach to provide a higher service level.
Natural Language Search – Yes, they are thinking about it. They aren’t clear that keyword searches alone won’t suffice. Once voice interaction with computers is more common, they see the rise of natural language searches.
Semantic Web – Any plans? ‘Nice idea, but not now.’ They do it partially with Froogle, not in a concerted effort.
End of session. Whew.

I looked at this page and realized I had a bunch of “I’m doing this…” posts. Not a lot of analysis going on here.
I made an attempt to get up early and transcribe my handwritten notes to the weblog, but alas I have failed. It’s about 25 mintues until the first session and I haven’t started. Mea culpa.
So while I am currently content-free, now is the time for you to create some and post it on your weblog. Do It Now….