Category Archives: Computers

Fun with photos for blog posts

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

No, I’m not starting a Sheldon Cooper “Fun with flags” videocast rip-off. 🙂 I’m taking a Metaliteracy class, and of course it has a strong sub-element on being a good digital citizen, particularly when it comes to online content. Namely, not stealing it willy-nilly but instead respecting licensing.

One thing I don’t do a whole lot of in my blog is include photos. Every advice site on the ‘net will tell you that pix are where it’s at, and if you want your text to soar, add pictures. So, sure, if I’m writing about something that I have pictures of that I took, I usually include them. But if I’m just writing in general, maybe about publishing or reading, I don’t see why a picture of a book or a typewriter is going to help that prose. One of my favorite blogs, The Passive Voice, also doesn’t use much in the way of graphics, yet frequently shares links to sites that allow you to do simple photos for blogs etc. on the cheap and easy.

Take for instance the site PhotoFunia.com. It basically allows you to upload a photo you already have and do a bunch of fun things with it. You can upload a photo, and put it in a newspaper layout with a headline of your choice. You can add a pic or some text to a building being blown up. A billboard. A xmas card. A pic of a painter painting a picture and it will weave your photo into the canvas. Some things work well, some dont’, but the examples on their site are awesome. Here’s an image of one where the photo and a drawing are merged:

Cool site to play with. Of course, you can do all of it in apps/programs like Adobe’s products, but why bother if you can do it quickly with a template?

Okay, so maybe you like things like PhotoShop or Lightroom. But you don’t have the cash. What can you do? Well, instead of pirating it, you could try DarkTable, billed as an opensource (i.e. free) alternative. It’s great for simple things like adjusting lighting and a thousand other things, but it was way too complicated to pick up quickly. But I probably don’t have to…

A site called Unsplash has free images for use, and many of them are even available for commercial use if need be. People, landscape, buildings…lots of choices. Not as big as some of the stock image sites, but these ones are free. One of the things I often “test” when I’m looking at a site is whether or not they have photos of frogs and what kinds. Simple or full-on tree frogs. It’s what I want for PolyWogg from time to time, so it’s a “real” test. Unsplash has a bunch for frog (maybe 50 or so) which isn’t bad, and while none of them are OMG AWESOME, they’re certainly usable for a blog post if I want something. For those doing an article about a city, you’re likely to find well-known landmarks easily. But, like I said, I often “test” it by looking for frogs.

Pixabay is another similar site, but it has Shutterstock as its sponsor, and often intersperses payment-required photos into the search results. And they’re always SO much better. But for free, I searched for frog, and it gave me 100 pics on the first page with 45 more pages in the wings. You would probably want to narrow the search a bit. 🙂 In my case, I liked this one:

The last one on my free sites is Pexels. Same drill as the rest, although it has links to Adobe Stock as its sponsor, and not as many images as the previous one. But searching for frog, I get this:

That’s probably one of the better ones I’ve seen for free around the net. And free with permission is far better than ripping off photographers by stealing their photos from around the net.


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Metaliteracy – Week 3 – Intellectual property aka Creative Commons

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Week 3 of the Metaliteracy course is entitled “Becoming A Digital Citizen: Understanding Intellectual Property” and I confess I was disappointed in the week for two reasons. First and foremost, I was looking for a deeper dive into the issues around academic publishing and journals, and instead we were treated to a one-size-fits-all promotional video of how big academic journal publishers are pillaging the land of academic freedom. I learned far more from Michael Geist’s posts about the CRTC hearings back in December on potential reforms to the Copyright Act to address university usage of academic materials.

However, the second disappointment was more about the lack of nuancing of “free” vs. “open”. It is generally pushed by a group of online advocates that “free” is the wrong term, as it confuses free movement with free cost, and the much better term is open to everyone with no restrictions for access or cost. And for this week’s assignment, it was the topic we were assigned, but the expectation was clearly that we focus on how open was “better”.

I confess that I don’t think “open” is any better term than “free” for two reasons.

First, the classic quote is “information wants to be free”, but free in this quote means moving around without restriction. More like “free will” than “cheap”. But it gets corrupted by those who want to argue in favour of things like piracy, even for academic journals, that “information wants to be free” meaning $0 cost. Yet when people talk about “open”, it changes the dynamic. It focuses more on people “accessing the info” (a pull factor) rather than the original idea — information wants to move, it’s more dynamic than static. The latest research on prenatal screening results, the latest findings on cancer treatments, the best plugs to use for charging your iPhone…or, in my case, the best approach to preparing for an interview. People create information and they want to set it free into the wild. “Open” focuses on the recipient, not the creator, but it is the creator who decides on the license.

Second, open doesn’t have to be free cost. We tend to focus on “open” in this sense for things like texts that are written, or software. Information that can be in a digital form and transmitted digitally for “free”. Yet, if I use my example of a book I want to write, I have to pay for internet. I have to pay for a website. I had to pay for the courses I took to learn how to design a site, upload it, and cover ongoing hosting fees. If I worked out that it was $1000 a year to me to make something available, and 1000 people would access it, would “free” be $0 per copy or $1 per copy (which would be my break-even point)?

Equally, back in university, I worked for a technology support office for students located at the university. It was pre-internet, and so if people wanted copies of free software like statistical programs, they had to come to us to get it or find an online Bulletin Board to access from home or the mainframe. Most didn’t know how to do that so they came to us to get copies. It was free to get the software, but our office had to buy disks, print the manuals (a few sheets of paper), burn the software onto the disks which cost both the original costs of the disk plus the staff time to create them physically, and then to put them in an envelope, handle the cash, deposit any revenues, fill out reports like any good little store employee, etc. It was not, in fact, $0 to distribute the materials. But it was “open” to everyone. By the definition espoused, reimbursement for costs incurred would not in fact count as “open”.

I accept there are barriers to users. I accept there are barriers to movements. But I don’t think “free” or “open” gets around those issues. Nor do I think the 5Rs of openness (the ability to retain, reuse, revise, remix or redistribute) are as simply dealt with as the week’s materials suggest. Open Access is not simply the “best alternative” in a “free world”, it just happens to be one alternative. It is descriptive, not normative to me.

If you’ve read my website, you know for example that I have written part of an HR guide for participating in federal government job processes. Government processes and interviews are fairly specialised HR beasts, with major differences from the private sector in what will be asked, how it will be graded, etc. and very little of it is public or written down. So employees or potential employees frequently walk in blind to the processes, make simple mistakes, and miss out on a job they were both suited for and wanted. I used to provide 1-on-1 coaching for people, and it grew to group presentations, and now an online book.

I’ve considered publishing it commercially, but some of what holds me back from that are the same constraints / issues at play here. I think the info should be both free in cost and open for access. I gained the knowledge from people who helped me along the way, and I want to pay it back for others. But at the same time, I don’t want people simply coming along, copying all of it, and publishing a book under their name. It is commercially viable in an online format. I don’t mind people sharing it but I’m not writing it so others can make money off it.

And yet another side of me is conflicted. Writers should get paid for their work, and far too many authors have been ripped off over the years by bad contracts. I am not yet finished the work, and on an irregular basis, I waffle between the options. I would love for it to be completely public domain, yet I would be incensed if someone made a profit off my hard work and writing. So, the compromise would seem to me to be almost simple — no commercial uses. And yet I also feel a bit of a twinge when I look at adaptation. Reworking my materials? Remixing it? Tweaking and editing it and then sharing as their own, even with citation? Hmm…

For now, I’m likely to be comfortable with no adaptation, no commercial — but then it would be Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International, and definitely not a free culture license. I’m considering a cascade of materials, such as a shorter form that is fully open, a slightly more detailed version that is less open, and then the full version at this level.

As an added wrinkle, my employer also has a small say in the outcome. As an employee of the government, there are ethical obligations too, and the need to avoid a conflict of interest. Which means, in practical terms, I need to have them review it before I publish to ensure there are no conflicts with my day job, even though I’m publishing in my own personal life. And part of their considerations for “allowing” me to publish it (although technically it is more they identify if there are any potential conflicts, in the end it is still my decision) includes a lot of the same issues…will it be open access, will people have to pay, is it more factual in nature or is it a creative work, etc.? The more it looks like an open, free, factual document, the less conflict; the more it looks like a commercial, private, creative document, the more potential conflict (almost like I was charging people to know how to apply for jobs that are free to apply for by anyone, and even greater potential for appearance of conflict if I was running a competition while selling the book).

I might be too harsh on the week’s materials. I did learn some new stuff, and it got me working through the CCL options for the future, so maybe that’s all I can ask of the MOOC.


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Metaliteracy – Week 2 – Creating and sharing a social identity

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Week 2 of the Metaliteracy course is entitled “Creating and Sharing a Social Identity” and after the enjoyable first week’s materials, I was looking forward to seeing what nuances would crop up this week. The video for the week was a short animated feature showing a young woman interviewing for a job, and while the interview went well, the hiring manager googled her after the interview to see what her online presence looked like. The hiring manager found no LinkedIn account, found a recent tweet she posted saying she “nailed the interview”, and some old tweets complaining about her job, and about hating people and her boss. So the hiring manager moved on. The “lesson learned”, as intended, is that people should think about the persona they project online and the impact it can have on your professional life.

And as I went through the week’s readings, and other materials, I seriously hoped that there was going to be more to the week’s offerings than a 1970s-style guidance counselor advising young girls to watch their image (don’t worry, there is more than that!). A hiring manager who was more up to date in their thinking could just have easily seen her lack of a LinkedIn profile as innovative (not doing the same as everyone else, particularly if she’s active on another platform) and there are those who view LinkedIn as old and stodgy. Equally, the tweet saying “Nailed It” could just as easily be seen as a positive sign, projecting confidence and a strong desire to work there. And finally, the tweets about the old place she worked? Not ideal necessarily, but it explains why she’s looking for a new job that is better suited to what she wants to do. I might tend to agree that posting negative things about your work or boss aren’t the best idea on Twitter, but I wouldn’t feel the same about sharing thoughts on Facebook with a smaller circle of friends and coworkers with strong privacy settings. The whole video completely seemed too simplistic and one-dimensional. More like an “after school special” designed by my grandmother.

In the readings, one of the first ones starts with seeing what you can find out about yourself online i.e. Go Google Yourself! The article is public, https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/how-to-google-yourself-effectivelywhat-to-do-about-it/23035, and quite interesting, albeit eight years old. I share the same name as an US politician, so almost all of Google is dominated by his stuff. If you append my city after my name, my twitter feed comes up as the first link. A couple of comments on FB pages and an old comment on a newspaper site show up too. But you are almost to the end of the first page before you see a link to this website, and even then it is just because I have a subarea devoted to an old HR conference that I helped host, and the pages include all the organizers’ names, including mine. My website domain is obviously NOT my personal name, just the PolyWogg nickname and I don’t list my name on it too widely, for a couple of reasons.

First and foremost, it’s not really needed. I don’t hide it, but I don’t see any reason to shout out my full name either and attract spam. Second, I had a bad experience once where someone disagreed with something I said in a discussion forum online about the public service, and her way of trying to “shut me down” was to post my home phone number and address in the forum, along with my work info. It didn’t stop me from pointing out the fallacies in her approach and people laughing her out of the room so to speak, but I also don’t need crackpots looking me up in the phonebook either.

Third, sometimes when I’m blogging, I talk about thing related to being a public servant, and while I don’t think anything I say gets me in any dangerous areas for my duty of loyalty to the government (in fact, I’m more often defending something by explaining it, not attacking), some parts of the legal test are how identifiable the link is between you personally and your position within the government. Since I don’t actively advertise my name, just my PolyWogg nickname, it’s a partial link that is broken. Of course, anyone with a WHOIS capability can look up who the domain is registered to, so I’m not trying to be anonymous. But I’m not actively advertising either.

I found the second article (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/19/online-identity-authenticity-anonymity) debating anonymity and authenticity both off-base six years after it was written and eerily prescient in some of the quotes about the tension between those who want to stamp out anonymity to kill the trolls vs those who deny authenticity is even possible (i.e., that FB and Instagram feeds are NOT real life but rather a cross between a censored version that is usually more positive than reality or a wishful thinking world of what you want your life to be like now).

The third article from 2013 (https://gizmodo.com/how-to-erase-yourself-from-the-internet-1456270634) talks about killing your Google+, FB, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts to get rid of a large part of your online presence, but as I said, I have three of those, and my search didn’t even turn those ones up, other than Twitter. And the site that knows the most about me right now? Amazon, hands down.

The second half of the week is focused more on privacy and protecting one’s data, and the readings aren’t bad (a bit paranoid in some places, but not bad). https://www.privacyrights.org/consumer-guides/online-privacy-using-internet-safely has some online guides written for newbies.

For the assignment / discussion for the week, the focus was on:

Overall, not a bad week. But I don’t know that I feel any more “empowered” in my metaliteracy for considering whether your online persona is really, well, you?


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Metaliteracy – Week 1 – Introduction to the course

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

I finished taking my first MOOC on Understanding Video Games (#50by50 #32 – Complete a MOOC – Understanding Video Games) and next on my list was one related to Metaliteracy – Empowering Yourself in a Connected World. The description was pretty good, talking about being a bit more reflective about our online work, and it was offered through Coursera. The downside to that is that I’m really only interested in “passive learning”, watching the videos, etc., not actively engaging online with fellow students. That might seem like a cop-out of sorts, but I like the idea of a curated course that pulls together interesting material in a professional manner. It would be nice to be able to afford all The Great Courses library and work my way through those, and I have managed to snag a photography course through them (still in progress) plus two new astronomy titles (they were having a sale!).

But, as I said, the Metaliteracy course looked interesting as a stepping stone, just as the video game was…I used the video game MOOC to get my feet wet in the world of gamification, and despite the fact that I timeshifted it over the course of a couple of years, I got a lot out of it and gained a foundation to understand gamification in a very different way than if I’d just started with gamification. For online engagement, I wanted to step back a bit and look at the online world through a more objective lens. The Metaliteracy course might do that, although I hate the term literacy being used that way. The course is offered as a collaboration between SUNY Empire State College and the SUNY University of Albany.

The Introduction for Week 1 started off bad for me…the hosts/leaders are a librarian and a vice-provost for academic programs. My fear is that often these types of approaches are about trying to do something “different” i.e. “we want to do a MOOC, what should it be about” as opposed to having a vision for a course and delivering it as a MOOC. Time will tell, right? And my initial reaction is part of the course itself — how I am evaluating the info without full context.

The course will involve this week’s intro, plus three sessions on digital citizenry (identity, IP, ethics), modes and formats of info sharing, creating info, participation in global community, curating and metacognitive awareness. And the end will focus on how students move on to being teachers. Okay, it’s got a decent structure.

One thing I liked in the intro was the idea of a metaliterate learner (meh) having different roles all woven together…communicator, translator, author, teacher, collaborator, producer, publisher, researcher, participant, etc. I would probably add curator in there too as a separate heading, but this week probably isn’t the week to quibble too much. As an active blogger, I experience all of those roles, so I’m curious to see where the course goes from here.

EDIT: Originally, I thought I was going to hold myself to just the videos, having downloaded them so I could timeshift more easily when I didn’t have a live internet connection. Instead, I realized that the readings are still available to me as I did “enrol” in the course, and thus still “live”. I went in to check something, saw the readings, and have now gone through the readings for the first week. The excellent chart mentioned above was included (i.e., not just in the video), and more importantly, they have a great article about what metaliteracy is compared to digital literacy, etc. Here is an excerpt from their paper:

Several competing concepts of literacy have emerged including digital literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, and information technology fluency, but there is a need for a comprehensive framework based on essential information proficiencies and knowledge. New media literacy and transliteracy have also responded to the rapid and ongoing changes in technology. As part of a metaliteracy reframing, we argue that producing and sharing information are critical activities in participatory Web 2.0 environments. Information literacy is central to this redefinition because information takes many forms online and is produced and communicated through multiple modalities. Information literacy is more significant now than it ever was, but it must be connected to related literacy types that address ongoing shifts in technology.

(Source: Mackey, T.P. & Jacobson, T.E. (2011). Reframing information literacy as a metaliteracy. College and Research Libraries, 72 (1), 62-78. doi: 10.5860/crl-76r1))

Over the course of the article, they compare it to information literacy (too research-y), media literacy (too narrowly focused on media writ large, not the digital and technological world), digital literacy (a little bit too narrowly within digital environments), visual literacy (heavy focus on visual design), cyberliteracy (participatory aspects only), and information fluency (like info literacy, but with extra techno bent). Metaliteracy, the topic of the course, tries to bring the best of all the perspectives together…participatory, collaborative, critical, more than info as a commodity, beyond skills-based definitions, engagement with the technology, transliterate (“the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media”, Thomas et al cited in the paper), blurring of information / entertainment / economics, and incorporating IP and privacy issues. A rather daunting list.

And yet, having read it, I’m left with two large questions. First, while they talk about the practical issues around doing research in a webbed-world, and how to deal with defining your search environment — are Amazon reviews in-scope? Youtube videos? music lyrics? — I don’t see anything about the time factor inherent in all of it. The more you engage with an everchanging “techno” world as your environment, the more your research is defined by a smaller and smaller snapshot in time. The minute you blink and take your “readings” for your research, not only does that act influence the subject but also the next minute it is gone, changed again by the new info available on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. Second, while they talk about the “framework” as being less about “skills” and more about cognitive frameworks, as soon as they apply it to the practical worlds, it quickly becomes very skills-focused, as all applications do. If so, is a “skills-reduced” framework the way to go?

I don’t know the answers, but I like the questions. Let’s call it a promising intro.


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So you want your own website…

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by 2

Since a lot of friends know I have my own website, it isn’t uncommon to get questions about how they get their own website, dipping their toe in the vast sea of having their own presence online. Usually I frame the discussion around three questions.

A. Do you want your own domain?

This is almost always a no-brainer for people as they often think in very specific terms and have some domain names in mind. My domain, polywogg.ca, is registered to me and only me. It is the same for every company on the planet that has a site, usually. They all register a domain name that is unique to them.

It isn’t the only way to go. Lots of people use free sites at various hosters and end up with sites like “http://AndreasWorld.wordpress.com” or “LoveOfBooks.blogger.com”. Their “unique” presence is still there but the hoster’s name shows up too. For some, they don’t care about that; for most, they do.

If you care about having a site that only has your name in it, you need to register a domain. If you don’t, you can go with lots of hosters that will give you an address like above. Or even trick out a bunch of social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Now, the REAL question is more difficult, and for me it’s not a question. I do not and will not register a domain with the same company I choose for my hosting of the site. Let me explain.

When I put my website online, I need two things:

a. A registrar who tells the internet that polywogg.ca is registered to me and also tells all its internet friends where to find my website (the technical numerical address of my site); AND

b. A server of some sort that hosts the files and content for my actual website.

A registrar and a hoster. I need both. And lots of people who are hosters will also offer registrar services. And some registrars have also gotten into hosting. A fully-integrated service, as they pitch it.

Yet there is an inherent conflict of interest for them. Sure, they have to do it all properly and everything, but when you register your domain, it actually records four pieces of information — a registrant ID, a tech ID, an admin ID, and the DOMAIN NAME SERVICE (DNS) address where your website can be founded (like your REAL IP web address that the internet servers use, not the word form users see).

For most people registering a personal site, the DNS will be given to you by your hoster; the admin ID is likely you; and the tech ID may be whoever is helping you set up the website or just you. Regardless of who is doing the registry, these three things are pretty much the same across the board. The problem comes with the REGISTRANT ID.

This basically says who owns that domain. When you do the registry yourself, it should always say you. However, here’s the kicker…sometimes companies that offer cheap registries and hosting packages actually find it easier to just register themselves in that field. They may also register themselves as the tech or admin ID, which is not ideal, but not too problematic, they’re easily changed. But the owner / registrant ID requires the registered ID holder to agree to any changes.

Most people don’t think anything about this. And if you ask the hoster, they’ll tell you there’s no issue. You just move the registry to somewhere else. But unless you have that in writing, why would you simply trust them?

There are countless stories on the web of BADHOSTER X registering a domain “on behalf of” customer Y. Fast forward five years, the person’s needs have changed in what they’re looking for in a website, and they see lovely HOSTER Z sitting over there with exactly what they’re looking for at the right price. No problem, Y will just move from X to Z. And then X says, “Whoa, wait a minute. We want your business. Let us do blah blah blah.” And so they delay and cajole the person into staying. And eventually it turns acrimonious as the person just wants to leave, and BADHOSTER X won’t relinquish their ownership of the domain. They’ll let the DNS address point to another service, but they won’t do it quickly (they serve their own customers first), and what a surprise, they’ll only do it after paying an admin fee. If you’re Mr. or Ms. Big and Popular site, sometimes they’ll say, “Oh, look at our sliding scale…we’ve been discounting, so now you have to pay our full admin fee based on usage, and oh look, they want $1000 to transfer your domain.” It’s extortion, pure and simple, and yes, it is indeed illegal.

Is this a frequent problem? No. Is it a possible problem? Absolutely. They also might just jack the rates after year 1 for your renewals (you have to pay a yearly fee to keep the domain registered to you).

When I went to register my domain, all the experts said “do it separately”, it’s just less risk of future hassle, and while a bit more manual, not egregiously so. And I did. I found Canadian Domain Name Services in Canada, registered all three of my domain names with them over time, and that’s the only service I do with them. They now offer hosting too, but I don’t need that. I just need the basic service I signed up with them for, and it works perfectly. No muss, no fuss, no extortionary practices if I decide to move my website hosting. Which, by the way, I have done four times in my website’s life. Just deciding that the previous hosting wasn’t what I wanted. Three clicks later (almost), and I was with someone else’s hosting package, so I just closed the previous one. And if any of the hosters gave me a hard time, I didn’t care — I just went to the registrar and pointed away from that hoster to my new hoster, leaving me with an up and running site. By contrast, if I was in dispute with my old hoster, they could literally hold me and my website hostage if they were also my registrar.

And yes, ALL the current hosters will offer you deals on your initial registry to get you to join, and almost ALL of them will register themselves as the owner of the domain. You decide if you want to trust them with that part of your site.

In the end, the question is easily answered by a simple metaphor…if you paid a lawyer to register your business, would you let them register themselves as the owner?

B. Do you want a dynamic site or a static site?

If you read any web design advice on the web, they’ll tell you that static sites are the worst possible thing to do. But they mean something different than what this question means.

What they mean is that sites need updates and new content in order to generate buzz and traffic. New things to encourage people to visit your site regularly. What they mean is “dynamic content”.

In my case though, I mean two things — is there going to be dynamic content (as per above) and are you going to want to change the look and feel, menus, etc. on the site over time?

If all you want is a relatively static site — both for content and design — then there are lots of simple hosters out there that offer HTML-based websites (simple web pages) with slick looking templates. You go to their site, sign up for a hosting package, choose a template, and voila, your site is designed. You add your info, some pics and graphics, and you’re done. Easy, peasy, lemon squeezy.

GoDaddy used to be the biggest player on the block for this. Then companies like WIX came along. They’re cheap, they’re slick, it all works pretty well. The only thing you’ll have to do is provide your credit card, click some buttons, and then go tell your registry whatever info the hoster tells you to enter (it’ll basically be something like “Your DNS entry is AndreasWorld.wix1.com” and you’ll go enter that in the registrar site — it’s basically like telling the post office where you live).

There are GREAT sites and templates available. Prices can be as low as $5/month or even lower if you pay by the year. So why wouldn’t everyone use it? Because it isn’t easy to modify the template. If you decide you don’t like the colour of the lines on a table? Well, good luck changing it. Maybe it’s easy, likely it’s not. Some features aren’t even available to be edited, regardless of your technical ability, unless you’re a pro.

Cheap, easy, fast, and relatively professional looking. But it’s not easy to update regularly (nor change the design).

Others, by contrast, want to basically add new content every day. A story. A photo. A post. A new page. Random thoughts. If this is what you are after OR you will be mostly static but with lots of sub-pages, then another solution is better. Officially it’s called a CMS — content management system.

The most common CMS available are blogging platforms aka blogs or gallery platforms aka photo galleries. If you’ll be mostly posting text, you want a blogger; if you are mostly posting photos, you might want a gallery. And of course, just to be confusing, most galleries allow you to have blog-like posts and most blogs also offer galleries. But if you’re mostly text, go with the blog.

There are two main blogging platforms that are like Wix or GoDaddy — already available blogging setups ready to go. One is called blogger.com, and the other is WordPress. Blogger is entirely a self-contained site, you can host your site with them (with your own domain, just like Wiz) and have a bunch of templates to choose from. Click, click, click, you’re good to go. A little basic in their offerings, but you can be blogging in minutes. Literally.

WordPress took a different approach. Yes, they offer both free and paid online accounts (as does Blogger), and the more you pay, the more power you have. Even the most basic site though is more powerful than the free site (and you can have your own domain as opposed to polywogg.wordpress.com). Like Blogger, you can be up and running in minutes, but there is more power under the hood, so it can be a bit more daunting.

The alternative approach they took though is that they ALSO offer their software as a full download and you can run it on other hosting platforms i.e. I am registered with a company called Web Hosting Canada, and can install WordPress to run on it. There are competitors out there too — Moodle, Joomla, Drupal, etc. Actually dozens, if not hundreds. But WordPress is the biggest player.

Running your own “install” of WordPress might sound daunting, and it is at first. But there aren’t that many menus under the hood, and they are relatively intuitive after you finish with setup. Plus there are thousands of templates available to tweak to your heart’s content.

Definitely more work, but the payoff is that a blog is inherently dynamic. Write a new article, post it, and BAM, instant dynamic content. If you don’t plan to do that, then stick with a static site.

C. What else do you want on the site?

After you get through the basics of a static or dynamic page above, you should be leaning one way or the other. Now I need to make your life more complicated. What else do you want on the site?

Do you want a guestbook? If you do, it is easier to do and control with a dynamic site (after all, static sites don’t inherently let you make simple updates like adding your name to the page).

Do you want a catalog of products that might change? If it’s a few services or products and they are relatively the same all the time, maybe just price changes, you can go with a static site. If you want a lot of products listed (almost like a gallery), you need a dynamic site.

Do you want sidebars, banners, advertising, changing menus, galleries, calendars? All argue for a dynamic site. The more “custom” you need it, the less the basic static sites are going to meet your needs.

What am I not telling you?

If you are going to hire someone to do the design for you, none of the above may matter. If they are good, they’ll set you up with a solution that meets your needs today and tomorrow. Of course, there may be a small conflict of interest in their advice in that they may get more money out of you if you redesign later.

So, in short:

  • Simple site, not much change in content, few pages, basic web presence — go with static site;
  • Changing content, multiple pages, regular updates, evergreen web presence — go with dynamic site like WordPress.

At least those are the basics.


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#50by50ish #38a – Share my music on mobile and home devices

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

I’ve blogged before about a desire I have to be able to listen to any of my music anywhere in the house. My network-attached-storage (NAS) options didn’t really work out (The joys of network attached storage or not) and although my needs aren’t that complicated (Articles I Like: Top 10 Pervasive Tech Myths That Are Only Wasting Your Time), they have shifted a bit. As have the options available to me.

Here is what I want:

  • All of our (Andrea and I, and eventually Jacob) music available to all of us all the time;
  • Available in our bedroom (i.e. the nightstand);
  • Available in J’s room (likely the nightstand or at least near his desk);
  • Available in the office on our computers (likely a desktop app of some sort);
  • Available in our playroom/kitchen area (likely through the stereo system, or not, as the case may be);
  • Available on any of our mobile devices (A’s iPhone, my Android phone, my Android tablet with LTE, J’s iPad on wifi, possibly an old iTouch, iPhone, Android tablet, and a Sony MP3 player); and,
  • Ability to stream new songs and old songs, and even store them offline.

If possible, I’d like to have podcasts, audio books, and DJ-based radio.

Yeah, I know, it’s a big wish list.

A. Eliminating home solutions

So I thought I had a plausible working solution. I was going to buy Amazon Kindle tablets, 7 or 8″, and put them in the various locations around the house. Then I would upload all my music to the Amazon servers to be able to stream, while also copying the various music files over to a series of SD cards that I could plug in to the Kindle tablets, and every location in the house would have its own little media centre to kick music out to external speakers or as LINE-INs on existing devices. I would plug them in permanently (rather than charge them occasionally), and I would be good to go.

Except I would want to be able to occasionally use the Kindle tablets for other things. Like maybe playing a networked version of Ticket to Ride. However, I found out that the Kindle tablets are NOT running stock Android and thus the Google Play Store is not available, just Amazon Apps. Most of the time that wouldn’t be a problem, I’ve used both in the past, but here’s the kicker. The games I wanted to play? They’re not available on Amazon Apps. So if I go this way, I’m limited to mostly just the music functionality I was looking for. Okay, no problem, just music. Except the sound from a tablet isn’t awesome, particularly those ones. Oh, and none of the stock Google apps are available, including Google Play Music. Okay, I’ll just use Amazon Music.

Except it won’t let me upload all my music to the cloud anymore (it used to do so). Okayyyy…so maybe I’ll go with just existing devices, some MP3 players, I’ll manually load them. Except that doesn’t help Andrea at all since her phone is already maxed out on her storage and iPhones don’t take external SD cards. For the love of…

Okay, that’s out. What’s next?

Plan B. Focusing on streaming

So back in March of last year, I narrowly averted disaster using iTunes (Averting disaster with my music files). Which means it wouldn’t normally be at the top of my list. Except I need a solution that works well for Andrea and Jacob (both of whom are iFans) and nothing integrates better with iPhones than iTunes. Nothing.

Now, I know it will create a lot of extra work for me if I go that route, and not only because I’ll need to create a super secure backup of all my existing music that iTunes WILL NEVER BE ALLOWED TO MANAGE, and then a second copy that iTunes can do what it wants with. Yep, I’ll have two complete sets of my music. Good thing storage is relatively cheap in the abstract. I haven’t worked out yet how much space there is in the iCloud setup, but it will let you upload your music, more or less. I suspect it copies over the version from the iTunes library still, but that’s good enough for now.

Apple Music is known for having a fairly large library with some brand name gaps who hate Apple, limited discoverability for algorithm suggestions, decent curated playlists to try, and Apple Music Canada has a Canadian artists section. It has a radio section, but I haven’t tried it yet. The only real CON is that it is Apple and therefore like Ford making an Edsel…you can have it in any colour you want, as long as it’s black. You don’t get to tweak the setup for Apple or storage or app interfaces. You get what you get and you don’t get upset. Or you find another system. And while LOTS of devices out there work with Apple, not all of them do. Apparently it is hard to integrate Apple Music with certain streaming devices like XBox or Google Home. However, it apparently has released a new version of the Android App that makes it viable to use now. Pricing seems the same for most of the major offerings, $10 for an individual account per month, $15 for a family account.

As I mentioned above, Amazon was out because of their limited options, and that is a big surprise to me since I’m already an Amazon Prime member, which would suggest AM would be a no brainer to try. Particularly if I could get it all to work seamlessly with an Amazon device like Alexa or the Echo.

Instead, my likely preferred second choice is Google Play Music. It’s the same price as Apple Music, so no issue there, and it allows me to upload 50K songs to the cloud for free. The library isn’t as extensive as Apple Music though and the app is almost too simplistic. Nevertheless, I want to give it a try, and the first month is free for the family plan, so I’ll give it a go.

Those are the major two contenders partly as they are so popular with device manufacturers. Either one will have at least one viable streaming device that I can use it with, no problem. It may narrow the choices, but that’s okay. Both are also default options for future car systems too (with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto).

Beyond those, I start to get less comfortable with some of the other choices. I wasn’t a big fan of Spotify, wasn’t really using it enough, but Andrea liked it apparently. The discoverability algorithms are apparently first rate, but I’m a creature of habit, so not really an issue for me. It does have a free tier though, so I should make sure I reinstall the desktop version at least.

The other one I want to try is Tidal. It is hugely popular online, but it doesn’t appear to have options to upload your own songs. On the other hand, if you create a playlist of your own songs anyway, does it really matter? Tidal’s big claim to fame is that they have lossless audio quality, but that is just going to suck bandwidth for the month. Deezer is another one in the same realm, and it has a free option to try. And the iHeartRadio app has a free option to see if it adds anything re: radio stations to try. Oh, and Slacker Radio looks interesting. Maybe I’ll try a bunch again. Just for fun. I need a rabbit hole to distract me from some other stuff going on. 🙂

Regardless, I’ll be copying music over to my MP3 manually, so I’ll be keeping my Media Monkey app too. And with that, I can do whatever the apps don’t let me do directly.

I’ve signed up for a month of Google Play Music, let’s see how it goes. But I confess. I’m not totally convinced I shouldn’t just run a home server app (like Subsonic, Plex), and avoid any subscription fees.


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#50by50ish #36 – A stress test with a side of manscaping

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

My 50th birthday was back in June, and I didn’t complete my 50by50 list, although there are a bunch more subitems that are done that I just haven’t blogged about yet. I’m counting this one though as 50ish.

What this post is not about

So let’s cut to the chase. I’m fat. Yes, there I’ve said it so others don’t have to. That’s not an invite to telling me your latest advice or what your Aunt Martha did to lose weight or any number of other things people like to say when people talk or don’t talk about their weight. I’ll be frank, this post isn’t about my weight as I never talk about it. And I do mean never.

For example: in the entire history of my relationship with Andrea, 16.5 years and counting, we have only talked about my weight in relation to some specific health-related issue (like my knees were sore, or a back adjustment), perhaps a dozen times in total. While I am generally open to talking about anything from gross events or experiences all the way up to extreme emotional intimacy, I generally do not discuss two topics with anyone other than my wife — sex life and weight — and both for the same reason. It seems to me to be the most intimate parts of life for anyone to discuss. That is not a normative statement. I don’t care if others talk about their weight, although I think discussing your sex life in front of anyone other than partners or potential partners is in bad taste.

If you lose 10 pounds, I will not compliment you. Not spontaneously. If you raise it as a goal you were trying to accomplish and you succeeded, I will congratulate you. But I feel uncomfortable doing so in any sense beyond the generic of accomplishing a goal. Why not? Because I would not chastise you if the reverse were true i.e. for gaining 10 pounds. I would not say you look terrible, I would not say you must feel a lot less healthy. Yet if you lose it, people feel comfortable saying the inverse. Going back to my previous paragraph, it would be like complimenting someone on which position they say they enjoy during sex — it’s too intimate, and really it’s nobody’s business, in my view.

I know a few people right now who are reading this and thinking, “Oh, you don’t mean me, I only say it because I’m worried about your health.” No, I do mean you. All of you. It is not your business, so why would you think, spontaneously, that it was okay to comment on it? Does that mean I get to comment on things about you that I think are bad? Like how much wine you drink or how snobby you can be or your romantic choices? No? Then, pardon my french, you should probably shut the fuck up unless invited to comment on something like that. And know that I will likely never invite you to advise me on that topic. (* That’s not entirely accurate. I asked my wife about an Epicure plan she did that she was happy with, and a friend at work recently accomplished a big goal so I was asking him how he did it. Somewhere around twice in about 50 years of life. Just saying.) For me, it is a lot like commenting on a woman being pregnant if you don’t know she is.

And, as an aside, or maybe not, just because I’m male doesn’t make me immune to body shaming concerns, and thanks, I can see my weight and how I look any day of the week. I don’t need to be reminded when I’m spending time with friends. I’m extremely body conscious in certain situations. Like swimming. I rarely have enough internal “don’t give a shit” energy to force myself to swim when other people are around that I know. At a beach in the middle of nowhere, I don’t care; although I might be self-conscious still, it won’t stop me from going swimming. However, at the cottage with family, I’ll likely swim only when not many other people are around, and if I do, even then I’ll wear my rash guard in to hide my whale carcass a little bit. A mental shield. So, to be clear, that’s NOT what this post is about. But I promised myself that I will be brutally honest when talking about myself on this blog, or there’s no point in writing it, and I want to flag this upfront so people don’t get confused about what the post is actually about.

A stress test

Because of my weight, or more pointedly, a recent increase due to my using my BiPap machine (lucky me, I’m part of the small percentage that gains weight instead of losing it with the use of a PAP machine), it was a good time to schedule a stress test and just see if there is anything going on, partly related to family history and partly my own history. I would also say though that part of my desire to check in, do health checkups, etc. is related to turning 50, and part of it is looking ahead to retirement — what health investments do I need to be making now to ensure I have the health I need in my retirement to support the lifestyle I want?

We scheduled the stress test for the Riverside Hospital, and everything was a go. At least, it was a go logistically. Mentally, not so much. Sure, I’m committed to doing the tests, but truthfully I hate hospitals. I know, hospitals are generally never popular with anyone outside of the medical profession anyway, but my experience with hospitals is mostly negative — my dad (from seeing him in bed with tubes and stuff when he was about my age and various hospitalizations up to the end, where he was silent, sleeping, unconscious); my mom (a year of uncertainty leading to palliative care); and the first two traumatic years with Jacob and our constant visits to the Ottawa General and CHEO before things evened out for him.

It’s not really a fear, just a hatred, and I coupled this with not being sure what to expect for the actual stress test experience. I’m winded more easily than I used to be (still not asking for comments), and my cardio capacity has been reduced of late. Plus I wasn’t sure if I would have to run or just on the treadmill, or use the breathing tube to measure oxygen use (often seen for athletes). Neither would be good experiences for me, with my bad knees and claustrophobic feelings of tubes, combined with a huge gag reflex. At least I didn’t have to drink chalk dust. But I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. Not to mention I’ve heard stories of people having heart attacks during the test, which to my mind, is the definition of stress.

On the comedic side, if you want to know if I’m stressed, just ask! Check! Having a stress test is stressing me out! Check! Oh, you mean physical heart stress. Well, pooh.

A couple of days before, I get the confirmation from the hospital, with an added note — stop taking any blood pressure medicines that are beta blockers. I don’t know a beta blocker from a football blocker, so I trundled off to the pharmacist to be sure. Yeah, I could have googled, but if I missed something, I would feel stupid. So the pharmacist confirmed neither of my blood pressure meds — amlodipine and hydrochlorothorazide — are beta blockers . Nor my reflux med. Great, good to go. Nothing to stop taking. Dun, dun, dun.

I get there, figure out (wrongly) where to park, find out as I get close to the main building I picked practically the farthest lot from the door, but that is good for my health, right? Meh. We do the check-in, finish my blood pressure pre-tests, and my numbers show I am jacked with nervousness. It drops to regular after a bit, but that’s normal for me, and not unexpected when you put me in a hospital. I make a short preventative trip to the washroom, head back to the waiting room, and the it is on to the test.

First question — did I stop my BP meds? Yes, ma’am. No beta blockers for me. What about calcium-based pills? Wait, what?

Oh, yeah, apparently I was not supposed to take beta blockers OR calcium-based pills i.e. the amlodipine. It basically lowers my BP which makes it easier for the heart to work or something, which means during the stress test, it’s going to be harder to raise it up to my target of 144 bpm, the magical rate of 80% of max.

Umm, someone should have told me that info when they told me about the beta blockers, but okay, now what? Well, we can do the test anyway, it will just be a bit harder. Riiiiiight, because I was looking forward to it being harder.

I get free manscaping of my chest as she promises me I’ll thank her when they remove the sensor pads later. As an aside, I do thank her. And it itches as it grows back in and feels weird, I must say. Those who do it willingly elsewhere? Add that as a third topic not to be discussed with non-partners.

On to the treadmill I go, the doctor okays me to start and disappears, and the tech starts me up. I can stabilize myself lightly on the hand rails, which is good, as my balance isn’t great, as long as I don’t “grab” which will reduce the stress and lower my heart rate. Keep all the weight on my legs. No problem. A simple walk up a hill.

We increase the rate, and then again. My heart rate is NOT going where it needs to go. And I’m starting to puff. We’re only 3-4 minutes in, but my heart rate is stuck at 75% and not very active beyond that, but meanwhile I feel like my breathing is going to cause me to black out. And she wants me to not only hit 80% but to sustain it for another 5-6 minutes after that? No way can I do that. I’m dying and feeling like I’m going to lose balance and fall. And they want me to run? Nope.

I have to stop. I’m embarrassed, but too focused on breathing to care. My vitals are fine, no panic indicators, but my head is pounding and I know my BP is jacked again. I sit down, relax, calm myself, and it goes back to normal.

I can come back again with no amlodipine, or we can do a medication-based test over at Ottawa General (not sure the particulars, but seems kind of like jacking my heart rate with adrenaline for a sustained period). There are apparently a couple of different ways to do it, I’ll have to talk to my regular doctor, but that’s it. I’m done for that part of the day.

But I’m not really done

Sure, I had an #EpicFail on the stress test, partly just me (probably 90%) and partly the meds (10%) that threw it off a bit, but I’ll deal. I really just wanted the all-clear to start a more aggressive exercise routine but I’ll have to start slower while we wait to test the higher range later.

As I’m driving home, I confess I’m not feeling great. My whole body feels “off”. Like I have some sort of low-grade infection everywhere. As I hit Baseline Road, I get a series of little twinges in my chest. Not for long, just short little pinches. On both sides of my chest, underneath my sternum. I reposition, it goes away. I’ve had positional stuff before, but never on both sides. I get home and do a bit of yoga and my back cracks in three places. Oh, that explains the discomfort. Everything goes back into place, and I feel fine. Hmmm. Nothing like being hyper aware to make you hyper paranoid.

Anyway, in the meantime, I also did some bloodwork on the way home that was pending for a month or so. Three days later, I get a call from the doctor on my voicemail saying my bloodwork has anomalies in it and I should come see her. It sounds like “come soon”, but the next available appointment isn’t until October 18th by which time I figure they should have the test results and advice re: the stress test too. Oh boy, oh bliss, oh joyful bliss.

I take the appointment but advise them to check with the doctor if the 18th is too far away. Apparently it is, and they want me sooner. Thursday is apparently soon enough, so I go tomorrow. I’ve narrowed the likelihood down to one of four likely issues based on what they wanted to test for and what I asked them to add. We’ll see if any of the four are right and how serious the “anomalies” are. My rough guesses in order of severity:

  • There might be signs of an infection…I feel like my two other wisdom teeth are trying very hard to grow in, and my ears and throat have been messed up the last few weeks, including the day of the blood test (it feels like I’m swallowing glass), but I don’t feel it is particularly “urgent” with everything else going on right now;
  • My body might be showing signs of inching closer to diabetes thresholds, which they always test me for given my family history and my weight, but the test comes back negative generally except for occasional anomalies in the bloodwork — but when they poke further, it comes back clean;
  • My cholesterol levels, or thyroid, or something similar have spiked, but I suspect if so, it is again temporary; and,
  • The big potential scary one is last on my list, as I asked them to check some of my protein levels. A couple of my lymph nodes around my neck have seemed more swollen of late; if my wisdom teeth aren’t active, then my tonsils are going wonky; my cluster headaches have increased (maybe just due to my increased weight); I’ve had a bit more cramping, gas and bloating of late; and as I noted, I’m having a bit more breathlessness / winded than normal (also likely weight-related). Almost all of those symptoms point to other things as more likely causes, but what the heck, I had them check my protein levels since we were doing the blood work anyway.

And while the appointment tomorrow is nice to have scheduled, I fully expect that any anomalies they found in the bloodwork will just result in more tests, so I won’t necessarily get answers tomorrow. Just another step in the process.

That’s it. It’s not a pretty story, and I don’t have an ending yet. But I like to be honest about my sharing my experiences, where I can. Basically, in the end, I don’t have the body I need to do some of the things in retirement that I want to do, so I’m upping my maintenance regime. I just wished it didn’t stress me out so much, only intending the pun slightly. But I did get to try free manscaping, so there’s that.


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#50by50 #35 – Build my blog – 1000 posts, 1M words

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

Back in April 2016, I reached a milestone for my blog — 500,000 words. I was pretty happy with that although, to be completely candid, it’s not that impressive considering I’ve had some form of a website since the early 2000s, and some email-like blogs before that too. But I reached my 500K goal just over two years ago.

This past week? I hit 1 million words and 1000 posts or pages (with this post).

Over the last two years, I’ve expanded my efforts, blogging a lot more regularly and on different topics, building various pieces as I went. My HR guide isn’t done, I keep getting distracted by some other issues, but it is the most active area visited by people. Second to that, of late, are the astronomy posts, particularly for alignment of the Celestron NexStar 8SE which is a bit finicky. I also get an inordinate number of people visiting one of my book reviews — a Jeffrey Archer short story collection — and if I am interpreting the hits correctly, most of them are doing so because it is on some sort of ESL curriculum somewhere that is used by a LOT of students, hence search engines lead them to me.

But I’ve also expanded into other categories…I stopped being quite so pure in my categories (I used to force-fit my posts into single categories, now I allow them to tag multiple categories), and I have 23 broad topics:

  1. Astronomy (36 posts)
  2. Book Reviews (145)
  3. Civil Service (22)
  4. Computers (80)
  5. Development (27)
  6. Experiences (119)
  7. Family (94)
  8. Goals (168)
  9. Governance (23)
  10. HR Guide (69)
  11. Humour (67)
  12. Ideas  (39)
  13. Learning (77)
  14. Libraries (5)
  15. Music Review (9)
  16. Photography (27)
  17. PS Transitions FP (13)
  18. Publishing (28)
  19. Quotes (82)
  20. Recipes (18)
  21. Spiritualism (17)
  22. Television (149)
  23. Writing (21)

That adds up to 1335 posts, but in reality, this post is only # 963. I have another 37 pages on the site such as indices for Book Reviews, TV Reviews, contact stuff, PS Transitions, etc. and of course, the index for my HR Guide.

I have somewhere around 90 posts planned already, and some basic research done for another 200 probably. And that’s just maintenance. I want to start blogging about retirement planning, stress management, and libraries (and no, they don’t have much to do with each other).

But for now, I’ll take my 1000 posts and pages and 1M words and pat myself on my head. I had wanted to blog more often than I was, added it to my 50by50 goals, and the extra 500K words in about 2.25 years seems pretty good to me. Around 200K per year. And that’s not me trying to get individual totals up, i.e. I’m not padding my posts, that’s just being more prolific on more topics, and where I’m interested, not trying to limit myself to 500 words (I thought about doing that, but not really my style…could I get more readers with shorter punchier posts? Sure, but I wouldn’t like the resulting copy.)

Is anyone reading? The short answer is yes. I used to average single digits to my blog per day; since I started blogging more prolifically on topics like Phoenix and telescopes, my hit rate is north of 50 per day (my new normal) and the site regularly pushes the 150 to 200 mark. Not bad for a personal site with no click bait or ads.


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Understanding Video Games – Week 11 – Serious Games

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

For the last week, they note that there are lots of types of games that are supposedly “serious” i.e. aimed at serious purposes. In the history, the longest running example are wargames, but there are also “tycoon” games that are about business simulations. However, the largest sub-genre are education games, such as the Oregon Trail or Carmen Sandiego. Over time, the educational starter series have moved into mobile apps, virtual environment, and training simulations.

Stepping back from the genre, I can see how they are dividing things. For example, there are:

– games used in instruction, where the game is an added medium (for processes or procedures); or,

– other games are used as a construction tool, and thus the game empowers the learning style of the individual student (explore and discover).

Games often have to walk a fine line between learning and fun/engagement, but while constructionist tools are often more “fun”, they are also ripe to be subverted by emergent play.

In order to keep players playing, games frequently use:

  • Decay (daily obligations and no way to pause);
  • Sweetening/achievements (the achievements are shared publicly to encourage competition);
  • Object rarity (often with luck and play time); and,
  • Social obligation/activation (gift-giving and reciprocity).

The last video is probably the launching point for future learning that interested me the most from the start — gamification. Namely, the idea of using ideas such as game mechanics in non-game situations. The course concludes with Qs about how to gamify the course — such as course badges, increase use of avatar creator, etc. but I had hoped for a bit more.

And with that, the MOOC finished.


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Understanding Video Games – Week 10 – Race

The Writing Life of a Tadpole Posted on by  

The first video for the week notes that “colour” is frequently used as a way of showing race, even when it is two armies — one red, one blue. As you go through the next four videos, it is expanded to show how race is used to indicate “the other” — an opponent, for example. Some examples for the week include:

  • Choices may often reflect external racism i.e. “black dwarves” are more evil than light dwarves, often as proxies for more complex situations;
  • Race serves as the basis for conflict, and conflict can serve as the basis for a narrative arc;
  • What is present is as important as what is absent;
  • Default characteristics can serve as “indicator” of what a “normal” character should be;
  • Character race representations look at cultures and roles within games, including options around protagonist or antagonist roles;
  • Fighting games often include game mechanics framed through a racial lens to control player attributes (strength, intelligence, etc.);

It was an interesting summary, and I can see in many cases the detailed internal mechanics and choices that are presented as a basis for racial conversation. However, the initial premise — red vs. blue, or even white vs. black in chess — is a bit too stretched.


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