Monthly Archives: April 2010

399,999,999.

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Did You Not See This Coming?

I don’t really want to explain why (at least, not right now), but here’s how.

Go here. Then click submit after typing in your password and filling out the CAPTCHA.

Try logging in later (in 14 days) to make sure. If it asks if you want to reactivate, it didn’t take.

Via Wikihow.

Here Comes The Confirmation Email

Hi Josh,

We have received a request to permanently delete your account. Your account has been deactivated from the site and will be permanently deleted within 14 days.

If you did not request to permanently delete your account, follow this link to cancel this request:

http://www.facebook.com/account_delete.php

Thanks, The Facebook Team

Thank you. 14 days, though? This better mean you blasted through previous backups, too. (Probably not… but I guess that’s better than nothing.)

Haven’t You Done This Before?

Yes. To my memory, I’ve done it twice before. I came back the first time to see what the big deal was about the design changes, which turns out weren’t really that big of a deal. I think the second time had something to do with the username land grab, and I’ve been sitting on “joshkim” for a while.

Actually, it was the username bit that kind of made me hesitant, until I realized that I won’t actually be using that user account for anything anyway. Actually, now my /joshkim page is going nowhere. Interesting.

I’m not completely ignoring Facebook, though. It’s definitely trying something new in the world of the Semantic Web, and while I support that cause, I will not support any one single authority on this front.

It’s not like you people are going to miss me on Facebook anyway… did you even know I was friendless for a couple weeks now? :-)

Next post will be on how to reach me as I continue to simplify my life, in the real world as well as the digital one.

Context Switching

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It’s costly. And it’s happening all too often.

Just this morning, I’ve been wading through content and commentary, and finally, after about two hours of wandering, I’m back to this fresh new white piece of real-estate on my LCD.

Maybe it’s the pain I’m feeling in my eyes and wrists/forearms, but reality is really hitting hard: that I’m not an infinite resource. Time is also another one of things.

// Yet another context switch into emails, tumblogs, tweets…

I’m back. For real this time.

Not only is multitasking detrimental to getting any real work done, I keep thinking of new projects I can try out with every single context switch. Just now, I realized how much control I’ve given up by using Tumblr as my hosted blog provider, and am wanting to return to rolling my own or using WordPress. Earlier today, an awesome HTML5 game site, Akihabara, has been brought to my attention. That at least needs a blog post or a look-through. This then made me think about how I want to keep progressing with IndieGamer.org, and…

All the while, I’m supposed to be working on TWNBT. Such stress cannot be good.

Throw It Away, YAGNI

In order to focus my attention, I’m going to have to do the extreme.

I won’t make a public todo list like I used to years ago. Maybe later when the choices I’ve made pay off, then I’ll let you guys know what I did. But for now, I’m keeping that paper journal, with the steps to becoming awesome private.

My goal to become an awesome developer must be priority number one. Using this month’s Wired cover as a way to get mad at myself for not being one currently, I’m going to push forward.

// It’s the cover with Gates and Zuckerberg, with “GEEK POWER” in large caps, subtitled “How Hacker Culture Conquered The World”.

Domain Registry of America? Scam.

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Summary: DROA is a scam.

I got an interesting letter today, you know, the paper kind. It was telling me that one of my domains were going to be expiring, and that I should “Act today!”

The fact that my domain was expiring was not incorrect, but I know for a fact I’m not registered with this company. Doing a bit of research, I ended up promptly shredding up the spurious document.

I guess these people are infamous enough to get a Wiki page.

And really, they’ve been in business since 2001? Why are they still in existence?

4/20: The Monday After

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For many, April 20th holds a different meaning. To me personally, it held no meaning at all until I forcibly made it a one-year anniversary of going “indie”. Today has been one year since the Monday after I quit my full time job a year ago.

Of course, if I decided to write this blog post on the 17th, I would have said that it was the anniversary of the last of day of full-time employment, and if it was written two weeks and three days before, then I would have said that was when I gave my letter of resignation.

I do this all the time, trying to make it seem like it was a defining moment in my life. From declaring launch dates that have repeating set of digits to making an ungodly number of annotations (no longer on this blog, thankfully) for that memoir I’m going to write one day, they all lead to this character flaw of trying to justify my existence, rather than just being awesome instead and create awesome things.

But, as with most flaws I recognize, I try to use it to improve myself. And that’s really what this post is about.

I’d like to take this opportunity to start a new wave of posts. There are a number of reasons as to why I haven’t posted, but I think it comes down to being very perfectionist about many things.

I really started using Tumblr as a place to clear my head. I think that helped me lower my impossibly high standards a bit, just enough to let the really good posts pass through the all-too-high high-pass filter.

But this doesn’t just apply to my posts, but also to my projects. At this point, people are probably expecting web gold to be launched at a certain date, or they’ve just forgotten. I really hope is the latter, because my efforts going forward aren’t going to be polished at all. As long as they make it out the door, I think I’ll be happy.

But since yet another one of my character flaws is taking things to the extremes, I hope I don’t just put up crap in the meanwhile.

“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.”

Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn. At the Churchill Club.

Here’s to being embarrassed. Like, really really embarrassed.

3D Chess for iPad: A Possibility

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Yeah, it’s that unfortunate day today, and I hate it. But I like to make the best of it.

But here’s something that I thought after seeing this: think if each Chess piece linked up to the iPad. Not sure how… can you add Bluetooth to each piece? (That would be a battery nightmare…) Or maybe a RFID 30 pin connector and put RFID tags on each piece? (Not sure how sensitive the iPad screen is, but… oh wait, there are more than 10 pieces per side… I was thinking of putting some unique markings on the bottom of each piece but I’m pretty sure it can only detect up to 10, and even then the screen is capacitive so plastic/felt won’t work…)

Think of the cool interfaces that could be added onto the board, like being able to play with someone far away (I’m talking more along the lines of… mail chess? what was that thing called? “Correspondence chess” it seems.), but more importantly helping the player play better. Or something.

I also saw another image recently of a group of people playing scrabble on their iPhones whilst using the iPad as the main board to place letters. That’s kinda neat.

Lots of interesting possible things, now that a touch screen device doesn’t have to cost a table Surface.

Microsoft Surface was a neat concept, but it wasn’t very good. Nowhere near $500 good.

I hope this post doesn’t start off a list of iPad related posts I’ve been holding back for so long…