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Neverendum

chrisdye — 2010-12-29T14:58:57-05:00

I just thought I'd brag that my entry, "Neverendum", was selected as Urban Dictionary's Word of the Day on October 24. This is the most public attention for one of my submitted works since Chickadee Magazine published the picture of a park bench that I submitted in 1983.

The person who actually coined the term was Dave Rosen, who published the Quebec Neverendum Colouring and Activity Book in 1996.

Don't Mess With The Bull

vinny9 — 2010-01-12T21:29:45-05:00

Google thinks China might be fucking with them

Question For You

vinny9 — 2009-08-05T23:29:12-04:00

Can you walk across a country by going North/South (or vice versa)? Or is it implicitly an East/West (or vice versa) travel?

Who is that at 4 minutes and 30 seconds?!!!

Maryam — 2009-07-14T21:22:09-04:00

I'll give you a hint: Rhymes with Bustin' Racks.

http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-297853

Step on my Trip

vinny9 — 2009-06-01T10:39:14-04:00

Ice Dancing Needs More Of This (NSFW?)

vinny9 — 2009-03-11T16:41:27-04:00

Obsidian Portal

vinny9 — 2009-03-06T08:41:15-05:00

Since I re-started my D&D habit last year with the release of 4th Edition, I've been playing pretty regularly with a very entertaining bunch. One online tool I've found very useful has been Obsidian Portal. It's a great website that allows DMs and players to manage their campaigns and characters. You can add characters, images, game logs, NPCs and maps. There is also a Wiki for your campaign.

I think my fave feature is the google maps application layered over the maps you add. You can then add pins to locations with links to their wiki page. Sweet!

You can check out our Sparrowfax campaign over here.

185 atheists walk into a church...

Alex — 2009-01-20T02:02:14-05:00

Part 1

Part 2

Some parting thoughts

chrisdye — 2008-11-11T14:12:05-05:00

When Pakistan was partitioned from India on the basis of religion (Hindu vs. Muslim), both countries were given little enclaves in the other country where "their" people lived. Some of those enclaves themselves have enclaves, so that to walk a kilometre would mean crossing two, three, or even eight international borders.

Click on the map to see the full scale of this sillyness.

Iron Man Halloween Costume 2008

registeredname — 2008-11-01T21:06:45-04:00

I have no life:

Kudos

goodladd — 2008-10-29T23:42:46-04:00

The guy next to me on the T today was playing Lux on his iPhone.

That is all.

I assume that you have all already seen this:

YvonTripper — 2008-10-04T07:56:01-04:00

Compensation

vinny9 — 2008-08-19T13:59:20-04:00

Crazy pics of the Burj Dubai, world's tallest building

Faith is Bliss

vinny9 — 2008-07-10T10:29:58-04:00

Louisiana is legislating that other theories of life can be debated/taught in schools in the name of "academic freedom".

Now I'm all open to debating the flaws of evolutionary theory and where it breaks down. And I am pro challenging it with strong and convincing evidence/arguments/experiments. However, I am against the monumental intellectual dishonesty that will surely follow in this case.

At the same time, do a people have a right to miseducate themselves? If a corner of society wants to teach that 2+2=5, I'm tempted to say, "let them". I'd get the fuck out of there myself because I'm not interested in participating in it nor do I care to associate myself with people who get behind this kind of thinking.

Here's my question: if I was a Federal educator, would I try to prevent that or let it be fought locally? Do I have a duty to stop it?

Random Links for March 4

dustin — 2008-03-04T07:00:09-05:00

Flickriver - A new way to view Flickr photos and more...

Flickriver: my most interesting photos.

Keep It Surreal - Vancouver Photo Guide.
Cool blog. I've subscribed.

National Wildlife Magazine Photo Contest Winners.

Random Links for February 5

dustin — 2008-02-05T07:00:02-05:00

Photos of Dustin Sacks

Dustin Sacks bookmarks on del.icio.us

Dustin Sacks on the BarCamp Wiki

Dustin Sacks Profile on Flickr

Dustin Sacks on LinkedIn

2007 Year in Review

dustin — 2007-12-31T23:50:39-05:00

2007 was the second full year I lived in Vancouver. It was a year of settling in deeper, exploring, new friendships, and personal growth.

Work
Lux Delux has continued its steady growth. It got a few major updates throughout the year, and the amount of new maps has been delightful. Work on the next generation Sillysoft game proceeded in bursts, but I haven't been committed to it hard-core. I decided against renting office space and hiring full-time employees in Vancouver. Lux has attracted an amazing array of online people that have played key roles in driving Sillysoft's success. In 2008 I need to focus more on how to enable and manage an online team. I like the virtual office setup, but it's been hard for me to maintain a consistent work ethic within it.

Play
Looking back on 2007 I'm amazed by the number of amazing new friends I made. I basically started from scratch when I moved west, and I am tremendously happy with what I've found. The people, places, and events of Vancouver have captured my heart. Shout out to Critical Mass and the bikers, Manhunt, Picnic Summer, Soccer Sundays, Alice in Wonderland, the Drivefests, Zombiewalk and the flashmobbers, Shambhala, the Fringe Festival, the East Side Culture Crawl, the house party circuit, BarCamp and the geeks. Let's do it all again and more in 2008!

Media & Publishing
I made 143 blog posts in 2007. That's a slight 3 more then the 140 from 2006. I started making random links posts (30 total) as a way to keep track of interesting sites and spread the word. I continued to work on my photography and have clearly made progress. I've settled into flickr as a stable platform to host my photos.

Video production is something that I want to get back into more in 2008. Video is the most powerful medium, and Youtube has blown the publishing field wide-open. Vancouverites come talk to me if you're interested in making videos. Witness the bicycle revolution at hand in my Critical Mass Video.

It was February when I gave in and joined Facebook. I use it regularly now as a tool and game. I still keep my photos and blog outside of fb, on the internet-at-large, but fb is aware of it. My instinct is to be against walled-in gardens like fb, but I realize the utility it provides as a communications and networking medium.

Travel
I hit up Montreal for Vaganza 7 near the start of the year. I traveled to the Okanagan and down the US West Coast with my brother in March. I biked to Bowen Island in May. At the end of the summer I traveled into the mountains for Shambhala and connected with my spirituality. In the fall I flew east for a back-to-back wedding tour of Montreal and Toronto, my old haunts. I ended the year with another trip to Ontario to see family and celebrate the Festivus holidays.

Looking Forward to 2008
2007 was a huge year for me, and I'm happy with the direction I'm headed. I'm looking forward to continuing it in 2008, and pushing further. To explore more of Vancouver, including the surrounding islands and mountains. To grow the bonds of friendship that I've formed, and make even more. To manifest a happy and magical existence for myself in the world. 2008, let's boogie...

Dustin Photos

dustin — 2007-04-08T20:59:11-04:00

My brother published his photos from our tripping. He has a bunch of nice ones, check them out. Seeing how it's my blog here, I'm going to point out the best ones with ME in them!

There's me jumping in the air, guarding an orchid, as a big hunk, in the rain, and looking all scientific on the side ->

Missing Class

goodladd — 2007-03-14T19:28:36-04:00

This is neither silly nor technical, but it's a neat article about everything that's wrong with American universities, and I felt like sharing.

Adrienne, I expect you to explain its conclusions with great exasperation to your mother at some point in the next week.

Vancouver continuing education

dustin — 2007-01-05T07:30:24-05:00

Of all the fliers that piled up in my apartment over the holidays, the only interesting one was the Continuing Education Program of the Vancouver School Board. They offer some normal academic classes, but what interested me was the huge variety of general interest seminars they offer. Cooking, dancing, computers, languages, art, business, personal development, and more.

I registered for a pair of 1 day courses about investing and memory boosting, as well as a longer swing dance course (bring it on Nikki).

2006 Year in Review

dustin — 2007-01-01T23:32:58-05:00

I moved to Vancouver on January 7th, 2006. The start of the year was filled with finding a place to live and getting myself set up here. I was working on American History Lux at the time, but it got pushed aside a bit as I explored Vancouver. It's a pretty vibrant city (moreso then some people here think), and I partook in Moose Camp (and was captured on GETV b-roll), a meeting of the pillow fight club, some sessions of Manhunt, and the critical mass bike parade. All that and more in the first months of the year.

April saw the release of American History Lux, with related marketing activities following. I also made it out to Whistler for a few late ski days. Vancouver hosted some bubble love, and I got one of my photos from it published on Boing Boing. During the summer I took a trip down to the Casuality Seattle Conference, and after that to Montreal for Nikki and Robb's wedding (plus additional debauchery).

Work on Lux Delux continued in spurts throughout the year. The plugins were put on better display, divided into categories, and better Map of the Week awards were added. Lux was released in retail stores in Germany (looks like I forgot to post about that), and got an interface re-design. I started a 2006 in review page on the Sillysoft Wiki that lists the exact dates of various 2006 happenings in Luxtopia.

Vancouver continued to entertain me, with the improv festival, the illuminares lantern festival, the BarCamp unconference, and more. I finally got around to making myself a new pair of devil sticks. In September I moved to a new downtown apartment, and it's a keeper.

October hosted the third annual Luxtoberfest Contest and Celebration. It was the biggest and best yet, and I don't know how we can top it next year. Afterwards I got myself set up with a new MacBook Pro as my main computer. Sillysoft popped out a little Devil's Brigade Lux game, commissioned by some TV people. I set up the fast news website Hot Grog on a lark - I plan to do some more with it in the future.

Ancient Empires Lux was being worked on throughout the last half on the year, and was released in December. Shortly after that I took off for a family holiday down to Central America, and then Christmas in Toronto. I came back to Vancouver for New Year's, and that's the end of 2006. It was a good year. I started settling into Vancouver, did some traveling, and kept up the growth of Sillysoft. Now on to 2007!

Please Remove Your Eyebrow Ring

vinny9 — 2006-11-24T09:10:19-05:00

Superconducting Electromagnets: Activate!

Happy Birthday Dustin!

Mariana — 2006-11-19T17:14:05-05:00

You're 25! Mathematically you now have to round your age up to 30! Good job.

Keep on rockin' in the free world.

We don't need no thought control

dustin — 2006-11-13T20:52:20-05:00

Here's an interesting interview about radical education reform:

"We need to kill the poison plant we created," Gatto has written. "School reform is not enough. The notion of schooling itself must be challenged." His alternative: to get rid of institutional mass-production schools, allow every imaginable experiment to blossom, make free public libraries universal, and expand hands-on apprenticeships.

I don't agree with everything the guy says, but I do agree that the public school system needs a serious shake-up.

Hate mail

dustin — 2006-10-17T18:01:48-04:00

Ryan Cousineau has written an open letter to Dustin Sacks (that's me).

Been a least a day since someone has linked to YouTube

Bryan — 2006-10-10T13:22:11-04:00

Funny short mockumentary of an amateur vietnamese comedian

Doo park

Bryan — 2006-10-04T15:00:34-04:00

Cinema Du Parc is re-opening soon

Squidoo might be for yoo

dustin — 2006-09-25T02:42:29-04:00

Marketing guru Seth Godin wrote up The 8 Free Things Every Site Should Do. The top item that I hadn't done was to create a Squidoo lens. Now I know that Seth owns Squidoo, and putting it so high on the list is probably him pimping it. Still, he is a very successful guru. Squidoo works on a first-come first-served basis for keywords, which get used as the URL for the lens. I've been having fun in my goal to conquer "dustin" on the internet, so set up a lens on Dustin, which catalogs some famous Dustins. Plus I tossed up a Risk Game lens for business.

Feedback for Squidoo:
- There was a flickr feature there, but what I really wanted to do was show a photostream of all photos tagged with 'dustin' from all of Flickr. That would be a cool feature to add.
- Uploading a PNG with transparency didn't work properly in the intro (OSX 10.4, Firefox 2 beta).
- I would like a preference to turn off ads on my lenses.

Water

chrisdye — 2006-07-31T16:34:08-04:00

Globe and Mail story: "We don't know what's in the ocean"

Sillysoft Education Plan

dustin — 2006-07-29T04:53:44-04:00

I'm starting a special education deal, with 2 main programs:

1. Schools can get American History Lux for free.

2. CS, math, and engineering students and departments can get free Lux Delux registrations.

Full details on the program are here: http://sillysoft.net/schools/

The rational behind this is described (and commented on) in this IndieGamer thread that I started.