CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-05-16 15:54:12 (9 comments, 0 reshares, 12 +1s)

I'm really close to just quitting.

Simple reason: sharing is too hard
It takes me three hundred clicks to share 100 items, and it takes the other person two hundred clicks to pick them up.  I could /destroy/ them all instead for a mere 200 total. The recycle feature is dramatically exposing the /inexcusably/ unfinished nature of item sharing.

2013-05-16 05:05:18 (12 comments, 0 reshares, 7 +1s)

how can I make this hangouts /thing/ Just Go Away?

2013-05-06 14:33:47 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Does anyone happen to know where there are two portals fairly near each other with names very close to "El Senador Mine" and "El Senator Mine" ?

That's where my Galaxy Nexus had drifted to when I woke up this morning.  There were no roads at all in evidence in any direction.

I find it interesting, but a little bit inappropriate, that I can deplete my XM at bedtime with remote recharges, and usually count on a full bar by morning solely through gps drift. I'm not one of those lucky enough to live on top of an xm "deposit" but this has been almost as useful.

2013-05-05 22:52:59 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

EAT me!
Elite Alpha Trooper appears in the USA.

Many of you may know these have been available in the UK for a week or two.  For whatever reason, some Target stores received small shipments of the brand new Elite Alpha Trooper this week, and most (but not all) stores have them priced in the computer at $5.98 each.  According to some reports, the "official" day they're supposed to be on the shelves is the 12th.  Expect the price to go back to something more like 19.95

Six bucks is definitely not bad for what is probably THE single best blaster to ever come out of a Nerf brand box.

2013-05-04 06:00:55 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Ingress - this week's app update is truly horrid.

I've got hundreds of items to share with other players, and the new version makes it far easier to just destroy them, while making it completely impossible to drop even just two items in any less than thirty seconds.

The coders who write this junk need to be tasked with exchanging hundreds of items with each other every DAY or else maybe they should be replaced by engineers who actually use the product.

+Niantic Project +Ingress 

Sorry about the flash.  I'd be happy to crop it out using Picasa but OH, WAIT, those Google people broke that, too. 

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PUQFdbKeEKU/UYSjeCI2ipI/AAAAAAAAM-U/BQXiA37zUlo/s512/IMG_20130503_224854.jpg

2013-04-27 17:07:37 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

I tell people I'm not entitled to a "second childhood" because I never actually let go of the original.

A few of you may already know of my G+ community for nerf blasters.  It hasn't grown very active yet, but consider this my invitation to look it up if you are at all interested in having fun through shooting foam projectiles.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/114516237585951876603

2013-04-19 16:01:12 (17 comments, 0 reshares, 14 +1s)

The Communities Invitation Honeymoon IS OVER

If you are NOT in my circles, and you send me a community invitation, YOU get muted.  No fanfare, no ceremony, no further warnings.

2013-04-11 07:46:12 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

was everyone /forced/ to update today?

I'm finding the new version to be
THE
WORST
EVER
for reliability and stability on my DroidX

2013-03-12 04:05:05 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

same here.  Chrome on W7.  Don't know when it started, it could have been a week since the last time I tried to play any video.  Same thing happens embedded in G+ as well.  The "wait cursor" with the dots lights up the dot at the 9:00 position and the elapsed time stays at 0:00

TED videos however are able to play the "preamble" clip and then they freeze ...at 0:00

2013-03-02 22:10:06 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

playing Ingress with friends

2013-02-24 17:58:06 (7 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

So I've reached L8 ... Now What?

I've seen this expressed a few times. I know the feeling. Some are clamoring for higher levels.  I can think of one answer that would be much easier to implement, and for some of us it should put a lot of the fun back for a while longer.  Let me "bank" my AP and start over.  I would choose a new goal for myself for my new AP, and when my re-started activities bring me to the new goal, my original AP is added back in, for the total "score" that I've actually earned.  I could repeat L1 through L7, or I could just "dip my toes in the water" by selecting a smaller new goal - maybe just repeat 1 & 2 to see whether I actually like being able to reset. Also anyone moving up the ranks, even for the first time, could repeat some if they choose.

Assuming all the game play elements are determined fromcur... more »

2013-02-17 18:25:33 (0 comments, 4 reshares, 7 +1s)

I. S. S.: A Song That's Really Out of This World!

From the band that brought us the theme to The Big Bang Theory  comes another art mets science first in collaboration with +Canada's own +Chris Hadfield orbiting 240 miles above Earth in the ISS:   the first single ever recorded between space and Earth.  

+Chris Hadfield has been sharing his experiences aboard the ISS via twitter and G+ (thanks to his son, +Evan Hadfield for helping with that). In the video below he takes that up a notch: playing and singing along with The Barenaked Ladies and the Wexford Gleeks (Canada's reigning show choir champions).

Take a listen to I. S. S.  (Is Somebody Singing),  and you're guaranteed to get chills thinking about how far we've come, and how far we can go using science to advance man- and woman-kind.

And the next firstfrom t... more »

2013-02-07 21:21:01 (25 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

2013-02-03 17:45:37 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Dear +Ingress and +Niantic Project 

There's this really cool computer science concept
known as "regular expressions," or RegEx or RE.  

With it, you could put just one more field into the passcode database, and use that expression, instead of an exact passcode, to check whether a player had already redeemed when they enter a code.  That way, you could actually create ranges of thousands of codes that were all different - different items and everything, and yet any one player would get only one from each such range.

Look into it, won't you? 

2013-02-03 06:41:18 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

I have both a phone and a tablet which can run Ingress.  My roommate now has an account, and I want to share the tablet some of the time.  How can I get it to connect to her account, and then make it switchable in the future?

2013-01-31 22:55:33 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

The Resistance did not defeat me, but Niantic certainly has.

v20 is unusable on a Verizon Droid X.  I expected they'd abandon Gingerbread Android explicitly, or 3G but instead they've bloated the app until there's no hope of accomplishing anything in any reasonable amount of time for a game where other people are actually playing too.

L7 (and-a-half) signing off at least for now

2013-01-25 18:35:10 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 25 +1s)

Today, I rejoin the ranks of the gainfully employed.  (Yay!)  Then I get about a week off before the real crunch begins.

And suddenly I see the reality of the insidious plot that IS Google Plus: My new job will involve a significant level of using Google to study public records and documents.  During every moment of which that little red notification box will continuously offer up its enticement to stray from my duties...

2013-01-24 20:06:44 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Not recommended.
Spynet Secret Sleeve Shooter.

2013-01-24 18:19:56 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Please join us at the Internet Archive in San Francisco this Thursday to remember Aaron Swartz.

2013-01-22 06:45:50 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

#99percent  
#occupy  
#OWS  

2013-01-22 06:44:46 (14 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Well, I definitely DO see a "Muted" post coming back into my notifications.  It probably happens to everyone who gets >9 at any time and does "View all notifications"  
I really do think this indicates a brokenness, +Google+ +Google+ Help 

2013-01-19 21:48:31 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

G+ Communities ... really cool, but

Why can't I search within a specific one?  
Or within "my" communities?

2013-01-19 21:37:33 (5 comments, 3 reshares, 7 +1s)

Rapists Suing For Custody of Children Conceived Through Rape

O.o

I don't even...wtf...

There's a petition for Arkansas here: http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/1220?n=11980125.LtbmN7

But seriously.  WTF.  First they say rape doesn't make babies, or if it does it's a gift from god, and now they say the rapist has a claim to the baby.

If this doesn't piss you off, there's something wrong with you.

Standard warning: trolls will be deleted and blocked.  Seriously, there is no justifiable reason for allowing rapists to have custody claims.  Don't even try to pull any crap in this post about women faking claims. Don't even.

2013-01-18 19:01:44 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

.

2013-01-18 17:33:31 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 7 +1s)

Best and most thorough discussion about weapons control I've come across yet. Accurate, factual, and not all wound up in emotion. 

Copied from a FB post from https://www.facebook.com/Josh.Fielder/posts/4048262014066


So, here's my two cents (which will end up being closer to $1.50 I'm sure) and I'm sure I will regret posting this later, due to the "friends" I will lose while exercising my First Amendment, but here goes. 
Instead of posting a meme with a picture and a falsely attributed quote or a made up statistic, I've spent my time researching the gun violence/gun control debate. And I'd like to talk about some of the pervasive themes I've seen lately. 
First off, Hitler did not say "In order to conquer a country, you must first disarm its citizens." In fact, Hitler made it his position to enable guns to be obtainedmor... more »

2013-01-18 17:05:48 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Is the COMM overlay actually even harder to put away now?

With this update it seems to be even more difficult to get the COMM screen to GTFO.  It was always a small problem for me before, now it's just stuck on my tablet.

Please, +Ingress, respond to any touch in the exposed portion of the map, and make the COMM screen put itself away.  That entire touchable region is just wasted now, and it has that fairly obvious probable user intention. 

Also, on my tf-101 tablet, it just never goes away.  Any attempt to touch the open COMM button area registers as a touch on the OPS button.  Most of the time I have to force close to get rid of it, but sometimes when it opens, only the top bar exists (with COMM All Faction, but no more), and at least then I can still use the map.  Basically on the tf101 COMM is a one-way transition that can only be shut off by a forcestop.... more »

2013-01-18 04:58:19 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 15 +1s)

If you want to be just a player, find another game

I'm seeing a surprising amount of complaining, yes complaining, about the recent update.  Game balance adjustments.

Folks,you are a playtester.  You are not just a player.  If you don't think it's better, perhaps you should quit and wait for the release version.  This game is in Beta, and if your desire to "win" supersedes your desire for this to become a great game for everyone, then you are in the wrong place.

2013-01-17 21:05:06 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I've removed a post.  It was not "spam," and I don't consider the attempted posting even an "infraction" but a learning experience for me as community builder. No harm, no foul.

I choose to respect the general rule, implemented on many NIC forums, that active auctions are not to be linked to, unless the person posting the link is the seller, and states so.

2013-01-17 18:46:27 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

+Ingress, is there any official feedback channel?  I would like to report that today's 1.18.1 update removed the desktop launch icons from both my devices. I also have had many suggestions along the way, for future improvements, and I'm pretty sure sending those via the crash feedback agent isn't the best way.  But I'm using a 2.5 year old handset (Droid X) so I get a lot of those.

2013-01-17 18:39:16 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

I just checked (it was easy with today's update) and we all have to give Ingress permission to stop our devices from "going to sleep."  My question is why does Ingress not appear to ever use this permission?  Is there a setting I have overlooked?

2013-01-17 16:00:21 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Automotive Open Source Meetup, topic is autonomoous drones

2013-01-17 01:27:25 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

85 crash
If you or anyone you know would have taken 85 south from 280 or anywhere north of it, I'd say just don't. For the next hour or so

2013-01-13 23:30:52 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Anybody else using a Droid X?

As of some time last night, mine is completely unusable for Ingress.  I can't tap to open a portal. It just sits and then the [force close | wait | report] dialog comes up. I spent over an hour trying and rebooting, and attempting to stop everything else on my phone. It is certainly possible this is due to something else on my phone updating last night. That's why I'd really appreciate hearing from other DX users, even X2 users.

I made it about halfway from L5 to L6, but I'm not going to get a new phone just for Ingress.

2013-01-13 00:09:04 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

PROSECUTOR AS BULLY

Here is where we need a better sense of justice, and shame. For the outrageousness in this story is not just Aaron. It is also the absurdity of the prosecutor’s behavior.

From the beginning, the government worked as hard as it could to characterize what Aaron did in the most extreme and absurd way. The “property” Aaron had “stolen,” we were told, was worth “millions of dollars” — with the hint, and then the suggestion, that his aim must have been to profit from his crime. But anyone who says that there is money to be made in a stash of ACADEMIC ARTICLES is either an idiot or a liar.

It was clear what this was not, yet our government continued to push as if it had caught the 9/11 terrorists red-handed.

#REDDIT #OCCUPY #OWS #p2 #CTL #DemandProgress #JSTOR #MIT #AaronSwartz #Swartz

2013-01-11 17:26:18 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 14 +1s)

Monty Python. Setting trends since 1971 (◕‿◕)✿

#atheism #atheist #AtheistRollCall #skeptic #agnostic #reason #irreligion #irreligious

2013-01-10 20:33:03 (3 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

When you're ready to look into making a prototype smaller version, here's what I suggest for overall size: I use a bubble mailer as a protective sleeve for my Tablet. I get them in 2-packs from the "everything's a dollar" store, so when they wear out it's just no big deal. 3M™ Bubble Mailer KAJ2-2-DC, 8.5 in x 11 in 2 Pack. It's big enough for my tablet AND docked keyboard. For the binder to be convenient for me to carry, it needs to fit fully into one of these mailers, preferably with even a little slack. Also I'd prefer graph markings over the lined sheets, and I believe I only need two sections.

2013-01-09 19:23:42 (18 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Doctor Who not suitable for children?

This was mentioned-in-passing on the blog of someone I respect. I don't intend to second-guess anyone's parenting decisions, but I can't figure out how this could be so simply stated as if it were obvious to all. Admittedly, I have missed some portion of Tennant's work and everything since.

I have seen all of the Sarah Jane Chronicles, and of Torchwood. Even though I can agree with those who called Torchwood "a whole series built around same-sex kissing" I will continue to dispute that that is any problem. In fact it is part of the solution to a problem which was created by a couple of generations of repression.

But anyway, it seems I have a lot to learn in some way. Is Doctor Who unsuitable for children? In what ways? 

2013-01-09 19:16:40 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

test post.  something just disappeared and I want to know how

2013-01-09 01:37:08 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

"As science advances, god retreats."

"That doesn't prove He doesn't exist."

"I'm not saying it does. I'm just saying that, if he does exist, he fears us. And why shouldn't he? Here we are, figuring out how to sunder reality and what are we going to do with that? We're going to come after him and take revenge for all the suffering he put us through, plant victory on his moldering husk, and reap a better universe."

"That's a little extreme."

"Power-mad, half-crazed beings are advised to create nothing in their own image."

2013-01-08 01:02:26 (13 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

I'm starting to realize the week I just wasted trying to make +Pinterest happen should have been spent actually making +Google+ happen.

Live and learn. Thanks for all the help everyone.

- Evan

2013-01-05 21:45:22 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

"Thrifting"

Who else enjoys checking thrift stores frequently for used classics, even though you so rarely find gems like this?

It works perfectly by the way. In case it's not quite clear, that tag says $2.49 and is from the Mountain View Goodwill. I only picked it up this past Thursday; based on the tag it had apparently been sitting there since 12/21. Perhaps I need to visit that store more frequently.

2013-01-02 21:11:29 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 7 +1s)

Some food for thought :)

via: imgur.com

2013-01-01 21:31:09 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

What's up with notification emails?
They always arrive an hour or more after the events. And I'm using Gmail.

2012-12-31 19:56:18 (3 comments, 2 reshares, 11 +1s)

People never seem to get this, but it is 100% the case. I say things to make me laugh; don't really care if others do as well.

2012-12-31 19:53:35 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

2012-12-31 19:53:18 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

Just sayin' so the Republicans can't turn it around again suggesting President Obama is at fault. 

President Obama and those Democrats in Congress are doing what the majority of the country has requested: Letting the Bush tax cuts for those declaring $250,000 or more as taxable income. This is what the voters voted yet the Republicans continue their march against the people of the country.

2012-12-31 19:39:20 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Latest Fiscal Bluff Onus

One of the latest sticking points has been over the estate tax, a small but politically charged part of the George W. Bush tax cuts. Here’s a look at what’s at stake and what the policy consequences are likely to be.

The estate tax has been gradually phased out since 2001, dropping from 55 percent to its current rate of 35 percent on real estate, stocks and other assets that are inherited, with an exemption that’s grown from $1 million to $5.2 million. Neither party wants to go back to Clinton-era levels for the estate tax: Reid has defended the Democratic preference of reverting to the 2009 levels, with a 45 percent rate and a $3.5 million exemption, while Republicans want to keep the current rates, which were extended in 2010.

Republicans loath the estate tax and quite ignorantly refer to it as the death tax, whilesome ... more »

2012-12-30 06:04:24 (5 comments, 2 reshares, 16 +1s)

2012-12-30 06:01:20 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 8 +1s)

Iceland's economy recovered from the financial crisis better than most because the government bailed out the people and jailed the bank criminals.

SHARE if America should try the Iceland solution.

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/08/top-economists-iceland-did-it-right-everyone-else-is-doing-it-wrong.html

2012-12-29 18:53:19 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Last night, in the scanner I spotted a simple blue cube in the parking lot near where I was shopping. I walked to it and 'acquired' but it didn't say or do anything as far as I could tell, nor is there anything I see in my inventory like it.