Lindsey

kateordie:

harold-shes-lesbian:

SHE’S G A Y

Me watching the movie: Holy shit, they actually coded her as gay

Me walking out of the theatre: I honestly feel like they made her as gay as they could have wrt studios/franchising because it looks exactly like when I sneak it into books

Me reading this article, later: HAHA YEP CALLED IT, I KNOW THAT FEELING, PAUL FEIG, YOU WANNA GET A SOLIDARITY BEER OR WHAT

This post is not about the day to day operations of The Old Reader or anything of that nature.  It’s about how our team came to get involved with RSS and how we see the future of this application and technology that we value so highly.

As a long time user of RSS and Google Reader, I’ve long appreciated the benefits of the technology.  Like many people, my use of Google Reader faded a bit as social media platforms took hold.  But, I’d always go back to Google Reader when I wanted to cut through the noise of social networks and focus on things I’m really passionate about.  Google Reader wasn’t my “second screen” application where I’d go to take a break from work.  It filled a much more essential need for me by providing these three features:

1.  Unread items are kept in a queue.  I don’t miss things.  No algorithm chooses what to show me or not show me.

2.  It’s an archive of blogs that I value and posts that I’ve read.

3.  I can follow whatever I want from anywhere on the web.  It embodies the open web.

For my professional career in web research and development, I can’t really live without these features.  I can follow twitter feeds or like Facebook pages, but I’m certain to miss important content from people who I highly value.  I need those items queued, archived, and I need to be able to subscribe to anybody on the entire open web.  I can’t be limited to those authors who choose to enter into private social networks and I don’t want to have to constantly check my accounts for updates.

So this leads me to how we got involved in The Old Reader.  When Google Reader shut it’s doors, my business partner Jim did some research and tried several services and suggested I’d like The Old Reader the best.  So we both moved on over.  I read some articles trying to understand why Google Reader would shut down and one really stuck with me.  It hypothesized that Google had been following the lead of companies like Facebook and Twitter by turning their backs on the open web and trying to build their own private/closed social networks.  It’s frankly hard to argue against this theory.

However, we see this trend of migrating from the open web to private networks as cyclical.  How long will it be before your Facebook stream is so full of promoted content, bizarre algorithmic decisions, and tracking cookie based shopping cart reminders that you won’t be getting any valuable information?  For as little as $60, a business can promote a page to Facebook users.  It won’t be long before your news feed is worthless.  So we jumped at the opportunity to get involved with developing and managing The Old Reader.  We believe in it.

As we’ve been looking to grow our engineering team at Levee Labs and The Old Reader we’ve met with a number of bright young people that are surprisingly unaware of RSS.  They say “I recognize the RSS icon, but haven’t really ever used it.”  Is it possible that there is a lost generation of internet users that are completely unfamiliar with RSS?  Are they unfamiliar with the idea of the open web too?  We believe that’s the case and we’ve been working hard to come up with ideas that’ll expose that generation to RSS, The Old Reader, and the open web.  It’s what made the internet great to begin with and it’s coming back.

Thanks for using The Old Reader!

Be part of the Zine Library Game Board!

The IPRC is looking for 5-12 individuals to serve on the Zine Library Game Board (pun intended) to help create our new zine library cataloguing game. We’re looking for people who are excited about games, independent publishing, and want to be part of an innovative way to encourage community service through games.

The Zine Library has a great problem: more zine donations than we can catalog. We have more than 30,000 zines waiting to be catalogued, some from as far back as 1965. Cataloguing is simple and fun: find a zine, read it, write a short description. But there’s a neverending pile.

In Febuary, we created a unique event to help solve this problem: Raiders of the Lost Archives, a 24-hour zine cataloguing competition. By harnessing the power of friendly competition, we had 85 volunteers, ranging in age from 12 to 83, show up to catalog 1000 zines all night long.

But since it would kill our Zine Librarian to run 30 24-hour events (even librarians need to sleep sometime), we have to come up with a new solution to cataloguing zines. Drawing on the power of friendly competition that had such success at Raiders, we’re creating a simple year-round RPG that will encourage volunteers to catalog with merit badges, leveling up, experience points, and competition. It’s gonna be rad, and no non-profit has done something like it (that we know of, please let me know if you do!)

The Game Board is the advisory committee and work group that will help make this RPG happen. Being on the Game Board is a volunteer commitment that will take up 5-20 hours a month for six months, depending on your level of involvement.  You can act as a designer, a coder, or a liaison that outreaches to the game and tech communities.

And our big launch party, tentatively in February, is going to be a big superhero-themed nerdfest with beer. Are you interested now?

Perhaps you’re a game designer looking to use your powers for good, or a student of games looking to expand their portfolio? Maybe you’re a game nerd who is great at thinking about what makes games fun and addictive? Or a programmer who likes contributing to community projects?

Be part of something really darn cool and support access to independent and self-published materials.

Deadline to apply is August 31st.

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The Cat Letters, on the blog of Ursula K. Le Guin

Calling all women who like free clothes:

I’m looking for women who are at least 40 years old, who would be willing to get free clothing and accessory samples, try them on, and write up a short description of what they like about them.  They also need to be able to take a photo of themselves wearing the item, and be able to attach the jpeg photo with said article and email it to me.  What you get:  a free item of new clothing, your opinion respected and heard by the clothing industry, photo credit as a model, and the knowledge that you are helping to change the paradigm of fashion and beauty to include all ages shapes and sizes.

If you are interested, please message me at model@over40fashions.com with the following:

Your full name

Your email address

Your current age, height, and weight

Your dress size, pants size, shirt size, hat size, shoe size

Which shape do you most closely resemble:  apple, apple core, pear, strawberry, banana.  (If you’re not sure, check out http://www.over40fashions.com/site/be_a_model%21.html )

Your mailing address

Your agreement that you have checked out http://www.over40fashions.com/site/be_a_model%21.html and are willing/capable of trying on the clothing item sent, writing a short article to the specifications required, taking a photo of yourself and attaching it in jpeg form to your article and emailing it back to me within 7 business days of receiving your clothing item.

If you live in the Portland Oregon area, would you be willing to come to my home studio to film a segment of Would I Wear That?  (Example here http://www.over40fashions.com/site/Media.html)

I have some new clients that want to know who to send free clothing samples to, and they want to know sizes/shapes of the models, and addresses of where to send the clothing items.  If you are interested in being a part of this great project, please fill out the above.  I only need about 4 -5 women for this project (one of each shape, possibly 2 of apple shape so I have an apple and an apple core shape).  Also, ALL women over 40 are welcome to share examples of clothing in their own closets, showing what works for you and why. Together, we can help suggest/teach better ideas to the fashion industry, and help make beautiful clothes available to women of all ages and sizes.

Filed under: Other Tagged: Media

NOTE: Seaport Landing is currently closed to visitors || Seaport Landing officially launched on July 3 with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on the facility’s Chehalis River pier. Nearly 200 community members listened to speakers and watched the tall ships Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain arrive at their new home port for the first time. Les Bolton, executive director of the Grays Harbor Historical Seaport Authority, welcomed guests, including Congressman Derek Kilmer, former state legislator Max Vekich, and Anthony Chavez, representing the Weyerhaeuser Corporation. State Representative Brian Blake cut the ribbon.

On March 29, GHHSA and Weyerhaeuser Company announced the transfer of the former Weyerhaeuser sawmill property in south Aberdeen to GHHSA. The approximately 24-acre site, appraised at $2.34 million, will be re-developed into a public waterfront facility called Seaport Landing. Specific plans call for the eventual creation of a new tourism destination and maintenance facility for the tall ships Lady Washington and Hawaiian Chieftain. GHHSA recently announced the selection of Harbor Architects of Aberdeen to lead a master planning process.