Archive for the ‘PGH Podcamp & Bloggers’ Category

Podcamp Pittsburgh 4 was this weekend. 

As you can tell from my previous post, I was excited to go.  Thrilled, in fact.  But by now, you also know that I did not, in fact, get to go back to Pittsburgh for this year’s sold out PCPGH4.  Without going in to the gory details, let’s just say that digestive distress in cats is no joking matter, and it’s one hell of an expensive problem to have. Couple that with the fact that symptoms usually show up too late for any intervention and the need to visit Vet Emergency Hospitals, and you have a very hysterical Dawn worried about her cat and graduate school companion dying because they wanted to hospitalize him for $2500.  At least.  Long story short, we took him home, and complied with the required monitoring of him for 48 hours, and made him as comfortable as possible.  Hell, Jack even went out and bought him a water fountain in the hopes that it would make him feel better and help his water consumption.  ~*sniffle*~

So yeah.  No Podcamp for us.  I’m sad.  I miss YinzTeam as it is, and the opportunity to meet new folks and have discussions that open doors on so many levels come so infrequently anymore that it was just heartbreaking to be sidelined.  Because the crew organizing Podcamp this year was on the ball, I was able to watch a good number of sessions remotely.  But one thing that I noticed almost immediately on Saturday, was that the comments and chat system for the live streaming video stopped working.  I was struck with a whole new level of frustration.  The sessions are inspiring and informative, sure, but Podcamp happens (most innovation and idea hatching, for that matter) during the conversations.  The questions and answers. The discussions.  The panels and debates.  I’ve said it before, and I firmly believe, that Podcamp happens in the hallways.  And here I was completely shut off from the hallway conversations and even from the conversations in the actual sessions!

This all has a point. 

Trust me.  See, one of the things I planned on talking about at PCPGH4 was the culture of commenting.  It’s disappearing.  It’s no longer dwindling; it’s flat out dying.  It ages me to say this, I know, but I remember a time when blogs didn’t come with comment functions (~*gasp*~ I knnnnooowww!!).  And when some coder started passing out free code to insert comment features it exploded the entire notion of what websites and “blogs” were, and of the potential they had.  Suddenly people had interaction on a whole new level! Suddenly, you could rant about just about anything and have your friends and random passers by leave notes of agreement or rebuttal.  You could have a dialogue.

But that’s going the way of the Dodo now, and I think that’s a terrible mistake.  As blogs become more common place, and more and more people post whatever they want whenever they want, they’ve taken the dialogue out of the conversation, and when you do that you no longer have a blog.  You have a basement printed broadside that no one can discuss with you.** 

What happens when no one comments?  Comments and discussion fuel the conversation and development of ideas.  It becomes a tidal wave of thought!  So you may have tons of email responses, or comments on your site.  That’s grand.  But how many comments do you leave on other sites?  Are you closing off your fishbowl by only fostering the culture of commenting on your own site?  Look, I’m as guilty as the rest of you.  I have, sitting in my Google Reader, the dreaded (1000+) unread blog posts.  Some are from news feeds, but a good many of them are blogs just like this one.  I read daily, or weekly, and rarely leave a comment.  Why? 

 

You tell me. 

 

Why do you read (and I know you do.  I see you….)  and not leave comments?  Not just here, but elsewhere?

I’ll make a deal with you.  For one week, starting today, see if you can leave a comment on each blog you read.  It doesn’t have to be every post, but at least leave a thoughtful response indicating that you engaged the post.  Can you do that?  For a week?

I know @BurghBaby is in over at TheBurghBaby.com, and if a working mommy blogger who posts at least once a day, takes care of a zoo, a new house, and a family can do it, can’t you? 

Let me know how it goes.  Remember, we’re all watching

 

 

~*~~*~~*~~*~~*~

** I’ve never agreed with closing off comments on blogs.  That’s what makes a blog a blog.  I’ve also never agreed with News sites opening comments on fact based articles.  The news is the news.  It’s not up for debate.  Editorials are for debate.  Letters to the Editor are for debate.  Once you make factual articles something to debate, you undermine their validity and turn your entire news organization into a blog of editorial opinion by the masses and moderated by journalists. News sites are not for discussing ideas and hashing out positions and opinions.  Leave that job to the blogs and message boards.

PocampPittsburgh.com

PocampPittsburgh.com

 

It’s that time of year again folks!  Podcamp Pittsburgh 4 is ready to kick off tomorrow night from 6 pm - 8:30 pm at the AlphaLab for the Meet-n-Greet, and then officially begin Saturday morning (9 am - 4 pm) at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh

This year I’ll be speaking in two sessions:

Saturday, 10/10/09, 1 PM:

Intellectual Property: What Are Your Ideas Worth?

In this era of “free” Internet content, copyright infringement and rampant plagiarism, who really “owns” an idea? And if you *do* have an idea, is it actually worth anything? Devil’s advocate John Carman moderates this debate about intellectual property changing business models between anti-IP advocates Nick Pinkston & Steve Klabnik and pro-authorship devotees Justin Kownacki & Dawn Papuga.

…and…

Sunday, 10/11/09, 3 PM:

Comments & Criticism: The central nervous system of consumerism

Dawn Papuga of Lyrique Tragedy Reviews (And Reality 101) examines the importance of comments, criticism, and reviews as a means/tool for finding out about topics/books/issues you are interested in but have no idea where to start.

 

The second listing isn’t as descriptive as I would like, but the development of the topic came a little late.  Originally I was planning on doing a fun session on “2009 in MEMEs” but that was waylaid for something more “useful.”  (Not that I disagree!)  I plan to discuss the culture of commenting and its importance to the social media machine, criticism & reviews as a way of expanding your comfort zone through trusted reviewers, and how quality interaction encourages the medium (and us) to grow.

Anthony, over at Bricks and Boxes has been posting wonderful Podcamp Pittsburgh Appetizers featuring some of the speakers, topics, and sessions that will be bouncing around this weekend, and if you have some time before hand, be sure to go check them out!  He put up an Appetizer featuring my second session, and one by Kathleen Danielson.  Go check it out!

I hope to see you there!  Don’t forget to join the PCPGH Flickr group, and tag your content for the weekend as PCPGH4 (or, #PCPGH4). 

:)

28
Sep

Movin’ On Up…

   Posted by: Dawn Tags: , , ,

…to the east side…. of Baltimore!

So amidst all the summits and meetings, my mother and grandmother visiting, and us making the trip to Bedford to spend the weekend with Jack’s family, we managed to decide on the townhouse we wanted and met with the realtor and applied.  This morning, when we were on the way to the doctor for some of my tests, we received the news that we were approved, and the townhouse is ours for the taking!!!

Needless to say, we’re off the chart excited.  The only bad news is that we might not be able to make it back to Pittsburgh for Podcamp on the 10th & 11th.  The plan is to move the weekend before Halloween, if possible (mostly to avoid paying for two places).  The problem there is that it only leaves us a scant few days to get everything packed up and ready to move in to the new place.  We’re working on how to make that happen, so the trip to Podcamp isn’t off just yet.  I just have to be creative.  :)

In the mean time, check out some of my favorite parts of the new digs! 

 

Kitchen

Kitchen

 

View of dining room and kitchen from the living room

View of dining room and kitchen from the living room

Laundry Room / Mudroom leading to patio

Laundry Room / Mudroom leading to patio

Patio

Patio

Fireplace and stained glass in living room

Fireplace and stained glass in living room

Soaking Jacuzzi tub in master bath

Soaking Jacuzzi tub in master bath

Yeah, so that tub happens to be my favorite room in the house… :)  Just off of the right of the picture is the glass door shower, and it’s connected to the master bedroom, so I totally win.  WOO!  The kitchen is actually much larger than those pictures can depict.  in fact, it might be the largest room in the place (which, in Baltimore terms, isn’t hard to do).  I love the sink and dishwasher on the island, and I’m pretty sure there are more cabinets than we’ll know what to do with.  The little garden spot in the corner of the patio is what I’m looking forward to as well… I miss my rose bushes, and maybe I can plant a creeper… who knows.  But how exciting! 
More updates when I know them (about moving, podcamp, and whether there’s an alien creature growing on my spine…Dun dun DUN….).  Now I’m off to read and try and write a few reviews.  Ciao for now!

 

I.  Soooo…

I’m que solo this week while Jack is stationed in a Shining-like resort in the Middle-of-Nowhere, West Kentucky-ginia, and I think I forgot how to live by myself.  It’s funny how you can live with a fierce independence for years and years and years and then suddenly everything is turned on its ear and changes completely in ways you never saw coming.  After a few months, you totally forget how to interact in the world like you did in the first place.  I’ve never experienced this before, but… I hear it’s called… “happiness”… and being … “comfortable”…

That’s all well and good, but the fact remains that I don’t like my world jostled at all, and I will still likely resort to eating Spaghetti-O’s for dinner (which, by the way, are a hell of a lot healthier than I ever expected them to be.  Trust me, I’ve been overly label conscious for the past few weeks.  Like… Label CRAZY).  They aren’t the ideal dinner, but they are a million times better than the alternatives of Fatburger and Five Guys that my little hunger monster keeps screaming for every time I get into a vehicle.

II.  Wait, why does that matter? 

Oh, that’s right… My arteries are clogging with pounds of butter, blocks of cheese, and grease I have consumed over the years.  For the first time in, oh, EVER I had blood work done to check my gauges.  Turns out even though I have been known to eat enough sugar to down a small elephant in one sitting, my triglycerides are great, my “good” cholesterol is just fab, and my “bad” cholesterol is… Well, it’s something to be desired (and I’m not talking about the Pittsburgh based Internet series here, folks).  Actually, it’s 240. 

That means our eating habits have recently gone a major overhaul.  Kind of.  It’s much harder than I thought it would be, and some days I can’t help it and I find myself cheating.  Today, for example, I had a gigantic bowl of apples & cinnamon oatmeal for lunch (good to help lower my cholesterol, and now my daily lunch of choice).  An hour later I was dragged to the kitchen area where there were tacos, chips, salsa, and guacamole.  I haven’t had a taco in… I can’t even tell you how long!  So I had one.  With cheese.  And whatever kind of ground beef it was.  And sour cream.  I realized I didn’t have a clue what was in anything I was eating, and so I piled some freshly made delicious salsa & chips on to the plate and headed back to my desk. 

You guys… I ate it all.  I can’t help it… My will power is weakened…

 

III.  Speaking of Super powers….

I’ve been on Chantix for a month now, and I still haven’t quit completely.  My instinct is to consider that a failure, but according to my doctor, I made incredible progress, and “Keep it up!”  I went from smoking a hell of a lot to only smoking roughly 3 cigarettes a day.  Sometimes I don’t even do that.  The emotional Pitfall (check out the ride at Kennywood, or the good ‘ole Demon Drop from Cedar Point back in the day) was insane, and I owe Jack, my family, my co-workers, and my friends a big one for putting up with that hysteria.  It’s calmer now, and I’m aiming to be finished smoking entirely by the end of the week.  I just can’t actually plan it.  I have to trick myself into it just kinda … happening.  If I try and put deadlines on my willpower, I’m guaranteed to fail.  I have a remarkable superpower that not many folks know about: 

I can rationalize absolutely anything. 

I can justify buying any book or film that captures my interest… even if I already own three copies.  Especially if I already own three copies… I don’t have this edition of the Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe and Super-friends!  This copy has rub on tattoos!

I can rationalize buying anything Shakespeare or Renaissance Period related.  Anything.  I don’t have that replica of Anne Boelyn’s ceremonial headpiece….

I can excuse away eating pretty damn near anything.  Cake?  I really shouldn’t, but I’m sure it’ll be okay since I plan on working out sometime later this week… err.. month… whatever.  Just give me the cake…

I can rationalize having one more cigarette.  I’ve been smoking for half my life, one more won’t matter.   Or the personal favorite of my subconscious:  Well that really wasn’t ceremonial or momentous or meaningful in any way… I’ll just have to have another one and make sure to make it count next time.

 

But I’m making progress on the health front.  I exercised yesterday for the first time in forever.  I did it on my own with Carmen Electra making me want to punch the TV every time I glanced up at her and she was in yet another cute workout outfit.  And usually in heels.  SO THAT’S WHAT I’M DOING WRONG…

IV.  The Stars Never Lie… Much.

Aries (March 21- April 19) Horoscope for week of August 6, 2009

I expect that you will soon stumble upon a key secret to your next masterpiece. And I’ll be surprised if you don’t discover a healing agent that will be effective in correcting an old mistake. In fact, Aries, I prophesy that in the coming week, you will have a sense that you’re doing the smart thing at least 90 percent of the time. Sorry: I’m afraid to say that I have no sad, bad, or mad news to deliver. If you’re the type of person who thrives on cynicism, your immediate future may be pretty boring. If you’re on the fence about whether life is a gorgeous feast or a chaotic mess, your ability to deal with outbreaks of goodness will be supremely tested.

Hey, I like order and rules and boundaries and explanations.  I also like Astrology.  The good kind.  Not the kind you get out of your daily paper.  I find star charts fascinating and in my experience with my own and those of family and friends, eerily accurate when done thoroughly.  Nevertheless, I enjoy bouncing around to find interesting Astrology sites, and this one at FreeWillAstrology.com just so happened to catch my eye today.  I haven’t tested the accuracy yet, but we’ll see.  I can’t say I mind the snarkiness, either.

V.  BTW… z0mg…