NBI: Blog posting

The Newbie Blogger Initiative is in full swing this month, so I thought I would provide a few suggestions and advice on writing blog posts. As I cannot claim to be a particularly successful blogger (no fame and glory), this is also a mix of things that I do as well as things that I do not do – at least not regularly.

• Schedule your blog writing, not your blog posting
  Unless you write for a living, chances are that  you may not be able to write blog posts at a regular, frequent interval and provide good content. Better then to schedule times for when you sit down and write blog posts. If you do not allocate time in advance, chances are you might not write anything – “no time right now”.
  Once you are happy with a blog post, then you can publish it.
  It may take 1 session, 2 sessions, 5 sessions – eventually you will have written something you are happy with.

• Avoid walls of text
  Make it easy for your reader to read your text – people will generally read it through a browser on a computer, or perhaps a tablet or a mobile phone. Reasonably small paragraphs with some space in between will help.
  New readers might also just decide to ignore your post, too much effort to figure out if it is worthwhile to read for them.

A picture says more than a thousand words – they can also help to divide up long texts and be used as an attention-grabber

• In the first paragraph, write a summary and introduction to what your blog post is about
  This is a technique that is used in newspaper articles, to capture interested readers and/or get part of the message across for those that are simply browsing.
  A lot of people will be reading blogs through an RSS/ATOM reader or stumble upon blog posts through search engines. Without something to draw their interest, they might just consider skipping it if they are not a regular reader.

• Use a spell checker
  Bad spelling and grammar can diminish the general experience of your post. This is in particular something to have in mind if you do not write in your native language. Not that native speakers are immune to bad spelling and grammar, but we who post blogs in other languages than our own may still be at a slight disadvantage here.
  Regardless of what language you write in, chances are that you may be blind to the mistakes you make because your mind sees what you intended and not what you have written.

• When you have written your blog post, go back and update the first introduction/summary paragraph
  If you have used the previous suggestion with a summary in the beginning, go back and rewrite it when you are done with your blog post. Chances are that what you ended up writing is not entirely what you initially thought you would write. Plus you might have thought of a much better way to describe it at this point.

• When you have finished writing the blog post, do not click Publish immediately
  If you are like me you have ended up spending more time writing the post than you have planned for, it is late in the evening/night or you have to rush to do something else. Not a good time to publish it, especially if you are forcing or squeezing out the last parts. Chances are that you have forgotten something you wanted to include, some phrases will look weird, you have made spelling mistakes etc. In most cases it does not have to be published right now.
  Relax a little bit, perhaps do something else and then read the post again.
  If you are still happy with it, then publish it.

Personally I have been consistently bad at scheduling my blog writing time – the few times I have done that it has worked out well, I think. I am a bit too quick to publish something I have written also, especially after a (too) long writing session. For me, most of the hits I get on the blog come from search engines, but I have no idea how often or how many of these may continue to read what I write beyond what initially got them here.

Techie fun on rails

This is not game stuff, but if you are a techie you might find this fun. Otherwise just skip it until next post

If you are a techie you might have heard of or worked with Ruby on Rails, a popular framework for building web solutions. The original creator of Ruby on Rails is David Heinemeier Hansson.

Apparently the company Groupon, which use Ruby on Rails, were looking for more talents to work with that. A recruiter from the company, most likely without knowing much about Ruby on Rails, contacted Mr Hansson for an opportunity.

I found that quite hilarious.

The bad translator

Through a post in Anarchy Online forums I found this wonderful site: Bad Translator. The site allows you to enter a limited amount of English text and then runs that text back and forth between English and some other languages a couple of times – you can select the number of iterations to run.

I ran a couple of sentences through the translator to see what happened:

1. I got a level 58 Bureaucrat in Anarchy Online -> (30 iterations) -> I have 58 pages of fantasy
2. Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please -> (30 iterations) -> They distort what you want
   
3. Is that game just another WoW clone? -> (30 iterations) -> F This is how simple awareness of the game?
   
4. I’ll be back. -> (30 iterations) -> Show
   
5. Our village has been plagued by nasty rodents for a while now. Would you help us kill ten rats, glorious adventurer? -> (30 iterations) ->  In mice, long-term illness. We’ll help guide you need?
6. I am not young enough to know everything.  -> (30 iterations) -> I know your children.

I would hazard to say that there are some shortcomings in the machine translators

Dinged 500

Character name: A Ding World
Blog post level: 500
/Played: 3 years, 349 days

State of Sente

I have been a bit quiet in terms of blogging lately, which mainly a matter of a bit less game-related time, so most of that time go to playing rather than blogging.

The main game at the moment is Champions Online – great fun and a nice place to handle my altoholic tendencies. A bit of time is also spent in Fallen Earth, I do like the post-apocalyptic setting and I enjoy playing it every now and then. It fulfills a different type of game activity from Champions and they complement each other nice, I think.

I have been in a bit of a “fantasy rut” for a while now and I have very little interest in any current or new fantasy MMOs. For me the specific mechanics and features of a game may be a primary motivator, but rather the setting and how it has been used. I am a little bit surprised but also relieved that this may be the case – if the mechanics were all that mattered I think it would be very easy to lose the enjoyment of playing these games.

City of Heroes/Villlains has not seen much play either. It has been very much about the people for a long time there and with most in-game friends gone or in other games, there is little on the team-play part that keeps me around. Creating Mission Architect story arcs is still a very enjoyable solo experience, but I have been a bit discouraged by the lack of people playing the missions I have created and some of the things Paragon Studios has done here lately. When the Going Rogue expansion releases it will likely be more play, but right now I have a rather low attendance in the Rogue Isles and Paragon City.

One activity that has increased lately has nothing to do with games – mentalism. I have been a magic enthusiast and occasional hobby magician for more than 30 years. Over the years my interested has shifted a bit more towards mentalism, at least when it comes to performing. It is a branch related to entertainment through magic, but still a bit different. It is on the borderline on exploring our own inherent capabilities as well as taking a bit extra step to provide entertainment miracles. It is that border area of what is a real capability and what might not be, plus a high degree of audience participation that makes it such an interesting area.

It requires a lot of time to become really good (practice, practice, practice), although it is more a matter of sleight of mind rather than more traditional magic entertainment, which may be a bit more sleight of hand.

So, still around but remains to be seen how much blogging it will be in the near future.