http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/ Bulbagarden - The original Pokémon Community en Tue, 21 May 2013 08:03:34 GMT vBulletin 60 http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/images/styles/Millenium/misc/rss.jpg http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/cool-tool-those-you-who-work-projects-56542/ Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:45:30 GMT Saw this on Lifehacker earlier today and thought I'd share. It allows you to create Venn Diagram style task maps and then sort/filter by who it's assigned to, due date, etc. Might be helpful for someone doing a project around here, or just for personal use:

https://www.droptask.com/

I've been playing around with it this evening and it seems really neat (although I haven't figured out a project to use it for yet.)

Let me know if you do anything awesome! ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/cool-tool-those-you-who-work-projects-56542/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/thanks-birthday-wishes-55673/ Fri, 18 Jan 2013 02:46:58 GMT It's been an awesome day and you guys are always a part of it. Thanks for rocking so hard. ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/thanks-birthday-wishes-55673/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/decade-bulba-55161/ Sat, 29 Dec 2012 19:34:48 GMT So this is a weird post to write, but I've now been on Bulbagarden for a decade. Which, weirdly, is longer than some of our youngest members have been alive. This is a little look back on my perspective of Bulba over the last ten or so years.

I've been able to watch a lot of change on Bulba. It started as a board where a few dozen people - basically a circle of friends - chatted on a regular basis. So the board was more or less dead during US school hours and then picked up after school and quieted down again after 1 or 2AM when even the folks on the west coast had to go to bed. And slowly but surely we grew, in large part because we had an awesome community that was IMO more highbrow than anything else out there except Azure Heights (look it up, kids!). Probably the coolest part of this small community is that we basically had no rules - because everyone knew each other there was a general social compact and trolls were banned and everyone else was more or less OK. Bulba then was basically like an especially active social group today.

One of the big projects for the first few years of the site was working on a Pokedex. Every other major site had one and we just couldn't get the coding resources together to do it. At the time I was in charge of the games forum so it was sort of on my plate to do it. And there were probably three or four serious but failed attempts to put one together, none really getting off the ground. At about this time Wikipedia was really picking up - it wasn't a mature product like it is today but was definitely well-known On The Internet for being on a great growth swing. And that combined with the sort of general "Web 2.0" feel of the time meant that we went on a Mediawiki bender. With Zhen, myself, and a few other members of the team, we threw together the first hundred and fifty or so pages (not even a page on every Pokemon!).

Bulbapedia was by far the most secretive project I've ever worked on at Bulbagarden. We kept the thing on lockdown, and for good reason - it was in our view our one big innovation, and we didn't want anyone beating us to the punch. I put a lot of time into it for the two or so months between creation and go-live. And then opened it to the public and the rest is history; we got 1000 articles in a few months and Bulbapedia proceeded to blanket the Pokemon web by putting all information about all parts of the fandom in one place. It may be the thing I'm most proud of working on here, but there were a lot of things that I've done.

I spent the first year or so of Bulbapedia's life as its EiC, stepping back slowly as some things started bubbling up in my real life. Zhen took over and did an admirable job, and then TTE came in and gave it some polish, and @Magnedeth brought direction and stability back to the organization after TTE's departure. On the whole that's had an excellent almost-8-year run and I expect its growth will continue and its depth will increase into the future.

After I moved off Bulbapedia I worked with the senior staff to revamp the forums, working through multiple reorganizations and consolidations. We worked to modernize the discussion space and clean up a lot of the old and arbitrary aspects of the forum structure and rules. That proceeded from 2006 to late 2011, at which point I had to step back further because of real life obligations. I think the legacy of that is reflected really well in the culture of the forum today - a vibrant center of discussion in a now-mature fandom. And now we have an excellent group of second- and third-generation senior staff who are doing an awesome job of making the site run smoothly.

I couldn't be prouder of them. It's one thing to basically come in (as I did) from the start, know everyone, and work as a single group to accomplish something big. A lot of successful tech organizations have pulled that off -- Facebook, Google, Foursquare, etc. But it's much harder to pass the torch to the next group; look at Apple after Jobs or Microsoft after Gates. Both are still doing OK and continuing the legacy of their core products, but neither is able to really reach the heights of years past. Bulbagarden isn't suffering that problem, though - we're the IBM of Pokemon fansites (that is the first, last, and possibly only time IBM will ever be analogized to a fansite on the internet). There may be ups and downs as times change, but we've built a system that enables continuous innovation and successful management transitions. The result is a place like this - where I can blog right after checking what level Snivy evolves and then look for a place to trade away said Snivy, if I want to.

I'm super excited to see what the next decade brings and, as much as I can, contribute to another 10 years of Bulba.

"All alive and brand new." ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/decade-bulba-55161/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/merry-christmas-55062/ Tue, 25 Dec 2012 23:11:48 GMT Hi all - Merry Christmas! Now is a really great time to take a minute and reflect on what's good and pure in the world. One of those things, for me, is the community here - always wholesome and fundamentally good in a way that isn't always true of the world around us.

Keep on being awesome and have a great holiday.

evkl ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/merry-christmas-55062/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/b2w2-without-b1w1-53462/ Mon, 29 Oct 2012 02:47:59 GMT I have a copy of White 2 and never got around to playing White or Black 1. Will I be missing a lot?

Should I hold off on playing? I'm preparing for a hurricane and need to decide whether it's a go- or no-go situation. :-p ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/b2w2-without-b1w1-53462/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/questions-answered-45699/ Thu, 12 Apr 2012 00:00:37 GMT Magmarashi asks:
" Do you watch any animes besides Pokémon? "

Nope! Not these days. Not even Pokémon. I really haven't watched much in the way of regular TV series in about two years, just due to time constraints. I'm about midway through Battlestar Galactica, but other than that I really don't watch any series, much less anime. I haven't kept up on what's "good" and "new" in about 3-4 years.

Hypersonic asks:
" Who is your profile picture? "

Naota, from FLCL.

Shiny Celebi asks:
"If you were going to change your avatar, what would you change it to? "

That's a really good question and I don't have a fast answer. I like having a relatively simple avatar -- something sort of iconic and low-key. I don't like avatars with tons of colors or things going on, because I think that makes it hard to identify someone if you ask me. I'd have to think about it, honestly...maybe a Phillies P, at least in the interim.

Gumdramon asks:
" Have you seen FLCL(Fooly Cooly) "

Yep! Two or three times. Really liked it.

Jabberwocky asks:
" The Normans are coming to slaughter your people. Quick! Who would you rather have on your side: Count Dracula or Solomon Grundy? "

I'll go with Dracula. Don't know Grundy all that well (had to look him up, actually) but Dracula always struck me as sort of a badass. Albeit a weird one.

Mintaka asks:
1. You're hungry and you see these dishes on a table. A nutella sandwich, a bowl of cream soup, and a slice of apple pie.
You can choose only one of the three choices. Which would you take?

Right now, the bowl of cream soup. Passover pretty much demands it. Any other time, though, I'd go with a good slice of apple pie.

2. What do you find the most annoying error/glitch/etc in a (typical) computer?

Really good question! I hate hate hate when a cell phone just restarts itself. I've encountered that with both iPhones and Android phones, and of course "feature" phones. It's incredibly annoying even if it is only a one- or two-minute inconvenience. But in general computing, I'd have to say it's when a program locks up. Because that's ultimately a result of shitty programming, especially when it's a program that can expect its inputs. So, a web browser can render shitty web code that causes it to go slowly or freeze up. But Excel should (basically) never encounter an .xls file that causes it to blow up. And yet, it does! Which means someone did a shitty job somewhere. And that's frustrating.

3. Three words to describe BMGf. Go.

Fun! Casual! Highbrow! ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/questions-answered-45699/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/question-time-again-45655/ Wed, 11 Apr 2012 01:03:42 GMT Have a few free minutes over the next few days, so why not. Ask me (just about) anything in the comments of this blog and I'll answer as best I can in a post tomorrow or Thursday. ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/question-time-again-45655/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/build-you-rown-computer-44150/ Sat, 10 Mar 2012 14:03:18 GMT As most of you know, I work for a living. And it's a nice living! And it's nice work, mostly. I get lots of perks, like a computer and the ability to travel around the country (and even internationally, on occasion) to visit clients. But one of the downsides is that when I travel, it's a real pain in the ass to drag along my personal laptop and my work computer, which is a behemoth of a computer (great specs, but not light.) And I bought my personal laptop like 6 months before the Ultrabook craze, so it isn't so ultra; it's got good specs too, but it's heavier than I'd like to bring with me. And bringing a total of like 12 pounds of computer isn't really fun.

So I've decided to make my own computer that I can RDP into from the road. I figure it's the best of both worlds. And I want to be adventurous and build it myself, something I haven't done since I was like 12 with a friend (and that was 11 years ago!). So I was hoping for tips from you guys on good hardware that you know of. I'm looking to make the entire thing for around $500 and reliability/uptime is hugely important to me. It won't be doing anything especially processor-intensive. Maybe playing a few games, but I'm not expecting $1200-rig performance out of it. It will be hosting a lot of media, so I can't do it on just an SSD, and I'm not sure if an SSD justifies the cost.

More/most curious about the best/highest-quality things that aren't obvious, like power supply and fan and case. I'm not wedded to Intel or AMD, but I do want a solid processor because if I do this right, I'll have this computer for 5+ years and I don't want it running into problems with Windows 9.75 or something.

So, any experts out there? I'm all ears. ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/build-you-rown-computer-44150/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/what-ive-been-reading-lately-43519/ Sun, 26 Feb 2012 05:17:33 GMT Been doing a lot of reading lately and I figured I'd share some of the better things I've come across. Nothing super new, but nevertheless, all worth checking out IMO:

Just My Type - A Book About Fonts. Fun as a diversion, and you'll learn a thing or two about type along the way. Really worth the read, and it flows extremely fast.

Thinking, Fast and Slow: Somewhere between pop psychology and a doctoral thesis. Fascinating if you haven't taken a college-level psych course with an eye towards decision-making recently, but covers a lot of the ground that modern psych classes do, so maybe not worth it if that's your path. But Kahneman is a great writer and won an economics Nobel -- so he's clearly worth listening to.

A Song of Ice and Fire -- if you are a fast reader and/or have lots of time to burn. Also, if you don't mind an author who is unsentimental about his characters.

The Art of Fielding - Better literature than all but maybe 2 or 3 books I've read. Writing is sublime, story is very good. A very fast 500 pages.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Disagreements? Discuss! ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/what-ive-been-reading-lately-43519/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/thanks-birthday-wishes-42035/ Wed, 18 Jan 2012 03:06:44 GMT Easier than a personal reply -- call me lazy. But, thanks to all for the birthday wishes. I started on Bulba shortly before my 13th birthday, and now I'm 23. I'm so old! ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/thanks-birthday-wishes-42035/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/born-run-35647/ Mon, 19 Sep 2011 01:31:21 GMT Not the incredible third album by Springsteen, but the well-written book by Christopher McDugall. If you haven't read it, I'd really recommend it. Physical activity isn't the kind of thing we talk about a lot on Bulbagarden, especially not ultramarathons. But it's a really important part of overall health, and Born to Run makes a great case for doing a lot of running, and running differently from how we're used to, in our special running shoes on perfectly-designed oval tracks.

I don't think one book ever has all the answers, but this one certainly inspired me to think a little differently. I don't have the luxury of time to go for 2 or 3 or 5 hour runs covering 40 or 50 miles, but I can certainly get out and devote a solid 45 minutes to trekking around. It's fun!

The book is really worth a read. If anyone else has read it or has thoughts, I'd love to hear it. ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/born-run-35647/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/shameless-self-promotion-34593/ Sat, 27 Aug 2011 18:22:03 GMT Before that, I'd like to make a personal and public thank-you to everyone who's helped make National Bulbagraphic totally awesome over the past month and a half. We've got a ton of articles that are looking really great for Issue 2 and I even have one article already lined up for Issue 3. If you're interested in writing for Bulbagraphic, drop me a line. We accept articles on all sorts of Pokemon-related topics, especially stuff that provides interesting or unusual views on the franchise.

Also, exciting Bulbagraphic news: Issue 1 is now available on your e-reader! You can download it here. Thanks to a very helpful Bulba supporter (who isn't even a member of the forums, as far as I know) for reaching out and making that. Hopefully that will also be a recurring feature of Bulbagraphic and let you take it with you when you're on the road. ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/shameless-self-promotion-34593/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/reading-recommendations-32459/ Tue, 12 Jul 2011 03:18:00 GMT I got a new job (woo!) and it's going to require that I do some traveling for the month of August. When I fly, I like to catch up on reading, and I was wondering/hoping you could all help me out and give me a few pointers. I have pretty eclectic interests and I love nonfiction. I'll only read fiction if it's really, really good. But if you know good stuff, I'd love to hear about it.

Beyond the recommendations, one question: is Game of Thrones worth it? (Again, book, not TV series.) ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/reading-recommendations-32459/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/favorite-least-favorite-harry-potter-book-31989/ Sat, 02 Jul 2011 03:31:54 GMT Just wanted to start this discussion a bit, what with the 7th move (Part II) coming out in two weeks. Thoughts? I don't want to poison the well by naming my picks, but I think on the whole the odd-numbered books are substantially better than the even numbered ones. Thoughts? ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/favorite-least-favorite-harry-potter-book-31989/ http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/hgss-wrapup-fun-but-ultimately-unsatisfying-31173/ Thu, 16 Jun 2011 02:58:44 GMT So I just grabbed my 16th badge and HM08 today. I know there's a bit more of the game to be played, but I was fundamentally disappointed by HGSS. There was this weird time in Kanto where I was at this tipping point where I didn't have the power to beat Sabrina, because Espeon just Calm Minded and then roasted me. So I had to re-run the E4 twice and took on Erika and I think one other gym to level up. Then I beat Sabrina and just absolutely ran over the entire rest of Kanto in about an hour. Sabrina, Misty, Brock, Blaine, and Blue all fell SO quickly. There was no challenge, and while my team is balanced and I'm a competent battler there was really no challenge; my team methodically dismantled everybody.

Probably my biggest gripe about the game is its speed and the lack of any real challenges. Especially in Kanto--as I said, Sabrina was the only real wall/impediment. And it didn't seem like anything else was even really trying to stop you. Erika's entire gym could've been handled by my Arcanine. Misty could've been rolled by Meganium alone. Same with Brock. Blaine was owned by Slowbro. Blue was just a matter of tactical switching a few times. Victory was methodical and complete, but unsatisfying.

Is Black and White better? I really hope so, because I remember how awesome I felt Gold was when I first played nearly a decade ago. And I feel pretty empty playing HeartGold now. So, what gives? Am I getting old, or is the franchise easy and uninventive? ]]> evkl http://bmgf.bulbagarden.net/blogs/17/hgss-wrapup-fun-but-ultimately-unsatisfying-31173/