More time with Mahalo

So far, I am absolutely loving what Mahalo (Calacanis‘ brain child, apparently) can do. Basically, some experts in various fields are hired by Mahalo to piece together custom pages based on top search terms. The result is a lovingly crafted set of relevant search results representing all of the best the web has to offer for your search term. The whole effort ends up looking and acting just like some sort of hybrid search wiki.

Here’s some example searches I’ve performed:

Nintendo Wii (duh)
Halo
Super Smash Bros. Brawl
Transformers
David Letterman

And, just for the fun of it:

Nerdflood (just gives Google results)

The result is astounding. Even better than just fantastic, relevant search results is the digging you can do to see the layers behind the data. After I searched for Gears of War, I found the user page of the guy who built it:  Evan D. There you can see all the other pages this user is responsible for, and the completion percentage of each page. Find out more about their tastes, and maybe get some insight into why they are attracted to building a search engine surrounding a particular topic of interest.

Searching for Nintendo Wii, I found Adam’s page, and noticed that he’s created over a hundred pages for Maholo.

What does this mean? Why is it important? It tells you something intrinsically vital about Mahalo: it’s built by people. It isn’t a set of bots, it isn’t AI, and it isn’t an algorithm. It’s people. Building webpages. The old fashioned way. It’s a mix of web 1.0 and web 2.0 together, and it’s beautiful.

Let’s hope everyone else sees the potential here.

Comixpedia needs your help (possibly)

I know I don’t have the reach I used to, but any bit helps, I suppose.

Xavier Xerexes over at Comixpedia is looking for someone to take over the Comixpedia webcomic encyclopedia.

What it needs now, however, is enthusiastic and committed leadership dedicated to maintaining this project and helping to develop a more active community around it. After thinking about it a lot this year I know I’m not the person to do that. Realistically, I don’t have the time for it (I struggle to carve out just the time spent here at comixpedia.com).

So I’m in need of a plan for the future of the webcomic wiki. A future without my direct involvement. What I’m potentially offering to a person or an entity is my assistance in transferring the backend of the current site to a new host, the url comixpedia.org and/or the name Comixpedia.

Xavier is really looking not just for someone to take over hosting of the site, but also to help build an active community that cares for and guides the construction and legitimization of the Comixpedia encyclopedia.

If you are in any position to help, please go over to Comixpedia and contact Xavier directly.

Historical zombie fiction…now history

Well, the deadline was today, and I never submitted my story. It remains unfinished, and likely will indefinitely. The fact of the matter is after having a good conversation with my wife about it, I felt that writing a zombie story–something I have never done before, and an experience I wasn’t overly enjoying–was just not the direction I wanted to go. I shouldn’t write a story just to get a story written–that runs counter to my theory of being a writer. I need to love the concept, and the characters, and the setting in order to pour my heart and efforts into a project. And although the concept of “All Hail the King” sounded interesting in my mind, it just wasn’t something I was meant to hold onto.

So, my new goal now: I’m going to work on another short story project I’ve had in mind. I’m going to begin piecing parts of the concept together over the next couple of weeks and start writing. Hopefully, I can still meet my goal of having something I like submitted to a publication before the end of the year.

Somewhat related side-note: as of this past Tuesday, it was exactly two months since I had written my last Ficlet. That should really be a daily effort. I need to take the time to continually sharpen the tools, or they dull and rust and crack and wither. And then, I’m left with nothing but my good looks, my aptitude for excellent spelling, and my addiction to the Wii.

So, basically, nothing.

Have a great Memorial Day weekend! I’ll be traveling, so I likely won’t blog again until sometime early next week.

Be safe!

Everything is starting to look a lot like MOVING

Well, it looks like after 6 years of living in a quiet, sleepy farm town in rural Iowa, we might actually be uprooting our nest and moving east. Not too far east, mind you. We’re currently looking at a cozy 3-bedroom brownstone in Waukee.

Most of the details are in place: we’ve gotten pre-approved for our loan. We’ve gone over the budget several times, and it looks like it can work better than we had expected. We’ve started cleaning up the house (garage sale in two weeks!). The wife is looking for a new job. I’m getting the house listed for sale. It’s all about time, too. This tiny 900 sq ft house is getting far too cramped for our four-member family. It will be difficult to leave the wonderful community, but it’s really only 20+ miles, so it isn’t like trekking cross-country.

A couple of financial windfalls have helped us decide that this is the right thing for us to do. First off, Amanda received a letter from her former company saying that she had a substantial sum of money in uncollected corporate stock value sitting in a portfolio, and she needed to claim it or lose it. Gee, I wonder if we should go ahead and claim that?

Also, Amanda won a gift certificate for a week’s worth of daycare from the Des Moines Register. I’m still sketchy on the details of how exactly that occurred, but since we were just discussing having to put the boys back into daycare, it seemed fairly coincidental that this particular windfall would hit at this particular time.

The most telling detail that says that we’re finally ready to do this: I’m actually excited about it. All these years, I’ve been so strangely hesitant about leaving this community that I think I’ve been subconsciously cutting off opportunities for us to move. Now, I’m eager for a change. I like the idea of cutting my commute to work in half. I like the idea of living closer to civilization (if you can consider Des Moines, Iowa a semblance of “civilization”). I like the idea of our kids going to a school like Waukee. It’s all starting to fit together, and I’m anticipating the change in our lifestyle.

Expect more from me on this in the coming weeks. And, at some point in mid-June, likely a bit of a blackout on this blog. I suspect you will know why.