darkblog resonate

i know this is more of a life thing than a thought thing so it really belongs on oscillate, but it’s been a while since i’ve written on resonate, and my brain is still in this state of analysis about everything that happened, so i thought i’d mix it up a bit.

so yeah. i got three teeth extracted today. it needs to be documented.

the first thing that i did after the dentist’s assistant (darlene) put me in the chair was to read and sign a form that stated that i understood what was being done to me, that i had had a discussion about the potential side effects and complications and yadeyade. It’s the second time i’ve signed something like that in which one of the potential complications listed on the form was “death”, the first being when i went skydiving in 2004. Other than that, the form was pretty straightforward with those typical “things could go wrong, you could get infections” nonsense that to me has the sort of odds like the nut flush against the straight flush. Sure, it’s *possible*, but the odds just aren’t there, and even if by some stretch something were to happen, it’s not unfixable.

So okay. i signed the paper, the oral surgeon guy then went over what he was going to do, and discussed options for one of the teeth to be extracted, as in two of the teeth were my wisdom teeth on the right side which was fine, but one tooth on my left hand side was my second molar which would leave a gap between my left wisdom tooth and my first molar. He said that if i wanted to i could just leave it alone and then over years the two teeth would likely push closer together which isn’t a big deal, or i could get a replacement fake tooth to go in there instead which would cost a bunch of money, but is an option. He didn’t want to sway me one way or the other, but he did say after i essentially decided that it was unnecessary that he probably would have done the same thing and just left it alone. I also have the option of changing my mind if i want down the road. He mentioned some potential low-risk dangers and some low-to-moderate numb-like side effects that could go on for days or weeks or months, but that that would only happen if he was sloppy. He had an accent that i couldn’t quite place because it was fairly light; it was definitely either european or eastern bloc. He said his last name, but it wasn’t something that i caught because it was somewhat complicated or else i wasn’t listening properly.

They put a thing over my nose that was supposed to introduce nitrous oxide into my system. Darlene told me that it was just supposed to relax me, make me feel like “i had just had a couple of cocktails.” After a while i started to feel a tingle in my legs, but other than that my sense of awareness didn’t seem to dull at all. I said as such, so she let it run some more, and after a few more minutes, she applied some topical novocaine to the areas of my teeth. After a few minutes, the oral surgeon stuck needles into my mouth to put the more Heavy Stuff into my mouth, and then we waited to allow the numbness to go into effect.

While we waited for the heavy novocaine to settle in, Darlene asked me where i was from and all that and i gave a basic answer, and when i said that i marched in the Saints Victory parade, she said that she was there and that brought more of her background into the light, that she had lived here all of her life, her parents got married in the big chapel downtown in the quarter. So i asked the question that’s been on my mind ever since the saints won the super bowl and we did the parade, “so the saints winning the super bowl was a very personal thing fro you, then?” and her face kind of lit up (over her facemask) and said, “absolutely.” and it spurned a small conversation about how the super bowl was such a unifying thing for the city, a topic of a separate entry in my head.

She asked me how i was doing with the numbness and with the nitrous, and i said that i was feeling pretty numb from the novocaine, but i wasn’t sure about the whole nitrous thing. i mean, more of my body was feeling numb, but my brain still felt very alert. She left me for a few minutes after that, which i think was an effort to distract me less so i could breathe the nitrous more completely.

After a while, the oral surgeon came back and said, “i’m going to do some stuff and all you should feel is pressure. if you feel pain, let me know and we’ll give you more anaesthetic.” So he did some stuff, saying out loud, “some pressure, some pressure, a little pressure, a lot of pressure…” and i didn’t feel any pain at all, so he got to work.

and i would have loved to see a video of what he did. not because i was particularly interested in the process, but because i felt like what he was doing would have really really hurt if it weren’t for the numbing stuff. i know it must have been pretty bloody since i’m still bleeding a lot (have to replace gauze in my mouth every half hour or so), but whatever. i’m normally squeamish about blood, but this is different, maybe because it’s mine, or because i knew what it felt like which wasn’t much at all; i don’t know. But it was just interesting to feel tugs of pressure without pain for something that feels like i should have been screaming in agony.

Two of the teeth were difficult to extract apparently; one because it just had a long root, the other because that tooth has been broken for a while and so it was more fussy to get out. He did a bunch of a drilling and then pulling and then drilling and then pulling. When the teeth actually came out, i only felt one of them. The other two i was only aware that they came out because i could tell that what the assistant was doing was dealing with gauzing up the bleeding as opposed to assisting him with the process. With the tooth on my left side, he put in a stitch, which marks the first stitch i’ve ever had in my life.

The whole thing took about an hour to do (starting with the topical novocaine – the actual extraction was maybe ten minutes each?). After it was done, Darlene switched the nitrous to a concentrated oxygen to “clear my head so i can drive”, and honestly, i thikn i got gipped out of the nitrous experience because when i went back and evaluated the way my head felt and my body felt overall, i don’t think i felt any effects of the nitrous other than the initial tingly feeling in my limbs. My head still felt pretty alert but relaxed, but not in a way that was moreso than normal. maybe i was just that unaware of whether or not it had any effect, but if i had known that it would go like that, i might have asked to not have it, especially since it was an additional $95 charge that didn’t get covered by my insurance.

After i was taken off of the oxygen, Darlene gave me a brief overview of what i needed to do post-extraction, which strangely includes not rinsing or drinking through a straw for twenty-four hours. Apparently rinsing and suction of any sort can complicate the whole healing process, so until 14:00 tomorrow i can’t really brush my teeth. I can eat soft foods, but i’m probably going to stick with yogurt and liquids, maybe throw in some sliced meats. i’m not supposed to eat rice or strawberries or anything that could potentially lodge itself into the areas where the teeth used to be.

I have three prescriptions: one for amoxacillan which takes me back to my younger asthmatic years, one for percoset which i can take as needed, and one “oral rinse” deal that i need to start to do tomorrow after i’m actually allowed to rinse. i’m not sure if i’m going to take the percoset since it’s just a pain killer as opposed to anything that prevents infection, and i generally shy away from that sort of stuff. i figure that if i could march an entire week of 8+ hour rehearsals at 160-200 BPM with a pulled groin muscle (Crossmen 1995 finals week), i can deal with some stupid pain in my mouth for a week or two. i have a followup appointment a week from now so they can make sure that i’m all healing properly.

it’s now 16:15 and the bottom half of my mouth is starting to finally get feeling back, which is a good thing. i hate having to talk or eat or do anything with that feeling of numbness. when i was younger and still went to the dentist, i eventually started having my cavities drilled without novocaine because i preferred the short term pain over the long term numbness. my attitude is less strong than it used to be which means that i’ll take the novocaine with a shrug, but the numbness and how long it lasts is still pretty annoying.

there’s one other part of the whole visit that’s worthy of mentioning, but that part will actually go into an oscillate entry instead of here, and also be picture number twelve of my 40 day lent scheme.

Tags: oscillate, surgery

for various reasons, something started taking shape for me since i moved to new orleans regarding travel.

when i lived in eugene i didn’t travel that much. usually any travel were road trips related to DDR tournaments in either seattle or san fran which would occupy a weekend or four days. There were several reasons for this both philosophically and practically; mainly it was because travel felt like an expensive interruption to a flow, and i was one of those sorts that liked to hoard my PTO so i had wiggle room for its use.

since moving to new orleans a year and a half ago, i’ve now traveled four times of note. First was when i drove to nashville for hurricane evacuation. most of that time was spent with ken, playing disc golf with friends and exploring nashville stuff. Second was when i went back to PA for winter holidays, the first time i was back in the area since moving to the west coast in 1999. Third was the multihop trip in august – Eugene to visit old friends, Hawaii to see one of my oldest and dearest friends get married, and eastern oregon to teach band camp of one of my former students and to hang out for a bit. Fourth is what’s happening right now. San Francisco to see another old and dear friend get married, Anaheim to visit jjk, Long Beach to visit an old undergraduate classmate who i still connect with, Chatsworth to meet a long time LJ friend in person for the first time, Santa Barbara to visit another LJ friend in person for the first time.

What’s true about all of these trips is that they’ve all been incredibly valuable experiences for me, secondly because of the new places i’ve visited, but primarily because of the people in my life who i cherish and get to share time with. I have a lot of friends scattered everywhere in the united states, and it’s resultingly not too difficult for me to find someone or some people to hang out with if i state my intent to travel. Particularly this time around i’ve had a few people in the SF area express their interest in seeing me, and it sucks that i can’t see them because so much of my sf time is occupied with the wedding.

thinking about these experiences and the sentiments that go with them makes me reflect on how social interaction in general has changed and how that relates to the love i have for the people in my life. even when i was a teenager i had started to develop the sensibility that people were the most important thing in my life, and as the internet rose to mainstream use, that became easier to manage because the internet made it easier to keep the connection with all of these people active without the need to be physically close and/or without breaking the phone bill. But back then, social networking and social etiquette were very different; it was common for me to exchange four-page-and-up emails with friends on a semi-regular basis, it was common for me to have 2-3 hour phone converations on more than a weekly basis, and LJ as a primary outlet for personal expression had an interaction depth level that brought me close to and care deeply about people who i have never met in real life. But as the popularlity and use of LJ declined in favor of more surface-level instaorgasm social networking sites (myspace/facebook/twitter) and texting, the amount of long distance interactions that have that same degree of depth are fewer and far between (part of which i acknowledge is my own fault, but that’s tangental to this post).

Resultingly what i’ve discovered is that travel is filling that void, that these trips are very important for my soul. Seeing all of the people on these trips and the people who have visited me in new orleans for the past year and a half represent times in my life that i treasure and know i will never forget. i have amazing friends and acquaintances, and i’ve met some fantastic people, and my life is nothing without them.

This realization is causing me to further shift my financial priorities to accomodate this concept, to understand that given the choice between, say, buying a video game console or a snazzy tv or the next awesome phone versus going thorugh some complicated travel plans to try to see as many of my friends as possible during an opportune lull in my work schedule, travel will win out every time, no contest.

philosophical shift aside, i’m not certain how much more frequently i’ll be able to travel per year based on schedule and finances, but i do understand that what i should probably do some research on reward miles and similar travel-based reward packages.

original content on darkblog resonate.

Tags: friends, new orleans, travel

Activision has just released the newest US mimic of japanese bemani that has been a popular video game trend ever since Guitar Hero made it big. But unlike Guitar Hero’s japanese predecessor which sports pretty much the exact same control scheme and gameplay paradigm as Guitar Hero except with two extra buttons, DJ Hero decided to make a few significant changes to the iidx aesthetic that gave me incentive to do a comparative analysis.

first, a couple of videos for background:

tatsujin video of a guy playing V another on iidx. i chose this one because he kept the sound of him hitting the keys in, and the middle part where he mashed to deal with the trill chords is hilarious.

video of a guy playing kid cudi vs black eyed peas on expert. Unfortunately he decided to show the controller play upside down relative to the screen, but you get the idea.

and here’s a video of my friend playing one of the harder charts of DJ Hero.

Other than the fact that difficult charts are much rarer in DJ Hero than in iidx, the most striking distinction between the gameplay has to do with the handling of multiple responsibilities and how the player deals with them. one of the things that annoys me the most about 7key iidx is that while there are many notecharts that employ polyrhythmic ideas in them, players aren’t forced to think of them as polyrhythmic because they can read them as single rhythm streams with some chords put in. The easiest example i can come up with on this is this section of Colors Heavy. (Sorry that the guy playing in the video isn’t that good. This is the only video of colors heavy that i could find not on random.) For as long as i’ve played this song, i’ve dealt with this section by thinking it as polyrhythmic, reading it like this:

because that’s a polyrhythmic pattern i always used to play on tenors or drumset or timbales or whatever. Right hand is doing triple strokes, left hand is doing 1..a..+.1..a..+. i treat those as independent rhythms in my head. But in talking to a lot of people who play iidx, they don’t think of it that way at all. They see it as a single stream of notes with a few two-note chords thrown in, so the concept of polyrhythm isn’t important. Even if they understand that that’s what’s happening, they don’t have to think of it that way in order to execute it. The only times in iidx where people have the potential to be forced to think and execute two rhythms happening simultaneously instead of a single stream of notes is a scratch heavy song or when playing 14key.

What i think DJ Hero does is change that; while it takes away the concept of scratching being independent from note hitting most of the time, the concept of the left-right fader adds an extra element that iidx doesn’t have. Regardless of how complex and/or streamy iidx can get, it’s still a hit or scratch aesthetic, while DJ Hero has a hit, sctrach, or L/R fade aesthetic. Because all of those things are executed very differently, it potentially forces the player to have to think of those elements independently in order to execute them. So the base skillset between that and iidx is somewhat different and employs a more advanced musical concept, and that makes it more interesting than GH or even Rock Band.

Given that, i feel like the success of DJ Hero as a paradigm then depends primarily on two factors. The first is more obvious: how far the bar will raise in difficulty as new installments come out? Surely when beatmania first came out back in 1997, no one imagined that it would reach a difficulty level that dominates iidx now. Similarly, DJ Hero is in its own sort of initial conception, so it offers a potential to raise the bar somewhat, but even with the level of demand placed on the player for hit/scratch/fade, i suspect that it will become clear how limiting it is that they decided to go with only three buttons and three hit lanes.

The second is less obvious but much more important, which has to do with the philosophy and approach to what i’m going to term “internal pedagogy”, or maybe more simply the learning curve. Does the game have charts or section of charts that successfully teach the base polyrhythmic fader/hit/scratch concepts so that players can then comfortably execute the more difficult charts? Does the complexity of those concepts ramp up in a pedagogical and gradual manner?

Unfortunately those aren’t questions i can answer since i’ve only seen a few select charts of the game and most of them are on the easy side of the spectrum. As more charts come to surface and as the game evolves over time, i may have more to say about it.

Ultimately, though, the game has to get at least one negative mark from me for not having the ability to play double. I’m a 14key player by trade; no matter how much more you might add to the mix, three buttons is still three buttons.

Tags: bemani, DJ Hero, iidx

This is more for my own personal historical archive than anything else, but i thought i’d post it on my blog in the event that anyone else was interested.

The idea to make a video of me playing chain factor came as a result of me not finding any online videos of gameplay that could help guide my own play to being better, so i decided to make my own video of one of my better runs. I got lucky – the run that i ended up recording was the first run that i did, and while it’s not my best score, i felt it was good enough for me to use.

the run actually took about 22 minutes to complete, so the first step was to speed up the video so that it would meet youtube’s 10 minute specification limit (although i do realize that yt’s limitation has more to do with filesize rather than length). Doing that meant that i couldn’t use the original music/soundtrack without it sounding ridiculous, so the next step was to find music to go with the run. Ten minutes is longer than songs typically are, but i immediately rejected the idea of using more than one song because i didn’t want the video to be broken in half by two songs. The only piece of music that I had in my iTunes library that was close to ten minutes was Cheating, Lying, Stealing by David Lang. so i sped it up slightly to get it to the needed length, and planned to just stick it in the background of the video.

Once i had chosen the tune, it didn’t feel right to just have the piece sit in the background while the video did nothing but show a static gameplay field. So i decided some basic manipulation would be easy to do. So the “tremor effect” for all of the opening kick drum segments was born. At the time, i was to just going to do that in appropriate places and call it good, but once i started to put in the effect and thought about what was happening in the rest of the music, it wasn’t enough. I felt like the music deserved more – it’s a fantastic piece with a lot of immediate appeal as well as a lot of analytical depth. To have the video manipulation not reflect that depth goes against my general artistic principles. So i started brainstorming in my head ideas for what should happen in each section of the piece.

And it kept growing. and growing. and, um.

here’s a basic rundown of each section: the effects, the motivation behind them, the evolution of them, and some of the technical construction of them:

Section A (0′00″-0′34″) – Tremor Effect: I went to the web to figure out how to do this in FCP since i don’t have a copy of After Effects or a similar program. Basically it involved creating a copy of the snippet of video in question, and then doing a right and left reposition multiple times every two frames. I decided that the only thing that i wanted to actually tremor was the playfield, so i had to create cropped copies of the right “score” side, the left “Back To Menu” side, and the bottom “Level Up” side that would run independently of the playfield. This would be key to later sections.

Section B (0′34″-1′06″) – Echo layers: Originally, the idea i had was to create a “ghost layer” every time the cello changed notes. Each layer was supposed to clearly come from the spot that it just got left off, and all of the layers were supposed to be slower. I tried this at first and decided after i watched a few layers that it moved too slowly and was too boring, so i changed the concept to instead make the layers a mix of slower and quicker and have them start in a spot where at the very end of the section they would all converge to the same moment.

This was very early in my FCP video editing chops – if i had done the middle/late sections first, i would have done these sections differently. Probably a little cleaner, and also more interesting.

Sections A’, B’, A” (1′06″-2′41″) – Recap and Ripple: The ripple is the only thing that i did differently for the section recaps. That was a basic FCP video effect; nothing too special there.

Section C part 1 (2′41″-3′39″) – Moving Menu/Score: Originally i had an idea of having either the score or the menu jitter around for every piano hit, but since i lost my score to the piece from when i analyzed/performed it in college, it ended up being too daunting and impractical. I still wanted the menu and score to move, so i simplified the criteria.

i took the screen and replicated it six times: one for the cropped version of the playfield, one for the “Level” indicator on the bottom, one for a white bar on the left side along with the sound toggles, one for the “Back to Menu” that was on top of it, one for the white bar on the right side, and one for the score that was on top of it. The white bars served as a backdrop for the moving menu and scores, and i’m guessing that i probably did this in the most inefficient way possible – i didn’t create a .tga of a static white backgorund, i just cropped a white portion of the playfield and then zoomed it by 1000 percent. I’m betting that this took extra processing power because even though the video was “invisible” since i only picked a portion of it, i imagine that the video was still running in the background, which would have caused for more cpu needed and more time to render. but oh well.

getting the menu and score to move was a fairly simple matter of finding the frames with the audio that i wanted to line the move with and then creating two adjacent keyframes: one to hold the previous position, and one to immediately move it to the new position. i also added some motion blur to give the move some more “depth”.

Section C part 2 (2′56″-3′39″) – Number Fill: Conceptually the gradual number fill turned out exactly how i wanted it – start with a basic number fill, gradually hit a point where the entire board is filled with numbers by the end. In some of its execution i’m also pretty happy with what i did; it was a deliberate choice to start with a predictable pattern before finding new ways to break it – start with all 7s, then 6s, then 5s, then break that by doing something different, then break that by doing a more random pattern, then break that by turning the numbers upside down, &c. Even so, i’m not *completely* satisfied with that section because at some point it loses its sense of direction because i didn’t pace it properly and think enough ahead.

This was the first time that i deliberately decided to take a snapshot of all of the numbers indivdually into still .tga’s as opposed to grabbing small clips of video. It did me a lot of good in the long run i think – it would have been a headache both cropping-wise, timing-wise, and rendering-wise if all of those numbers were film instead of snapshots.

Section D (3′39″ – 5′28″) – Rotating Playfield and Number Trails: The slowly rotating board felt appropriate for the mood of this section; since everything prior to this part was primarily percussive, the more legato sense of this section needed a more legato visual effect. The white-faded rotation that lines up with the piano cluster hits is meant to be a variation of the original “Batman” rotating segue, and although you can’t tell, it’s a copy of whatever the current playfield is at the time. Originally i had it in negative colors, but it was too distracting from the main playfield action, so i decided to change my approach.

The number trails were fairly straightforward to do, but is also one of my favorite effects in the whole video. It recycled the .tga snapshots of the previous section, just placed in strategic spots with the piano cluster hits as well. The thing that i wrestled with a little here was how the growing number of “stuck” numbers obscured the playfield, problematic because despite all of the video manipulations i was doing, the main premise behind the video was still to demonstrate gameplay. Ultimately i decided that i liked the effect too much for the lack of complete clarity to matter enough, and i’m glad i kept it in.

Section E (5′28″ – 6′13″) – Moving Playfield: Another ‘gradually evolving’ section where i tried to establish the basis for the section by zooming in place, then breaking that expectation by zooming to different spots, then breaking that by adding x-axis rotation, then breaking that by adding z-axis rotation. Standard fcp functionality, but i think it’s fairly effective. i’m annoyed that by doing the z rotation, the “crop” changed so that you could visibly see the score as it rotated, but i was too lazy to try to create a moving crop to match the rotation. too much work for too little return.

Section F (6′15″ – 9′06″) – Pendulum Playfield/Zoom Echo Playfields/Snare Drum Flashes: The original concept i had for the Pendulum Playfield was instead to have the hits be “mirror polarity”, as in for every hit it would flip between a mirror playfield and the regular playfield. I nixed that idea for the same reason i was wary about the “sticky” numbers in that i felt that it would obscure the actual gameplay too much. When i first did the pendulum swinging, it was an extreme and unchanging swing the whole way, and the result was pretty dissatisfying because after establishing the swing, it didn’t go anywhere and got boring too quickly. The gradual increase of the swing gave it direction but a subtle one; hopefully it’s something that you can easily not notice because it’s gradual enough and there’s too much other stuff going on, and before you realize it, the swing is at its peak.

The zoom echo playfields effect was a fairly straightforward execution at this point since i had done a different version of that earlier in the piece. I systematically created two ‘echo playfields’ that would zoom out to 1000 percent centered on a random spot, then two ‘echo playfields’ that would zoom in to zero percent centered on a random spot. This repeated for every moving note in the violin part. I toyed around with trying to make the playfields change opacity over time, but having multiple layers on top of each other achieved the effect well enough and any more lessened the impact of the swinging pendulum which i still wanted to be main focus. i did put the opacity of all of the layers back to 100% when they all came back in a collapse to try to create more visual tension. That particular moment i tried about 10 times and i’m still not completely happy with it. I had this idea of playfields zooming suddenly in in rapid succession and in rapid velocity, but i couldn’t get the effect to work the right way, so i settled for the final effect here because at this point i was also impatient to get the whole project done. I think i have a better idea of what to do if i ever tried something like that again.

The snare drum flashes came from taking a few snapshots from the background combo flashes, photoshopping out the gridlines, and then putting them all in frame by frickin’ frame. Granted, once i got the main repeating pattern, i could copy/paste the repeating pattern and place it when i needed to, but for each one i also had to make sure that where it hit didn’t potentially collide with new objects in the playfield, so it involved looking at each one fairly carefully, and when the pattern was interrupted, i’d have to shift the whole pattern around.

the snare drum hits in the music contribute greatly to the tension of the climax, and although i think i conveyed that okay in my visualization of it, it gets completely lost because of the echo playfields zooming in. I’m not completely happy with how that turned out, but again, after so many failed attempts and just wanting the whole thing to be done, i decided to call it good.

As for the final recaps of the opening sections, i put some consideration into doing something different with it to give it a better bookend but decided against it because doing anything different felt like it would have been completely out of context.

The whole project took me roughly six or so weeks to complete. crazy considering that originally i was going to make it a one-session video edit and call it finished, but i’m glad that it turned out the way that it did, because i’m happy with how it turned out, and it’s expanded my vocabulary and conceptualizations of what i can do with video manipulation which will hopefully help me with my Green Lantern project.

go me.

Tags: composition, final cut pro, flash games, yt

Very recently i’ve come to more conclusions about the use of facebook, both my usage of it and the site overall.

When i first joined, i had a healthy degree of skepticism as to what it was all about and what sort of people i wanted to have access to the information that i posted on it. At some point, i changed that philosophy and started allowing everyone and anyone to be my facebook friend regardless of their context to see what sort of effect that would have on me and the sort of interactions i have and people have with me.

What i think i’ve discovered after now having over 600 friends and two or so years of facebook interactions is that the interaction level on facebook feels like the equivalent of “people window shopping”. In my head i break it down into some rough subcategories: on the first tier, you’re skimming past someone’s status update or quiz result and while you may acknowledge that that stuff has passed by, once it passes by you don’t give it another thought. On the second tier, you may “glance at something interesting in the window” because a particular status or photo or whatnot catches your eye. And that might spurn a “like” or a comment or something similar. On the third tier, you may actually “walk into the store” either because something resonates with you or the person that posts it may be close enough to you as an actual Friend that it warrants you becoming more invested in it.

The analogy is far from perfect, but it hits upon my main point which is that in all of that process in shopping, you’re not actually committing yourself to anything concrete, you’re not making an actual purchase. Facebook equivalent interactions can seem to me to be similarly unreal, usually nothing more than a sophisticated version of giving a passing “hello” when you see a stranger or a casual friend on the street, or judging an entire song by the iTunes 20 second preview before you buy. Not that more meaningful interactions or friendships *can’t* exist on facebook, but the facebook paradigm doesn’t lend itself to doing that very well; most deeper level interactions on facebook happen outside of the facebook context.

Compare this to Livejournal or blogging networks in general where there are several people who i met first on livejournal and can now state “i love you” to even though i still have yet to meet some of them in person, how many people i care about enough that i would drop anything to help them out if they needed me.

Not that this is anything mind-blowingly new. My previous facebook ramblings concluded no differently that facebook functions merely as a touchpoint of greater human interaction rather than be the end of it. But the degree of that mentality needs to be retracted some, because my criticism of facebook and my promotion of livejournal is too black and white. Livejournal serves as a better tool for getting into someone’s head, but a) an LJer may decide to not treat it that way because even behind a friends lock, a journal can be too public, and b) with as many people and communities that i try to keep up with on a daily basis, i fall victim to skimming through entries as opposed to properly reading them which turns any potential deeper level interaction into nothing different than a facebook interaction.

On the flipside of this, i have to also acknowledge in facebook’s defense that depending on the user, a continual flurry of status updates/commentary/notes can give you at least enough of a surface-level bigger picture of what a person is to have the potential (if all parties are willing) to be that spark that leads to a deeper level of interaction that could turn into something more meaningful and permanent. I never would have imagined that there i would meet people on facebook that i would learn to care about in the way that i care about people, and while it’s rare, it’s definitely present.

All of this introspection leads to to a more established stabilization to my particular approach to facebook both as an observer and a contributor. A lot of it has to do with shaping my use of facebook in a way that best serves my purpose, and keeping perspective about what sorts of interactions hold what degree of value.

From an observer perspective, what this means is that i do my best to minimize the amount of pollution and unnecessary distraction that facebook offers and focus my energies on the aspects of facebook that are important to me. So i use no applications other than photos and notes; occasionally the Biggest Brain and Prolific out of nostalgia. I never turn on facebook chat because i stopped IMing a long time ago and have no desire to ever return to it with a few notable exceptions.

In reality, what i care about the most is status updates (and to a lesser degree photos and notes), and in this regard, the newest facebook app on the iPhone shines over facebook.com because unlike facebook.com, you can filter the news feed on the iPhone app to show just status updates and nothing else with no effort or complicated app blocking, &c.

Granted, the problem that can arise with status updates is that i as an observer don’t control how people choose to use status updates, and thus i can get a lot of information that i don’t want. What i care about the most has more to do with what the actual People are about, whether it’s their daily life stuff or what goes through their head. What i don’t care about is getting a sports update or a celebrity update or other similar sorts of things that i could get on my own if i wanted to. Not that i don’t appreciate the enthusiasm because there are certain things that i can get that Fandom about, but once i understand someone’s enthusiasm for it once or twice which adds to the picture of who they are, i’m not interested in it anymore unless there’s something more personal about it (such as photos of going to see the game live or a unique perspective).

Additionally, celebrity gossip/lives is something i care nothing about and used to stay blissfully ignorant of, but facebook has now made that pretty impossible. Very recently there seemed to be some sort of controversy surrounding Kanye West and the VMA awards (ATM machine? TUMB Marching Band?). I have no idea what actually happened (nor do i care to know), but it still bothers me that i know about it at all due to facebook statuses being a conduit for public reaction.

But i take the bad with the good and i can’t begrudge individuals for using their facebook in this way because it’s stuff that they care about or feel like reacting to, and that’s exactly what facebook is designed for. And so long as i have a medium in which i can get some bigger picture of what some people are all about, that still has some value, yes?

The potential problem/danger with that comes out when we shift the discussion to me as a contributor versus an observer and brings back the surface-level bigger picture versus deeper-level bigger picture discussion. As i was recently thinking more about how i choose to divulge information on facebook, i realized how i generally attempt to filter what i post to have nothing to do with (for lack of a better term) my soul, not necessarily because of facebook itself, but because of just how public facebook is. I have potentailly over 600 people looking at the stuff i write on facebook and that ranges from acquaintances, peers, close friends, students, teachers, superiors, subordinates, both past and present and future. put that way, it’s obvious how stupid it is to share anything that i deem as Truly Personal, and as that realization became more clear, i made a recent conscious choice to filter my contributions to facebook even further, and not ever post anything that truly defines my inner self. I went so far as to remove my “relationship status” and my “political views” from my profile as a personal stance against that sort of information having any play in my facebook universe. That doesn’t mean that facebook puts out a false impression of who i am; what i post on facebook is still Me, but only a particular facet of me, one that i carefully control.

(Tangentially, coming to this realization made me think that this must be what celebrities feel like all of the time, and that gave me a small epiphany that maybe that’s a part of the facebook appeal; in a way, it makes everyone a celebrity in their own context, and is thus a platform for people to feel like they have a high degree of importance. Which isn’t necessarily untrue; that’s a discussion for a future post.)

Now, i say that this is a *potential* problem/danger because i feel that it only arises based on individual perception. Surely a majority of facebook users employ a similar philosophy to their facebook usage whether consciously or sub-consciously, so as long as people grok that and don’t misconstrue certain kinds of interactions or lack of interactions as having any Real Meaning, then there’s no problem, right?

Except that this then brings up another level of a discussion: a) how much more of that surface level interaction we’re exposed to versus the pre-myspace/facebook/twitter era, and b) the attitude that can arise from the support of the facebook paradigm that this level of interaction is enough to clear a moral social conscience.

more on that in part two.

originally posted on darkblog resonate. i prefer any commentary or thoughts there.

Tags: facebook

Read Part 1

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Given those sorts of struggles on top of other small or big struggles that they face, questions arise: should they have stayed in open class? should they have reached for a longer term goal of becoming world class but with more of a full tour model? is this “in between” model that they’re employing a failed model for the world class paradigm?

The answers to these questions are difficult to answer right now because they depends on a few factors: a) what the drum corps community has set as an expectation for the Surf, b) what the Surf itself as an organization and in its individuals has set as an expectation, and c) the fact that the long-term success of this model can’t truly be determined by the results of a single year.

Going back to that first struggle item i talked about in part one, one could argue that even beating a single full-tour corps during Nats Week would be a measurable success – Surf, on its limited rehearsal schedule managed to beat a full tour corps. That says something about the organization, about its commitment to excellence.

But the question is whether that is enough. That the Surf is in their first stint in world class is one of the more interesting things that’s occurred in drum corps this year, and thus has to put them under at least somewhat of a microscope in the drum corps community, and their expectations and projections of Surf may be higher. A more substantial success could also make a strong enough statement to secure more corporate sponsorships and donations as well as member and staff loyalty. Not only that, but it’s possible that if they *don’t* meet that substantial success, it would be perceived as a failure.

As an outsider with only vague ties to the staff, i don’t have a good idea of what sort of expectations Surf has for the next few years; make semi finals in two to three years, and then try to maintain a semi-final placement? Are there higher aspirations for individual aspects of the corps, the drum score, the horn score, the guard score? How does that differ from any expectations that the kids may have, the donors may have?

It’s a tricky balance to maintain because of the struggle between Surf as a pedagogical and educational organization versus a business and corporate organization and how those contradict each other.

As i said earlier, from a corporate standpoint, Surf struggles in a contextual environment of DCI as the equivalent of a small business market amidst a global business market, and by the difference between the two models alone it will never move beyond that. And for some of the individuals associated with the organization, it can be too easy to look at the immediate bottom line and think, “why am i here when i could be a bigger fish in a bigger pond?” And it would be resultingly easy for Surf and the greater drum corps community to react to that and contemplate the idea of changing and evolving their business model towards more of a full corps tour to take it to ‘the next level’. Some would see it as a natural evolution of the corps just as the move from Open to World was a natural evolution.

However, there are a few issues to consider with that. First, although Surf may have limitations as a corporate model for success, i personally think that the Surf model shines from a pedagogical and educational model more than a full corps tour does. When i marched in the Crossmen, i learned that being on a full tour may have taught me a lot and helped give me the tools to be the teacher that i am today, but i also am aware that full tour was an easy escape from reality. For three months you live on a bus and you don’t have to worry about paying bills, making money, doing chores, summer reading, &c. all you do is wake up, run, eat, drum, eat, drum, eat, drum, sleep on the bus or gym floor, rinse, repeat. On the other hand, the Surf model teaches more of a life lesson, how to handle the responsibilities of the drum corps on top of any other responsibilities that a member may have during the week. As opposed to being dictated a schedule because everyone is all in the same place, they have to work out their own schedule, find their own time to practice, otherwise face the consequences of letting themselves and the organization down when they show up for the weekend unprepared. That to me is more analogous to a real-life experience, learning how to juggle multiple responsibilities and be accountable for your own actions by the choices that you make, both within the context of the drum corps and how that fits in with everything else.

Secondly, while there may be members of the corps that may have ‘full tour envy’, the Surf model continues to grant an opportunity for kids that would not be able to afford the money or commitment for a full tour. This may be countered by the fact that there’s still a pretty strong east coast senior corps circuit represented by DCA, but the senior corps experience, while similar, has characteristics to it that are not comparable to a junior corps experience (which is a separate discussion altogether). If other drum corps existed already with a similar model to help fill that void, it would be less of an issue, but as it stands, Surf is the only organization that offers the DCI experience in this way.

Given that, if the Surf were to change to a full tour model, it may garner more success as an organization, but one which potentially sacrifices one of the more important lessons that the members can learn about life and takes away a particular membership pool that would then have an audience only with DCA. Maybe in the long term that decision will be the correct one for Surf, but at the moment it’s too early to tell, too premature to rationalize such a drastic change in Surf history and philosophy after only one year in the World Class market.

So then i return to the other question: is this a failed business model for a world class drum corps? should such a model only aspire to go so far in the world of DCI, stay in the realm of open class?

As the organization continues to grow and evolve and the DCI community reacts to that evolution, the answers will be made clearer at least in the model of drum corps that exists today. But again, i don’t feel like there is a clear cut answer to be made after a single year. Surf and DCI needs a larger and more long-term perspective to determine whether or not it can be competitive in that realm.

Regardless of whether or not it can exist in the world class paradigm or if it is a better fit for open class (or maybe the model itself will inspire DCI to consider another change to its structure, particularly if more corps come out and follow this sort of model in the future), i feel it’s important to pay tribute to and honor Surf for what they’ve already achieved and for throwing themselves into that fire as a modern drum corps history-maker in a way that none of the top drum corps can touch. it serves as an example of a model that may not be something to eventually be absorbed and identified under the current drum corps models, but as the potential birth and inspiration of a new sustainable model, something that can bridge junior corps membership in the context of today’s evolving world and serve as a catalyst and inspiration for other organizations to manage and maintain drum corps that might otherwise be forced to fold.

And despite the fact that drum corps remains and should remain a competitive activity, i feel that the mission of the activity is to provide kids and adults alike a conduit for which they can learn and experience life lessons that they would not otherwise have access to. So if more drum corps could be sustained, revived, or created through alternative models such as this, it is the responsibility of DCI and of the drum corps community to support it and grant it an avenue where those organizations can be successful. Drum Corps changed my life. Without it, i would not be the teacher i am now, i would not have made the connections that i have now, i would not have made the friends who i love and cherish and will for the rest of my life, and i know many people who feel the same. In that sense, there is no doubt in my mind that the dedication, bravery, and vision that has pushed them to this point already made them a world class success even before they took their first step on the competition field in Rome, NY.

originally posted on darkblog resonate. i prefer any comments there.

Tags: drum and bugle corps, Jersey Surf, music education

The Jersey Surf Drum and Bugle Corps are in their cinderella year in World Class this year, and as an individual who has some personal investment in the corps as a former staff member and the mentor of one of the current staff members who likes to chat it up with me, i felt like it was worth doing a writeup of their unique position in the world of DCI and drum corps of today.

First, a little background:

Since it’s birth in 1991/1992, Jersey Surf was a Division II corps (now dubbed “Open”), and in the past few years established themselves as one of the more dominant forces in that class, culminating in a 2nd place finish in 2007 (winning both brass and percussion performance) and a 3rd place finish in 2008. Given their success and growth as an organization, they decided bump up to World Class for the 2009 season.

What makes the Jersey Surf unique in today’s drum corps world is their summer schedule. The corps director, Bob Jacobs, has always been a drum corps fan, but was never able to march in a drum corps in his youth because he couldn’t afford to not work over the summer, which took most full-summer-tour corps out of the picture. His goal with the Surf was to be able to give kids who needed a summer job or otherwise wanted or needed their summers free the opportunity that he didn’t have, to give them the opportunity to march in a respectable junior drum corps organization without having to sacrifice their entire summer. Thus, Surf functions primarily as a weekend corps in the summer with a couple of two-week block “tours” that go every day.

Surf has gone through a lot of growing pains in their history, but has steadily matured as an organization culminating to their open class success. I feel that part of this has to do with the focus in recent years to raise the level of professionalism and organization of Surf’s middle and upper management, and thus be able to bring in greater staff talent tha and build loyalty in the staff talent. When i taught Surf in 1999, everyone on staff was volunteer, and that can only draw from a certain pool of instructional staff. Eventually this model changed, and along with that was a gradual changeover of the staff that was able to bump up the vision of excellence and the reputation of the corps as a force that even with its strong running start in its early years continued to build in strength and be a force to be reckoned with, which in turn helped attract a stronger and more loyal membership pool.

Although I don’t know all of the details of the Why and How of Surf moving from Open to World Class, it seems like this was an inevitability given the sort of momentum and evolution they’ve had as an organization. Regardless of this, making this move couldn’t have been easy and deserves a high level of admiration. i’m making an educated guess that it would have been easier for them to stay in Open Class and know that they had the potential to capture their first gold medal. Instead, they decided that they needed to think bigger, and even if there was a risk that it was biting off more than they could chew, they threw themselves into the fire as a new rookie to see where it would take them. In today’s world where it seems like more organizations and individuals focus mainly on stability and creating a business model that they know will succeed with very little risk, Surf needs to be commended for standing against that model and attempting to try to see how far it can push its success.

And now that they’re in their first summer tour as a World Class organization, i think that it’s highlighted some of the challenges that this new kid on the block has to face not only because it is their debut year in World Class, but because of their unique “weekend-only summer” model, the only World Class drum corps tomy knowledge that is functioning in this way. And i think that it’s important, therefore, to take a moment to do some outside analysis on the choices that Surf has made, how that fits within the bigger picture of the current DCI model, musical pedagogy, and life pedagogy, and speculate as to what role Surf has in the future, both for itself and for the activity of drum corps.

There’s no doubt that because of the choices that Surf has made, they’re fighting an upward struggle. Take the shittiest and most inexperienced drum corps out there that does a full tour and pit them against the Surf, and there’s a good chance that the shitty drum corps will beat them purely because of how much more time they practice and thus how much more time they can meld as a collective ensemble from the top down, how much more chops are built through consistently playing/spinning every day, how much more physical endurance they develop, &c. Talent can only go so far behind solid, consistent, hard work.

Top that with the perception that Surf has struggled with for years as being a “gateway corps”, as in kids will come to Surf as a means to build their chops, experience, and resumé to then go march in a full tour/top 12 corps a year or two later. It’s true that every year is a building year, there are always going to be age outs or transfers, but i think Surf had to deal with that more than most because their weekend-only model is definitely seen by some of the membership (although i can’t say how much) as “not a full drum corps experience”, and when they see top 5 corps like Crown or Cavaliers or Blue Devils, they get the grass-is-greener complex, particularly if they feel like they have the talent and the means to be a member of those corps.

Given those sorts of struggles on top of other small or big struggles that they face, questions arise: should they have stayed in open class? should they have reached for a longer term goal of becoming world class but with more of a full tour model? is this “in between” model that they’re employing a failed model for the world class paradigm?

Part 2

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originally posted on darkblog resonate. i prefer any comments there.

Tags: drum and bugle corps, Jersey Surf, music education

last night when i went to the casino to play poker i ended up winning a pretty big pot by rivering quad queens over my opponent who had turned the nut flush, and as i replay the hand in my head it further enforces how slow-playing a strong hand is not always the best idea because a) it doesn’t maximize the value and b) it makes calling decisions much easier.

First, i’ll put out how the cards played out from my viewpoint:

in my hand i had QQ
board comes out AQ5 with two clubs (not the ace).
turn comes 7 of clubs.
river comes Q.

One of the books that i’ve read talks about “manipulating the pot size to make decisions easier”, and this hand played out in a way that is a very good example of that. I had QQ under the gun. I preflop raise to $15 (on 1/2 blinds) and get four callers. After the flop, i bet out $45 because i hate slow playing a set with two flush cards on the board. I got one caller. On the turn, i was scared of the flush, but i didn’t want to slow down in case he was holding the Ac with a big kicker or 2p or whatever, so i bet out $75. He reraises me all-in for an additional $75-85ish.

Based on how he had been playing the whole night and how he pushed all-in, i was certain that he had a flush. But also at that point because of how i was controlling the size of the pot, it made it very easy to call. Basically i had to call $75 to win $375 (pf $60 + flop $90 + turn $225) which is 5:1 odds. I had 10 cards remaining in the deck that could improve my hand (any A, 5, 7, or the last Q) which is also 4:1 odds, which means that it’s correct to call even if i know i’m behind, and i improved my odds to call by a fraction on the small chance that he was holding 2p or a lower trips. So i call. He turns over AK of clubs. i river the Q and take down the pot.

Now, let’s suppose that i decided to play that differently. Suppose i checked the flop and for the purposes of this example it checked around. The turn comes a flush card, I bet out a 2/3rd sized bet, which is $30. There are now two different ways that that could go: AK raises me, or AK smooth calls.

Let’s say that he raises me. If i put him on the flush for certain and thus know i have to draw to make my hand, i now have that same 5:1 to hit. If he min-raises me, i have to call $30 into a $120 pot. the immediate odds are *just* favorable (4:1) and the implied odds are cut based on the fact that a) he’s a fairly tight player and that if the board pairs on the river it’s going to scare him, and b) i’m out of position, so if i bet out after calling his raise, he may fold if i make the bet big enough, and if i check the river there’s a danger that he’ll check behind.

(if he decides to smooth call me instead, it mimicks the above scenario pretty well also).

if he does more than min-raise me, it’s even worse for me. Say he raises me to $100. Now, i have to call $70 into a pot that’s $120, which is a horrible immediate 1.7:1 odds, and the variables of a) the board pairing and scaring him and b) him having position on me makes it so that if i do decide to call, it’s turned from an easy call to a gambling call. and in that situation i might have made the tough laydown.

Let’s say that i try one of the other weapons in my arsenal: bet the flop, representing as a continuation bet, then check the turn, representing, say, JJ or KK and now i’m scared that he has an ace or that the flush card helped him. it’s unlikely that my opponent is going to check because he wants to build a pot and he doesn’t want me to catch up if he puts me on 2p or trips, so he bets out. Again, if he bets out an amount that doesn’t offer me good immediate odds, it’s a gamble, but if he puts out an amount that does offer me those odds, it doesn’t build the pot, so instead of winning a $425ish pot, i now have a pot that may barely eke beyond $200.

Later in the evening, someone else who raised pf in the sb and got one caller checked the flop of Axx rainbow, checked the turn which was a K, and then checked the river which was a blank. After the guy in later position checked the river, he turns over KK and wins a $30 pot. Someone asked why he didn’t bet out, and he said, “i was trying to slow play” and shrugged, and that resonated in me as a situation similar to mine played incorrectly, where he allowed the player in position to take control of the pot. If he had bet out on the turn and the guy didn’t have anything, he would have won the same size pot as what he tried to do, but if instead he bet out, he might have gotten an Ax to call, and a bet amount that he dicated rather than his opponent’s. He may even have gotten a river call or river raise if the guy hit 2p or a lower trips.

More enforcement to the idea that the princples behind “strong hands should build strong pots” is something better controlled by me than someone else. Hopefully a lesson that i’ll continue to learn and bank with.

Tags: poker

verizon has been sending me emails saying that i now qualify for my “new every two”. i upgraded my work iPhone’s OS to 3.0.

neither of these things exicted me, and from this i think i’ve discovered that i’m pretty much over the newest mobile phone trend. i like having a phone on the go. i like having a handy camera in case i don’t have my real one. i like being able to text message and email. GPS is great in a pinch.

but the rest of it just doesn’t spark anything in me at all. the times i need or want web on the go is minimal. The only apps i use on my iPhone are iTick in case i’m missing my metronome, the facebook app because it’s sometimes nice to look at status pages without nearly as many quiz results, and Cribbage because it’s, well, cribbage.

additionally, it bothers me that touchscreen phones are becoming so mainstream. i can’t pinpoint exactly why, but i don’t think it’s merely my resistance to popular trends. it may have to do with the practical versus the flashiness for my own personal purpose. Touchscreen phones have their advantages in terms of ease of use – for things that i usually don’t use. On top of that, touchscreen phones have the distinct disadvantage of making me have to look at my screen to type numbers or letters or to find contacts, something that i don’t have to do with my enV.

But alas, everyone seems to think that touchscreen phones and smartphones are the coolest thing since light sabres, that internet on the go is now a vital part of their lives. and i sit here, usually an advocate of advances in technology improving the quality of life, sitting at home with two desktop computers and one laptop all of which i use on a regular basis, and i mentally scratch my mental head wondering what boat i’m missing and how much i care that i’m missing it.

that said, i probably should upgrade my phone from my enV sometime soon as some of the letters on the keyboard are starting to misfire from overuse and the battery life is starting to fail. If people have recommendations for what phone i should get, i welcome them. the most important features i’d *like* to have is both a numpad on the outside (which could be touchscreen) and a keyboard on the inside (which i would prefer not to be touchscreen). i don’t need or want internet on my phone since i already have it on my work phone, so an internet-specialized phone isn’t worth the cost.

originally posted on darkblog resonate. i prefer any comments there.

Tags: apple, iLife, iPhone, technology

when i was renewing my car insurance, the rep over the phone clued me in to a new service that they’re offering called “MyRate”. it works like this:

you sign up for the MyRate plan. They send you a piece of hardware that you plug into your OBD-II port. According to the rep on the phone, it tracks three things: time of day that you drive, total miles driven, and statistics on acceleration and deaccelaration (not speed).

every six months or so, that information is uploaded to Progressive who analyze the data and then can either give you a hefty discount (up to 25% i think) or an increase (up to 9%) on your car insurance when it comes time to renew.

it’s an interesting concept, and i’m not sure how i feel about it. the main issue is, of course, privacy and what the balance is between saving money versus handing over detailed information about your driving times and driving habits. i’ve done some basic research online about it and the attitudes are very divided between those that say, “it’s awesome because i’m a safe driver” and those that say, “this has potentially dangerous implications for the mere savings of $30/month at minimum”.

for me, there’s a part of me that feels like it isn’t a big deal, but there’s an instinct that tells me that handing over that data is important and shouldn’t be taken lightly. I remember a long time ago Laurel mentioned something about supermarket cards, about how for the end user it seems harmless enough and saves money on those key money-saving items, but what people don’t know is that those companies can sell the data collected about the groceries that you buy to the likes of health insurance companies who can then offer or modify offered policies based on the data they’ve received.

But again, that sort of instinct – how important is it in the grand scheme of things for that information to be Actually Private, especially given my generally not-so-bad driving habits?

let’s work it out in my head.

maybe the instinct comes from what the big picture message is. In forming a relationship with people or with a business partner or whatever, there’s various rituals that you can do that are designed to inspire and forge trust between both parties. I keep a friend’s secret, i help him/her through it, he develops more trust in me. This company signs a mutually beneficial contract with that company, they both profit, they both are happy, they develop trust in each other. Usually in those instances, the trust has to be some sort of exchange. “Trust us, and we’ll trust you back,” or “give us an opportunity to trust you, and we’ll offer you the ability to trust us back.”

But in this instance, it’s not about mutual trust. Progressive is saying, “give us a reason to trust you, and we’ll give you money.” There aren’t any upfront promises about tangible reasons to trust progressive more as a result of the transaction. it’s as if Bob comes up to me and says, “I have a secret i want to tell you. Can i trust you?” And i come back and say, “i can’t tell you whether or not you can trust me or not, but if you tell me the secret regardless of that, i’ll give you $100.”

Putting it that way makes the MyRate idea seem like an amazingly unfair exchange. If i make no promises on what i do with the information Bob gives me, the allure of the money diminishes in proportion to the importance of the secret. If Bob says, “i peed my pants earlier today”, surely it’s embarrassing and could be the sort of thing i leak onto the internet with no real claim to truth, so the $100 may be worth that. But what if Bob tells me, “i stole money from the cash reigster” or “i raped this girl the other night” or “i killed someone” and tells me exactly where and how? Is the allure of money worth the lack of trust?

In this case, the implications and potential uses of the information we agree to share is likely invisible to us; again, a situation where the allure of the discount supercedes the need to question. Not only that, but the rules behind the terms of the discount and how it works is likely completely in the hands of Progressive as well; it’s not an agreement where i can say, “give me x discount if i only drive x miles and accelerate unsafely only x times a month.” it’s more progressive saying, “we’ll give you a discount in whatever way we see fit. we reserve to change this criteria at any time.”

i need to think about it more, but ultimately it feels like the wrong thing to do. i welcome any thoughts on the matter.

originally posted on darkblog resonate. i prefer any comments there.

Tags: Progressive, technology