Wang is moving!

Well, not technically but I am moving my blog to a new one over at my own domain: http://www.wangyip.ca.

Please update your feeds or bookmarks accordingly!

Although I haven't been posting very frequently, you may have missed two posts that I have made in the mean time:

One is on a better design for cookware handles:

http://wangyip.ca/2010/06/too-hot-to-handle-a-better-handle-for-ovenware/

And the other is some comments about a speech I heard at a Toastmaster meeting:

http://wangyip.ca/2010/06/4-types-of-speeches-4-types-of-audience-members/


See you soon at my new blog !

- Wang

Toughest Developer Puzzle Ever 2

While checking out my feeds, I came across the toughest developer puzzle ever 2. No one has yet to solve it yet but then again, it was probably recently released and contains 100 'stages' or puzzles.

I'm going to keep track of where I am and try to work through the levels as best I can. I'll post the answers / hints to all the levels I have completed. Remember to always check the source for hints. I've included the answers in white below - you'll have to mouse over to see it.

1: Pretty easy - just change the step1 to step2

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/step1.aspx

2: Again, fairly easy, it involves changing the url to step3 (except changing the 3 to text)

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/step2.aspx

3: You can already see the morse code in the back. You can translate the morse code into english (say at a site like http://www.onlineconversion.com/morse_code.htm).

Spoiler: It says "FOUR DOT ASPX"

http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/stepthree.aspx

4: To get to step five, look at the grey text.

Spoiler: It spells "F IVE IS IT"

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/four.aspx

5: To get to step 6, check out the source for hints. It looks like you have to find a certain e-mail. If you enter the wrong value, you'll see an error message that tells you it has to do with a title of an e-mail.

Spoiler: You'll quickly figure out that its strong bad e-mails that you're looking for. If you google strongbad e-mails and then read from bottom up to get to the 44th e-mail, you'll find the password as "lures & jigs"

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/fiveisit.aspx

6: You'll encounter an error page. This error page isn't actually an error page and if you check the source, you'll see this.


URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/lasteasyone.aspx

7: This is where it starts getting tough. You'll see some numbers in an image with black and red text. If you check the source, you'll see that the picture says "accounting.png".

Spoiler: If you take the black numbers and subtract them from the red, you'll get 5537. Converting this to text gives you the answer (LESS)

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/Level1.aspx


8: Where I am now. It looks like you have to take all the symbols and spell out the riddle, then solve the question to get the password. Working on it now.

Spoiler: So far, I have RUBY - RU = BY
Some kind of FOX - PO - FOX
PYTHON - P - T - (HAY - A) + S = ONS
DELPHI - PHI - EL = D
JAVA - VA - J = A
(PUGS? + H - G + TE + R + ?)


Spoiler2: Finally got it! I found out that the fox symbolizes FOXPRO and I quickly realized that it spelled out BYRON S DAUGHTER? who is Ada Lovelace.

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/levelthesecond.aspx

9: Looks like I have to look in the source for hints as to how to get to the next level.

Hm, not getting any insights. I get an error message that seems to say there shouldn't be any errors but at the same time, the puzzle.png image I see in the source isn't showing up. I feel like it has to do with getting that image to display. I'm also not sure if the URL is a hint to do anything.

Spoiler: Interesting. On a hint from one of my commenters (Thanks Sean!), I decided to try to see why the png image wasn't displaying. I started trying to change the format of the picture and such but that was getting nowhere quickly. On a whim, I decided to change my browser and in IE, I typed in the puzzle.png url and got the answer

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/elnumerothree.aspx

10:

So it looks like a math problem. Putting the figures into google, gets you: http://www.google.ca/search?q=115.524963+-+32.008958&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a and you then get an 'error' message that says:

you'll learn quickly that just because it looks like a math problem does not MEAN it's a math problem. Google can certainly help you find the answer. Bing, in this specific case, cannot.

Now on to Bing to see what it says. Well, its just a calculator which is disappointing. A quick lookup of the URL name "Thats not a knife" leads me to the movie Crocodile Dundee. I also used the figures in the image as longitude and latitude and have found that it matches the coordinates of a city called Perth Rottnest Island in Australia. Now, I'm trying to figure out the link between the two.
 

Spoiler: Rottnest is the password

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/ThatsNotAKnife.aspx

11: Interesting - kind of reminds me of the text based adventure for Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Spoiler: After looking at everything that you can possibly look at, the answer is obvious: the door probably isn't locked so I tried pushing it.

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/TextBasedAdventure.aspx

12: A collection of the hints so far

Spoiler: If you've been collecting the clues so far, you'll find out that it reads "THIS IS TOUGH"

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/Clue.aspx

13: On to 13!

I can see that the paragraph on the page has a span element for each character. There's also an extra CSS stylesheet for this page called "style.css". Inside it looks like each span element has {display:none;} set as the property. Still trying to piece together everything. There's a hint out on the internet that says to look closer at the stylesheets but I'm not sure what to do with that knowledge quite yet.

Spoiler: I decided that instead of digging through everything, I would put the css and the paragraph with all the spans into a separate html file. Doing this reveals "Open Sesame" as the password

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/TheGreatCascade.aspx

14: Now on 14. Not too sure what to make of all the singles and bands quite yet.

The source has all these different clues including anagrams of the band names, how hit singles are often #2 in the album. I'm looking up some of the singles now to see where they are in the albums but I'm not sure what to do with that information once I have it.

Spoiler: I have figured it out! When you look up the albums that each of the singles are in and look at where they are in the album (ie. are they track 1 or 2 or 6), you find out that all the songs are in different places. Take the number and then find the corresponding letter on the band name. I did this for the band name, the song name and the album name but only one column actually spelled out a word. The word is "musician"

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/music.aspx

15: On first look, it seems like the cycle links movie actors together (kind of like Kevin Bacon's six degrees of separation) except that there is a common actor from movie to movie (for instance, johnny depp is in both edward scissorhands and public enemies; christian bale is in both public enemies and the dark knight). The last movie then is a link between an actor / actress in the Dark Knight and an actor / actress in Footloose.

Looking at the source, there's a hint that says that John Lithgow is the best actor. Since he's in the movie footloose, he must be the common link in the missing movie with another actor.

Spoiler: After doing multiple google searches on the actors in The Dark Knight and John Lithgow, I finally came upon a combination that works: Morgan Freeman and John Lithgow was in the movie "Resting Place"

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/PerhapsAShadyTree.aspx

16: On first look, there are images on the bottom with X or Y underneath it - I'm guessing there's something here with X, Y coordinates related to the images but I'll uncover more information as I find the coordinates on the bigger picture.

Update: I first attempted to get the X and Y coordinates of the images and then translate them into the array found in one of the JS files. Please don't make the same mistake I did, take the Y coordinates from the top and you'll have better luck than I did.

Spoiler: In any case, I found out it spells out SHIRTSLASHPWND. There's a shirt named PWND at Woot. I'm now trying to figure out the next step with the clues in the woot description

Spoiler: The answer was simpler than I thought - it just involves looking for the puzzle piece and then clicking on it to move on.

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/Reckoning.aspx


17: Pretty straightforward - just have to put in the name of the movie from Level 15.

Spoiler: Resting Place

URL: http://toughestdeveloperpuzzleever.com/tdpe2/wootsong.aspx


18: Looks more difficult - a bunch of phone numbers it seems?

Spoiler: This one is interesting. I first used phonespell.org to put in all the numbers. I found that each number spells out another number. Then, similar to the level with the music bands and songs, I found the number it referenced to in the row.

For instance, the numbers I found from the phone numbers was: 6314341. I then found the 6th number in the first row, 3rd number in the second row, etc. This got me another phone number which spelled out "THORIUM".

URL: http://jeffblankenburg.com/tdpe2/Wow.aspx


19:  This one is interesting. Its similar to those puzzles where you have to stare at these really long and narrow letters closely to figure out what it says.

 Spoiler: The symmetry is important here: if you cut the image in half (right down where it mirrors itself, you'll see JULY

URL: http://jeffblankenburg.com/tdpe2/WeirdSymbols.aspx

20: Looks pretty simple since I've done this puzzle before in a different manner. Hint: it's related to the previous puzzle's answer.

Spoiler: Aug, Sept, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb , ? March.

URL: http://jeffblankenburg.com/tdpe2/Sequence.aspx

21:

URL: http://jeffblankenburg.com/tdpe2/editcodefaster.aspx

10 things I keep in mind when playing badminton

Every Sunday, I play drop-in badminton at the YMCA - usually with another friend. After playing many singles and doubles games, playing competitively in high school and then playing recreationally in university, I have learned a few things about the game which I should write down and keep track of. My blog is a place to share knowledge but it's also a nice place for a knowledge dump so that I can check back on it in a few years and see what new things I've learned and anything that I might have missed.

Singles:

In singles, the lines are labeled on the court above as shown. During both the serve and the game, the back line is used (the single serve line) and the second line from the widths are used (labeled 'Singles'). I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near a professional but I do think that being aware of some of these ideas will make you a better player.

1. Never serve short 50% of the time

If you play with your right hand, never serve short when you're on the right side of the court and likewise if you're left handed (never serve short when you're on the left side of the court). The reason for this is your opponent can easily clear it to your backhand and force you into making a great backhand shot (like a drop, smash or drive) or a backhand clear (which can then be smashed). Generally, all player's backhands are weaker than their forehands and that's why you see many of the top professionals frequently reaching over their head to clear a shot when a backhand would be much easier. They don't always do this but generally if they could choose between a somewhat awkward forehand and a comfortable backhand, they'd probably choose the forehand no the grounds that they can get more power on the shot if they wanted.

Again, remember that I'm not a pro. If you do watch the pro's, you'll notice that they don't follow my advice. Any time they can serve it short to force their opponent to clear it for them, they will do it and since they have great movement (and backhand shots), they can get away with serving it short even though it might leave them exposed to making a great backhand shot (which they do make almost all the time).

2. Make your opponent play shots deep in their backhand side.

This idea is linked to the first - generally opponent's have weaker backhands than forehands so making them hit backhands deep in the back of the court will almost always guarantee either a bad backhand clear or a shot close to the net - either way, it's a prime opportunity for a winner (either in a smash from the clear or a shot on the other side of the court).

If your opponent surprises you by hitting a clear from their backhand (a difficult shot but possible!), you can tire them out by continually hitting deep to their backhands and forcing them to clear.

3. If you smash, be prepared for a quick return

I've both noticed this myself for my opponents as well as done this myself: my opponent clears it, I notice empty court on one side of the badminton court and decide to smash it hard on that side. My opponent immediately reacts and miraculously drops the bird at the net and either I'm left at the back of the court or I run up to the front of the court and miss the shot anyway.

It's really simple: if you're going to hit it quickly at your opponent, you'll have less time to react to his counter shot. Think about a clear - you have a lot of time to react because the bird is traveling up and over and then back down again to the deep side of your opponent's court.

That's why it's useful to develop the instinct in your mind that if you smash or do a half-speed smash, you shouldn't leave your front court too exposed.

4. If you serve, serve it deep (between the singles and doubles serve line) and near the center line

I've had a lot of time to experiment with different serves and I find that the safest one is to serve it deep. Yes, you'll be opening up to attacks from your opponent's but if you're a pretty good player, these won't bother you too much since your opponent attacking you from the back of the court is generally more desirable than your opponent attacking you in mid-court.

The reason for serving it near the center line (instead of say, the corners) is so that your opponent doesn't get the angle to attack you from. When you serve it deep into one of the corners, your opponent has several options: smashing it down the line, smashing it cross-court, dropping it cross-court, dropping it down the line and of course, clearing it. I've found that I've often lost points from serving it deep into a corner because the number of possible shots I have to cover is too vast and I end up being out of position on a smash that I expect to come down the line but ends up going cross-court instead.

Serving it to the center will limit your opponent's options - your opponent can still do all the shots that I have listed above, but the angles won't be as dangerous to you.


5. If you're out of position, clear!

A clear is a defensive shot - earlier I alluded to the fact that because it has such a great distance to travel, you won't get as quick of a counter shot on it as you would if you did another type of shot. One of the worst things that can happen is when your opponent has made a deep drop shot and while it may be tempting to drop it back, there's been too many times where I was out of position and once I've dropped it, I got a clear back from my opponent and couldn't make it back in time for a proper shot. Again, this doesn't apply if you have great movement around the court but a lot of times when you're out of position for whatever reason, a clear is a safe shot to make to get back on track and not let yourself get into worse and worse positions / shots.

Doubles:

In doubles, the game is quite a different beast than singles. Firstly, the service lines are different: it's the widest of the lines and the double serve line in the diagram. Immediately after the serve, the court lengthens so that during regular game play, the single serve line is in effect as the boundary of the court. Obviously with the addition of two more players, this type of game doesn't rely on position / speed as much as placement and outworking your opponent.

1. Serve short and serve low to the net as often as possible

In doubles, the game is won with attacking shots and anything low to the net and close to the net forces your opponents to make a clear - at which point, you can begin the attack by smashing. You are further aided by your partner since in singles, although you might be able to return it by dropping it to the net, you now have a partner at the net who can make subsequent shots at the net to win the point.

I say to serve low as often as possible since you do have to mix it up a bit to keep your opponent's from guessing your serve. If you always serve short, your opponent can get the jump on you by reacting before you serve and then make a winning shot because you are caught off guard. By serving long a few times during the rally, you keep your opponent's from always jumping on your short serve and really, make them think twice about reacting before you serve since at any point, you could serve it long and they would be completely out of position.

2. Return shots to the backhand or to mid court

Again, just like in singles, players generally have weaker backhands than forehands and thus, returning shots to the backhand will either force your opponent to clear it for you (in which case you can then attack) or make a great net shot / drive. Of course, since you have two players on the court, this makes it easier to attack the second type of shot since you both have half a court to cover.

In one game against an experienced doubles team, I was covering the back (my partner was serving). Our opponents kept on hitting it to the sides of mid court and it was getting extremely frustrating because neither me or my partner could get those shots even though we both anticipated them going there. To this day, I'm not sure if its the front or back player's job to get those kinds of shots but in any case, it showed us that even when playing doubles, there are holes that we both need to be aware of.

A combination of the two works best against experienced opponents since you may start off by returning it to their backhand and then switching to mid court shots. It all depends on your mid court shot as well as how far back they seem. If you're smart, you won't do the shot that frequently but only when it looks like your opponents are out of position: if the back player looks like he's favoring his backhand (as in, standing closer to his backhand then normal), you should hit a cross drive to the mid court; if the back player looks like he's standing in the middle, either of the shots will be good and lastly, if the back player looks like he's anticipating the mid court shot, you should hit it to the backhand.

The same advice goes for the front player if he / she is the one getting the shots. It's a little hard to fake but if you can, fake a mid court shot and instead, drop it to the net.

3. Any time its cleared to your opponent's, stand side by side on the court. If you're attacking, take front and back positions.

I've been with enough partners to know that when you're defending, you should be standing side by side so that you can cover as much of the court as possible. What you're really defending against are the smashes because when you're standing in front and back positions, the sides of your court are not safe against smashes. Of course, the opposite is true when you're attacking - you are the one forcing your opponent to make good shots against you and having someone in the back smashing and another in the front to take any poor net shots makes for a quick game. If you watch any of the doubles games from top professionals, you'll see that good teams will transition back and forth between attacking and defending depending on how they're playing the shots.

4. Smash at opponent's who are moving backwards

This is something I learned recently - it's hard to hit shots when you're already moving. Imagine that you are in the back and your opponent, reacting to your drop shot, has just cleared it to you. You want to smash it but to who? Frequently, I will smash at the opponent who just cleared it. Good opponents will be moving back from the front so that they can cover their side of the court and since its so hard to return a shot when you're already moving, you'll often get unforced errors or a poor return from that opponent even if he does get the shot.  If they're not so good, then being at the front of the net will not help them return the smash at all and you'll win the point easily as long as they don't somehow magically return it.


5. Always be ready for the shot, even when you know its not for you

This one definitely takes some practice. If you're in the back and your partner is in the front and your opponents have just made a drop shot, yes, it's not your shot but you should be ready for the shot even if you aren't the one responsible for it. I've developed a somewhat bad habit of just watching my partner get most of the shots instead of stepping in to get shots whenever I know my partner can't get to them in time to make a proper shot. Of course, if you're always ready for the shot regardless of whether its yours or not, you'll definitely be ready for the next time a shot is made and it is yours.


Badminton is a great game which mimics interval training (high intensity in a short period of time, then rest for a bit and then high intensity and rest once again). It's a game of anticipation and more importantly, movement. There's something extremely satisfying with guessing your opponent's shot (like for instance, knowing its a drop shot and rushing to the net to smash and win the point) but there's also something mesmerizing about top player's movements around the court as they try to hit shots to get the other player out of position.

What about you?  Do you play badminton? Do you keep in mind anything when playing badminton?

Don't look at the things that don't change

Back when I was still at UBC in residence, I got hooked on playing texas hold'em poker. As a student of the game, I absorbed as much information as possible in order to improve my own game. One thing I learned was that when the flop comes (the first 3 cards) and really, the subsequent turn and river (1 card each), you should not be looking at the cards, rather, you should be looking at your opponents to read their reactions.

Poker may be a game of betting, a game of cards but most importantly, it is a game of information. The more information you have, the better decisions you can make on how to play your hand (or the opponent's hand). I learned that once the flop is out, the cards don't change but you only get to see your opponent's reaction to the cards once. If you're just staring at the cards when they come out, you'll miss out on a vital piece of information.

Perhaps with a little too much zeal , I decided to apply that to other areas of my life. In particular, during conversations, I look at the person speaking 60% of the time but the other 40% of my time is spent looking at others and seeing what their reactions are. The people that notice tell me I'm creepy and I suppose it is, but again, information is king.

Here's a situation that happened to me recently where I picked up some valuable information by not staring at the things that don't change:

A few days ago, I was at the library waiting in line to get membership. Ahead of me was an older Asian gentleman who, I gathered from the card and books in his hand, was trying to check out the books. The librarian at the desk pointed him over to the self-checking out machines. Much of the checking in and checking out processes for the books were facilitated through RFID tags - it's a very modern technology. In any case, the gentleman headed over to the self-checking out machine and read the instructions on the screen which read "Place your card down on the machine top with the bar code facing up".

The man tried several times to place the card in the right way but try as he might, he could not get the card to scan through. At that point, many people would probably continue looking at the man but as if by instinct, I looked over to the librarian. I'm not sure if it was because I was looking or if it was a natural subconscious move on her part but she rolled her eyes and had that look that said "Oh God". Now I'm not trying to say that the man deserved it or that the librarian isn't very good at handling clients but you would miss out on this if you just stared at the man trying to scan in the card.

Next time, try looking at the things that you know won't change and look for the things that can change and perhaps you'll catch something you didn't catch before.

Reframe Your Mind

About a week ago, I performed a speech at my Dawnbreakers Toastmaster club. It was on the concept of reframing and it went over well - it may have been one of my best speeches to date although I find it hard to judge the quality of my own speeches.

In my speech, I told two stories on the concept of reframing and I'd like to share one of them now.


Back in the summer of 2008, I was working as an Orientation Coordinator for UBC. As part of being an Orientation Coordinator, we had to conduct information sessions and tours for prospective high school students.

A little background on UBC: it's an old campus. Many of the buildings are quite old and so you can imagine that there is a lot of construction going on to both improve the roadways and renovate the buildings. The construction at UBC garnered a somewhat negative reputation - it was noisy and disturbed classes (as well as people trying to sleep in) and it blocked pathways that students often used.

In any case, a fellow Orientation Coordinator had just finished giving a tour to some grade 12 students. During her tour of the important buildings on campus, one of the students asked about the construction going on at UBC. Rather than saying that the construction was noisy or that it often forced students to walk different paths to their classes, she said "UBC is constantly improving their campus".

For me, that was an interesting way to 'reframe' my perspective of construction on campus.

If you break down the word of reframing, you'll realize that it's definition seems to be to change the frame. What is a frame? It's a belief about the world that often narrows your view. By changing your frame, or changing your belief about the world, you'll open up your eyes to different views of the world and allow new interpretations to develop. Any time you're harboring negative thoughts about something like work, an assignment, a chore or your bad luck, think about the positives of the situation. You probably already know the power of positive thinking - reframe your mind.

Notebooks: A symbol for limitless potential?

The other day, I was at Staples looking for a large pad. Being particularly inspired by Demetri Martin and his large pad, I thought that I would do something similar for an upcoming speech for Toastmasters.

I was quickly sidetracked by all the stationary inside.

My thoughts immediately raced back to all my past Septembers, where as part of the ritual of starting school, I had to get new stationary. Stationary, for some reason, excites me and as I was walking down the aisles of Staples, I was trying to pinpoint what exactly it was about stationary that excites me.

At some point, it occurred to me that empty notebooks are amazing because they represent an infinite number of possibilities. Getting things done? Lists? Address book? Journal? Keeping track of what you've been doing? Drawings? Poems? Short stories? Anything is possible in the notebook.

I finally realized this because every time I do get a notebook, it takes me a huge amount of time and effort in order for me to break the clean blank slate of the first page. I smile now because I have a padfolio that I bought for myself to keep me organized yet the notepad inside has not been used despite there being several opportunities for me to do so.

Is it just me or does stationary excite you too? Why does it excite you?

Q & A sites that I like using

 Ah google, what would life be like without you?

The power of the internet at your fingertips! I don't think it's just me but I'm an information fiend. We all devour information at such a quick pace these days that it's so hard to keep track of it all. If only I had eidetic memory..

What are the different phases of the moon? What is the definition of syzygy? What is the King's Indian Attack in chess? What is the value of Z in scrabble? Yes, I have looked up each and every one of these recently. While Google (or another search engine like Bing) can help you out with these answers, there are times where the problem's solution can't be found simply by asking a search engine the question.

What kind of questions am I talking about?

- I'm visiting Calgary and need to figure out what places to go to and what restaurants to see. Can any locals recommend some to me?

- What are the best investments for a household to make when starting a garden in a yard in Portland, OR?

- What is your favorite chicken recipe?

The questions could be searched on the internet. Yes, you may even find an answer, but how do you know that its a valid source? Yes, you can see reviews of restaurants in Calgary but I think we've all had times where we listened to reviews and found out that they were wrong. Just because a collective has decided that the restaurant is the best does not mean it's the best for you.

The difference between these questions and the other ones are that the other ones are questions that have a definite answer. The second set of questions really do not - they depend on your own preferences, budget, or whatever is the case for your situation. For these set of questions, rather than doing a ton of work going through the search engines, looking up articles and synthesizing the information together to form an answer, why not ask someone who has done it before?

That's where the next two sites I'm going to talk about come in.

1. Aardvark

Image from pbs.org

 Aardvark was my first foray into Q & A sites. You sign up and then tell Aardvark what subjects and topic areas that you'd be comfortable being asked questions about. For instance, when I signed up, I was pretty comfortable with mathematics, computer science (my two degrees in university), logic puzzles, chess, scrabble and food.

The next thing that Aardvark does is it searches for any friends that you might have on your network(s). For instance, you can tap into Facebook and MSN. If you do have friends on your networks, you're allowed to add them to your network in Aardvark.

Once you have your subject areas defined and your networks searched, you can begin asking and answering questions.

What Aardvark does is it taps into your networks and taps into real people that can answer your questions. Whenever you ask a question, you make sure that it contains enough information so that someone an answer it properly. You tag it with subject areas and Aardvark sends out the question to people that have those subjects areas defined as their areas of 'expertise'.

You also have the ability to not only use the web interface, but also the IM client as well. You can add Aardvark as a 'friend' on your MSN and you can both ask questions to Aardvark (in which it will seek out answers from other people and send it to you) or you can answer questions that Aardvark will send to you by IM. Pretty neat!


My thoughts about Aardvark: I'm surprised at the quality of answers that I can get on Aardvark. People are answering questions on their own time in order to help out everyone on the network. I have such limited time these days due to all my commitments that it's hard to put in a lot of time on Aardvark. I've also added Aardvark into my msn - any time there's a question that it thinks I know the answer to, it will IM me and I can communicate with the asker (either by answering the question or getting more clarification). I think that's one of the coolest features of Aardvark.

Here are a few questions I've asked on Aardvark and the answers I've gotten (names have been removed):

Q: I'm interested in how standup comics, or anybody who is an expert in comedy comes up with the material that they do. I've come up with a few things but I want to increase my output of funny stuff - is it just about coming up with ideas (not just the funny ones) ie. quantity not quality?

A: "Go quantity. If you just produce content constantly some of it will be good. Eventually, you'll start to notice patterns that you, personally, can use to increase the amount of good material you produce. To start with just free associate with concepts and see if you can see i any connections."

A: "I don't personally do stand-up, but I am an avid fan (my favorites are Patton Oswalt and David Cross). And what I can suggest is don't be afraid to stretch one topic. Some of the greatest comedians can rant about something as simple as a texting error for 10 minutes.

It's all about trial and error once you do get on stage. Not everything is going to do well when you first get on stage. But keep track of what does, and work with the diction and delivery of things that don't."

Q: What are some great ways you've found to increase your writing creativity and overcome writer's block?

A: "you just have to sit down and purge. whatever comes to mind, write it down without self-editing, without thinking about it. whatever it is, it's gotta be jotted down on the page. fill a page, fill several pages with whatever garbage comes to mind. imagine all that junk clogging up your creative center and that by spilling it all on some random page you're doing yourself a service

plus, all of that filled page feels a hell of a lot better than one gaping blank one. try it! :)"

A: "there is no royal method used to sift through material. the idea of sifting ought not even enter your mind until you've exhausted yourself of mental flotsam. afterward, read through what you've written down - aloud. that seems to work the best for me. if it's not content that strikes the ear happily, it's a tone, or a feeling. that alone ought to be enough to drive some fiction. just create a document titled "freewriting" and let loose. use punctuation - or not. probably some of the stuff that you let out will represent very old thoughts or feelings, or observations about the room you're sitting in. any of those could be rabbit holes, and who knows where they might end? sometimes simply taking a walk and naming every single thing that i see helps jumpstart the ol' noggin. what is your current method?"

2. Mahalo

Image from http://ronmartin.net/

Another interesting Q & A site that I've recently checked out is Mahalo. Mahalo works a little differently than Aardvark: it is a Q & A site but it uses something called Mahalo dollars in order to provide incentives for good answers. 

Unlike Aardvark however, they don't have subject areas which you can say you're an expert in (although they tell me that they will have that functionality in the near future). Instead, you're able to ask and answer any question in the community. Questions again, must be detailed enough for the people answering and they can be tagged but the tagging right now works as a way to both categorize the question as well as a way for users to sift through and find related questions and answers that they might be interested in. 

In Mahalo, everyone starts off as a white belt. You gain points for answering questions or performing certain tasks, for instance, joining Mahalo earns you 50 points and logging in to Mahalo earns you 1 point. The Mahalo points is sort of like experience in an RPG game; you reach certain point levels and you can then earn a new Mahalo belt. The Mahalo belts then allow you to do more tasks (for instance, answer or ask more questions or to be the manager of different pages). 

While the points and the mahalo dollars aren't directly related, they are indirectly related. By gaining more points and being allowed to do more tasks, you're able to earn Mahalo dollars faster. Once you reach $150 Mahalo dollars, you can then transfer those funds to a Paypal account (the conversion rate is 0.75 real dollars to 1 mahalo dollar). 

Mahalo also has how-to pages - similar to sites like ehow.com or instructable. As I mentioned before, these pages are maintained by page managers who earn mahalo dollars from the number of page views it gets (there are ads on the pages). 

My thoughts about Mahalo:

I like the concept of Mahalo and it's Mahalo dollars. Again, because of my limited time, I haven't been able to spend a ton of time on it but like Aardvark, I've been trying my best to answer questions that I have a good answer to.During my short time, I've quickly upgraded my belt a few times and am now wondering whats in store for the next belt levels.

One thing is for sure, it's not really easy to make a lot of money on the site (unless you're some of the top Mahalo users). I certainly haven't got there yet but some of the top users are making thousands of dollars a month. To get there though, you need to put in a tremendous amount of time to get to the appropriate belt levels and then create and maintain great content that people are prone to view.

Compared to Aardvark, I feel the quality of answers are about the same however, I also feel that there's a lot of noise on Mahalo as well. On Mahalo, you are allowed to ask questions anonymously and let's just say that many users take advantage of that anonymity to ask inappropriate questions or questions that involve spam. Sometimes you get that on Aardvark as well but Aardvark does a pretty good job of filtering out those questions by analyzing the language and removing anything with inappropriate words.


How about you? Have you tried Aardvark? Mahalo? Maybe you've tried other Q & A sites like Hunch? Lunch?  Where do you get your answers when you have tough questions that can't simply be answered by search engines?

Improv Workshops - A Summary of my Experience

In November, while I was working on my novel for NaNoWriMo, I was also participating in Improv Workshops at the RapidFireTheatre in Edmonton.

Call me a little crazy but both were really opportunities that I could not miss. For one thing, NaNoWriMo only happens once a year. The Improv Workshops happened every couple of months, except in December I planned to go back home for vacation for 2 weeks. Thus, December wasn't a good time for Improv and since I had always wanted to do Improv since University, I decided not to procrastinate any longer and do both.

Suffice to say it was a pretty crazy month, but I learned a lot. In particular, I learned about the universal rules of being good at Improv. They're fairly simple rules and although they don't apply to everyone (veterans that know why the rules are in place break them all the time), they definitely applied to me and the other newbies of Improv that were gathered inside that workshop.

Every time you do an improv scene, you are always with another improviser. Rarely do you ever see Improvisers working alone. I had already heard of this before but Donovan, our facilitator, told us that acting isn't really acting, it should really be called reacting because you are always reacting to something or someone. In the same way, Improvisers work off of each other's ideas - always 'raising the stakes' as they call it.

Each scene is fairly straightforward:

Two actors are up on stage and basically they are telling a story. They are in a particular setting or environment. They are each a particular character (if they want to but this is optional). They then have a problem. Each of them then works together in order to overcome that problem. Now that I've laid down some context over what is involved in a scene, let's take a look at a few rules and see why it's good for you.

1. Say "Yes!"

"Yes!" See how easy that was? The big reason for saying "Yes!" all the time to ideas (which are continually fired out back and forth by the Improvisers) is to move the scene forward. Saying "no" to ideas (especially perfectly good ones) do not move the scene forward.

2. Nothing can be wrong

You are improvising a scene that most likely has never been done before. Too often, people are stuck on the different choices involved in a scene. If it's a sci-fi environment, where could you be? In a lab, on a space ship, on a different planet, in an underground research facility? The possibilities are endless. Think about it this way though, none of them can be the wrong choice! In other words, anything that you choose is right. It has to be - the audience doesn't know any better!


3. Don't ask questions

Questions? Is there a better way of stopping scenes from moving forward? In the middle of a romantic drama, one person turns to the other and asks "Do you love me?" The other person is then forced to decide on a plethora of answers, often slowing down the scene until the person can decide on an answer.

Better: "I know you love me, you must after having my child."

Our facilitator told us that whenever you catch yourself about to ask a question, figure out in your head what the answer would be and then answer it yourself in a statement. See how the scene moves forward (into the ideas of pregnancy before marriage and it gives some context as to the reason they might be in the situation now) when you answer the question yourself?


4. Be positive

This is particularly important. I remember that the first few improv scenes we did as a class, a lot of the scenes turned into arguments and fights. Nothing stops the scene from moving forward like getting into a big argument over who ran over the cow or which person should be the tail end of the zebra they are playing.

Our facilitator demonstrated to us very well: any time he was in the scene and it looked like there was an argument or contest, he would lose almost immediately. It was funny, but at the same time, he was trying to demonstrate to us that every scene loses momentum quickly when it becomes an argument. Much better is to lose right away so that the actors can then continue on moving the scene forward (remember, each scene is about telling a story. Anything not relevant to the scene should not be introduced - otherwise the audience will wonder about the object introduced)

5. Raise the stakes

This is definitely what makes doing improv fun. Everything that you do in improv should be the most important thing ever. If your partner gives you a rose, that rose is the most beautiful, precious flower ever. If your partner hands you a gun, admire its brilliant workmanship and gleaming bullets. Once something is incredibly important in your eyes, the audience will begin to think the same thing. At that point, it will be incredibly funny to snip off the thorns of the rose and then accidentally snip off the flower itself or to pull out your gun but be useless in a sword fight.

Although this is what makes improv fun, this is also the hardest thing to do while you're in a scene. When you're in the scene, you're not only actively listening to your partner (which happens a lot to me since I don't have great ideas ;) but you're also trying to figure out how to introduce crazier and crazier ideas into the scene to make it interesting.

I started out one scene getting a door to door clergy member telling me about their services for sermons and prayers and while he was busy listing his services off, an idea popped into my head and I just went with it.

"Hey! The $1000 option comes with a free massage"

Immediately, the scene moves forward into me deciding on that package and getting a free massage in the process. If the scene was longer, we could have introduced a problem or conflict and then went about to resolve it.



Phew! A lot of rules to remember during improv!

I also learned a few things myself in improv:

- Whenever you do an improv scene, you don't have to go out of your way to make it funny. In fact, it can be completely serious and just the fact that it is serious could make the scene really funny.

- Humor in improv isn't about coming up with funny puns or corny jokes, it's more about introducing a scene and having different elements of the story contrast each other. I think that irony is more prevalent in improv  because you can improvise a whole scene that seems very familiar in the audience's eyes but then have it go in a completely different direction at the last minute (for example, during a marriage proposal scene, I bent down on my knee to receive a ring from my fiancee).

- It's an incredibly fun way of becoming more spontaneous - whether it be in your daily life, in conversations with friends or strangers and especially if you are a creative individual.

Give it a try some time! Remember: say "Yes", everything you say is right, be positive, don't ask questions and always make sure you raise the stakes.