garry’s subposthaven

It starts slow but gets cranking later!

Team Blacksheep rigged together a first-person-video system using goggles -- thus enabling the same kind of long range radio-controlled aircraft as predator drones and such...

And then they flew it around New York City!

And then I thought -- whoa, this reminds me of Grand Theft Auto 4 -- only it's the real city. Kind of like the time Mark and I rode the railroad to Portland up the west coast marveling at the sprawling scenery of the Wild West and I thought -- whoa, this reminds me of Red Dead Redemption.

Anyone wanna go see it in Palo Alto Square? It looks so beautiful and profound.

A funny post on Hacker News about what network name you should use to discouraging people from joining your wifi network

Resulted in this anecdote being shared in the comments:

Tangentially related: a clever coffee shop / cafe that offered free wifi changed the name of its network every day, updating it to broadcast whatever their special was. You could not join without thinking (momentarily) about "Corn Chowder, $2" or "Chocolate Chip Cookies - buy one get one free, today only."

Yes, they had specials boards, but people ignore those. The network, on the other hand, was unavoidable. From what I understand, this tecnique was extraordinarily effective. Something about clicking on the name of the item triggered an expectation that you were going to get the item. As you sat there, drinking coffee and futzing on Facebook, you'd keep thinking about the special that part of you was now expecting.

I suspect the "free" wifi paid for itself very swiftly.

Isn't that one heck of an example of the power of a user's attention? If you get someone the right message at the right time over the right medium, magic can happen.