Early Start - for once!

Wow, this is interesting. I haven't seen this side of 7:20 AM ... intentionally, anyways, in years! For the first time in a long while, I'm actually waiting for the world to wake up to me. I think it's one of the signs of the apocalypse, folks, so grab your hardhats and your bibles.

I'm not sure what caused me to wake up so early this morning. I was having this very intricate and odd dream about shadowing a group of three jewelry store robbers. I'd go into their reasons for doing it (because it was very clear to me in the dream), but it was a particularly convoluted story and now that I'm starting to type it up it's sounding very ridiculous, but I was winning in a fight against this guy who was coming at me with hammers. Yeah, hammers. I woke up abruptly for some reason around 6:30, and couldn't go back to sleep.

Rather than question it I'm going to take advantage of it.

Lots of good things going on recently. A nice fat contract closed yesterday, and none too soon... my bank account was looking a little meager since I haven't really had a paying gig since the 5Tribe thing. Most of you know exactly where I'm at in the business stuff, but for those of you that don't, I'll give you the Cliff's notes version:

• The handheld project is on hiatus. There are a number of reasons for this, one is that Microsoft came out with a project which was based on almost the same type of hardware and the same purpose as our handheld for a similar price point. The other reason is that the needs of 5Tribe changed, and my services were no longer required to complete their handheld project. They have since put me on a retainer to take care of any web development and programming projects they may recieve.
• The political campaign is coming along nicely as well. I hope to officially launch the site today, although if you're very clever, you may be able to find it without my help. We've gotten the directors lined up for the 527 group (Friends of T. Evan Fisher), and we've got our first few donations coming in. I think we've planned out what will be a very surprising campaign (at least to our opponents!).
  
• The venue is coming along nicely. Matt and Joel and their father own a piece of property out in Lindale that upon survey was perfectly suited to house a rock venue much like what Jeff and I used to do back in highschool. We expect to open in May some time. Details to ensue.
• The ModPodder project is still underway. I still can't say too much about it, but Adam is going to poo his pants.
• A companion project to ModPodder is in the talks right now. We've got the greenlight, but we're still in the planning phase.
• CurTruck is still being worked on.

As for regular eating money, I've been subcontracting small tech jobs. If you do website design or back end programming, I've got a bunch of work sitting on my desk at the moment - send me your qualifications and I'll put you on the list of people to subcontract. If you have a technical project that you need to accomplish, let me know too!

That's all for now. My nose to the grindstone.

/rizzn

55 Words for Monday Morning

It is a new week, and he wakes up surprisingly refreshed. The weekend was busy (as usual) but productive. Fairly certain he's not quite ready to start again, but given that it's either get started or give up, he looks over the day's schedule, he breathes in deeply and murmurs, "What's next?"

So it begins.

Morning Correspondence

Last night Darrell told me about Snubster.com, which I had actually heard about from GeekBrief.tv last week, but hadn't had the chance to check out. We were dilly-dallying around on the computer at the time, so I decided to check it out. I tried to think of a few people who were truly "dead to me" so I could play with the interface, then I put a couple people on notice just for the fun of it. One of the people who I listed as "dead to me" apparently felt the need to say something about it. Below is his response, which I found in my inbox this morning:

From: Jason Friedman [mailto:jason@friedmanassociates.org]
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 11:11 AM
To: mark@5tribe.com
Subject: RE: Snubster.com

Mark,

This is Jason Friedman. I woke up this morning, had my coffee, walked out to my backyard, and stuck my feet in my pool. I then went into my house - the one that I own.(That's right I am not squatting I OWN the house, closed on it a 2 weeks ago) and sat in front of my computer and proceeded to check my E-mails. I received an E-mail from Snubster.com "People that are dead to me" I found yet another Slanderous and Libel comment. Remember, Mark I sued Leo and Ricky and won. I never embezzled money. As for the money you claim you are owed? You are not owed a penny. In fact you owe me at Least $7,000.00 for your little bandwidth stunt with AIT domains.

Please move on with your life, I read your post and I am glad you are doing well. In fact everyone that has disassociated themselves from Leo and Ricky has done extremely well, me included. I am a big believer in Karma.

What goes around comes around. When I took off from AACS they went right down the tubes. When I won my suit I went down to their little hole in the wall office to repossess my property and found out how well they were doing.

I am sorry that you feel the way you do with regards to the whole incident. Unfortunately No one took the time to review ALL of the information in its entirety Bits and pieces were left out, important pieces that my attorneys had access to. Leo shot first and asked question later. I am glad he did, if it weren't for that I would not be in such a great position today.

Anyway, in closing please stop posting Lies about me on the web, I am asking nicely this time.

Warm Regards,

Jason
Below is my response to Jason:
Jason,

First of all, methinks you have a poor understanding of the words "dead to me." Dead to me typically means you are no longer considered alive to me (me being a personal pronoun indicating the person speaking) - so theoretically right now I'm corresponding with the wall, and not an actual living person. The irony of me writing a letter, regardless, is not lost on me however. I know that I might as well be writing this letter to an actual dead person, since you're so self deluded to think that you did nothing wrong and I might as well be talking to a someone who is actually dead.

Second of all, do you really think I give you much of a second thought all of these many months later? I found the joking "anti-social networking site" snubster.com last night, and thought "Hey, who are some of the people who have jacked me for lots of dough over my life? They should be "dead to me" ... and then I put you on the list."

Thirdly, I will say whatever I want, whenever I want. Many people have tried and failed to stop me for spreading the word of their misdeeds on the internet before. I am nigh-invincible when it comes to that. You know that. You've many times in the past help me spread the noise of peoples' mis-deeds on my website before, back before you had started jacking me for my time and money.

As for my bandwidth incident, if you'll recall, it was shortly thereafter that I did invest exactly $5000 into the business myself. I don't accurately remember at the moment if this was before or after we caught you with your hand in the cookie jar or not, so you may not be privy to this information.

Interestingly enough, I haven't disassociated myself from Ricky and Leo, and we are all three doing quite well. What was unfortunate was that AACS didn't ever quite recover from your debacles in business management.

Disassociating from you was too little, too late. And lest you get a big head about how good you think you are, the only reason you won your lawsuits were because our lawyers were inept and forgot to go to court. In the end, wasn't everything you won from AACS coming down to a picture you felt was worth $5000 (or was it $15,000 - I can never remember what your deluded fantasy demanded it's worth was).

I have taken the time to 'review the entire incident in it's entirety,' as you so eloquently put it. I went over bank records and billing statements ranging back two or three years. I saw the pattern of selfish greed you had established, and I know who the real culprits in the company's downfall were. Don't think you've pulled the wool over anyone's eyes. You have not.

Know that any time I feel like posting about this stuff on my blog, I will. Know that the only time I feel like posting about this stuff on my blog is generally when you contact me. Know that there's nothing you can do to stop this. Know that I still receive traffic patterns close to 1000 unique visitors per day. Know that I don't believe this is vengeance or justice, but catharsis. Vengence is mine, sayeth the Lord. Catharsis is mine, sayeth the Mark.

I'm glad to know you have finally stopped squatting on your house and made it legal for you to live there. I'd hate for squatting to be the thing you finally get brought down for. It's rather anti-climactic, like Al Capone being brought down for Tax Evasion.

Lastly, I would like to make clear to you, the people I am BCCing this letter to, and the people reading my blog when I cross-post this correspondence there that you did not "take off from AACS," you were forced out because you embezzled funds.

Cordially,

Mark Hopkins

Internet Begging

Tugu1090 on Skype initiated the following conversation with me today:

[5:28:01 PM] afrifa samuel says: hi
[5:28:04 PM] afrifa samuel says: how areyou?
[5:28:59 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: I'm pretty decent... you?
[5:29:34 PM] afrifa samuel says: okay
[5:29:42 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: good to hear
[5:30:32 PM] afrifa samuel says: okay?may i ask you something
[5:31:33 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: go right ahead
[5:32:27 PM] afrifa samuel says: i beg iwant you to send me a mobilephone
[5:33:05 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: How do you mean?
[5:34:23 PM] afrifa samuel says: im mean that i want u to help me
[5:34:55 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: Okay. Well, I don't have a spare mobile phone to send at the moment. Were you wanting me to buy one for you?
[5:36:04 PM] afrifa samuel says: if you like it
[5:36:44 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: I don't mean to be rude, or anything like that, but why exactly would I buy a mobile phone for a complete stranger on the other side of the world?
[5:38:16 PM] afrifa samuel says: pls ibeg you
[5:39:12 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: I'm sorry, you'll have to do better than that. Mobile phones are not cheap. I have to at least have a very good reason.
[5:39:33 PM] afrifa samuel says: pls tell me
[5:40:03 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: Tell you what?
[5:40:19 PM] afrifa samuel says: pls send me anything you like
[5:41:47 PM] Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins says: I'm sorry, I'm going to have to decline. Have a nice day.

I've never talked to this person before.

I just find it odd and disturbing that there is literal panhandling occuring on the net now.

/rizzn

Busy busy.

Just quick "I'm alive!" post. To let you know what's on my plate the next couple days - I've got a new business acquisition to oversee, and production to finish up on for Darrell's new film. Coming up on the site during this week: Three short films, and one REALLY LONG POST about personal stuff!

/rizzn

Lights out man.

This update has been a long time in coming. I've been outlandishly swamped lately, and simply haven't had the energy to devote to a number of pressing matters. I will try to address as many of them as possible here for you, as I've also been swamped with emails, too.

BlipMedia
Not a day goes by that I don't get an email about the status of Blip. Basically, what has happenned is we've outgrown our servers, and we no longer have any available diskspace. We've purchased new servers to move to (as of several months ago), but I've been so busy with new projects that I haven't had the time to devote to maintaining the service. At one point we were talking a merger through with a couple of our next biggest competitors, but unfortunately, those talks fell apart. I don't have any ill will towards them - quite the contrary. I had a good time meeting my competitors, and we saw eye-to-eye on almost everything, but we were both so busy maintaining our own businesses that we just didn't have time to join forces. Sad but true.

As a result, Blip has sort of ... degenerated. I had hoped to be able to announce an alternative service in a reasonable fashion and a way to migrate your podcasts over, but again, no time.

Here's the bottom line: Blip's future is uncertain at the moment. If I can find a few good cheap (or even better, free) programmers willing to take up my slack, I can revive Blip. We have the servers and the capital to return it to it's former glory, just not the time. If you are or know a programmer willing to help out with this, let me know. You must know ASP, batch programming, and have a good working knowlege of WAV and MP3 file formats as well as RSS. I can offer cash compensation and even points in the company (believe it or not, there is a pending profit model for Blip).

As for your files and RSS feeds, all MP3s will remain on the server and available to public download. All RSS files will stay static, and available, but not updatable.

You can contact me at mark@5tribe.com with any comments, questions, and concerns you have re: Blip. If you have a problem uploading, direct that to mark@blipmedia.org.

T. Evan Fisher for Texas House of Representatives, District 108

Politics! Yes! I've finally taken the final plunge into politics. A few months ago, I made it official, and took the headlong plunge into politics by accepting a position with T. Evan Fisher's Libertarian campaign for a Texas legislature spot. Without a doubt, it's going to be an interesting campaign. It's already becoming interesting, as there's some drama forming already in the form of one of our Democratic opponents being outed as a former male prostitute.

T. Evan Fisher is one of our own - from the old Tyler Denny's Crew. Most of you from there probably know him better as "Thos."

Thos is running for the 108th District of Texas' State Legislature under the Libertarian Party ticket. We had discussed informally before working together, but this weekend we made the arrangement official - I am the designated campaign treasurer for the T. Evan Fisher for Texas Legislature campaign. This means, in effect, I'll be functioning as a campaign manager as well. We're going to really try to organise a strong grassroots campaign as well as some innovative fundraising techniques.

I know I've got a lot of Libertarian readers out there, and I could use all the promotion from my friends and associates as possible. We'll be putting up the official website very soon, and I'll be putting out position and platform papers here and there for your review.

As for political views, the Libertarian Party, if you're not aware, is a very inclusive party that despite conservative or liberal bents, almost everyone finds attractive when they examine their tenets closely. I'd encourage you to do so at http://lp.org - and stay tuned for more on our buddy's quest for office.

Project Catarl
Those of you involved with the Alpha Catarl project may look forward to your handhelds very soon. We should be wrapping up development within the next few weeks and start rolling out prototypes. The Free Alpha signup is closed, but we will be opening up a paid Alpha Program soon, as well. Stay tuned for updates here.

Mystery Radio Project
There is a radio project that I and several very big movers and shakers in the streaming, satellite, and podcast world are putting together. We intend this to be the child project of what was started with BlipMedia, and somewhat closer to what we originally intended with the Blip project. I can't say more right now, but I can tell you that development is almost finished, and I'll be pointing you to the new hubbub very soon. We're talking to our new PR guy, our front end design guy is sending us our final layouts soon, we've hired a program director, and the talent should be getting their official invites to the new company within the next couple weeks. I, of course, am handling the backend work, and am, as usual, behind schedule. I expect to see this project off the ground in less than a month. I will probably be dissappointed, but that's what I expect as well. :-)

Peer-to-peer Banking Project

I've been enticed into a Peer-To-Peer banking project by some good friends of mine. I'm footing the bill on this one because of the promise of some VC coming our way. I can't go too far into the details at the moment (as per usual), but we could be looking at a peer-to-peer banking launch for American users within the next few months here.

Don't know what peer-to-peer banking is? Neither did I when I first heard the term. Go google it, you'll find some food for thought.

My Personal Life Update
Much like the rest of my life - very hectic. I have to say, I enjoy having money again. Ever since I've been back in town, I've been enjoying periodic windfalls of cash in addition to my steady stream of income from the contract job. It has allowed me a number of luxuries I've been denying myself over the last few years: a new car, a nice big apartment, new furniture, a new computer, and a little bit of investment and savings cushion.

A lot of money, however, gets sunk into a new apartment - more than I remember, at least. Down in SouFla, furnished apartment and living situations are common, and I've been used to packing everything up in a couple boxes, loading them up into whatever POS model car I happen to be driving at the time, and moving on a moments notice. Now that I'm actually accruing stuff now, I'm actually dreading the eventual move in six months to a year after I grow tired of whatever it is I'm doing and need to move on!

At least these are good problems to have. Some not so good problems to have include the tiff I've been engaged in this week with the electric company. I'm not going to out them just yet as they haven't completely worn out my patience (but they're quickly moving towards that end), but I've been without power for the coldest week in my memory. The reason is that I transferred my power over from the apartment complex's name on Tuesday to my own, and Tuesday afternoon, the power went out and hasn't come back on yet. Every day they promise to have it on by the end of the day, and every day I'm disappointed.

Very annoying. Ah well, on to the news!

For All My Austinian Friends
Better than your boyfriend posts about secret tunnells under UTA. It's quite an engaging and interesting read. Click the link and check out the full thing. My Austin crew should try this out and tell me what they find.

...there were the tunnels. We’d heard about them before - supposedly there was a secret network of tunnels underneath UT that connected almost all of the buildings. It was a farfetched concept, but it became credible to us when we read an article that said it was the way they got to the tower without being shot to take out Whitman. Soon after moving into UT, we started looking for the tunnels.

Any expectations we had were instantly shattered. No longer were we on campus - we’d be transported into another world. The narrow concrete path was flanked with a host of steam pipes, bundles of wires, and even toxic waste pipes. Intermitently, the steam pipes would makes scary noises which sent our hearts jumping. It was surreal.

Be careful how you read that.
Mz6 writes "According to recent research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, I've only a 50-50 chance of ascertaining the tone of any e-mail message. The study also shows that people think they've correctly interpreted the tone of e-mails they receive 90 percent of the time. "That's how flame wars get started," says psychologist Nicholas Epley of the University of Chicago, who conducted the research with Justin Kruger of New York University. "People in our study were convinced they've accurately understood the tone of an e-mail message when in fact their odds are no better than chance," says Epley. The researchers took 30 pairs of undergraduate students and gave each one a list of 20 statements about topics like campus food or the weather. Assuming either a serious or sarcastic tone, one member of each pair e-mailed the statements to his or her partner. The partners then guessed the intended tone and indicated how confident they were in their answers. Those who sent the messages predicted that nearly 80 percent of the time their partners would correctly interpret the tone. In fact the recipients got it right just over 50 percent of the time."

Earthshell Corporation Board Chairman Resigns
EarthShell Corporation announced today that one of its directors, Simon K. Hodson (whom faithful Rizznites will remember was firmly entrenched in the FlyDLUX debacle), has resigned as a director of EarthShell, effective immediately. Mr. Hodson has also been serving as chairman of the Board. According to a company press release, Simon has resigned in order to focus his efforts on his recent appointment as Chief Executive Officer of E.Khashoggi Industries, LLC. This has confirmed longstanding rumors amongst the FlyDLUX crowd that Simon is somewhat of a "right-hand man" to Essam Khashoggi.

EKI, LLC is (not so coincidentally) EarthShell's largest stockholder. EarthShell holds an exclusive license on a worldwide basis from EKI to commercialize patented material technology for the manufacture of foodservice disposable packaging (but as of yet, the corporation has yet to actually do anything with this patent). A new chairman of the Board will be elected at the next regularly scheduled meeting of EarthShell's Board of Directors and the corporate governance committee of the Board will initiate a search for a new director to fill the vacancy on the Board.

Get Your Bags of Money Here
Matt Marshall over at the San Jose Mercury News does a nice job pointing out how VCs are back to funding startups with 20-somethings running the show -- something that was quite common during the bubble years, but which fell out of favor quickly. However, there's one big difference this time around that isn't mentioned in the article. During the original bubble years, for many of these companies the fact that the founders were inexperienced 20-somethings was often used as a major selling point for the company. There were tons of articles profiling young founders, where it seemed like what the companies actually did was secondary. This time around, it seems like more companies have at least figured out that it helps to focus more of the attention on the company and its products.

Yay, East Texas
It would appear that patent trolls (even if the article refers to them as "patent pirates") have found a friend in the form of a federal judge in the East Texas town of Marshall. Not only does he not waste time and push cases through quickly (a good thing), he sides with the patent holder nearly every time (and much higher than in cases throughout the rest of the country). Apparently, patent trolls around the world are learning that if you want to get your money quickly, file your claim in Marshall, Texas. In fact, many defendants are more likely to settle, rather than have to head into the courtroom of Judge T. John Ward. So, who has the patent on speedy trials?

Free Sports TV. Sort of.
NBC is significantly expanding its Olympics video offerings for the internet and cell phones, a sure sign of its increased comfort with technologies that erect geographic boundaries online. The network's official Olympics site, NBCOlympics.com, will show for free, on a delayed basis, the complete runs and routines for the top finishers and for all U.S. participants in almost every event, with highlights provided for team sports like hockey, said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics.

None of the video will be live however; in most cases it won't be available online or on phones until the end of NBC's broadcast day, generally 11:30 p.m. ET. By contrast, the BBC's website is simulcasting five television feeds, though only to U.K. residents.

Don't be a dip, Zip your zip

Why is it, that when you walk around half the day, and your pants are unzipped, no one has the huevos to tell you? I've been walking around since 11AM around the office, to the cornerstore, and to the coffee shop, and not one single person told me my pants were unzipped! It's not like they can't see it! I'm 6'5", it's probably about eye level. Trust me, if you see me and my pants are undone, I'm not making a fashion statement. Tell me to zip them up!

I've been busy the last couple days. There's a strong probability that we're opening up a rock venue here in Tyler, and I've been meeting with the people I'd be hiring as managers to run the joint. More on that later, but if you're a long time friend of me, it'll be modus operandi like the Cedars of Lebanon shows, and the location will be out past Lindale highschool.

I've also been super busy banging my head on the keyboard. One of the less fun aspects of the contract I've taken here in Tyler is that I've got to design a system to acquire data from an old Unix based system that was created by a uninteruptible power supply company. Sounds arcane? It is! Just ask Darrell. We were literally pushing random buttons and having more luck than when we were actualy trying to utilize our cognitive functions to solve the problem.

Sundance.com Festival
Despite the efforts of folks in Hollywood to lock down everything and put up tollbooths for all online content, it appears that some more independent film makers recognize that giving away content online can have strong promotional value. That's why about two-thirds of the short films being shown at Sundance this year will also be viewable online. It sounds like it's only streaming, which is a start -- but they could get even more value out of offering it in really downloadable form, so that people could watch the video wherever and however they want, while also passing it along to friends to build up more buzz.

Online access to leftist political screeds, gay love stories, environmentalist documentaries, and experimental student films? Be still my beating heart.

Hillary: Left, Right or Indifferent?
In the process of creating the impression that she has shifted to the center, Hillary Clinton is alienating her liberal supporters and even some of her buddies in the media, who criticized her for cosponsoring a bill to make flag burning a crime. One columnist called it one step too far on her journey to the middle.

This week several of Hillary's lefty pals called her a politician for hire for securing $123 million worth of grants and contracts for big corporations that contribute to her political action committee. The New York senator secured the federal money for individuals and businesses that have donated big bucks to her compaign committee. The beneficiaries range from a Buffalo nanotechnology firm to a cancer research program in Cold Spring Harbor.

Before this new development, Hillary had already been labeled "politically disloyal" by the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org for breaking with liberals in supporting the Iraq war and several other online blogs, such as Yellow Dog have officially withdrawn their support for the former first lady.

But don't be fooled by the mainstream media repeatedly labeling Hillary a centrist. The American Consevative Union, the nation's oldest conservative lobbying organization, has kept track of Hillary's senate voting record and points out that she is still a big time liberal.

Dumb Joke of the Day
A frog goes into a bank and approaches the teller. He can see from her nameplate that her name is Patricia Whack.

"Miss Whack, I'd like to get a $30,000 loan to take a holiday."

Patty looks at the frog in disbelief and asks his name. The frog says his name is Kermit Jagger, his dad is Mick Jagger, and that it's okay, he knows the bank manager.

Patty explains that he will need to secure the loan with some collateral.

The frog says, "Sure. I have this," and produces a tiny porcelain elephant, about an inch tall, bright pink and perfectly formed.

Very confused, Patty explains that she'll have to consult with the bank manager and disappears into a back office.

She finds the manager and says, "There's a frog called Kermit Jagger out there who claims to know you and wants to borrow $30,000, and he wants to use this as collateral."

She holds up the tiny pink elephant. "I mean, what in the world is this?"

The bank manager looks back at her and says, "It's a knickknack, Patty Whack. Give the frog a loan. His old man's a Rolling Stone."

End of Privacy as we Know It
I found this very poignant critique of the information state and the national ID card system. Check it out.

http://www.adcritic.com/interactive/view.php?id=5927

Courses for Libbers
The NLP was providing five week courses on various topics to increase our effectiveness, such as affiliate building, campaign management & fundraising, among others. I understand these courses will be intensive, and will require much of your time, but it appears it will rely on donations, rather than actual fees. For further information see: http://www.lp.org/lls/.

Germy Keyboards
"A test carried out by Pegasus Lab on account for Swedish magazine PC För alla showed that a normal PC keyboard was infected by more bacteria than a normal toilet seat. More specific it contained 33000 bacteria per square centimeter, compared to 130 on a ordinary toilet seat. The tests also showed occurrence of up to 3100 fungi per square centimeter." Also note that unless you read Swedish, you still have plausible deniability when asked to windex yours.

I'll RoShamBo ya for it!
While some people are big fans of the idea of vigilante justice against spammers, it seems only likely to lead to problems eventually. However, with companies such as IBM buying into the idea of vigilante justice on spammers, it's no surprise that the idea has built up quite a strong following. The latest effort, launched just last month, was named Kick a Spammer in the Nuts Daily (descriptive, yes?) and consists of having a ton of people fill out bogus orders on spammed sites. Brian McWilliams is now saying this method has worked against one spammer who is now begging for mercy. However, as McWilliams notes, it's unlikely most spammers will give in. Many will figure out ways around these attacks -- and they may start attacking back. And, of course, these sorts of vigilante actions way too often end up with totally innocent parties being harmed as well. While it's enjoyable to see a spammer begging for mercy, the risks of this method mean it's likely to backfire at some point.

Quote of the Entry:
"Genius might be described as a supreme capacity for getting its possessors into trouble of all kinds."
- Samuel Butler