Splitting The Page

Posted on September 26, 2012 by Meg

Among my writing and site editing friends, there are some differing opinions on the split-page article layout. Some people think a long article should be split up into several pages, with a link to the next page at the bottom,  in case people are intimidated by articles over a certain wordcount.  Other people think it’s silly to force people to keep clicking, it makes it harder to scroll up and check what the guy’s name was again, and that readers drop off before clicking to page 2 or 3. But having a split-page generates extra clicks, which makes site revenue, and we like money! But it also bores readers, and we like readers! It’s like our generation’s Oxford comma. And much like the Oxford comma, people that don’t do it my way are really sacrificing readability, but we can still be friends.

Just in case you were wondering if splitting your article over 2 or more pages is a good idea, this Politico piece talks about Paul Ryan nicknaming Romney “The Stench” and then follows it up with some comments about Ryan bringing that needed razzle-dazzle to the Republican ticket with PowerPoint presentations sexily titled “Canada: Friendly Giant to the North.” and “Your Share Of The National Debt”.

The bit about the Stench nickname, including “Tell Stench I’m having finger sandwiches with Peggy Noonan and will text him later.” (Is there MLA style for an actual quote from a pretend Ryan in the real Politico piece?) got picked up as news on Gawker and related non-satire, not-kidding headlines are appearing.

If you trust Politico as a news outlet, and you believe the quotes that Politico attributes to real people are from the real people quoted, and you take a line about Iowans being even polite to soybeans as a throwaway commentary on Midwestern manners, the first page reads like a typical campaign story. The second page, where the bit about the sexy PowerPoint slides can be found, is quite clearly not journalism. It’s pretty hard to read to the end without realizing it’s goofy and embellished.

I’m usually a huge fan of exaggeration for effect (And I’m the world’s biggest fan of hyperbole! You’re welcome.), but I’m not totally sure what point the author was trying to make here, unless MAYBE his editor is a fan of the two-page piece and the author really, really thinks readers don’t click through, and wanted to prove it?

***

Also, the following information from the Politico piece is not satire. This is straight fact, and I challenge anyone to watch a PowerPoint presentation and disagree.

Conducting a PowerPoint presentation is a lot like smoking a cigar. Only the person doing it likes it. The people around him want to hit him with a chair.

***

Edited Sept 2.: Farhad Manjoo has a Slate piece on the same layout problem, and comes down on the same side as I do. He doesn’t say it’s directly tied to the Politico thing, but it did come out just a couple days later afterward, and has a sarcastic second page so…

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NYC Gaming September Demo Night

Posted on September 25, 2012 by Meg

Last night I went to the NYC Gaming September Demo night at Microsoft.  Grumpy Goats was one of the demos, it was really fun to see the changes made to the game and see the guys from Verge. Also saw Cloudberry Kingdom, a formerly-indie (congrats on getting a publisher!) platformer known for the practically impossible auto-generated levels, and Top Bot, an adorable asynchronous racing game with taunting from cutely customizable bots. The combination of My Little Pony hair and Geordie’s visor seemed the most popular look… I think this crowd is my people.

There was also another demo, where the presenter raised some really thoughtful points on freemium games, price points, and perceived value, but then colored it by saying that this particular game is so easy that even your mom or your girlfriend could just pick up and play it! Which is great news for those ladypeople who really wanted to begin playing regular games, but are prevented by our ovaries!

Ran into friends from Next Island and Grumpy Goats, and swapped some game development war stories.  As we were leaving, one of the organizers from General Assembly said that we should all take the leftover beers with us! You know, for cleaning and recycling purposes. Not because the game dev crowd needs to drink more, of course.

We all looked at each other, contemplating the awkwardness of slipping beer bottles in our purses and pockets, and then of course we did.  Yeah, I’m pretty sure these are my people.

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Yes!

Posted on September 24, 2012 by Meg

It’s been a bit of an emotional time for me recently. I’m still reeling from my company going under, and trying to sort out the freelancing rollercoaster, and Harold’s been offered an exciting and awesome new job, but it’s in another city. Because of course it is. We also took two trips in rapid succession, to my Massachusetts family and Harold’s Kansas family, which was awesome, but still gave me a lot of feelings. Anyway, I’m having a lot of feelings right now.

So the other day, when Harold and I came into his building, it seemed extremely important that we make out, immediately, and it could not possibly wait until we walked all the way up to his apartment, it had to happen right there in the hallway. (It may be worth noting that I’m in my early 30s and Harold is closer to 40.) We heard someone on the stairs, and stopped kissing and jumped apart guiltily.

“I wasn’t spying!” his landlord said, who was just coming out of his apartment like a normal person on a normal afternoon.  “But did I hear you’re getting married?”

“Yes. Yes, we are!”

 

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Jane Austen Fangirl

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Meg

I’d reserved Heather Lynn Rigaud’s Fitzwilliam Darcy, Rock Star from the library a while ago, because of course someone else was reading it and someone else was second on the waitlist. New York is awesome!

This rockstar retelling of the greatest book ever opens when virtuoso guitarist and bad-boy rocker Fitzwilliam Darcy, his cousin Richard Fitzwilliam and college friend Charles Bingley, are looking for an opening act on their tour, and band manager Caroline Bingley suggests an indie girl band Long Borne Suffering (I squeed.), composed of sisters Elizabeth and Jane Bennett, and their friend Charlotte Lucas.

And it just keeps giving opportunities for squeeing. Band manager Caroline Bingley interrupting Darcy’s email to Georgiana. Charlotte Lucas smoking behind the tour bus. Wickham as a sleezy music video director. So much to giggle about!

As my epic knowledge of Pride and Prejudice sequels and remakes proves, Jane’s sunny and quiet nature is difficult to portray. Some of us have sisters who really are just optimistic and contented and thinking the best of people all the freaking time, and we resent portrayals of Jane as a ditz. Rigaud’s Jane is calmly contented,  her romance with Charles runs smoothly, with building honest affection on both sides. It’s a charming and optimistic love story, and just like in the actual P&P,  it keeps the crossed wires with Elizabeth and Darcy from soap operatic melodrama.

There are some pretty long sex scenes, and while I’m sure that Elizabeth and Darcy totally got it on, all the time, and that it was super hot, every single time, I felt a little uncomfortable stumbling into porn. Partly because I do a lot of reading on the subway, which is not really terribly conductive to erotica, and partly because I love Elizabeth and Darcy so much that I felt a bit like my friends were oversharing. (Was that weird? It’s probably weird.)

I’ve read quite a few P&P spinoffs, including the one where Mr. Collins is chased by angry bees into a mudpuddle, where he drowns and the one where Mary Bennett finds a human sacrifice cult in the underground caves of Pemberly, so I speak from experience when I call this one my favorite.

Well, at least until that little-known Harry Potter book where Mr. Darcy is the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher finally becomes a reality.

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Stranger Than

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Meg

A headline this morning made me realize that I’m literally unable to tell truth from fiction anymore.

This started when some friends blogged about a bacon sundae at Burger King and I didn’t know if they were kidding or serious.  Was it just my expat circle kidding around about home food they were missing? Making a point about fast food culture? Or actually taking pictures of a real thing in a real restaurant?

Then, Harold and I we were traveling when the whole Clint Eastwood talking to a chair thing  happened (that is a very odd phrase to type), so I first heard about it through social media. For a while, I legitimately thought it was a metaphor my liberal friends were using to describe the RNC.

Here in New York, there was a shooting by my old office in which NYPD cops accidentally shot nine bystanders, and then the mayor passed a law banning extra large sodas. Sometimes these headlines run side-by-side.

Pretty much when I read news now, I wonder what’s a clever parody of American life and what’s true.

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For Exposure

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Meg

Hey, guys, which came first?

Prefix’s post this morning on how Amanda Palmer doesn’t pay her backup musicians , including the brilliant snark at her cheapness:

Palmer sought to crowdsource each city she stopped in to get the instruments she wanted for her live set. One can see how this would cut costs; not only is the tour bus less crowded, but lodging is easier the fewer people you’re traveling with. Oh, and not paying the musicians for their sets helps, too.

OR

Gawker’s post this morning on how Prefix doesn’t pay their writers decently, including the brilliant snark at their cheapness:

Anyone lucky enough to get hired will be expected to write at least three 200-plus-word posts a day, for which they will be compensated $2 per post. Think of it, recent J-school grads: All you’d need to do is write 10,000 words a week and you’re looking at a cool $100.

Really not sure which one was posted first, if one is a reaction to the other.Could be that the Gawker writer is a Dresden Dolls fan annoyed by the Prefix piece and who wants readers to know that Prefix are supercheap to their talent too, or if the Prefix writer is responded to the Gawker attack by pointing out other people are supercheap to their talent, too. Could be just a pretty awkward coincidence for Prefix, but either way it’s a pretty depressing morning for folks hoping to make a living with their creative work.

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Kansas City

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Meg

I was excited when Harold suggested a last-minute trip to Kansas City. Partly because I love when scheduled, steady Harold wants to do something spontaneous. (I don’t know how  manic pixie dream girls do it. I’m quirkily restless all the freaking time, and Harold has yet to throw over all his responsibility and move to Bali with me.) And partly because Kansas City is such a major role, almost a character, in the stories Harold’s told me about his years there.

And so the actual Kansas City is superimposed with the stories Harold has told me, making it more than a mortal Midwestern City. After bringing Harold to my Massachusetts family, the situation is entirely reversed. It is his decades-long friendships to which I’m being introduced.

While we were there, I took a lot of desperately unimaginative photos, because I am the very first person ever to notice that there is a lot of sky in Kansas Missouri. It’s also very flat! So you can see for miles! Yeah, I’m full of unique observations like that.

This is NOT the world's largest ball of string. Anymore.


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Recent Projects

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Meg

I’ve got a piece on Tapscape talking about a recent texting ban in India. I should probably be discouraged from speculating on tech trends, but I was fascinated by the clever workaround individuals are using to circumvent the ban. It reminded me of some of the clever ways my expats friends and I would get around the Great Firewall and keep up with friends at home.

New game review on the island sim Robinson, because it’s been almost a month since my last island game review. Robinson fell totally flat though.

Robinson by Pixonic, is an adorable island sim for Android, promising escapist casual play and delivering forced friends and forced paid upgrades.

I’ve been writing some player guides for The Jockey Club‘s new Facebook game Thoroughbred World.

I’ve started a new contract job writing dialogue for another MMO — more on that one later. I’m afraid to say too much about it until everything is signed and settled.

And of course I’m still over at the Indie Game Magazine, talking about news in the indie game world, and letting my colleagues introduce me to awesome new indie titles.

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The Lasting Value of Educational Games

Posted on September 4, 2012 by Meg

Harold and I arrive in Kansas City, where recent heavy rains have closed one of the main roads. Harold mumbles something about the highway being  practically the Missouri River, after several days of rain.

“Should we try to ford the river?” I ask Harold, “Or should we caulk the wagon and float it across?”

 

 

 

(Oregon Trail screenshot from Shared Experiences provided for anyone unfamiliar with fording the river, dysentery and carrying 200 lbs of squirrel meat back to the wagon.)

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Weesh on Tapscape

Posted on September 2, 2012 by Meg

I’ve just started writing for Tapscape’s new startups section, with my first post on relationship app Weesh:

Weesh, an iOs relationship app for long-term couples, is one of the startups completing Dreamit’s summer incubator. Weesh allows users to find and share new date ideas, and creates a photobook of the couple’s good times.

Users can spot an interesting new restaurant or see a trailer for a movie, and then they make a “weesh” sharing that desire with their significant other. Weesh supports adding a location, sharing a link, a photo, or just entering text of something you’d like to do with your sweetheart.This is social sharing at its best — no spamming 500 Facebook friends with mushy messages, just telling your sweetheart you saw something  fun and thought of them.

This creates a list of the couple’s potential Weeshes, closing the gap between seeing an awesome new sushi place on Tuesday afternoon, and then ending up going to the same places on the weekend that you always go. Weesh also offer suggestions for dates, based on place and interest, a bit like another dating start-up app Datini.

Via Try Weesh, A New iOs Relationship App

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