Viggo Mortenson & Prison Survival - [Closed]

Some good minds probably saw this in the past few days. Area 51 shut down the Prison Survival proposition.

In line with the Apocalyptic Defense proposal; I was sad to see this one go too.

When the fallout zombies come for my brains in prison, i won't know how to make a shiv and find non-irradiated foodstuffs. I ain't no Viggo; my progeny will die, unless my wife takes care of them.

 What makes the best make-shift digging tool?

new prop in commitment phase: atheism

so for any stack nerds out there, the most interesting thing about their Area51 launching site for new stacks is the need to keep a proposal from being imminent flamebait. there are a few stacks and stack proposals out there that are just petri dishes for flame.

a new one is in committment phase (where people sign up to be the backbone community/'experts'). the prop is on atheism. (you can commit by going here.) when you commit you can make a little statement about why you're committing, or just type 'poop'. a lot of the people signing up sound like they want it to be a discussion board. i can't wait to see that. it will probably also be one of the bitchiest metas as well. [my favorite commitment quote is "There is far too much tolerance for religious intolerance, and far too little tolerance for intolerance of religion" from Cogwheel, im not sure where he got that from though]

rebel leadernow im not a fan of flamewars (though flamewarriors.com on the other hand...). but its amazing how, when you put a bunch of self-ordained (or worse, community-ordained reputation toting) 'experts' in a room, the general dickwad theory goes out the window and it becomes this ballet of how far you can push without being straight-up abusive (a flaggable offense). there is on the one hand a fascination of the lengths to which someone will go to prove you wrong. in a vacuum, its for the best really, and it will have people deleting a lot of bad answers often once the multi-k repped users deign to start cracking down on every element of how you're wrong.

but the internet isn't really a vacuum. most sites yearn for fresh blood and long tails. what is comforting for most stacks is that, not matter the risk of evisceration, if you have a question, it will have an answer on many of the sites. (most of my shut-downs are on the site i am most active on, cooking; and despite being thoroughly shut-down i keep going back and participating.) in addition to just answering inaccurately, you can also answer in such a fashion that it is not in the spirit of the particular site (ie, subjectively), or not in the spirit of stack exchange as a platform. as you might expect, questions are more prone to fail to be in the spirit of the site or stack exchange and frequently are closed for that adminreason. there's a process behind it (mods asking for revisions, etc), and if the community likes the question anyway it normally floats. yet when people start arguing on a stack, as is the wont of experts the world over wherever they are, the layers of argument are fascinating. 

nonetheless, i ca't wait for atheism to finally go live (why havent you committed already? hasnt my explanation really sold you on trying stack exchange?) and watch the world devolve. perhaps it will be a harmonious echo chamber where everyone says the same thing. who knows.

Area 51 Prop: googledy geeks

So i put up another (likely to be unsuccessful) proposal on Area 51 for a Q & A forum. This time I went after trying to get a Google Geeks site going. I am intrigued by the negative success of it. My success thus far with the other two was someone posting a question or two. This time I have a comment questioning the necessity of another prop to cover ground seen as redundant in scope to the web apps and Android sites. Three people up-voted the sentiment, and one person voted to close the prop altogether.

i mean, i get that. i do. i'm not going to use this space to argue my point of view on the viability of the prop much considering i dont know if many who are here even are familiar with Stack Exchange or Area 51. but anyway, Google is setting itself up as a platform beyond the scope of both Android (an embedded OS) and beyond just web apps (considering the Chrome desktop OS).Their products are beyond the scope of simple web applications as we normally conceive of them. there is a degree of interoperability that, if properly harnessed, is and will be a platform on the scale of Windows or Unix, rather than on par with dropbox experts.

i suggest merely that maybe organizing a community of people who can drill down into the Google-brain (you know there is a Microsoft and Unix brain for how to do something) isn't such a bad thing. the Google platform is obviously burgeoning and not mature to the extent the other two are, but that is precisely what makes having a community a powerful idea.

If you would like to support the prop, click here!

Google Geeks

Proposed Q&A site for extreme users of Google's platform, that know the products' ins and outs, and the nooks and crannies of each lab for those products. We can help you connect every last tube as needed.

New Area 51 Proposition: Paint by Numbers

i started a new prop over at area 51, this time it is less of an abstract niche kind of thing. In fact i was surprised there wasnt one already. It is a simple Q&A site for Painters (art). There was an Art prop already but it was ridiculously inclusive and had no scope.

Heres the description: Proposed Q&A site for artists that are painting at any level; professionally, scholastically or recreationally. We want to focus on the specifics of not only technique in painting, but also working in the field, getting into shows, networking, and creating quality pieces.

For anyone that is interested click to visit the site, maybe put in some questions (or up-vote mine!)

Also heres the link to My Steampunk Organ

Update on 10:30AM by mfg

It was renamed to simply be 'Painting.' Please follow!

My Steampunk Organ

from World Digital LibraryI started a proposition over at Stack Exchange's Area 51 called "My Steampunk Organ" (http://bit.ly/d8zKNA). From my description it is "Proposed Q&A site for enthusiasts and collectors of vintage organs and keyboards as well as their contemporary replacements and other related hardware for getting the most out of your equipment."

My focus is on the keyboards as aesthetic bonds tying organic and synthetic media. One example question is "Does a Yamaha Electone have an audio jack, and if not, can one be installed?" and another is "I have a foyer that is overgrown with lichen and moss, which organ would fit a semi-circular room and has an orange starburst finish?".

Help me in creating a Q&A community that can bring together modders, hackers, musicians, and artists by Following the Proposition. Thanks!

i would love to have a community of people contributing a pic of a person/place/animal and asking what random keyboard would match it. like putting a hot pink eletric keyboard saxophone on abe lincoln.

maybe stack exchange isnt the best place for a niche 4chan, but i dont want it to be some random image site but rather one that really explores the theme through discussion too.