I Got Yer Oscar Nominations RIGHT HERE

TL;DR: I care about the Academy Awards and I care about data reporting.

This year's Oscar nominations (honoring films released in 2016) were announced on January 24th, and ever since then I've been checking Oscars.org periodically to see if they've published the "view by film" tab on the nominations list. Several news outlets reported on the numbers of nominations different films received, but usually the Academy posts a full list of nominations for each film.

Well, that tab still hasn't appeared as of this writing, but on a whim, I back-hacked the URL based on last year's site, and you know what? The data's actually there. It doesn't appear to be fully cleaned up (the original song nominees are sorted incorrectly), but it's better than nothing:

https://www.oscars.org/oscars/ceremonies/2017?qt-honorees=1#qt-honorees

However, I had already compiled my own list from the per-category nominations page, so I'm posting that information here for everyone else's handy reference. Please note that I'm only listing films with more than one nomination below. For everything else, please refer to the broke-ass page linked above.

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La La Land – 14 nominations
Best Picture - Fred Berger, Jordan Horowitz and Marc Platt, Producers
Directing - Damien Chazelle
Actor in a Leading Role - Ryan Gosling
Actress in a Leading Role - Emma Stone
Writing (Original Screenplay) - Damien Chazelle
Cinematography - Linus Sandgren
Costume Design - Mary Zophres
Film Editing - Tom Cross
Music (Original Score) - Justin Hurwitz
Music (Original Song) - "Audition (The Fools Who Dream)"
Music (Original Song) - "City of Stars"
Production Design - David Wasco; Set Decoration: Sandy Reynolds-Wasco
Sound Editing - Ai-Ling Lee and Mildred Iatrou Morgan
Sound Mixing - Andy Nelson, Ai-Ling Lee and Steve A. Morrow

Arrival – 8 nominations
Best Picture - Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder and David Linde, Producers
Directing - Denis Villeneuve
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Eric Heisserer
Cinematography - Bradford Young
Film Editing - Joe Walker
Production Design - Patrice Vermette; Set Decoration: Paul Hotte
Sound Editing - Sylvain Bellemare
Sound Mixing - Bernard Gariépy Strobl and Claude La Haye

Moonlight – 8 nominations
Best Picture - Adele Romanski, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner, Producers
Directing - Barry Jenkins
Actor in a Supporting Role - Mahershala Ali
Actress in a Supporting Role - Naomie Harris
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Barry Jenkins; Story by Tarell Alvin McCraney
Cinematography - James Laxton
Film Editing - Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon
Music (Original Score) - Nicholas Britell

Hacksaw Ridge – 6 nominations
Best Picture - Bill Mechanic and David Permut, Producers
Directing - Mel Gibson
Actor in a Leading Role - Andrew Garfield
Film Editing - John Gilbert
Sound Editing - Robert Mackenzie and Andy Wright
Sound Mixing - Kevin O’Connell, Andy Wright, Robert Mackenzie and Peter Grace

Lion – 6 nominations
Best Picture - Emile Sherman, Iain Canning and Angie Fielder, Producers
Actor in a Supporting Role - Dev Patel
Actress in a Supporting Role - Nicole Kidman
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Luke Davies
Cinematography - Greig Fraser
Music (Original Score) - Dustin O'Halloran and Hauschka

Manchester By The Sea – 6 nominations
Best Picture - Matt Damon, Kimberly Steward, Chris Moore, Lauren Beck and Kevin J. Walsh, Producers
Directing - Kenneth Lonergan
Actor in a Leading Role - Casey Affleck
Actor in a Supporting Role - Lucas Hedges
Actress in a Supporting Role - Michelle Williams
Writing (Original Screenplay) - Kenneth Lonergan

Fences – 4 nominations
Best Picture - Scott Rudin, Denzel Washington and Todd Black, Producers
Actor in a Leading Role - Denzel Washington
Actress in a Supporting Role - Viola Davis
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - August Wilson

Hell Or High Water – 4 nominations
Best Picture - Carla Hacken and Julie Yorn, Producers
Actor in a Supporting Role - Jeff Bridges
Writing (Original Screenplay) - Taylor Sheridan
Film Editing - Jake Roberts

Hidden Figures – 3 nominations
Best Picture - Donna Gigliotti, Peter Chernin, Jenno Topping, Pharrell Williams and Theodore Melfi, Producers
Actress in a Supporting Role - Octavia Spencer
Writing (Adapted Screenplay) - Allison Schroeder and Theodore Melfi

Jackie – 3 nominations
Actress in a Leading Role - Natalie Portman
Costume Design - Madeline Fontaine
Music (Original Score) - Mica Levi

Deepwater Horizon – 2 nominations
Sound Editing - Wylie Stateman and Renée Tondelli
Visual Effects - Craig Hammack, Jason Snell, Jason Billington and Burt Dalton

Fantastic Beasts And Where to Find Them – 2 nominations
Costume Design - Colleen Atwood
Production Design - Stuart Craig; Set Decoration: Anna Pinnock

Florence Foster Jenkins – 2 nominations
Costume Design - Consolata Boyle
Actress in a Leading Role - Meryl Streep

Kubo And The Two Strings – 2 nominations
Animated Feature Film - Travis Knight and Arianne Sutner
Visual Effects - Steve Emerson, Oliver Jones, Brian McLean and Brad Schiff

A Man Called Ove – 2 nominations
Foreign Language Film (Sweden)
Makeup and Hairstyling - Eva von Bahr and Love Larson

Moana – 2 nominations
Music (Original Song) - Music and Lyric by Lin-Manuel Miranda
Animated Feature Film - John Musker, Ron Clements and Osnat Shurer

Passengers – 2 nominations
Music (Original Score) - Thomas Newman
Production Design - Guy Hendrix Dyas; Set Decoration: Gene Serdena

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story – 2 nominations
Sound Mixing - David Parker, Christopher Scarabosio and Stuart Wilson
Visual Effects - John Knoll, Mohen Leo, Hal Hickel and Neil Corbould

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If you're in the Portland, Oregon area, you're welcome to join us at our Oscar Party on February 26th. (Message me for details if you haven't already received an invite, and apologies for the oversight!)

Finally, everyone on the Internet is welcome to follow me on Twitter for #OscarTrivia that day. (Teaser: you'll find out which one of this year's nominees I worked with on a project back in 2011! Feel free to speculate in the comments.)

Schrödinger Sessions II Debrief

One month ago, I was fortunate enough to attend the Schrödinger Sessions II (SS2), a "science for science fiction writers" workshop at the University of Maryland (UMD), organized by the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) and focusing on quantum physics. The workshop was free, including lodging in a UMD dormitory and breakfast and lunch every day, and it was totally worth paying for my travel there and back.

I first got interested in quantum mechanics (QM) back in high school, when I'd had enough math and science education to grasp how subatomic physics actually worked. Well, that's what I thought. Quantum phenomena are super weird, you guys. But they are incontrovertibly real, even if they seem non-intuitive; as several of our SS2 lecturers mentioned, QM is possibly the most well-tested experimental science, and the results are reproducible and undeniable. We don't know why the universe works this way, but we know that it does.

#jqi

A video posted by Curtis Chen (@sparckl) on Jul 30, 2016 at 9:14am PDT

If you want to try deciphering my notes, here they are in one massive Google Doc.

This may actually be the best explanation of antimatter I have encountered to date. #jqi pic.twitter.com/zzxBDPs2nI

— Curtis C. Chen 陳致宇 (@curtiscchen) July 29, 2016

And here are some excerpts from others' blog posts:

"JQI is what they call low energy quantum mechanics. This involves quantum computation, low temperatures, superconductivity-- all of those sorts of things we can do in a relatively small lab. High energy quantum mechanics and physics, those things done at the Large Hadron Collider and supernovas, aren't done at JQI. That didn't prevent us from asking about it."
— Steven Popkes (day 2, day 3)

"And lest any of the participants leave the U Md (College Park) campus without their brain having exploded, we also covered -- bonus material -- some cosmological speculations and the recent first detection of gravitational waves."
— Ed Lerner

"FYI: Next year, 2017, JQI plans to offer a similar seminar for a different professoinal group, Physics for Journalists, and then, pending funding, re-offer this same session as I attended, Physics for Sci-Fi Writers, in the summer of 2018."
— Sally Ember (2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

BTW, the gravitational waves Ed mentions above were detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO), which is pretty freakin' awesome. That evening lecture by Peter Shawhan was also where I learned about "squeezed light," and like most things during SS2—laser cooling, ultra-cold Bose-Einstein condensates, and quantum computing algorithms, to name just a few—it legitimately blew my mind.

Looking forward to more of this today. #jqi #staywoke pic.twitter.com/XUPYlJ6KcS

— Curtis C. Chen 陳致宇 (@curtiscchen) July 29, 2016

I am definitely, as one person put it, "confused at a higher level" now. And I'm glad to know that even trained physicists continue to argue about the philosophical interpretations of QM. Nothing out of SS2 directly informs anything I'm currently working on, but I look forward to seeing what my subconscious does with it after a few months or years.

OH: "Why don't you just use the variance of the two quadratures?" #jqi #LunchBreak

— Curtis C. Chen 陳致宇 (@curtiscchen) July 29, 2016

Some of the other awesome writers who attended SS2:

• Carolyn Ives Gilman (a past Hugo and Nebula nominee!)
• Christine Taylor-Butler
• Dominica Phetteplace (YES HER)
• Greg Scheckler
• Guang Ming Whitley (who celebrated a birthday during the workshop)
• Heather Bouwman
• Jen Foehner Wells (who has the best Twitter handle)
• Jennifer Povey
• Kate Gorman (who creates locative fiction)
• Kristen Miller
• Kristina Yee (creator of the award-winning animated short Miss Todd)
• Sarah McCarry
• Terri Hughes Burton (now working on The 100)

Apologies to anyone I've forgotten to mention. You're all fantastic and I'm glad I got to hang out with you for a few days!

#jqi pic.twitter.com/WtYpgHO3Ft

— Curtis C. Chen 陳致宇 (@curtiscchen) July 30, 2016

EPILOGUE:

On the way home from the workshop, Southwest cancelled my Saturday night flight (unclear whether due to weather or computer meltdown) and the earliest rebooking was Tuesday morning. Fortunately, my high school pal Tony lives in the area, so I was able to stay with him, catch up on the last eight years of our lives, check out the Udvar-Hazy Center, and also meet up with some DC area Sea Monkeys for lunch.

Life finds a way.

I Have Rendered Unto Caesar

And this year, my wife and I--both of us being essentially freelancers--will be filing quarterly estimated taxes. It's the first year we've really needed to do it, now that we're (A) no longer full-time employees and (B) actually making enough annual income that it matters (i.e., no longer just living off our savings--which, BTW, is a weird loophole in pretty much all US finance regulation, but that's another story).

Chances are you've never cared about estimated taxes, because you're a W-2 wage earner whose paycheck includes automatic withholdings for various taxes (Social Security, Medicare, etc.). Well, when you're a freelancer, those things don't get automatically withheld when clients or customers pay you, but the IRS wants their money all the same. And, as Scalzi says in his excellent "Unasked-For Advice to New Writers About Money" blog post, "the government quite sensibly doesn't trust freelancers to pay their taxes in one lump sum."

So how does it work? Well, I'm sure not qualified to explain it to you, so I'll let my friend Nicole tell you in her well-researched "Surefire Tax Estimating Process for Freelancers" article on The Billfold. And after you absorb all that great information, follow up with The Billfold's other articles on estimated taxes.

It's not actually that much more work, especially since the system is designed to make it easy for you to plan for the coming year when you file your previous year's tax returns; though it's "quarterly," the first deadline of the year is actually April 15th, the same as your federal and state returns. So you can do all the math in one fell swoop, which is what my wife and I did this week. (It helps that she actually enjoys doing taxes, and we live in Washington state, which doesn't collect state income tax.)

Finally, the Treasury Department offers an Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS) which lets you pay your taxes online without going through a fee-charging third-party payment service. And for more info on estimated taxes from the horse's mouth, see the IRS's Estimated Tax FAQs and Publication 505: Tax Withholding and Estimated Tax.

I Can Count to Fifteen

...which is the new number of Puzzled Pint cities. Boston had to wave off on Monday, due to weather, but we also added San Francisco proper at the last minute. Here's the current roster, with our February additions noted:

1. Austin, Texas
2. Bloomington, Illinois (NEW!)
3. Boston, Massachusetts (CANCELED)
4. Brooklyn, New York (NEW!)
5. Chicago, Illinois
6. London, England
7. Montreal, Canada
8. Phoenix, Arizona
9. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
10. Portland, Oregon
11. San Francisco, CA - City (NEW!)
12. San Francisco, CA - Bay Area
13. Seattle, WA - City
14. Seattle, WA - Eastside
15. Washington, DC

And we continue to get inquiries from other places. Not all of those pan out, obviously, but it's great that so many people are interested in Running More Games. :)

At this point, the "headquarters" team in Portland—six people, four of whom are co-founders (our fifth co-founder is running Pittsburgh these days)—is doing more event management and editorial oversight than actual puzzle creation. Which, again, is great; we love seeing the creativity and diversity of other people's puzzle ideas, and we're glad we can apply our experience to help them develop and refine those ideas.

But with diversity also comes differences of opinion. Reasonable people can disagree, and sometimes both sides have reasonable arguments for wildly divergent points of view. We're dealing with some ongoing issues which I think will come down to us having to make a decision about the fundamental nature and character of PP as opposed to other puzzling events: do we always want to be beginner-friendly? is there any reason we would ever say "no" to someone who wanted to start up in a new city? how much can we modify the structure of an event before it's no longer a "Puzzled Pint?"

I don't have all the answers, but I'm glad to be working with lots of smart people who can help us figure out these things. This is how we build a community. This is how we make something that can outlive us all. You know, like Islam.

I Spend a Lot of Time Dealing with Puzzles

I'm not complaining, mind you. I enjoy making puzzle games and running events. But here's a snapshot of my hours worked, from January 2014 to early October:

(Blurred-out names indicate personal and/or secret projects)

I spent the most work time rewriting Waypoint Kangaroo, the novel which went out on submission in mid-October, but as you can see, the second-biggest time slice (nearly 18%) is Puzzled Pint.

That's not surprising; in addition to our Portland Game Control meetings almost every week, PP grew to twelve(!) cities last year, which meant a lot more organizational overhead. It's fun, but also a lot of work.

So what keeps me interested in PP, or the JoCo Cruise puzzle hunts we've been running since 2011, or any of the other volunteer events on which we spend dozens of hours and hundreds of dollars of our own money every year?

If you've ever listened to SnoutCast, you know we practice what we preach: RUN MORE GAMES. Puzzles—especially in-person, live events—are still not mainstream, and my impression is that they scare off a lot of people who might otherwise have fun with creative mental challenges. And I want more people to discover that they love this hobby.

But that's an issue of philosophy. The other thing that keeps me interested is the über-puzzle (as opposed to meta-puzzle) of actually putting on these events. Again, as we've covered on SnoutCast, the puzzles themselves are only one component of a much larger machine, even if they are the distinguishing feature.

Recruiting GC members, scheduling meetings and keeping them on track, finding and booking locations, managing players who find creative ways of interpreting your so-called instructions—maybe these things are more challenges than puzzles, but they're at least as difficult to solve. Especially when you can't ask someone for hints.

The reward, though, can be immeasurably greater. It's like any other piece of art: you have to believe in it hard in order to make it happen, to create something out of nothing, to persist long enough to actually finish it. But when you can make others understand what was in your head, when you can make them believe, too—I would argue there's nothing better than that in the world.

This is why I run Games. This is why I write fiction. This is why I keep trying to do more.

I Now Own Part of a Private Island

One square foot, to be precise, in the place known as "Hawaii 2," which the horrible people at Cards Against Humanity actually purchased—and then gave away—as part of this year's Holiday Bullshit shenanigans.

Here's where my real estate is located:

Maybe I'll visit it someday. Maybe not. Seems like a lot of trouble.

There was also a large-scale, online puzzle hunt associated with this year's CAH promotion, which ended at a safe hidden on the island. Read all about it on Boing Boing, Max Temkin's blog, or ARGNet, and see the Reddit community writeup of how the puzzles worked.

I Am Terrible at Analytics

As you know, Bob, I gave a well-received Ignite presentation on our Homebrew Cat Feeding Robot setup in early 2012. Afterward, I also set up a web page, with every intention of updating it as we iterated through future versions:

As you can see, Bob, that web page has not been updated. Sorry, ladies. But see below for how Food Robot evolved from early 2013 to our current setup. Can you spot the differences?

Back to the outdated web page. In my defense, it's not really that popular. Look at this Google Analytics report. Almost three years and barely 400 pageviews? Weaksauce, man:

Oddly enough, according to Slideshare, German fairgoers love cat feeding robots:

On the gripping hand, I'm wondering whether this should be more of a community site. Companies like Bistro and Petnet (formerly Pintofeed) are working on product-izing food robots, but I've also seen plenty of really creative DIY setups online.

For example, a friend of a friend posted this just yesterday:

food robot v0.5. now with more diameter, a velocity-dampening bend, and somehow, more duct tape. @trevordbabcock pic.twitter.com/3deEE43byo

— rejennarate (@rejennarate) December 17, 2014

Clearly there is a (WAIT FOR IT) hunger for cat feeding robots and discussion thereof. And the domain foodrobot.org is available... hmm.

I Less Than Three Portland

(Today's "The I in MEAT" blog post is brought to you by the perfect texture, The Doubleclicks, and the Twitter.)

Back in 2007, DeeAnn and I went all in on what we called "the writer move." In particular, we decided to stretch our savings by moving out of the San Francisco Bay Area to a more affordable city--meaning we had most of North America to choose from.

Some places we ruled out right away, for various reasons. Seattle was also too expensive (and still is). Canada would require proof of rabies vaccination for our cats, which in itself wasn't a problem, but we didn't want to risk losing them to international quarantine or for some other obscure medical reason. And flying the cats anywhere also seemed like asking for trouble. But that still left forty-eight of the United States to choose from.

To narrow down the wide field of candidates, we created a big spreadsheet and researched data which were important to our lifestyle. Some of those properties included:

• Winter comfort (January windchill and annual snowfall)
• Summer comfort (July heat index and average rainfall)
• Cost of living estimate, averaged from five different sources
• Distance to nearest airport
• Distance to nearest VA hospital
• Number of Trader Joe's stores within 15 miles
• Number of Thai restaurants within 5 miles
• Percentage of population identifying as religious
• Percentage of population identifying as Democratic

Here's a link to the full spreadsheet, if you're curious about the details. Note that we gathered this data seven years ago, and much of it will be out of date now:


http://goo.gl/p3tl1O

We took trips to visit our top two out-of-state candidate cities, shown in black text on that spreadsheet: Cary, North Carolina (in the Research Triangle) and Portland, Oregon. (Our fallback was Sacramento, California, which area we were already familiar with from all our Hogwarts Game scouting in 2006.) Cary had a fantastic farmer's market, but the neighborhoods weren't remotely walkable. And Portland... well, we live here now.

It took us a little while to adjust, but now we couldn't be happier with our home. (And no, I am not saying that ironically.) The move also inspired me to ask for 37 Postcards back in 2010, and that was pretty amazing, too.

If you're thinking about relocating, and you have some latitude in your selection criteria, Internet research is an excellent place to start. We started with information from Sperling's Best Places, then supplemented and corroborated that with data from various other online sources which we judged reliable and relevant. Your mileage may vary.

I Hate the Word "Tribe"

Just to be clear: this is not a rant against Seth Godin. I actually think he's got some pretty great ideas about leadership, as shown in his TED talk from 2009 (worth watching for the vintage Kindle 1 prop, if nothing else).

My problem is with the word "tribe" and all it implies: exclusion, small-mindedness, and bigotry.

I know. You're probably thinking that tribe is a positive concept, as Godin argues in his book; that it signals connection and camaraderie, often across great distances; that it can be a lifeline for those who feel isolated by their unusual interests. And that is all true and good, ideologically speaking. My specific problem is with terminology, and the unfortunate etymological baggage that comes with calling something a "tribe."

Try this. Do a Google Image Search for the word "tribe." I'm guessing your entire first page of results will be photos of primitive-looking, possibly aboriginal peoples:



And that, I believe, is the first thing that comes to mind when anyone says the word "tribe:" it's not some noble grassroots movement petitioning for political change, and not some far-flung collective which has self-organized over the Internet. No. It's a bunch of crudely dressed people of color standing around a jungle, forest, or other wilderness. In a word: savages.

I know how people want to use the word, as a rallying point--perhaps even subverting that prejudicial, historical meaning--but it's difficult for me to get beyond it. Because the concept of "tribe" is explicitly discriminatory. People talk about "finding their tribe" in a good way, but I'm always painfully aware of the flip side: that by identifying yourself with one group, you are also willfully segregating yourself from others. If only a select group are "your people," then everyone else in the world is, by definition, not your brethren. And that puts you one step closer to thinking of them as your enemy.

Even if you don't go that far, one could argue that these tribal distinctions are necessary and unavoidable. We could talk about the Rule of 150 (a.k.a. Dunbar's number), but it's more fun to discuss...

...the Monkeysphere!

Because, you know, monkeys.

If you haven't yet, go and read "What is the Monkeysphere?" by David Wong. Yes, it's on Cracked.com, but don't let that fool you--the tone may be flippant, but the issues it addresses are serious, and his conclusions are sound.

(BTW, "David Wong" is the pen name of Jason Pargin, executive editor of Cracked.com; he's also written two comic horror novels, John Dies at the End and This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It. I did not make up any of this.)

Wong's basic argument is the same as Dunbar's, Gladwell's, and any number of other social scientists: that there is an upper limit to human beings' cognitive ability to maintain stable social relationships, and that limit is about a hundred and fifty people. But Wong distinguishes himself on page 2 of his article, where he offers this advice:

[R]eject [the] binary thinking of "good vs. bad" or "us vs. them." Know problems cannot be solved with clever slogans and over-simplified step-by-step programs... take the amount you think you know, reduce it by 99.999%, and then you'll have an idea of how much you actually know regarding things outside your Monkeysphere.

It's not about denying our biological deficiencies. It's about acknowledging and accepting those limits, and finding ways to overcome or bypass them. Can't run fast enough to chase down that prey animal? Try riding a horse, or domesticating dogs, or inventing projectile weapons. Not sure when it's going to get cold again or when's a good time to plant crops? Invent the calendar and keep track of annual weather cycles. The history of human civilization is all about us giving Mother Nature the middle finger and saying "screw this, we can do better."

In this case, however, it's not about science or technology or engineering; it's about changing the way we think of ourselves and others, and that is a tough, long-term, cultural conundrum. It's not something we can cure with a pill or a device or legislation or even a good story. It's something that has to happen to every person, individually, as he or she grows up. You've got to be carefully taught and all that.

I hate the word "tribe" because it implies we're still restricted by that cognitive limit, and we can't get beyond it. And that's just not true. Maybe I don't personally know every single one of the hundreds of people I'm connected to through Twitter or Facebook or other social media, but I know a little bit about each of them. And every small piece of information makes those names and tiny pictures more human to me.

It's not about who's in which tribe, or whether I share all (or any) of their likes or dislikes or political views. It's about people, and understanding that diversity is good. I want to be friends with smart people who disagree with me (as long as they're not jerks about it)!

The thing I'm really interested in is community. (I know some people don't like that word either, and I can understand where they're coming from: again, it's all about usage and intent. Prefixing anything with "the" can assign it an undeserved weight--for example, consider the difference between one show called "Following," versus another called "The Following".)

To me, "community" implies openness and a willingness to embrace new members. Fandom is a community. The Internet is chock-full of meeting places for all sorts of virtual communities, new cultures whose only entrance requirement is a shared interest in something. Create an account and you can immediately start posting and commenting and participating.

You might still have to kiss some frogs, but keep trying and you will find a place where you belong. And if that's taking too long? Start your own community. Plant the seed and see what happens. You have nothing to lose but your loneliness.

Important Data Visualization of the Day

Because I know you've been wondering:

That is all.

My 40th Birthday Survey Results

TL;DR: Despite an unfair advantage, my sister still wins. :)

Back in September, I asked people (by e-mail and social media) to fill out a quick survey describing how long we've known each other, where we met, and their first impressions of me in five words or fewer. It turned out to be the second best birthday present ever! (The best was, of course, The Double Secret Game.) Below are the results of this completely unscientific study.

I received 110 total responses, the first on September 4th (DeeAnn, testing the form) and the last on October 2nd, the day after my actual birthday. The majority of the responses--71 people, or just over 65%--came in during "opening weekend" (Thursday, September 5th, through Sunday, September 9th).

Mmm... pie chart...

Not surprisingly, the biggest segment of responders was in the 2-5 year range (2008-2010). We moved to our current home area--Portland, Oregon--in late 2008, and about a year later started making a real effort to get out of the house and meet people. There's another big cluster of responses in the 1-2 year range (2011-2012), which includes several Sea Monkeys and more awesome Portlanders.

The second biggest segment was the 10-20 year range (1992-2002), which includes some college friends, my wife, and other people we know from living in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade. Many of those are Gamers, and all of them are fantastically creative and generous, because that's how we met them: through doing cool stuff for fun!

My favorite part, though, is the five-word first impressions. Here's the word cloud (minus seven people who opted out of this public analysis):

"IN NO MORE THAN FIVE(5) WORDS: what was your FIRST IMPRESSION of me?"

Of course, some of those individual words don't make much sense out of context. In no particular order, here are a few of my favorite five-word first impressions:

• "Tall guy likes Star Trek"
• "quiet, tall, and hungry"
• "Quiet, but lots in there."
• "Kind of mopey, I think."
• "inclusive trekkie asian ambitious nice"
• "Guy interviewing me" (from a former co-worker)
• "He looks like Mr. Spock."
• "He likes everything I like!"
• "Intriguing -not normal"
• "still waters run deep"
• "someone I'd like to meet"
• "Clever non-aardvark Bastard"

But honestly, it's the entire collection of responses that is most striking. You can see some of that in the word cloud--I am clearly known far and wide for my love of Star Trek, and also for being tall and quiet. I guess I knew a lot of this already, but it's nice to have actual data. You know, science and all that.

I also provided a form field labeled "Anything else you'd like to tell me?" in case five words wasn't enough. Some of those responses were pretty great, too:

• "Yes, but I had a stroke so I can't write it."
• "Don't make a fucking W with your fingers.
  
  It's been great getting to know you over the years through games, social events, and those crimes we agreed never to discuss. Here's looking forward to another 9 years! Cheers!
  
  Corby"
• "Dude, if I could remember things that happened years ago, I wouldn't have got into the habit of writing stuff down. So, uhm, don't trust that memory of your first impression too far. Oh, wait, I write stuff down, so I don't have to remember: Here's the earliest mention of you on my site: http://lahosken.san-francisco.ca.us/anecdotal/hunt/5/05.html#happybirthday"
• "Funny, the 'how long have we known each other' question was surprisingly difficult to answer. I played in your Hogwarts Game in 2006, but don't really think that counts - I was looking for some kind of definitive 'social' connection. I decided to go with what I could mine from Gmail:
  
  Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 00:23:59 -0700
  To: Jeff Phillips
  From: Facebook
  Reply-to: noreply
  Subject: Curtis C. Chen confirmed you as a friend on Facebook...
  
  ~Jeff"
• "I like you. I don't want to punch you in the face."
• "Your creativity inspires me!"
• "I think it's a very good reflection on my taste in friends that many of them are able to reinvent themselves, take chances, create new amazing things, and involve others in their projects. You can do all that (and more), and it is for that reason you're my friend."
• "Thanks for introducing me to Larry Niven!" (his books, not personally)
• "The first time we met, I totally profiled you.
  
  Our section of the airport was nearly empty. We were both waiting for our connecting flight to Martha's Vineyard to attend Viable Paradise. I saw you working on a laptop that had a bunch of stickers on it. Laptop and stickers somehow screamed 'science fiction nerd' even though I couldn't see what the stickers were exactly. I consulted my own machine, saw that there were two distinctly Asian names on the VP student list. You looked more like a Chen than a Ha (though of course you could've easily been a Terhune, Johnson, or Kloos). I approached cautiously, half-expecting you to explode: 'What? So you see an Asian guy in an airport and just assume we all write science fiction??!' To my perhaps visible relief, you just smiled and shook my hand.
  
  Happy 40th, Curtis!" (from a VPXII classmate)
• "You introduced me to the Hollywood Bowl. I've been following classical music ever since." (from a high school friend)
• "It was my third date with Wei-Hwa and I remember him inviting us along to dinner with you guys. It was a great time."
• "You know the line from the theme from the movie Shaft that goes 'who's the black private dick that's a sex machine to all the chicks? Shaft!'
  
  Well, if you were black, and a detective, and hugely promiscuous, and your name were Shaft instead of Curtis, I would think that song would apply perfectly to you.
  
  And even though you are none of those things, I think the song applies to you anyway.
  
  Happy birthday, Mr. Not an Aardvark!"
• "I heard 'I'm an Aardvark' on my kid's Sesame Street playlist just last week!"
• "Welcome to the old-timers club, sonny."
• "You have only two years to plan your next birthday project. 42. It is the number after all."

But all that said, I think this is my single favorite overall response (from my younger sister):

Thank you to everyone who participated, and thanks for reading all of this rambling analysis! Those interested can view all the public raw data and do the math yourself. Feel free to share your own conclusions in a comment below. :)

SnoutCast #167: Comparative Playtesting in Portland (Afoot vs. DASH)

In which we preview the Portland Afoot Game (May 4th) and DASH 5 PDX (May 18th). No spoilers!

[ Download mp3 - 31 MB ]

00:59 - "verifiable"
02:42 - compare and contrast
05:00 - cisgendered team formation
07:30 - a puzzling philosophy
11:16 - following instructions is fun!
14:48 - the scourge of scoring
20:25 - tasks & activities & challenges & things.
22:15 - VERY MINOR WARTRON SPOILER
25:29 - Twitter usage paradigms
30:17 - "Why DO people want to talk to other people?"
33:34 - The End

Tell us we're wrong on the Internet! E-mail podcast@snout.org or post a comment at www.snout.org/podcast.

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "First of May" by Jonathan Coulton

[ Subscribe to SnoutCast / iTunes link ]

 

SnoutCast #152: Pricing Puzzled Pints

A special extended conversation, in which we estimate how much one of our monthly events would cost at retail! Also, how would you like to adopt a cat?

[ Download mp3 - 36 MB ]

00:59 - "valuable"
02:28 - the business (or not) of puzzle hunts
04:19 - estimating Puzzled Pint costs
07:01 - the hours: ~80 total (5 puzzles per month)
14:32 - three-step hints, just like cooking!
18:00 - cost of materials: ~$50 (printing)
21:33 - hourly labor costs: ~$9 (minimum wage)
26:55 - final figure, per team: ~$50 (15 teams)
33:31 - exporting value
35:03 - tax implications
38:25 - The End

Tell us we're wrong on the Internet! E-mail podcast@snout.org or post a comment at www.snout.org/podcast.

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "Ikea" by Jonathan Coulton

[ Subscribe to SnoutCast / iTunes link ]

 

Damned Lies of the Week

After watching @snarke's vlog from yesterday, I was going to post a comment about the most effective job search strategy being talking to people you know—friends, family, co-workers and former colleagues. I even had a statistic: my wife, who's also job-hunting right now, recently looked at her past work experience and determined that she got roughly 70% of all the jobs she's ever had through personal connections.

But that was only anecdotal evidence. I was sure somebody had done a more comprehensive study of this phenomenon, so I decided to go looking for primary sources.

And then the Internet disappointed me.

This is the statistic—totally made-up, as far as I can tell—which everyone likes to throw around: "80% of jobs are found through networking." (Sometimes it's "70%," but most people seem to like "80%.") The earliest online reference I could find is this 2008 Examiner.com article, which says: "According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 70 percent of all jobs are found through networking." Of course, I couldn't verify that anywhere on the BLS web site, and the fact that Examiner.com does no editing or fact-checking does not inspire confidence.

There's further discussion in this LinkedIn Q&A thread from 2009. But the only source named there is a New York State Department of Labor web page which actually says "over half of all employees get their jobs through networking, according to BH Careers International." Please note that "over half" is not a specific number, and the company "BH Careers International" seems really sketchy.

A lot of the web sites who cite the "80%" number these days seem to credit "ABC News." The earliest reference to that appears to be this career coach blog post, dated May 7th, 2010. I haven't been able to find any actual news report which provides this information, either national or local. Also quoted in that same blog post is "70% of jobs are found through networking" according to the "US Dept of Labor & Statistics." Sound familiar? See above to close the circle of lies.

So I'm going to call this an urban legend of sorts, and stick with DeeAnn's provable 70% figure, even though it's a small sample size. Meanwhile, here are some other job hunt-related statistics which may or may not be correct, but are actually sourced:

• The 2011 US edition of SimplyHired's "Today's Job Seeker Report" reports that "over half of job seekers have been hired through a friend’s referral at some point in their career" and "nearly a third of job seekers found their last job through networking—by far the most effective of all job sources."
• In April, 2012, a CareerBuilder survey indicated that 37% of employers use social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.) to research job candidates.
• Finally, Jobvite's 2012 Social Job Seeker Survey (registration required for download) was conducted in early September of this year. One of their findings was that "1 in 6 job seekers credits social media with their current job"—specifically, "Internet job board (such as craigslist or hotjobs)" was the most popular response at 32%, with "referral from professional or personal contacts" a close second at 31%. However, also note that "41% of job seekers found [their] favorite/best job from friends or family," versus only 17% for "online job board[s]."

Keep in mind that these were all voluntary surveys, and self-reported information tends to skew toward what people want to remember more than actual facts. You'll have to take methodology into account when deciding how much you want to trust each source above.

There you have it: still unscientific and hardly rigorous, but at least properly attributed, so you know who to blame. Happy Friday!

SnoutCast #136: Gamer Profile - Richard Malena

A conversation with Portland's own @rmalena, a.k.a. "Nice Math Teacher!"

[ Download mp3 - 26 MB ]

00:00 - promo: BANG 33 rerun +online!
01:30 - "mathematical"
01:48 - cats: better than math?
02:34 - getting mixed up with Puzzled Pint
05:10 - teaching math to teenagers...
06:20 - ...with puzzles!
10:56 - Lies! All lies! (Not really.)
12:02 - how is a proof like a puzzle? besides the arguing?
15:48 - comparing childhood memories
18:13 - college kids love treasure hunts
19:28 - RPGs: impossible to put puzzles into?
23:12 - math skills vs. puzzle skills
24:05 - future events: bikes? Seattle? stay tuned!
25:22 - plug-o-rama: Pacific Crest Community School, Pathfinder Society, Geek Portland, Puzzle Hunt Calendar.
27:56 - The End

Tell us we're wrong on the Internet! E-mail podcast@snout.org or post a comment at www.snout.org/podcast.

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "The Future Soon" by Jonathan Coulton

[ Subscribe to SnoutCast / iTunes link ]

   

SnoutCast #124: Three Things

Show notes? You want me to write up show notes when we're prepping for a live-fire Dry Run in just four days? Well, okay.


[ Download mp3 - 23 MB ]

00:58 - "contingent"
01:51 - backstory
05:53 - "few" vs. "several" vs. "many" vs...
10:01 - philosophy and Hogwarts
14:36 - weddings gone wrong
16:53 - yeah, the oak and the reed, that's the ticket
20:20 - mmm... doughnuts...
24:36 - The End

Tell us we're wrong on the Internet! E-mail podcast@snout.org or post a comment at snout.org/podcast .

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "Re: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton

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SnoutCast #122: WARTRON Listener Mail

You've got questions. We've got answers. Sort of.


[ Download mp3 - 26 MB ]

00:58 - "active"
01:44 - Question #1 re: demand for weekend-long Games
02:53 - For WarTron: 40 teams registered (35 actual applicants)...
06:50 - ...28 teams completed application, 24 accepted (1 declined), 23 playing.
08:59 - Answer #1: current demand seems to be mid-30-ish teams
11:30 - Question #2 (more of a comment) re: cool Portland locations
13:09 - Answer #2: SETTING EXPECTATIONS
17:21 - Mmm... Food...
19:05 - other things are just as important as puzzles to The Game
21:56 - a hypothetical situation
25:49 - maybe GC cares more about theme than players do?
28:10 - The End

Tell us we're wrong on the Internet! E-mail podcast@snout.org or post a comment at snout.org/podcast .

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "The Future Soon" by Jonathan Coulton

[ Subscribe to SnoutCast / iTunes link ]

  

snout.org downtime

UPDATE (5/23 18.26 PT): Data center move rescheduled to "next week on some day Tuesday [5/29] onwards," and likely to be after business hours. Precise details to come later.

My primary web host is moving data centers this weekend--probably Friday, possibly Thursday--so the main snout.org web site will be offline for some time, and e-mail delivery to all addresses in the snout.org domain will be delayed.

More information and updates at rahulstatus.

For alternate contact methods, see curtiscchen.com.

SnoutCast #96: By the Numbers

Math is hard. Let's solve puzzles?


[ Download mp3 - 27 MB ]

00:59 - "statistically significant"
01:40 - compiled for Doctor When: Curtis' personal puzzlehunting history
08:56 - other statistics: regarding this very podcast!
14:48 - five minutes of disclaimers later, a top ten list
22:16 - and the #1 downloaded episode for the last 11 months...probably!
25:42 - (insert "99%" joke here)
28:31 - The End

Got a comment or question? E-mail podcast@snout.org or post at snout.org/podcast!

Music: instrumentals from "Code Monkey" and "Chiron Beta Prime" by Jonathan Coulton

[ Subscribe to SnoutCast / iTunes link ]

 

Game Canada

Below, an excerpt from the Official Rules for a current Holland America cruise line sweepstakes. My emphasis:

"If the potential winner is a Canadian resident (with the exception of Quebec, residents of which are not eligible to enter this sweepstakes), he/she will be required to answer unaided a time-limited, mathematical skill-testing question by telephone before the prize can be claimed."

Apparently, in Canada, you have to be good at math to win stuff. Who knew?

P.S. Happy Canada Day, everyone!