Being a free thinker I do NOT mind figuring out things on my own, if I can simplify and get something functional. And a few times have had to come up with functional definitions when dictionary ones were not good enough for me to figure something out. And is pertinent to mention too as I explore the concept of the science of entertainment.
Am using MY definitions want to emphasize, so doing a lot to be sure that is clear. Am continuing with things I made up.
___________________________________
science (noun): the art of prediction using methodologies and tools to expand zones of certainty by discovery of a predictive framework.
entertainment (noun): any socially accepted activity chosen in order to alter mood in a desired way which is unlikely to bring harm in any way.
Where am putting them together for once. I call those functional definitions, which makes them remarkably short for what I claim they can do. Like the first? Can encompass ANY scientific discipline known or yet to be known. So let's make up one.
Time to ponder as I like giving myself these challenges to figure something out as I type up a post. Feel confident. Besides if I fail you just won't see it.
So at first blush, a science of entertainment should involve discovery of a framework of tools and methodologies to expand zones of predictive certainty in producing a desired mood for a human being or groups of humans with a socially accepted activity, unlikely to bring harm in any way.
The art of it is in choices made in building that framework.
Isn't creativity something? Fascinates me how far I can go with things I made up.
What makes it science then is the zone of predictive certainty which I think for many is way far from entertainment, as how can you be certain, say that something is funny? Turns out with the science done correctly, you can, maybe. Just because I can put up what a science of entertainment would do, doesn't mean it can exist!
The hypothesis aspect of science is well-known, and by my system is a prediction, testable by the predictive framework. That is, you can make a hypothesis and test it by experiment.
For instance, I will admit now, as have been evaluating for over a year that I have checked and continue to check things accepted as entertainment for their safety level. And compare with near things if can find which are NOT considered entertaining.
Which can explain how a celebrity, who is an entertainer and I think most are, can seem to do ok with one thing, and crash and burn with another as a public may laugh off one thing as safe, so harmless and see something else as not, though both may look very similar which I find fascinating.
Perceptions there can vary, so there can be effort in determining if a person sees something as safe or not. One person may see something as perfectly safe that another finds not. Which can cause differential assessment across groups as well.
And that's enough for a post I want to be short. And it has been heavily edited, which is ok. I DID just start typing pulling from my two definitions. And luckily can edit as consider over time and ponder the usefulness as well--what can I DO with it?
One desired thing? Figure out rapidly any entertainment system on the planet, as to efficacy, likely duration, and methodology as to why people find it entertaining. And don't worry, I work to keep musings about current entertainment to myself. And carefully move as to show appropriate concern for the mystery, of course.
Because with me? Mystery matters.
Actually building out a science is where things get interesting. At least can now see how two of my functional definitions can come together.
And I do not consider this post to be a brainstorming post, which is kind of a note to myself.
James Harris
Sunday, January 08, 2017
Sunday, January 01, 2017
Building better takes skills
Readily admit was not a fan of school when was forced to go through it, yet did decide to go to college and have talked what I think is the point of a college education, which is to learn learning, in my opinion. And to find the link to my own post found myself doing what is a new learned thing which is to search on name of the blog, and subject. So searched: beyond mundane point of college
That works for me with Google should note, but suspect that as years go by will work with other search engines but is NOT about me. Is about decisions other people make, which get reflected in search engines. And it takes building a structure on which others can depend on to give what is expected. But how do you get the skills?
For me writing is something I enjoy and of course needed some kind of teaching, where got most of that in school. While was not a fan of school do find myself reflecting on things I realize I learned in college, and not just on the facts, but ways of looking at things. Can at times imagine like a professor is chatting with me, as I recognize this or that skill is not something that just appeared, but was taught to me by a person in a position to teach such things.
But who is your teacher? Is a question worth asking when a person tries to make decisions around school or life. I'm fascinated by people who may have certain skills one way, who might assume they know what skills they'll need down the line as, how do you know?
Who tells you what you need to know?
There are things you can just pick up online, but where are the basics. Maybe you can get those basics online, but then your teacher is who put up that content.
How do you know who to trust with your mind?
To me my mind is very important to me. And as I get older I DO appreciate that I could go places which were yes, part of a social order I questioned often. And yes, felt myself jumping through hoops that society put there for me, but also did not have a way to find better, or trust.
Today people can tell you all kinds of things, but how do you check them?
For me there is a ready reference available, from some of the best schooling the United States could provide, where a lot was free to me, in the public education system. And yeah even in college I was lucky enough to get...I digress.
Main thing is, I know how to do certain things now, where I like to wonder how I know. And reality is: there were very skilled people who taught me some extremely useful skills.
The web does not change the basics. It makes things faster, and allows greater reach, but if you're going to build something on which others can rely, then you need to learn how to build, and how to build reliably.
Just because you build out here with ideas and words, or picture or other things with which you can make a website, it does not mean there is not support necessary to keep it standing. And putting that support in place--building solid foundations--is so much about how well you know how to put things together, I firmly believe. It takes skills.
And as I type and watch the words appear it occurs to me that an effort that is about expressing myself flows as it does, for reasons I can ponder. But the results of that effort will not just be about what I think, but about what thoughts echo. Sharing lets me try. But others will find out whether or not I built well.
That flow can feel great. But feelings don't make reality. Skills help you build your vision. Wanting without skills is a dream without the means to be fulfilled.
Luckily for me, I didn't have to be a fan of school. I just needed to do the work. And thankfully for me as an older person, when it was the time to do it, I did.
There are many schools in life of course.
Plenty of opportunities to get skills needed. The web does make it easier when finding the school you need can be so much about searching.
Maybe then it's not so much about being a fan of school, but about needing those tools to get things done.
Then accomplishment can both rule and define your life. Looking at things accomplished definitely feels better to me, than wondering about what I can do.
I know what I can do, from what I've done.
James Harris
That works for me with Google should note, but suspect that as years go by will work with other search engines but is NOT about me. Is about decisions other people make, which get reflected in search engines. And it takes building a structure on which others can depend on to give what is expected. But how do you get the skills?
For me writing is something I enjoy and of course needed some kind of teaching, where got most of that in school. While was not a fan of school do find myself reflecting on things I realize I learned in college, and not just on the facts, but ways of looking at things. Can at times imagine like a professor is chatting with me, as I recognize this or that skill is not something that just appeared, but was taught to me by a person in a position to teach such things.
But who is your teacher? Is a question worth asking when a person tries to make decisions around school or life. I'm fascinated by people who may have certain skills one way, who might assume they know what skills they'll need down the line as, how do you know?
Who tells you what you need to know?
There are things you can just pick up online, but where are the basics. Maybe you can get those basics online, but then your teacher is who put up that content.
How do you know who to trust with your mind?
To me my mind is very important to me. And as I get older I DO appreciate that I could go places which were yes, part of a social order I questioned often. And yes, felt myself jumping through hoops that society put there for me, but also did not have a way to find better, or trust.
Today people can tell you all kinds of things, but how do you check them?
For me there is a ready reference available, from some of the best schooling the United States could provide, where a lot was free to me, in the public education system. And yeah even in college I was lucky enough to get...I digress.
Main thing is, I know how to do certain things now, where I like to wonder how I know. And reality is: there were very skilled people who taught me some extremely useful skills.
The web does not change the basics. It makes things faster, and allows greater reach, but if you're going to build something on which others can rely, then you need to learn how to build, and how to build reliably.
Just because you build out here with ideas and words, or picture or other things with which you can make a website, it does not mean there is not support necessary to keep it standing. And putting that support in place--building solid foundations--is so much about how well you know how to put things together, I firmly believe. It takes skills.
And as I type and watch the words appear it occurs to me that an effort that is about expressing myself flows as it does, for reasons I can ponder. But the results of that effort will not just be about what I think, but about what thoughts echo. Sharing lets me try. But others will find out whether or not I built well.
That flow can feel great. But feelings don't make reality. Skills help you build your vision. Wanting without skills is a dream without the means to be fulfilled.
Luckily for me, I didn't have to be a fan of school. I just needed to do the work. And thankfully for me as an older person, when it was the time to do it, I did.
There are many schools in life of course.
Plenty of opportunities to get skills needed. The web does make it easier when finding the school you need can be so much about searching.
Maybe then it's not so much about being a fan of school, but about needing those tools to get things done.
Then accomplishment can both rule and define your life. Looking at things accomplished definitely feels better to me, than wondering about what I can do.
I know what I can do, from what I've done.
James Harris
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Must make marketing cool
Years ago used to really upset myself with things like the country counts as didn't understand how could be read all over the globe without it being more of a big deal. So I figured it out and realized that I have had more of a community focus for some time. And also I do NOT like being wrong and especially don't want to lead others down wrong paths.
Which means I present my speculative ideas as what they are, speculative. And appreciate the attention from web analytics while also appreciating less distance to fall if something turns out to be crap.
So was really important for me to stop doing my own new research! And then could start pondering how maybe to shift from just this global community perspective where I give ideas away without looking for anything more than interest to something else.
Which is why I created a new blog to focus on commercial. And I called it, um, Seriously Commercial.
THAT blog unlike anything else I have has one purpose. And to make sure I didn't forget, yeah, I put that in the name.
Only thing is am now pondering more how to do the commercial more as for over a year has been me posting, without having any commercial thing really established which is about building an audience first.
But how do I make marketing cool? Thinking blog will leverage my ability to get attention, and according to Google Analytics it already had visits from 58 countries. So from the stats available, yeah, should be able to deliver a global audience to someone looking to reach one, commercially.
Which has me back to this blog to do problem solving. Can't figure it out on the blog in progress so here will probably be the one to work it all out, as my other two blogs focus differently. Only Beyond Mundane can comfortably work on this particular problem without it looking weird, I think.
So to start I need something cool enough to be able to put a blog post about it on Seriously Commercial to promote that something with enough global intrinsic to it for around 50 countries, where that something is up to my standards. And is a great referral.
I have total control. So I can do what I want and not do what I don't want. And to me great referral is the best standard so I can BRAG about anything promotional. So am looking around just pondering. Scanning the globe. Not reaching out to any entities yet or anything like that as I evaluate.
Oh and my other blogs may get into it anyway as they're a team. Haven't all been working together as one visibly for a long time, but hey, is important! Was fun though years ago when they all worked together at times in a very visible way.
Is kind of cool I've missed. When all three blogs work in concert kind of, well, if it happens will be very interesting I know from experience.
James Harris
Which means I present my speculative ideas as what they are, speculative. And appreciate the attention from web analytics while also appreciating less distance to fall if something turns out to be crap.
So was really important for me to stop doing my own new research! And then could start pondering how maybe to shift from just this global community perspective where I give ideas away without looking for anything more than interest to something else.
Which is why I created a new blog to focus on commercial. And I called it, um, Seriously Commercial.
THAT blog unlike anything else I have has one purpose. And to make sure I didn't forget, yeah, I put that in the name.
Only thing is am now pondering more how to do the commercial more as for over a year has been me posting, without having any commercial thing really established which is about building an audience first.
But how do I make marketing cool? Thinking blog will leverage my ability to get attention, and according to Google Analytics it already had visits from 58 countries. So from the stats available, yeah, should be able to deliver a global audience to someone looking to reach one, commercially.
Which has me back to this blog to do problem solving. Can't figure it out on the blog in progress so here will probably be the one to work it all out, as my other two blogs focus differently. Only Beyond Mundane can comfortably work on this particular problem without it looking weird, I think.
So to start I need something cool enough to be able to put a blog post about it on Seriously Commercial to promote that something with enough global intrinsic to it for around 50 countries, where that something is up to my standards. And is a great referral.
I have total control. So I can do what I want and not do what I don't want. And to me great referral is the best standard so I can BRAG about anything promotional. So am looking around just pondering. Scanning the globe. Not reaching out to any entities yet or anything like that as I evaluate.
Oh and my other blogs may get into it anyway as they're a team. Haven't all been working together as one visibly for a long time, but hey, is important! Was fun though years ago when they all worked together at times in a very visible way.
Is kind of cool I've missed. When all three blogs work in concert kind of, well, if it happens will be very interesting I know from experience.
James Harris
Monday, December 05, 2016
How much global and metrics
One of the things I realized I should document is my own assessment about how many things of certain types I have global at this point, and how I measure. As usually just look at things and ponder. That is, I just think about it without having anything written down, so yeah, need something can check later just to know how was thinking certain things.
So yeah, going to just put some of that pondering down here so I have as a reference later.
And right now I consider 3 of my 4 blogs truly global as get visits according to Google Analytics from at least 50 countries per year. This blog had some weird jump and is at 83 countries so far this year according to Google Analytics am checking for this post. And that's from 523 cities and 57 languages where I think Google Translate is what allows that to happen.
Conceivably am looking at impact of my open source project linking to this blog but that has ALWAYS been the case and it has downloads from 109 countries so far THIS YEAR from SourceForge statistics where don't have a city or language count.
Usually I actually use that as my baseline for MY global reach as is downloads, so to me gives more concrete information than just visits.
Conceivably more countries look at this blog, but only see what Google Analytics registers. Oh yeah so that is across the board which is why I see these as more of a general idea of things.
So am at 4 global things now. Three of my blogs: Some Math, Beyond Mundane, and my new one Seriously Commercial which was a BIG surprise. Am in the process of building it up, and haven't promoted it yet.
Harder to estimate is with my social media. There Pinterest helps me the most with analytics, but still not seeing the kind of massive country counts as with my blogs which really are the pillars. They can drive attention as I want including across my social media so I see it as that way and not the other way around.
Other way to consider global reach is with global search result levels which I can only get from Google and yup, get that information about my blogs. Google will tell me global search positions which is weird data to me. Yeah is cool to have search results that ARE global but other things puzzle me. Have learned to talk MUCH less about details and notice, no audience numbers! Have no clue really but have data which is the contradictory thing that has left me befuddled for about a decade now.
Actually is reason I decided to explain social media follower counts with my entertainment guess, which lead me to define entertainment. So yeah I know I think what's going on but haven't been able to test on the upside as I'd need to be entertaining which am not motivated to do. I'm NOT an entertainer.
Oh, so where do things seem to drop off for my global reach? For years oddly enough take it for granted is across South America and Africa. So yeah I cover the world for the most part except for those continents which is why my country counts are as low as they are. And why is that? I do not know but can speculate easily enough but why really should I?
Oh yeah, so Twitter is a lot of fun for me with lots of metrics there where will just say there can be spikes of attention which make sense. So yeah my tweeting behavior did shift massively once I had analytics data and there were HUGE jumps in impressions, where I have a good idea about why.
Most mysterious and hard to measure social media for me are Google+ and for my Facebook Page. Still working on metrics that work for me.
And this post is way long. So will stop there. What do I do with all that reach?
Just read my blogs and you can see. It's not complicated. And yeah, each post is for a purpose. The blogs rule. Everything else is really driven from them though my open source has its own clear space, I consider it minor in comparison, though it is most transparent because it's open source, so I reference it a lot.
James Harris
So yeah, going to just put some of that pondering down here so I have as a reference later.
And right now I consider 3 of my 4 blogs truly global as get visits according to Google Analytics from at least 50 countries per year. This blog had some weird jump and is at 83 countries so far this year according to Google Analytics am checking for this post. And that's from 523 cities and 57 languages where I think Google Translate is what allows that to happen.
Conceivably am looking at impact of my open source project linking to this blog but that has ALWAYS been the case and it has downloads from 109 countries so far THIS YEAR from SourceForge statistics where don't have a city or language count.
Usually I actually use that as my baseline for MY global reach as is downloads, so to me gives more concrete information than just visits.
Conceivably more countries look at this blog, but only see what Google Analytics registers. Oh yeah so that is across the board which is why I see these as more of a general idea of things.
So am at 4 global things now. Three of my blogs: Some Math, Beyond Mundane, and my new one Seriously Commercial which was a BIG surprise. Am in the process of building it up, and haven't promoted it yet.
Harder to estimate is with my social media. There Pinterest helps me the most with analytics, but still not seeing the kind of massive country counts as with my blogs which really are the pillars. They can drive attention as I want including across my social media so I see it as that way and not the other way around.
Other way to consider global reach is with global search result levels which I can only get from Google and yup, get that information about my blogs. Google will tell me global search positions which is weird data to me. Yeah is cool to have search results that ARE global but other things puzzle me. Have learned to talk MUCH less about details and notice, no audience numbers! Have no clue really but have data which is the contradictory thing that has left me befuddled for about a decade now.
Actually is reason I decided to explain social media follower counts with my entertainment guess, which lead me to define entertainment. So yeah I know I think what's going on but haven't been able to test on the upside as I'd need to be entertaining which am not motivated to do. I'm NOT an entertainer.
Oh, so where do things seem to drop off for my global reach? For years oddly enough take it for granted is across South America and Africa. So yeah I cover the world for the most part except for those continents which is why my country counts are as low as they are. And why is that? I do not know but can speculate easily enough but why really should I?
Oh yeah, so Twitter is a lot of fun for me with lots of metrics there where will just say there can be spikes of attention which make sense. So yeah my tweeting behavior did shift massively once I had analytics data and there were HUGE jumps in impressions, where I have a good idea about why.
Most mysterious and hard to measure social media for me are Google+ and for my Facebook Page. Still working on metrics that work for me.
And this post is way long. So will stop there. What do I do with all that reach?
Just read my blogs and you can see. It's not complicated. And yeah, each post is for a purpose. The blogs rule. Everything else is really driven from them though my open source has its own clear space, I consider it minor in comparison, though it is most transparent because it's open source, so I reference it a lot.
James Harris
Sunday, December 04, 2016
With what regard
Our modern attention reality is extremely precise as so much information is more readily available because the web eases distribution than has ever been the case for the human species. Right now if I notice someone interesting who is a public figure, I can in the space of about five minutes find out vast amounts of information on that person, both good and not so good, as always exists.
The totality of a human being is what is being presented more and more where your entire history as a human is now increasingly part of your story, if online and public.
And if you refuse to put it out there? Then that tells a story too! The power of the web is inescapable in our times.
So yes you can develop over years a close network of people who know and trust you, and watch as others also have a web presence and can do things you could not imagine a human being could get done, with a single tweet.
While the pickiness of the human species is not less as a result, as it is far greater. People don't have to guess at what's possible as often they can look at any number of examples.
Exemplars are defining more and more what is possible for human beings which is great as many are pushing the limits beyond what most thought was.
We can see just how far human beings can go with so many things and be inspired.
In our times attention is a thing. It's neither good nor bad in and of itself.
And like it or not, you will communicate to your fellow human beings. The web will force that one at least.
On it you will communicate by your entire web presence, and if not on it, you will tell so much more than you realize and those people aren't even reading this information if really off the web.
Which is fascinating to me, as I know these words will impact their lives, regardless.
James Harris
The totality of a human being is what is being presented more and more where your entire history as a human is now increasingly part of your story, if online and public.
And if you refuse to put it out there? Then that tells a story too! The power of the web is inescapable in our times.
So yes you can develop over years a close network of people who know and trust you, and watch as others also have a web presence and can do things you could not imagine a human being could get done, with a single tweet.
While the pickiness of the human species is not less as a result, as it is far greater. People don't have to guess at what's possible as often they can look at any number of examples.
Exemplars are defining more and more what is possible for human beings which is great as many are pushing the limits beyond what most thought was.
We can see just how far human beings can go with so many things and be inspired.
In our times attention is a thing. It's neither good nor bad in and of itself.
And like it or not, you will communicate to your fellow human beings. The web will force that one at least.
On it you will communicate by your entire web presence, and if not on it, you will tell so much more than you realize and those people aren't even reading this information if really off the web.
Which is fascinating to me, as I know these words will impact their lives, regardless.
James Harris
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