The Public Access Weekly: Feelin' good
YOU.
GUYS.
Fiber internet is coming to my neighborhood. Fiber. Internet. This is a pretty serious game changer -- Not only is Google looking to roll out fiber to all of San Francisco, but a smaller, local company has already started outfitting houses on the west side of the city with a tasty fiber connection -- and they plan to be done with those two neighborhoods by the end of the year. Since my current internet connection is so pathetic that I can't even successfully stream a movie rental through Xbox Live, I'm now going to take a moment to do a little happy dance.
This week starts off a whole new month of geek holidays! Today, celebrate Game Master's Appreciation day by showing your RPG GM some gratitude for all their efforts; next week celebrate the International Day of Awesomeness by... being awesome? If you're celebrating any of these geek holidays, we really want to know. Take pictures, write it up and share a Public Access post on it!
And now: Housekeeping. Some of you have noticed that some published posts have been showing up with old dates -- for example, you start a post on Monday, save it and close out and then come back and publish it live on Thursday... But when the post shows up on the Public Access page it has the Monday date, making it easy to skip over in the feed. This is a glitch that happened when we added the "Preview" feature, however, it is currently getting worked on and should be fixed by next week. If you notice a date issue with a post in the meantime, feel free to email us and we'll correct it manually.
Next, we need to talk about links. There have been a lot of stories going up on Public Access lately with some pretty iffy links in them so let me just reiterate here again: Public Access is not a place for marketing articles or SEO promotion. That means it is not okay to include SEO type links in your Public Access posts.
What counts as an "SEO link"? Any link that highlights key words in order to direct a link to a company or business is not okay (think "luxury watches" going to a site that sells watches). It should be unequivocally clear where all links go to -- for example, linking the words "a survey on CNET" should take you to a survey on CNET, not a third-party blog that discusses the survey, or a site that sells survey services. Linking in this manner is not cool, and I will remove them from your post without warning.
Lastly, I'm working on creating a guide to contributing to Public Access to provide you all with a complete tome on all the in's and out's of writing and publishing posts. So, if you have any questions, run into any difficulties, or need a better explanation on something please let me know! Feedback and questions about Public Access can be sent to us here.
Looking for something to read? Check out:
Public Access member Richard Heby discusses why he won't be forking over cold hard cash for the new Samsung offerings in this popular piece, which has some folks eager to pitch in with comments. And, as he is a stand-up contributor, Heby is talking to time to respond. Read up and weigh in.
This story on what is, reportedly, the first incident of a Google self-driving car getting into a fender-bender, is provoking a discussion in the comments about the rules of the road, who was at fault and the assumptions that Google's technology makes about human driving decisions.
Too good to be true? We were excited when we first reported on the Coleco Chameleon, but commenters were quick to cry foul. Developments this week, including an image pulled from Facebook, are casting some serious accusations at the product; we'll be updating the story as it develops.
Looking for something to write about? Mull over:
Humans are (apparently) very trusting of robots. To whit, a study recently found that humans would follow a safety robot away from clearly marked emergency exits. Is it just human nature to fall in line with a perceived authority figure? How much trust do you put in robots? (How about robot dogs?) Can humanity as a whole ever really trust a robot? Write an argument in favor of, or against, trusting robots. Or, alternatively, write us up a list of your favorite robots (real or fictional).
Although there's a lot of talk about how technology isolates people around their smartphones, that same technology often brings people together through forums, comments sections, and chat rooms. When it comes to internet communities, which is your favorite and why? (Personally, I'm a big fan of Imgur commenters).
'Sup, Imgur?
Swiss researchers recently developed "thin electronic circuits that can be stretched ...up to four times their original length in any direction." The flexibility of these circuits makes them ideal for being sewn into fabrics or used in biological sensors. Inspired by this advancement, write about or design your ideal wearable: What does it look like? Where and how does one wear it? And what does it read/measure?
