A picture from Tabletop

Posted on By Wil

image from i.imgur.com

One of the best times I had this season on Tabletop was playing Fiasco with John Rogers, Alison Haislip, and Bonnie Burton.

I won't spoil anything, but I will tell you that Will Hindmarch, Jason Morningstar, and I teamed up to write an original playset for the show, and we'll be releasing it when the episode airs.

This is a picture I took of my Fiasco Companion, sitting on our Emissary table from Geek Chic, the day we filmed the Fiasco episode. I was fooling around with this cool little fisheye lens my friend gave me to stick onto my cellphone, and this was one of the few pictures that turned out fairly well.

Google is making a huge and annoying mistake.

Posted on By Wil

I like Google Plus. Some of the smartest people I've ever read are on Google Plus, and the Hangout is amazing.

But Google is doing everything it can to force Google Plus on everyone, and it's pissing me off.

Yesterday, I tried to like a video on YouTube. I wasn't signed in to my Google Plus account, and this is what I saw:

What_the_fuck_google
Where the thumbs up and thumbs down used to be, there is now a big G+ Like button. When you go anywhere near it, you get a little popup that tells you to "upgrade to Google plus" for some reason that I don't remember, because the instant I saw it, I made a rageface.

Here's what I wrote on Tumblr:

Oh, go fuck yourself, Google. This is just as bad as companies forcing me to “like” something on Facebook before I can view whatever it is they want me to “like.”

Just let me thumbs up something, without forcing me to “upgrade” to G+, you dickheads.

The worst part of this? For a producer like me, I’m going to lose a crapton of potential upvotes for Tabletop, because the core of my audience is tech-savvy and may not want to “upgrade” to yet another fucking social network they don’t want or need.

I am adding now: Those upvotes are incredibly important to us, because we need them to earn another season of our show.

I'm even more grateful now than I was yesterday that we own the IP for Tabletop, because we can produce it ourselves, or crowdfund with Kickstarter, or something like that, if Google keeps doing things like this that will negatively affect how users can interact with us on YouTube.

I was reblogged by Neil Gaiman, who added:

I wish Google would leave the Social Network thing to others. When Google does what it does, and does it well, it changes the world. When it rides bandwagons, it’s irritating.

I’m not on Google Plus, and I suppose that I won’t be liking YouTube videos any longer.

John Green also reblogged me, and he said:

I strongly agree with this. Making it so that only google plus users can decide whether a YouTube video is worth watching benefits no one except for Google Plus: It is bad for viewers, bad for video creators, and bad for YouTube’s ability to curate and tailor videos to potential viewers.

By crippling functionality on sites Google owns (like YouTube) and forcing users to "upgrade" to a service that they may not want or need to get that functionality back, Google is making a huge and annoying mistake. You get people to enthusiastically use services by making them compelling and awesome and easy to use. You don't get people to enthusiastically use your services by forcing them to. In fact, that's probably a great way to ensure that a huge number of people who may have been interested in trying out your service never even look at it.

My trip to Australia was amazeballs

Posted on By Wil

I am home from Australia, and only mostly dead exhausted. Go me!

I'm too tired for a proper post about the entire trip, but I'll offer a few memories and highlights:

I did not meet a single unkind person the entire time I was in Australia. I realize that my sample size was quite small, but it was still remarkable to me. Even the cranky old bus driver we encountered one day was more amusing than anything else. 

I snuggled a Koala. I have pictures that I'll share in the near future.

The show we did in Melbourne with the MSO was fantastic, and I'm very proud of the show we put on. Standing on the stage next to the orchestra while they played the theme to HALO is a memory I'll not soon forget.

Supanova was spectacular in both cities. Everyone involved in the show was kind and easygoing, and so were all the fans I met while I was there. If they invite me back for other shows in the future, I'm almost certainly going to say yes.

I spent a fair amount of time with Chandler Riggs (he plays Carl on Walking Dead) and his dad. We made a video together that makes me laugh so hard, I pee a little. I'll edit and upload it soon. He's a great kid, and I felt a certain kinship with him, on account of us both being kids on a popular TV show. He has a great sense of humour about staying in the house, too.

You know who are awesome? James and Oliver Phelps, who played the Weasley Twins in Harry Potter. Those guys are like the freaking Beatles at conventions, but they never act like it. I like them so much, I wish I was a bigger Potter fanboy.

If you ever go to Brisbane, make the effort to get out to Moreton Island. It's really worth it.

Okay, that's all for now. I have to get ready to go to Calgary this weekend.