http://search.deviantart.com/?q=by:frogboy2&section=today deviantART RSS for by:frogboy2 en-us Copyright 2009, deviantART.com Mon, 28 Dec 2009 11:00:12 PST deviantART.com http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://s.deviantart.com/minish/widgets/apple-touch-icon-precomposed.png http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/18088171/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/18088171/ Tue, 29 Apr 2008 15:09:59 PDT
I've written an article that outlines the state of skinning for 2007. You can check it out here: [link]

]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/12653585/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/12653585/ Thu, 19 Apr 2007 10:56:51 PDT
But as time has gone on, it has become the defacto digital art repository on the net. I really like how things have grown.

I spent a LOT of time yesterday on deviantART going through and trying to pick out the top 10 best msstyles of 2006. While other sites have msstyles, deviantART was my choice to use as the source because of its high integrity. By that, I mean there's a lot of data in place to find out what people really love and enjoy to help us determine which XP msstyles were people's favorites.

]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/5695135/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/5695135/ Sun, 19 Jun 2005 13:46:42 PDT
deviantART Summit was designed as a place for artists and users to get together, talk, learn, and get tools and software they need to take their stuff to the next level.

I was there along with Mormegil and Cordellia as part of Stardock's booth. There were some pretty high profile sponsors such as Adobe and Corel and Watcom. I got to see just how cool some of the high end Watcom tablets are. They were very cool.

I don't know the final count on how many people officially (i.e. paid/registered) to come but I'd guess that there were probably around 500 to 800 non-staff/non-sponsor people who came during the course of the two days. A number that is pretty impressive for a first-time show.

There were also some really good classes there. I enjoyed talking to the guys from Garage Games who had set up a really cool LAN area for playing their games. Linspire was there and had one of the more clever marketing techniques I saw -- handing out CDs that literally boot-up into Linspire to give away.

I did a live demo of Object Desktop, ObjectDock, and then showed off how DesktopX Pro can take artwork and make it into software.

We did have a snag though, the serial #s on DesktopX Pro for the first day had a misprint on the serial #s! So we got that fixed up second day and contacted the people who had bought the show version to update their serials but it was a bit embarassing. On the other hand, I got to have fun pretending to be an angry customer as part of the, ahem, training. "So is this some sort of Scam? I buy what is probably an empty CD? What th e#%@# are you people trying to pull?" That was fun.

Here is a link to some pictures:
[link]

and here is a link to a video I did:
[link]

]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/4249508/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/4249508/ Wed, 05 Jan 2005 20:15:29 PST
I'm involved in a lot of virtual communities on-line. And one of the trends I see regularly is, if someone knows what you do for a living, inevitably they'll twist what you say to fit some sort of stereotype of the evil capitalist.

For instance, if I'm on a skin site and I say "I like your Litestep theme" it's only a matter of time before someone says "Oh you're just trying to trick him into letting you make a WindowBlinds version! Can't you ever stop trying to sell your stuff?" Because yea, at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon that's what I'm doing, I'm scouring through websites trying to corrupt the youth to make a little extra money so that I can pay for my private yet. Sheesh.

Sometimes I'd like to give them a taste of their own medicine. Find out what they do for a living.."So, you work at a book store eh? So when you posted how you liked that new Star Wars game you were really just trying to suck us into your lame book store to buys some crummy Star Wars books! Can't you give it a rest! Everyone knows that fan fiction is better anyway and it's free! Die capitalist pig!"

Few times is this trend brought into relief more than what I saw today. On a website discussing whether it's "legal" to create and use msstyles (an unsupported Microsoft skin format) I wrote:

-- begin my quote --
MSStyles aren't illegal IMO.

However, they ARE derivatives of Luna.msstyles which is a copyrighted file.

So if I took, for instance, the Windows XP kernal, changed some bits and re-distributed it, is that legal? I'm not sure. That's how a lot of boot screens ARE distributed btw.

But the whole premise of this topic I think is problematic - is it illegal? Who's to say. Microsoft has had 3 years to weigh in. We do know they don't approve of msstyles being used by third parties but that's a far cry from them going after third parties who use them or create software that use them.

My personal opinion is that what you do on your own computer is your business.
-- end my quote --

Amazingly, someone read this and responded with the following (and bear in mind that this is on the same page as my response):

-- begin quote --
Frogboy... ,you shouldn't try to take an underground comunity like this as professional as you wanted, if everything was right, and about legal stuff like some foreigners see the US when a kid sues for a mosquito that was copyrighted and bit an apple in his backyard, maybe you wouldnt even have born.

When stuff like this happens on Capitalism Societies, it makes me wonder why doesnt the "Benefit for yourself without hurting" and the "Bigger Animal Dominates" societies persisted

And it so lame how even FROGBOY ported a inspirat skin that was an "illegal file" at first to windowblinds, and submitted by himself to a monopolized website full of old people ;[

And I dont hate frogboy itself, I hate the way he thinks about stuff sometimes to "conquer" the world
-- end quote --

So apparently, when I say that I don't think msstyles are illegal what I'm really saying that they ARE illegal and that you should go out and buy WindowBlinds right now. And when I say what people do on their own computers is their own business what I really mean is that I want to control what you do on your computer as part of my latest Pinky & the Brain style world conquest strategy.

And sadly, this happens regularly. As soon as someone figures out that I write software for a living, it's almost inevitable that everything I say will get warped by someone into some 2D characterture of what they imagine some evil capitalist is saying. My words end up being like adult-speak on a Charlie Brown cartoon and replaced with lots of evil laughter and hand rubbing.

I guess I should be thankful that I didn't put a Donate to Tsunami victims post up somewhere lest someone accuse me of wanting to harvest the organs of Tsunami victims or something!

]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/1043297/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/1043297/ Wed, 06 Aug 2003 20:28:11 PDT



Passive detractors. These are people who, if exposed to something you write, will tend to criticize it, even “unfairly.”
Active detractors. These are people who will go out of their way to “stalk” you on a particular site or news group to flame you.
Motivated detractors. These are people who dislike you so much that they are actually willing to put in effort to do you harm. They’re the guy who will contact your ISP, start a home page dedicated to attacking you, create posts and threads about you.
No matter how nice you are, no matter how pleasant you are, you will eventually have detractors if you hang out long enough. Each time you do something publicly, you are putting out what we’ll call “Karma”. Everything you do generates both good and bad karma.




Good karma makes people like you. Bad karma makes people not like you. But everything will generate both. Even a simple “Hi everyone!” post in a thread will generate some bad karma. Why? Because there is always someone, somewhere that is going to be offended by something you write no matter how innocuous. Some people don’t like happy people for instance. Some people get mad at “noise” being posted in a thread.




The goal isn’t to eliminate bad karma. The only way to do that is to not participate. The goal is to try to control how much you put out.


Understanding communities
I’ve been involved in on-line communities for 17 years. And I mean involved as in daily postings via modem onto bulletin boards and such. I started out on BBSes back when I was 15 years old in 1986 (300 baud modems). I have always enjoyed interacting with people around the world.




At the same time, I’ve always held strong opinions and because of constant activity for 17 years, my typing speed has slowly increased to the point that I now type 130 words per minute if I am in a hurry.


As a result, I’ve gotten my share of detractors. No one has created a website dedicated to flaming me or anything (yet) but I’ve come to understand what patterns of behavior generate detractors fastest.




Every net community has 5 basic types. (here is a link to a site that lists lots of different categories of net users but they boil down to these 5 really: [link]). My type is here: [link] (except I know why I get loathed on occasion! J ).





1) The Contributor. This is the most common type of person participating in a community. They are a friendly, well adjusted people who see participating in an on-line community as an extension of their social life. Good karma and bad karma don’t affect them that much. Abrasiveness and other factors tend to slide off them pretty well.

2) The Mover. The mover is the type of person who wants to help shape the course of events. They’re a leader of sorts but more to the point, they work to organize the community to do various things. These activities make them a natural target.

3) The Wannabe. The wannabe might as well be called the “Anti-Mover”. They don’t really want to put in the work to be a mover but they want the respect and admiration that movers get. Therefore, they try to tear down their opponents for moral lapses (real or imagined). Those who oppose them aren’t just wrong, they’re evil.

4) The Critic. This is the person who tends to want to criticize things or “Suggest” things all the time. They’re not trolls because they honestly want to “help” the community.

5) The Troll. This is a pretty universally understood term. These are the guys who see other people as part of a video game. They subconsciously dehumanize their targets. Their goal is to generate enjoyment for themselves at the expense of others.




Most people exhibit multiple traits at different times. You mix these primary colors to together and you get the couple dozen types found on the flame warriors page.


Understanding Karma

So you’ve been posting on a news group or web forum for 2 years. You’ve never flamed anyone. You see a “flamewar” going on and you go on and try to play the roll of diplomat only to get flamed for “no good reason”. What happened? You tell yourself that it’s like interfering with two wild dogs, don’t get in the middle. But that’s not really the cause.




As mentioned in the introduction, everytime you post you generate karma. Both good and bad. And it builds up over time with other people. The problem with net... ]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/1043293/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/1043293/ Wed, 06 Aug 2003 20:27:18 PDT



Passive detractors. These are people who, if exposed to something you write, will tend to criticize it, even “unfairly.”
Active detractors. These are people who will go out of their way to “stalk” you on a particular site or news group to flame you.
Motivated detractors. These are people who dislike you so much that they are actually willing to put in effort to do you harm. They’re the guy who will contact your ISP, start a home page dedicated to attacking you, create posts and threads about you.
No matter how nice you are, no matter how pleasant you are, you will eventually have detractors if you hang out long enough. Each time you do something publicly, you are putting out what we’ll call “Karma”. Everything you do generates both good and bad karma.




Good karma makes people like you. Bad karma makes people not like you. But everything will generate both. Even a simple “Hi everyone!” post in a thread will generate some bad karma. Why? Because there is always someone, somewhere that is going to be offended by something you write no matter how innocuous. Some people don’t like happy people for instance. Some people get mad at “noise” being posted in a thread.




The goal isn’t to eliminate bad karma. The only way to do that is to not participate. The goal is to try to control how much you put out.


Understanding communities
I’ve been involved in on-line communities for 17 years. And I mean involved as in daily postings via modem onto bulletin boards and such. I started out on BBSes back when I was 15 years old in 1986 (300 baud modems). I have always enjoyed interacting with people around the world.




At the same time, I’ve always held strong opinions and because of constant activity for 17 years, my typing speed has slowly increased to the point that I now type 130 words per minute if I am in a hurry.


As a result, I’ve gotten my share of detractors. No one has created a website dedicated to flaming me or anything (yet) but I’ve come to understand what patterns of behavior generate detractors fastest.




Every net community has 5 basic types. (here is a link to a site that lists lots of different categories of net users but they boil down to these 5 really: [link]). My type is here: [link] (except I know why I get loathed on occasion! J ).





1) The Contributor. This is the most common type of person participating in a community. They are a friendly, well adjusted people who see participating in an on-line community as an extension of their social life. Good karma and bad karma don’t affect them that much. Abrasiveness and other factors tend to slide off them pretty well.

2) The Mover. The mover is the type of person who wants to help shape the course of events. They’re a leader of sorts but more to the point, they work to organize the community to do various things. These activities make them a natural target.

3) The Wannabe. The wannabe might as well be called the “Anti-Mover”. They don’t really want to put in the work to be a mover but they want the respect and admiration that movers get. Therefore, they try to tear down their opponents for moral lapses (real or imagined). Those who oppose them aren’t just wrong, they’re evil.

4) The Critic. This is the person who tends to want to criticize things or “Suggest” things all the time. They’re not trolls because they honestly want to “help” the community.

5) The Troll. This is a pretty universally understood term. These are the guys who see other people as part of a video game. They subconsciously dehumanize their targets. Their goal is to generate enjoyment for themselves at the expense of others.




Most people exhibit multiple traits at different times. You mix these primary colors to together and you get the couple dozen types found on the flame warriors page.


Understanding Karma

So you’ve been posting on a news group or web forum for 2 years. You’ve never flamed anyone. You see a “flamewar” going on and you go on and try to play the roll of diplomat only to get flamed for “no good reason”. What happened? You tell yourself that it’s like interfering with two wild dogs, don’t get in the middle. But that’s not really the cause.




As mentioned in the introduction, everytime you post you generate karma. Both good and bad. And it builds up over time with other people. The problem with net... ]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/996158/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/996158/ Sun, 27 Jul 2003 14:26:53 PDT
People often go through the same stages when they become part of a community:

Stage 1: They're overwhelmed by it. They think it's just immense.

Stage 2: The falacy of understanding. They think they've got a firm hold on how big the community is but in fact they've only recognized the most superficial aspects of it. Many people on a communtiy based website, for instance, will believe that the "community" is made up of just the "regulars". The people who post all the time on the forums or submit the most "stuff". But in actuality, that's just a tiny portion of it. That's because the frequent postsers change from month to month. People go through different phases internally of how frequently they participate.

Stage 3: Realization, if they stay around long enough, they'll realize that the community they are in is a lot bigger than they thought.

For instance, websites like deviantART and WinCustomize get 50,000 to 80,000 visitors EACH DAY. But people in stage 2 will think that there's really only a coupel hundred people in "the community". It gives them the illusion their it's a "tight knit" community. Eventually they realize that no, it's a lot bigger than they thought.

But it's stage 2 where people can be most obnoxious. It's stage 2 people who go onto dA's message boards and proclaim that they are going to remove their works because of some policy or whatnot. They think their move will cause a change. But it won't because what they fail to understand is that, like Neo in Matrix re-loaded, the scenario has played out hundreds of times in the past. The community is too big to be affected by any one person at this point.

The community, in fact, is too big for any one site. It's populated by millions of people and no single artist or contributor can make or break a site by not participating any more. People who want to see change in the community have to realize that their best route is to use their clout and influence to nudge things their way. But often times, they don't. They remove their works thinking that will do it without realizing that it was their works that gave them their power and influence in the first place. It would be like Superman giving up his powers in protest Lex Luthor. It's Superman's powers that make the difference, not his principles. Principles without influence are meanignless.

Hence, when someone realizes that the community is huge, larger than they are, then the only realistic route to affect change is to try to use ones influence to try to gently nudge it into the direction they want. Trying to "take on" the established order head on is a no-win situation -- especially if one has removed their power base -- their artwork.I don't think anyone WANTS a war.

But I don't think it's really avoidable at this point.

67% of Americans polled on Saturday in a Gallup poll responded that they now favor military action against Iraq.

After 9/11 Americans have become much more aware of the need to take decisive action against brewing threats.

It's pretty clear that Iraq is intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Best case scenario is that Iraq uses such weapons to intimidate his neighbors and dominate the region. Worst case is that he covertly provides these weapons to terrorists who proceed to incinerate parts of the United States, Israel or elsewhere.

I suspect one of the reasons why so many Europeans are not in favor of any action against Iraq is that they don't see or feel the threat. It's not like Belgium is likely to have terrorists smuggle a nuclear bomb into it. But the US is (and Israel obviously would very well possibly be first).

Whether one likes Bush or not is immaterial. The United States is a republic. Its leaders were elected. In November, the mid-term elections in the US were largely over the war on terror and Iraq. The results were very conclusive - Americans want people like Saddam removed. They are tired of a decade+ of dithering and cat and mouse games with him.

The majority of Americans simply feel that while war is terrible, it is a less terrible option than risking Iraq gaining nuclear weapons.

Now, if you think that the US is wrong. Or think that the US is evil. Or whatever then you should be consistent in those views. If you live in a democratic country then you should call for your government to take economic sanctions against the US or even military ones.

Because even if you dislike the United States, it's hard to argue that it doesn't fight for what it believes in. So surely, if those of you who think the US is the source of all evil are really serious and really principled then they will stick with those... ]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/451539/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/451539/ Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:20:53 PST
But I don't think it's really avoidable at this point.

67% of Americans polled on Saturday in a Gallup poll responded that they now favor military action against Iraq.

After 9/11 Americans have become much more aware of the need to take decisive action against brewing threats.

It's pretty clear that Iraq is intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Best case scenario is that Iraq uses such weapons to intimidate his neighbors and dominate the region. Worst case is that he covertly provides these weapons to terrorists who proceed to incinerate parts of the United States, Israel or elsewhere.

I suspect one of the reasons why so many Europeans are not in favor of any action against Iraq is that they don't see or feel the threat. It's not like Belgium is likely to have terrorists smuggle a nuclear bomb into it. But the US is (and Israel obviously would very well possibly be first).

Whether one likes Bush or not is immaterial. The United States is a republic. Its leaders were elected. In November, the mid-term elections in the US were largely over the war on terror and Iraq. The results were very conclusive - Americans want people like Saddam removed. They are tired of a decade+ of dithering and cat and mouse games with him.

The majority of Americans simply feel that while war is terrible, it is a less terrible option than risking Iraq gaining nuclear weapons.

Now, if you think that the US is wrong. Or think that the US is evil. Or whatever then you should be consistent in those views. If you live in a democratic country then you should call for your government to take economic sanctions against the US or even military ones.

Because even if you dislike the United States, it's hard to argue that it doesn't fight for what it believes in. So surely, if those of you who think the US is the source of all evil are really serious and really principled then they will stick with those principles. Because from this American's point of view, it's really hard to take (for example) Germany's chattering about US action seriously while it DECREASES its defense budget. If people REALLY believed the US was a force of evil, then you'd say countries like Canada trying to step up their defenses right? Or Germany or France or whatever. But they're not.

That sends the signal that deep down, it's just posturing. I've seen anti-war advocates claim that some 95% of their people are against US action. Okay, then put your money where your mouth is. Force your leaders to stand up for what they believe in.

I think military action is necessary. And living in a democratic country I did what I can do - I voted for those who shared my beliefs. ]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/451536/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/451536/ Mon, 20 Jan 2003 11:20:33 PST
But I don't think it's really avoidable at this point.

67% of Americans polled on Saturday in a Gallup poll responded that they now favor military action against Iraq.

After 9/11 Americans have become much more aware of the need to take decisive action against brewing threats.

It's pretty clear that Iraq is intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction. Best case scenario is that Iraq uses such weapons to intimidate his neighbors and dominate the region. Worst case is that he covertly provides these weapons to terrorists who proceed to incinerate parts of the United States, Israel or elsewhere.

I suspect one of the reasons why so many Europeans are not in favor of any action against Iraq is that they don't see or feel the threat. It's not like Belgium is likely to have terrorists smuggle a nuclear bomb into it. But the US is (and Israel obviously would very well possibly be first).

Whether one likes Bush or not is immaterial. The United States is a republic. Its leaders were elected. In November, the mid-term elections in the US were largely over the war on terror and Iraq. The results were very conclusive - Americans want people like Saddam removed. They are tired of a decade+ of dithering and cat and mouse games with him.

The majority of Americans simply feel that while war is terrible, it is a less terrible option than risking Iraq gaining nuclear weapons.

Now, if you think that the US is wrong. Or think that the US is evil. Or whatever then you should be consistent in those views. If you live in a democratic country then you should call for your government to take economic sanctions against the US or even military ones.

Because even if you dislike the United States, it's hard to argue that it doesn't fight for what it believes in. So surely, if those of you who think the US is the source of all evil are really serious and really principled then they will stick with those principles. Because from this American's point of view, it's really hard to take (for example) Germany's chattering about US action seriously while it DECREASES its defense budget. If people REALLY believed the US was a force of evil, then you'd say countries like Canada trying to step up their defenses right? Or Germany or France or whatever. But they're not.

That sends the signal that deep down, it's just posturing. I've seen anti-war advocates claim that some 95% of their people are against US action. Okay, then put your money where your mouth is. Force your leaders to stand up for what they believe in.

I think military action is necessary. And living in a democratic country I did what I can do - I voted for those who shared my beliefs. ]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/147997/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/147997/ Thu, 30 May 2002 21:49:36 PDT
Too many things going on at once. I have to get GalCiv alpha 7 out the door next week and then we have a few big internal projects due next week as well. Then it's off to Disney World! ]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/147989/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/147989/ Thu, 30 May 2002 21:42:40 PDT `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/41415/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/41415/ Fri, 30 Nov 2001 13:56:45 PST `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/35520/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/35520/ Tue, 06 Nov 2001 22:51:49 PST
If only people realized that there is no business justification to hanging out on some skin site at 2am under the handle "frogboy" they'd see that, yes virginia, people do actually have principles that are unrealted to wealth generation.

]]> `frogboy2 http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/14160/ http://frogboy2.deviantart.com/journal/14160/ Sat, 09 Jun 2001 22:48:18 PDT `frogboy2