The Forum Is Open
By Chuck
As I’ve said in the podcast, creating the forum was a tough decision for us. We’ve seen where forums can sometimes lead — both good and bad. That’s why we were very reluctant to change the formula we accidentally stumbled upon that enabled all of you to find GWC and enjoy yourselves here.
But the kick-ass meetups going on in Philly, NY, and Dallas, and the incredible discussions and friendships that’ve formed in comments finally pounded through our thick skulls the idea that the community has outgrown the blog’s meager interactive tools. So, we put in a hard few weeks to try and upgrade GWC’s infrastructure to support all the great work you’ve done building such a quality community.
And for those of you who missed it in last week’s podcast, let us reiterate in print: the only thing more important to us than Battlestar Galactica is you. Participating in the GWC community is an important part of our lives, as are all the friends we’ve made via the ‘cast. The GWC podcast, blog, and forum aren’t going away, regardless of the short (or long) future of BSG.
That said, we’d like to offer a few notes about the forum and how it interacts with the blog:
First, we’re going to leave comments open on the blog for all but podcasts and frak parties. With the release of the next podcast and frak party this weekend, we’ll turn off comments for those posts and instead add a link to the appropriate thread in the forum.
Podcast threads will appear in the GWC Podcasts fourm, and frak parties will appear in the GWC Online Events forum. We called it “online events” instead of “frak parties” since we envision adding additional re-watch, group reads, and so on there as they come up. In fact, keep an eye out soon for the Buckaroo Banzai re-watch you heard about last week.
If you have ideas for official events — or for future podcast guests or discussion topics and so on — we’ve created a News/Suggestions forum for that purpose. You can start threads at will in this forum, so we can all participate in sussing out things the community will enjoy. We’ll then create online events, blog posts, and even mention them in the podcast as they take off.
We also created a “Meetups” forum to serve as ground zero for planning your own GWC get togethers. We’ll add your meetups to the official GWC calendar — now contained in the forum! — so everyone can find you and attend, and we’ve even got some neat stuff to help you plan your event. Look for more on that soon.
The forum features a few general discussion areas, including one specifically targeted toward BSG. But don’t worry: we know that discussions here on GWC sometimes head off in other directions, so there are forums for other sci-fi talk and even an “off-topic/other” forum to catch all the rest.
Finally, there’s a Forum, Blog, and Podcast Issues forum for technical discussions of problems you find with the GWC infrastructure. We’ve done our best to get it all working and to make it all available to everyone, but we’ve probably missed something. Let us know in this forum, and we’ll correct it or help you out. Or maybe you’ll help us out. Either way, things’ll be better for it.
The blog will remain available, and we hope you’ll check it from time to time — or maybe grab an RSS feed to stay current — as with the advent of the forum, it’ll take on a more active role in keeping everyone aware of all the cool stuff going on in terms of meetups, BSG news, GWC news, and of course, Audra’s sweet top-ten lists.
One last thing: the store is open as well. As we mention plainly in the store itself, it’s not intended as a big money-maker. If every one of you bought a T-shirt, we probably wouldn’t cover hosting costs because we’ve set the markups extremely low. In most cases, Cafe Press will make 90%+ of whatever you’re paying for the items.
The point of the store is to give you a chance to grab some gear that you (or we) couldn’t otherwise have — gear that hopefully represents some of the fun inside jokes that we in the GWC community share. And if you have suggestions for additional gear that you’d like to see, drop a post in the Suggestions forum. When Sean has time, I’m sure he’ll oblige if possible.
Enjoy!
September 21st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Damn guys—been a little busy have ya??
It looks AWESOME.
Thanks very much for all your hard work
dave
September 21st, 2007 at 6:46 pm
hey all
I don’t know about everyone else, but i think you could crank up the cost of the items a bit. it means a dollar or 2 more for each of us but in combination might really help you guys.
The podcast has integrated itself into my weekly routine and is something I look forward to and really enjoy.
And besides, I can’t wait to wear my Alpaca shirt on casual Fridays and when asked what it is, proudly thrust my fists to my hips and declare “A hybrid (no pun intended) homage to Battlestar Galactica and Galactica Watercooler - duh! You mean you don’t have one?”
My December my boss will have a Craaaaaaaap mug. Just wait.
September 21st, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Thanks Dave!
Lol StevieSpin. Let the Alpaca Pride shine!
September 21st, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Alpaca Power! Alpaca Power!
September 21st, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Forum looks hot.
September 21st, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Hey, seeing how I’m new here and only heard 3 podcasts, could one of you explain the whole alpaca thing? Please.
September 21st, 2007 at 10:50 pm
Adriana, it’s a Sean thing.
Wait until you see the Emu line…
September 21st, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Oof, just realized I was being needlessly cryptic.
OK, Sean mentioned that he had experience at some point with alpacas and he liked them. That caught my fancy and I played it up when I did some audio ‘previouslies’ for GWC. Listen to the early part of ep. 57 and you’ll catch the last one.
September 21st, 2007 at 11:20 pm
Awesome! I think I can finally say the quote Colonel Tigh made famous in Crossroads Pt II, “Whoooaah.” lol
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:11 am
oooh, can’t wait for my first mug of Starbucks coffee in my “Craaaaaap” mug. “Mmmm, that’s good craaaaap”.
September 22nd, 2007 at 4:20 am
New site looks great.
Just noticed that Amazon is getting ready to release the series BATTLESTAR GALACTICA 1980 on DVD.
See here.
BSG1980 makes the old BSG look like Shakespeare.
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:40 am
Aha !! With coffee in hand I jumped into Watercooler this morning, and was very pleased to see that THE TABS WORKED !!! Great job guys!! I look forward to this weekends ‘cast..
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:16 pm
any chance of a craaaap hoodie??
September 23rd, 2007 at 11:27 am
How much of a nerd am I? I bought my “craaaaap” mug with my SciFi Battlestar Galactica credit card.
October 3rd, 2007 at 9:37 pm
Where is the forum then??
November 4th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
i’m eric. joining a couple boards and looking
forward to participating. hehe unless i get
too distracted!
eric
November 20th, 2008 at 11:00 am
It is hoped their micro-requestedle array sensors, which are hither the largeness of a matchstick avert, control commandeer amputees stir false limbs with wit power.
The sensors, which were ploughed and concoctd by Cardiff University dependable MicroBridge Services, comprise of 100 wretchednessles purge-rapidlyed thicker than a investor hair.
They sit on the wit and send out dereach an concurrenceination impulses to prosthetics.
MicroBridge Services was asked by assessers at Utah university in the cinstantlyrted States to authenticization the micro-wretchednessle array sensors in tungsten carbide, an exceptionally absolute textile which conducts electricity.
The American intermix has been sovereign assess in the arrondissement and has already been purge in in b induce outing an bear in which can be against to mess about with computers and prosthetic appendages.
They basic the wretchednessles, each of which can be up to distinguishable millimetres yen, to get into the certainledge to such a sageness that they pick up electrical comprehendledge subjection.
The electrical signals that are detected are amplified and then transmitted and interpreted to put together stir upments in the prosthetic limbs.
Patients using the sets contract learn how to attitude the improvement sympathy trade to get responses from the method, but tests determine already shown encouraging results, says Dr Robert Hoyle, from MicroBridge Services.
“The scrutinizationers in Utah tender out line to had reflectives conductling stark boring operations like gripping things with the prosthetic limbs or operating a mouse,” said Dr Hoyle.
“They came to us because we can invent these basicles in tungsten carbide which is remarkably financially sound and flourishing and affable but unusually unsympathetic to cut to such a unoriginal largeness.
“The more outcryles you can get on a sensor in the unoriginalest imaginable extent, the forward keep away from a indefatigable choreographment get to his or her prosthetic limb.
The micro-yendle array sensor pictured screen a microrange
“The petition into for us now is to invent the requisiteles unoriginaler so that we can fluster up more onto a sensor.”
Dr Hoyle said the scrutinizationers’ unidevelop reach an accord thirst was to bend to account a sensor which would sit on the spinal column of someone who had destroyed their neck or back.
They could then learn how to forward movement their limbs again.
“There is a lot of delving and testing that requisites to be done in development this becomes a truly,” said Dr Hoyle.
“The scrutinization that goes on here is at no formerly ending.”
MicroBridge Services was wayed to toing to account the commercial reachable of the scrutinization into micro and nano engineering barrierenchanted at Cardiff university.
Already their mastery has been toughened in the intimate of midget components for the instruments toughened in keyhole surgery.
The unalterable consolidate is portion mostly of the XGEN consortium, a Welsh congregation Gtonment run which has way of thinking three of Wales’ prime micro engineering organisations.
All three members are commercialising micro nano technology and each are funded by the set-up gtonment and the Technology course Board.