News You Can Bruise for 2011 July

Back in the late 90s I had a running joke on this website that July was "Leonard Richardson Month", a month of festivals and educational lectures about me and my accomplishments, which (this is still part of the joke, not my 2011-era commentary) nobody attended because the whole idea was egotistical and stupid. Even with something as corny as that, though, I discovered that thinking of the month of my birthday as being special actually did make it a better month.

This year I'm bringing back the "special month" idea, but instead of an obsessive focus on me, the focus will be on other people and the cool things they're doing. Every day this month I will pledge money towards a Kickstarter project and post about it here.

I'll try to pick projects you'll find interesting because I really like the Kickstarter model and my goal is to get you into the idea of funding things that way as well. If nothing really grabs me on a given day, I'll make an investment more or less at random. Because it's July, mamajama, and weird things happen on this site in July.

Today's project is a local one for me: I pledged $25 to cover the production rental costs for "An Economic Cycle Through An Artist’s Perspective", a dance performance to be held in the Socrates Sculpture Park (where I went just today to check out the new farmer's market).

This may seem an odd choice for me. You don't have to know me very well to guess that I am not into dance. I don't know enough about the medium to appreciate it, although I do find the description of this performance ("each segment will represent a milestone that one would experience throughout the development of an idea") a lot more interesting than the typical dance performance description. But, I am really into living in a neighborhood and a city where people who are into dance go around giving and attending dance performances, because that means other people have fun and it enriches the city as a whole. So, this sucker is backed.

Tune in tomorrow for more action! This will also get me back to posting every day, which is something I've really been missing.

My calendar informs me that I should have started this project yesterday. No problem! I've brought Month of Kickstarter up to date by also backing the Kikori Open Source CNC Gantry Router, which pushes my buttons with sentences like "It’s essentially a robot capable of milling complex three-dimensional shapes out of wood, soft metals, and plastics." It's also self-replication-capable!

Today's project is "Uncovering the Mysterious Origin of 1000 Island Dressing", a documentary that tries to resolve the dispute about whose idea it was to mix ketchup and mayonnaise and call it salad dressing. I backed it because it reminds me of the "Compression" episode of the BBS Documentary. Ancient disputes may seem trivial now, but picking at them blows the lid off the septic tank we call the past.

I don't have a good feel for which Kickstarter projects are likely to succeed, but I gotta say that because of the amount of money they're trying to raise ($23,500), this one seems like a long shot. I don't see how it works unless a few backers decide to theme a vacation around the high-value pledge rewards.

Now, one of the nice things about Kickstarter is that you can back a long shot without worrying about losing your money. But I would like to spend a decent amount of money during the Month of Kickstarter, which means backing successful projects. And I'd like to do it without funding a bunch of projects that are clearly going to be funded anyway. I may end up compromising by diversifying my portfolio.

When I was a kid I heard someone say "America has brought the world two great art forms: jazz and comics." I've long thought it's time to add "video games" to that list, and on today's TRIPLE EDITION of Month of Kickstarter I salute all three of these great art forms.

Jazz: "Recording original songs in the spirit of a 1940's Big Band". Check out that period dress! This is a man I trust to do a historical recreation.

Comics: Narbonic: The Perfect Collection. This project already reached its goal, so it feels kind of cheap, but I'm a huge Narbonic fan.

Video games: "The Videogame History Museum", "dedicated to preserving, archiving, and documenting the history of the videogame industry." These people have a lot of stuff and they want a place to put it. What could be more American?

Damn, that's patriotic. Even Sam the American Eagle can't say no.

I've got a lot to do today (all the Findings work that explains why I haven't posted much, plus bonus other work), so this one is quick: Lyssan, a board game that "combines tightly designed euro-style rules with the interactivity and flavor of an epic wargame." It looks fun and well thought out, so BACKED. The $50 price point to get a copy of the game is higher than the $25 I'm typically dropping on Month of Kickstarter projects, but what the heck. Some of those projects won't pan out, and it looks like this one will.

I'm seriously on the fence about "Strange Attractors: Investigations in Non-Humanoid Extraterrestrial Sexualities". When I saw the description I thought: BACKED. But, I was picturing a monograph with an underlying thesis and a consistent medical-diagram-ish art style, and this is an anthology with often cartoony art and big ol' artist statements (and humanoid extraterrestrials, judging from the sample pages!). Plus it's another project where I'd need to shell out $50 to get the book. So I dunno. It's definitely on my short list though.

This sculpture also looks cool, but Month of Kickstarter has a strict "no Burning Man" policy.

And so on. A couple more projects today went on my list for a future slow day or multi-project bonanza day, but today's backed project is a project to reissue John Isaacson's Do-It-Yourself Screenprinting. "Whether you want to turn your bedroom into a t-shirt factory or just make a couple stickers or posters for your band's next tour, Isaacson has got your back."

Today's project: "Bursts of Light: an Anthology of Positive Speculative Fiction". Because I have a vested interest in making Kickstarter a good place to raise money for an anthology you're putting out.

"Cookie Connections__Clever Cookie Cutters Cut Clever Cookies". You, sir, are a mouthful! As are the cookies, one hopes. For you see, this project is tessellation cookie cutters! It took me a few minutes of staring at the 3D models to see all the shapes, but yes, there's four stereotypical Christmas cookie shapes coming out of a single cutter, with no waste. (Halloween-themed shapes also being produced.) For reasons I hope are obvious (TESSELLATIONS) I am super excited about this one.

It's time for another TRIPLE EDITION of Month of Kickstarter. On my birthday I'm backing three projects specifically recommended by friends.

1. My cousin Camilla recommended "WWJD", a film of a play, being produced by a friend of hers.

   WWJD is a feature film following a college student named Tom and his three roommates over the course of one memorable day when they receive a visit from an unexpected houseguest--Jesus. He washes their dishes and goes skateboarding and miniature golfing with them--but for some reason, Tom, the only believer in the house, can't see him.

   In other nepotism news, Camilla has an Etsy shop where she sells jewelry and reproduction medieval clothing. Check it out!

2. Pat said I should back "The Power of the Crystals", "NYC's premiere motivational seminar/rock opera". Sumana, who I just showed it to, agrees! So... I backed the project.
3. Also from Pat, it's "Raiding Parties", "a card game that takes place in the Golden Age." The Golden Age of what, you ask? The answer is PIRATES.

Non-bonus bonus!: Here are a couple projects I backed prior to beginning Month of Kickstarter, which I'm worried aren't going to make it, so I'm publicising them here.

1. "Chocolate! Handmade from bean to bar", which only has about a day to go.

   We are a small bean to bar chocolate making company that believes chocolate making is not only a craft, but also an art. We plan to draw from a pool of artists on a rotating basis to design custom packaging featuring their artwork. In addition, we will collaborate with artists who will create unique molds that will allow us to make one of a kind edible sculptures.

   We're talking chocolate Space Invaders here.

2. "Project Gado: An Open-Source Photo Digitization Robot", which scans old photos quickly without damaging them.

   The Gado 1 is in operation at the archives of the Baltimore Afro American Newspaper, where it has already scanned nearly 1000 historical images. The paper has a collection of over 1.5 million images spanning 115 years, though, so there's still a long way to go!

You know I love it. "50's Monster Movie Serial!" "[W]hat's it about? Rubber monster suit, women in 1950's bikini's, and the mother of all cliff-hangers."

Ultra bonus: Evan has started his own Month of Kickstarter!

Today it's "Documenting the Midwest Through Analog Photography". Specifically the parts of the Midwest that are abandoned buildings.

Each building is an individual battle within a war that most people fail to see. When I see a derelict building, I see a war that hardly anyone else can see in the same way. I want to preserve these images of this war between Man and Nature that, though slow, remains in constant flux.

I see a lot of projects where it doesn't look like you can fund the entire project through Kickstarter. Unless you have a preexisting fan base or are very good at marketing through non-Kickstarter media, it's tough to raise the ten or twenty thousand dollars you need to record an album or make a short film. But you can probably get ten percent of that to edit the film once it's done, or press the CDs once the album's recorded. This is kind of disappointing and getting more people investing in Kickstarter projects won't solve the problem, since that will also cause more people to post projects on Kickstarter.

Anyway, the point of this digression is that this photography project only needs $800, which I think is very doable.

Time is running out for "OpenPhoto, a photo service for your S3 or Dropbox account", so I gave it the ol' BACKED treatment. It's "a way to share your photos with others while retaining complete ownership of them."

First off, Sumana sent me a link to Kitt Hodsden's "Why I'll pledge to your Kickstarter project", which I basically agree with. I cannot stress enough the importance of having a realistic funding goal! You may only be able to raise enough money for part of your project! It's called Kickstarter, not Completethewholeprojecter.

Now it's time to indulge in another high-stakes metagame of backing a board-game project for $50 because my usual $25 MoK donation won't get me a copy of the game. Today it's "The Manhattan Project - Board Game", "a low-luck, mostly open information efficiency game in which players compete to build and operate the most effective atomic bomb program." It could be a double feature with Twilight Struggle, or Power Grid, or I'll never get enough people in one place long enough to play this game plus any other game so why bother.

Does it take me into "You may end your turn early!" territory to find this really interesting?:

The game features worker placement with a twist; There are no rounds and no end-of-round administration. Players retrieve their workers when they choose to or are forced to (by running out).

If so, I've come full circle.

Wednesday Bonus! "Bring a great computer history zine back to a new audience!" It's a project to re-release a historical computing zine that is, by this time, itself historical. You know you want to BACK it.

"Open Source Vertical Wind Turbine"

The intended outcome of this project is to develop a small wind turbine that can be built for cheap, and that can be used with more wind turbines to marginally increase electricity output. Some of the parts in this project are still conceptual and have not been built before.

Is that good or bad? Either way, it's a 3D-printed wind turbine, which is hard for me to pass up.

I took most of the week off work because Rachel was visiting, but now she's back in England and here I am helping "Double the size of the Columbus Idea Foundry!" before heading off to work.

On August 15th, we will have the opportunity to expand into our neighboring industrial unit (with which we already share several interior doors... an architectural match made in heaven!) By doing so, we will be able to split our workshop into a "dirty" space (our current location) with welding, woodworking, metal casting, metal fabrication, CNC machining, and other dust- and chip-making processes; and a "clean" space (the new wing) with, among other planned resources, a photographic dark room, a videography stage, a textile/upholstery station, a proper lithography room for etching/engraving circuits, metal, and screenprinting masks, and about a dozen more studio rental spaces for clean arts.

Sounds fun!

Bonus fact: according to this same Kickstarter entry, Columbus, Ohio is "the Indie Arts Capital of the World, as declared by the Columbus City Council..." [ellipsis in original]

Month of Kickstarter is halfway over! I've backed 19 projects (21 by the time this entry is done) and it's time to check back in on their progress.

• Two of the projects I've backed have been funded (OpenPhoto and WWJD).
• Three of them are very close to their goals. If this metaproject has gotten you interested in Kickstarter, and you want to start off by feeling the rush you get from pushing a project over the edge, try backing the computer history zine, The Power of the Crystals, or the Lyssan board game.
• Four of them are chugging along. I'm not going to put up a bunch more links even though that would be the smart thing to do, because this entry is already more weblog than I planned to write today. Just go to my Kickstarter page and scroll down.
• Ten of them seem to have stalled. I will link again to the tessellated cookie cutters because I really want that one to succeed.

So I'm looking at about a 1/3 success rate, which is pretty good given that I've avoided big, obviously-gonna-succeed projects like M.C. Frontalot's music video.

OK, with that navel-gazing out of the way, let's check out today's Projects of Month of Kickstarter! First we have "Open Source Programmer's Text Editor using Canvas and WebGL".

This will be a fully featured text editor implemented using the canvas element in HTML5. It will support WebGL for graphics acceleration for visually pleasing but uncluttered scrolling, anti-aliasing and other effects. This is designed not for the wow factor but to minimize visual irritation when working with text for long periods of time.

Second, it's SCI-ARC/Caltech's entry in the Solar Decathlon, "a U.S. Department of Energy Sponsored competition which challenges 20 architecture and engineering schools from around the world to design and build a solar-powered, 'net-zero' house." Bonus: the house looks like your robot pet from the future.

Rock Hunter. Studly, closeted film star? No, it's a first-person Asteroids-type game to be made available under the AGPL.

Several weapon types are planned, and rocks will be dynamically simulated so that they can be cut apart, fragmented, and otherwise destroyed in unique ways every time.

In the second half of Month of Kickstarter I'm experimenting with backing two projects a day, since the success rate seems to be less than 50%. Today's second project is Milk Not Jails.

Rural New York is home to 90% of the state’s prisons, which provide jobs in a depressed rural economy. Meanwhile the majority of people in prison come from New York City’s communities of color and their families are forced to make long trips to visit them. The guards union and their elected officials oppose major reforms to the prison system because they fear it will destroy jobs in their community. As a result, New York’s prison system is racist, ineffective, and too expensive. This is not going to change unless we can develop a new economic relationship between urban and rural areas. MILK NOT JAILS looks to the state’s dairy industry – which comprises 80% of New York’s agricultural sales – for a delicious solution to this conundrum.

Dipping into my big list of bookmarked projects, since none of the new projects I saw this morning were as cool as stuff I'd earlier saved for later, later being now.

First off, it's "In Praise of Small Things: A Letterpress Adventure", a modest project to commemorate "the small, everyday 'unfancy' things and moments that we so often forget to pay attention to, but when we do, they glimmer."

And on the expensive side of the spectrum, there's Turtle Derby Documentary, raising funds for post-production.

Every July 4th for the past 50 years our small hometown in Pennsylvania has held an annual turtle race – a fun event that sounds like something from a Mark Twain story. But this year the state outlawed collecting turtles from the wild because they’re becoming endangered. It’s a fun and funny opportunity to see what happens when tradition and environmental issues collide.

I think I know which Mark Twain story you're talking about!

Sorry to interrupt Month of Kickstarter with non-Kickstarter stuff, but I just discovered that Ian McMillan, who earlier recorded a reading of "Daisy" from Thoughtcrime Experiments, also recorded a reading of the first story in the anthology, "Welcome to the Federation". Way to go, Ian!

Really good crop today, and that means my day is off to a good start. First, "Heartbreak & Heroines RPG":

Heartbreak & Heroines is a fantasy roleplaying game about adventurous women who go and have awesome adventures -- saving the world, falling in love, building community, defeating evil. It's a game about relationships and romance, about fairy tales and feminism.

You play a fantasy heroine (or hero, if you prefer) whose heart has been broken. She's experienced some loss so great that she's taken up her sword, her tome, her staff, or her wand and walked away from her place in society -- by becoming one of its defenders, fighting back the darkness that endangers everyone.

When a woman picks up her tome, you know it's serious. The game system is based on one of the author's previous RPGs, Wandering Monsters High School (free download).

Today's second project is Entrepreneurship Exposed:

What does it take to start a company? Volumes of books exist that explore the workings of entrepreneurship, but no one has created a documentary that follows the entire creative process of conceiving an idea and developing it into a product.

Meta bonus: the product is a product about entrepreneurship.

Here's one for Sumana: Kombucha Party. At least I intended it to be for Sumana. Only after I backed this project did I realize that "kombucha" isn't the name of the tea Sumana likes; that's hojicha. Kombucha is the tea-based drink they sell at Whole Foods. Fortunately, I signed up to get loose-leaf tea, not liters of kombucha delivered to my door, so it should work out.

Fortunately, Dragon Valley won't turn out to be something totally different from what I think it is: a line of organic dairy products made from dragon's milk. It's a board game, you say? Damn! Well, I like board games too. Dragon's Valley has some interesting features, like bringing in mechanics from cooperative board games (pulling useful things out of a pile and sharing them) without being a cooperative game.

Has someone made a bootleg RSS feed of new Kickstarter projects? I find it hard to believe that there's no official one, but I find it even harder to locate an official one. Going to the "recently launched" page every day is fine for Month of Kickstarter, but I don't want to keep doing that, and I don't see any other way to look at all the projects.

Big non-MoK announcement today!

The big non-MoK announcement has been delayed, so in the meantime enjoy some more Kickstarter projects. First, it's "Sizzle Sauce - The Savory Hot Sauce!". Longtime readers will know that I'm a sucker for a sauce that "doesn't sacrifice flavor for heat." It is a tomato-based hot sauce, which I'm not generally a huge fan of, but I'm keeping an open mind.

Second, it's "We Promote Knowledge & Love - Parade Day in Harlem":

We Promote Knowledge & Love is a social practice, community art performance project that borrows the aggressive street advertising tactics of pawnbrokers in urban communities as a vehicle to promote knowledge, self-empowerment, and love rather than commerce or monetary wealth.

'Nuff said.

Jennifer Ownby's "Oboe Chamber Music Recital" knows how to get me where I live: by appealing to the downtrodden, living-on-the-fringes-of-society lot of oboe players. I played the oboe in middle school band, because I was determined to announce to the world that I was a misfit, and I still have a soft spot for the instrument, especially when it's played by someone better at it than me. Anyway, enough about me, how about we let a real oboist speak:

My program consists of some lesser-known and underperformed, but still very good, solo and chamber works for oboe and various instruments. I'm starting off with Gilles Silvestrini's Six Études pour Hautbois, which is a lovely piece based on six different Impressionist paintings. I'm also doing a fun piece for English horn and Actress by Christopher Berg, called Why Else Do You Have an English Horn? The program will also include the Prokofiev Quintet, Op. 39, for violin, viola, bass, oboe, and clarinet. I've seriously wanted to perform this for about 10 years but haven't known the personnel willing to do it. Then I'll be finishing up with Omaggio a Bellini by Antonino Pasculli, for English horn and Harp.

Today's second project is "The Let's Make a Bunch of (Company/Product) Logos Project".

As a designer, I love making logos. So, I thought it would be fun, and challenging, to do a project with the straightforward concept of creating a whole bunch of different logos for a whole bunch of different companies and products. That's it.

That's it.

It's too hot to write interesting descriptions, but Month of Kickstarter chugs along. First it's "Cheese Vat Community Support Agriculture".

We are working to acquire a new cheese vat to replace the old "gas guzzler" with one that is energy efficient, and that will help us to make even better cheese, to ensure the continued success of a small local, sustainable agricultural, sixth generation, grass based farm.

Unfortunately, my idea that they should allow high-value Kickstarter donors to take surreptitious dips in the cheese vat was rejected.

Next it's the Field Guide to Phytoremediation:

In 2010, youarethecity created the Field Guide to Phytoremediation, a DIY handbook to cleaning up toxic soils in your own backyard, neighborhood vacant lot, or other urban space. Working with soil scientists, urban farming activists, community groups, and others interested on (and in) the ground, we have expanded this research.

Not in a mood to do clever writeups, so I did three music projects today, because those generally speak for themselves. First, Jazz in Africa "The Root of Jazz Expression".

In recent years, I have traveled through various parts of West Africa and had the opportunity to interact and share music with people from different local communities. It was an incredible experience: I had the good fortune to collaborate and perform with many accomplished, local musicians. One finding that permeated all these different impressions was the realization that the ‘Spirit of Blues’ expression is the ‘language’ link between Jazz and African music.

And there's also blue period project:

Classical music is in a bad way. Audiences are shrinking and aging. Orchestras are declaring bankruptcy... We staunchly believe that music is not the problem – rather, that audiences have lost interest in the experience: asocial seating, distant stages, disconnected performers and patrons, a stiff atmosphere. Dissatisfied with the fashion and spaces in which most classical music is presented, we want to experiment with new ideas.

Finally, I backed Jeff Brooks Quartet, "Just In Time":

I am completing my second original jazz album, “Just In Time” for the Jeff Brooks Quartet. The compositions are eclectic, ranging from depression era, blues, standard sounding jazz, to Iranian influenced beats.

It's time once again for Backscratching Monday, where I back the Kickstarter projects of my friends with some scratch. See? Back... scratch... moving on!

I got the idea for Backscratching Monday when I discovered that my friend Gus had put up a Kickstarter project for her Internet-literacy puppet show "The Media Show". Here it is: "The Media Show Explains Search, SEO, and Sock Puppets". It's funny because they're literally sock puppets! Man, I'm batting zero here.

Due to a shortage of Mondays, Month of Kickstarter will feature no more Backscratching Mondays. But feel free to start a Kickstarter project anyway and I'll see what I can do.

Keep it moving. In non-backscratching news, I backed a print run of small-press science fiction/superhero novel, "Broken".

In a post-war future world where First Contact has been made, humans are colonizing the stars, and the nations of Earth have been united under a central government, Extrahumans are required by law to belong to the Union. When a young man with visions of the future sets out on a mission to define the course of human history, he encounters a devastated former hero, a fascist dictatorship bent on world domination, and the realities of living in a society where affiliation is everything.

I love pictures of things from the 1980s, and "London in the 1980s" definitely fits the bill. I think there's something about the film stock from the decade you grew up in that acts as a delivery system for nostalgia.

I also like wearing pants that fit, or at least I imagine I would, if that ever happened, so I dropped a Month of Kickstarter-record $60 on "Custom Fit Jeans". It feels less like backing a Kickstarter project and more like buying a pricey pair of jeans, but at this point Month of Kickstarter is on drunken, careening autopilot as I try to finish up my Findings work and gear up for the work surrounding the big announcement (still forthcoming).

In a non-Kickstarter shocker, I dropped $25 on the Humble Indie Bundle #3. I haven't played it a lot due to busyness (can't even get a couple of the games to run on Linux), but I will say that VVVVVV is the game that Jet Set Willy should have been.

You've seen how on Month of Kickstarter I've made the tough decisions. You trust me to only back the projects that are right for America. The projects you hope you would back if you had the guts to take on crazy challenges like this one. That's why I've made the call to back the paper RPG "Dinosaurs...in SPAAACE!". Now with game mechanics!

Dinosaurs...in SPAAACE! runs on the Token Effort engine, a tried and tested rules-set that privileges pratfalls over point-stacking and mania over min-maxing. It quantifies humor and rewards you whether people are laughing with you, or at you.

In today's "gift that keeps on giving" edition, I've backed "Jane's Easy Serve Ergonomic Ice Cream Scoop" at the $50 level. This will net me two commercial-quality ergonomic ice cream scoops. I can give one each to Susanna and Rachel, and hopefully stop the family feud over who gets ownership of the heirloom ice cream scoop (last known photo).

Well, that's not a very fun Month of Kickstarter entry title. But not much can be done, because I've backed only one project today and it's got a one-word name: Fealty, a "territory control game that plays in a short amount of time but packs a solid strategic punch and game to game variety."

Welcome to the PENULTIMATE, TRIPLE EDITION of Month of Kickstarter. Let's start the day off right with "The Art of Chocistry", a "virtual gourmet chocolate studio". Don't worry, only the studio is virtual. There's real chocolate.

Next, it's "COOP-made-in-USA book":

This book is an introduction to the worker-owned cooperatives in the United States, a reality that is not very well known, but prospered for more than 30 years.

The book presents several examples of worker-owned co-ops, with different governance methods and active in different fields, from retail to high-tech, with even nude dancing...

"Nude dancing" I could understand, but I'm not sure about "nude dancing...".

And finally, "The Endangered Alphabets Project" brings together the previously disparate worlds of wood carving and linguistic diversity:

The world has between 6,000 and 7,000 languages, but as many as half of them will be extinct by the end of this century. Another and even more dramatic way in which this cultural diversity is shrinking concerns the alphabets in which those languages are written. Writing has become so dominated by a small number of global cultures that those 6,000-7,000 languages are written in fewer than 100 alphabets.

It's the final day of Month of Kickstarter, and time to go out with an astounding QUADRUPLE EDITION. If you know one thing about me now that you didn't know before Month of Kickstarter, it's that I'm a sucker for games with really insane names. Long story short, I've chosen to back "Oh My God! There's An Axe In My Head. The Game of International Diplomacy".

I also like games with non-insane names, and to reflect that side of my personality I've also backed "StarLife - A 4x Turn-Based Space Strategy Indie Game", even though it's not totally certain that there'll be a Linux version.

Finally, in an attempt to seem more cerebral, I'm backing a math project and a classical music project that have been in my list for a while. First, "Relatively Prime: Stories from the Mathematical Domain":

Relatively Prime will be an 8 episode audio podcast featuring stories from the world of mathematics. Tackling questions like: is it true that you are only 7 seven handshakes from the President, what exactly is a micromort, and how did 39 people commenting on a blog manage to prove a deep theorem.

And the music project, "Chopin Revolutionary Etudes": Even though Chopin set out to create technical works, each etude is a beautiful piece of music and the technique is used ONLY in creating a beautiful piece of music. Some of the greatest melodies of all times are contained in these etudes.

This project will bring out all the unique elements of Chopin's Etudes. But it will also teach a lot about playing and listening to music.

And that's it! In about two months, once all the projects I backed have reached their deadlines, I'll report back with statistics, and once the backer rewards start rolling in I'll mention any especially interesting ones.

Although I won't be backing Kickstarter projects at the frenetic rate that obtained during MoK (what with no longer having a well-paying job), I'll keep looking at projects, backing one occasionally, and posting occasional dumps here on NYCB.

The big announcement is happening tomorrow, for real this time.