Image via YouTube
If you were like me yesterday morning, you fired up your old Tandy 486 with the intention of Googling some obscure Russian play (Uncle Vanya said what?), only to be confronted with something far more confounding: a synthesizer.
It was a special Google doodle, celebrating Bob Moog, creator of the Moog synthesizers and grandpappy of electronic music. Dudes like Skrillex owe their bizarre livelihoods to this humble, visionary engineer.
But Google’s doodle wasn’t just a history lesson, and this ain’t no regular keyboard. It’s a fully functioning synthesizer, with all the (literally) fancy knobs and bells and whistles you’d find on an old-school synth. There’s even an option for recording your sick tracks for later. In fact, there’s even a contest if you think your remix has what it takes.
Again, this is a bit different from a piano or keyboard, so here’s an introduction on how to get the sweet, sweet grooves out of that little box.
Now all you need is some awesome feathered hair and a leather vest.
Image via Role Models
Social Media. It’s like magic. Correction—it is magic, and I can show you how to tap this vast power. Before today’s lesson, those of you not familiar with role playing games had better bone up on LARPING.
“Invisibility”
You don’t need to be a powerful cleric to be invisible. You can toggle visibility on and off on Facebook Chat and Google Chat. Better, you can be invisible to particular people on social media. Let’s see you do that, Gandalf.
“Summoning”
In the RPG world, you typically need to be one bad mother to summon creatures from the depths. In social, it’s easy. Summon your friends by tagging them with the “@” sign (nothing is more mystical than commercial at!). This notifies your creature—er, I mean friend—that you need his attention. Then sit back and watch him do your bidding.
“Mana”
In gaming, mana refers to a store of magical power. As a gaming mechanic, you typically have a limit on mana that you need to keep an eye on. It’s much the same way on social media. For example, on Twitter, you have a number of limits placed on you, like not being able to send more than 1000 tweets a day. That might seem like a lot, but for a powerful social media mage, it’s something to think about.
“Time Travel”
There’s a variety of ways to time travel with social media. First, thanks to Facebook Timeline you can go back to visit (and perhaps rewrite) any time in your past. Second, thanks to filters like those available on Instagram, you can make any picture appear like you took it in 1978. Groovy.
What other powers has social media given us?
