Escape Room Tips

1) There’s a good chance you found this because you googled “escape room tips”. Stop that. Stop it right now. Embrace the game. It’s supposed to be a challenge. Also consider you might be paired up with strangers, so it’s really not fair to ruin it for them. Don’t be a dick.

2) Listen to your guide when they bring you in. They want you to make it out! Listen carefully, they may give some cryptic clues.

3) Dress to do some work. You may be crawling around, climbing, etc. Be prepared to get a little dirty.

4) Keep talking. Especially if the group seems to hit a dead end. Just make observations, even if they seem obvious. Keep the group chatting.

5) Move on. You’ve been staring at that picture frame for a long time now. Maybe it’s something, maybe it’s not. Come back to it later.

6) Try everything! Even if you’re pretty sure it won’t work just keep trying things. Move things. Put things in other things. If nothing else a light may go off in a teammate’s head. But resist the temptation to keep doing the same thing over and over.

7) Examine things even though you just saw your teammates looking at it. You may bring a different perspective.

8) Don’t post spoilers.

Smarter Than Human Machines to Take Our Jobs!

“Bill Gates thinks super machines could eventually become smarter than humans and take our jobs”

I hope he’s right, I hope I live to see it, and I hope I have a small part in making it so.

I don’t see this prediction as a threat, nor is it particularly profound or insightful – it’s obvious, it’s positive, and it’s our destiny. Viewing those words as a threat seems to me akin to standing in a freshly plowed field 13,000 years ago and saying, “All this agriculture – it’s going to completely eliminate the need to hunt and gather. THEN WHAT?”

Notebook Paralysis

I have a new notebook and I’m ready to write. I have plenty of things to write about and plenty of uses for notebooks, but what is this one for? And what are the rules for this notebook? Will I skip the first page? Use only the fronts? Am I assigning a certain pen or ink to this notebook? Is it private? Is it okay to tear pages out? Is it going to be with me all the time? Am I going to keep it forever? Should I fill in the owner information? What should I label the cover? Should I label the cover? Will I write in the margins?

The notebook I’m writing this in has four subjects coded blue, red, gray, and green, as one does. When Chrissy gave it to me I was ecstatic – four notebooks in one, this solves all my problems! Then I took out my Rhodia A5 no skip, fronts only, private, tear okay, always handy, no archive, no cover label, anything goes notepad and starting listing possible categories. It took weeks before I could write anything in here, but that’s pretty good -  I have two notebooks from the ’90s I’ve been moving around the country with, just waiting for the right topic.

The Podcast Formula

Most of the top podcasts are either radio productions or they are made by current or former radio personalities and producers. This means audio levels are excellent, production values are high, and they follow a broken old-world format. Even new-media types seem to get caught in this trap.

  • Intro Song
  • You’re listing to the XYZ Podcast (I worked that out from the intro song)
  • Ad
  • Description of today’s topic and guest, summarizing the show (This is just filler. On with the show already!)
  • Sound Effect
  • Welcome the XYZ Podcast, today we’re talking with [guest] (I know, we covered that.)
  • If you’d like to join the conversation our number is xxx-xxx-xxxx. (Time shifting!)
  • Interview Part 1 (I thought we’d never get here.)
  • If you’re just joining us we’re talking to [guest]. (Nobody is just joining. This is a podcast.)
  • Ad
  • Interview Part 2
  • Ad
  • If you enjoyed the show please subscribe to our podcast. (How exactly do you think I came to hear these words?)
  • Outro Song