Author: thegeniuses

one year of aov

by thegeniuses

Steven's 12th birthday at the Garrity family cottage in Stanhope, PEI, August 1990 - cropped from the photo are Steven's sister Emily and silverorange's Dan J.
In the wee hours of August 25, 2000, one year ago, Matt christened the newly formed actsofvolition.com with the inevitable inaugural post. Matt put it well:

I realize the excitement of having ones own website is not one which extends very far beyond the proprietors of the website, but if everyone will just pretend to be as thrilled with the concept as we are that’ll be just fine. No matter the level of outside enthusiasm, I know we’ll have fun.

We know how we feel about the last year of aov (pretty good). What interests us much more than that is:

How do you feel about the first year of aov?

 

aov lets down its collective guard

by thegeniuses

you have nothing to say
It has recently come to our attention that there are other people in the world, some with opinions. After much thought and a little debate about community on the web (and more specifically, on actsofvolition.com), you can now reply to our posts on aov.

See the reply link under the title of each post.

 

further pleading for rock concert experiences

by thegeniuses

A few weeks ago, we solicited submissions of writing for an upcoming aov feature on memorable rock concert experiences. We have been working hard writing our own experiences (this statement is not true) and we would like some help.

While the standard has been set high by an astounding account of a Platinum Blonde concert in the Sherwood Sportplex in the mid 80’s, we welcome all kinds of submissions regardless of length, format, quality, relevance, etc.

Send your submission to thegeniuses@actsofvolition.com.

The arbitrary deadline for submissions is January 31.

 

aov does xml

by thegeniuses

First, let us get some acronym* definitions out of the way:

  • aov – acts of volition
  • XML – Extensible Markup Language
  • RDF – Resource Description Framework
  • RSS – RDF Site Summary

With that out of the way, aov has setup an RSS channel. RSS is an XML application based on the World Wide Web Consortium’s RDF Specification.

Now in english: RSS is a simple format for web syndication that lets any site make it’s headlines available to be grabbed by any other compliant site. For example, My.Netscape.com let’s you add these channels as custom news on your home page. Headlines from any site that that creates an RSS channel can be added to your my.netscape.com home page.

The people at My.Netscape.com seem to expect those with an RSS channel to include this graphic on their site. Clicking on this graphic will add aov headlines to your My.Netscape.com page. That is if you can bear the buggy and irritating signup process. Seems more like viral marketing for Netscape than an open news standard. The graphic will not be displayed on aov permanently (only in this post).

The format is cool though. An example of a good implementation can be found at Peter Rukavina’s Reinvented.net (which has been nicely redesigned). The News page at Reinvented.net uses RSS to grab headlines from Slashdot.org, The PEI Government website, and (drumroll please) Acts of Volition.

* acronyms are stupid.
 

tell us about your transcendent rock concert über-experience

by thegeniuses

thegeniuses@actsofvolition.com have had the good fortune of witnessing a handful of fine rock concerts. You never forget seeing a flaming log hurtled into the crowd at a Greenday concert, or Sloan and Thrush Hermit levelling the UPEI Barn on the One Chord to Another tour, or Billy Pumpkin and crew on their farewell tour.

Great concerts like these are often punctuated with even greater Rock & Roll moments. Moments in which you connect with the artist and the true meaning of the lyrics reveal themselves to you in a life changing epiphany. Or maybe, as with the flaming log at the Greenday concert, the epiphany is more social than artistic.

Regardless of the circumstances, these are special moments that tend to stay with you. For myself, a few such moments come to mind; Seeing Mike Knott smash his guitar after a solo acoustic performance in a church basement and a heart wrenching puppy-gets-hit-by-car-therefore-there-is-no-god story delivered semi-sarcastically by the lead signer of Sandbox (R.I.P.).

We are going to compile our own such experiences for an upcoming aov feature and we would like your help. Write up your transcendent rock über-experience in a manageable length (preferably not more than a few hundred words, but whatever it takes) and send it to thegeniuses@actsofvolition.com for inclusion in the upcoming feature.

 

Mike Lecky: an aov interview

by thegeniuses

Mike Lecky
The first of many eventual permanent features on aov, we present to you: Mike Lecky: an aov interview.

One thing has become apparent to us since the inception of aov: there are legions of talented artists out there. Though we should have known better we were prone to fits of despair and the occasional throwing of our hands into the air. “Nothing happens here. This place is dead.” But we know better now. And rather than shamelessly promoting only ourselves we will attempt to lift the community as a whole upon our broad shoulders and present it to the world.

Mike Lecky is the creator of the mighty Boxlor, as well as an artist, man-about-town, and generally clever person. Read the interview »

 

snide remarks in your inbox on an irregular schedule

by thegeniuses

aov updateSign up for the new aov update email newsletter. We’ll flog you with occasional updates on subjects such as:

  • major site updates
  • new aov features (such as the upcoming interview with Mike Lecky)
  • particularly encouraging/discouraging news & commentary

The frequency of mailings will vary but you needn’t worry about span. We’ll be selective and you shouldn’t receive more than a few emails a week (probably closer to 1 or 2 emails a month).

Sign up, god damn it.

Oh, and our privacy policy is: We wont do anything with your email address we wouldn’t want done with our own (and we are really picky about that).