Showing posts with label Wall Street. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wall Street. Show all posts

Monday, February 16, 2015

The Unimaginative Motherfuckers Of The Old Economy

They say there is this cultural divide between California and New York City. All of Silicon Valley money comes from NYC. But California has the cultural advantage.

I have been aware of this. But I am staying put. Because, well, this is hometown. Also because the app I am working on -- this city is going to be the number one city for it. It will take your interactions with the city to a whole new plane.

And it is okay for the old economy to be in the backdrop. It is more than okay, it is actually very necessary. The apartment of AirBnb is old economy. Uber's cab is old economy. And they are just scratching the surface. The next wave of innovation in software is industry level. Which means we need people who can reimagine entire industries. Coders can be provided to them.

But when I say the unimaginative motherfuckers of the old economy, I am referring to this other type. Not only do they not get cutting edge innovation, they do not get the fundamentals of a tech startup, they actively act hostile given the opportunity. And there are a ton of those, plenty with Indian/brown faces, just to be fair. But it is equal opportunity, truly so. Like this guy on Wall Street who, believe it or not, wanted to do a tech startup, who would call VC money "funny money." Good luck with that. Or this dude who had a job where success was doubling the money every five years. Point be noted, money doubles on its own every seven years. All you have to do is not mess it up, just stay out of the way. Don't tinker. And he deals with big sums! I guess two years faster is still a margin, but then don't start commentaring on tech startups, in the negative, spilling one ignorance after another.

Very few people will do the tech startup thing. By definition. So it is not like you need 100% participation. And there is an affirmation you seek among other startup types. There is that ecosystem. It is a small island in a sea of the old economy, and that is the way it should be.

You do want to stay close to your average users. You do want to meet regular people.

But the unimaginative motherfuckers are a whole different thing. They lack it. They don't know it. And they will meddle if they can. Heck, they might even start a company!

Race, Gender And Tech Entrepreneurship



Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Ingress: Is Victory Possible?


Ingress is a great way to explore the city. It takes you to parts of the city you never have been and would not have gone. I am talking about 20 blocks from where you live. The game is also a great way to meet people. And there are good practices. Strategies are possible. But this is not exactly chess.

Right now the city looks about 60% blue. Would it be possible to make it 90% blue? I think it is possible but  it gets harder as the percentage goes up.

When you are dominant, your players start taking it easy. Most prefer not to get regimented. When the city is largely blue it is great for the most active green players. They have more portals to capture.

But even going from 60% blue to 75% blue would fit my definition of victory.

Another definition of victory would be if we could turn permanently green areas like the High Line, the East Village, Williamsburg, Long Island City, the UN blue for a few days in a row.

I am under no illusion we are creating anything permanent. Permanent victories are not possible. If they were, the game would not be fun. But I think it is possible to shift the ground.
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Friday, March 01, 2013

Level 8 In A Month



And that in February, the shortest month. I hit Level 5 without an External Battery. And now that I am a Level 8 I am going to relax a little. I will still go out at least once a week with the express intention of hacking, plus I will be hacking when I am out and about town doing other things. But now I expect to be more skilled at it. Deploy just the right Burster, for example. That is a judgment call.

Now my Ingress focus is going to shift to the hyperlocal apps Highlight and Sonar. The number one reason I wanted to play Ingress was to meet people.

1,000,000 Action Points
Ingress Tips
Ingress Can Be Modified For Grassroots Organizing
Ingress Tips
Ingress Tips (2)
Would Like An Ingress Invite
Ingress And Location
How I Just Made Two Purchases
An External Battery As Big As The Phone

Now I am going to enjoy the scenery more, and I am going to venture beyond the Farms. I am going to the isolated Portals, because I want to see the city, and I want to meet people.

Photography
Highlight
Sonar

I took the train to Madison Square Park in the afternoon, not long after lunch. Madison Square Park, Union Squar Park and Washington Square Park all looked blue. I took turns and created a whole bunch of Fields all three places. And I kept walking. I destroyed a whole bunch of green Portals near City Hall, and created blue Fields. Then it was off to Wall Street and Battery Park. I hit Level 8 while I was working Trinity Church, right off of Wall Street.

It is a very good feeling to hit Level 8. Now I can relax some. I had cold sores the final few days, all those late night hours in Battery Park. You get those cold sores when you go up the Himalayas if you are not careful.

It is an amazing feeling to use a Level 8 Burster for the first time. You do some major damage.

I'd like to share some photos.

Creating Fields in Union Square. This is also the Level Omar was at when I met him, and I met him in Union Square.




It was a long walk between Washington Square Park and City Hall. You pass through this zone where there is one Portal per block, often less.



City Hall: green territory turned all blue.



Hitting Level 8 at Trinity Church near Wall Street.



What the Battery Park, Wall Street area looked like when I hit Level 8. Hint: it is not all blue. And that large Field you see I created after I hit Level 8.




About to use a Level 8 Burster for the first time.



The aftermath.




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Saturday, February 23, 2013

Ingress Tips


Join The Squad (Values)

The photo is me hitting Level 7 on Wall Street. Look at the mess I created!

First let's start with what is out there. There are some great sites that give you Ingress tips.

Ingress Tips
Ingress Tips (2)
Ingress FAQ
Ingress Bootcamp

My tips are with NYC on my mind. Even in NYC Manhattan has so many Portals and "Farms" compared to the outer boroughs. So my tips might not be universally applicable.

(1) Get An External Battery 

The game is a major drain on the battery, and you are going to be easily frustrated if you don't get an External Battery. I got my 10,000 mAH battery for $40 on Amazon, the best thing I bought since I bought my Nexus 4! And Nokia gave me a 2,000 mAH External Battery for free for attending a Nokia event during Social Media Week 2013. Go Nokia! 10,000 plus 2,000 plus 2,000 on my phone, and I am good for an entire day if need be! And for me this is not just about the game. I am a power user. My smartphone is my mobile office, my personal assistant. I don't like my personal assistant going to sleep or - worse - going into a coma. This tip on the External Battery came to me by way of a fellow Ingress player I bumped into in Union Square. Hello slomar! His real name is Omar.



(2) Put In The Hours

Especially during the early stages it might feel like you are making slow progress. But moving from Level 6 to Level 7 took me less time than moving from Level 1 to Level 2. This game is a lot of perspiration. It makes you walk! During the early stages you want to hack as many Portals as you can. Hacking friendly Portals is a great way to collect ammo.

(3) Know The Numbers 
  • Establish a control field 1250 AP
  • Destroy a control field 750 AP
  • Capturing a portal (place the first resonator) 500 AP
  • Link two portals 313 AP 
  • Complete a portal (place the eighth resonator) 250 AP
  • Destroy a link 187 AP
  • Apply a portal shield 150 AP
  • Place a resonator (new resonator) 125 AP
  • Hack a portal (Enemy) 100 AP
  • Destroy a resonator 75 AP
  • Upgrading an existing resonator owned by another agent 65 AP
  • Resonators discharge 10% of their maximum XM daily and must be recharged if they are to persist. Recharging can be done either by being within range of the portal or by using a portal key to access the portal remotely.
  • Resonators are destroyed when their XM reaches 0. 
  • You can only have 2,000 ammo items at a time. That's a lot unless you are high level and have been hacking a long time. 
Level AP RequiredMax XMBurster DamageBurster RangeResonator HPPortal Range
103,000150421,000160 m
210,0004,000300481,5002.56 km
330,0005,000500582,00012.96 km
470,0006,000900722,50040.96 km
5150,0007,0001,200903,000100 km
6300,0008,0001,5001124,000207 km
7600,0009,0001,8001385,000384 km
81,200,00010,0002,7001686,000655 km

I have not memorized them. All these numbers are in an Evernote file on my phone for quick references.

(4) Use The Map

That is how you know where the Farms are, where the Portals are. If you are low on ammo and need to hack friendly Portals for a few hours, go to the map. If it is time to find a cluster of enemy Portals, go to the map. The map changes as Portals switch from one side to another. (IITC)

(5) Farms Help You Level Up Fast

The top farms in Manhattan are:
  • Battery Park + Wall Street.
  • Madison Square Park 
  • Washington Square Park 
  • Rockefeller Center 
Other good ones are: City Hall, Union Square, Bryant Park, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), 7th Avenue from Macy's to Times Square, Times Square itself, Columbus Circle, the Apple Store on 5th Avenue. 

There are a few others that look good on the map that I have not explored yet. 

The formula is how many Portal hacks are you managing in an hour. If you are walking a block to hack one Portal, that is not the best use of your time. So stick to the big Farms to level up fast. 

Open parks are more GPS friendly than places like Wall Street and Rockefeller Center. Tall buildings seem to confuse satellites. The upside is when your GPS goes haywire, you are collecting XM from places you have not been, you are hacking Portals that are far from you!

Update: September 9, 2013: By now, Greater Jackson Heights is the top place in Queens for leveling up, and also one of the top citywide. 

Update: October 22, 2013: By now, East Village along Houston has emerged the top farm in the city. It is no longer Battery Park. Derpdom.

(6) Hack A Portal Four Times In A Row

You are much more likely to create Links and Fields. This is also why a Farm works better. You start with the first Portal, by the time you have hacked the final Portal on that Farm chances are the first Portal is ready for hacking again, since it has been past four minutes. A second or third hack might get you a Portal Key.

During the early Levels you create any Link you can. But later you want to get strategic about it. Remember the goal is to create Fields. It's best to Link short distance Portals with no Portals in between. You are doing well when creating one Link is giving you two Fields at once!

Update: October 20, 2013 Now you get a key each time you hack a portal if you don't have a key for it already. That makes the game way more fun, since linking and fielding is my favorite part of the game. Leveling up is now faster as well.

(7) Strategic Hacking

Bursters are scarce. So once you hit a certain Level, make a point to only go after Links and Fields. A great use of Bursters is to sit in the middle of a large Farm with many enemy Fields and take over. You earn APs like anything. This tip came to me by way of an "enemy" Player (derp) who had 4,000,000 points to my 400,000 who I bumped into in Madison Square Park. He happened to be an engineer at Google. He started in December, I got my start on February 1. He said I had wasted so many Bursters trying to take over one Portal. I should have instead used them to destroy a Field or two.

Destroying a Portal that is supporting two Fields is a great idea. You get a flood of APs.

Submit Portal suggestions. It is just like sharing a picture from your phone to Facebook. The process takes months apparently. And the ones I submitted have not showed up yet, but they will and I will be ready for them at Level 8.


(8) It Adds Up

Low level Resonators are useful to fill up Resonator slots once you capture a Portal. Every Resonator you add and every Portal you complete brings you points. The tortoise won the race, remember?

(9) It's The Resonator, Stupid

"You aren't attacking the Portal, but the Resonators. Stand right on top of every resonator when attacking for maximum effect.  It currently should take ~32 L1 XMP Bursters to destroy a L1 Portal's Resonators. You do ~15% damage to a Resonator when you are standing directly on top of it. If you are not, the damage falls off to 5% or 1% very quickly. .... if you wait for decay and hit them right before expiring, then even L8 Resonators could be destroyed easily. .....  .... Anecdotal evidence suggests a major difference between standing within a meter of a resonator vs 5m away and only a minor difference between 10m and 15m away.  .... ... If you don't have enough ammo don't even start a fight, it would be just a waste of xmp and your time."

(10) Socialize

The number one reason I started playing this game was to meet new people. I fire up Ingress, but then I also fire up my HDR Camera+ app, and my Highlight and Sonar apps. If I am going to be walking around this beautiful city like a mad man, I am going to take some pictures along the way. I am also going to expand my personal network.

It is not hard to spot other Ingress players. Their phone screen gives it away. Say hello.

Update: June 6, 2013

(11) Resonator Placement: Spread Them Out

When you capture a portal, stand as far away as you possibly can and then deploy. That way you spread out the resonators and it becomes just a little harder for an enemy agent to take them down.

Update: June 30, 2013

(12) Make Portal Submissions

Start making portals submissions as soon as you start playing the game: when you are a Level 1 agent, during your very first week. Do not wait. Portal submissions take weeks to go through anyways. You should have about 20 portals that you can walk over to any time. And so submit 50 with that in mind. This is also the top advice I have for all Level 8 agents I know. Don't just chase portals, make them come to you as well. Build a home territory. Churches, sculptures, arts, artifacts, murals, paintings are a good bet. Aim to build portal clusters. Dense clusters are good for gaining a lot of AP fast.

Build a home territory. A home territory is one where the majority of portals are your submissions.

Update: October 21, 2013

(13) The Ultimate Challenge: Team Building

It is my belief that is the final challenge in this game. You could work to build your neighborhood team, or a citywide team with slightly different values, or perhaps a global team. You could join an existing team and carve out space for your own team building within, or you could launch a brand new team of your own.

You can play this game solo just fine, and even as a team member you will engage in a ton of solo action, but this game is meant to be a social game.

Ingress New York City Public
Greater Jackson Heights Resistance
Squad Junior
The Squad
The Commando Squad
The Cross Faction Squad

My Photo Albums
Ingress: My Blog Posts

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