Why are modern video games still having problems with voice acting? And what can be done to solve them? Gamesblog investigates...

Most admirers of Quantic Dreams' interactive drama Heavy Rain will readily agree on the game's most glaring fault – the inconsistent voice acting. The visuals are astonishingly atmospheric, the plot (though choppy at times) is compelling, and the lush orchestral score is wonderfully resonant... But... Well, some of the acting performances are wooden to the point of somnambulism.

The thing is, Heavy Rain is far from alone. Although the videogame industry loves to compare itself with the movie business, and clearly has ambitions to become the story-telling medium of the 21st century, poor vocal performances are common, even among Triple A titles. In the last few months Aliens vs Predator, Army of Two: 40th Day and even Final Fantasy XIII have drawn criticism in the areas of scripting and performance. So what's going on?

"Although improving all the time, there is still a lack of focus on story and character in games," says Andy Emery creative director at Side, a leading provider of casting, directing and recording services to the videogame and movie sectors. "This has to be an integral part of the project from start to finish. We see problems with poor scripts all the time. A professional scriptwriter is an essential part of modern game development but still we get 'developer written' scripts with alarming regularity. Even with the best Hollywood actors on board, a poor script can result in poor voice acting."

A sometimes mediocre script certainly contributes to the problems in Heavy Rain, where key snippets of dialogue are so laboured and cliché-ridden, they more or less eject you straight out of the experience. But then, actors work with dodgy scripts all the time, and can still put together a reasonably compelling performance (just ask anyone who's appeared in a romantic comedy in the last decade). Experienced direction helps, too.

Clearly, there are deeper problems, involving the whole process of recording voice performances. And it starts with timetabling.

Traditionally, voice acting has been recorded toward the end of the cycle, when the over-arching structure of the game and its narrative are safely locked down. There are compelling reasons for this. Games tend to evolve enormously over the standard two-year process, with whole missions often culled at a late stage, as playtesting reveals unforeseen fault lines and design issues. Having to recall actors and record chunks of new dialogue to reflect story changes is perceived as an expensive, time-consuming chore – the last thing a hassled studio needs in the generally hellish run up to a major delivery deadline.

But while those justifications made sense in the old days, when voice performances tended to be restricted to skippable cut-scenes there for decoration only, they begin to look less convincing in the modern era. With titles like Heavy Rain and the forthcoming psychological thriller Alan Wake, where cinematic fidelity is a cornerstone of the experience, voice recording can't just be something jammed in at the end ostensibly to cut costs. But more on that later.

There are also fundamental differences between voice acting in a videogame and voice acting in linear artforms such as radio plays and animated movies. Due to the interactive nature of games, actors can't be given a standard film script from which they're able to gauge the throughline of their character and a feel for the dramatic development of the narrative. Instead, lines of dialogue need to be isolated into chunks so they can be accessed and triggered within the game in line with the actions of each individual player. Consequently, the performer will usually be presented with a spreadsheet jammed with hundreds of single lines of dialogue, with little sense of context or interaction.

As Emery argues, there's really not a lot of alternative. "For large complex RPG and MMO games, with dialogue that could add up to over 30hrs of play time, it's simply not practical to give the actors the whole script. You also risk information overload, with the actor struggling to focus on the areas of importance for their character. Star Wars: The Old Republic, the new MMO being developed by Bioware is a great example, as the project contains over 40 novels worth of scripted dialogue. The key is to give the actors the information they need for their scenes and ensure they are well directed by a professional and well-briefed director."

But according to David Sobolov, one of the most experienced videogame voice actors in the world (just check out his website), the significant time pressures mean that close, in-depth direction is not always possible. "Often, there's a need to record a great number of lines, so to keep the session moving, once we've established the tone of the character we're performing, the director will silently direct us using the spreadsheet on the screen by simply moving the cursor down the page to indicate if he/she liked what we did. Or they'll make up a code, like typing an 'x' to ask us to give them another take..." It sounds, in effect, like a sort of acting battery farm, a grinding, dehumanising production line of disembodied phrases, delivered for hours on end. Hardly condusive to Oscar-winning performances.

Yet the establishment of a fully-rounded character is a vital element of the acting process. Most western drama schools conform to the model of acting developed by Russian Theatre practitioner Constantin Stanislavsy. His works on the development of character - An Actor Prepares, Building a Character and Creating a Role - remain essential reference texts, even though his methods have been superseded and remixed by dozens of acting luminaries ever since – most notably perhaps, Lee Strasberg, at The Actors Studio. Stanislavski placed enormous emphasis on the ability of the actor to understand and inhabit the character's life, not just the two hours of it presented on screen or stage, but everything that took place beforehand. This takes time and imagination – elements seemingly absent from the factory-line schedules of many recording sessions.

It's clear, however, that some studios have grasped this vital element. "The actors always have the opportunity to learn about the character before the session," says Emery of the work undertaken at Side. "For most leading roles the actor would have had a full audition, with a director present to brief them about the character and their motivations. Prior to a session they are sent their script and character bios, and where possible, an overview of the general story arc. This allows them to better understand the character they are to play and how they should be played."

But then there's an added inhibitive element in the videogame voice recording session – actors usually perform in isolation. This is, of course, a necessary evil as in-game dialogue will need to be chopped up, mixed and played in a variety of contexts. But this isn't much consolation to the actor. "I've only worked on one game where that wasn't the case," says Sobolov. "When I played The Arbiter in Halo Wars, they recorded cut scene dialogue with all the principal performers in the same room together much as they do in television animation. Most times we have to silently skip over the other character's lines (if they're shown to us at all) then deliver our dialogue as if we were having a conversation in real time." Again, this runs counter to drama training where the art of reacting to other performers is an intrinsic element.

Little wonder, then, that without a full script, a character chronology to study or other performers to interact with, voice acting can be both stilted and lacking in nuance. It's an intrinsic problem that the key voice over studios are really looking in to. Mark Estdale, director at casting and voice recording agency, Outsource Media, has been working for ten years on a system to provide voice over actors with a quick-n-dirty frame of reference for their characterisations.

"What the actor needs is something at the point of performance that they can react to," he explains. "To provide that, you need to throw away all previous script models. What we've done is build a database that can actually emulate game engine behaviours and recalls for the actor any kind of pertinent information - visuals from the game, audio, other actors' lines – and it's all instant recall. So you get the actor in the studio and when they're in the zone you hit them with this radical system – it's all on screen in front of them, and they're getting all the cues they'd get in the theatre or on a film production, they're not reliant on trying to figure out what the heck's going on."

Added to this, there's a very simple way to improve the quality of acting in most videogames: start early. "To achieve a cinematic level of quality that so many titles demand now, the voice acting can't be left to the end of the development cycle," maintains Emery. "Making character performances an integral part of the pre- and main production stages opens up a whole range of opportunities to improve the final quality." Mark Estdale wholeheartedly concurs. "Actors need to be cast when the developer is starting the design process. I'm working on one production now where we're there really early in development, and the whole cast is involved - they're giving voices to the characters as they're being designed."

Not only does this create a sense of ownership of the character, it also means that the director, writer, cast and game designers get to spark off each other – schlocky lumps of leaden dialogue, implausible character volte-faces and rampant cliché may all be avoided in a truly collaborative and respectful environment. In some ways, what developers need to do it stop drawing all their cinematic reference points from the big CGI-stuffed blockbusters and start looking at the likes of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh who employ improvisation and collaboration to build drama.

Ultimately, Emery pinpoints an evolving role within the game development process; instead of script writers, what is needed now are 'narrative designers', experts in the creation of plot and dialogue for an interactive medium. "Good narrative designers can work with game designers to ensure the story and dialogue becomes a fully integrated element of the game design, rather than a hindrance to pure interactivity. A lot of game players do not like to be stopped while a cut scene delivers story elements and clever Narrative design can ensure the story is delivered in a less obtrusive way.

"As narrative designers become more adept at delivering a compelling story in ways less obtrusive to game play, the distinction between 'Story' dialogue and 'World Filling' dialogue will continue to blur. The challenge will be to ensure ALL acting in games is believable, from in-game greetings, to death cries, to the epic monologue."

And Emery also highlights other vital elements of convincing non-linear narrative. "Good audio implementation ensures that individual files, separated for reasons of interactivity, can sound like fluid, natural, overlapping dialogue once triggered in the game. Using a professional director who is involved in casting, rehearsal and dialogue recordings makes a huge difference. It's essential to have someone who knows the project inside out, has been on board from the start, can talk to actors in their language and translate that into a performance."

The ultimate solution for Emery, however, is the emerging field of full performance capture, in which one actor provides motion and facial capture, as well as the voice. "For full performance capture sessions, it is more like a film shoot with script table reads, rehearsals and further familiarisation with the project all prior to an actual shoot," he says. "On the actual shoot the director will rehearse each scene with the actors together so they can get a feel of what will be going on in each scene and how they will interact and then have multiple live takes to get the required performance.

"On Dead Space: Extraction it was clear from the outset that the team was taking character performances in the game very seriously. They looked for actors to provide not only a vocal and facial performance but also facial likeness to be used in the game. Although the actors needed to have the right voice and the right look, the team were happy to be flexible about accent. The most important thing was to cast a group of distinct, believable characters and I think we really hit the mark, and the gaming press agreed with us."

The weird thing is, this is exactly the avenue Quantic Dream chose. Of the four principle characters in Heavy Rain, three were played by actors who provided the voice, motion and facial capture data. According to Madison Paige's body actor, Jacqui Ainsley, all the actors were given full scripts, and they spent three years on the project – ample time to inhabit their roles. Throughout the process, the game's creator and writer David Cage also provided oodles of background detail regarding the moral choices at the heart of the drama. They did everything right.

And certainly there are moments of profundity in the game, moments when the dialogue and performances click into place with spinetingling effect. It could be that the actors were inexperienced in games, that the audio implementation, with so many branching dialogue elements to cope with, could not always call up exactly the right vocal intonations for the moment.

Perhaps it is down to the ambition of the project, the fact that it has effectively created its own genre, that a few inherent weaknesses are cruelly magnified. The sheer size of the script (apparently 16 movies worth of text) may have contributed, though this scale is becoming more common these days. According to a preview of Rockstar's forthcoming adventure, LA Noire, in this month's Edge, the script weighs in at 22,000 pages. Yet still, the interactive drama, a genre at the forefront of narrative development, is in its infancy.

Most titles, however, sit in well-defined game types, developed by experienced studios. For them, there is no excuse anymore. David Sobolov is predictably passionate on the subject. "We're moving into a time where games are attempting to create an emotional experience rather than simply a visceral one. If developers intend to tell more complex stories they're going to need to hire the best talent they can find to complete that journey.

"A game can't be successful anymore if it's developed as a piece of software. It has to evoke emotional reactions and create a reality a gamer wants to buy into to be successful. In the best titles, good voice acting can be the glue that keeps a gamer immersed in the world that the developer is creating, often subconsciously. The human voice is the one thing in a game that's 100% real..."

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Telstra and Ericsson may have trialled a system intended to unify two-way radio and cellular communications, but Motorola thinks its adoption could be as much as a decade away.

The youth vote has always been a moving target for those seeking office and those who research the reasons and patterns of young voters in America. I am personally persuaded that this vote is not one that you can or should be counted upon to build a political base. It is such a fragile, shifting demographic that it is hard to tell what this segment of the populace will actually do from one year to the next.

We all know by now that President Obama did better with the 18-29 age group than any candidate since the vote was lowered to age 18. His poll numbers among this group were very, very good. A lot of analysis has gone into trying to figure out why. What we do know is that this age group voted by an overwhelming 2-1 ratio for Obama. Obama brought together, in 2008, high numbers of first-time voters, large numbers of young minorities and an exploding youth base. Some saw this is the beginning of a new Democratic movement politically.

Recent Pew Research Center data suggests that these voters are cooling towards Democrats in general and even President Obama. Paul Taylor, of Pew Research, recently said, “This is a generation of young adults who made a big splash politically in 2008 [only] a year and a half later show signs of disillusionment with the president and, perhaps, with politics itself.”

Don’t misunderstand this data. Young adults are still more liberal than older segments of the population. But in 2008 62% of this age group said they were Democrats and 30% Republicans. Now the numbers are 54% vs. 40%. That is a huge swing. It was, in fact, the largest percentage point jump by those who identified or leaned Republican among all voting age groups!

According to Pew large numbers in this age group say they still “like” the president but they are growing dissatisfied with the progress of change in Washington. Only 46% of those surveyed in this age group said Obama had made a real difference in changing Washington. 48% said he had made no change!

The only group that disapproved of Obama’s handling of the war in Afghanistan was the 18-29 age group. These young adults blame Obama’s opponents for his inability to bring about change so this may not signal a huge shift in the end. His appeal with them is still very high, or so it seems.

What is crumbling is voter enthusiasm. This age group has never been dependable on election day and it seems the large turnout in 2008 might not hold true in the future, though these things can change quickly. The Pew Research Center suggests that these numbers actually show that no party has a firm hold on these younger voters.

The millennial generation, those adults who are the children of the younger baby boomers and came of age in the new millennium can, and may, still reshape American politics. They are reshaping religious values and practices already. What is not so clear is what direction they will actually go when all is said and done. The evidence is very strong that we do not know how they will go. I look at this evidence and pray for a spiritual awakening and a new way, what I call the direction of missional-ecumenism. Whether or not these young Americans are Democrats or Republicans matters far less to me than whether or not they become full-orbed followers of Jesus Christ in ever increasing numbers. I think this ought to be the passion of every Christian. This is not a matter of party politics but of the heart and the mind of young Americans. Who will influence these young adults and what will form their worldview in the next decade or so? Those churches and leaders who are really discipling this generation will make the most difference in the end, not President Obama or any other politician.

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Columnist Mona Charen falsely claimed that the House health care reform bill contains mandated "racial and ethnic quotas for medical schools and other federal contractors." In fact, the bill contains no quota mandates.

From Charen's March 12 syndicated column:

Among the specifications of the House bill that passed last November are several sections that mandate racial and ethnic quotas for medical schools and other federal contractors. As Allan Favish reported in The American Thinker, the bill specifies that the secretary of Health and Human Services, "In awarding grants or contracts under this section ... shall give preference to entities that have a demonstrated record of ... training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds."

This, along with other provisions, is broad enough to cover every medical, nursing, dental school and teaching hospital in the country and guarantees the institutionalization of racial, sex, and ethnic quotas in perpetuity (though the use of the word "underrepresented" before "minority" ensures that the quotas will not apply to Asians or Jews).

The rationale for quotas, insofar as there is one, is that African-Americans and Hispanics have, on average, poorer health than other groups. Liberals assume that these disparities are the result of discrimination or lack of access to health care rather than other factors like poverty, eating habits, heredity, and fitness. If medical and dental schools are required to admit more minority applicants, newly minted minority professionals will tend to those "underserved" populations.

Of course, medical and dental schools have been practicing affirmative action for decades, but they've had trouble recruiting large numbers of minorities. Part of the problem is that African-Americans do not tend to gravitate to math and science (the solution to which is to be found in families and schools). Still, for the past few decades, less-qualified minorities have been offered spots in medical schools, with the result that: 1) Those minority professionals who would have qualified without affirmative action bear a stigma, and 2) less-qualified minorities fail licensing exams at much higher rates than their classmates. Is it a service to the African-American or Hispanic communities to provide physicians and dentists who are less capable than others? Will it improve health outcomes to be treated by less-qualified professionals?

McCaughey falsely suggested that "racial and ethnic preferences" were only criterion for grants. Charen's statement echoes a false suggestion previously advanced by serial health care misinformer Betsy McCaughey, that only "racial and ethnic preferences" would be used in providing education grants training nurses and creating secondary-school health science programs. [Wall Street Journal op-ed, 11/7/2009]

Bill lists several preferences for allocating training grants, including demonstrating a proven track record in training underrepresented minorities. In a July 21, 2009, column, American Thinker's Favish, whose work Charen cited, referenced Section 2213 of the draft House health care bill, which addresses the establishment of "a primary care training and capacity building program consisting of awarding grants and contracts." The section does not mandate quotas; rather, it establishes guidelines that the government "shall give preference to" in awarding the grants, including a proven track record "[t]raining individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds." From the bill:

''(d) PREFERENCE.--In awarding grants or contracts under this section, the Secretary shall give preference to entities that have a demonstrated record of the following:

''(1) Training the greatest percentage, or significantly improving the percentage, of health care professionals who provide primary care.

''(2) Training individuals who are from underrepresented minority groups or disadvantaged backgrounds.

''(3) A high rate of placing graduates in practice settings having the principal focus of serving in underserved areas or populations experiencing health disparities (including serving patients eligible for medical assistance under title XIX of the Social Security Act or for child health assistance under title XXI of such Act or those with special health care needs).

''(4) Supporting teaching programs that address the health care needs of vulnerable populations.

It’s a brand new week, which means it’s time for Mashable’s guide to upcoming social media and web events, parties, and conferences. For more upcoming event listings, check out Mashable’s Events section.

Is your event not on this list? Contact us at least one month before your event and let’s establish a media partnership.

Mashable’s Weekly Social Media and Marketing Event Guide is proudly supported by Eventbrite, the Web’s Event Marketplace.

March 15-16, 2010, London, UK: At Social Media World Forum, learn from social networks, brands, advertisers and analysts. Hear from leading social networks on their strategy, revenue models and how they are approaching the future. Worldwide case studies from global brands and corporations on their use of social media. Examine the current market conditions, future forecasts and predictions from leading analysts. Mention you are a Mashable reader to receive 15% discount.

March 17, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Join SF New Tech, the Bay Area’s largest and longest running monthly tech event, to get an early look at of some of the hottest new tech around. Famous for its sold out events where executives (and the occasional hacker or two) take to the stage to strut their stuff, SF New Tech is *the* place where early adaptors, developers, influnencers, venture capitalists, journalists, bloggers, and regular every-day folks converge to see the latest and greatest technology. Visit sfnewtech.com for details.

March 19, 2010, London, UK: Justmeans’ Social Media and Stakeholder Engagement Conference will bring together the top minds in sustainability, marketing, innovation and technology. This executive forum will explore how technology can enable sustainable business by involving stakeholders in the value creation process and will showcase examples of success and failure in this rapidly evolving market. Use this link for a 10% registration discount.

March 22-23, 2010, Paris, France: At Marketing 2.0 Conference, learn from brands’ social media initiatives, advertisers, researchers and analyst. Hear from leading people in the Social Media business on their strategy, revenue models and how they are approaching the upcoming trends in the Social Mediasphere. Worldwide case studies from global brands and corporations on their use of social media. Examine the current market conditions, future forecasts and predictions from leading researchers. The socialmash2010 discount code gives you €200 off.

March 22-23 & 25-26, 2010, Hong Kong & Singapore: Join us at the Social Media & PR conference. This comprehensive two-day event sees PR practitioners from leading global brands and agencies come together to share about the best practices, pitfalls to avoid, case studies, how-tos, measurement and ethics of social media in PR. See social media’s relevance to both B2B & B2C, discuss how new & traditional PR avenues can be integrated. Register today. Save 10% when you enter ‘Mashable‘ under ‘How did you know about this event’.

March 22-25, 2010, Dallas, TX: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute’s 17th Forum on Social Media for Government: How To Engage Your Employees And Citizens By Using The Latest Web 2.0 Technologies To Drive Communication Results, to learn how to capture the power of social media in your organization, along with helpful tools, tips and techniques to get started. Hear practical advice, firsthand, from leading government agencies and organizations such as: Transportation Security Administration; NASA; Microsoft U.S. Public Sector, CDC; GovLoop; Southwest Airlines; National Institutes of Health; U.S. Army Reserve; City of Sugar Land, TX; Missouri River Regional Library; City of Reno, NV; Texas Parks & Wildlife Department; Deloitte Services, LP; GolinHarris; 2ndSix; & Panetta Communications. Mention Mashable when registering to save $200.

March 22-26, New York, NY: Go beyond search at the Search Engine Strategies. Learn the newest trends, strategic action plans, and technology that industry leaders are employing today. Our experts will trace the natural evolution of search exploring topics such as: digital asset optimization, mobile application development, transition from search to discovery and more. SAVE 15% with code MHNY15. Program will focus on cutting edge strategies, tips, and tactics that will be driving search in 2010. Hear from the leading voices in search and digital like Avinash Kaushik, David Meerman Scott, Tim Ash, Ray Comstock and more.

March 23, 2010, San Francisco, CA: Swagapalooza is an experiment in viral media. On March 23rd, the world’s most-followed bloggers, tweeters, and digital influencers will gather to judge five-minute auditions from the creators of the latest, greatest, and most unexpected new products. Are you one of the world’s top bloggers or tweeters? If so you deserve to be begged for your attention and your following. Your taste and discernment make you the perfect judge of these marketers who will come to cajole, beg, and bribe you with more free stuff than you can imagine... Tickets are free for those who qualify.

March 23, 2010, Sacramento, CA: Northern California Social Media Society Launch Party. Join NCSMS in celebrating their launch. Celebrate with cocktails, appetizers and door prizes; learn about the Society and network with other individuals and businesses. The NCSMS provides an opportunity for their members to collaborate with other individuals and advocates as well as continue to grow social media marketing skills and smarts. Whether you want to learn or lead, this is a great opportunity to be part of an organization which is dedicated to the advancement of social media. The event is free to those who register.

March 23-24, 2010, Berlin, Germany: Learn, discuss and explore the challenges and commercial opportunities that exist within the mobile internet ecosystem and make the most of best-practice perspectives over a two day period offering a programme packed with case studies, roundtable discussions, industry snapshots, masterclasses and fishbowl sessions. Significant discount for Mobile Operators, Online/Mobile Communities, and Content providers! Go to iir-mobileinternet.com/mashable for more information.

March 24, 2010, New York, NY: Social Reputation Management: Protecting and Strengthening Your Brand Across the Social Web is a conference that will share the best case studies on how communicators and marketers listen to conversations, monitor and comprehend what is being said, and engage through the social web. The case studies will be followed by moderated interactive roundtables. Use promo code MASH for a discounted rate of $155.

March 24, 2010, Rutherford, NJ: Learn about how you would grow your business, talk to your customers, interact and engage. Social Media will help your business grow, financially and in relation to your customers. Topics include Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogging, etc. This workshop is geared for small businesses that want to grow their fanbase and reach potential customers and make your relationships better with by using the social web. Click over to socialbiz324.eventbrite.com to purchase tickets to the event and use the code mashable to save 50%.

March 24-25, 2010, San Francisco, CA: EyeforTravel’s Social Media Strategies for Travel conference goes beyond the ‘what is social media?’ debates (that were so 2008!) and examines the strategic importance of social media to travel brands. The 2 day conference will share leading case studies, hits, tips and advice from top travel companies including JetBlue, Hilton, Virgin America and more. Use the discount MASHABLE to save $100 on the registration fee!

March 25, 2010, Santa Monica, CA: Join us for more rock solid networking with tech geeks, VCs, entrepreneurs and good folks just like you. Schmoozd is an exclusive social mixer bringing together professionals in marketing, advertising, technology, social media and startups. The event is designed to facilitate knowledge sharing, relationship building and deal making. For more information, please visit www.schmoozd.com. Mashable readers get 50% off when registering via this link.

March 25, 2010, Toronto, ON: Join Nick La, creator of the popular blog Web Designer Wall, owner of N.Design Studio, IconDock, and Best Web Gallery for a one-day immersion into WordPress, the world’s most popular publishing platform. If you want to learn how to create your own WordPress themes, understand how to use template tags and conditional tags to format and display the data you want, or how to use WordPress as a content management system, Nick will take you from WordPress Zero to Hero in 7 hours flat.

March 25-26 2010, Atlanta, GA: REtechSouth: The only event in the Southeast that ties cutting edge social media concepts and practices, plus tips and tactics on existing technologies, to the unique challenges of the current real estate market. It’s worth attending just to absorb all the expertise that will be in the room, as real estate’s best and brightest direct their attention towards your needs. Presented by Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. Save $29 off registration by using the code Mashable.

March 29, 2010, Portland OR: The social media conference for marketers, Social Fresh is not about concept, but focused purely on case studies from the front lines. Learn what social media can really do for business bottom lines. One day, 35 speakers from companies like Intel, Ford, Comcast, Nike and many more. As well as keynote Peter Shankman. Register now and use coupon code mashable for 15% off.

March 30, 2010, London, UK: The upcoming Hit Me! Social Media and Search event is designed for business owners and entrepreneurs who want to find out the latest practical business advice and information about Social Media and Search. Freshbusinessthinking.com has partnered with Microsoft to deliver this power-packed one day event featuring experts and leading practitioners from the world of social media and search. Stats published by Nielsen show that social media usage has increased by 82% in the last year. The challenge for organisations of all sizes is how to use social media to drive business. Over 1500 delegates have attended our one-day events and the average rating is 8.5 out of 10 – the next one is shaping up to be the best ever with a host of experts on hand to give you the information and advice you need to grow your business online. Mashable readers: get a discount entering promotional code MASHABLE.

March 30-April 1, 2010, San Jose, CA: Become Location Enabled at Where 2.0. Now in its sixth year, Where 2.0 is one of the world’s foremost events dedicated to exploring the emerging technologies in the geospatial industry. At Where 2.0, we expose the tools pushing the boundaries of the location frontier. Join us and meet the people behind the mashups, the people behind the platforms, and the people looking ahead to the future of geospatial. Find out what’s viable now, what’s lurking just below the radar and how to gain a competitive edge. Register now and save 15% at en.oreilly.com/where2010. Use code whr10mash.

April 5, 2010, New York, NY: You need to be a social media specialist. Today’s marketplace demands it. Content, regardless of medium or platform, is regularly created, curated, commented upon and shared by consumers. If you’re not strategizing to maximize the social component, you’re missing prime opportunities. Register for the IAB Social Media Marketplace to gain insights from Federated Media’s John Battelle, MediaLink’s Wenda Harris Millard, Del Monte’s Doug Chavez, Deep Focus’s Ian Schafer, GE’s Andrew Markowitz and more. Use code mashable to save $100.

April 7, 2010, Cincinnati, OH: BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media features 8 great case studies on the best social media programs at large corporations. AT&T, Dell, Duke Energy, General Mills, Hilton, Procter & Gamble, Rogers Communications, and Tyson Foods share case studies in corporate social media. You’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal. From GasPedal and the Social Media Business Council. Get $39 off registration by using the code ILoveMashable.

April 7, 2010, New York, NY: Attend the Social Media Advertising Consortium’s April NYC Salon. Join SMAC members for a lively discussion on how brands are organized around social media. A panel of top brands including IBM and PepsiCo, and agencies will share insights, look at best practices, campaign successes and discuss what’s next in measurement and research. Discussion followed by networking, wine & light hors d’oeuvres. The cost is free for SMAC members and $45 for non-members. Mention Mashable when registering to save 10%. Space is limited so register early.

April 7-8, 2010, New York, NY: Strengthen your business with mobile marketing, apps, video, and content at Think Mobile, a conference focused on mobile strategy, marketing, and mobile apps. Learn how to get your brand in front of the right customers, how to handle mobile content, and how to make money in mobile. The full day dedicated to mobile apps will cover building an app team, designing user interfaces, marketing your app, and targeting development for specific platforms. Speakers represent AdMob, Pandora, Nielsen, Bravo, PCMag.com, and more. Register with promo code TMMASH and save 20%!

April 7-9, 2010 Sydney, Australia: ConnectNow is a three day event focusing on the intersection of social media, emerging technologies and enterprise. The first two days is conference, where you’ll learn from international specialists how to leverage off new trends in marketing innovation such as augmented reality, location based services, social search, the real-time web, mobile’s growing dominance and the importance of ’social capital’. Day three is workshop day specifically for non-profits, charities, Government and community groups. Attend ConnectNow and leave equipped with actionable strategies to implement to your business. Register online and email info@connectnow.net.au quoting: Mashablemates to get 10% discount!

April 8-10, 2010, Atlanta, GA: The 2010 Nonprofit Technology Conference will bring together more than 1,000 nonprofit leaders, IT innovators, communications gurus, fundraising superstars and nonprofit staffers from all over. You’ll learn the latest trends, practical how-tos, and IT solutions that can optimize your organization’s use of technology and help you meet your mission to create more social good in the world — and you’ll have a good time, to boot. Select “Mashable” from the “How did you hear?” field to receive an $100 discount.

April 9, 2010, London, UK: Natural SEO, a thupr event, aims to resolve some of the myths around SEO. The event brings together people who blog (for themselves or on behalf of others) with tools designed to help them, and experts prepared to share their wisdom. There are discussion streams and the chance to try out some of the software on site in a relaxed, conversational environment. The event is free, but limited to 100 places.

April 12-15, 2010, Santa Clara, CA: The 6th annual MySQL Conference & Expo, presented by O’Reilly Media, brings over 2,000 open source and database enthusiasts together to harness the power of MySQL and celebrate the huge MySQL ecosystem. The O’Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo is a new event that builds on the tradition of past MySQL conferences (previous events were co-presented with MySQL AB and with Sun). This inclusive, innovative event will showcase the full spectrum of the MySQL ecosystem, from global corporations and diverse service vendors to start-ups and grassroots projects. Our growing lineup of speakers, program committee members, and sponsors represent a wide array of some of the most influential companies and projects in the MySQL community. Register now and save an additional 15% at: en.oreilly.com/mysql2010. Use discount code mys10msh.

April 12-15, 2010, Washington, DC: Attend the Advanced Learning Institute’s Forum on Social Media for Recruiting in Government & Defense: Using Web 2.0 Technologies To Attract, Retain, And Engage Top Talent To Become An Employer Of Choice, to learn how to incorporate the power of social media into your organization’s recruiting strategy, along with helpful tools, practical tips and techniques to get started. Hear practical advice, firsthand, from leading government agencies and organizations such as the: Internal Revenue Service; Library of Congress; Booz Allen Hamilton; Sodexo, Inc.; U.S. Air Force; Peace Corps; Arbita, Inc.; Panetta Communications; CollegeRecruiter.com; Bold Interactive; Campbell-Ewald; Brazen Careerist & CampusGov. Mention Mashable when registering to save $200.

April 12-16, 2010, New York, NY: Attend New York Entrepreneur Week (NYEW), a non-profit movement formed around a single belief: entrepreneurs change the world. The New York Entrepreneur Week movement gives you the opportunity to actively engage the foremost entrepreneurs, investors and dealmakers both in the State and from around the world. Now is the time for entrepreneurs who have the will and drive to prove they can achieve anything, to stand up and come together in New York State for another groundbreaking NYEW event. Receive 75% off with code: Mashable 2010.

April 16-17, 2010, Royal Oak, MI: FutureMidwest, the region’s largest two-day technology and knowledge conference, is aimed at helping professionals successfully add digital strategies to their communications programs. Technology and online tools have dramatically changed the way we do business. FutureMidwest will highlight the effect this transition has had on companies. The conference will feature presentations, group breakout sessions, relationship-building opportunities and influencers who are redefining business in the digital age. For a 50% discount, e-mail your name to hello AT FutureMidwest DOT com with the subject line “It’s Happening Mashable.” Then go to the Web site and register as a student.

April 16-18, 2010 Montreal, Quebec, Canada: The iPhone Boot Camp offers a three day workshop on iPhone and iPad Development, covering basic to advanced features such as web services, database, core location and animation, audio and camera and augmented reality. The workshops are limited to fifteen developers and is a full 24 hours of training. The iPhone Boot Camp is a well established certificate training program that has trained over 200 iPhone developers in dozens of cities since 2008. Our instructors are all developers with several apps in the store and experienced trainers using proven course material. Most developers are able to develop an app for sale in the app store after completing the training. The(...)

By Carmi Levy, Betanews

I risk being tagged a curmudgeon, but I'll say it anyway: 3D television isn't ready for prime time. It isn't ready for your living room, either (or any living room, frankly).

Headlines claiming 3D TV to be the greatest thing since the creation of 2D TV, are sadly more than a little hyperbolic, and I wish the industry would ease back on the PR push to get us to replace our still-new LCD and plasma televisions with 3D versions.

I know this comes as a bit of a disappointment for vendors like Samsung and Panasonic, which last week started selling 3D TVs through US retailers. But anyone who ponies up a triple-digit price premium for the right to wear goofy, overpriced glasses to watch content that doesn't exist yet and can't be broadcast over conventional distribution channels is, to put it gently, gullible.

Someday isn't here yet

Samsung, Panasonic, and other television vendors have been working themselves into a tizzy over 3D TV ever since this year's Consumer Electronics Show, where 3D TV was the darling. Unfortunately, they're all in for a very hard lesson. Despite the headlines, breathless press releases, and similarly breathless product reviews, 3D TV has no immediate future in the living room. That may very well change, someday, but it'll take a whole lot of evolution -- in technology, content and marketing -- before 3D makes the mainstream leap from movie theaters to living rooms. Here's why:

• No content. While a growing percentage of top-grossing movies over the past couple of years have been 3D, the vast majority of movies and virtually all televised content remain conventional 2D. While Avatar has used breakthrough 3D cinematography to become the most successful movie of all time, it's an exception to the rule. How many other movies really need the full-on 3D treatment?
• No distribution. If you want to watch a 3D movie, you're buying or renting a 3D Blu-ray disc. Current-generation cable or satellite-based distribution simply can't support the bandwidth required by a 3D broadcast. Will this change someday? Certainly, and for DirecTV customers, who may have access to a grand total of three 3D channels by June, soon. But for the rest of us, the best you can hope for is a half-resolution 3D signal from your television provider. And don't be surprised if you're charged a premium even for that half-baked "solution." Either way, if you do the math, your fancy new screen will be yesterday's news by the time the majority of distributors get with the 3D program...assuming they ever do.
• No affordability. Every new technology carries a significant premium, and 3D screens are no different. Samsung's $2,899 package for a 46-inch screen, two sets of glasses, and a Blu-ray player seems rich in a world awash with sub-$1,000 sets. Want more glasses? They're $250 a pop, a figure which will be inscribed into your brain the moment you discover your five-year-old has left them on the living room floor just as the dog sniffed around for something new to chew. Economies of scale will, as they always eventually do, bring prices down. But do you really want to wear special glasses every time you watch television? As technology advances and potentially (or hopefully) makes glasses unnecessary, will your expensive new acquisition even be compatible? Don't count on it.
• No relevance. 3D has been around in one form or another for decades. It's had more just-about-finally-almost-here moments than any technology deserves to have. Despite the fact that it's finally moving past its cheesy/campy movie past and becoming an accepted cinematographic tool, television is an entirely different ballgame. We don't watch TV like we watch movies. The typical TV viewing session isn't an event. Watching the local news, Stephen Colbert, or the mercifully last few episodes of Lost will never qualify as events, either. And I don't want to see my local weather dude in 3D any more than I want to feel as if I can touch Mr. Colbert as he faux-grills his guests. Although 3D adds some value to some admittedly limited forms of entertainment (such as movies), it adds patently none to the vast majority of today's televised content.

I understand the full-court press to move us all into 3D TV. Manufacturers are hurting. After spending most of the decade coaxing us out of our now all-but-gone CRT-based televisions and into bigger, flashier and, yes, more expensive LCD and plasma flat panels, they sat quietly by as we hunkered down though the recession. Now they want -- nay, need -- for us to have an entirely new reason to buy new stuff. There's always got to be a reason to drive the consumer need to replace things before their time. And if this year's reason doesn't take off, watch for next year's CES to carry an entirely different theme.

When my Betanews colleague Tim Conneally called it kids-stuff in an article last week, he was uncomfortably (for vendors) close to the truth. For all the novelty value of watching a 3D movie on a properly equipped home theatre, the realities of content and economics mean it'll be a long time before any of this is as routinely workable as regular old 2D HDTV is today.

Dreams don't always come true

In the ideal world, vendors announcing products based on radically new technologies would be greeted by thunderous applause and near-universal approval from rapturous consumers eager to spend whatever it takes to remain current. In the real world, however, announcements are rarely met with such unmitigated adulation. Buyers who have seen and heard it all before are growing tired of overly optimistic vendor claims, and are rightfully challenging them. In many cases, they're simply ignoring them outright.

That seems to be happening in my immediate circle of friends and colleagues, where no one has any plans to replace their current equipment with 3D anytime soon. Their universal conclusion -- which I share -- is it's too early, and too many additional pieces have to come into play before it becomes a reasonable and reasonably affordable choice for consumers. As hard as vendors have decided to push their 3D wares in 2010, they're dreaming in three-dimensional Technicolor if they think this is the year the mass television market moves beyond two dimensions.

Carmi Levy is a Canadian-based independent technology analyst and journalist still trying to live down his past life leading help desks and managing projects for large financial services organizations. He comments extensively in a wide range of media, and works closely with clients to help them leverage technology and social media tools and processes to drive their business.

About 240 million people worldwide are missing more than one tooth, and while only 10 million have opted for dental implants. Also, there are currently 32 million people in the US that wear dentures and 20 million have fit, function and appearance problems! The good news is that over the past decade dental implants have become the state-of-the-art way to permanently replace missing teeth compared to old fashioned and out dated 17th century technologies. Having dental implants can end the embarrassment of missing one’s teeth so patients can chew and smile again. With Teeth-In-One-Day and even Teeth-In-One-Hour Dental Implants patients are able to walk out of Dr. Irfan Atcha's Dental Implant Center with fixed non-removable implant teeth that would normally have taken years to complete with traditional outdated approaches. (PRWeb Mar 15, 2010)

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2010/03/prweb3696914.htm

Author : Kathy Kachelries, Staff Writer

There are two things I hate about a job like this: Carrie, and the viewer-at-home.

That’s not true.  There are dozens of things I hate: network executives, directors, producers, footage editors with their nasally little ‘we could have used a little better resolution here. ”  I hate pretty much everyone involved in a documentary, but it’s the viewer-at-home who matters.  Once that viewer decides they don’t like Carrie, don’t like fish, or don’t like learning, all of us are out of a job.

“There’s the entrance!” Carrie squeals.  If nothing else, she has enthusiasm.

It’s a low-budget gig.  Unlike Carrie up ahead, who was lucky enough to be female, skinny, blond, and (of lesser importance) a marine biologist, Tommy-crap-for-lighting and Joe-the-assistant-camera-guy (that’s me) actually have to lug junk into these tunnels.  The sound guy and lead cameraman are resting cozy on the boat, practically retired.

“Over here,” she calls, swimming smoothly over a long-still turnstile and into the submerged station lobby.  I bring the cameras around an ancient ticket machine but find nothing more than a ragged hole, smaller than a kid’s fist.  “There are thousands of these,” Carrie continues, looking at my headcam.  Who the hell wears makeup underwater?  “Even though their slowed metabolism gives them twenty or thirty minutes underwater, the skeletal structure hasn’t changed much.  If it weren’t for these nests, they’d make easy dinner for anything down here.  A single Long Island Crocodile could take out a whole school in seconds.

Great.  Crocodiles.  I really ought to read a pamphlet or two about this junk before strapping on the cam and jumping overboard.

My comm beeps and the cameraman patches in, private to me and Tommy.  “Can we get a shot of these rats?”

“Carrie, they want rats,” I say, switching frequencies.

“Be patient.”  Her primary concerns always involve creatures lacking higher brain function.

“She says be patient.”

“We’re working overtime here,” he says.  I hear the hiss of a bottle opening.

On the main channel, Carrie’s still rambling science.  “Marine biologists continue their search for the secrets of the tunnel rat,” she says.  “Despite intensive study, their rapid evolution remains a mystery, and we can only hope that in decades to come-”

“Joe, can you get a better shot of that hole?” Tommy comms.

Carrie, caught up in describing the rats’ miraculously pathetic life, doesn’t notice as I clickswitch my handcam to fisheye without turning my helmet camera from her face.

And then, Tommy delivers a kick to the ticket machine with so much force that I have no idea how he pulled it off with flippers.

They crawl and swim, dozens, maybe hundreds, not just from the hole but from the ticket slot as well, from unseen gaps behind and beneath the machine.  An emptying hive of nearly hairless grey and pink rodents, tails swishing and feet scrabbling for purchase as a stream of bubbles trail upward from a corner.

“That’s what we need!” open-comms the cameraman.  “We can edit out that kick, right?”

Only the glow of Tommy’s sidelight lets me see Carrie shake her head.  “You can’t just empty a whole colony like that!” she says, voice weak.  “Do you have any idea how territorial–”

“Look, Carr, we’re making a documentary here,” comes a new voice, the assistant director.  Asshole must have been monitoring everything.

“They’ll only invade another colony, and–”

“Let the marine biologists worry about that junk, okay?  All of you, back to the boat, and–”

“I am a marine biologist.”

“Back to the boat.  Now.”

It’s a month until filming starts on Carrie’s next Learning Channel adventure, and hopefully, it’ll be somewhere warm.

An extended outtake sequence from director Ron Howard’s “Funny or Die’s Presidential Reunion” featuring Will Ferrell as George W. Bush and Dana Carvey as George Bush Sr. is making the rounds on the Internet. The original clip has attracted almost three million views.

This new outtake clip is an extended conversation (two minutes and 35 seconds compared to just a few seconds in the original version) with Ferrell and Carvey riffing off of one another in their roles. Some father and son issues start to bubble up (pardon the pun) and things get a little weird.

Funny or Die produced and distributed the Ron Howard-directed “Presidential Reunion” skit, which brought together two decades of Saturday Night Live presidents — Ferrell as George W. Bush, Carvey as Bush Sr., Fred Armisen as Barack Obama, Darrell Hammond as Bill Clinton, Dan Akroyd as Jimmy Carter, Chevy Chase as Gerald Ford and surprisingly, Jim Carrey as Ronald Reagan. It also features Maya Rudolph as a weight-lifting Michelle Obama.

The video directed viewers’ attention to financial aid reform organization Main Street Brigade. We’ve embedded the new Carvey and Ferrell outtake below, along with the original video and two other outtake videos.

Tags: celebrities, comedy, dana carvey, funny or die, george bush sr., george w. bush, Political, politics, saturday night live, sketch, snl, viral videos, web series, will ferrell

I became aware of Joseph Girzone’s Joshua series some years ago. I knew they were selling like hotcakes but this might have been the very reason I didn’t give them the time of day. Their very popularity tended to put me off. I guess that says more about me than I care to admit but such books were not on my shelves. Actually my first real exposure to Girzone was through his little book titled Trinity. I wanted to determine if Girzone’s view of God was both helpful and orthodox. (In case you want to know, it is!)

Jospeh F. Girzone retired from the active Catholic priesthood in 1981 and embarked on a second career as a writer and speaker. In 1995 he established the Joshua Foundation, an organization dedicated to making Jesus better known throughout the world. He lives in Altamont, New York.

What Father Girzone clearly possesses is a unique ability to make Jesus' words and actions come to life for contemporary audiences. I found myself, in reading four of his books in the Joshua series, often moved to reflect on the heart of Jesus for the broken and marginalized. His series provides fictional depictions of Jesus' return (Joshua) to the present-day world. Joshua is a human person who people do not know what to do with when they encounter him through his words and actions. The Joshua series has clearly inspired millions of readers have read these phenomenal best-sellers.

The first book in the series, and the one that launched Girzone on his new career as a writer, is titled: Joshua: A Parable for Today. This was followed by what appears to be about several dozen books in the Joshua series that is now almost three-decades in the making. If you want to get into Girzone I suggest the place to begin is still with the original book: Joshua: A Parable for Today. It will intrigue you and almost certainly make you think a great deal more about the uniqueness of Jesus in a whole new way. I also enjoyed one of his more recent books, Joshua’s Family (2007), which is rightly called a prequel to his earlier books. It deals with a young Joshua in his family context. Nothing silly, like the pseudo-gospel accounts is to be found here at all. Another book, The Parables of Joshua (2001), did not move me in quite the same way since Girzone’s interpretation of the parables is both exasperating and even questionable at times. (The interpretation of biblical parables is always problematic and trying to make them fit into modern political, religious and social contexts is particularly difficult.)

This last comment leads me to the major question that I have about all of Girzone’s fiction: How much of the interpretation in these well-written novels is the result of Girzone’s political and social views and how much of it is based on good, solid understanding of the Scripture and the biblical record that we do have of the earthly life of Jesus? Let me hasten to say that Joseph Girzone is writing fiction. It will bother some very conservative Christians that a writer would even attempt to fictionalize a modern character who represents Jesus in our world but I am not among those who question the use of this genre in this way. The fact is clear: Girzone’s writing can serve as a great tool for making you rethink Jesus in some very good ways.

Joseph Girzone’s most recent book is Jesus: A New Understanding (2009). This is one of the rare non-fiction books that he has written. It is an unusual attempt to allow the stories of Jesus that we have in the New Testament to inform an account of Jesus that is somewhere between a classical Christology and a modern reckoning with the human person of Jesus that we see in the New Testament Gospels. I sometimes disagreed with a point Girzone makes here or there but more times than not I found this book very hard to put down. I took it on a trip in November and read it in a few days. Honestly, it often thrilled me! The author’s distinctly Catholic view came through, and at times he made his case for this view quite powerfully. On a few occasions I felt like some special effort was made that went beyond what we actually know about Jesus.

After reading some of Girzone’s work (about seven books in all) I began to search for information about him on the Internet. He is loved and despised, as you can find out on your own. I am not an apologist for Girzone but I will tell you that I thoroughly enjoyed Joshua. I can see why some Catholics are troubled by Girzone’s Joshua since the author puts him right in the middle of several Roman Catholic conflicts in the modern day. His view will clearly not sit well with those who believe the Vatican should not be questioned. Again, his views seem (at this point in my reading) to represent some liberal Catholic thinking on certain social and political issues but at the same time he seems totally committed to allow the Scripture to guide him, often in a most surprising and helpful way.

Einstein, who would be 131 today, needs no introduction. The foremost mathematician of the 20th Century, he held a position at the Institute of Advanced Study, one of the most storied intellectual centers in the world. Nobel Prize. He published papers on such physics-related topics as molecular physics, thermodynamics, the behavior of photons, statistical mechanics, electromagnetism, fluid mechanics, quantum mechanics and so on. Before he became a professor he worked in the Swiss Patent Office for nearly a decade, evaluating the latest electrical inventions.

OK, he was a genius, we get it. But perhaps the best thing we can learn from Al was his humanity. He wasn't a computer: he made mistakes, he had pet theories that he promoted even though they were patently wrong; he pooh-poohed other science that turned out to be true.

What we can learn from Einstein's mistakes is that it's alright to make them ourselves. Let's make a glorious mess of that next project. Let's try out something that probably won't work. Let's tilt at the windmills of established thought. Who knows, we might learn something?

At  right, a picture of Taco, a ten-week-old siberian husky puppy who moved in with us last week!

Some of you may have seen my final column in Inc., in which I announce my retirement from blogging effective March 18th, the 10-year anniversary of Joel on Software.

Writing for Inc. was an enormous honor, but it was very different than writing on my own website. Every article I submitted was extensively rewritten in the house style by a very talented editor, Mike Hofman. When Mike got done with it, it was almost always better, but it never felt like my own words. I look back on those Inc. columns and they literally don’t feel like mine. It’s as if somebody kidnapped me and replaced me with an indistinguishable imposter who went to Columbia Journalism School. Or I slipped into an alternate universe where Joel Spolsky is left-handed and everything he does is subtlely different.

I’m not going to stop writing altogether.

What I am stopping is the traditional opinionated essay that has characterized Joel on Software for a decade. I’m not going to write Ten Ways to Get VCs to Salivate, I’m not going to write Why You Have To Buy a $10,000 Italian Espresso Machine for your Programmers, and I’m not going to write Python is For Aspergers Geeks or Ruby is for Tear-streaked Emo Teenagers. After a decade of this, the whole genre of Hacker News fodder is just too boring to me personally. It’s still a great format... the rest of you, knock yourselves out... I just can’t keep doing that particular thing.

There will still be some posts here—don’t unsubscribe. There will be announcements of new projects, stories of things that I’m doing, and links to other things I might write, like HgInit, the Mercurial tutorial.

Philip Greenspun and Dave Winer (with DaveNet, even before Scripting News) pioneered the Internet Pundit style of essay writing which has served so well for fifteen years. They started as lone voices in a new medium, but the genre spread like wildfire. It was perfectly prognosticated in the 1990 Christian Slater movie Pump Up The Volume. If you’ve already forgotten it, here’s what happens (not a spoiler): Slater plays a kid with a low-power radio station in his bedroom, broadcasting in the middle of the night to the other isolated, angsty kids in his high school. Interesting drama ensues. 102 minutes later, by the time the credits roll, high school kids everywhere are spouting their opinions on their own pirate radio stations. And that’s exactly what happened with blogging, until we got where we are today, with millions of people expressing themselves and using the exact same narrative techniques and stories and styles that the first bloggers pioneered.

What we need now, I feel, is not another essay repeating No Silver Bullet for the 18,000th time. We need something that is more objective (based on measurable truth and falseness rather than just lists of anecdotes about successful projects and failed projects). We need something that reflects the best new ideas about what authorship means in 2010, not just electronic forms of 18th-century pamphlets. We need to stop rewriting the same things again and again (fail fast! NDAs are worthless! Execution matters, not ideas! Use the right tools for the job!). Instead we should start filling in the long tail of knowledge.

So that’s what I’m going to do with the next decade.

More details on my faux retirement:

• I’m drastically cutting back on speaking engagements. I already committed to speak at Business of Software 2010, in Boston in October, so that’s still on.
• This week’s StackOverflow Podcast will be the last in that format. Jeff and I are working on a new format and will come up with something exciting, new and different, so stay tuned for the details, but the current format is getting kind of tired.
• Although I appreciate that many people find Twitter to be valuable, I find it a truly awful way to exchange thoughts and ideas. It creates a mentally stunted world in which the most complicated thought you can think is one sentence long. It’s a cacophony of people shouting their thoughts into the abyss without listening to what anyone else is saying. Logging on gives you a page full of little hand grenades: impossible-to-understand, context-free sentences that take five minutes of research to unravel and which then turn out to be stupid, irrelevant, or pertaining to the television series Battlestar Galactica. I would write an essay describing why Twitter gives me a headache and makes me fear for the future of humanity, but it doesn’t deserve more than 140 characters of explanation, and I’ve already spent 820.
• The Joel on Software discussion group, in long decline, will close. The Business of Software group will remain open.

Need to hire a really great programmer? Want a job that doesn't drive you crazy? Visit the Joel on Software Job Board: Great software jobs, great people.