*Useful* location-based services

Okay, I'll admit it: I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to the current fad for location-based services. Stuff like Foursquare strikes me as somewhere between intrusive and unsettling. If I lived in the city, I could just barely see using it, but out here in the 'burbs it seems like a mostly useless concept to me.

That said, it's clear that there is power in the idea, nicely illustrated in an article in yesterday's Times, talking about a new service to fight identity theft using location services. The idea is simple and elegant: they monitor your credit card and your cell phone, and send an alert if there's a transaction that doesn't line up, on the theory that somebody might have stolen your card number.

It seems far from necessarily perfect -- for example, online transactions wouldn't work with this, since the "location" of the transaction is often far away. So I'd worry about false alarms. But it's still clever, and I suspect could be used to very good effect as an early warning of a stolen credit card. Indeed, the banks themselves might be smart to offer this service themselves, since they often wind up on the hook for fraudulent transactions.

Others? I know of Bump, which uses exact positioning to set up connections between two cell phones so you can do app-to-app transactions, but not much else. Are there other location-based services (aside, obviously, from Maps) that are more than just toys?

*Useful* location-based services

Okay, I'll admit it: I'm a bit of a Luddite when it comes to the current fad for location-based services. Stuff like Foursquare strikes me as somewhere between intrusive and unsettling. If I lived in the city, I could just barely see using it, but out here in the 'burbs it seems like a mostly useless concept to me.

That said, it's clear that there is power in the idea, nicely illustrated in an article in yesterday's Times, talking about a new service to fight identity theft using location services. The idea is simple and elegant: they monitor your credit card and your cell phone, and send an alert if there's a transaction that doesn't line up, on the theory that somebody might have stolen your card number.

It seems far from necessarily perfect -- for example, online transactions wouldn't work with this, since the "location" of the transaction is often far away. So I'd worry about false alarms. But it's still clever, and I suspect could be used to very good effect as an early warning of a stolen credit card. Indeed, the banks themselves might be smart to offer this service themselves, since they often wind up on the hook for fraudulent transactions.

Others? I know of Bump, which uses exact positioning to set up connections between two cell phones so you can do app-to-app transactions, but not much else. Are there other location-based services (aside, obviously, from Maps) that are more than just toys?

Scary Demo Day

This season has mostly been off from demos for me. That's sad but probably necessary: I've concluded that the grey in my beard makes me less effective at college activity fairs than I used to be. (Borderline counterproductive.) But today is a dance demo, which is normally my meat and drink. It's bloody scary, though, for one simple reason: the target audience is ages 11-14.

It's going to be at the Swampscott Library, part of an educational program there; Valerian is running some fighting and I'm running some dance. I've never taught this age range before, though, and I'm guessing wildly about what I can expect. Moreover (and this didn't occur to me until a couple of weeks ago), I'm not sure how much the "cootie factor" is going to come into play. The *vast* majority of our dances require partners, and I don't have a clear sense on how much of a problem that's going to be.

So I'm going to play it by ear. Fortunately, expectations aren't very high or concrete here. So I'll teach a dance or two, and adjust from there. I figure that I'll run anywhere from 2-10 dances, depending on how they're received. If need be, I'll stress the bransles and keep the partnered dances to a minimum. One way or another, it's going to be a learning experience...

Scary Demo Day

This season has mostly been off from demos for me. That's sad but probably necessary: I've concluded that the grey in my beard makes me less effective at college activity fairs than I used to be. (Borderline counterproductive.) But today is a dance demo, which is normally my meat and drink. It's bloody scary, though, for one simple reason: the target audience is ages 11-14.

It's going to be at the Swampscott Library, part of an educational program there; Valerian is running some fighting and I'm running some dance. I've never taught this age range before, though, and I'm guessing wildly about what I can expect. Moreover (and this didn't occur to me until a couple of weeks ago), I'm not sure how much the "cootie factor" is going to come into play. The *vast* majority of our dances require partners, and I don't have a clear sense on how much of a problem that's going to be.

So I'm going to play it by ear. Fortunately, expectations aren't very high or concrete here. So I'll teach a dance or two, and adjust from there. I figure that I'll run anywhere from 2-10 dances, depending on how they're received. If need be, I'll stress the bransles and keep the partnered dances to a minimum. One way or another, it's going to be a learning experience...

Demo: check

In the end, quite a good demo.

I got to the library a bit before 6pm, and found a sign outside saying "Swords and Pizza". Basically, it was kicking off the library's teen activities series, and they had a crystal-clear idea of how to get them in.

We started outside: three fighters took turns beating on each other for a while, showing off a variety of weapons forms and falling over a bunch. That was fun for a while, but the kids *really* got into it when the fighters offered each a chance to take a sword and whack at the fighters themselves. Each kid got to beat one fighter into submission, and they mostly took great glee in doing so. (A couple of the girls were actually the ones who got mostly seriously into it.)

We went inside and snarfed pizza. (This making my third consecutive meal of pizza, so I just had one slice, and had leftover tikka masala when I got home.) Then I took over and ran the dancing.

Fortunately, my instincts are still good. I had a set list planned, which I immediately threw out: too many partner dances, and not enough energy. I normally start such things slow and safe, with Bransle Cassandra, but that would clearly bore the hell out of the kids. So I instead started off with Turkish (nee Maltese) Bransle -- not 100% period, but a great warmup: the start was slow enough for everyone to feel safe, and the suiciding got everyone's energy up. (I used the Hyperborea recording: the best and most obscure disc of SCA dance music out there.) Then Petit Riense, which was of course utter *chaos* on the floor (something like 8 sets, mostly made up of kids), but order wasn't the point of the exercise. Then Montarde Bransle, by the end of which even the kids were getting a little winded from all the high-energy dancing. We finished off with something that actually required partners -- of course, none of the kids deliberately danced with someone of the opposite gender and same age, but my SCA ringers did a good job of grabbing partners and spreading clue throughout the sets.

The whole thing was over by 7:30 or so, and was clearly a good success: the kids and parents all looked like they'd had fun, and several of the kids actually signed up on the "for more information" list. (An unexpected bonus, IMO: I'd been thinking of this as an educational demo more than a recruitment one.) So a fine way to spend the evening...

Demo: check

In the end, quite a good demo.

I got to the library a bit before 6pm, and found a sign outside saying "Swords and Pizza". Basically, it was kicking off the library's teen activities series, and they had a crystal-clear idea of how to get them in.

We started outside: three fighters took turns beating on each other for a while, showing off a variety of weapons forms and falling over a bunch. That was fun for a while, but the kids *really* got into it when the fighters offered each a chance to take a sword and whack at the fighters themselves. Each kid got to beat one fighter into submission, and they mostly took great glee in doing so. (A couple of the girls were actually the ones who got mostly seriously into it.)

We went inside and snarfed pizza. (This making my third consecutive meal of pizza, so I just had one slice, and had leftover tikka masala when I got home.) Then I took over and ran the dancing.

Fortunately, my instincts are still good. I had a set list planned, which I immediately threw out: too many partner dances, and not enough energy. I normally start such things slow and safe, with Bransle Cassandra, but that would clearly bore the hell out of the kids. So I instead started off with Turkish (nee Maltese) Bransle -- not 100% period, but a great warmup: the start was slow enough for everyone to feel safe, and the suiciding got everyone's energy up. (I used the Hyperborea recording: the best and most obscure disc of SCA dance music out there.) Then Petit Riense, which was of course utter *chaos* on the floor (something like 8 sets, mostly made up of kids), but order wasn't the point of the exercise. Then Montarde Bransle, by the end of which even the kids were getting a little winded from all the high-energy dancing. We finished off with something that actually required partners -- of course, none of the kids deliberately danced with someone of the opposite gender and same age, but my SCA ringers did a good job of grabbing partners and spreading clue throughout the sets.

The whole thing was over by 7:30 or so, and was clearly a good success: the kids and parents all looked like they'd had fun, and several of the kids actually signed up on the "for more information" list. (An unexpected bonus, IMO: I'd been thinking of this as an educational demo more than a recruitment one.) So a fine way to spend the evening...