November lootcrate final picture and list of items

We opened ours already of course.  Here's the email list and picture from LootCrate itself.  Sort of an ok month.  The Fallout bobble head was the best.  Probably the absolutely most interesting aspect of this month is for some reason LootCrate sent us two crates and let us keep the second one for free.

Warning, lots of excited marketing verbiage ahead! :-)

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November’s loot really packed a punch! We included a bunch of COMBAT-ready items like the EXCLUSIVE Fallout 4 Vault Boy Bobble Head (for a little post-nuclear panache), Cute But Deadly Vinyl Mystery Figures (with a chance to get an orange Murloc that can’t be found anywhere else) and an EXCLUSIVE Magnet Set! Plus a pair of TMNT Shredder Sunglasses that’ll have you looking sharp all year long, a Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 Pin to set your style on fire and an EXCLUSIVE Street Fighter Hyper Looting Comic for an uppercut of awesomeness!

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You Don't Know The Power of Star Wars

The power of Star Wars is amazing.  Disney put together about a 10 minute narrated story pieced together from all six movies then scenes from the new one. They displayed it on the big screen in the old Capt EO theater in Disneyland in California with all the key music and sounds (they have added several Star Wars themed activities and ride mods in their Season of the Force in Tomorrowland).  Not only were people cheering, but about half with tears in their eyes as we left. I heard multiple people say they were now ready and excited to see the movie.  Pretty amazing.

Loot Crate Holiday Sale Explained

Well that was quick.  Yesterday was a teaser "coming soon" email.  Today was the reveal with a link to the loocrate page.  3 pages of various sale items (pop figures, books, etc).  Several already sold out.  Below is an example of some of the items.

More Upcoming LootCrate Special Edition Limited boxes

Loot Crate has been busy lately planning special boxes.  They are obviously a big draw.  Their latest email announced:

- the availability of the Call of Duty Black Ops crate for ordering

- Reminder of the upcoming Star Wars Limited Edition Crate

- Announced a Coming Soon of a Loot Crate Limited Edition Rebels and Rogues 2.0

- Announced a Coming Soon of a Mystery Collectable Sale (Mystery Crate Sale).  Unsure what this last one is - could be anything from new items to a mixture of some older leftover items from past crates

December 2015 Loot Crate Level Up Hints and Spoilers

We also know a bit more about the Level Up Accessories.

From Loot Crate: "Tour the stars in style!  Search your feelings (not your closet) because this month’s Level Up apparel is all about cozy couture from Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens! It doesn’t matter if you’re a Jedi, Sith, or a droid on an adventure, you’re going love it (we know)."

So that would be

- Star Wars (obviously since the movie is coming out in December

December 2015 Lootcrate Hints and Spoilers - Theme is Galaxy

Lootcrate announced it's theme in it's teaser for the December 2015 crates. The Theme is "GALAXY".

From Lootcrate: "What we’ve found is a little bit of science and a lot of fiction, with a few space battles here and there to keep things interesting. With EXCLUSIVE items from Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens and Halo 5: Guardians, this is the loot you’re looking for, chief!"

So we know three properties so far:

- Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

- Halo 5: Guardians

- Galaxy Quest

We also know there will be a T-shirt and a Funko Pop.

Lootcrate Buzz

Some latest hints/spoiler information for Lootcrate....

There will be a Star Wars Lootcrate!  About $150 worth of Star Wars Items for $100.  Contains at least 9 collectables.  Pretty pricey but they will no doubt sell many.  See Here:   https://www.lootcrate.com/specialty_crates_collections/star-wars-crate

There will be a Call of Duty Black Ops Lootcrate.  About $175 value for 11 items (9 exclusive) for $100. See Here:  https://www.lootcrate.com/specialty_crates_collections/callofduty-crate

Loot crate is starting a new crate activity, Loot Anime.  See: https://www.lootcrate.com/crates/anime

Starting in December, each normal Lootcrate will have a T-shirt.  That's pretty cool, and they might be doing that to help prevent fears that they are diverting all the apparel to just the Level Up crates.  Probably a smart move both from public relations, and the fact that many people like T-shirts.

Level Up shipments start shipping around the 20th-24th of each month.

Normal Loot Crates apparently ship between 20th and 28th of each month.  

Working some changes

It's been awhile.  I'm working on some changes to the site and exploring how it works, all in one swoop.  I've added a Reading List page to help document some of my favorite reading sources.  On there I've listed an Arthur C. Clarke short story that's very applicable to the modern Department of Defense and it's continual search for new technology.  I've also added a link to one of my favorite books ever - Ready Player One.  Simply outstanding book - mostly due to my love of gaming, and growing up in the 80s (the book is filled with both).

Internet "Netizen" culture and demographics

One of my papers I recently wrote at National War College talked about the culture of the internet, combined with increasing youth presence that dismisses traditional authority links, tends to lead toward more desire to free information.  Part of that is the hacking culture.  I'll talk more about the paper later, but here's an interesting example.

This article discusses a Navy sysadmin recently arrested for hacking.  He was apparently part of a hacking group.

All quiet....

Thoughts and links have been light last few months as I was focusing on finishing several papers.  I'll post them soon.

How to avoid technology extinction

Betting on the wrong technology can really cost you money.  If you had bought many books through the proprietary Nook system, you might lose them eventually.  Farhad Manjoo (@fmanjoo) writes in the New York Times a good quick overview article on how to avoid this situation.  He's recommending specific technology and media solutions, which can draw accusations of bias.  I think he avoids that with good explanations, and you do have to buy something at the end of the day.

I had posted quick links to the article on twitter here and here, and on google+ here.

Bottom line - he suggests a four step approach:  Buy Apple devices (they are simple and work well), Google services (mail, calendar, maps, browser, G+ to backup photos), Amazon media (you can look at Kindle stuff everywhere), and Cloud Connectors like Dropbox and Evernote (you can access all your data and notes everywhere - their business model depends on it); 

Good Advertising....

I'm pretty good at skipping past advertising on the web, Facebook, twitter, and just about everywhere else.  However, I like a good superbowl commercial, or other good and unique attempts.  So when I was scrolling through my Facebook and ran across the a T-shirt ad with  my last name on it, I had to do a few double takes.  My first thought was how the shirt was marketed to me.  I wondered briefly about what's going on behind the scenes (Facebook of course has all my info and sells it - this is how they make a profit and keep the servers running).  Then I spotted the comment threads and clicked on it.  Hilarious.  Apparently the advertisement had gone out to just Purdy's, and tons of Purdy's were commenting on the thread.  It was like some mass Purdy family reunion or something.   Quite cool.  And excellent marketing.  What's even more interesting is looking behind the scenes.  Free Kiss is a minor facebook page with only 52 likes as of this note (and per it's 'about' section joined 8 Feb 2014).  When you click on the ad, you're sent to Teespring.com.  That's a site that let's you develop your own custom T-shirts and then advertise them (directing traffic back to Teespring.com).  When you get enough orders (20 in this case), then the campaign is started and the company handles printing and shipping once the final date is reached.  So it looks like Free Kiss is really just an individual with a clever marketing idea, and outsourcing all the printing and shipping to somebody else.  Again, pretty clever.  

Dawn of a New Avatar

Just to be different, I ordered up a new social media avatar face from Len Peralta (lenperalta.com).  He calls it a flip face.  Pretty neat I think.  Below is the cartoon is the main image they took inspiration from.

First Post

My thoughts..late at night..are that I'm going to bed