Monday you can fall apart
The Cure
Tuesday, Wednesday break my heart
Thursday doesn’t even start
It’s Friday I’m in love.
And if you are today? I’m totally happy for you!
MT58
Well, that was an interesting 24 hours. Thanks to all for your support during our April Fool’s Day faux “outage.” A special shout-out to Fiona, The Wonder Hamster, who peddled her little heart out on her treadmill, just so that we could keep the lights on.
This must be how Jan Brady felt.”
Welcome to another Friday at tnocs.com! We meet again, my friends, to talk about the week’s fun, see what’s coming up, and to open up the comment section below for your erudite contributions. Please have at it, and enjoy chatting about whatever you’d like, all weekend long. I promise that I’ll keep the servers running.
But first… it’s recap and catch-up time:
This Past Week’s Articles:
I’ve learned over the years that many of us enjoy reading, and so I thought that it might be fun to have a site section for Books and Literature. And it’s official: Contributing author thegue started us off on the right foot with the channel’s debut article about his GOAT book. I can confirm that both the novel and thegue’s review are a classic. And for that matter, so is the reviewer. More on that downstream.
Couldn’t you just listen to friend Virgindog’s cool stories all day long? He’s a digital Mark Twain, he is. Using a seductive-sounding nom de plume, he told the tale of the one that got away, and how they were improbably and wonderfully reunited. Once again, he did the photos as well. He’s a true renaissance man, and we’re lucky to have him. He’s also agreed to detail everyone’s car, just so that he can have something new to add to his impossibly varied CV.
In his tnocs.com debut, contributing author JJ Live At Leeds treated us to a totally hilarious and detailed compilation of novelty records from the UK. The word “scholarly” comes to mind; it was like taking a really great night class at the community center, with a way-cool instructor. Now, I know that we all pride ourselves on being musical mavens, but I’ll wager that JJ served up some things that we’d all never heard before. And perhaps some of which should never be heard again. We’re looking at you, Smurfette.
Go feed your hamster.“
A question for you: Of the eight-billion plus people on the planet, who would ever find away to contrast and compare Jim Stafford and Peggy Scott Adams? Time’s up: only one person: Contributing author cstolliver, who treated us to A Tale Of Two Bills. He has a perspective that never fails to simultaneously educate and entertain. I remembered one of the two records quite well, but had never heard the other until our awesome contributor talked about it. Thanks, cst: it’s always a good day whenever we learn something new.
Site Stuff:
A few site notes for you:
- I figured it out (I think:) Embedded YouTube videos are now a working thing in your comments. Just paste the entire YT URL, and it should populate. I’ve coded a 4 video limit per comment. Is this enough? Too many?
- You now can see who is in the house with the new, “Hey, I’m here and I’m online” green dot indicator.
- If you hover over the up-vote count number in a comment section, a spiffy little popup will tell you who was enamored with your awesome wordsmithery. I’m working on a functional mobile version for this as well.
Let me know if you like these two new gizmo thingys.
And here’s a note about my alleged “features“: I promise not to just include stuff for the sake of including stuff. Sometimes in a comment-driven web platform, too many bells and whistles detract from the experience. Please hit me up with your thoughts. I will always pay attention to what you all would like to see (or not see.)
Random notes:
• We broke records this week for both new registered users as well as site visits. I can’t thank you enough for your participation and encouragement.
• Any suggestions for channels? Content? Cool features? General fun and frolicking?
• I really do want to keep growing the site. Any mentions about our hangout on social media or other such places is greatly appreciated.
A quick final story: Up against a Thursday deadline, I’d planned to write an article but was so tired that I was literally hallucinating. I put out an email to both existing and aspiring tnocs.com writers for some 11th hour help. A bunch of good folks replied that they were not quite finished yet, which was totally cool. I’ll just have to figure something out… and then my phone buzzes at 2:30 AM. Someone pulled an all-nighter to finish up a piece, just to help. So a second shout-out and gratitude to our talented and good friend thegue. You bailed me out, and I appreciate you.
And, as always: I need you! Please write for us. Send your story pitches, finished pieces, or talk to me a about your general thoughts on what you might concoct for a featured article to: submissions@tnocs.com
I want this to be your place. Tell me how I can make it better.
Thank you so much for your support and kind comments about the site. I’m impossibly lucky to be able to hang with all of you. Have a great weekend…
.. and good on you all.
Thank You For Your Vote!
Sorry You have Already Voted!
Both new features are cool. I especially like the list of upvoters.
The other one could be a little misleading, however. My computer is on 24/7 to do some automated work, and my browser always has a hundred dozen tabs open. One of them is bound to be tnocs.com. It will look like I’m always at my desk.
I assure you, I have a life, I do sleep on occasion, and I’ll even go talk to my family downstairs. So the little green dot that says I’m here could be an April Fools joke all year long.
Also, thanks for your very kind words, mt58. I hope to have more stories here in the future, whether they’re true or not.
And thank you for being a good friend to all of us.
Well noted. I’ve coded a timeout for just such cases. Congratulations – you’re going to be the beta tester for it…
You’re a genius! Always a step ahead of me.
While you’re here, as the green dot says you are, is there a reason some commenters’ names are in blue, red, green, etc?
I know, that’s kind of a mess right now.
The idea is that if you are contributing author, you get to be blue. If your registered user but having not written a piece, That will be another color, etc.
I know that it’s kind of sloppy, but I will fix it.
I like it… what does it mean if I’m red? Did you notice my comments in Shut Up Dude a couple weeks ago about different flavors of communism and gave me a color to match?
I’ll be honest, Pauly; my coding for this, um, “feature” is a mess. I’ll get the colors and the code settled this week.
And yes- I DID see that over at SUD. A great rebuttal – Nobody’s quicker than you!
Thanks for the shout out, Mt!
I woke up around 1am and read your panicked message, and threw something together in about an hour that had been bouncing around in my head for a while.
I didn’t proofread it, and it shows. Next time I’ll spend a few of those 1 am “what the hell am I doing up maybe I’ll read ALL the comments in TNOCS…” and give them a second look.
Questions:
1. do you get extra revenue if I click on any of the ad banners? If so, I’ll get on it.
2. I’d recommend only 2 videos in a comment, unless it doesn’t slow down page loading time.
3. If anyone has a story they want me to share, I’d do it here.
4. Happy Friday!!
Hey, I thought your piece was great the way it was. But if anybody is kind enough to publish here and finds a mistake or wants an edit, it’s as simple as letting me know, and I’ll fix it.
Regarding the advertising, I appreciate that you asked.
When I was starting to create the site, I asked about ideas on how to help defray the costs. I figured this was the path of least resistance; what I don’t want to do is have to hit everybody up for donations. So that’s the reason we have advertising.
The reason I keep badgering everyone to write articles, and to spread the word about the site is because I need to get the revenue from the advertising at a level where I’m at breakeven. That’s all I want; I’m not trying to make a living off of this.
If people click an ad, then technically, I get a little bit of compensation, but please don’t feel like you have to do that. If you saw something that was of interest, that’s great, but no need to worry about it beyond that.
I was speaking to Virgindog earlier today and said pretty much the same thing. I need to figure out a way to tastefully promote tnocs.com without being annoying. I’m working on it. And I am open to and appreciate any ideas.
Another excellent week at TNOCS. The April Fool was perfect mt, loved how the message slowly unfolded. Patience isn’t a virtue associated with the instant online world but it was rewarded yesterday.
I’m a mobile browser, I did notice the new function to view who has upvoted. Had no idea how I got it to happen on my phone, saw it once completely by accident and then couldn’t get it to do it again. A nice little enhancement and remembering my words from the first paragraph I’ll exercise a little patience waiting for the mobile version!
Tap on the number next to the thumbs-up, that brings up the list of upvoters (just discovered this by accident myself).
Hooray – it now works on mobile! Thanks for confirming, A-3K !
The April Fools gag was good. Always enjoyable.
I have a couple of ideas for articles… but time and motivation is always an issue. Especially time. But, I feel a need to get back to doing some writing… it’s been awhile.
Would love to see something, cuzitt! Hit me up if you want to toss out some ideas or workshop anything:
submissions@tnocs.com
Oooh, new comments since my last login are now highlighted for easy reference… Love it!
Another wacky “enhancement…” Just finished the coding for it yesterday – glad that you like it (and that it works!)