This is me! (Pictures Topic)

[Nomadic]

hahaha. although certainly exciting, when was the last time you said "hey, want to check out my maps?"

Just an hour earlier to one of my friends. They thought it was cool but said that maps just didn't excite them. I tell you, people these days...

[Ascension]

Yeah, really. I was at a pub the other day and I asked this lady if she wanted to my peninsula and she slapped me.

[Gamerprinter]

hahaha. although certainly exciting, when was the last time you said "hey, want to check out my maps?"

I say that everyday! I run a small town graphic design/digital print studio, called 2me Studio, Inc. Invitations, copies, blueprints, architectural plots, logos, photo enlargements - that sort of thing. Its where I base my online business, Gamer Printshop.

Anyway, I need something to talk about when my customers drop in - so all my customers know about my map work. I show my finished prints, my WIPs, my hand-drawings.

Sure, most probably think I'm a bit nuts, but then they always thought so anyway. But you'd be surprised with the number of people who respond with, "I'm an artist and...", "My grandson plays RuneQuest...", "I use to play to play D&D...", "wow, that's really cool..." - so I'm not so phobic of my odd hobbies. Because I am making it an alternative income stream - which I tell them, they seem to appreciate it all that more.

I've actually picked up a couple local commissions by telling people, even via "word of mouth" from another customer who visited my shop, and I talked my talk...

GP

[Nomadic]

I say that everyday! I run a small town graphic design/digital print studio, called 2me Studio, Inc. Invitations, copies, blueprints, architectural plots, logos, photo enlargements - that sort of thing. Its where I base my online business, Gamer Printshop.

Anyway, I need something to talk about when my customers drop in - so all my customers know about my map work. I show my finished prints, my WIPs, my hand-drawings.

Sure, most probably think I'm a bit nuts, but then they always thought so anyway. But you'd be surprised with the number of people who respond with, "I'm an artist and...", "My grandson plays RuneQuest...", "I use to play to play D&D...", "wow, that's really cool..." - so I'm not so phobic of my odd hobbies. Because I am making it an alternative income stream - which I tell them, they seem to appreciate it all that more.

I've actually picked up a couple local commissions by telling people, even via "word of mouth" from another customer who visited my shop, and I talked my talk...

GP

This is why I wish I could move to where you live.

[Gamerprinter]

I think its "me", not so much where I live. I can get along with most anyone, and can read if what I'm saying is glossing over their eyes. Most my customers lead normal lives and consider what I do, or how I do things as more colorful - and they seem to appreciate. I have a good "REP" in my community.

You don't want to live here. I'd rather live in the great northwest - got relatives in Portland and I use to live in Seattle - long, long ago. Fact is if I didn't have so many local family in Illinois, some who depend on me somewhat, I'd move to Hawaii right now. (But shipping maps worldwide from Hawaii wouldn't be too practical!)

GP

[Nomadic]

I think its "me", not so much where I live. I can get along with most anyone, and can read if what I'm saying is glossing over their eyes. Most my customers lead normal lives and consider what I do, or how I do things as more colorful - and they seem to appreciate. I have a good "REP" in my community.

You don't want to live here. I'd rather live in the great northwest - got relatives in Portland and I use to live in Seattle - long, long ago. Fact is if I didn't have so many local family in Illinois, some who depend on me somewhat, I'd move to Hawaii right now. (But shipping maps worldwide from Hawaii wouldn't be too practical!)

GP

I meant more I want to work with you.

[Dracontes]

This photo is about three years old. Except for the longer hair which I've let grow because I really couldn't bother with how unruly it was at this particular time, that's me, scraggly beard and all.



On the subject of anonymity, I've foregone it a long time ago as I saw little use in it.

[Gandwarf]

I understand. This carthography buisness can really ruin your reputation.

Actually, I think maintaining some anonymity is good. I have been involved in many job interviews and nowadays everyone is Googled, looked up on Hyves, etc. The things you see posted online
And I can assure you many candidates didn't even get an invitation because of their profile on the web. Is that really fair or prudent? No. But it will happen.

Sure, who cares if your photo is posted on this forum? But if you use the same username for example you can be traced to other websites.

Not saying people should be worried about posting their photo here, as it will probably be quite harmless. But I do think some people tend to forget how easy it is to gather information about someone on the internet. And I have seen with my own eyes that this can have some surprising results.

I myself like to maintain a certain degree of anonymity, though I have nothing to hide really and it gets harder each year spent on the internet

[Rahva]

I don't use Facebook/Hyves/etc, and I have about six screen names, because my first ones are taken 90% of the time. Rahva is one of the newer ones. On sites I don't want people to see me, I just use a silly name or a random string of letters and fill in bogus information.
For this site however, I don't really care. I make maps in my spare time, big whoop. If an employer won't have me because of that, I don't want to work there anyway.

Anyway, the fairly large and semi-wellknown place where I work recently had to screen some applicants. Monsterboard patched through some applications, two of which were extremely qualified for the job. My boss says to another division boss "Oh oh let's Google them " and they both had a good laugh about it. And then didn't do it.

I'm sure some companies do it, but it's probably not as bad as you think. If there's something embarrasing you don't want people to know, then keep it to yourself.

[Redrobes]

Just to put some perspective on it from my point of view. My forum (which gets about 1 post every year...) has had 10 people this morning tried to hack it, 53 people in the last 4 days. Run a web site and look through the logs and see the enormous amount of trolling going on from spiders, search engines and so on. Put in a robots file banning them all and see how many of these spiders actually take any notice of it. Whats also really shocking is the quantity of gov sponsored and intelgnce hacking going on or from commercial sites tied to censorship and net suppression. I would guess that about 80% of all traffic to my site is from nefarious sources. Since about 100% of russian sourced hits were hacks I just banned the whole .ru domain and I know many people do the same. Theres no cure but its so bad and so much worse than you can possible believe without seeing it for yourself that I go anon now. In any case I am interested in the maps not so much the people behind them.