Rahsun McAfee | Over The Edge

History is Made - Yes We Can!

2008-11-05T05:55:13-08:00

Last night my wife and I watched history be made. An intelligent man who focused on fighting for this country and protecting her rights became the first African American president.

As CNN lit their electoral map with blues and reds and the numbers started coming in. Twists and turns in my stomach began as I realized even more “THIS IS HAPPENING!”.

I was always told that I can do whatever I wanted to do by my parents and friends. Yet always somehow I’d tended to be surrounded by contradictory spirits that would laugh at the thought of a black president. It became a joke that you’d hear from time to time.

I remember earlier on in my career telling an old school chum that I wanted to be a game developer and him responding “I don’t know dawg, there aren’t many black people doing that”. I also remember being the only African American in a local programming user group when it was smaller and even have a friend developer tell me that most of his friends will not either consciously or subconsciously work with a black developer. These situations just fueled my fire and made me work harder to be an example to my wife, kids, and extended family members.

Wow have times changed. I see more African Americans in my field who love what they do and fight off all negative things and all stereotypes while not happily pulling out race cards for every situation, but let it make them stronger and persevere.

This wasn’t a cultural race but a “who is capable” and “who cares more” race where an African American won. The side effect (at least from my perspective) is that it has now been proven on a larger scale (again) that anyone can have goals (not just inside of athletics and entertainment) that can help you obtain the respect and success you deserve when you are willing to fight for your neighbor and fight for your dream no matter what background you come from. This is the America we are taught about in school. I truly believe that this will be a release of the potential power of America brought forth through unity as we show the world what we are made of.

New Server, New Look, New Posts

2008-10-17T08:44:15-07:00

Okay so I haven’t been posting like a son of a gun since I’ve changed jobs. However, it’s time to get back on track. I’m going to be moving this blog over to a new server first chance I get and there will be a new fresh look as well. I need to breathe life into the blog again and so I shall.

Sorry to those who were asking themselves WTH did he go?! I’m coming back once again, this time hopefully to stay!

Winds Are Changing

2008-06-22T21:53:06-07:00

I know, I know, where the heck has Rahsun been. BUSY! Lots of growing.

Winds are changing and this site will change with it ….. again :)

No Internet! - South Park Style

2008-04-22T09:35:22-07:00

What if there was no internet!

No Internet – Southpark

Thoughts on Community - Part 2

2008-04-18T05:21:59-07:00

This is a continuation of Thoughts on Community Part 1

Putting together a community is really not totally true for successful sites. The communities already existed. These communities were just like bad neighborhoods (a lot of loners and no way to clearly communicate). They gave the communities a way of expressing and communicating with each other more effectively.

Let’s look at some examples:

Dogster – Dog lovers already existed. Dogster didn’t create a community of dog lovers. They just gave dog lovers the ability to effectively communicate and express themselves with one another and to the world.

MySpace – They created the venue and tools for ‘anyone’ to express their self and the communities in which they belong to. The physical world collided with the digital world giving them and their peers the ability to connect to other communities.

Another thing to take into account from a technological perspective is that people in a community do not tend to care about how something works; just that it works. RSS Feeds, XML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript = a big ‘who gives a #$#t” to most people. How can I use it to effectively communicate and express myself is what matters.

In all this lies the opportunity. The opportunity for the people who understand the technology to give the power to people who don’t so that they can turn their bad neighborhoods to good ones.

Websites focused on specific tools for specific communities seems to be a big thing. Lots of techies have communities because they understand how to use the crap. However, there is a need for these “tools” across the board in different industries and fields like legal, medical, sanitation, government, etc.

All you developers out there please remember to think outside the box. How effective could a community of doctors online REALLY be? They could talk about past experiences. Read each other’s articles / ideas and post comments on an article. Arrange events, conferences, and meet-ups. They could all talk about a product or a new medicine that is out and vote on it sucking or being the greatest thing every created. They will all be able to remain individuals and keep their identity while making life better and more fun for each other.

All this is possible now, and even more tools are coming. If the community site was built off a mashup of services that accomplish different tasks – then there is still value there.

However, there seems to be such a focus on the technology by the people who can build this stuff that it feels sometimes as if they miss the point. How do you take that technology, put it under a topic, and then glorify the community and not the tools the community uses.

People with focused products and services, like a medical tool of some sort have a place to go and market their product directly to the community. They’ll pay for the opportunity to reach the community. The perspectives of the people would keep the site neutral, unbiased, and a great place to be honest.

All this IMHO :)

The Apple "I"

2008-04-16T09:35:42-07:00

Anybody who knows me knows I’m a big Apple fan. If you’ve seen the Apple keynotes you’ll get a kick out of this.

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Thoughts on Community - Part 1

2008-04-14T20:10:02-07:00

(This is an article that I wrote back in October but it wasn’t put on my blog, it was just sitting in my backpack account. I looked at it and figured I’d move it to my blog!)

I’m working on a couple of sites that tie into the whole “web 2.0” community concepts we’ve all grown to know and love.

While meditating on the similarities of each site I noticed that you aren’t really making a community. You are facilitating community interaction.

Let’s look at a community. To be as plain as possible, it’s a group of people who share a specific interest. This could be government, cultural heritage, passion for design, or workers in the technology field. These are all communities.

Now what makes a community effective or successful? Look at the notion of a bad neighborhood and good neighborhood. I’ve been in both.

Bad Neighborhoods tend to have a high amount of people who don’t participate or communicate. They don’t say anything about the graffiti, they tend to be indifferent and closed off from one another, everyone is out for their own survival, and if one household is treated wrong it’s that household’s problem.

Good Neighborhoods tend to have a high level of participation. You may have some indifferent people, but the overall amount of participants keeps the community thriving. If something is wrong with how clean a neighborhood is, the crime, the schools, etc. The community comes together and fights to get it the way that the community deems appropriate.

So, here is the question – ‘how do they do it?’ How do you make a good community out of a bad community? Well, let’s look at what a good community does. They tend to create events or venues that give the community an opportunity to come together. There are crime watch associations, housing associations, rallies, etc. They also do a great deal of free marketing.

That’s right, FREE! For example: The new guy/gal moves in and the community welcomes him/her with open arms. They go over, say hello, and recommend some things that happen around the community that that individual may enjoy. They reassure people that they count and they matter. Then they tell them where they can go express themselves.

Seamless Gaming

2008-04-12T20:42:37-07:00

I came up with this idea in the world of gaming a while ago and wanted to share it. What if you focused on creating a central “world” and developing games that tie into each other. I talked with my friend Kenneth Stephens at CrushVelvet about it and we have had extensive conversations about different approaches.

The idea was sparked while listening to NextGen Gaming Podcast. It’d be cool if you could create a ‘strategy’ game and tie that game into a ‘shooter’ or RPG.

For example: I know that there are a lot of business type games out there. So what if you could create a RPG game that operates like most RPGs and has shops and what not.

However, you package the business aspect of the game by itself. You can buy the ‘business’ portion of the game if you just want to focus on that aspect of the game.

If you donate want to do that, then you donate buy it. This will allow games to be developed on top of each other. This alternate gameplay could give a totally different feel.

Just a thought.

Blog Redesign

2008-04-12T12:10:23-07:00

My first redesign! This blog finally evolves.

The first version was pretty much thrown together. I figured I had to make something a ‘little’ more easier on the eyes. I’m sure there will be other versions, but let’s start with this shall we!

I can finally start putting stuff up here now that I’m making the time to actually do so.