Chillin' -- Nothing About The Bakken -- April 6, 2022

It's such an incredibly beautiful day here in north Texas, and I have so many great memories of the granddaughters, I cannot blog about the Bakken any more this evening. Maybe later tonight. 

Wow, this is simply the best time of the year. Days are getting longer. Days are getting warmer. Folks are starting to use the pools. I love daylight saving(s) time. An extra hour of daylight at the end of the day. Tomorrow night, a pound of crawdads. 

For now, Hotel California:

Hotel California, The Eagles  

As it came to an end, I thought this would have been covered by Linda Ronstadt, but haven't found Linda Ronstadt covering this song on YouTube (yet).

That was for fun. And a great song. But for a great piece of poetry, nothing beats Leonard Cohen. 

Tower of Song, Leonard Cohen

Tonight is such a beautiful night, just gonna chill for awhile. 

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Group Me

For families and/or athletic teams and/or any group, the best idea out there is "Group Me." Wiki entry here, and app owned by Microsft. Again, how did AAPL miss this one? That's why I accumulate shares in MSFT.

"Group Me" .... not "grope me." 

Our group: all non-driving family members and all non-driving family members -- extended family -- are on on "Group Me" group. We use it exclusively to coordinate ride-sharing / necessary rides / etc. It's really is quite remarkable. 

This technology never ceases to amaze me. 

From wiki:

GroupMe was conceived at TechCrunch Disrupt 2010. 

Founders Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci raised US$10.6 million in venture capital from Khosla Ventures, General Catalyst Partners, angel investors, and others. 

In August 2011, Skype acquired the one-year-old start-up for around $80 million. 

Skype had itself been purchased by Microsoft in May 2011, with the purchase finalized in October 2011. 

The app underwent a redesign in late 2012. 

Initially, groups were limited to 100 members, but a support request could get a group's limit raised as high as necessary as it approached the limit. In 2019, GroupMe stopped offering group member limit increases; however, the app increased the standard limit from 100 to 5000.

 GroupMe --> Skype --> Microsoft. 

And then look at this:

GroupMe has been used as a means for studying the usage of messaging clients in educational settings. 

Use cases include facilitating online course discussions, small group work, and other course communications for both in-person and online sections. 

Though unconventional, using GroupMe to facilitate discussion in an environment where students already interact has been found to encourage rhetorical thinking and overall engagement. 

Researchers have found alternatives for literacy learning as a "legitimate academic genre", given a student population that communicates in variety of modes. 

Research around GroupMe furthers the argument that computer-mediated communication is a valuable space for learning in an increasingly globalized society.