Originator: Pino Carafa Printable Version Title: A few comments about the Separation Challenge Back to YouTube Discussions Attachments Add Attachment Checked out by: Pino Carafa on: 2008/04/12 02:11:29 sep.pdf (Check out) (Undo Checkout) (Delete) Checked out by: Pino Carafa on: 2008/04/11 06:58:37 sep.rtf (Check out) (Undo Checkout) (Delete) History From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/11 05:45:26 Hello folks, This is a thread about the Separation Challenge I posted on YouTube yesterday. The Separation Challenge. By Rozeboosje The Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuXmRhS8n7k This is The Document This is The Document In RTF Format This is The Document in PDF format (Thank you shekerra!) At the moment I can only access YouTube through my mobile, and I cannot add comments or anything that way. If somebody sees this, can you tell the people who have commented on my video to go to Carobit and check this out? I hope it will clarify a few things. Firstly, I asked people to post a video showing that they had printed off the letter and they were going to start it on its way. I've seen at least one comment by a person stating they didn't like putting their face on YouTube. Well, you don't have to. I would be perfectly happy with you just posting a 1-second video consisting of a still shot of just the printed out document. In fact, I'll do one better. Although it would be really nice to see the original document, I will accept people who just post a comment stating they have sent the document on its way. Secondly, a number of people have expressed concern about getting the letter across the Atlantic or whatnot, if they can't post it. See, that is the whole thing about this Challenge: you don't need to worry about that! Let's say you want to start this challenge. Well, if you are planning to fly to Ireland, good on you! You can bring the letter yourself. But if you don't, don't worry about it! Do you know somebody who is planning to go to Ireland? Try to get them to take the letter with them. Don't you know anybody like that? Still no problem! Think about your circle of friends. Which one of them do you think is most likely to know somebody who might go to Ireland? Well, ask them! And if you don't, still no problem...... You get the gist, I hope. The challenge is not for you to get the letter to me. If you can, that's fantastic. But if not, just pick anybody from your circle of friends and acquaintances who you think might be able to get that letter at least a little bit closer to me. And there is no obligation to them either; if they choose to accept the letter, they will be in exactly the same position as yourself. They, too, do not have to worry about actually getting the letter to me, but just pass it on to anybody they think might be a little bit closer to me than they are. That's all. Eventually, no doubt, the letter will make it into the hands of somebody who is going to go to Ireland, and then it will be almost here. The idea is to explore how many direct, face to face, links there might possibly be to get something from you to me, even though we do not know each other's personal details. It doesn't matter how long it takes. As I said in the video, the challenge is completely open ended. Somebody said they were going to send more than one letter. That is a great idea; the more the merrier. If you do that though, could you put in a distinguishing mark in the name or alias you put in the first box? For example [yourname - 1], [yourname - 2], etcetera? That way, when I read out you can work out that, hey, it's the one I sent THIS way, or, hey, it's the one I sent THAT way. Some people have expressed concern about being very "badly connected". Don't! Such people are precisely the ones who should be taking up this challenge. That's what it's all about: to show that, no matter how badly connected you think you are, there is only a finite, and rather small, number of links between you and me. So the less connected you feel you are, the more I urge you to participate! And finally: If you're an intermediate link, if you are one of those people who is well connected, and you receive this letter from someone more than once, may I ask you to consistently always put the same name or alias on the form? That way I can establish whether the idea that there are some people who are "connectors" who link large sub-webs of connected people to each other, really exist. So to summarise: I've relaxed the requirement of the "starting off" video. Just post a still shot of the document only, or even just a comment (in that case though do tell me what name or alias you put in that first field so I can recognise it by that if and when it does arrive). Secondly, your job is not to get the document to me, it's only to try and move it a little closer to me. The next person takes care of the rest. Good luck! Pino From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/11 06:03:16 BTW - I'll also accept still shots of the document added as an attachment to this thread. That way you can just use a .JPG or something and you don't need to make a video out of it. From:  shekerra On: 2008/04/11 13:40:28 ermmmm the video is not available? From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/11 14:34:18 It is now ;-) - Apparently YouTube links are Case Sensitive... From:  shekerra On: 2008/04/11 17:32:49 OK - let's see how this worked - I created a pdf with open office in Unix - I will test from windows and see if it opens. From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/12 02:11:25 Thanks a million Bev! It works a treat. From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/18 03:46:42 Just wondering - has anybody sent a form on its way yet? From:  shekerra On: 2008/04/18 03:56:15 I have a headache... From:  muso On: 2008/04/21 06:48:28 I've got as far as printing it... From:  Hooligan On: 2008/04/22 02:59:41 I needed to cut and paste the link to see the video otherwise - * The video you have requested is not available. If you have recently uploaded this video, you may need to wait a few minutes for the video to process * From:  shekerra On: 2008/04/22 06:37:41 Yerwelcome Pino - hey I miss ya! Great videos you are creating :) From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/22 07:25:23 Great, muso! Now all you need to do is find someone who's willing to take it off ya. Remember, you don't have to take responsibility for getting it to me, nor does anybody else in the chain. All you need to do is make an educated guess as to who you think may be closer to me in the "web" of human connections and if they're willing to participate, hand the form to them. After that your responsibility is over. :-) Bev, have you done one yet? What about you, Hooligan? From:  shekerra On: 2008/04/22 13:42:18 >Bev, have you done one yet? No not yet - prolly one coming this summer and you know on what topic it will be on! From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/23 12:39:06 Barklord has sent the first one on its way. The challenge is afoot! From:  shekerra On: 2008/04/23 19:13:40 ooh no!  I can't play YouTube videos at the YouTube site anymore because it wants me to upgrade my flash player. I did upgrade to version 9 and now YouTube is broken!  I can play YouTube videos on my website... From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/24 01:13:28 huh? From:  muso On: 2008/04/24 05:17:29 Btw, Pino, the YouTube link still doesn't work unless you copy and paste the text (the link is still lowercase). From:  shekerra On: 2008/04/24 06:38:52 I can't view any YouTube videos - it tells me to install flash.  I've uninstalled and reinstalled and nada YouTube. From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/24 08:09:01 Try it again now, muso From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/24 08:09:51 What browser are you using Bev? From:  muso On: 2008/04/24 11:04:59 > Try it again now, muso Works fine now, thanks :-) From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/04/25 03:24:51 Weird. I could have sworn I had fixed that already. (shrug) From:  shekerra On: 2008/04/25 08:33:52 IE/Opera/FF Everything worked fine until I upgraded to version 9 of flash... Now nothing works at Youtube and I have uninstalled, reinstalled, killed the dll file - etc and so on.  I am soooooooooooo very frustrated!  I can see these vids on my site! From:  shekerra On: 2008/05/06 09:24:30 It is fixed. From:  Pino Carafa On: 2008/05/07 05:55:47 What was it? And when are you going to send a letter on its way!? From:  higginspi On: 2008/06/26 18:58:48 Pino, you have too much time on your hands. :) It's not "no more than six" degrees of separation . . . it's an average of six.