Posted: 12/15/2016 12:17 AM
Post subject: I am giving $1k at AGDQ 2017 as site Ambassador; help needed
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dwangoAC
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
Exotic platforms TASer of 2015 Exotic platforms TASer of 2013
I'm happy to announce that I will be personally donating $1,000 USD plus an additional amount during the AGDQ 2017 TAS block on behalf of the team that helped me with TASBot projects over the past several months and on behalf of the site itself. This amount is roughly what is left over after direct expenses and taxes from an award I will be receiving "soon" from presenting at GeekPwn and winning the Geek Thinking award, with a substantial thanks to total, fuzyll, p4plus2, micro500, ownasaurus, and others who were involved in creating the payload. This is a great achievement that brought international attention to TASVideos and the TASBot aspects and I could not be more proud of the team behind this achievement. Having said that, I have had some very heavy expenses in the last few months. Since last time I have represented TASVideos in my capacity as Ambassador in one form or another at TWiT, SGDQ 2016, SVLUG, DEF CON, NBLUG, GeekPwn, SF Bay Area ACM, and NBLUG again. Two of the events (SVLUG and ACM) required long drives and three of the events (SGDQ 2016, DEF CON 24, and GeekPwn 2016) required air travel and hotel stays. SGDQ and DEF CON involved heavy investments in the TASLink board, cables, visualization controllers, games, adapters, a Saleae logic analyzer, video capture devices, cameras, and consoles. I have covered all of these expenses out of my own pocket and I will not be asking for any reimbursement or financial assistance for them. However, some bills are already hitting for AGDQ 2017 and I figured it couldn't hurt to at least share where I'm at there. I am currently projecting the following expenses for asassyknitter and I for our involvement at AGDQ 2017: Equipment / games purchases (projected): $130 AGDQ 2017 fee: $50 Airfare: $932 Accommodations: $545 Dining out / groceries (projected): $350 Total (projected): $2,007 - let's just call this $2k for simplicity Some quick notes: Hardware costs specific to AGDQ 2017 include the Nintendo Classic I purchased and shipped to micro500, getting and shipping a copy of DKC2 to me, doing the same thing only with a version 1.0 DKC2, buying a copy of Loz:aLttP from a local collector, a PSoC devkit I hope to use as part of a prize, and (projected) an NES Classic controller to test with. Registration is free for runners for AGDQ 2017 so we're only paying for asassyknitter's registration. Airfare is only calculated for asassyknitter and I although we're bringing the kids as well this year so in reality this is only half the total expense we are paying. Accommodations are cheaper than last year because we're staying fewer days at the hotel itself and we will personally pay for two nights we're spending away from the marathon to spend time with family that happens to be nearby this year. Food costs are moderately high because I've definitely learned my lesson that it is not a good idea to eat the cheapest food you can find right before a presentation in front of ~200,000 people. We have fully prepared as best we could to personally cover all of these projected costs as well; however, if you feel led to help offset our costs I will accept donations with much thanks via Bitcoin at 1CknXDyb5jTG1Nw1hs437r6fnz7npBSEfA (consider getting a free coinbase.com wallet) or through this PayPal donation link. As before, I can offer donors their choice of any games on this freshly updated games list which includes new Wii U games and other goodies and we will pass on at least 10% of any donations we receive to PCF during AGDQ 2017 on top of the $1k I committed above. After the event I'll provide a full post-mortem to provide transparency of costs (the AGDQ 2016 post-mortem is here). Donations in the order received include: - $10 anonymously: thanks for the start! - $100 with a request to remain anonymous: I appreciate the generosity and the kind note - you know who you are. - $10 from boct1584 who claimed Dustforce DX. You, sir, have good taste. - $50 came in from someone who watched a Twitch stream and got involved. It's awesome to have the support. - $100 from Fog, who claimed Grim Fandango Remastered. I still have one more copy of that left. - $500 from a past generous supporter who knows who they are. Thanks again for everything! Thank you again to all who have supported my wife and I in the past and thanks for the continued support!
I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.
Posted: 1/8/2017 4:06 PM
Post subject: TASBot block donation is now $1,077, getting closer to $1.2k
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dwangoAC
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
Exotic platforms TASer of 2015 Exotic platforms TASer of 2013
Quick update - I have received the $1k from GeekPwn as expected, and I've now received $770 toward the $2k in AGDQ 2017 expenses we have of which I've promised to pass on 10%. This means that the total donation we will be giving on behalf of the site and the TASBot taem is now $1,07!. Thanks for everyone that helped out already, and please help us raise that all the way up to $1.2k if you feel led to do so. I'm also happy to report that I have fully confirmed at least $500 will be matched by my employer after the event for a total donation to the Prevent Cancer Foundation of $1,577. This is by far the most we've ever been able to contribute during the event and I'm looking forward to the 14th. Thanks again for the fantastic support, everyone!
I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.
Posted: 1/16/2017 3:28 PM
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Nach
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
In the end, $1,337 was donated directly. Additional donations will be made by dwangoAC's employer for matching donations made by employees (up to a certain limit).
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Posted: 1/18/2017 7:03 AM
Post subject: Transparency report of sorts, taking a break
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dwangoAC
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
Exotic platforms TASer of 2015 Exotic platforms TASer of 2013
Post-event update: I gave the promised $1k during the marathon from GeekPwn sources, an additional $337 from here, and I used the remaining $433 to cover other GDQ related expenses in a manner of speaking (ask me privately if you would like a better explanation). I covered the remaining expenses out of my own pocket. I will reply back when my employer matches the $500 max they can match from our donation. This is a terse transparency report this time but I was nowhere near covering our expenses and it isn't worth getting worked up about it when a lot of other people paid their own way to attend. I may have had a lot of other expenses over the past year as I mentioned in the first post but I brought that on myself. I have opted to take a break from TASBot activities for the time being, but I do want to say thank you to those who have supported me financially.
I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.
Posted: 2/7/2017 2:19 AM
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micro500
Emulator Coder, Player (69)
Joined: 10/4/2005
Posts: 197
dwangoAC wrote:
I used the remaining $433 to cover other GDQ related expenses in a manner of speaking (ask me privately if you would like a better explanation).
That $433 was sent to me to "cover my expenses", but I feel very uncomfortable about accepting the money. I am not going to keep it, and I would like to donate it to either AGDQ to SGDQ. I would like the community's input on where it should be donated. This money was meant for AGDQ so I'd prefer to give it to PCF at AGDQ2018, but I'd rather not hold onto the money for that long if not necessary. I can also donate it to MSF at SGDQ2017. What do you guys think I should do with it?
Posted: 2/8/2017 9:46 PM
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dwangoAC
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
Exotic platforms TASer of 2015 Exotic platforms TASer of 2013
micro500 wrote:
This money was meant for AGDQ so I'd prefer to give it to PCF at AGDQ2018, but I'd rather not hold onto the money for that long if not necessary. I can also donate it to MSF at SGDQ2017. What do you guys think I should do with it?
This was definitely intended for expenses related to GDQ events and the original source of the funds would say exactly the same thing if they chose to speak up. I know you had a *lot* of expenses for everything from the new NES Classic hardware and wiring to the PSoC adapter boards and associated shipping. I feel even after this amount I am still in your debt for all of the time and effort you've put in over the years, but I digress. You should definitely keep at least enough to cover your direct parts costs and consider keeping more to cover your other GDQ related expenses but if you wanted to pay any portion of the donation forward I'd encourage you to pick a charity and time of your choosing, with no obligation to tie it to a particular event. Thanks again for all you've done.
I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.
Posted: 7/7/2017 3:00 AM
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micro500
Emulator Coder, Player (69)
Joined: 10/4/2005
Posts: 197
On January 17 dwangoAC sent me 0.476867 bitcoin = $433. In March I saw the bitcoin price was rising quickly and had reached its highest value ever (at the time), so on March 3 I sold 0.34250849 of that to get $433 (after a coinbase fee) and guarantee I have at least the original $433 to donate. Bitcoin price was ~$1283.32. After that the bitcoin price went down a bit, and I decided to pull out the rest. On March 18 I sold the remaining 0.13435851 @ ~$947.32. This gave me $128.23. Coinbase took a fee of $1.91, so after the fee I received $126.32. This gave me a total of $559.32. I added $56.03 of my own money to bring the total to $655.35. I then donated this money to SGDQ2017. Unfortunately for some reason the donation was not read on stream. Edit: They read it right before the tetris block.
Posted: 8/24/2017 6:09 AM
Post subject: $500 donated by Ciena to PCF; no plans to ask for help here
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dwangoAC
Moderator, Senior Ambassador, Experienced player (907)
Joined: 9/14/2008
Posts: 1014
Exotic platforms TASer of 2015 Exotic platforms TASer of 2013
I only just now realized I never replied to confirm that my employer, Ciena Corporation, matched our donation to PCF up to the $500 matching limit. I put the donation matching request in shortly after the event but it took them a few weeks to process it and I apparently never posted about it here when it was confirmed. As an aside, I do not currently intend to start another thread asking for donations for future events. We can't currently afford to go to more events but I don't feel right about continuing to ask for donations every year through the forums. The members of the site have done much to enable me to attend several GDQ events now, but a lot of other great people on the team have selflessly paid their own way to attend event after event. This is not me saying I won't accept help, just that I won't use the forums to effectively beg for assistance as it didn't feel good and it clearly stopped being effective as of last year when I couldn't even raise half of my expenses. Leading the organizational efforts of these events has most definitely been costly for me, more than just monetarily, but it has also resulted in some life-changing experiences that are beyond any dollar amount. To that end, I won't be asking for donations here but I won't shut the door to people who may want to help. The above donation methods will continue to work should anyone want to use them. For anyone who is inclined to do so, please feel free to subscribe to my Twitch channel at http://twitch.tv/dwangoAC - I will use any and all revenue from Twitch to help fund charity related expenses and I'll continue to be just as transparent as I have been here. I'd like to again thank everyone from TASVideos who contributed. The donations over the years have helped us come to events during times we otherwise wouldn't have, such as that one time a tree fell on our house or that other time that we had unexpected medical expenses. The vast majority of the financial assistance that helped us get to GDQ events came right here from TASVideos members, to whom I am forever indebted to. There is one last important order of business in this lengthy post. I'd specifically like to honor micro500 who shouldered one of the largest burdens of anyone, a burden that was as much financial as it was emotional as a result of how much he willingly took on and how much he was forced to take on because of failings on my part that I still feel the need to apologize for and learn from. The fact that he donated so much of his time (and money, including his recent SGDQ 2017 donation to DWB) is a testament to his dedication and outstanding character. The way micro500 stood up for what was right is something I will never forget and had a profound (and ultimately positive) impact on me as a person. It was an honor to work with you, my friend. Thank you for everything over the years. May your future endeavors be as successful as you know your past endeavors have been.
I was laid off in May 2023 and became too ill to work this year and could use support via Patreon or onetime donations as work on TASBot Re: and TASBot HD is stalled. I'm dwangoAC, TASVideos Senior Ambassador and BDFL of the TASBot community; when healthy, I post TAS content on YouTube.com/dwangoAC based on livestreams from Twitch.tv/dwangoAC.