This post is not meant to be very informative. It is more for my notes than anything else. I should make it private, but I am not going to do that. I have not been very good about keeping this blog active, so I am going to dish out anything I can to let folks know what I am up to. Especially people from mysticwicks.com.

So, let’s talk about Tarot readings.

As it pertains tarotwicks.com, a reading will be a totally different experience than what people are used to receiving. One could almost say (and I am sure some will) that we are twisting the Tarot. I say, if using every possible resource available to provide someone with the power to answer the questions they are asking themselves, then fine…we are twisting it. During the first wave of development, however, the tarotwicks project will deliver exactly what a person would need to provide a reading for themselves.

Let’s outline the Reading process.

The user does not have to register or sign up for anything to be able to request a reading. The user will be presented with a list of available spreads to choose from. Perhaps they will given some tips on which spread to choose depending on the question they are trying to answer. The spread choices will be limited. Registered (known) users will have many more spreads available and eventually will be able to design their own spreads to choose from. Spreads that are created by registered users can also be made available to the general community or even just specific friends.

Once the spread is chosen, then tarotwicks goes into action. I am not going to go into low level details at this point. Basically, some numbers are kicked out and the corresponding cards are displayed to the user. This would be a thumbnail type view at first. The user will be presented with the reading with the entire spread in view.

The user will then be able to click on a specific card. Clicking on a card brings up general details regarding the meaning of the card. It will be up to the user to correlate the meaning presented with the question they are trying to get answered.

As you can see, tarotwicks.com will not be giving a reading. The sole purpose of the site is to guide a user through the reading process. It could even be used as a tool for learning the ins and outs of giving a reading. We can even have dedicated users that could assist with questions that users have regarding a reading they have been given.

Users will be able to register with tarotwicks.com and this is encouraged. Known users will be able to save their readings, share them with other users, add notes, request help, add new spreads, etc.

Anyway, this is a brief overview. I have to get ready for band practice right now. I will start typing up the real requirements laid out for phase 1 development. Candice and I have already defined what is needed for the 1.0 release and it is time to make this happen. So, stay tuned.

The tarotwicks.com project has now graduated from a small Mysticwicks.com project to something a bit more grandiose. The Twickster will be an online application that will assist users in guided readings. At first we will base everything completely on the Tarot. I have recruited 3 of the brightest engineers I know to assist me in this venture.

We are using Trac to manage the project. (http://dev.tarotwicks.com)

I need to post my notes on the Trac install. It was actually quite a nightmare because I didn’t want to run the standalone version. Bleh. Anyway, its up and running now and that’s what matters. We are going through some push and pull right now at work regarding project management software.

Anyway, I don’t know if I have a document that outlines the entire Twickster experience from start to finish. I have been writing documentation on the project wiki, but it is not a complete and total view. It also uses buzzwords, which have to be explained. G asked me to explain the project to him on Friday WITHOUT the terms and I almost couldn’t do it. This is my attempt to outline the project using everyday language, not Twisms.

Where did the Twickster come from?

Ok, so my wife asked me if it would be hard to develop a tarot reading generator for the Tarot forum on Mysticwicks.com. I said, not really. And then a few weeks later (yah, I’m slow) I started thinking of the best way to do it. At first I was just going to write a Vbulletin plug-in that would do the job. Then I started thinking it might be fun to have a separate site which Mysticwicks.com users could log in and get readings, even save them. My first notes even required Vbulletin user integration at phase I.

From there my thought started whirring around about how best to build the application to produce the best readings. I started thinking about the possibilities of running information obtained by the user through various routines that would find correspondences via various numerological and modern Kabbalistic. These correspondences could then be used to weight the chances of drawing a particular card in a reading.

This Suggestive Randomness would give the application an edge when producing the right user experience to strengthen the psychological aspects of a reading. This also changes the way one would have to think about divination. The assisted reading is based on you and ultimately done by you. The Twickster is a genius at math and able to perform complex equations that would take us forever to complete in a blink. The Twickster gives us a medium and an opportunity to get the best reading we could ever have. It is the best reading because it is done by the only person that could ever really tell you what is going to happen to you.

You.

So, from the small reading vbulletin plug-in springs the might Twickster which will be a very unique site in the social genre. Next post I will explain just exactly what the Twickster is.