Jing seems to do a great job - I have only used it on one project, but it just works. Oh yes - it is free - so far. At this point they are evaluating if it will be a product. They have a companion hosting site, screencast.com, that isn't free except for your projects during this trial period.
recommended!
thanks for pointing it out Jerry.
I'm using Scrivener for a large writing project. An excellent tool, but not for everyone. It isn't overloaded with features, allows for non-linear writing techniques, and how can you not like something with edit button is an image of a Moleskine notebook and pencil.
There is a 30 day trial period. Inexpensive and better than any other tool I've used for non-technical book-like projects. Technical work is a completely different issue.
I know these guys ... recommended for quick prototyping of ideas
The sky part of Goggle Earth has been enormously improved. Select Switch to Sky under View in Google Earth and have at it.
It isn't good enough to take the place of a good digital sky program, but is moving in the right direction.
I'm told that most custom stamps are pets, followed by babies and then weddings.
We used Zazzle for some custom stamps recently and were very pleased with the results. They have a sale on 12/25 - 12/26 with additional savings for quantity orders. We went with the large (1.5 x 2.5 inch) size.
The problem is we don't send that many letters these days.
Oh - one set we did involved a ferret and the other a human friend. Our friend's photo must have been interesting. It triggered their "this may not be legitimate" mechanism. Completely G rated, but I guess this is flattering. The ferret photo slipped by even though Telemna wasn't wearing anything. It only took a single email and a few hours to resolve the issue.
Some custom stamp companies do less than quality work - Zazzle is great. Recommended!
go figure...
Over the past few years I've come to the conclusion that having my digital photos and sketches printed commercially makes a lot of sense. They are usually much less expensive (the small color ink cartridges we use are often north of $8000 a gallon and your cost per print, especially if you are finicky like me and need to adjust things, can be very high).
The problem is finding the right print shop.
I'm very finicky and the sketches I make often have subtle shading and sometimes very dark regions. Prints tend to look terrible compared to the screen images and I have tried several vendors. This gets spendy as art quality images aren't cheap.
But I'm very happy now.
Zazzle has done a great job on some very non-trivial images. The prices are good (I go for the "watercolor" paper and high end inks - not cheap, but reasonable compared with custom printing houses in Manhattan) and there are regular sales if you get on their mailing list. The framing work is outstanding.
They also print images to other objects - tshirts, mugs, etc. I tried the stamps, lured in by a great sale on Thanksgiving. The quality is very high - better than another digital photo stamp service I have used. The large stamps (1.5 x 2.5 inches) are very dramatic with the right image.
I have not tried regular prints from Zazzle as I only print a few images, but suspect you won't be disappointed.
highest recommendation!
one cm of ice
An hour walk when nothing else is moving. Stabilicers rule
Perhaps later today I can strap on the stabilicers
highly recommended if your climate is appropriate
Google maps now has a take public transit option where appropriate. It works in the Bay Area, but not in Manhattan yet...
(thanks Larry)
The Daily Coyote is the story of an orphaned coyote growing up in Wyoming.
Dealing with wild animals is serious stuff mostly for experts and there is the issue of what to do when maturity comes, but this may be a special case.
The images are adorable - highly recommended!!
I do a bit of amateur art and, every now and again, have some of it printed. Years ago I gave up on my own printers and turned to professionals. While my pieces may not be artistic, they are often too challenging for most printing companies. Over the years I've tried a half dozen companies with varying results. (note - these are medium to high end jobs -- not your standard drugstore prints)
In the past year I've had good results with Zazzle and recently had one of those multiple sigma positive experiences with them on a medium to high end printing job. They went completely out of their way to get it right even though the their first shot was better than anyone else I've used.
These guys rock
Highly recommended!! They have people who *really* understand printing who worked with me to nail the image. Outstanding service.
xkcd is often great generating tshirtable images...
I'm partial to the COBE data fit... (as mentioned here before)
Chris Lydon is back (thanks to Roger for noting this as well as Chris' mailing list)...
Dear Friend of Open Source:
The summer is over, and so is our hiatus.
The Open Source conversation is reborn at the Watson Institute at Brown University.
Please check in on what we've been up to at http://www.radioopensource.org .
Thomas Watson of IBM fame, who'd been Jimmy Carter's ambassador to Moscow, founded the Institute in 1981 to address the most urgent global risks of that day: nuclear hazards of the Cold War. Today the mission of the Watson Institute encompasses poverty, hunger, war and culture. My fellowship here commits me to keep exploring and innovating in the interactive new media - at the intersection of pod- and broad- casting where the new discourse of a global age is taking shape.
Brown and Watson overflow with blessings for Open Source, starting with the brilliant Rafael Vinoly building that both nestles and goads us to think anew. Nikita Khrushchev's son Sergei is upstairs writing, as is the exiled Zimbabwean novelist Chenjeria Hove, and former presidents Ricardo Lagos Escobar of Chile and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil. Geoffrey Kirkman of the Watson Institute was right when he told me years ago: the same swath of visiting stars that pass through New York and Harvard come also to Brown, but here they stay longer and they talk more. Brown students keep knocking on my door - this new rainbow generation of "millennials," most of them with digital media skills and native confidence in the expanding universe of the Web.
Not least, my Watson fellowship and the combination of avid Brown students and first-class recording facilities have let us cut radically into the "nut" cost of producing Open Source. So, not for the first time in human history, adversity has forced us into a precious opportunity to get lean, cheap and experimental again.
"An American conversation with global attitude" could be the motto of the revived Open Source. As always, we need your partnership here to locate the topics, guests and angles that will keep it richly distinctive. All we want to be, as we keep growing up, is - as many of you suggested, and producer Mary McGrath distilled the message - "the best damn podcast" on your computer or your Nano. But how long should the conversation run? And how often? What new features do you want on the site? How do we keep it making it more interactive with "the people formerly known as the audience" and with the world beyond our shores?
What we learned in two years on the last round is that "open source" works as well for public conversation as well as it works for advancing software. We announced a "conspiracy of the curious," and people joined it - with an unending flow of show suggestions and witty, critical, often impassioned extensions of the on-air conversation.
We learned also that podcasting works. The proto-blogger Dave Winer and I claim together to have done the first podcast in human history just a little more than four years ago. Between us, at Harvard's Berkman Center, we were the Neil Armstrong of the podcast moon, and now everyone's going there. For good reason. Podcasting is the cheap, democratic, speedy, listener-friendly universal means of sharing and archiving original sound files of every kind. Can we keep it new, or newish?
To begin, we've fired up the podcast feed of our summer gab which went from the Oscar Wao novelist Junot Diaz to the late John Coltrane, from the cyber prophet William Gibson to the unheeded prophets of our quagmire in Iraq. And there is tasty talk ahead with another of the "global" novelists, Ha Jin, on his first fiction set in America - with "The War" documentarian Ken Burns, and with the canonical critic Harold Bloom at Yale, among many others.
Let us end by saying again: Thank you. We couldn't and wouldn't be embarking in these Open Source conversations without the community of you -- that is, without the yeasty, resilient, generous, hungry, faithful, world-wide community that built and sustained Open Source from the beginning.
As always, coming and going, Emerson speaks to a great deal of what we're feeling. This comes from the end of his marvelous essay "Circles."
"Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. No love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love. No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light of new thoughts. People wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them."
Thank you for passionate, engaged, listenership and commentary these last two years. Now let us all together keep this "community of the curious" alive and growing.
So send us your news, your dreams and expectations, please, for the next ride on Open Source and reload your podcast here: http://www.radioopensource.org . Are you aware that you can subscribe (free) to the Open Source Podcast at the iTunes store? Go to iTunes, then the store, enter "open source podcast" in the search box, and then click on the Open Source icon and "subscribe" to get every episode.
In the spirit of Emerson: Onward, ever onward!
Christopher Lydon and Mary McGrath
generally great discussion ... the website and, of course, you can subscribe to the podcast.
Roger notes a fascinating piece with Michael Desch on our unaccountable political system.
I tend to walk quite a bit and go through a pair of shoes in about 1000 miles. Finding a comfortable pair has been problematic. I'll admit to an unusual shoe size, but I still have problems (New Balance is the best brand I've found, but lasts seem to change and I haven't been completely satisfied.)
A discussion with some people who do serious walking on concrete, trail and rock suggested Keen shoes are held in high regard by a surprising number of people. I have never heard of the place, but some people I trust give glowing recommendations. Some of them have the feature of looking very unusual.
Serious walkers or people on their feet all day may want to take a look.
A recommended source of Neodymium magnets.
Lots of fun, but the warning is these can cause real damage, so check out the safety warnings before buying. A sphere in each pocket for "navigation"
makes some of the best computer bags in the world. We've been using and recommending them for years.
The new iPhone clearly needed something. I bought a case at the Apple Store along with the phone, but took it back out of frustration (kudos to Apple who didn't charge a restocking fee). Lots of asking around and googling until Dave K noted the smart case.
Excellent design and even better construction. Zero stitches on the inside. Lots of padding without being too think and access to the controls (although you have to slide the iPhone out of the case to use the screen .. but the fit is great and this is easy.
Highly recommended! I don't know why I didn't start here.
(goats on cows)
The lead story on this week's RadioLab ... excellent!
RadioLab is often great and a nice podcast to encourage walking or running. If you are looking for an excuse to give up big chunks of TV and get some exercise in the bargain, get an iPod and start listening to podcasts on walks.
A beginner's guide to glue .. very handy for when you're stuck on sticking
No - I don't have an iPhone, but I did notice Waterfield has a sleeve as well as cases for the object.
We've had several bags and cases by these people - simply the best I've used. Five out of five stars. Great construction and service.
Radiolab - only every few weeks, but the last episode on morality was excellent
Selected Shorts from NPR - often gems and now a podcast
You can find both, for free, on iTunes or other podcast aggregators
Fernando points to his sister's blog which has beautiful photos and links to music (there is a considerable overlap with music I like). I can't read Portuguese, but I will follow this for the items we can all understand,.
and should she see my blog:
Mstislav Rostropovich playing the Allemande from Bach's G Major Cello Suite
Rest in peace, Maestro.
ScreenCastsOnline is offering a free online walkthrough of OmniGraffle. OmniGraffle is a great diagraming tool - much nicer than Visio imho.
Many people prefer video walkthroughs to reading manuals and ScreenCastsOnline has a good reputation. For folks new to the OS X there are several free movies to get started and the cost of the full product isn't excessive
We're big fans of Make and were delighted to see Mark on the Colbert Report last night
Colbert seemed in awe and fascinated.
Too bad the balloon hasn't flown, but amazing publicity for the DYI crowd.
open culture offers links
Today's walk found me listening to ep90 of Escape Pod - How Lonesome a Life Without Nerve Gas. A cute and recommended short story. The rest of the walk was with The History of Utopia (and dystopias) on Open Source (also here as a mp3) ...
both are available as podcasts through iTunes and other aggregators
OK - a bit of explanation is in order.
Three or four years ago an astrophysicist friend and I started talking about enjoying the night sky. It turns out that, other than looking through small telescopes as a kid, he had never seriously looked at the night sky and, turning 40, he thought it would be reasonable to look at what he studied.
Like many beginners, he was interested in a telescope - and the largest he could afford. There were issues with transportation (he lives about 100 miles from a dark area) and also issues with his goals.
Looking through a telescope can be wonderful and many people progress to amateur astronomy and formal studies of the sky, but this would be something of a busman's holiday. I noted some of the best views of the sky are at relatively low power - 7x to 15x - but with enough light gather area to bring out detail. A good pair of binoculars can provide an astonishing view.
He ended up with a nice pair of Canon image stabilizing binoculars (I have a pair of 15x50s and give them a strong recommendation - great optics and the image stabilization feature really works) and has written enthusiastically about them.
A few days ago I received an email with an enthusiastic recommendation from him.
It turns out one of the problems associated with binocular astronomy is comfort. Holding them while looking up can be tiring and even frustrating. He started out with a lawn chair, but that greatly limits what you look at. A few motorized lawn chairs exist, but none of them worked well (he purchased and returned three) - until now.
He tried a Bigha StarSeeker that another amateur was reviewing. After using it for a few hours he decided he needed one and placed an order.
from his comments:
• extremely well built
• extremely comfortable - you could spend an evening in it
• relatively lightweight - it will fit in any car and is easy for one person to carry
• easy to setup - some motorized chairs require a half hour - this one takes about two minutes
• wonderful ergonomics - this is beautifully thought out
• a bargain compared with everything else out there
While $2k for a chair and $1k for a good pair of binoculars may seem spendy, this will give many hours of enjoyment on a dark night. Folks interested in the beauty of the sky, assuming they can find dark skies, might consider this. Taking little vacations a few thousand light years away may appeal.
(I wonder if there are StarSeeker time shares?)
f2c is an interesting name.
Norm Schryer at Bell Labs coauthored f2c - a Fortran to C converter - at Bell Labs way back when. Early open source gamers remember it as it brought many of the open source Fortran games over to the emerging world of C ... even Zork (via a circuitous path:-)
free and open is good
Another friend from the Bell Labs days, David Isenberg, runs the outstanding f2c conference.
freedom to connect
Many of the movers and shakers in the net neutrality debate attend. Most are on the side of net neutrality, but there are those from the other side of the fence and the conference has severed as a catalyst to focus efforts. The press was surprised by the net neutrality storm that stuck Congress last Spring. There were so many reasons why it shouldn't have happened. f2c 2006 was a catalyst and one of the reasons why it did.
So who should go?
Anyone who wants to get a deeper understanding of the issues around network neutrality - certainly Representatives and Senators:-) More seriously CIOs and CTOs of companies with major Internet presences attend to equip themselves with the tools to sift through the astroturf being generated at the rate of million$ per month by the telecommunications companies. Telco people should attend to participate in the debate.
We live in interesting times and legislation is increasingly likely this year. It is unclear what might be good and what might be bad -- and for which parties... There is no better venue to explore the issues.
An added feature of the conference is its small size (generally a few hundred) - off-line serious talks may be the best feature. I remember going until 4 in the morning one year.
This is net neutrality ab ovo usque ad mala
And f2c goes beyond network neutrality.
recommended!
The art of soldering is pretty much lost on the current generation. Except for a few people, there is little need for it in a consume and throw away world, but a growing interest in hacking hardware (Make and other project sites) has created a need for basic training...
The I Make Things vodcast features basic soldering techniques this week... if you have any interest in hacking hardware (even very small projects) but lack the skills, go there now..
(I Make Things is worth following for cute weekend projects -- many are more mechanical than electronic and most appeal to a certain mentality)
Notes on a price guarantee at Amazon - I haven't used this, but will track now,. (via Slate ... thanks for noting it Josh)
Today's lunch hour walk found me listening to the current podcast of This American Life ...
recommended ... the second story (actually act 1) is particularly good
Recently I was chatting with someone about their photography club. He guessed that half the people had Photoshop and none of them knew how to use it (the first statement surprises me as Photoshop isn't cheap, the second statement doesn't surprise me at all).
More than a few people acquire computer applications and never get very far down the learning curve - the same can be said with basic computer use. Of course there are manuals, but many are poorly written and some people seem to learn new stuff visually.
If you know anyone who is wondering about digital photography, art, video, amateur music -- even finally learning how to "master" the OS --- give them a month or two access to lynda.com ($25 a month). I haven't used it myself, but know a few people who swear by it.
This American Life is now available as a podcast!
free (of course) and updated on Mondays
___
I've been grabbing the stream for a few years and time/space shifting it, but the podcast quality is better than fm or Internet streaming.
Speaking of O'Reilly - the prompt for the tethered photography note came from wandering around on the O'Reilly site after looking for a link to a piece I heard on their Digital Media Insider podcast on today's walk...
a Mark Nelson interview that may prove useful to anyone looking for a digital audio recorder ...
(thanks Jheri)
I attempt to draw ... no real talent, but it is a nice way to remove yourself from normal work and find a bit of inspiration here and there.
A few years ago I was given a Inuos3 tablet. After years of mousing it was completely liberating. I strongly recommend one of these beasts if you play with any sort of digital art.
Mine is a 6" x 8" model and is about the right size for me - larger units are cumbersome and expensive and, in my case, smaller units are a bit too small. The "pro" Intuos line matches my needs - the higher resolution pressure and tilt sensitivity are important. If you are new to this it might make sense to start with the less expensive Graphire line.
Each to his/her own though ... a friend happens to be one of the first significant digital artists. She was active in 1975 and used Lisp machines during the 80s. Most of her work these days is experimental video, but she uses a mouse when she draws.
Software is a more difficult call. I use Photoshop for most of my work (I know... that isn't what its made for...) largely because I am very comfortable with the program and have been using it approximately forever. There is something of a learning curve, but the tools are incredible. I also use Sketch Book Pro (now from Autodesk -- my copy is ancient ... I'd gladly "test" a new copy Lynn) and ArtRage. ArtRage 2 is very inexpensive and, combined with a Wacom Graphire tablet, may be a nice way to get your feet wet.
For five or six years we have used a RayTek digital thermometer - mostly kitchen relatedtakes, but it is also useful for working on a hot car and measuring difficult regions of the furnace.
If you don't have one, consider treating yourself. They also happen to make fine gifts. Prices have come down dramatically since we got ours (over $100 then, but it is well built and still works well).
Now Fluke and Raytek offer something more targeted to the kitchen that claims to be more accurate and, in addition to doing the remote infrared measurement, has a physical probe.
I found myself needed to grab full screenshots of webpages ... pages that are beyond the height of my browser
Paparazzi is just the tool/
excellent today
A note for those of you looking at MacBooks, iMacs and iPods ... Apple has a one day black Friday sale at their physical and on-line stores.
DealNews is posting flyers for Friday's sales. (thanks for the tip John)
If you are looking for anything from Apple, note they have had black Friday sales in year's past - last year the sales were online as well as in physical Apple Stores. Very hot items are usually not discounted, but some of the discounts have been good.
I have a pair of Etymotic 6is and love them.
This is far and away the best price I've seen. They take a bit of getting used to (they really isolate), but the sound is probably better than your home hifi speakers (unless those speakers cost over $5,000 a pair)
There are better earphones in the $200+ range - $80 is a steal. I think I paid about $170 for mine a few years ago. If you need a pro recommendation, I note these are used by the person with the best ears I've encountered (a sound engineer with a symphony orchestra)
I strongly recommend ripping your CDs at 160kbps aac. 128kbps isn't quite transparent enough ...especially with good earphones.
from today's noon walk ...
if you have an hour, listen (mp3)
Bill Clinton on philanthropy - the Slate November 13th podcast
listen
its that time of year again
Many people have extremely dirty computer screens (I've seen mustard stains on a corporate VP's laptop and admit that our machines accumulate ferret nose prints). Any number of homemade remedies, but few work and I've seen some cause permanent damage.
A very nice gift in the $20 to $30 range is a screen cleaning kit that really works. I've been using Klear Screen for about five years with outstanding results. Stay away from the pre-soaked towelettes -- they don't work well. My favorite is a large bottle of the fluid and micro-chamois/micro-fiber polishing cloths.
You might want to give a kit to yourself. Use it a few times and it doesn't seem spendy at all.
I've had the MacBook Pro for about a day now and am pleased. It is fast enough for most of the things I would want on a laptop. I am surprised at its running temperature - subjectively much cooler than the last generation MacBook Pro and even cooler than my old iBook G4. WiFi is adequate, but not quite as good as Sukie's MacBook.
After seeing the display on Sukie's MacBook I opted for the glossy display and am impressed. I also went for 2 GB of RAM and recommend extra memory on any OS X machine.
Macs often have cute design detail - sometimes useful, sometimes not. This machine has an "invisible" webcam status indicator. To the right of the built-in webcam is a small array of about 50 small holes (each a few hundred microns in diameter). A bright green LED makes itself known when on - when it is off, you don't notice the holes. Very slick.
Transfer from my old iBook was as smooth as could be. When I first booted the MBP it asked if I wanted to copy from another Mac. I told it yes - it asked my to connect the old Mac with a firewire cable and then to reboot the old Mac. When the old Mac was recognized I clicked a single button and thirty minutes later all of my old software and files had been moved to the new Mac. I entered a password, rebooted, clicked another button to update all of the Apple software on the machine and ten minutes later everything was working properly. Settings, registration codes,... everything. Well - almost everything. I did have to de-authorize iTunes on my old Mac and authorize it on the new machine.
nice machine ..
' just getting used to my new MacBook Pro. Coming from a 12 inch iBook, the difference in keyboard size is a substantial difference...
but I'm not complaining...
My favorite browser at a significant savings ...
Things you really need
squid power strips and surge protectors
and
a power meter -- using one of these made me realize 12 percent of our electricity bill was going to standby and instant on....
(all of this kit is widely available)
Waterfield Designs bags are, imho, the best computer bags made. I've had three of their sleeve cases over the years and count them among the best made and designed things I own. I have also drooled over their regular bags (thanks to Nancy, Pip, Larry, Sandra and a few other folks for advice). These folks point out their bags don't show appreciable wear after years of use. Getting a bag that lives for ten or twenty years seems approximately right.
One of the hallmarks of this company is patient advice via email or over the phone. I used both modes asking enough questions to come up with the right piece of kit - in my case a medium sized Cosmo with a sleeve for my MacBook Pro and a small pouch for chargers, cables and other gear.
celerius quam asparagi cocuntur, the order arrived - even though I didn't specify overnight shipping.
Materials and construction are outstanding with great attention to detail - the same level of detail that went into my friend's bags. The padded shoulder strap is probably the best I've seen. Everything just fits, zippers are smooth and it just looks right.
Waterfield designs aren't cheap, but cheapness is not the point. Instead of something thrown together with third world labor you are buying thoughtful design and great materials and craftsmanship.
So thanks to the people who pushed me over the top on this. For those who are curious, mine is in "stone" (a brownish color). I was leaning towards the red, but went for something more subdued.
Highly recommended and perhaps the killer holiday gift for any road warrior.
I have a first day/first generation iPod 5GB that still works well. It turns out I prefer this model to newer incarnations - the mechanical scroll wheel is heads and shoulders above any touch sensitive wheel I've used.
Here is an excellent price on replacement batteries for early iPods.
Bored?
Why not write a novel this November during National Novel Writing Month.
from the site:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and -- when the thing is done -- the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2005, we had over 59,000 participants. Nearly 10,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So, to recap:
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2006. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
The faq offers more wisdom:
If I'm just writing 50,000 words of crap, why bother? Why not just write a real novel later, when I have more time?There are three reasons.
1) If you don't do it now, you probably never will. Novel writing is mostly a "one day" event. As in "One day, I'd like to write a novel." Here's the truth: 99% of us, if left to our own devices, would never make the time to write a novel. It's just so far outside our normal lives that it constantly slips down to the bottom of our to-do lists. The structure of NaNoWriMo forces you to put away all those self-defeating worries and START. Once you have the first five chapters under your belt, the rest will come easily. Or painfully. But it will come. And you'll have friends to help you see it through to 50k.
2) Aiming low is the best way to succeed. With entry-level novel writing, shooting for the moon is the surest way to get nowhere. With high expectations, everything you write will sound cheesy and awkward. Once you start evaluating your story in terms of word count, you take that pressure off yourself. And you'll start surprising yourself with a great bit of dialogue here and a ingenious plot twist there. Characters will start doing things you never expected, taking the story places you'd never imagined. There will be much execrable prose, yes. But amidst the crap, there will be beauty. A lot of it.
3) Art for art's sake does wonderful things to you. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you want to take naps and go places wearing funny pants. Doing something just for the hell of it is a wonderful antidote to all the chores and "must-dos" of daily life. Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives.
This will produce tons of garbage and may be considered a major assault on the planet's forests - perhaps, but I support efforts like this and 24 hour movie making contests. Participants begin to see the act of creation from a different perspective.
I speak from experience. I do a bit of art recreationally. It turns out I'm not very good. Bad is probably the right descriptor. But I have fun and I think I've learned a bit about art.
So set a goal with a ridiculous constraint and perhaps the silliness will strip away your concerns. Many of you may even have fun and a few may discover a talent.
Sukie bought a new MacBook today and is very happy.
The OS X data transfer utility is impressive. When you fire up the new Mac for the first time it asks you to connect a firewire cable to your old Mac and all of the old stuff comes over - things like registration numbers, preferences - everything. Thirty minutes of no pain.
Oh - white. Black is nice, but $150 is spendy for a color.
I saw one the other day. Large displays are great and this one is beautiful.
The new iMacs blur the boundary between the pro and home. It can't hold enough memory for serious Photoshop, but most other serious applications should be just fine.
Roger pointed to an hour long interview with Pete Seeger .... recommended!
I've been using pre beta releases of Omniweb 5.5 for a few months now and they've finally released a public beta.
Great stuff and my primary browser. We all have our own reasons to use whatever browser - I find this one to be particularly beautiful and just useful (I can't say the same for Firefox or some of the other OS X browsers)
Supporting Omnigroup is supporting the OS X performing arts. I also strongly recommend theirOmniGraffle.
open access, as in documents. Mostly peer reviewed journal articles and preprints.
the timeline is interesting
Rocketboom 2.0 may have potential.
great stuff!
Adult Swim is putting material up right after the first playing of shows. Eventually it may make sense for them to abandon the cable channel.
I'm always amazed when I hear someone has never seen the Milky Way. It shouldn't be surprising - I have never seen any reasonable display of it in New Jersey. I used to see it from the Eastern end of Long Island on clear moonless nights, but the light pollution that comes with population density generally renders it invisible.
It can be overwhelmingly spectacular. Growing up in the intermountain West, I was treated to wonderful views on a regular basis. As a kid I had a difficult time identifying the constellations because there were too many competing stars.
Watching the star studded sky on a moonless night is powerful and a great place to contemplate the deep questions, to tell stories or to listen to the coyotes (or wolves if you are lucky).
If you have never witness the grandeur may I recommend a vacation?
___
This photo is from La Silla Observatory in the southernmost part of the Atacama desert in Chile. To the left is the old 15 meter dish of the Swedish-ESO Submillimetre Telescope, and on the is the ESO 3.6-metre telescope, at the highest point of the mountain. There is an upside-down reflection of the sky in the highly polished antenna dish. The orangeish-yellow area of light on the dish is the reflection of the city lights of the city of La Serena, about 100 km away. Even in the darkest places there is light pollution.
This is a 40 second exposure with an unguided early Canon dSLR - I can pretty much guarantee that your own dark adapted eyes will produce a more spectacular image (not in limiting brightness, but in sheer "wow")
Cars
You really need to see the movie. (I'm biased for obvious reasons ... waves to Jessica .. but this is a great June diversion).
____
After the movie we spent a bit of time with one of the Intel based MacBooks. My concerns about the keyboard went away and the screen, at least in the Apple Store indoor lighting, was very readable. Clearly a desirable machine and probably a good value for the money. I wouldn't be too interested in a first generation model and anyone interesting in an Intel Mac should know that the demo models all had one gigabyte of RAM (don't put anything less on an Intel Mac!)
A surprising number of people I know have purchased or are purchasing MacBooks and MacBook Pros. Only a few people are waiting for the Mac Pros, but most people (Windows, Linux and OS X) seem to be more interested in laptops these days.
while I'm recommending things...
This morning's walk featured an Escape Pod short story .. The Clockwork Atomic Bomb. Sort of a physics thriller (although the stabilization of the devices involved is a bit fanciful - but most good scifi has one or two elements that are improbable or impossible though)
I haven't mentioned Steve Cisler's blog Digital Commons.
Go there ... now .. fascinating themes by one of the more interesting people I know. The postings come under his heading of "knowledge sharing" ...
like I said . go there
(I recommend the blogs and sites of friends listed to the right (not a complete set, but these are folks involved in long-standing conversations)
Cool Tools notes the Coleman Stirling engine electric cooler. I've seen one of these and note that they work very well. Their efficiency is amazing when compared with other small refrigerators.
Even better are acoustic stirling refrigerators (also called pulse tube coolers). Even better efficiencies are possible and the idea of cooling with sound (very loud sound) is just amazingly cool. Ben and Jerry's has some prototype coolers in some of their shops.
Here are some notes (pdf)O on building a demonstration device ... much could be done to make it more efficient. A very neat project for those of you who like building stuff.
About five years ago a colleague brought a two megapixel camera to work to document meetings and thinking sessions by capturing whiteboards. He (hi Norm!) is an excellent notetaker, but it is astounding how much more you remember with a few visuals spread about in the notes. An added bonus is you can take photos of everyone in the meeting for additional recall.
highly recommended if your workplace allows cameras - you can do this with a cameraphone, but 2 megapixels is about the bottom limit for a nice image. Remember to turn off the flash.
It is very easy to touch up the images in Photoshop (play with the histogram and/or contrast curves), but Save My Whiteboard is a little application that works well.
(a tip of the hat to Nancy for reminding me)
check out rocketboom today
The New York Times did a piece on good and bad customer service including a mention of gethuman (print and post the gethuman list next to your phone)
Alex and Ed have posted their Sony CD DRM paper (pdf) ... highly recommended!
Nisus Writer Express has been updated.
I have a great frustration with ugly tools - I find they get in my way and take away from the experience of the task at hand. Microsoft Word, although somewhat power and very standard, "feels" wrong to me. I find myself using simpler tools for many tasks and dip into precise tools like LaTeX when I need real control.
The nice thing about using simple tools like Nisus Writer or Pages is you tend to use other focused tools for other tasks. Putting together diagrams in Office is just wrong. They are tricky to build and they are always ugly. I use Omnigraffle and pop the results into place. (Omnigraffle is an amazing piece of software by the way).
I should note that Mellel has its fans. I tried it and it doesn't dovetail with my needs as well as NWE, but your mileage may vary. A friend who is a very successful novelist swears by it.
The trick is to find the right toolset for the task at hand.
Go there - now!
I'm browsing through the Mozart ... it looks like the evening is shot.