I feel dumb posting about my own life…
StandardWhen things are so awful in Japan. There’s not much I have to say on the subject, since I’ve had Mac Freedom on most of the day and have missed much of the news. Still, if you want to do something to help, check this out.
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Is anyone even remotely surprised that James O’Keefe’s gotcha video that caused the firing of an NPR fundraiser and the forced resignation of their CEO was in fact dishonestly edited to be a hit piece? No? Of course not. That’s what this guy does.
Credit where it’s due: it was Glenn Beck’s people who did the investigating. Good work, folks.
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Finally, personal stuff. Guess who just failed her saving throw against The Shiny? My wife. We bought an iPad for her yesterday.
Most of the people reading this won’t know her and won’t know how honestly astounding this is. She has no patience or interest in online digital culture (beyond a few basic things like TED Talks and emails from friends). She doesn’t like the way computers operate–she’s always asking where is this and where is that, how do you…Nothing is ever straightforward enough for her.
Also, she’s severely dyslexic and dysgraphic–reading is a slow process and writing legibly can be very stressful. This means that, except for a couple areas of personal expertise, she has a way of talking around the things she wants done and can be vague at times, relying on the listener to interpret what she wants. Computers don’t do that, of course. You can’t tell it to put the thing away and you can’t mix up one word for another. You have to accommodate it, not the other way around. And her eyesight, never very good (like you’re surprised?), is getting worse.
But she liked the iPad. It’s portable for in the home, the fonts can be set quite large and the screen can be made white text on black. Also, it turns out the ereader features were less interesting to her than the idea that she could take all of her addresses and phone numbers off the random scraps of paper they’re on and save them for herself.
What’s more, some of the apps are tempting as hell. I’m buying Sketchbook Pro for her soon and Animation Creator HD, too. The hard thing will be to keep the boy from loading it up with games he wants to play. He’s already pressing me to buy Fruit Ninjas or whatever that is (and I confess that I spent much of the time in the store playing Angry Birds and Cut The Rope).
Anyway, this will give me a reason to use iTunes now, which I’ve been avoiding like crazy, since the iPad has no file structure. We’ll see how it goes.
The problem with the Nook
StandardWhile I wait for this endless software update to install, let me post a quick rant: My family and I checked out the major ereaders yesterday and there was one thing the Nook really had going against it: you can’t search by author’s name.
WTF, Barnes & Noble? When I typed my own name into the search field, I got endless returns of Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch novels before I reached my own. Does that make any sense? What if I bought and read an author’s book, then went to buy the next one–shouldn’t that author’s name be a link I can click on to take me to the rest of their work?
Apparently, B&N doesn’t think so. That would sell too many books.
Christ.
I’m not going to be around much today
StandardThe family is heading out to the Apple store and Barnes & Noble so my technophobic wife can test drive some ereaders. She won’t like them, I already know it, but what the hell, right? I get to check them out, too. What I really suspect will happen is that my son will fall in love the the iPad and want one for himself, and that’ll get him off my damn computer every day.
Frankly, we’re more likely to come home with a bag of books than a gadget.
(And yeah, I though the iPad 2 was going to drop yesterday, not tomorrow. My wife doesn’t care about size, cameras or gyroscopes, though–she plans to be disappointed by it no matter what.)
Update: My son tells us that we will also be visiting The Gap so he can buy some new Tshirts.
Me: “All right, son. If you want to, we’ll take a look. Is this about a girl? It’s totally cool if it is.”
Son: “No. I just don’t want to look ramshackle.”
Me: “God dammit! If you’re going to be a member of this family, you’re going to look ramshackle!”
Followed by much laughing. Considering the glasses frames he chose (kinda fancy), the shoes he likes and the pants he asks his mom to make, it’s pretty clear that he’s going to be a dress-up person. It’s like Alex Keaton being born to hippie parents.
Randomness for 3/9
Standard1) Cognitive Scientist records 90K hours of his own child’s language development, then graphs it. Soon to come to a TED Talk near you.
2) Andrew Wheeler’s syllabus for his non-existent sf course. I think it would be better served to address some of what happened in the 19th century, even if it was just an overview in the first week.
3) The Muppet Alignment Chart.
4) I wish every review of a reality TV show was this good.
5) Organizing a bookshelf: Video. There are so many simple ideas that work magic as stop-motion. Thank you, computer revolution.
6) A nearly-incomprehensible map of science fiction.
7) The internet is full of wonderful things: Carl Sagan’s Old Spice commercial as an animated gif.
Bonus 8th thing! Soylent Green isn’t the only thing made of people! Now “castles” are, too! Video.
Beauty and the… Oh fer chrissakes.
StandardInspired by Genevieve Valentine’s review of BEASTLY, I thought it would be fun to think of some other “Beasts” that Mary-Kate Olsen can lay curses on… until they’re saved by love! Yay, love!
BEAUTY AND THE CARDBOARD LONGBOX:
Beauty: A struggling young actress who once had a minor role in a successful sf/f series.
Beast: The Cat Piss Man who saves her from…
Bullshit Reason They’re Forced To Live Together: Beauty is accused of the murder of a creepy convention organizer and must hide out until she can clear her name.
How Beauty Can Tell Beast Cares For Her: DVD collection of her show placed suspiciously close to bottle of hand lotion.
Why Beauty Falls For Beast: Saves Beauty by disarming real killer with home-made light saber. Also: Absorbs villain’s low-penetration handgun fire with his considerable bulk. Also: Showers. Also: Throws out his “good” sweatpants in favor of the Dockers his mom bought him last Christmas.
Who Does Beast Transform Back Into When Kissed: Fit, handsome producer of SyFy Originals who is currently looking for a female lead for his new cable TV series.
BEAUTY AND THE RESCISSION
Beauty: Hot widowed mom with a sick child
Beast: Hotshot health insurance adjuster with a rep for turning down claims
Bullshit Reason They’re Forced To Live Together: Um, a hurricane traps them in the hospital?
How Beauty Can Tell Beast Cares For Her: Finds his signature on the form approving the experimental procedure that could have (but didn’t) save her husband’s life.
Why Beauty Falls For Beast: He slips her the proper forms she needs to get her child’s medication approved. Also, he secretly pays the $600 hospital bill for the bottle of baby aspirin the child spilled.
Who Does Beast Transform Back Into When Kissed: An unmarried Canadian
BEAUTY AND THE CROSSPOST
Beauty: Beautiful but mildly near-sighted hippie
Beast: Usenet libertarian in full blowhard mode.
Bullshit Reason They’re Forced To Live Together: God, this one’s a challenge. Zombie apocalypse leaves them the last living humans on the planet?
How Beauty Can Tell Beast Cares For Her: They find a third living person, a woman 3 years younger than Beauty and with better eyesight, but he doesn’t switch.
Why Beauty Falls For Beast: New younger woman turns out to be a Fred Phelps supporter, making Beast literally the nicest person in the world.
Who Does Beast Transform Back Into When Kissed: Whatsername from RESIDENT EVIL.
BEAUTY AND THE HOMETOWN CANDIDATE
Beauty: Gorgeous political spokesperson
Beast: “Family Values” politician
Bullshit Reason They’re Forced To Live Together: She needs the work to pay for her mother’s operation. He’s in a tight race and can’t be trusted to speak off script without a gaffe.
How Beauty Can Tell Beast Cares For Her: He breaks up with his boyfriend. Also his wife of 18 years and their four kids.
Why Beauty Falls For Beast: Charmingly fumble-mouthed. Changes his votes for gay marriage and increased health care spending. Recommends her for a better job as a lobbyist. Ex-wife and children turn out to be kinda awful.
Who Does Beast Transform Back Into When Kissed: An unmarried Canadian
BEAUTY AND THE HARDWORKING WOMAN
Beauty: Rich, handsome, immature man
Beast: A mildly-overweight, plain-faced woman who runs a homeless shelter. Part should be played the the sort of actress who plays the heroine’s annoying cousin or the sexually non-threatening neighborhood mom.
Bullshit Reason They’re Forced To Live Together: Beauty gets community service after a Charlie Sheen-themed party.
How Beauty Can Tell Beast Cares For Him: She informs his probation officer that he spends most of his time at the shelter primping his hair instead of working, prompting the judge to add 2,000 additional hours to his sentence. Obviously, she can’t bear to see him go.
Why Beauty Falls For Beast: Helping people… It feels kinda good, you know?
Who Does Beast Transform Back Into When Kissed: Didn’t I mention? There’s no enchantment in this one. The woman running the shelter thanks Beauty for his interest but she’s already dating the head of the local tenant’s union and doesn’t he have some mopping to do?
Oh, heh, yeah. That’ll never fly. Might as well go with the Cat Piss one.
(Seriously, has anyone made a version of Beauty and the Beast with the gender roles reversed?)
No cell phone
StandardI often talk about how I don’t have a cell phone, and this morning demonstrates why. My son had a problem with a piece of software I bought for him, and damn if he didn’t throw a fit at me like I’m his personal tech support. When I had an office job I routinely got personal tech support calls from home–long, involved conversations in which I had to say things like “What do you see in the upper left corner of the screen?” and “Don’t pound the keyboard!” while sitting at my desk.
This is why I don’t have a cell phone; if my family wants to struggle with the computer, let them. Either they’ll learn on their own or they’ll do something else with their time. But constantly calling me to explain the same things over and over? No.
It might be different if there were other people who called me occasionally, but there aren’t. And I’m okay with that.
Espresso Book Machine
StandardIf you haven’t seen an in-store book printing machine in action, you’re in “luck.” I ordered a book from the Espresso Book Machine at the UW Bookstore in Seattle and took a really mediocre video of the process. Watch it here.
Handy with a camera, ain’t I?
The whole thing took about seven minutes, so I don’t think we’re at the place yet where book stores stocked their shelves with cover flats readers can carry to the register/print station. Not without 20 more machines running full time. And that doesn’t include the 15 minutes it needed to warm up the glue before the process could even start.
Also, there had to be a store employee operating the machines terminal for almost the whole time; I’ve done my best to edit her out, per her request.
Honestly, the most difficult part of the whole thing was taking my laptop out of the store to find a wifi signal, searching the specialized web site for the book I wanted to buy, and copying down the info I needed to take back into the store. Plus, the books were kinda spendy.
It’s early days yet.
I shot this over a year ago (Procrastinate? Me?) but ask questions if you have them. I’ll answer as best I can.
What it takes
StandardCheck out this blog post by a guy who just got his first book deal. There’s so much in there that he did right that any aspiring author could revisit it several times over the months and learn something new from it.
Randomness for 3/6
Standard1) A smart way to promote science education. Also.
2) At no point does this stop being awesome: Sheen Family Circus.
3) Frank Herbert writes a children’s book: Goodnight Dune
4) Baby laughs at ripping paper. Video. Watching this is good for your soul.
6) Please do not submit my name here.
7) Those amazing personal stories you hear on radio call-in shows? They might be actors reading a script.