0xDECAFBAD - Tag: writing

Using Tinderbox to write articles for the web

2010-06-07T04:41:03+00:00

TL;DR: I just put together a tutorial about writing an article in HTML using Tinderbox from Eastgate Systems, Inc.

Update: There's a Belorussian translation of this post provided by PC - very cool!

Tinderbox Icon by Bryan Bell, via flickr.com/photos/factoryjoe

I've been toying with a set of writing topics to get my blog going again, apropos of my notion of writing for myself. But, I like to write at length and have finally decided that life's too short to write in browser <textarea>'s, no matter how cleverly augmented.

I did buy MarsEdit 3, which is a fine app for dashing off short entries. But, for longer things, I found myself doing the actual writing elsewhere and pasting the text into MarsEdit for posting later. I even wrote and posted a whole fanfic novella this way, and it was a silly way to do things.

Well, one of the places where writing actually happens for me over the past few years is within Tinderbox documents. And, as it turns out, Tinderbox has some powerful HTML export facilities that I've left underused until some things finally clicked for me.

So, I thought I'd try turning that experience back upon itself to produce something worth writing. Without further ado, here's the source in GitHub, and the article exported to HTML for easy reading.

The funny thing is, I started working on this tutorial in the middle of writing another article. So, this post is a particularly advanced form of Yak Shaving. I hope it ends up handy for someone, and I hope it leads to the real articles I'm hoping to produce.

Pondering the cobwebs

2010-03-10T17:55:13+00:00

It's plain to see that I've not been a blogger for a long time.

This place is a long-neglected ghost town that sees a begrudged entry every few months, when I happen to remember it still exists and I feel guilty for not feeding it with content. What I've yet to figure out is if the cause is a matter of motivation, publishing tools, audience, or writing topics.

Behold as I ramble on for many tens of words pondering the cobwebs here at 0xDECAFBAD.

Motivation

Other outlets have absorbed nearly all of my motivations that once prompted casual blogging. And those other outlets, in most cases, provide better rewards:

For quick top-of-the-head thoughts and quips, Twitter works best for the brain-spew and gets me feedback from interesting people faster than my spam-embattled comments here ever did.
For sharing things I find on the web, Delicious took that job over years ago and Google Reader has been angling for the job as well.
For sharing code and projects, I've started doing more and more over at my GitHub account.

Quite awhile ago, I even went so far as to redirect the front page of my decafbad.com domain straight to a page that's nothing more than a shell for a FriendFeed widget that aggregates my output from elsewhere. It's kind of a cop-out, but if you want to see what I'm really up to, that's a much better page than my stagnant blog index anyway. I've got a local archive of my activity, and have been meaning to make a self-hosted lifestream more front-and-center, but I've been too busy to bother.

Publishing tools

In fact, I've been thinking about killing my WordPress installation here altogether, and switching the blog over to a static fossil snapshot. Since I rarely post, there's rarely a comment inbound here these days that's not trying to slip through an ad for pills or fake handbags. Thus, most of the CPU cycles on my web host are spent on busy work processing requests that will never amount to anything real. So, why bother having an actual PHP application running here?

The one thing that I haven't done a lot of lately—and would like to carve out time to get back to—is some real long-form writing. You would think that that's where this WordPress thing would come in handy, but oddly it seems not to. I hate writing in textareas in browsers, haven't found a desktop blog client that I liked in years.

So, because of the little things that annoy me, I stop writing before I start because the anticipated process to publish seems like a chore. I'd much rather be writing in MacVim and checking text files into a git repository. Then, I could throw Jekyll or something yak-shavingly homebrewed on top of post-receive hooks to do indexing magic and such in static HTML. You know, the stuff that took forever in MovableType back in the day, but decoupled from my actual writing process.

Huh, now that I describe it, the above sounds like a chore too—but it would be a shiny new toy! At that point, I wouldn't be blogging so much as publishing an archive of essays on the web. But, at least I'd know the format would be future-proof, the platform exploit-resistant, and the overall maintenance less worrisome. If I had comments, I could even outsource them to another service and run periodic backups to be safe.

Audience

But, beyond the mechanisms, there's who I imagine might be reading this stuff. I hold off on writing a lot of things that could be posted here because they're maybe not tech-nerdy enough. If it doesn't have at least one code example, I hesitate to share it here—and if I don't share it here, I probably don't share it anywhere.

And then there's the thought that whatever I write here, no one will read it if it's too long. This entry is mostly written to myself, and I expect a single-digit comment count—most likely zero. I get the most feedback on the shortest things, which has ultimately lead to Twitter and its 140 character limit yielding some of my most rewarding interactions on the web in years. I post an essay here, and it's all crickets.

The exceptions are where I post something really useful, like that article about HTML 5 Drag & Drop or a Delicious command for Ubiquity. That is, of course, a clue if comments and feedback are what I'm after.

Writing topics

So, what could I be writing about these days? Let's see, I could write about:

what I've been up to at Mozilla since I started;
brewing beer and roasting coffee at home;
retro computing on my C64 and Amiga;
developing for Palm webOS;
random thoughts on life;

Huh. That all sounds like a blog, and one I would read myself—though that last one sounds like my LiveJournal, long neglected since I started dating my wife and got much less emo in general. We probably don't need to go there so much, but I could probably bore with more even-tempered philosophical expositions.

What's the problem?

I wonder what my real problem is, then? Is it really just a matter of butt in the seat that I'm missing? I write every day—in a paper journal, in wiki pages, in emails, to myself—I just don't write much here. Maybe all the above is just a collection of excuses.

Lately, I've had this notion that I should try writing and publishing for an earlier version of myself. That is: all these things I end up searching for and researching on the web, I should write them up in a way that I wish had been the first search result in Google. Whatever the topic, if a younger version of me wanted to find it, I should put it out there to be found. Never mind who else I think might read it or (not) comment on it.

Write for myself, write what I'd want to read—sounds pretty obvious when I put it out there like that. So, is that the deal? Who knows; we'll see if a change in perspective results in more happenings here.

Archived Comments

CiaranG
2010-03-10T19:04:04

I write about stuff (including beer brewing, Amigas and less archaic techy stuff) mostly for the pleasure of my current self, and the amusement of my future self.

I never considered writing for an earlier version of myself, but then I know for a fact he didn't have a time machine.
Carter Rabasa
2010-03-10T19:19:19

I long ago gave up on the idea of regular blogging. It made sense when that was the "only" method of sharing information/ideas/photos/etc publicly, but now (given the explosion of social nets and other sharing tools) a blog seems primarily a vehicle for long-form writing.

I wouldn't lament the dust on the blog. It used to represent "you", but now it simply exists as part of a large collection of online resources that, together, represent "you".
Dan Hallock
2010-03-10T19:23:00

I sympathize with much of what you say here. Sometimes I think that Twtiter is a little too efficient at letting me get thoughts out of my head quickly -- I end up not percolating on things long enough to come up with long-form writing; and/or maybe it's just that my itch to write is 'scratched' by the tweets.
Matt Brubeck
2010-03-10T19:24:47

Hey, I'd love to hear more from you, whether techy or random. I don't know how I ended up here, but it looks like last month was the seventh anniversary of my first comment:

http://decafbad.com/blog/2003/02/20/ooodae

"Newly Digital in 1983" is still one of my favorite stories ever. You also got me interested in ifiction and flash fiction. (I ended up publishing a few stories on 365tomorrows and Ficlets.) And this month I'm joining the Mozilla Corporation, partly because I want to work with you and other hackers whose work has influenced me over the years. Your audience may be small, but we're devoted! :)

I moved my own technical blogging to Jekyll recently. There's a bit less guilt about slow update schedules when I think of it more like a static collection of articles than an online journal. (And yeah, using a real editor and version control makes it much easier to get longer pieces done.) I use Planet Venus for my personally-hosted lifestream, though these days most of my friends get my aggregated data via Facebook or Buzz.
danmactough
2010-03-10T19:27:53

I've never used my blog as much as you've used yours -- I've never really been a blogger at all, honestly.

I like posting code snippets. Maybe I'll check out github at some point, but I've got a 2-year-old now. He's way more fun and interesting than Python or whatever. (I guess that could be interpreted as implying that my wife is NOT more fun and interesting than those things. Rather than explain why that is not the case, I'll just say that we've been together forever, and I love her very much.)

At any rate, I thought your post merited at least one comment pondering why the commenter does not blog (anymore).

For my part, it has a lot to do with privacy, I think. I knew before I ever installed blosxom that I didn't want to be a "blogger." I had no interest in sharing my deep thoughts about life, politics, or anything else. I enjoy talking with people; it's not an antisocial thing. It's just that I don't know what long-term ramifications there may be to such free expression. Likewise, you won't see pictures of me and my family generally available on Flickr or Picasa (there may be a handful). Facebook is nothing to me except somewhere to echo my Twitter stream, such as it is (and I've stopped doing that). Brightkite -- forget it! My last.fm profile is about as intimate as I get online.

I'm thinking about shutting down my WP installation. I really don't use it. The only thing I really use my VPS for is my web-based feed reader.

All of these blogging, microblogging, and social networking services -- especially the social networking services -- are really interesting to me, though. I will keep hanging around the periphery of them, dipping in a toe here and there.
bud
2010-03-10T19:44:56

Les I've followed this for a while. I admit most of the code examples are over my head, but I've learned from you.

Maybe your idea of writing for a younger you has legs. I don't think anything you've mentioned is geared toward the less knowledgeable. I don't mean explaining simple HTML "Hello World", but why not summaries or highlights of languages you know?

You could point out differences between the languages, maybe reasons certain applications are written in one instead of another? I'm sure there is a intermediate user perspective you could aim at. Parlay these things into possible book sales?

Good luck with what ever you decide.
l.m.orchard
2010-03-10T19:55:55

@CiaranG: Yeah, I think that's the best reason to have a blog. The past self thing is really thinking that someone like me might come along and appreciate what I tossed onto the web. Beyond that, I like writing and can't think of better any better topics than writing about the other stuff I like doing.

@Carter: I think my main source of lament here is that I'm a writer who never seems to write on his own site. I feel like I should be publishing more about the stuff I do. But, yeah, this place isn't really the center of my online universe anymore.

@Matt: Huh, you know, that Newly Digital in 1983 post was one of my quieter ones in terms of feedback. I always wondered if it got many reads, but it was one of my own favorites to write since it was the sort of thing I liked to see on others' blogs.

Oh, and welcome to Mozilla! I'm back out to Mountain View pretty regularly, so we'll have to hang out sometime. Might have to pick your brain about Jekyll and how you like mobile hacking.

@Dan: I'm a bit weird, since most of my friends since the age of 8 have been behind computers, modems, or the internet. And now, my job is almost entirely on the net since I'm telecommuting from my basement 3000 miles away from HQ. So, it's pretty natural for me to live online.
Still, I have gotten more and more private. My LiveJournal has some entries that I'd never write now, and I'll probably never post religious / political stuff here because it's not worth the debate or potential life / career damage.

So... yeah, I'll probably never again be a blogger, per se. I don't feel like having a diary online so much as a place where I publish interesting things.

I think really my thing here is I call myself a writer, so I should probably be doing more of it. :)
danmactough
2010-03-10T20:17:10

Regarding publishing interesting things -- I'm totally with you there. And like you said, delicious, Google Reader, etc. are much better suited than WP to most of that activity.

As far as being a writer goes, not everyone can do all their writing (drafts, edits, rewrites, etc.) in public view. Writing is intensely personal. Even if you're writing about Dojo or hacking delicious, you're exposing your imperfect innards while you do your best to create something really difficult. Hell, I write for a living -- I'm a corporate and securities lawyer. When I've finalized a document, all of my drafts get shredded!
ejk
2010-03-10T20:42:12

Sounds so familiar on so many fronts. Haven't posted in over a year. I'm thinking of moving my page to wordpress.com, just to have something for people to see at my domain.
Michael C. Harris
2010-03-11T00:31:01

For what it's worth, as the comment count edges towards double figures, I read to the end, I enjoy the stuff of yours that I've read, and I'm sure I would enjoy things from your "I could write about" list, whoever you were writing for.
Geof F. Morris
2010-03-11T02:09:44

It's your blog, my man. Make of it what you will. I'd hate to see you take it down, though.
l.m.orchard
2010-03-11T02:36:21

@Michael: Yeah, wouldn't you know when I predict no comments, everyone show up. :) (I wasn't trying to beg for comments, honest!)

@Geof: Well, I'd never take it down, just turn off the PHP bits and move to something else whenever I wrote again. Actually, this thing is mostly static HTML right now thanks to WP Super Cache.

But, now that I wrote this and I'm thinking about things again, I might just keep this around. Started playing with MarsEdit 2, and finding I don't actually hate it.
Jeff Balogh
2010-03-11T04:49:44

I started using Jekyll last month, and I like it. I had started to write my own, but then I started wondering why I had to have my own. It turned out Jekyll gets most of what I want done with a minimum of yak shaving. I think the only weakness is the lack of categories/tags and the requisite feeds. It's nice to write something up with markdown, build the site, and push it out. Jekyll feels natural for people like us.
Len Lynch
2010-03-11T04:51:08

Community is funny. And virtual ones are more so.

You're good at writing, otherwise you wouldn't have as many listeners as you do... And I believe that you're not fishing for feedback like this.

If you continue to write here, RSS will keep us clued in. I don't see RSS readers totally going away for a while.

Smiles will continue, just keep "scratching one or more of your itches" here. Just like today.

You have toyed with the idea of an audio show, but I haven't seen evidence of that. If giving that a try sparks something in you, then you best be about it...

Good Journey
Jack
2010-03-11T12:23:09

I can definitely recommend giving Jekyll a try. It lets you go from 'Hmmn, maybe I should write about that' to published weblog entry in a wonderfully seamless way, with no barriers between you and your weblog--all you have to do is open a new tab in your text editor, and write. I switched from Wordpress and immediately went from writing once in a blue moon to publishing something every day, just about.

And, for what it's worth, I'd definitely enjoy reading about brewing and coffee roasting - recipes and techniques are the kind of code examples I can understand!
Andy C
2010-03-19T00:06:39

Crikey - a couple of familiar faces here (Ciaran, Michael).

Double crikey - any blo with two mentions of 'Yak Shaving' must be entered into Google Reader. Now :-)

I think I originally 'knew' you from your sterling efforts getting embryonic releases of Laconica working (thanks) and just wondered why your identi.ca account there was dormant so I just stumbled in uninvited.

Anyway, I can identify with this post. I have endured similar crises of confidence with my blog - in fact all of my online presence.

I remember committing Web 2.0 suicide once and labouriously deleting 237 Tumblr entries. Christ - those guys need some Bulk management tools.

I'm with Ciaran. As my blog festers and sporadically bursts into life, I realise that I am only writing for myself and I have only ever written for myself.

Why - very occasionally I trawl through my own archives and laugh at my own jokes and wonder 'Why can't I produce stuff like this any more ?'

I've played with every blogging platform ever invented and currently favour Habari - mainly for the pure unadulterated beauty of the 'Compose Post' blank canvas.

However, I also played with Jekyll and the thought of writing in Emacs and 'commiting' to publish content is an attractive one.

I think your final paragraph sums it up brilliantly:

'Write for myself, write what I’d want to read'.

Couldn't agree more.

Jelly Stains and Web Masons

2008-10-29T14:42:23+00:00

From Mark Bernstein's entry on Practical Prototype and script.aculo.us:

When chemists consult a volume about professional chemical technique, or when surgeons reach for the latest update on neuroanatomy, they can usually find a book that isn't couched in terms of silly examples and jokes. So can poets, mathematicians, and geologists. For some reason, though, it has become the accepted practice that language manuals should spend lots of time with silly, self-deprecating jokes, and that their example applications should be breakfast loggers and fantasy football leagues (or, conversely, payroll programs).

As an tech author with just a few books under my belt, Mark's take on Practical Prototype and script.aculo.us struck a bit of a sour note for me, because I'd like to work on making my tech writing more entertaining than not. I think that's a good thing, but I'm willing to be convinced otherwise.

I think the issue is that there are different meanings for "professional" when it comes to the web. There are web scientists and there are web masons. Web scientists pursue fundamentals and disambiguations, while web masons are busy building the next micro-site for the new product release from the almighty client. Many web scientists are also computer scientists and many web masons are also web scientists—but most web masons I've known come from creative liberal or fine arts backgrounds.

Though, for what it's worth, even amongst computer scientists there's still a tradition of leaving room for jelly stains and other oddities. This seems to be the sort of thing Mark acknowledges with dismay. ("It’s not fair to blame Mr. DuPont for the general vice.")

Is playfulness in literature just a computer science thing? I'm not a chemist; maybe chemists just don't like being funny in writing, or maybe their jokes are more subtle.

In any case, I think the "practical" genre of tech books is aimed at people who want to get something done, aren't interested in or have little time for context or background, yet wouldn't mind being entertained during the course of weekend tinkering and self-education.

So, a good book. But take out the jokes, trim back the sample code (or dispatch it to the Web site where it makes more sense), and give us to professional perspective, and everyone is going to be much happier.

The guidelines with which I'm familiar for tech books in the "practical" or similar genres include advice such as "show, don't tell". They also suggest that, although sample code should be made available online, the author should compose the book assuming that it's a standalone product. Web sites and CDROMs with code often vanish, but a bound book remains stable—which is especially useful on a cross-country flight without net access. Professional perspective is of course a desirable thing to work into the prose, but job #1 is to illustrate the right way to do things through running code.

How does Prototype+Javascript relate to other languages — C++/STL, say, or SELF? What, precisely, are the semantics of the key methods? I don't need the inevitable chapter 1 pitch for the wonderfulness of Javascript and the badness of MSIE, but it might be a good place for a quick summary for the pros. Call by reference • no pointers • primitives are objects • everything has a prototype slot • parens() do this, braces {} do that, brackets [] do something else • single and double quotes are different. Kernighan & Ritchie did this so well in C, and it’s not like we’re not familiar with their example.

I'd posit that most in the audience for "practical" tech books are entirely unfamiliar with Kernigan & Ritchie and haven't touched a line of C source code. Most of these readers have probably tumbled down the slope from HTML to CSS and finally to JavaScript in order to get something interesting to happen in a browser—and usually while under an unreasonable deadline.

I'd really be surprised if many readers have heard of Self or C++/STL or have much of a grounding at all in computer science or programming language fundamentals. Having these fundamentals would of course help web masons get a deeper understanding of the technologies that make the job possible, but the pragmatic rewards tend not to make up for the effort involved.

So, to sum up, the purpose for this entry isn't to beat up on Mark Bernstein. He's written a great deal of prose and code that I respect, so his opinion is interesting to me. Rather, I've tried to express my own understanding of this writing market, and hoping I've aimed at the right goals.

Archived Comments

Mark Bernstein
2008-10-29T16:51:59

I'd settle for a better class of joke!

On tech content, doesn't it annoy you that it's hard (or impossible) to find a book about a Web framework or language or facility that takes advantage of what you already know? One that doesn't assume you've never seen a language before?

I understand that publishers want the book to appeal to everyone. But it's not that the reader needs to know Kernighan: you know, right? So you know that it's entirely practical to tell a colleague pretty much everything she needs to know about a (famously tricky) new language in one chapter, starting from Kernighan's example 1 -- the original "Hello, world".
Aristotle Pagaltzis
2008-10-29T20:28:27

I think part of the difference is in the subjects themselves. Programming deals with pure thought stuff, yet at the same time attempts to model concepts from the physical reality. In contrast, science textbooks deal with intrinsically tangible stuff, while mathematics textbooks deal with the abstract for abstraction’s sake. The temptation to offset the potential dullness of pure thought stuff by using it to model goofy examples is obviously high.

Corroborating my theory would be the fact that elementary, low-abstraction maths books tend to bring up oddball examples too – eg. consider the sorts of things used to illustrate the rule of proportion.
Dave Dash
2008-10-30T00:53:54

Most books about web technology are meant to have a shelf life of a few years. They aren't reference guides, and they aren't meant to stand the test of time.

PHP, Python, Prototype, etc will all change.

Because of this, they can employ jokes and real-world examples. Jokes make reading the content enjoyable. Examples are step by step instructions to creating something useful.

If those aren't needed there's always reference guides.

I don't publish books, but I do write tutorials on my blog on occasion. One pattern I employ in my blog the "executive summary" pattern. I start with the take-away, the code snippet, the answer if you will. Then I spend the rest of the post (behind the fold, if you will) explaining the answer and interjecting my style.

I like doing this, because it's what I would want. I want to know the answer, and then I can read on for some backstory... rather than having to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Andrew Dupont
2008-10-31T03:30:21

I'm quite familiar with the trend Mark's talking about. And I agree that it shouldn't count against me or my book, but perhaps I'm a bit biased there.

Three things.

First: my book reads the way it reads because that's how I write. The process of writing the thing was torturous enough that I doubt I'd have finished it if I subjected every word to the scrutiny of a hypothetical skeptical reader. I'm not good enough at the craft for that. I think that each author has to find his best angle on the material and write that way. Because there are many books and many publishers, it tends to balance out.

Second: my book covers two JavaScript frameworks built to simplify common tasks. Basic familiarity with JavaScript is assumed. Right away that's a step away from the theoretical and toward the practical. I think tech books are best when they stick to one or the other, rather than try to drift between them.

Third: the book Mark wants has already been written: JavaScript: The Good Parts, by Doug Crockford. Doug's style is dry and academic, but also direct and substantive. If I tried to write in that style it'd be only a pale imitation.

Anyway... the "quirky" trend, I agree, can be tiring. As it applies to my book, the sticking point seems to be whether I'm actually funny. Readers of this weblog will simply have to buy the book to find out. It's several hundred pages long and has a fresh, earthy "new book" smell.
l.m.orchard
2008-10-31T03:47:37

@Mark: Yeah, these days my first impulse is not to reach for the latest book on a new technology like a web framework or new language. I usually head straight for the source code or start soaking in whatever documentation may be lying around on the web.

I suppose I could be a macho geek and say that's why I'm writing the books now—but to be honest I don't tend to get much out of practical programming books. They seem to sell, though, so I keep wondering if mine shouldn't be lighter or more fun, should I get the opportunity to produce more of them.

My first book was about half-and-half prose and code, with barely any screen shots to be found. I got to about equal parts code, prose, and screen grabs in my second—I thought that might make it easier reading.

The latest one doesn't have any jokes, but I tried to get straight to the core framework features and spotlight a few obscure magical bits. I worry if it might be a bit too dry.

But yeah, I do wish there were more (though maybe shorter) books that started from the assumption that I've got a CS degree and have tangled with a few languages and libraries so far. On the other hand, I do like having a sense for the author in a book—but that might be thanks to the fact that I read more blogs than books these days and enjoy the personal touches.
l.m.orchard
2008-10-31T04:05:01

@Andrew: Hey, thanks for dropping in for a comment! I can completely sympathize with needing to find a groove to handle how grueling producing one of these books can be—especially if you're more programmer than writer. (That's me, right now, anyway.) You need to get the best thing out there in the shortest amount of time, and find a way to get yourself to finish it.

At any rate, congrats on the new book, and I hope the cross-blog chatter sells a few more copies for you!

sadness for my dead palmtop

2007-09-21T15:36:49+00:00

I dug my Zeos Pocket PC out of a box and apparently let out the magic smoke when I tried to plug it into a universal wall wart adapter. The voltage and polarity were right, and I'd used this adapter with this palmtop before - but this time, it literally smoked and smelled of burning plastic and works no more.

That's kind of an end of an era for me - I'd bought that thing with money I'd won in an Ayn Rand essay contest in High School and used it throughout College to enjoy sitting outside in sunlight with its reflective LCD screen and built-in Microsoft Works to write papers for my psychology classes and stories for my creative writing classes. Funny what you get sentimental attachments to, albeit however slight.

Archived Comments

Marty
2007-09-21T17:49:00

Ayn Rand essay contest .. you're such a nerd ;)

I remember you being the Ayn Rand fanboy. You even convinced me to check out Atlas Shrugged. I think I only made it like 30 pages. I still have it - as checked out from MCHS library ;)
Elroy Jetson
2007-09-25T14:57:30

Have you made any progress in finding a suitable replacement? It would seem that such a useful device is incredibly rare.

it's so quiet, time for an editorial calendar?

2007-09-20T16:59:10+00:00

Hmm. Time for this blogging cliché: Been awhile since last I posted here with any reliable volume.

But, I'm thinking about whether another revamp of this place might get me going again. I've also considered making myself whip up an editorial calendar and actually commit myself to writing something on interesting topics on a regular basis. It might be the only way to do it.

Archived Comments

Kevin Francis
2007-09-21T04:52:40

I support this commitment to assured periodic content.
Aristotle Pagaltzis
2007-09-21T10:57:19

I’ve also considered making myself whip up an editorial calendar

You might be interested in Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret.

i should be writing

2007-02-15T09:05:30+00:00

You know what I have had some enthusiasm for lately? My renewed fiction writing efforts. My latest exercise into 7th Son / Infection podcast fanfic might seem a bit precious and / or silly — at least, I know I've always turned my nose up at fanfic, or surreptitiously checked out examples of the genre after making sure no one was watching. But, the guys behind 7th Son and Infection are both very appreciative of fans and are quick to give shout-outs — so, it's providing me with a bit of fun and motivation to actually get something fictional written after years of sputtering activity. So, hey, whatever works. :)

A Writer's Toolkit by Rudy Rucker

2007-01-22T06:34:56+00:00

When you’re writing a novel you’re working at the most extreme limit of your capabilities. What you’re doing is beyond logic, so far out at the limits of what you can do that there’s no hope of your having a short and manageable simulation of the process by which to figure out what you’re doing, it’s computationally irreducible. When you get into this zone, out on the very surface of your brain, you become sensitive to the tiniest chaotic emanations of the world outside. At times it feels as if the world, feeling your sensitivity, gladly dances back. Dosie-do. Keep your eyes peeled.

Source: A Writer's Toolkit by Rudy Rucker

Been reading some of the notes and essays here at Rudy Rucker's site in the spirit of getting my brain resonating in a writing mode, and the above quote just stuck out at me.

Personal rebalancing brain dump

2007-01-21T21:19:34+00:00

I think I'm getting to a point where I need to do some personal rebalancing. There are some things that I tell myself I'd rather I was doing besides working in the day and playing World of Warcraft at night. Some of them include:

Exploring San Francisco, the South Bay, and other interesting areas around here.
Working on XoxoOutliner and other products of serial enthusiasm.
Continuing one of the half-dozen or so short stories I've started.

The problem is that WoW gives such tasty little morsels of pseudo-achievement, and lately it's filled the spot for lunchtime babble at work that sports would occupy for other groups. So, it's got some real-world rewards, but it's certainly not benefiting me in terms of personal growth - no matter how interesting I think the thing might be for The Future of Work and all that. But, you know, I could have just vegged out playing WoW back in Michigan. There are Things to Do out here in California, and I've got a lovely wife with whom to do them.

As for exploring the area: Alex and I have started making tentative forays the past couple of weeks. Last week was a somewhat uninspiring trip to nearby downtown San Jose, which strangely seemed abandoned and under construction alternating by block. The weekend before was a trip to the city to see Hayes Valley and North Beach, which was markedly more entertaining and worthwhile.

This weekend, I'm recovering a bit on the couch. Since recovering from the crash, I've got quite a bit more mobility - but a full day of walking tends to drag me down for the next week or so. I think we need to get around to hooking up with some friendly people around here for dinner, drinks, games, TV, and whatnot. The only thing besides my leg that's troublesome is that I'm an introvert - being around people is a drain, not an energizing agent. That's not to say I don't enjoy meeting people and being in interesting conversations, it's just that it costs me energy that makes me tend toward being a hermit. So, eh, something to work against.

As for XoxoOutliner, I think it's in an interesting state: It works great for me for idea capture and simple outlining on my laptop under Firefox, but sucks completely in MSIE on Windows. Thus, the itch is somewhat scratched, but doesn't offer much to anyone else but me. I've got a big list of planned work for XoxoOutliner and some bugs to fix, but none of them have been compellingly itchy enough to re-trigger my serial enthusiasm. And, as I've learned, I just can't guilt-trip or wish this enthusiasm into action. If I don't feel like doing it, I don't get much done, regardless of how much potential I think this project might have in the abstract.

As for writing: I haven't done much writing since finishing the last book, though something I really want to be when I grow up (along with being a Computer Scientist) is a writer. So, sooner or later, I want to actively pick up again. I also figure it might be a future career option when my brain's gotten too addled (or just plain fed up) to be very effective as a coder. And, I've got craploads of story ideas that I'd like to try out.

Stories ideas are cheap, though - it's the execution that counts. I've got to find a writing group or some arrangement that doesn't have me doing it in a vacuum. I've thought about starting up a separate writing blog and committing to a few hundred words a night of raw output, but not sure what that would do for me. I might even just do it here, but not sure how it'd be received.

Anyway - just a wordy brain dump, partly for anyone who may be interested to hear it and partly just to get it out of my head.

Archived Comments

Donovan Watts
2007-01-21T21:36:38

Hi Les. I hear ya! Us hermits gotta git out and live once in a while. I recently moved into a place in Potrero Hill. I would be happy to get out and explore somewhere with you or have you and yours over for dinner sometime. - Donovan
Danny
2007-01-21T21:42:48

Plans sound good!

Coincidentally I was nosing around XoxoOutliner earlier. Didn't find what I was after, but didn't look for long - is there a more recent version browser-only anywhere? (Or...any chance of describing the server interface in words of one syllable that aren't prefixed "$").
Doug L.
2007-01-22T04:55:01

" ... As for exploring the area ..." From my perspective, visiting other citified parts of the Bay Area really doesn't constitute exploring. It's the non-city parts that make this a nice place to live.

Short hike suggestions, for until your crash hangover goes away: Long Ridge (from skyline out to the rocky viewpoint is about a half mile); Summit Rock (0.4 mile walk; on the Valley side of Skyline, a bit south of Hwy 9 ... see http://radio.weblogs.com/0100945/2003/01/21.html#a399 for some photos); El Corte de Madera OSP, near where Hwy 84 crosses skyline, has a cool sandstone ("Tafoni") lump about a mile from the highway, and there's the "Methuselah Tree" nearby.

And farther afield (driving-wise), Point Lobos near Carmel is breathtaking (do a google image search); and the walking is not extreme: http://santalucia.sierraclub.org/images/ptlobomp.gif

A dry winter week is a good time to visit Henry Coe park, or the Pinnacles, or Mount Diablo.
Chris Weiss
2007-01-22T22:21:18

Fellow blogger (like that narrows it down) and EFF Agent Jason Schultz has posted a couple of entries on cool "date" things to do in S.F.

Not 'dating' or living in S.F., I can't attest to the quality of these, but I've known Jason since high school and I'd vouch for anything he threw at the wall.

http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2006/10/san_francisco_d.html http://lawgeek.typepad.com/lawgeek/2006/12/san_francisco_d.html

For getting your inner-child geek on, I highly recommend the Exploratorium in S.F., Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, and the Tech Museum in San Jose.

throttling the basement hacker

2006-10-13T19:19:26+00:00

This might just be a phase, related to my recent injury and subsequent period of convalescence - but I feel like doing absolutely nothing extracurricular hack-wise after work. This is an odd state of mind for me, since I'm normally never happy unless I've got both work and home projects spinning. It's been somewhat satisfying to get work done and code checked in during the day, then home for dinner and some WoW on the couch next to The Girl. I'd kind of like to get into something more soon, but at present I feel no compulsion to hack, mashup, reverse engineer, invert polarity, or anything else of that nature. In fact, I'm doing a small measure of thinking about into what I do want to get once the itch returns. I've got a half-dozen unfinished short stories, and a geographical region full of people to meet. Maybe once the leg works again, I'll not feel like being such a full-throttle basement hacker anymore. This is weird.

Archived Comments

Dean Edwards
2006-10-13T23:38:30

Don't worry. This is perfectly normal. Your brain has gone on holiday for a couple of weeks leaving your body in basic life-support mode. Feed it TV and beer and anything you fancy. Normal service will be resumed in a week or two.
l.m.orchard
2006-10-13T23:44:57

Mmm... beer. Luckily, there's a BevMo within walking distance of our apartment. Er, well, theoretical walking distance anyway.
Mad William Flint
2006-10-14T02:02:59

I've got to be particularly careful as a few hours of MMOs can poison my hackish funkitude for weeks at a time.
l.m.orchard
2006-10-14T03:01:12

I suspect, at least for me, that it's the sense of micro-accomplishment. Move a few bars, finish a few quests, get a ding. Woo hoo! I did stuff! :)
Julian Bond
2006-10-14T19:11:26

Me too.

Loads of 10% time projects and I can't be bothered to work on any of them. My excuse to myself was re-reading 13th Valley but now I've finished it...
Len Lynch
2006-10-15T22:08:13

Aquaintances of mine are going through the same thing... so it should pass. Not that I can brag about GTD, personally in a while now.

Raise a glass, I'm toasting to your speedy recovery!

I did hold my breath for a moment when I read that you relocated out west. Others I've known, were changed in an inexplicable way. They lost something they once had and became more like those they live around. It's difficult to explain.

Is there something in the water, the air, the culture, everything?

If you get any insite into this, please share it.

A Long-Tailed Creative Yawp

2006-02-09T20:17:09+00:00

(Note: This is a long one.)

Reading "The slow decline of the blockbuster" on Ars Technica reminds me that this Long Tail stuff is something on which I've been wanting to write something intelligent for a long time now. This might all just be techno-hippy michegas in the end, but I'm really excited about the possibility of living in a Long-Tailed age.

You see, if I were to pick a lifelong war cry and embroider it on my own personal flag, that cry would be "Follow Your Bliss!" And my bliss is found in the course of learning, in the act of creative work and making things, and in the continual effort of self-refinement as creativity recursively applied.

Now, the thing about bliss is that it's not just some hedonistic easy road paved with whipped cream. Bliss is a hard thing to follow—you've got to keep your eyes on it, and there's quite often a lot of pain involved. But, I believe that following bliss is the only way to get real, honest, unbounded joy out of life that builds in unfailing increment.

What does my bliss have to do with the Long Tail? Well, you see, it's easier to be creative and live creatively in the midst of a culture that is itself steeped in creativity—and I think that a Long-Tailed culture is the best bet for it. I see a Long Tail as the hallmark of a living artisan culture, as opposed to the slow death of a consumer culture that'll just leave us all fat and useless.

Why do we even have a culture that enshrines such a poisonous unidirectional flow of product to consumer? Scarcity. Mass production makes it cheap to make lots of the same thing—yet, the means of that production has historically been very expensive to acquire.

Thus, assembly lines are scarce. The same has goes for transmission towers, radio frequencies, movie theaters, and recording studios. As a perverse consequence, we've all just gotten used to the idea that almost no one is cut out to make much at all and common creativity is relegated to head-patted cottage niches who make their own soap.

What I think the growing Long Tail will tell us, though, is that for many areas of creative concern, scarcity in the means of production is evaporating. Many products of creativity—i.e. sound, video, and text—can be composed on a cheap computer and duplicated with negligible cost on the web. In fact, as things like BitTorrent take off, distribution costs actually fall with popularity and scale. (Just think, what if distribution costs can fall below zero? I'm not just talking money here.)

I've got a lot of hope in what I see happening with blogging, podcasting, and other such network-driven channels for creativity. I also have a lot of hope for the generations of kids not only growing up with computers, but also with Netflix, GarageBand, MySpace, LiveJournal, YouTube, and even YTMND. You can scoff at them all you like, but some of that stuff's got a little bit of genius in it.

We've got this entertainment industry with an ultra-rich royalty caste of supposedly super-creative celebrities, but it's all driven by the scarcity that technology is eroding away. Sure, you can find some really, truly brilliant people up there—but I'm willing to bet there are armies of people down here who just haven't gotten in the right place at the right time or who've abandoned creativity because they had no viable outlet.

So, imagine a more distributed entertainment universe populated by more creative people—with fewer big productions and even fewer gazillionaires. Creativity, attention, and time become the only significant scarcities.

Imagine more people just entertaining each other and goading each other on. Imagine making a decent living doing creative stuff you love, based on the moral and monetary contributions of intimate audiences filled with co-creators—who, while perhaps not quite friends are at least befriendable. No one gets so rich bankwise—they get by just fine, mind you—but everyone lives in a lot more bliss.

This is not unlike Orson Scott Card's description of The Crystal City in his Alvin Maker series.

I want to see a culture where restrictions on remix are given the same odd looks as powdered wigs. I want to see, as an entrenched tradition, future creative adults route around the network damage of old proprietary industries steeped in scarcity and control. After all, "the only long-term effect of copy protection is to ensure that those who defeat it are immortalized."

We'll still need professional editors and crews for the really good stuff—but that's creative work too. The same goes for everyone else who plays an honest role in getting visions realized—this isn't all just about the entertainment industry. Honestly, I see the entrenchment of universal creativity as one of the few ways the United States can cope with increasingly global markets—we've got a bit of a head start in some areas, if we take it. Digging in heels and protecting aging ways of business that have long since ridden out their respective initial creative Big Bangs just won't cut it.

I want to see the 10% left over from 90% of everyone's crud inevitably exceed the total output of today's entertainment industry and spill into other industries. I want to see a new industry spring up whose sole purpose is to sift through chaff and cultivate the naturally emergent creative best. And I want to see that industry as a distributed service (versus control) industry there to help what's already happening through the application of both machine and human intelligence to homestead the noosphere.

...(deep breath)...

So anyway, that's the sort of stuff that gets me really excited lately. And, in excitement, I'm handwaving away a lot of stuff. But, I think there's something to all of this breathlessness that just might have something to do with my own bliss at the end of the day.

Archived Comments

Matt Brubeck
2006-02-09T23:19:13

"Why do we even have a culture that enshrines such a poisonous unidirectional flow of product to consumer? Scarcity."

My friend Patri wrote an interesting piece that gives a different answer to this question: "Our personal worlds are vastly larger than at any previous time in human history. Our population is much higher, and we are exposed to the best of the best of this huge pool of talent. This can be hard on one’s self-esteem."

"Honestly, I see the entrenchment of universal creativity as one of the few ways the United States can cope with increasingly global markets—we’ve got a bit of a head start in some areas, if we take it."

In other words, there are only four things we do better than anyone else. :-)
Aristotle Pagaltzis
2006-02-18T15:15:43

Reminds me of the comment I left on Spencer Critchley’s analysis of How Digital Production & Distribution Are Making Things Worse For Musicians, Not Better. I responded that artists should sell merch, not music:

Comic artists on the ’net have been giving away their art for years, make a living instead by selling merchandise. It works for them, and the ones I know of who made their comic their fulltime job, managed the leap when their fan base hit several thousand regular readers. This sounds like an easy goal for decent musicians who play out.

If that model works out, we will probably revert to something more like the pre-MTV days, with many local acts of moderate fame and significantly fewer artists of nationwide/international fame; in a generally much more heterogenous landscape. And now that I’m thinking about this, the more I ponder it, the more attractive it seems in many ways – it could be a renaissance for music.

Funny how I arrived at roughly the same vision as you by coming at it from a completely different angle, no?

Podcasts I like lately

2006-01-25T16:21:34+00:00

While being crazy busy, I've been thoroughly enjoying these podcasts:

Ancestor by Scott Sigler.

"On a remote island in Lake Superior, scientists struggle to solve the problem of xenotransplantation -- using animal tissue to replace failing human organs. By getting back to the root of our creation, biotech firm Genada hopes to create an animal with human internal organs. Genada's collective genius gives birth to a fast-growing evil that nature eradicated 250 million years ago -- an evil now on the loose, and very, very hungry..."

I've written about Ancestor before, and I can't believe it's already over. It's been a great ride, and if you haven't been listening, subscribe and catch up. Scott's really continued to raise the bar on himself from EarthCore through to the end of Ancestor, and he's got a third tale coming in March.
I Should Be Writing by Mur Lafferty.

"A podcast by a wanna-be writer for wanna-be writers. Let my stack of rejection letters and battle scars benefit you."

Oh yeah, I should be writing.
Voices of Tomorrow

"The Official Podcast of www.365tomorrows.com"

These are the sorts of stories I want to write soon. The Bitter Kiss of the Ronin's Cup is this blog's patron story. Well, if there can be such a thing.
Brave Men Run by Matthew Wayne Selznick.

"What If John Hughes Wrote Comic Books? 'Brave Men Run' is the story of Nate Charters. Born different, unsure of his origins, he's an outcast at Abbeque Valley High School, a self-proclaimed "boy freak" with few friends and low self-esteem."

This really is like X-Men crossed with Pretty in Pink—and it works for me. I got the e-book, but I just can't bring myself to read it and spoil the rest of the reading.
The Radio Adventures of Doctor Floyd by Grant Baciocco & Doug Price.

"If Jay Ward, creator of Rocky & Bullwinkle, had created Mystery Science Theater 3000 mixed in a little Time Bandits and gave it an educational spin, the result would have been..."

Short, tight, fast paced, and incredible punny radio adventures of time travelling absentminded scientists. They're back from an end-of-year hiatus and going super strong. In particular, check out the fight scene (to the end!) in the middle of Episode #402—and wear headphones.

"Combo attack! Body blow! Body blow! Boot to the head! Trip!"

Archived Comments

Scott Sigler
2006-01-27T21:54:59

Dude, thanks for the praise! I'm so glad you enjoyed Ancestor.

-Scott-
l.m.orchard
2006-01-28T02:18:45

Scott: You've definitely earned the praise, man!
Dr. Steve
2006-02-21T18:42:38

Hello!

I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for directing your readers to The Radio Adventures Of Dr. Floyd. Even though you obviously forgot to mention it, I am sure you are telling people to listen because of My performances in each episode. Though, that's just one of those "given" things. 'Humans Need Air To Live' and 'Dr. Steve Is Always Great!'

Anyway, keep listening and stay rotten!

Yours,

Dr. Steve Evil Mastermind

P.S. Fidgert says, "Hello!"
Matthew Wayne Selznick
2006-03-08T20:11:04

I just discovered your mention of my book, "Brave Men Run - A Novel of the Sovereign Era." Thanks very much! Now that the podcast is over, I hope you'll contribute to the "Q&A" episode next week!

Many thanks,

Matthew Wayne Selznick

Look mom, I'm on the podcast!

2006-01-07T16:24:02+00:00

I just caught a brief mention of Hacking RSS and Atom on Show #45 of the Mike Tech Show.

Thanks for the plug, Mike! I hope you enjoy the book!

How to Hack RSS and Atom Feeds

2005-10-28T15:22:26+00:00

This article is an excerpt from the ExtremeTech book Hacking RSS and Atom. This feature explains what RSS and Atom feeds are and how you can build an aggregator, route feeds to your inbox and buddy list, subscribe to multimedia content, and more.

Source: ExtremeTech: How to Hack RSS and Atom Feeds

Woo hoo! Looks like the first chapter of my book has been excerpted on the ExtremeTech site. Check it out!

DOM Scripting sounds like a fine book

2005-10-08T17:21:30+00:00

Flicking through the book, it does give the impression of being full of code. I hope that doesn’t scare off any potential buyers.

Source: DOM Scripting: The book has landed
This is one thing I'd worried about with my book, but on the other hand I always wanted to write for The Transactor. And what I wanted to write was a book I would've wanted to buy, if I hadn't written it.

By the sounds of it, DOM Scripting has turned out brilliantly. I'm looking forward to checking it out! It's described as a book targeted at designers versus coders—but a lot of times, it's easier to show-don't-tell with code than with prose.

Apart from those minor quibbles, I’m pleased as punch. I still can’t quite believe that I wrote an honest-to-goodness book. Some form of celebration is called for.

This is exactly how I felt, too. Congratulations, Jeremy! I'm going to have to pick up a copy of this book for myself!

Archived Comments

Jeremy Keith
2005-10-09T00:42:48

Thanks, Leslie. I think you can relate to how I'm feeling right now.
Warren Fischer
2005-10-09T10:51:38

This book makes sense in a clear, and consice way that most tech books don't. His examples are great, and his writing style is very readable. Thanks!

Threshold, the sci-fi with 5 blades?

2005-10-07T02:50:44+00:00

I'm starting to get into CBS' Threshold tonight, having gotten 4 episodes of it. Seems like network TV goes through sci-fi cycles, and this must be the latest. This particular show looks like it might shape up to be combination sci-fi slasher and forensic drama. But, still, I find myself comparing it to a podcast.

Also, what's up with "triple-helix DNA"? Is this a concept that's popped up somewhere—other than being an early guess at our own DNA's structure—like, on UFO conspiracy boards and whatnot? Or is it just double-helix-plus-one so as to be extra spooky alien? (Kinda like a 5-bladed razor?)

Double helix DNA, I think I understand: It's very convenient in copying. Unzip it, dunk it in a soup of free-floating spare parts, agitate, and you end up with two self-assembled copies. But how the hell would a triple-helix work?

On the upside, I do really like the Blit-like concept involved in the "bioforming sound signal" which mentally and genetically alters those who hear it.

Yeah, I think about this crap too much sometimes. Whenever I get around to writing the stories I keep meaning to write, I want to avoid these things.

Archived Comments

Bob Aman
2005-10-07T16:55:05

In a particularly bad episode of "Walker: Texas Ranger", Chuck Norris had to do battle to the death with a genetically-enhanced thug who had triple-helix DNA. He was all bullet-proof and big and stuff, so Chuck tossed him out a window into like a pile of welding tanks and then he blew him up! Or something like that. I wasn't paying attention.

Then Walker went back to kicking normal unenhanced thugs in the head like usual.
l.m.orchard
2005-10-07T17:22:25

That almost sounds like Walker had Real Ultimate Power, though last I knew, he wasn't a Ninja.