May 1, 2008
2:32 pm »
Travel plans
In about 30 hours, I’ll be leaving for a whirlwind trip to Seattle to visit a couple friends. To friends also in that area I haven’t gotten in touch with yet, which is a fairly large number, I do apologize: I’m not kidding about the whirlwind part. I’ll be driving to the airport directly from the office tomorrow, and driving directly from the airport to the office on Monday morning, and Saturday and Sunday plans are pretty much being put together by others. If I can, I’ll come back to the Seattle area sometime for a week, or at least a long weekend.
The reason for this whirlwind-ness is the cloud to the silver lining of gainful employment: fewer vacation days, unless I’m allowed to just take some off without pay. As I’m planning a trip to Eurofurence (insert glance in ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
cheetah_spotty’s direction), that’s going to be five or six days chewed off right there; given other smaller trips I’m planning, I’m likely to bump into my 10-day holiday allotment as it is.
This does bring up another issue: this is likely to be the first Anthrocon since 1998’s that I’ve missed. Boo hiss! I don’t think it can be helped, though. I’m hanging onto my AC hotel reservation for the nonce and keeping a search on plane tickets running in case a Really Good Deal (ha!) happens, but between travel costs and travel time I suspect I’m going to have to table plans this year. As they say: more info as it develops.
Apr 29, 2008
6:22 pm »
Brief observation
So I'm tweaking the horror story and thinking I've got to make this suck more. And it occurred to me that this is about the only genre where that's a positive thing....Of course, I mean "make this suck more for the characters," but it's still sort of perversely amusing to be looking critically at the text and thinking how do I maximize the gut punch effect without increasing the word count?
(N.B.: thanks to
shaterri the story's tentative title is "Carrier.")
Apr 22, 2008
2:01 pm »
Virtual Host Testing on OS X
John Gruber of Daring Fireball wondered if there were any “testbed virtual hosting utilities” for OS X like Headdress and VirtualHostX. I only knew of the first, but I stopped using it when I realized how easy doing this actually was. ( Warning: geekery ahead. )
Apr 21, 2008
8:04 am »
Something else Six Apart learned from LiveJournal?
From TechCrunch:
Six Apart is launching an advertising network for blogs and will begin offering professional services (design, implementation, development, optimization) after acquiring New York-based creative agency Apperceptive.
The company is now competing with Federated Media Publishing, Glam, the upcoming Technorati ad network and a number of others to get bloggers to join their network. Six Apart has long sold advertising for itself on its network of free blogs on LiveJournal (before it was sold) and Vox. CEO Chris Alden says they have significant experience in grouping like-blogs and selling to large advertisers.
Apr 18, 2008
1:49 pm »
Brief updates
The observant will, of course, have noted that despite the message bankruptcy I am indeed still using AIM and logging onto MUCKs. I’m trying to do less of each, though, particularly when trying to do something else simultaneously: office work, writing, what have you. Is this “working,” whatever that may mean? Yes, even if I have some distance to go. The next step is getting more serious about workspace organization (i.e., my room) and time management. The latter’s always been a killer for me, but I think if I can take the approach of today I would like to get X done for small but concrete values of X I’ll manage. To pick a real-life example, “write something I can show for Claw & Quill” is so large it’s paralysis-inducing, but “Get something started for Claw & Quill” isn’t concrete enough to attack.
What I have accomplished is writing a short horror story, with the intent of sending it off for submission to the Eurofurence program book. (EF’s theme this year is horror.) I’m going to get a bit of feedback from the writing group before shoving it out the door, and, oh yes, come up with a title for the damn thing. I’m fairly happy with it in its current state, though. It may eventually show up elsewhere, but—assuming it makes it into the program book—you’ll just have to go to the con to read it.
As for why I am sending that off to EF, my answer for now is: because they’re just swell people. (Which is, from what I’ve seen, absolutely true.) Any other answers are waiting on other people to say something. (“You go first.” “No, after you.”)
To reiterate past mentions, I do still use Twitter, as chipotlecoyote, and update it both more frequently and more inanely than I do this journal. If you’re desperate to get in touch but e-mail is too slow and old fashioned for you, a Twitter reply or direct message will reach me faster. Theoretically.
Apr 9, 2008
9:19 am »
Declaring messaging bankruptcy
I read an interesting column on TidBITS; while this is a Mac news site, “Instant Messaging for Introverts” isn’t platform-specific. Instead, it’s about the author’s problem using IM and similar apps, and trying to explain first what an introvert is (i.e., not “shy, withdrawn, afraid of crowds, or lacking in social skills”) and why this can lead to the problems he’s describing:
Introverts typically need to concentrate on just one thing at a time, and are often particularly sensitive to interruptions and distractions. Now, I happen to think “multi-tasking” is a concept that should never, ever be applied to human beings (regardless of personality type), but be that as it may, I can certainly say that I’m easily distracted, and having more than one thing to think about actively at any given time is sure to make me both ineffective and grumpy. Chatting online while also working on another task, therefore, is unthinkable.
As Rands observed in his article about “Nerd Attention Deficiency Disorder,” or N.A.D.D., the state of having a half-dozen different activity windows scattered about your computer screen isn’t multi-tasking. It’s context switching, or less generously, an inability to focus. I am less sanguine about the upsides than Rands is. People with N.A.D.D. have problems in 2008 that they didn’t in 1998 and really didn’t in 1988. The internet, and particular its flirtations with ubiquitous presence, offer opportunity for immediate distraction that has never existed before in all of history. No, I don’t think that’s an exaggeration.
In 2006, Internet law guru Lawrence Lessig wrote to his e-mail correspondents, “Bankruptcy is now my only option” and deleted all their messages, asking them to resend anything particularly pressing. I’ve gotten reasonably good at managing e-mail without just deleting it all, but I’m considering declaring IM bankruptcy.
Sound nuts? Here’s the thing. Suppose I have an IM window open and a MUCK window open, as I’m wont to do, and a couple of hours elapse. Now three or four (or five or six) tabs are open in Adium, each a different conversation; two or three MUCK characters are online, at least one of whom is sitting in a room with a handful of other characters, some trying to interact with him or her. In addition, several people will almost certainly be “paging” to one or more of those characters intermittently, in effect creating separate private communication channels.
That’s a half dozen or more one-on-one conversations and one or more group conversations at the same time. You wouldn’t attempt something that absurd in “real life,” but the mental context switching that you have to do online is the same. And if I’m sitting in front of the computer, the chances are there are other windows I’m trying to pay attention to, like a web browser or a text editor.
This is, pardon the language, objectively batshit.
Since many—not all, but many—of my correspondents across the internets read this, I’m going to put this here as a general beg for understanding. My “real job” work often requires real job attention, and I’ve learned from experience that I cannot write fiction and have any other communication window open. Given that at the moment I’m trying to write a novel as well as, at the immediate moment, an unrelated short story I need to get done ASAP… well, here’s my thoughts.
When I am on MUCKs, I may turn off pages more than I historically have. It’s difficult enough to keep up when I have a character in a busy room having “cocktail party” conversations — throw in a couple page conversations and it gets psychotic. (VR social dynamics apparently dictate the only cause for missing someone’s cues is because you hate them.)
I’m going to try to be more aggressive about setting my IM “away” when I don’t want to be disturbed. I’m going to try to do this instead of just not being on IM at all, but respect the away-ness.
When I really can’t be disturbed I’m just going to shut the IM client off, and log off the MUCKs. Sorry. Email, Twitter and even SMS will all get in touch with me in ways that don’t break my concentration (but won’t get an immediate reply).
Oh. And sometimes, when I am online, it may be appropriate to ask me if I’ve actually gotten the shit done today that I need to get done. I have about a decade of NADD to try and dig my way out of.
Apr 8, 2008
12:19 am »
Noted without comment
(Source: Photobasement.com)
Apr 1, 2008
9:03 am »
A note from Anil Dash I agree with
(No matter how much LiveJournal users may be irritated by him for being a principal at Six Apart:)"Hey, there! I'm your friend, so I didn't want to be the one to tell you. But someone had to: Your April Fool's Day joke sucks."
Mar 21, 2008
5:31 pm »
Easter brunch
I have a vague desire to go to a brunch buffet on Easter Sunday. I blame Frang, if only by proxy. No idea where I can find a good one to go to on short notice, though, other than a hotel listed on OpenTable in Emeryville. And any of the Left Banks do brunch, but not buffets.Mar 20, 2008
12:07 pm »
What's SUP, Doc?: Thoughts on LiveJournal's future
So I’ve generally been steering clear of the various LiveJournal-related controversies, but I’ve been chewing over a few things the last day.
( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for those who don't want a glimpse at LiveJournal's future. )