| My Three Wishes, for the World and for Myself |
[Nov. 16th, 2009|02:43 pm] |
For the World:
1. I wish that human beings had more empathy with their fellow humans, something I believe would cause them to lean just a little more towards a communal answer to a problem instead of a combative one.
2. I wish that the alleviation of suffering was within the grasp of the sufferers, and not tied up in the power distribution of those who do not suffer.
3. And heck, since I'm dreaming, I wish that we had access to infinite energy at no environmental cost, or an infinitesimal cost, therefore limiting what humans decide to with themselves to their creative, spiritual, social, and exploratory endeavors.
For Myself:
1. I wish I had more self-control, the ability to focus on what I chose for as long as I chose.
2. I wish I were a father.
3. I wish I were immortal, and therefore had enough time to live many different lives, learn several lifetimes worth of knowledge, and experience all of the universe's tastes and sights and sounds a thousand, thousand times.
4. Finally, I wish I had the time and the power to love all human beings directly, in a focused and specific way.
p.s.
...especially your mom. |
|
|
| Not Quick, Not Quirk |
[Nov. 9th, 2009|01:12 am] |
In my writing, I have a penchant for picking the quick and easy, for seeking the simple path to a story: a clever premise, a quirk or detail, and not a well wrought, deeply felt character.
I have a maximizing brain... for sorting, playing, shopping, saving, anything. I maximize time, food, work, play... I try to sort the senses, balance all the factors, manage the resources, in order to maximize the outcome.
In writing, however, this is a mistake, and completely untenable.
The most expedient route in writing: do not write at all. If I can get just as much joy from a computer game, a conversation with a friend, a well-crafted meal.... then it would be easiest not to write at all.
I've understood this well, and I have lived it out in practice, seeing time with friends replace the urge to write... I have found that as long as I am creating something, I can be okay. But I always miss the easy flow of words, and I am always happiest when writing successfully, feeling the clever turn of phrase or the idea that is fresh and plump and round. Even if it is drivel like this.
I wish to balance the forces in my head, to answer the words, when they come, and not seek the simple answer.
For the simplest answer is not to write at all. |
|
|
| Beautiful Jessica Glasses Competition |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|06:38 pm] |
Step right up and vote in the Beautiful Jessica Glasses Competition!
Which are the cutest and/or sexiest and/or trendiest and/or best glasses for the beautiful Jessica?!
Make your opinion known!
or
or
 |
|
|
| Cute, Wise |
[Oct. 28th, 2009|03:03 pm] |
My old girlfriend's 3-year-old son, who likely just learned about calendars, made an announcement at breakfast:
"Next week starts a new month. But I'm not going to tell you what it is because today is TODAY."
Children are the best philosophers. |
|
|
| Fear, Writing, Sharing, Proving, Self-Image |
[Oct. 19th, 2009|12:43 pm] |
This really blew my mind.
Not all of it relates to me or you, but some parts of it basically SCRAPED AGAINST MY HEART WITH A FINGERNAIL, and I think you may have a similar reaction.
http://theferrett.livejournal.com/1346357.html
He doesn't have a magic solution, he's trying some things and there may be a lot more to process, but he's got a really good bead on the problem.
For me, it isn't about being "told I was smart", but whatever the factors were, some of the resulting conditions are the same.
I would probably add an essay about how getting over the fear actually leads to more creative energy, or about how experiencing the creative energy is a productive end in of itself, with or without publication (or other acceptance by the outside world), but that's what I'm working on right now. The first step is acknowledging the problem and doing something about it.
And re-acknowledging, every time we forget.
-Douglas |
|
|
| Windows 7 |
[Oct. 15th, 2009|10:50 pm] |
“Put another way, the idea that Windows 7’s quality will spur upgrades from XP is predicated on the fact that the people holding out on XP make their computing choices based on quality. But if that’s the case, why exactly are they still running Windows XP? Why are they still using Internet Explorer? I think it’s hard to overstate the fact that, with the explosion of the Internet as a universal communication medium, hundreds of millions of PCs have been purchased around the world by people who don’t care about computers or software at all.” -- John Gruber, found via Maniacal Rage Blog
I think Windows 7 will be successful, even a hit. But not a revolutionary hit, not a massive success, not the future of computing. It won't be a Windows 98 or Windows XP-level success. And the above quote explains why. Operating systems matter less and less every year. We need very specific things. The percentage of computer users that demand innovation and improvement in OS and hardware is actually small. Yes, that small percentage pulls the industry forward in interesting and helpful ways... but millions of Windows XP users could care less. They'll have Windows 7 on the computer they buy when their old computer dies, and not before.
YouTube works. E-mail works. Google works. Amazon.com work. Facebook works. Wikipedia works. And they'll all be pretty much the same under Windows XP and Internet Explorer as they would be on a Macintosh or Windows 7 or Firefox on Ubuntnu.
Quality is nice, but unnecessary. Most people don't care about computers or software at all. (They care about LOLCATS.)
-d |
|
|
| Just Write |
[Oct. 14th, 2009|09:47 pm] |
I think that I want to write, but I’m not sure. It’s just that my days, lately, have been a series of glowing rectangles, and while I do a vast array of clever and creative and disparate things with those rectangles, they are still rectangles. Glowing.
If I were to read a book instead, however, I know that I would be reading on the Kindle, which is another rectangle powered by electricity.
Then again, isn’t everything powered by electricity? Even a long and leisurely glare at a nearby tree (how dare it expose its serenity and perfection to the world, brandishing its nubile branches in faux naiveté?) is powered by bouncing photons, scattering back and forth between my eye and its target, the slender arms covered in bark, the leaves parting... (dear me, trees are a slow-motion strip tease repeated seasonally). All of it is electric, if you go deep enough.
So, being hung up on the fact that everything I do and think and encounter is “powered” may be a bit pointless. Work is powered, leisure is powered, and all the spaces in between work and leisure are powered, and there is no crime or fault or miscarriage of authenticity. Electricity is your friend.
I have not written in narrative form since finishing my short story “Waking up Alone,” unless I include my brainstorming on ghost story plots.
Brainstorming plots for stories is unendingly satisfying. I may be a mediocre writer, but I can certainly create plots. And plots upon plots. It was especially easy because I’ve never written a ghost story before, so I could go through all the typical ghost story plots, one by one, and create variations and characters and outcomes, and then I could go through and plot out reversals of typical ghost story plots, and then write out reversals of the reversals, and then add a completely new element pulled from the air and then fit it into a reversal under a character, and then... anyway, plotting is fun. Don't ever mistake it for art. Your story idea is an empty mug.
When I go a long period without thinking in narrative, it is easy to think I will never find my way back, or that speaking in a character’s voice at all, ever, is such a terrible sham that I should never attempt it. Who are these fools who write stories? Why are they wasting their time with such trickery?
It occurs to me again, as I scribble all these thoughts into Bean (a nice full-screen bare-bones text editor for you Macintosh users out there, a solid hop up from TextEdit without the trappings of a large Word/OO product):
Narrative is what remains. Narrative and poetry. These words I am rambling now? They are a journal. A couple of my LJ friends might skim them, sure, but no one is going to read them a week from now, let alone a year or ten years from now. I mean, *I* won’t. You certain won’t. But the poems I create? They capture and encapsulate things I was feeling at a certain time, and I go back to them. The stories I write? They are clearly defined, incremental adventures, strawberry muffins along my road to completeness. My stories make me intensely happy as I write them, as I complete them, and as I remember them. Especially as they get better and better.
So, I must return to narrative. I must tell stories. I must write poems. Those are things that I want to put on the mantle (a mantle carved out of a tree, preferably, once I’ve hunted down that shameless hussy). My journals are just words, only occasionally clever, and even those parts of them that unearth powerful things about my feelings and my self-understanding are just shifting clouds over a landscape. Or, at most, journal entries are a resource, unrefined, of little more interest than the pencils and pens that scribbled them, useless until they are plucked up and smeared upon the canvas again.
So, journal writing is this: a mixing of paints, a counting of leaves, a sorting of Legos, a classification of bird species. All of it incomplete until we grip the feathers in our hands and begin to tickle our lover vigorously, her head tossing back and forth, blindfold secure, her body shivering and her legs flailing, the safety word forgotten, a handful of feathers, now, tossed into the air, and I relent and we are kissing and tickling and the sun coming through the window warms the small of my back. |
|
|
| Yum |
[Oct. 12th, 2009|05:33 pm] |
These are yummy!
Are they good for me or not?
|
|
|
| Effective Behavior Management, Episode #428 |
[Oct. 5th, 2009|02:56 pm] |
My personal lesson from this past week: if you are trying to change something about yourself, any kind of behavior, resisting it is only the first chord of a song. Replacing it with something that matters, something amazing and valuable, is the rest of the song. You won't believe the shuddering things that can happen once you get to the chorus. You've never known music until you've used your face as sheet music.
It's all very well to quit smoking, quit lazing, quit whining, quit whatever, but the real music is what you're putting back in its place, where what you really are is up on the stage. When your identity hangs in the balance, you can hit it with an iron bar and it will ring like a church bell. |
|
|
| On Writing, Episode #132 |
[Oct. 3rd, 2009|10:43 am] |
Hey all,
I've read three books in three days--a whirlwind of reacquainting myself with that joy, though a sleepless whirlwind, to be sure. There is nothing like a good book to keep you up late--far, far too late.
I started working on my short story (which was due last Tuesday) again this morning, and it feels amazing. Like being reborn or something.
I'm still going to have a terrible time finishing it, and it may be mostly crap, but I realized I don't care.
Focus is as fine a luxury as blur.
It feels so damn good to write sometimes. I don't know how to express it, and maybe it's the lack of sleep, but I started crying while writing. Crying. Because it was that good. Not the output, but the act. It was that wonderful to put things together, to read a sentence over and tweak it slightly, adjust, readjust, feel the words, feel the characters.
This is why I don't share my writing, much, or try to get it published or submit it to magazines or anything. Because besides being bush league, none of that sharing is what I love.
This is what I love. Doing this. Making this world. Making a single true moment for a character, or getting into a voice. Even if half of my story doesn't sound like I want it to sound, it is bringing me so much joy to write it that I don't care that I'm exhausted, that I stayed up until 2 am reading, and that my muscles ache. There is a great and complete joy here, in just this moment, even if I die tomorrow morning and never finish the story, even if no one ever reads it, even if it only end up "pretty good."
There is joy here, now, immediate, real.
Keep on writing,
-Douglas |
|
|
| On My Job and the Information Age |
[Sep. 28th, 2009|11:54 am] |
Sometimes it amazes me that my company manages so much--so much data, the healthcare records and billing services for thousands upon thousand of patients--with tools designed and developed by people who can sit around a table together and eat ribs. It's incongruous.
I'm sitting in a meeting where we discuss new iterations and features for our EHR software, chatting about the current design and development status of ePrescribing, immunization standardization, phone note integration... massive features that could revolutionize the way a medical practice helps their patients... and it's just a few thoughtful people rocking in their chairs and sipping coffee.
I've always thought that this sort of information management service needed to be handled by big, important board room tables of people wearing suits and ties and making decisions for teams of fifty. I look around the room, and I see that half of us are wearing t-shirts under our flannels. |
|
|
| Ebooks |
[Sep. 25th, 2009|10:28 am] |
eBooks! EBooks? Ebooks? e-books?
Whatever.
A friend asked for contributers to share their random thoughts on ebooks.
So I shared them.
This is what I think about ebooks, in a random, brainstormy way:
( Click to Read a Nerd Pontificating about eBooks ) |
|
|
| Focus |
[Sep. 22nd, 2009|01:45 pm] |
 |
|
|
| Why Software Sucks, Episode #38402 |
[Sep. 17th, 2009|11:29 am] |
In this episode of Why Software Sucks, please examine this screenshot from the wonderful Adobe Captivate:
( CLICK ME, but only if software design is interesting )
Note that no interface element or menu suggests how to open the aforementioned "Library". If you spend time perusing each menu, and sub-menu, and sub-sub-menu, you will discover that the Library does not exist in any of them. ( Keep Reading, but seriously, only if software design is interesting )
Sorry about this.
Every so often, I need to post a blog entry that proves my nerditude and my ability to nerd-out about a pesky detail.
Thank you for visiting. |
|
|
| Call for Artists |
[Sep. 17th, 2009|07:49 am] |
Dark Art Gallery: Call for Artists
Artists of all media are invited to submit images and apply for this unique and creative art exhibition. Media may include, but is not limited to: mixed media, photography, drawing, graffiti and stencil art, digital film, music and multi-media. Site specific installation is encouraged and will also be considered!
We are looking for art that is appropriate to a PG-13 dark/haunted/Halloween event. The exhibition will coincide with the event over four evenings: October 23rd & 24th and 30th & 31st; the location will be the former Olympiad Health and Racquet Club in South Burlington, VT. An opening of the art event will be held (date TBA). Dark Art is curated by Deidre Healy, and the gallery will be hosted by the House of LeMay.
How to Enter:
You may submit up to 5 images in jpeg format up to 3MB in size to the following email address: vtartandcraft@gmail.com
- Artists will be notified by September 25th if their work has been selected. Work must be delivered on/before October 11th.
- Exhibition dates are October 23th and 24th and October 30th and 31st.
- Works may be offered for sale. A commission of 35% will be retained by Nightmare to help cover exhibition costs.
- Submissions to Dark Art are only for your original work. Uploading any work that you do not have the rights to is a violation of the law and grounds for exclusion or removal from the exhibition. Artists are responsible for securing all appropriate releases and rights for photographs as needed. In submitting work for this exhibit you warrant and represent that (a) you own all rights to all Entry Materials submitted by you; and (b) all such Entry Materials are original works of authorship on your part and have not been copied, in whole or in part, from any other work and do not violate, misappropriate or infringe any copyright, trademark or other proprietary right of any other person or entity.
- If your work is selected for exhibition, it must be delivered, ready to hang with any necessary or unique hardware. Artists also agree that work will be picked up according to the guidelines - any work left behind will be discarded.
Questions? E-mail vtartandcraft@gmail.com or call 802.825.8694 |
|
|
| Nightmare Auditions Invitation Announcement |
[Sep. 11th, 2009|10:53 am] |
Hello Halloween Fans,
WHAT: Auditions for Nightmare Vermont, an amazing, mind-blowing haunted house
WHERE: The Olympiad Gym, 78 Eastwood Drive, South Burlington
WHEN: Two chances, Friday, Sept. 11th, 7pm, or Saturday, September 12th, at 2pm
WHO: You and your friends
Wouldn't it be nice if haunted houses were awesome?
Wouldn't it be great if people spent time rehearsing, if there was a unique story, if there was real attention paid to costumes, makeup, acting, and set-building? Wouldn't it be great if someone put all these elements together and created a PG-13 haunted EVENT?
Nightmare Vermont is returning this fall.
This year we've got the House of Lemay, a Dark Art Gallery, the Urban Dance Complex, a script co-created by amazing creative people, and a huge, ancient, looming building that may actually be haunted.
Nightmare Vermont is returning, and we need YOU.
This year we've got the South Burlington Rotary club, the South Burlington Police, 99.9 the Buzz, and a long list of other amazing businesses working together to offer young adults and adult Halloween
fans a fantastic, substance free, Halloween alternative. We are bringing a scary move to life and then throwing Vermonters into it.
But we can't do the event without YOU. And your zany friends.
Whether you are an actor, a builder, a greeter, a scarer, an artist, a stage combatant, or simply someone who doesn't know WHAT they want to do but wants to be part of something awesome, WE NEED YOU.
Auditions are this Friday or Saturday at the Olympiad. We can't wait to see you.
Spookily yours,
Douglas, Jana, and the Nightmare Vermont Team
p.s.
If you can't make it, contact us!
Learn more at http://www.nightmarevermont.org, and search for "Nightmare Vermont" on Facebook.
|
|
|
| Time on the River |
[Sep. 10th, 2009|01:52 pm] |
I keep trying to wedge more into my life, and I go through regular cycles of taking on more and then cleaning out. Today I sat on a rock and watched the river. For about ten minutes, anyway. Then I wrote this and recorded myself reading it.
Rivers are a great metaphor for any cycle that repeats, continues, refreshes. And a great metaphor for time. You don't get to the end of it, you don't see all of it, it isn't actually there. It is always moving but never there.
I don't blame Internet or work or projects for taking all my time. You can't, ultimately, take time from anyone. That's part of the misconception.
Still working on this, obviously, but I know I'd rather be a river, a rock, or a tree than the weather that batters them one day, shines on them the next.
And I know we don't have more time or less time. We only have what we are. And that is wonderful and terrible and wonderful. |
|
|
| Home Project |
[Sep. 9th, 2009|11:14 pm] |
I replaced all the thermostats in my house, which were terribly inaccurate, with snazzy programmable ones.
In a two-wire system, one wire is red. The other wire is white. Or whatever wire they had lying around that looks sort of like white. Yellow? Sure. Whatever.
The new ones are programmable and environmentally snazzy and so forth.
I’m sure I could make some deep metaphor about programmable thermostats and how I’ve switched out the loose, uncertain mercury with the cold, minute-by-minute binary control. But I really don’t need to make a metaphor out of bloody everything.
The old thermostat was lonely and useless, like a swan who had lost his--oh, forget it.
Via brainstorming with Deja: It's a Steampunk Fez!
You’re not allowed to just throw mercury in the garbage these days (damn liberals), so I just cracked open the casing and drank it all. Now I’m part mercury. I’m hoping it will give me superpowers so I can finally achieve my life-long dream and do battle with the forces of evil. |
|
|
| OMG, Gadget Appreciation! |
[Sep. 9th, 2009|08:40 am] |
It has been quite some time since I've posted any gadget-interest. I think the iPhone announcement was the last time I seriously gadget blogged. My standards for an interesting gadget have moved from "it's neat," to "it might change our lives."
Replacing the need for all print media (and relegating paper to a special use, boutique, or artist's medium) would qualify.
This is interesting:
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/asus-eee-reader/
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6822723.ece
Folding is a dumb gimmick making the device unwieldy, IMHO. But the sub-$300 price point and the hi-res color screen are turning-point features.
No, no, it won't replace print media until it has global wi-fi, access to every book or periodical in (or out) of print, a 60-hour battery life, and weighs 1.5 pounds.
But, you know, it's a start.
Apple's chance to move on this field is rapidly disappearing. (When they busted out the iPod, there really weren't any decent MP3 players. And when they brought out the iPhone, most cell-phones-for-more-than-just-making-calls were utter garbage.)
-d |
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
| |
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
beagley's journal
