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30 May 08 – Cool Hand Luke
Finally got a chance to watch Cool Hand Luke recently. It's one of those films that are frequently referenced but infrequently seen.
Cool Hand Luke works mostly on the effectiveness of its actors. It's an intensely character-driven piece, with very little action. It's all about the relationships between the characters, how the bounce off each other.
I was struck by the other prisoners' reaction to Luke. He's very independent, seeing no need to observe the prisoners' little hierarchy. He doesn't try to upset it, either; he just ignores it. He wins the other prisoners' respect out of sheer tenacity and difference.
Their reaction? They follow. As impressed as they are at his independence, none of them try to be independent. It's almost like they expect him to live out their own dreams of independence. It's a terrible burden, and in the end it's one of the things that breaks him.
It's a beautiful film, too, full of the rising and setting sun, reflections in glasses, and creative shots. But that's frosting on the cake; the actors drive the film. And they drive it straight to eternity.
29 May 08 – Smile, Blast You!
Some websites are informational. Some are entertainment. The Institute of Official Cheer is both. It's an archive of old newspaper ads, comic books, children's books, and strange magazine inserts. It pokes fun at the past, but with a twinkle in its eye; the proprietor (James Lileks) knows that they were just doing their best.
I bring this up because I spent a good chunk of today delving into its many, many subsites. There's just so much content here, and Lileks's writing skewers it with precision and style.
28 May 08 – Self-Publishing on the Kindle
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I published my Kindle Fan Guide several months ago, to quite some success. I've sold almost 300 copies so far.
I learned a lot during the process of publishing it. I had to log in to Amazon's Digital Text Platform, though fortuately anyone can log in using an existing Amazon account. I then selected the option to upload a new book.
Kindle books have to be uploaded in HTML format. This turned out to be tricky, as I wrote the Guide in OpenDocument format in a word processor (NeoOffice). My word processor could certainly save as HTML, but the Digital Text Platform only accepts a certain subset of HTML.
So, I had to save the Guide as HTML, then go in and fix the HTML by hand using a text editor. Then I uploaded it. Fortunately, the Digital Text Platform lets you preview your work; fortunate, because the book didn't look right at all. So I had to go back and tweak the HTML about a dozen times before it looked right.
Then I finished the process. However, Amazon's systems take up to 24 hours to synchronize, so I had to wait until that was done. But when it was, I had a Kindle book ready to go.
As it stands, it might be easier to save the book as plain text, then add a few HTML elements for chapter breaks and such. But at least publishing on the Kindle is a relatively straightforward process. If you want to self-publish, the Kindle's a fully reasonable choice.
27 May 08 – Ratliff
Let me tell you about Ratliff.
Stephen Ratliff wrote fanfic (fan-written stories) about Star Trek: The Next Generation. I have nothing against fanfic. Most of it is bad, but most of anything is bad (Sturgeon's Law). Fanfic's a good training ground for writers.
Ratliff's stuff, in comparison, was cheesy in a way that rivalled the worst movies used in Mystery Science Theater 3000. His stuff had poor spelling and grammar, simple characters, and some of the most unrealistic situations imaginable.
For example: His recurring characters comprised the "Kid's Crew," a set of nine-year-olds who pilot and crew a starship. Yes. Nine-year-olds. And they do very well; they quickly rise up the ranks of the Federation and resolve major political standoffs.
I mentioned MST3K. Online MST3K fans learned of Ratliff and pounced. His works were perfect fodder for riffing.
Then Ratliff got wind of this. His reaction should be a model for anyone who finds this happening to their work: He sent them his work. He notified MST3K fandom every time he released a new story. He even read the riffs.
And he paid attention.
As he produced stories and the kids grew into their teen years, they started acting up. They got weirded out. They became troubled, even depressed. And one character reflected that this was because they rose too far, too fast; that all this adventure and pressure was too much for children to handle.
Ratliff's spelling improved, his characters deepened, and his stories became progressively less ridiculous. By the time I stopped reading his stories, he was producing solid fanfic. Nothing professional-quality yet, I'd judge, but he'd improved greatly.
How? By listening. By being a pro. He read a lot of stinging criticism, and he didn't take offense at it. He extracted the important meaning from it and applied it to his work. And he kept writing.
I have tremendous respect for the man.
26 May 08 – The Productivity Video
Because a number of folks have expressed interest in knowing how one person has implemented a productivity system, I've uploaded a video where I walk through mine. I take it from writing down a note to myself, through to processing it into my system, and how my system works.
25 May 08 – Make your own root beer
You know how sodas contain quite a few chemicals and additives, right? Wish you could drink clean soda?
I've just uploaded a new video to my Cooking with CK website, explaining How to make root beer from scratch. The same directions should apply for any kind of flavor you want to add, from orange to ginger ale.
23 May 08 – Fight Club - The Novel
Awhile ago, I read the original novel of Fight Club.
I surprised myself by reading the entire book in two days. Granted, it's a short novel, but normally I'm not that engrossed.
This was due to the novel's differences from the film. Turns out, the film is an excellent adaptation of the novel, but many speeches and conversations in the novel are re-arranged to condense the story. The book focuses tightly on the narrator, and the tale wanders as the narrator's mind wanders. A film can't do that. So, for example, Tyler Durden's "You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake" speech is composed of observations and bits of dialogue from Tyler scattered throughout the novel.
The novel ends in a completely different way than the film. I think I like the film's ending better, though that's personal preference for the ending's style and content. The novel ends on a darker note than the film, though it's a very Black Comedy sort of dark note.
I'm glad I read it. If I adapt something in the future, I'd learn a lot from a deep study of the differences between the book and the film.
22 May 08 – RomeoRhino
After Mystery Science Theater 3000 ended, I wondered if anyone else would pick up the mantle. They stumbled upon the formula of recording voice-over riffs of bad pop culture movies, and surely someone else would continue. The technology's easy enough.
Someone's done it: RomeoRhino.
RomeoRhino is a YouTube user who takes public domain instructional videos (and a few movies), records himself riffing on them, marries the two, and uploads them to YouTube.
He's learned from MST3K: he doesn't talk over the dialogue too much, he jokes as much as possible, he knows not to get too dark or sarcastic, and he keeps the jokes coming steadily throughout the entire video.
He posts a new video about once a week, and he's been doing it for a year, so there's plenty of material. Some of my favorites:
21 May 08 – Accepting PayPal Payments
As I prepare to bring my teaching website, Your Online Life, online, I've been fiddling with PayPal. I plan to use it to accept credit card payments, and I got lost within their documentation. But I managed to pull together what I need, and here's what I found.
First, log in to PayPal, then click on the link to your Profile, then click on Website Payment Preferences. Type in a Return URL—this is the page on your site that PayPal will send the user back to after they've paid. Turn on Payment Data Transfer and save. The page will refresh with an Identity Token.
Now for some HTML. On the page where the user will pay for the item, enter something like this:
Obviously, change YOUR_EMAIL_ADDRESS and ITEM_NAME to your PayPal email address, and the name of the item your client will be buying. This will display a big "Buy Now!" PayPal button.
Now, go to the return page, the one that PayPal will redirect to. PayPal will send a transaction ID to this page, as an HTTP GET variable, named "tx". Grab "tx". Then post the following back to PayPal:
Plug in the value for "tx" in TRANSACTION_ID, and hardcode your identity token in the "at" field.
You should get back something like this:
SUCCESS first_name=Jane+Doe last_name=Smith payment_status=Completed payer_email=janedoesmith%40hotmail.com payment_gross=5.00 mc_currency=USD custom=Purchasing+cool+poster
A bit complicated, but it works.
20 May 08 – 20 May 08
I heard this in a recentl Manager Tools podcast: Until you've got something, you've got nothing.
It struck a powerful chord. As I chat with folks via Twitter and follow others' blogs, I realize that I have little to offer. A bit here and there: a few written stories, some credits. But precious little accomplished, in either the real or the digital worlds.
So, how to accomplish things? Rid one's self of distractions. Hole up with a bunch of food, severely limit external interaction, and work. I may not need to be quite that extreme, but I think it's important.
Which is why, today, I switched off Twitter and FriendFeed, and I plan to keep them off until I actually produce something. A finished product or service of some sort.
Heck, I may keep them off until enough of my friends get on there. Just one more distraction, after all.
19 May 08 – Why I Have a Productivity System
When I look around at friends and family who don't seem to be accomplishing that which they want to, I notice a trend. They're smart. They even know what they want, if vaguely.
But they don't have a way of breaking down those goals into actionable steps.
Now, you can try to break down your goals into a complete, comprehensive list of steps. This will drive you nuts. This is what productivity systems are for, to advise you on how much you need to keep track of.
I'm a fan of Getting Things Done, which is just lightweight enough that I can stay productive without laboriously updating my system, while comprehensive enough to capture everything.
The core of GTD is a Projects list, a record of everything you're committed to accomplishing. Big and small. "Write novel" to "Patch paint in kitchen."
For each Project, you have to identify the next physical, visible action you need to take on it. Writing a novel? The next action may be to sit down with pen and paper and record those plot ideas spinning around in your head. And that's all you need to plan out. You can plan more than that, but you only really need the next action; once you've finished it, the following action is almost always very, very obvious.
(Why not plan ahead in detail? Well, how often have you discovered something partway through a project that completely changed your next six steps? Yeah. I bet it's more often than getting partway through a project and finding yourself completely unable to think of the next step.)
I keep a list of Actions on a whiteboard in my studio. Throughout my day, I refer to it frequently. As I make progress on a project, I update the whiteboard. It feels good to know that I'm accomplishing my goals. That I'm doing that which I set out to do.
16 May 08 – Instructable Wine
Just finished a busy time in the kitchen. Made some icebox cookie dough (with lemon!), some udon noodles from a new recipe, and wine. Sort of ghetto wine, actually.
The recipes are from Instructables, a cool website with lots of offbeat how-tos, from How to Make an Easy Inverted Planter to Making realistic Steampunk Airship Goggles. I've spent a serious amount of time browsing it in the past couple of days.
The wine recipe is suspiciously simple. As I fiddled in the kitchen tonight, I refined it thusly:
Wine
- Thoroughly clean a wine bottle. I washed it out with soap, then filled it with piping hot water and let it stand for a few minutes, then wrapped the top with aluminum foil while continuing with preparations.
- Put a funnel on the bottle, and pour in 1 and 1/8 teaspoons yeast, and ½ a teaspoon of Early Grey tea (for tannins, ya know).
- Put the bottle and funnel on a scale, and pour 260 grams of grape juice (or 1 cup) into the bottle. Swirl gently but firmly to mix everything.
- Add 485 grams of water, or until it reaches the neck (not into the neck).
- Lid with a balloon, and put it in a dark, cool place for 3-7 days, until it stops bubbling.
- Take another (thoroughly cleaned) bottle and top it with a funnel, and lay a coffee filter onto the funnel. Pour the wine through the filter into the second bottle, and cork it. Enjoy at your leisure.
That's it. I'm going to bed. My fingers feel like thick Viennese sausages, unable to type a single coherent sentence.
15 May 08 – You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake
It's late evening. I really need to write more articles for Your Online Life. But I don't want to, and if history is any indication I won't do any more work tonight. I'm used to winding down in the evenings.
However. My new mantra is "Evolve. And let the chips fall where they may." (from Jim Uhls' script to Fight Club, not the book). And so, I write.
14 May 08 – Coffee
| Brennen writes: | Coffee is a thing you drink when it's not the right time of day to drink bourbon. -- His excellent May 14 entry |
13 May 08 – 13 May 08
Just finished watching several episodes of Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt, where he and a small crew travel America, off the highways, eating only locally made food (that is, nothing corporately processed or prepared).
It's amazing, watching someone passionately committed to a concept—real, carefully-prepared food—delivering on it. It's quirky and risky; you never know how it'll turn out. But the food is usually excellent.
Risks are worth it. It's inspired me to think more about my risks.
I'm also re-evaluating my routines and plans and such. After a productive Monday, and feeling a little ill today, I'm looking at my work and asking myself:
- Is this really helping humanity?
- How do I feel about it?
- What can I reframe to be more powerful, effective, useful, etc.?
Questions worth asking, I think.
11 May 08 – 11 May 08
Back from a weekend retreat with some church high schoolers.
I won't bore you with the details, and will instead go straight to the conclusions: I learned that efforts to meet new people are usually worthwhile. And when they aren't, it's very clear and you can move right along. I learned not to trust second-hand information. I learned that the best way to meet folks in a large group is to attend one of their special functions. I learned that a true retreat is one which removes you from your routine permanently.
So I'm planning to revise my routine tomorrow morning.
8 May 08 – 8 May 08
Twitter, Twhirl, and FriendFeed
I've been using these three technologies for about a week now, and I definitely have enough experience with them to say that I'm hooked. Not massively so, but I'm using them.
Twitter is basically a group IM client in a website. You join, and add all your friends on the service. You and your friends' posts are all displayed together, chronologically, just like IMs. But it's a semi-permanent record; you can glance down the list, see someone's note, and quickly reply. And all your friends see your reply and can join in.
But Twitter's a website. Twhirl packages that up into a desktop IM client (Windows and Mac). Twhirl works exactly like an IM client. So you can have an ongoing conversation with your friends, over the course of days.
Now consider FriendFeed, which aggregates all your friends' Twitter, Digg, del.icio.us, YouTube, etc. messages, along with the ability to vote and comment on each entry. It's like a mini-forum for everyone's activity.
So Twhirl gives you a 24-hour chat channel with all your friends, and FriendFeed gives you a 24-hour forum with all your friends. For free.
7 May 08 – 7 May 08
FYI, I'll be at a retreat this weekend that has no cellphone or internet coverage, so I'll be completely out of touch for Saturday and most of Sunday.
4 May 08 – Iron Man's Director
Went and saw Iron Man. No, I'm not going to review it, except to say I thoroughly enjoyed it.
I do want to point out the benefits of having Jon Favreau directing. He got started in Hollywood by witing Swingers and directing Elf. He's a comedy and drama director.
This gives him great respect for dialogue. The actors sound like they're realling talking to each other, instead of intoning lines.
And the movie moves. Many action movies suffer from an uneven "suspension bridge" structure, where the action scenes are the towers and everything else is suspension cables. You spend most of the movie on suspension cables, waiting for the next good part.
Not so Iron Man; everything besides the action is kept interesting enough—funny, well-acted—to keep you watching.
Indie film directors can't afford to make a bad film. So give them a solid property that they like, and you'll get a solid film.
3 May 08 – In Defense of Facebook
A recent chart posted by cnet shows that Facebook apps are primarily used "just for fun." And there have been a number of blog posts lately (particularly The problem with Facebook) which trash Facebook, saying that the site is effectively pointless and not worth any money.
Allow me to step forward in defense of Facebook.
I know people who spend a lot of time on Facebook. Who use those silly little apps. And who are looking at the ads.
Granted, the apps haven't figured out how to make money yet. Same was true of the web circa 1995; lots of websites, most of them look-at-my-cat pages, and almost nobody was making money yet. It took a little time.
This is like complaining that Penny Arcade is useless and worthless because of its silly humor. Doesn't matter; it can still make money.