Words for the wise from the mouth of a fool.
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The weblog of Seth Johnson -------------- INKSLINGER.ORG -------------- OD ARCHIVES -------------- FEEDS Posts:  Shared Items:
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Saturday, November 30, 2002
Well, bad news and good news.
The bad news: I just heard back from the editor, and my story got bounced from the anthology for which it was written. The good news: it was because the editor immediately spotted the problems I knew the story still had--so at least I'm aware of the flaws in my work, which I consider a good thing.
There's no time for a redraft before the book goes to press, and it was written specifically to the constraints of the anthology, so there's no secondary market. But learning something from the process and keeping up the momentum of writing...hopefully I can at least walk away with that.
Your pity will only be accepted in the form of cash gifts.
Friday, November 29, 2002
I link to the list of Fifteen Dangerous Toys That The World Needs Back (via boingboing) partially because it's good stuff, but mainly to note that there are only fourteen toys on the list. I nominate the water-propelled rocket and its significant potential for eye damage for the fifteeth item. Any other ideas?
Thursday, November 28, 2002
You want to know what's not fun? Cleaning out your semi-neccesary spamcatcher email account of three years' worth of spam. No fun. Thankfully there was a Buffy marathon on FX and a replay of today's spacewalk on the NASA channel--hurray for multitasking!
The Invisible Paddle Machine--just one of the Masonic toys in the 1930 edition of the DeMoulin Bros. & Co. catalog.
Posting from my sister's house, where the bandwith runs fast as the wind across the plains. It finally took a phone call to Dr. Chris to track down the hilarious Demotivators (Meetings: None of us is as dumb as all of us.) to show her, but along the way Google did turn up an entry on whygodwhy* comparing Hallmark and Succesories. Both sound like terrible places to work
Now, off to eat turkey.
* There's a new tune on wgw's Lounge, by the way.
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
"It is plain to see that me being clever cannot be denied!"
I plan on quoting that back to you as often as possible, Bezzy.
I'm up at my folks' place for the holiday, where the Net connection still manages to be terribly slow despite the cable modem. Actually, it's probably the 96 cold-cranking megs of RAM that the PC has. But it's slow. Still I perservere, and hope that the connection at my sister's house tomorrow will be faster.
Of course, my parents have the NASA Channel, so in the end it's a wash.
Aren't we working to clear the world of minefields? Then why in the world are we researching self-repairing minefields? (via MeFi)
I've linked to a couple of these in the past, but boingboing directed me to Retrosystem, the central clearinghouse for pictures of retro case mods.
"A third of the people brought in for casting, Fleiss said, get dismissed because they test positive for herpes."
An amusing article in the LA Times about the folks behind reality shows like the Bachelor. (via PCJM)
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
Boingboing latenight gives two links of interest: the planned Moon Resort and Casino--which, if built, gives me a reason to go back to Vegas--and the Barbie blog, which almost convinces me to stay away from New York.
Of course, given the October 31st entry in Barbie's blog ("Just chillin’, listening to some hip-hop. Burning copies of the hottest new CDs.") I suspect she'll soon come afoul of the RIAA...
I just saw this quote in an old Black Belt Jones entry by Matt Jones:
"Innovation isn't something you can incorporate in the design process, it's a result you can notice afterwards."
I couldn't disagree more.
Innovation is a goal that can be approached via one of two paths: 1) Standing on the shoulders of giants ("What's been done right in the past, and how can I improve upon it?") or 2) The road not taken ("What's been done in the past, and how could it be done differently?") Either of these are completely valid design mandates that can lead to innovation, even if it is incremental.
When I was on my high school's Odyssey of the Mind team, our coach always encouraged innovation by asking us to set aside our first solution to any problem and come up with a second, better one. This was innovation via both paths--first standing on the shoulders of giants to get perspective, then hopping off to blaze our own trail. At the time it was incredibly frustrating to set aside a workable solution, but the process was an invaluable education that I still use--though not enough--to this day.
Perhaps Matt meant that innovation can only be measured after the fact; I might be able to buy into that. It's often hard to gauge creative success in the midst of the act, and it usually takes time to gain the neccesary perspective to accurately judge your own work and compare it to that of others.
But that doesn't mean the innovation mandate should be given up as an uselessly ephemeral part of the process. Check out Jonathan Gay's article telling how he went from building Lego ships as a kid to creating Flash--and along the way making two of my favorite old games, Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle. The last step in his creative process is "Learn - Take what you learned from building this ship and use it to build a better one next time."
When you can take a process and make it into a cycle, so that past solutions become part of the toolbox you can use in future problems, then you're building the creative momentum where evolution breeds revolution. You've incorporated innovation into the design process.
(Incidentally, I visited the BBJ entry following a link marking it as the first use of the term "lazyweb" (a concept being tracked on the LazyWeb page.) I might be willing to consider it the accidental innovation being espoused were it not for the (tm)s stamped after the word--the creation of the term was a recognized act.)
Also via MeFi, the adventures of Stealth Force Beta. Entertaining, informative, and well-written; I just finished reading every page on the site and wish there were more...
From a WSJ article on TiVo's autoprogramming, mentioning similar systems on Amazon and CDNow along the way:
"Many consumers appreciate having computers delve into their hearts and heads. But some say it gives them the willies, because the machines either know them too well or make cocksure assumptions about them that are way off base."
When was the last time a machine "knew (you) too well"? And raise your hand if you honestly think "many" and "some" shouldn't be swapped in those sentences. Now, while you have your hand raised, slap yourself in the head. Thanks. (link via MeFi)
A well-produced fansite for Sesame Street Fever, if you remember it. I know I do.
Also Muppet-related are the webpages of three Henson puppeteers: Rick Lyon, Allan Trautman, and Karen Prell.
(All, of course, via the lovingly--and frighteningly--comprehensive ToughPigs.com.)
Who owns the alphabet according to Google? (via the excellent Google weblog.) Also found while surfing Google-related pages is Pugdom, a game created by the five year-old daughter of Google Director of Search Quality Peter Norvig.
Monday, November 25, 2002
"This highlights a problem I've had with action movies in the Extreme Sports era. There is this strange compulsion to look at something and say "I'm gonna shred that, bro", when in fact there may be a perfectly suitable alternative that does not involve shredding anything."
Lately I've been finding good online reading on the pages of various MeFi users. After he posted a thread on Wold Newton, I went poking into the user profile of Hidalgo and found a link to his enjoyable Tailors Today. His The Deskclerk Said is also full of delicious candy.
See, now this is how the Green Goblin should have looked in the Spider-Man movie! I love how it answers the classic quesiton of how the goblin mask had blank white eyes yet still allowed Osbourne to see. Nice.
The covers of Chinese Harry Potter ripoffs and, even better, an excerpt. Hilariously bad--check it out before the lawyers shut 'em down...
No joy on Grimace yet, but I did come across The Voice Actor Page, where you can poke around to discover things like what cartoon voices were done by Scatman Cruthers.
"Let's give him the old Toulouse-Lautrec!--Happy Days episode 21, "R.O.T.C."
Perhaps you'd like to read to read the Diary of Samuel Pepys?"--The Brady Bunch episode 22, "The Possible Dream"
Nick at Night is a surprisingly literate place...
Sunday, November 24, 2002
I'm still trying to find out who did Grimmace's voice in 70s and 80s McDonalds commercials, en route to the answer: why doesn't he speak in any of the new ads? Along the way, Google guided me to "Howl (for Mayor McCheese)".
Ever get a song stuck in your head and wished you had another song to chase it out? Yeah, happened to me with the Metroid track Karla posted earlier today. So I pulled out my sure-fire cure, "Mr. Blue Sky" by Electric Light Orchestra--an incredibly catchy first four minutes that replaces your current ills followed by a minute of noodling that puts your mind to rest. (And you have to love when the robot gets to step up to the mic and sing for a few seconds.)
Then, five minutes later, I see that VW is using the song in their ad (not yet on the VW Commericals page) for the new Beetle. But only the catchy part. So prepare to be driven insane.
An excellent West Wing fan site for those interested in such things. I'm having fun reading their continuity queries regarding the WW world and our own. See-geekery is everywhere.
The Playmobil Tarot--I'm kinda ticked I didn't think of this first. If you have Shockwave installed, don't miss the Playtarot Reader; it gave me a frighteningly accurate reading for a bunch of randomizers.
"Of his domineering father, Joe, whom he has criticized in the past, (Michael) Jackson said, "He was scared of human emotion, but he did know doughnuts."
(from the New York Times)
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