As a moderately technical 50-year old, I've given up trying to find full time work but have developed a moderately satisfying career by consulting (6-month to 3-year gigs) for (1) smaller companies that need work done by an experienced and trustworthy guy and (2) small IT departments in bigger companies that --amazingly enough-- need work done by an experienced and trustworthy guy. Middle-aged and older managers trust me (rather than some new whippersnapper who'll show them up) and I'm well paid for making them look good. My resume is solid and I like learning the business processes and providing solutions that "pure programmers" are often unwilling (or dis-interested) in adopting. Some of my most satisfying work has been "creative" process management and adaption rather than building systems from scratch.
I saw it on its original release (as a 6th grade graduation present) and again in 2001 and was amazed at how well it help up, how much more interesting it was than so much other sci-fi currently going on and how good the special effects still were.
[OffTopic] I originally saw it in a special theater in Super Cinemascope - I belive it was called - with the smell of hippies smoking pot before it started. [/OffTopic]
I used to work at a bar (in Ann Arbor, MI, oddly enough) and whenever I thought someone had a fake ID, I had back-up questions, too: - Zip code (If they looked at me like "why are you asking me this?" it was usually a better response than an eyes-looking-upward memorized response.) - What sign are you? (Now you have to remember "your" birthday and figure out the sign.) - What year did you graduate from High School? (I could usually do the math faster than they could.) - And usually a bit of minor chatter - "My boyfriend lived there, what high school did you go to?"
A phone headset really improved my productivity. Now I have both hands free and can wait while on hold and people find information and such.
I couldn't quickly find the quote I wanted
on
Textbooks With EULAs
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
It's after the Sodom and Gomorrah episode and Lot's two daughters get Lot drunk so they can have sex with him. (It always seems they stop reading the Sodom and Gomorrah story a couple of verses too early.) It's in Exodus. Somewhere.
Rather than e-books, the lexica (never seen that word before - love it!) dictionaries, commentaries and 20 bible translations (... "and Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amminadab, and Amminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed," and that's a real quote) seem like reference materials that are NOT read but easily searched and consulted for a very specific purpose and should fall in a special category other than e-book. In a similar way, I love my moderately technical and application user guides online (essentially, in an e-book format.) I'm sure that Harry Potter as an e-book is a disaster and marketing failure.
I'm a tech writer and when I go to a new job, one of the first things I do is survey the existing documents and create a Word stylesheet that incorporates:
- the three most common headings (H1, H2, and H3)
- the most common paragraph format (in two formats - one with a space after, the other without a space after the paragraph)
- and any special paragraph formats I see that I know users are married to.
Then I start producing and make the stylesheet available so that before long - miracle of miracles - a number of people are using them and simplifing my job a lot.
(By the way, I also publish a glossary early on so that everybody knows how to spell email, log-on, user ID, and Internet, as well as present phone numbers without parentheses. Every company has a list of vocabulary and words that need standardization.)
While I generally agree with you, tech writing is about creating solid usable material (and removing the fluff) in user and reference materials, not about adding comments in code.
I think that commenting on code is a valuable skill, and I recognize that some developers do it like an artist while others do it like a stinky child, but commenting is very different than tech writing, which includes determining the audience for a document, outlining it, and then building it so that it can be used, updated, and re-used. (I'm purposely using programmer words that a developer might understand.)
Unlike the link to the horrible diy-doc site above, I'm rather impressed by docsymmetry. It's more basic than I can use (as a professional tech writer) but it's a nice site with the solid information taught at the college level. I can refer other people to it and will point it out to a couple of friends in the business. Thanks.
This seems like a horrible "service." I can't tell what's going on or what I'll get or even vaguely how long it will take or what it will cost. I'm afraid that this service fails the basic rules of tech writing (and user interface) on so many levels.
And I hate it when writers use "commence" instead of the easier to understand "begin." Ugh. All of the prose seems overdone and yet not helpful.
A number of years ago, I had my new computer built with a floppy drive so I could finally get my novel-in-progress and a bunch of old papers and such off floppy and onto a modern storage device. Then, I knew, I'd start work on the novel again and be able to read my papers and wax nostalgic over my old papers. Alas, the lovely box of floppies is still in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and I'm not working on the novel and all the papers are completely useless.
...although I enjoy reading the "user comments" on Amazon.
Many times, however, I find Amazon an easier process to purchase books except when a book is out of print or from a private seller, I can order it more easily from B&N when I order a couple of other books.
I think the B&N search for a title or author usually does a better job than Amazon - less junk. I'm not enamored with the "search inside" or "related" garbage. I usually pretty much know what I want.
Oh - and in NYC - I can get free overnight delivery from B&N.
(continuing to ignore the typo: musuem) I'm amazed. I'm thrilled to think that 100,000 museums, cleanly defined, no porn (at first google, there don't even seem to be any sex museums), and no ad-ware/spy-ware/mal-ware (as far as I can see, quickly searching for the most common sources of the most common problems) is terrific. I'm spending the rest of the day here.
...(don't ask why I was still using it, I sorta had a reason) but when they asked why I was cancelling, I said because they were the worst ISP around right now. The poor guy (I think he was in India, but not sure) said "I'll just check the 'too expensive' box, OK?"
...has big sign up front: "All VHS tapes - $3 to $10." I'm guessing that even porn is going DVD - and sooooooo much easier to fast forward pass the "plot" and "acting" parts.
I've enjoyed watching the geeks - learn to dance, get a massage, etc. And they're not viewd as pathetic boors - the girls (cute girls!) are learning to like them. too.
Testing by independent third parties is a great thing for people who trust technology.
Not exactly on topic, but now there are a number of cases with DNA evidence that juries (stupid, stupid, stupid juries) have found not guilty because lawyers use the "that sounds like a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo that nobody could understand and I'm sure that our upright jury will disregard because of its highly scientific and hard to understand mathematical explanation when it's obvious that science is wrong more than it's right. DNA - what a bunch of baloney."
Trying to explain HOW a breath-analysis works to a jury ("You mean that this mere machine - full of rubber tubes and plastic chambers and microprocessors - can analyze one ten-thousandth of a breath and find what it contains? Do you really believe that?") would be difficult.
And that's the slippery slope of explaining such processes and not trusting independent analysis.
A number of years ago, a ballet dancer told me about the problems of recording elaborate dances, such as ballets, so that they could be performed again and not lost. A choreographer spends days training a troupe to dance, and unless it's recorded somehow, it can be lost. I guess a bunch of famous ballets are pretty much history by now.
In addition to using elaborate dance notation to record the movements, there also need to be careful notes on how to subtly shape the hands, facial expressions, point the toe and shift the weight at the proper musical cue, etc. etc. etc. It's not just capturing the moves, but all the related stuff, too, that a robot (especially a robot!) isn't going to be able to capture.
Throughout the 60's and 70's, IBM was famous for their "Think" motto. Apparently that's missed by a lot of youngsters today, but that's why they're called "ThinkPads," I believe.
Being a tech writer, I've spent hours and hours fooling with photos (35mm 20+ years ago, 35mm scanned 10+ years ago, 35mm printed on clear overlay and taped to screen for tracing, digital, Photoshop, Photoshop filters, etc.) In more than 20 cases that I can quickly recall off the top of my head, this process would have solved 90% of my problems in depicting and pointing out some issue that needed a clear unambiguous illustration or diagram. I think that my friends in the medical illustration field (who regularly are given photos of bloody surgeries to "clean up" and illustrate for medical reports and journals) would also find this incredibly helpful.
Arts and Metiers in Paris has a couple of rooms
on
Automata On The March
·
· Score: 1
The Musee des Arts and Metiers in Paris (France!) has a couple of rooms of automata. They show the objects and have movies of them working. http://www.paris.org/Musees/Arts.Metiers /info.html
In the 19th century, men were clerks. They could earn a good salary copying letters and such. Eventually, this became automated and took less skill, men were less likely to be able to support a family as a clerk, and women moved in to fill this role.
Obviously, the same thing happened here, except somehow over time, women have also been trained to believe that they lack the higher logic that only men can provide for programming (although I know two brilliant women programmers among the dozen or so men and women I consider very good and skilled).
This really is the perfect gift for our not-so-geekily friends. I'm mostly taking about the Open Office package. This is a great opportunity to give a couple of friends (and maybe a cousin or two) some cool software (which I've been trying to get them to try) and having it look like a "real" product, rather than some doo-hickey I want them to download. As a benefit, the project gets a few cents. Kudos to Lulu. Now advertiste the hell out of it. I want to see a copy of Open Office under every Festivus pole this year.
Slashdot Mirror
As a moderately technical 50-year old, I've given up trying to find full time work but have developed a moderately satisfying career by consulting (6-month to 3-year gigs) for (1) smaller companies that need work done by an experienced and trustworthy guy and (2) small IT departments in bigger companies that --amazingly enough-- need work done by an experienced and trustworthy guy. Middle-aged and older managers trust me (rather than some new whippersnapper who'll show them up) and I'm well paid for making them look good. My resume is solid and I like learning the business processes and providing solutions that "pure programmers" are often unwilling (or dis-interested) in adopting. Some of my most satisfying work has been "creative" process management and adaption rather than building systems from scratch.
I saw it on its original release (as a 6th grade graduation present) and again in 2001 and was amazed at how well it help up, how much more interesting it was than so much other sci-fi currently going on and how good the special effects still were.
[OffTopic] I originally saw it in a special theater in Super Cinemascope - I belive it was called - with the smell of hippies smoking pot before it started. [/OffTopic]
I used to work at a bar (in Ann Arbor, MI, oddly enough) and whenever I thought someone had a fake ID, I had back-up questions, too:
- Zip code (If they looked at me like "why are you asking me this?" it was usually a better response than an eyes-looking-upward memorized response.)
- What sign are you? (Now you have to remember "your" birthday and figure out the sign.)
- What year did you graduate from High School? (I could usually do the math faster than they could.)
- And usually a bit of minor chatter - "My boyfriend lived there, what high school did you go to?"
A phone headset really improved my productivity. Now I have both hands free and can wait while on hold and people find information and such.
It's after the Sodom and Gomorrah episode and Lot's two daughters get Lot drunk so they can have sex with him. (It always seems they stop reading the Sodom and Gomorrah story a couple of verses too early.) It's in Exodus. Somewhere.
Rather than e-books, the lexica (never seen that word before - love it!) dictionaries, commentaries and 20 bible translations (... "and Hezron begat Ram, and Ram begat Amminadab, and Amminadab begat Nahshon, and Nahshon begat Salmon, and Salmon begat Boaz, and Boaz begat Obed," and that's a real quote) seem like reference materials that are NOT read but easily searched and consulted for a very specific purpose and should fall in a special category other than e-book. In a similar way, I love my moderately technical and application user guides online (essentially, in an e-book format.) I'm sure that Harry Potter as an e-book is a disaster and marketing failure.
I'm a tech writer and when I go to a new job, one of the first things I do is survey the existing documents and create a Word stylesheet that incorporates:
- the three most common headings (H1, H2, and H3)
- the most common paragraph format (in two formats - one with a space after, the other without a space after the paragraph)
- and any special paragraph formats I see that I know users are married to.
Then I start producing and make the stylesheet available so that before long - miracle of miracles - a number of people are using them and simplifing my job a lot.
(By the way, I also publish a glossary early on so that everybody knows how to spell email, log-on, user ID, and Internet, as well as present phone numbers without parentheses. Every company has a list of vocabulary and words that need standardization.)
While I generally agree with you, tech writing is about creating solid usable material (and removing the fluff) in user and reference materials, not about adding comments in code.
I think that commenting on code is a valuable skill, and I recognize that some developers do it like an artist while others do it like a stinky child, but commenting is very different than tech writing, which includes determining the audience for a document, outlining it, and then building it so that it can be used, updated, and re-used. (I'm purposely using programmer words that a developer might understand.)
Unlike the link to the horrible diy-doc site above, I'm rather impressed by docsymmetry. It's more basic than I can use (as a professional tech writer) but it's a nice site with the solid information taught at the college level. I can refer other people to it and will point it out to a couple of friends in the business. Thanks.
This seems like a horrible "service." I can't tell what's going on or what I'll get or even vaguely how long it will take or what it will cost. I'm afraid that this service fails the basic rules of tech writing (and user interface) on so many levels.
And I hate it when writers use "commence" instead of the easier to understand "begin." Ugh. All of the prose seems overdone and yet not helpful.
A number of years ago, I had my new computer built with a floppy drive so I could finally get my novel-in-progress and a bunch of old papers and such off floppy and onto a modern storage device. Then, I knew, I'd start work on the novel again and be able to read my papers and wax nostalgic over my old papers. Alas, the lovely box of floppies is still in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and I'm not working on the novel and all the papers are completely useless.
I appreciate your information. Any explanation why Florence is "Firenze" and Venice is "Venezia" in Italy?
...although I enjoy reading the "user comments" on Amazon.
Many times, however, I find Amazon an easier process to purchase books except when a book is out of print or from a private seller, I can order it more easily from B&N when I order a couple of other books.
I think the B&N search for a title or author usually does a better job than Amazon - less junk. I'm not enamored with the "search inside" or "related" garbage. I usually pretty much know what I want.
Oh - and in NYC - I can get free overnight delivery from B&N.
(continuing to ignore the typo: musuem) I'm amazed. I'm thrilled to think that 100,000 museums, cleanly defined, no porn (at first google, there don't even seem to be any sex museums), and no ad-ware/spy-ware/mal-ware (as far as I can see, quickly searching for the most common sources of the most common problems) is terrific. I'm spending the rest of the day here.
...(don't ask why I was still using it, I sorta had a reason) but when they asked why I was cancelling, I said because they were the worst ISP around right now. The poor guy (I think he was in India, but not sure) said "I'll just check the 'too expensive' box, OK?"
...has big sign up front: "All VHS tapes - $3 to $10." I'm guessing that even porn is going DVD - and sooooooo much easier to fast forward pass the "plot" and "acting" parts.
I think that this is a new meme.
8 773,00.html
Ashton Kutcher (of MTV's "Punked") is producing Beauty and the Geek on the WB http://www.thewb.com/Shows/GenericShow/0,11116,22
I've enjoyed watching the geeks - learn to dance, get a massage, etc. And they're not viewd as pathetic boors - the girls (cute girls!) are learning to like them. too.
Testing by independent third parties is a great thing for people who trust technology.
Not exactly on topic, but now there are a number of cases with DNA evidence that juries (stupid, stupid, stupid juries) have found not guilty because lawyers use the "that sounds like a lot of scientific mumbo jumbo that nobody could understand and I'm sure that our upright jury will disregard because of its highly scientific and hard to understand mathematical explanation when it's obvious that science is wrong more than it's right. DNA - what a bunch of baloney."
Trying to explain HOW a breath-analysis works to a jury ("You mean that this mere machine - full of rubber tubes and plastic chambers and microprocessors - can analyze one ten-thousandth of a breath and find what it contains? Do you really believe that?") would be difficult.
And that's the slippery slope of explaining such processes and not trusting independent analysis.
A number of years ago, a ballet dancer told me about the problems of recording elaborate dances, such as ballets, so that they could be performed again and not lost. A choreographer spends days training a troupe to dance, and unless it's recorded somehow, it can be lost. I guess a bunch of famous ballets are pretty much history by now.
In addition to using elaborate dance notation to record the movements, there also need to be careful notes on how to subtly shape the hands, facial expressions, point the toe and shift the weight at the proper musical cue, etc. etc. etc. It's not just capturing the moves, but all the related stuff, too, that a robot (especially a robot!) isn't going to be able to capture.
Nice, very nice. I never thought of that, but it's probably true.
Throughout the 60's and 70's, IBM was famous for their "Think" motto. Apparently that's missed by a lot of youngsters today, but that's why they're called "ThinkPads," I believe.
Being a tech writer, I've spent hours and hours fooling with photos (35mm 20+ years ago, 35mm scanned 10+ years ago, 35mm printed on clear overlay and taped to screen for tracing, digital, Photoshop, Photoshop filters, etc.) In more than 20 cases that I can quickly recall off the top of my head, this process would have solved 90% of my problems in depicting and pointing out some issue that needed a clear unambiguous illustration or diagram. I think that my friends in the medical illustration field (who regularly are given photos of bloody surgeries to "clean up" and illustrate for medical reports and journals) would also find this incredibly helpful.
The Musee des Arts and Metiers in Paris (France!) has a couple of rooms of automata. They show the objects and have movies of them working.s /info.html
http://www.paris.org/Musees/Arts.Metier
In the 19th century, men were clerks. They could earn a good salary copying letters and such. Eventually, this became automated and took less skill, men were less likely to be able to support a family as a clerk, and women moved in to fill this role.
Obviously, the same thing happened here, except somehow over time, women have also been trained to believe that they lack the higher logic that only men can provide for programming (although I know two brilliant women programmers among the dozen or so men and women I consider very good and skilled).
This really is the perfect gift for our not-so-geekily friends. I'm mostly taking about the Open Office package. This is a great opportunity to give a couple of friends (and maybe a cousin or two) some cool software (which I've been trying to get them to try) and having it look like a "real" product, rather than some doo-hickey I want them to download. As a benefit, the project gets a few cents. Kudos to Lulu. Now advertiste the hell out of it. I want to see a copy of Open Office under every Festivus pole this year.