Because, in a serendipitous coincidence, on slashdot's front page, you'll find and article titled Timeshifting: Cram More into Life.
If you read the description on the front page, you'll find a person who's seeking to use technology to its fullest to push out all the "dead space" in his life.
Eventually, there's nothing that technology can't provide. That is, the only thing technology can't provide is nothing.
I'd argue that, on occasion, people need a little nothing -- quiet, distractionless, reflecting time that you could call 'down' time -- and we're getting less and less of it.
In fact, we are so used to getting no down time that we don't even know what we're missing. All this distraction is like a diet of fast food: tastes good at the time, but nutritionally deficient, if not outright destructive.
I happen to have a copy of Zen Flesh, Zen Bones on the shelf. The Foreword, by Paul Reps, reads in part:
This book includes four books:
101 Zen Stories was first published in 1939.... These stories recount actual experiences of Chinese and Japanese Zen teachers over a period of more than five centuries.
The Gateless Gate was first published in 1934.... It is a collection of problems called koan that Zen teachers use in guiding their students toward release, first recorded by a Chinese master in the year 1228.
10 Bulls was first published in 1935.... It is a translation from the Chinese of a famous twelfth-century commentary upon the stages of awareness leading to enlightenment....
Centering, a transcription of ancient Sanskrit manuscripts, first appeared in the Spring 1955 issue of Gentry magazine... It presents an ancient teaching, still alive in Kashmir and parts of India after more than four thousand years, that may well be the roots of Zen
ESR's reference to this book may be a pose. Calling for Unix programmers to understand Zen may be unnecessary. But, for the record, this book is not, as you say, another watered down screed on half-understood principals of Eastern philosophy. That's like calling the King James Bible a watered-down screed because it's an English translation.
Take the Business Reply Mail card or envelope you've received, the one that says "NO POSTAGE NECESSARY IF MAILED IN THE UNITED STATES" and "POSTAGE WILL BE PAID BY ADDRESSEE".
Don't fill anything out on the envelope or form, and make sure it doesn't have your valid return address anywhere on it.
Get a roll of clear packing tape, 2 inches wide.
Get a brick or other heavy object. Bricks work well because one side is roughly the same shape as an envelope.
Use the clear packing tape to thoroughly tape the brick to the back of the card/envelope. Make sure the address & other mailing info is still visible.
Take this BUSINESS REPLY MAIL "package" to your local post office, and mail it.
Repeat as necessary. Tell all your friends.
It may prove cumbersome, and who knows if it works in any way to reduce your junk mail, but god, it's satisfying.
I just finished getting an AS degree in CS, and I added on a certificate in professional writing, figuring, like you do, that I could leverage my background as a writer and offer diverse skills to a potential employer.
What I learned from writers in the industry who came to talk to our classes:
"Technical Writing" is now more appropriately called "Technical Communication" and includes, beyond the stereotypical software manual: business & marketing communication ("marcomm"), information design, corporate training & curriculum development, online communications, single-sourcing (think XML!), and even, by some definitions, web design. See the Society for Technical Communication for more info.
If you want to succeed in the world of private industry with a "soft subject" degree such as tech/professional writing, you should take a handful of writing classes to brush up on your skills, but skip the MS degree and get an MBA. Most job titles like "technical writer" are being phased out for titles like "project manager" or "business analyst." In short, your writing skills are going to be put to use secondary to your people management and other "soft" skills.
Tech writing in the tech fields -- engineering & CS -- is being outsourced and shipped overseas just like the tech jobs. You might be better off learning Chinese, Hindi, or Russian if you want to do serious tech writing for IT in the next decade. That's where all the "how to use your cell phone/PDA/laptop books are being written. Red Flag Linux HOWTOs, anyone?
The job market for tech writers is almost worse than that for high tech, because tech writing for IT is dependant on the success of IT companies. When you're an IT company that's on the ropes, the first thing you forego in getting the next product to market is high-quality documentation (if you were planning to use it in the first place). Half of the ~600 self-identified tech writers in the Portland, OR area are currently un- or under-employed in this market. Yes kids, that's 50%.
Salary: While the bestest writers can command near 6-figure salaries or more, they're working 60-80 hours per week, just like the IT people with those salaries. Writing has a lot in common with coding, in a way -- lots of prelim. design and planning, lots of computer time, and lots of "debugging" (except it's called revision). And there are few if any shortcuts to making a good end product.
Tools: because you asked. RoboHelp, Adobe FrameMaker, and, sad as it is, MS Word, are the main tools for the job. Knowing XML, HTML, Dreamweaver, Flash, and the like can also be helpful, depending -- this field is as specialized as the computer world. The technologies you know define your job. For more ideas, check out the trainings offered at a local tech. comm. consulting firm.
So, the bottom line is:
You may have as much trouble getting a tech writing job as a newly-minted coder would; your job might be as specialized and ever-changing as a coder's job; you're better off with an MBA; your job might be sent overseas; and, instead of using your favorite IDE, you might get to use Word, instead.;-)
Oh, and I forgot: because there are fewer of them, and their role is often misunderstood, you will possibly be less appreciated than the programmers.
Yes, it has to be said: This submission was incredibly insensitive.
Interestingly, about as many people (~20) died in this Brazilian accident as died in the history of NASA events (17), according to this article.
So, stemen is saying, in effect, Brazil just lost as many people as (or more than) NASA ever did, but let's ignore that and ridiculously speculate about the USA's future potential for space dominance.
Right! There's nothing like the mild humilation of showing up with your assignment not done to spur following the deadlines.
I'm taking an online course right now where, even though something's due every Monday, the instructor's foolishly said "Everything's really due on the day of the final."
This means that, not only is there no showing up in class to encourage getting your work done, but even the weekly due dates are completely theoretical!
I've taken about 10 online courses over the past 2 years for my AS degree at my local community college. They use the online system provided by WebCT.
I've come to think of online education as Lowest Common Denominator Learning (LCDL). I've had instructors who value face-to-face interaction and the "art" of teaching admit that the college is moving more and more classes to the online format because it's cheaper to run.
My reaction after all the online courses I've taken:
The WebCT interface, as used by my school, tends to be clunky; many, many instructors enable all the WebCT elements (Discussion, Mail, Chat, Calendar, Lecture, etc.) but only use 2 or 3 of them.
Online classes tend to fall in the pattern of "read this week's chapter in book-do related lab or chapter review-take chapter quiz-repeat next week."
This predictable pattern tends to preclude discussion or chat sessions other than occasional homework questions or clarifications of assignments or the syllabus.
Instructors' technical writing skills make or break the class: The effectiveness of their "lecture" or answers to questions depends solely on their ability to write well (whereas f2f classes allow room for dynamic speakers, a variety of visual aids, and easier/dynamic student involvement & interaction).
Online classes can drift into a sense of disconnectedness or inconsistency, meaning I don't get that "aha!" moment of understanding the essential concepts that I often get in face-to-face learning.
Interestingly, the best class I've taken online -- which I'm taking now -- is a Perl scripting class. It's only 1 credit hour, 3 weeks. Why?
The short duration means something's due every other day! This makes the class feel very focused.
The quizes and labs are very short and to-the-point but still challenging enough to keep my attention but not burn me out.
There's not a lot of reading between labs -- the instructor "chunks" the information into very digestable bits
It also helps that the course has a narrow focus (Perl for sysadmins) and sense of urgency (short duration).
Some nationally-recognized news that actually makes me proud to live in Oregon.
As soon as I read the Legislative Assistant's e-mail, I sent a message to Senator Charles Starr thanking him for supporting citizen's rights over corporate interests. I also encouraged him to maintain that stance and to urge his colleagues to do likewise in the future.
Fellow Oregonians can follow my lead at the state legislature's home page. I've realized that I should have had that link bookmarked for years.
That's why I switched from Gillette disposable razors to straight razor & brush: Learning how the old things worked, reducing the amount of $$ I spend on daily grooming.
Of course, no one's making switcher movies about this kind of switching!
After all, we, the Geeks(tm), are making the tools that They(tm) are using to do this stuff. It's like UAW members screaming and flailing their arms because people are using cars to deliver junkmail or run over their dogs.
For what it's worth, check out this article (admittedly dated) about one paranoid who's done something about this very problem. Even if, as another poster argued, I did graduate from high school and have a bank account, if you followed this guy's advice and went cash-only, the database info they've got on you might be relatively useless after a few years.
The bottom line is, if you want to "beat the system," you've gotta give up a lot of what "the system" provides. There's no better weapon than simple non-participation.
You know, efforts like this that allow for uniform identification and authentication are just a preview of what's to come. In the future, we're sure to see a single unified system of tracking what you do online, what services you use, proving who you are and what you're authorized to do, and billing you for the specific level(s) of service that you use.
Using a common layer of software tools, ISPs & content providers will be able to know who you are, what you're doing, and how much you owe for it. Think of the merger of a high-speed real-time multimedia Internet with your phone service (which is considered a necessary utility and which bills you differently for local access; local, interstate, and international long distance; and extra features like voice mail).
It's just a matter of time before you can get Internet Video Phone and Downloadable Streaming Pay-Per-View -- and pay Qwest-AOL-TimeWarner handsomely for the priveledge.
Well, the city of Portland doesn't necessarily have as much regard for the public's privacy or rights as you would think from the basic report; the mayor & police chief probably don't want the city/police to be sued for infringing someone's rights. They're not refusing to ask the USDoJ's questions out of some sense of principle, but rather, out of a fear of litigation (the courts being, IMHO, our national sense of principle, anyway, in the form of enviro, civil rights, and human rights suits).
There have been a few posts here about lax security & speculating about how the hijackings were undertaken. Here's my theory: it was a lot simpler than a lot of security & terrorism experts are saying, and even the terrorists are surprised by the magnitude of the devastation they've wrought. Let me explain.
When I first heard about this at 7am one thing bugged me. How did 4 planes, from 3 airports, belonging to 2 airlines, get hijacked within minutes of each other? I was making a mistaken assumption, however -- the same one that our airport security systems have been making that allowed this tragedy to occur. I assumed you'd need a gun to effectively or meaningfully hijack a plane
I heard later Tues. that the planes, as far as is yet known, were hijacked by men with KNIVES. Some reports referred to them as "box knives," which implies to me improvised &/or small tools, rather than specialized and combat-oriented weapons.
Do you know how many times I've gotten on a plane with a 3-inch Spyderco knife on my person? And in my carry-on luggage? For hiking trips in Alaska or just because I carry it most days? It's easy to do. I've even taken a 3" Spyderco through the Boston airport on the way to Westchester NY. So I know first hand that you don't need special ceramic weapons to get a blade past Boston airport security.
I think that this was a relatively small-time operation, at least compared to what some "experts" are saying. You get 4 guys willing to die for the cause, some luggage, plane tickets, and knives. Train them in the basics of flying these planes (which has been said to be easy once they're airborne), teach them how to kill the pilots quickly with their toys, get them into the US, and send them on their way. It could take as little as a dozen people to plan & execute it, with, say, $20k for direct expenses. A few weeks, plus however long you want to train them with the knives & planes.
I heard a professional commercial pilot say on NPR tonight that a 180-pound man could break into one of those cockpit doors easily. No battering ram necessary. So the single hijacker gets up 15 minutes before NYC, as if to go to the lavatory, then busts down the cockpit door and kills both pilots. Within 2 minutes of getting out of his seat, he's flying the plane. No one is going to fuck with him at this point because 1) they're afraid of causing the plane to crash, and 2) they're terrified in general, and 3) on some level they expect these guys to behave like all the hijackers we've ever heard of, which is to say that they'll try to negotiate the release of political prisoners or something -- not crash the plane in the next 20 minutes. This theory also explains the reports that no emergency messages were sent from the crashed planes -- the pilots were killed or incapacitated immediately and lost control from that point onward. Thus, also, the frantic calls passengers "were told" to make (according to headlines on washingtonpost.com) to inform unaware authorities of the hijacking underway.
My conclusion: the hijackers got lucky in that this was totally ruthless, audacious, innovative, and unexpected. I don't think anything like it will happen again.
Slashdot Mirror
Because, in a serendipitous coincidence, on slashdot's front page, you'll find and article titled Timeshifting: Cram More into Life.
If you read the description on the front page, you'll find a person who's seeking to use technology to its fullest to push out all the "dead space" in his life.
Eventually, there's nothing that technology can't provide. That is, the only thing technology can't provide is nothing.
I'd argue that, on occasion, people need a little nothing -- quiet, distractionless, reflecting time that you could call 'down' time -- and we're getting less and less of it.
In fact, we are so used to getting no down time that we don't even know what we're missing. All this distraction is like a diet of fast food: tastes good at the time, but nutritionally deficient, if not outright destructive.
But maybe I'm just old fashioned.
ESR's reference to this book may be a pose. Calling for Unix programmers to understand Zen may be unnecessary. But, for the record, this book is not, as you say, another watered down screed on half-understood principals of Eastern philosophy. That's like calling the King James Bible a watered-down screed because it's an English translation.
It may prove cumbersome, and who knows if it works in any way to reduce your junk mail, but god, it's satisfying.
What I learned from writers in the industry who came to talk to our classes:
So, the bottom line is:
You may have as much trouble getting a tech writing job as a newly-minted coder would; your job might be as specialized and ever-changing as a coder's job; you're better off with an MBA; your job might be sent overseas; and, instead of using your favorite IDE, you might get to use Word, instead.
Oh, and I forgot: because there are fewer of them, and their role is often misunderstood, you will possibly be less appreciated than the programmers.
Have fun!
-->orbbro.
Yes, it has to be said: This submission was incredibly insensitive.
Interestingly, about as many people (~20) died in this Brazilian accident as died in the history of NASA events (17), according to this article.
So, stemen is saying, in effect, Brazil just lost as many people as (or more than) NASA ever did, but let's ignore that and ridiculously speculate about the USA's future potential for space dominance.
Sweet.
I'm glad to hear that you won't be voting for him next year, then. ;-)
-->O.
I'm taking an online course right now where, even though something's due every Monday, the instructor's foolishly said "Everything's really due on the day of the final."
This means that, not only is there no showing up in class to encourage getting your work done, but even the weekly due dates are completely theoretical!
I've come to think of online education as Lowest Common Denominator Learning (LCDL). I've had instructors who value face-to-face interaction and the "art" of teaching admit that the college is moving more and more classes to the online format because it's cheaper to run.
My reaction after all the online courses I've taken:
Interestingly, the best class I've taken online -- which I'm taking now -- is a Perl scripting class. It's only 1 credit hour, 3 weeks. Why?
Okay, that was waaay more than $0.02!
As soon as I read the Legislative Assistant's e-mail, I sent a message to Senator Charles Starr thanking him for supporting citizen's rights over corporate interests. I also encouraged him to maintain that stance and to urge his colleagues to do likewise in the future.
Fellow Oregonians can follow my lead at the state legislature's home page. I've realized that I should have had that link bookmarked for years.
That's why I switched from Gillette disposable razors to straight razor & brush: Learning how the old things worked, reducing the amount of $$ I spend on daily grooming.
Of course, no one's making switcher movies about this kind of switching!
And, when the cocaine that let's YOU do all these things wears off, you'll crash!
For what it's worth, check out this article (admittedly dated) about one paranoid who's done something about this very problem. Even if, as another poster argued, I did graduate from high school and have a bank account, if you followed this guy's advice and went cash-only, the database info they've got on you might be relatively useless after a few years.
The bottom line is, if you want to "beat the system," you've gotta give up a lot of what "the system" provides. There's no better weapon than simple non-participation.
Using a common layer of software tools, ISPs & content providers will be able to know who you are, what you're doing, and how much you owe for it. Think of the merger of a high-speed real-time multimedia Internet with your phone service (which is considered a necessary utility and which bills you differently for local access; local, interstate, and international long distance; and extra features like voice mail).
It's just a matter of time before you can get Internet Video Phone and Downloadable Streaming Pay-Per-View -- and pay Qwest-AOL-TimeWarner handsomely for the priveledge.
Well, the city of Portland doesn't necessarily have as much regard for the public's privacy or rights as you would think from the basic report; the mayor & police chief probably don't want the city/police to be sued for infringing someone's rights. They're not refusing to ask the USDoJ's questions out of some sense of principle, but rather, out of a fear of litigation (the courts being, IMHO, our national sense of principle, anyway, in the form of enviro, civil rights, and human rights suits).
There have been a few posts here about lax security & speculating about how the hijackings were undertaken. Here's my theory: it was a lot simpler than a lot of security & terrorism experts are saying, and even the terrorists are surprised by the magnitude of the devastation they've wrought. Let me explain.
When I first heard about this at 7am one thing bugged me. How did 4 planes, from 3 airports, belonging to 2 airlines, get hijacked within minutes of each other? I was making a mistaken assumption, however -- the same one that our airport security systems have been making that allowed this tragedy to occur. I assumed you'd need a gun to effectively or meaningfully hijack a plane
I heard later Tues. that the planes, as far as is yet known, were hijacked by men with KNIVES. Some reports referred to them as "box knives," which implies to me improvised &/or small tools, rather than specialized and combat-oriented weapons.
Do you know how many times I've gotten on a plane with a 3-inch Spyderco knife on my person? And in my carry-on luggage? For hiking trips in Alaska or just because I carry it most days? It's easy to do. I've even taken a 3" Spyderco through the Boston airport on the way to Westchester NY. So I know first hand that you don't need special ceramic weapons to get a blade past Boston airport security.
I think that this was a relatively small-time operation, at least compared to what some "experts" are saying. You get 4 guys willing to die for the cause, some luggage, plane tickets, and knives. Train them in the basics of flying these planes (which has been said to be easy once they're airborne), teach them how to kill the pilots quickly with their toys, get them into the US, and send them on their way. It could take as little as a dozen people to plan & execute it, with, say, $20k for direct expenses. A few weeks, plus however long you want to train them with the knives & planes.
I heard a professional commercial pilot say on NPR tonight that a 180-pound man could break into one of those cockpit doors easily. No battering ram necessary. So the single hijacker gets up 15 minutes before NYC, as if to go to the lavatory, then busts down the cockpit door and kills both pilots. Within 2 minutes of getting out of his seat, he's flying the plane. No one is going to fuck with him at this point because 1) they're afraid of causing the plane to crash, and 2) they're terrified in general, and 3) on some level they expect these guys to behave like all the hijackers we've ever heard of, which is to say that they'll try to negotiate the release of political prisoners or something -- not crash the plane in the next 20 minutes. This theory also explains the reports that no emergency messages were sent from the crashed planes -- the pilots were killed or incapacitated immediately and lost control from that point onward. Thus, also, the frantic calls passengers "were told" to make (according to headlines on washingtonpost.com) to inform unaware authorities of the hijacking underway.
My conclusion: the hijackers got lucky in that this was totally ruthless, audacious, innovative, and unexpected. I don't think anything like it will happen again.