About to Miss Boston
November 30, 2009
I’ve been in semi-denial (or at least some fraction of denial) about leaving Boston, but having just told the US Postal Service to forward mail to Silver Spring, Maryland seems to stamp the move with enough reality that denial is no longer an option. I’m missing some people and places already, and I’ll probably post about things I miss sometime in 2010.
Universal Adam pointed to a “missing Boston” post from Alex Howard, who made a similar move earlier this year. I’m already with with Alex on several of the items on his list, such as Jamaica Pond and the Arnold Arboretum.
Ink, the movie
November 27, 2009
I’ve just watched the movie Ink. I’ll embed one of the trailers. As you can see, it won’t be to everybody’s liking, but if the trailer appeals, the movie probably will too.
It was written and directed by Jamin Winans, whose short movie Spin you may have seen: it was much blogged about a year or two back. He and his wife/producer Kiowa run Double Edge Films, and sell the movie direct from that site. You can also buy it at Amazon, where Ink [Blu-ray] is only $14 right now.
There are numerous cool and/or interesting things about the movie and its web presence. Jamin and Kiowa thank the people who have BitTorrented Ink. Kiowa is doing an Ask Me Anything on Reddit.
The couple have a blog. Here’s Kiowa’s fascinating post about the release strategy. She quotes an earlier post from Jamin: “the battle we all fight is against obscurity.”
This post is my small contribution to Jamin and Kiowa’s side of that battle. I’d say they’re winning it. It’s too early to tell whether this will translate into financial success. There is a button on their site for PayPal contributions. I just made one, since I don’t think they get much money from my viewing. But no, I didn’t BitTorrent it.
I watched Ink at Netflix, where it is available for streaming. I don’t think that a stream sends much money to the makers, though.
Social Media Thanks
November 26, 2009
Who or what are you thankful for in social media? asks Mashable Ben. I’m thankful for sharing, which is vital to social media in so many ways.
So much of the software is free/open source. So many of the web services are free as in freemium. So much of the content is shared via creative commons. So many people share their knowledge to help others via support forums and other channels.
Reasons to be Thankful
November 26, 2009
I’m thankful for my wife and kids. They just left to drive down to Philadelphia, to spend Thanksgiving with family there. I’m up here in Boston to finish packing our house. I miss them already.
I’m thankful for friends, such as those with whom I’ll be having Thanksgiving dinner. It was those same friends with whom Judy and I celebrated Christmas in 2002. We thought that our first child was five weeks away. But as we were turning in that Christmas night, Maddie decided that she couldn’t wait much longer to come out.
So Maddie will be six on the day after Christmas this year. Her brother, Max, is three. The four of us will be in a new house, in Silver Spring, Maryland, for this Christmas.
Before I get on with packing, I’ll call my parents. They live in England, where the day after Christmas is Boxing Day. And, of course, Thanksgiving comes on the fourth of July.
WordPress Themes, Mobile and Otherwise
November 23, 2009
The theme of a WordPress blog is like its skin, its graphical interface… So the theme is part of the blog’s identity.
Should that identity be preserved across platforms, even when some of the platforms are mobile? A recent post suggests that it typically isn’t. WordPress.com’s mobile default is a mobile theme, rather than a mobile version of the blog’s “main” theme.
For self-hosted WordPress, there are several plugins available. The most popular seem based on the rule: if mobile platform, then mobile theme.
There are some aspects of theme design that don’t translate well to mobile. For example, the theme for this blog shows a lot of white space. That doesn’t work on mobile, when there isn’t much space to spare.
On the other hand, colors do work on mobile. The WordPress.com CSS upgrade doesn’t let me tweak the color scheme of the mobile themes. I wish it did.
For self-hosted blogs, it might be good practice to have a little CSS file that specifies colors, and other aspects of themes that carry over well to mobile, and invoke that file from every theme the blog uses.
I’m sure someone has written a good, thoughtful account of aspects of theme design, and the extent to which each aspect should be similar or different between mobile and other themes. If you know of it, please leave a link in the comments.
Haiku-Ready Headline
November 23, 2009
PCWorld gets it:
Underwhelmed By Chrome OS?
That’s Kinda the Point.
Yes, the two parts of the headline are 7 and 5 syllables. Just add a first line, and… instant addition to my collection of Chrome haikus.
Chrome defines a web appliance. I believe there’s a big market for such Chromebooks if they overwhelm in terms of speed and value.
Typekit, WordPress, etc.
November 20, 2009
TypeKit is a web service that allows you access to hundreds of fonts for your websites. I’ve just started using Typekit on my Android Icon blog, since I think that blog should use Droid fonts on as many platforms as possible (i.e. not just Android).
Android Icon is self-hosted (i.e. unlike Changing Way, it doesn’t live at WordPress.com) and so I can use plugins there. There’s a Typekit plugin, and I may well try it.
Typekit isn’t currently available at WordPress.com. I hope that it will be available soon.
Typekit would be good for WordPress.com, for those who blog there, and for Typekit. It would help WordPress.com profits by making the Custom CSS upgrade more attractive. It would help bloggers who want to use different fonts. For Typekit, it would bring attention and customers, some of whom would switch to paid versions of Typekit.
Decisions and Outcomes: Belichick Edition
November 20, 2009
We often have to make decisions under uncertainty. (If you’re uncertain what uncertainty means, you could read the Wikipedia article, although it’s unlikely to provide you with certainty.) These decisions lead to outcomes. You and your decisions may well be judged, by yourself and others, on the outcomes.
You should be judged on the decisions, rather than on the outcomes. For example, in a store you choose to buy ingredients for dinner rather than lottery tickets. The person behind you in line buys a lottery ticket, the very ticket you could have bought, and it wins a huge jackpot.
Does that mean that lottery ticket would have been a better decision for you than dinner? No, even though it led to a better outcome. (Yes, I am making assumptions about preferences here.)
Residents of Boston and fans of (American) football will have recognized the name in the post title, and realized that I’m thinking of a decision made by Bill Belichik on Sunday night. Yes I am.
Anyway, Bill B called a risky offensive play, rather than going with the apparently less risky punt. The outcome was that the rival team got the ball, scored to go ahead with just 13 seconds left, and won. There has been rather a lot of criticism of Bill’s decision, much of it along the lines of: “You have got to play the percentages and punt the ball.”
However, there is an argument that Bill did play the percentages, and played them correctly. One such argument was made by blogger Brian Burke (via Boston Globe), who estimated that Bill’s call gave his team a 79% chance of winning, while the punt would have given a 70% chance.
In this case, I believe the people who claim that they were criticizing the decision as soon as Bill made it, without waiting for the outcome. Bill went against the conventional wisdom. He didn’t go against the percentages as he saw them.
Chrome Haikus
November 19, 2009
Bookstores and the Graveyard
November 17, 2009
Clay Shirky posted today an interesting ramble around the plight of local bookstores. Here’s his most telling point.
The local bookstore creates all kinds of value for its community, whether its hosting community bulletin boards, putting rocking chairs in the kids section, hosting book readings… value separate from its existence as a transactional warehouse for books.
Combined with the most familiar point about bookstores – that Amazon is in many ways a superior transactional warehouse – this frames the all-too-familiar problem for bookstores. It also sees Clay on his way to suggesting ways of monetizing the actual value created by bookstores.
In other bookish news, I actually went into my local bookstore and bought a couple of books. One of them was Ivy & Bean Break the Fossil Record (Ivy & Bean, Book 3). We bought the first Ivy and Bean book for Maddie on the recommendation of one of the store owners. She’s loving the series. Max also got a book, and likes to play in the kids’ area of the store. So good for Village Books.
Yes I did just link to Amazon in the middle of a paragraph praising a local bookstore. I also paid with an Amazon credit card. Perhaps I’m not the best champion of local bookstores.
Neil Gaiman is certainly a better champion than me, as you can see from his account of judging the Graveyard Book Halloween Party Contest. Perhaps bookstores need more parties.
