Monday, July 12, 2010
Autocorrect Follies
[Thanks to anon]
Autocorrect Follies, Pogue article.
if you type “holy moly,” you wind up with, believe it or not, “holy molybdenum.” (“Molybdenum [noun]: the chemical element of atomic number 42, a brittle silver-gray metal of the transition series, used in some alloy steels.” Don’t you hate it when your phone is smarter than you are?)
And here are some auto-correct samples from Wired. But frankly, Pogue's article has many more, and better ones. He used his immense Twitter audience to help compile them. (I get a headache just thinking about sorting through, selecting, and editing the thousands of responses he must have gotten.)
Photo contest, only two days left
Just to remind: "Children in Color" photo contest, deadline July 15. Early entries are few, but good, so get cracking!
Only two days left!
This is your second warning!
Mmm, and probably last.
Only two days left!
This is your second warning!
Mmm, and probably last.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Why Print is Bad for Indie Writers
Why Print is Bad for Indie Writers, article.
I think this guy is right, even though he states the case very black-and-white.
The comments under the article are interesting too.
I have a friend who have self-published a book, a biography, and it seems to be doing well. I think in that case, paper publishing was the right choice. But: she was in a unique position of writing a definitive bio. She has a big personal and professional network and a ready market. And she had the knowledge and connections to do a print book as it should be. And she had the time and money, five figures I believe, to do it right. These are rare circumstances.
[Note: Carol tells me she is also making the book available as ebook on both Kindle and iBooks very soon, which pleases me, since I've become hooked on the variable font sizes of ebooks after using the iPad for a while.]
Probably a new and "indie" author should only do print if special circumstances demand it, or if it is already a good hit as an e-book.
There will always be people out there that won’t read ebooks, and it’s true that digital publishing is still a tiny fragment of the overall market. But the key to success for the indie author is to realize the print-only readers are no longer your audience. They never were, really, no matter how hard you wished otherwise.
I think this guy is right, even though he states the case very black-and-white.
The comments under the article are interesting too.
I have a friend who have self-published a book, a biography, and it seems to be doing well. I think in that case, paper publishing was the right choice. But: she was in a unique position of writing a definitive bio. She has a big personal and professional network and a ready market. And she had the knowledge and connections to do a print book as it should be. And she had the time and money, five figures I believe, to do it right. These are rare circumstances.
[Note: Carol tells me she is also making the book available as ebook on both Kindle and iBooks very soon, which pleases me, since I've become hooked on the variable font sizes of ebooks after using the iPad for a while.]
Probably a new and "indie" author should only do print if special circumstances demand it, or if it is already a good hit as an e-book.
All the beebs in the world
I now have so many gadgets around the house that when something beebs, I have to stop, think, or even search to find out which one it was, and if it's something I need to do something about. Really. It's ridiculous.
Yesterday I heard an ambulance siren. Very loud. I almost got a heart attack. It was loudest when I walked into the living room. It was so loud and so realistic that I had to not only stand over, but to lift up the fax machine to be sure that the sound was actually coming from it.
But I couldn't blame it, the thing had a paper jam. Serious situation.
Not only is it the first time I ever heard the machine give that alarm in the four years I've had it, but come on: a loud ambulance siren to tell me the fax is stuck? Jeeeeeezzz.
Yesterday I heard an ambulance siren. Very loud. I almost got a heart attack. It was loudest when I walked into the living room. It was so loud and so realistic that I had to not only stand over, but to lift up the fax machine to be sure that the sound was actually coming from it.
But I couldn't blame it, the thing had a paper jam. Serious situation.
Not only is it the first time I ever heard the machine give that alarm in the four years I've had it, but come on: a loud ambulance siren to tell me the fax is stuck? Jeeeeeezzz.
A Better Finder Rename
Just a quick plug for a super-useful Mac app: A Better Finder Rename.
Every day I have to rename hundreds of files, and I would be lost without this app or something very much like it. And it is so user-friendly and flexible that I doubt anything else comes close.
By the by, I linked to Apple to show that it is an app with good-will. But I just had an occasion (Mail Unread Menu) where I couldn't use an app downloaded from Apple because it was not the newest version, and it was broken after an update of Apple Mail. But I found the newest version on VersionTracker.com, and now it works. Very useful site, also to find apps you don't already have or know of (and also for other platforms).
Every day I have to rename hundreds of files, and I would be lost without this app or something very much like it. And it is so user-friendly and flexible that I doubt anything else comes close.
By the by, I linked to Apple to show that it is an app with good-will. But I just had an occasion (Mail Unread Menu) where I couldn't use an app downloaded from Apple because it was not the newest version, and it was broken after an update of Apple Mail. But I found the newest version on VersionTracker.com, and now it works. Very useful site, also to find apps you don't already have or know of (and also for other platforms).
A pool in Singapore
[Thanks to Ian]
The £4billion Marina Bay Sands tourism development opened in the Singapore city yesterday, and the 150-meter long pool - three times the length of an Olympic swimming pool, was a highlight.
Infinity pools are designed to make it seem as though the water extends to the horizon. In reality, the edge of the pool is usually about an inch below the water level. The water therefore spills over the edge into a catchment below, and is then pumped back into the pool.
The concept is said to have been inspired by the terraced rice paddies in Bali, Indonesia. They are often seen in luxury resorts such as the Marina Bay Sands.
The enormous hotel, which dominates the Singapore skyline, has 2,560 rooms and suites, a fleet of celebrity chef restaurants, shopping areas, theatres, a museum, a casino and a crystal pavilion.
The resort is set to employ 10,000 people directly and generate up to £48 million each year. Entrance to the casino alone is nearly £50 a day - but an average of 25,000 people have visited the casino daily since its initial phased opening two=months ago.
Thomas Arasi, president and chief executive officer of the resort, said he expects to attract an astonishing 70,000 visitors a day, 18 million a year.
It was due to open in 2009, but was delayed thanks to labour and material shortages, and funding problems due to the global financial crisis.
Infinity pools are designed to make it seem as though the water extends to the horizon. In reality, the edge of the pool is usually about an inch below the water level. The water therefore spills over the edge into a catchment below, and is then pumped back into the pool.
The concept is said to have been inspired by the terraced rice paddies in Bali, Indonesia. They are often seen in luxury resorts such as the Marina Bay Sands.
The enormous hotel, which dominates the Singapore skyline, has 2,560 rooms and suites, a fleet of celebrity chef restaurants, shopping areas, theatres, a museum, a casino and a crystal pavilion.
The resort is set to employ 10,000 people directly and generate up to £48 million each year. Entrance to the casino alone is nearly £50 a day - but an average of 25,000 people have visited the casino daily since its initial phased opening two=months ago.
Thomas Arasi, president and chief executive officer of the resort, said he expects to attract an astonishing 70,000 visitors a day, 18 million a year.
It was due to open in 2009, but was delayed thanks to labour and material shortages, and funding problems due to the global financial crisis.
I was about to say. They are lucky they managed to finish it.
And the upkeep! How do you manage such a pool every time there's a storm?
OK, I'll admit it's quite impressive though. :-)
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Pentax X90
Pentax X90.
A 26X zoom!! O mai gawd. When will the insanity stop? Will we end up with a 500 megapixel camera with a sensor like a pinky nail, and a 150X zoom lens plus 50X digital zoom?
Look, it's pretty useless, OK. Just ask reader and fellow blogger Ray. He has tried a couple of these super-zoom cameras, and all we hear is questions about why the pictures look like they're taken through a dirty plastic bag. (Update: I exaggerate... in good light and at short zoom levels, there are no problems.)
For good picture quality you need a biggish sensor, a short zoom at best, and no digital zoom at all. And you don't need anymore than 10 megapixels for prints and five for the web.
Update:
(I didn't even remember that Ray has the predecessor.) Ray says:
Here's a picture of my Pentax X70 on its Optex T25 tripod, in front of your web page on the monitor.
That Pentax X90 you show in the blog looks very similar to this X70, and probably is, except for a bit more of optical zoom. The right lighting has a big effect on zoomed pictures, I think... If the light's good, the results are much better - not so much noise in the images. I've noticed that for shots after dark, of lights or objects in the sky, there's a lot of noise in them. Shots in bright daylight come out much better. But I guess that's true of any camera, really...
That is true, only it's true in inverse ratio to the size of the sensor. These kinds of cameras look like they might have a rather big sensor, but it's really very small (less than ten milimeters to a side), which makes it not great for weak light. A camera like the big Canon 5DII, on the other hand, has a great big sensor (24x36mm), and you can hand-hold night-time pictures with it if you do it right (the right lens etc).
The downside is cost and size, especially for long zoom lenses, which will get huge.
Look, it's pretty useless, OK. Just ask reader and fellow blogger Ray. He has tried a couple of these super-zoom cameras, and all we hear is questions about why the pictures look like they're taken through a dirty plastic bag. (Update: I exaggerate... in good light and at short zoom levels, there are no problems.)
For good picture quality you need a biggish sensor, a short zoom at best, and no digital zoom at all. And you don't need anymore than 10 megapixels for prints and five for the web.
Update:
(I didn't even remember that Ray has the predecessor.) Ray says:
That Pentax X90 you show in the blog looks very similar to this X70, and probably is, except for a bit more of optical zoom. The right lighting has a big effect on zoomed pictures, I think... If the light's good, the results are much better - not so much noise in the images. I've noticed that for shots after dark, of lights or objects in the sky, there's a lot of noise in them. Shots in bright daylight come out much better. But I guess that's true of any camera, really...
That is true, only it's true in inverse ratio to the size of the sensor. These kinds of cameras look like they might have a rather big sensor, but it's really very small (less than ten milimeters to a side), which makes it not great for weak light. A camera like the big Canon 5DII, on the other hand, has a great big sensor (24x36mm), and you can hand-hold night-time pictures with it if you do it right (the right lens etc).
The downside is cost and size, especially for long zoom lenses, which will get huge.
Testing blogging app
I could only find, to my surprise, a single app (with the simple name of BlogPress) which is aimed at blogging to Blogger from the iPad. So that's what I'm testing.
It seems pretty basic. You can add photos, but you can't format text in any way, and I think it's rather more fun when you can make bold and italics, change text size, indicate quotes with text color, and such. Though admittedly none of it is essential.
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Mobile blogging via Eolake's 'pad.
It seems pretty basic. You can add photos, but you can't format text in any way, and I think it's rather more fun when you can make bold and italics, change text size, indicate quotes with text color, and such. Though admittedly none of it is essential.
-------------------------------------------
Mobile blogging via Eolake's 'pad.
mywritingnook
mywritingnook, tweets for the writing app of that name. Good tips for indie writers. (I guess that's a pseudonym for "writers who are not all that successful yet" :-)
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