How to Blog a Book
“It’s a five-year process from writing to publishing,” said Llewellyn, of traditional books. “It’s incredibly frustrating. And it’s like the lottery, such a risk every step of the way. “The Tilting House” was the fourth manuscript I tried to have published – no one ever read the others. So the idea of having an immediate audience was attractive.” The result is “Letter Off Dead,” a book in blog form (letteroffdead.com) which Llewellyn’s been writing since last April. The book follows the middle-school adventures and mishaps of Trevor, who begins writing to his dead father in a desperate measure to cope Read more…
WA’s public lands
Last night's presentation by Peter Goldmark was interesting. As Commissioner of Public Lands, he is in charge of 5.6 million acres of public lands in Washington, including the seabeds of many rivers and the Sound. There's a lot that goes with that. One of the most intriguing proposals was using what would have been burn piles from forestry operations for biomass power. Apparently a lot of the timber industry is very interested in this–after all, it was waste, and now it's profit. And certainly it's good for an alternative power solution. But, as was pointed out to me shortly after Read more…
10 Nominees
Best Picture “Avatar” James Cameron and Jon Landau, Producers “The Blind Side” Nominees to be determined “District 9” Peter Jackson and Carolynne Cunningham, Producers “An Education” Finola Dwyer and Amanda Posey, Producers “The Hurt Locker” Nominees to be determined “Inglourious Basterds” Lawrence Bender, Producer “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” Lee Daniels, Sarah Siegel-Magness and Gary Magness, Producers “A Serious Man” Joel Coen and Ethan Coen, Producers “Up” Jonas Rivera, Producer “Up in the Air” Daniel Dubiecki, Ivan Reitman and Jason Reitman, Producers via oscars.org So this is what 10 nominees for Best Picture look like. On the Read more…
After tonight’s episode of Lost, this will totally be me
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/final_season_of_lost_promises_to
Obama at the Republican retreat
via whitehouse.gov Politically interested bloggers have been posting this video all over the Internet, and I enjoyed it enough I’ve decided to follow suit. This particular one comes from whitehouse.gov and it unfortunately starts after the gracious welcome from the Republican leadership, which helped set the tone. There’s a lot to like in this video. I like Obama a lot. I think he’s sensible, direct, and not afraid to throw a couple of (polite) punches. I like the Republicans a lot. They, again politely, go after him on some big things–which is of course what the opposition party should do. Read more…
Kasparov on computers
The availability of millions of games at one’s fingertips in a database is also making the game’s best players younger and younger. Absorbing the thousands of essential patterns and opening moves used to take many years, a process indicative of Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hours to become an expert” theory as expounded in his recent book Outliers. (Gladwell’s earlier book, Blink, rehashed, if more creatively, much of the cognitive psychology material that is re-rehashed in Chess Metaphors.) Today’s teens, and increasingly pre-teens, can accelerate this process by plugging into a digitized archive of chess information and making full use of the Read more…
State wins $590 million for high-speed rail work
The Portland-Seattle line carried 750,000 passengers in 2008, an 82 percent increase over 10 years ago. Corridor improvements could reduce travel time from Portland to Seattle by almost an hour, from three hours and 25 minutes to two hours and 30 minutes. via thenewstribune.com I had no idea that many passengers road the Amtrak to Portland. And at 2 hours, 30 minutes from Seattle, that’s … what? 2 hours from Tacoma? Sign me up!
the iPad
So, it’s a “pad,” but I still think of it as a tablet. Everyone had been hoping for a giant leap forward, but it’s not. It’s just a well-designed tablet computer, and tablet computers aren’t new (they’ve been Windows so far). So a good tablet is a good thing, but it’s not as big of a deal as the iPhone was. That said, watching the promotional video (link below) should make it clear that this really is where things are going. In a few years my current laptop will go kaput, and the iPad may be a viable option by Read more…
The Tablet
Lest there be any doubt I’m a bit of a nerd, Apple’s new tablet sounds a lot like this gadget they use on Star Trek. Characters read books on it, they do their work on it, and it looks pretty much the same. So does that mean Apple was ahead of its time, or that Star Trek was?
Metro Parks!
This morning I went in to Metro Parks HQ on 19th and was administered the oath of office … by Mary! It was a very cool thing to have her be a part of it. I'm jumping in with both feet–there's a lot on the board's plate! As far as this blog goes … well professional changes have often made this blog divert in tone, content, and substance. I really like blogging, and I can't imagine stopping. I do feel like it's gotten a little stale around here, though. Part of that is time: writing interesting posts can take more Read more…
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