The only constant is change.
Books You Should Read
Crossposted from Goodreads
Jul 10th
Trying out a crosspost from Goodreads, because I really like the observation I made in it. Sometimes I look back at things I have written and really like them.
The Social Life of Information by John Seely Brown
Reminding me very strongly of the reading I did in college for Sociology and Anthropology classes, with a focus on enterprise use cases.
I find it strange to read, in 2010, a book written in 2000 about the effect of the Internet on human behavior with information. I can see places where the authors were quite prescient, and areas where they got it wrong – in particular, their prediction that newspapers will continue to be relevant and successful. I think in that case it’s a matter of incomplete understanding of the business model of newspapers; craigslist and ebay have largely destroyed classified advertising, and that’s a big revenue loss.
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Understanding Comics, the book report.
Jan 30th
Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics is a great book. Really, it is. If you read comics and you haven’t read Understanding Comics, rectify that error immediately. If you don’t read comics, because you think they’re for kids, prepare to have your mind blown.
I’ve been a fan of Scott McCloud for years, and this past Christmas Nell got Understanding Comics as a present from her Uncle Mike. She thought it was awesome, and since she needs to do a book report every month in 5th grade, and her January assignment is non-fiction, she decided to do it on Understanding Comics.
Of course, this meant that she needed to do the book report itself as a comic book (albeit a really short one – she’s only allowed two pages for a book report).
I think she did an awesome job. If this doesn’t get an “A” I’ll be having a chat with her teacher. :)
Both pages
Page 1
Page 2
Nell and I wrote a children’s book today
Jan 15th
I picked up Penultimate for iPad, which is really nice, and a Boxwave stylus. It’s a neat app for drawing and note-taking, and I expect it to come in handy at work.
But today is not a work day. So I showed my new toys to my daughter Nell, and she decided that we should take turns drawing. Then she decided what we were doing was a children’s book and that it was about adjectives.
I’ve decided to self-publish on the Internet. Check it out.
Command line fun
Apr 9th
I installed git on my laptop today. It was rather fun; I got to spend a bit of time using Terminal to interact with my Mac. I don’t get to do that enough.
There is something really nice about not using the mouse for anything except indicating which window I want to interact with.
I’m reminded of Neal Stephenson’s In The Beginning Was The Command Line, which is an excellent book that you should read if you have not. I can say that in confidence, because if you are willing to put up with reading my blog you’re at least a little bit interested in technology, and Stephenson is a terrific writer.
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