Going Low Tech:

Okay so my whole desk is glass and metal, but the point is that the top is glass. Even in you have a wooden desk you can get a glass or Plexi-glass covering. Why? Because a glass desk makes for one large dry erase surface. Forget needing to write things on pieces of paper that get lost everywhere, just write straight onto the desk. This is great for taking quick notes and I find it helps me to keep my desk clear so that I can see my writing surface. Somebody walked in my office the other day, thought I had defaced my desk. No, I explained, its just the ultimate note taking surface. (I keep multiple color pens handy as well, I find visualization is often helped by changing colors.)

(from academhack.)

I actually really like this idea. Particularly if the desk has a keyboard drawer that can be used to hold the laptop, otherwise I can see it getting a bit messy in terms of of putting the laptop on top of a surface… etc..

New information about the ipod is just coming out from apple. While I’m (clearly) not going to get one, and I’m sort of passe about the whole deal I want to talk about the plans/possibilities of this device. First, the relevant press release from apple.

Basically, 60 bucks for 450 minutes (5000 rather than unlimited off peak mins) and 200 text messages, 80 bucks for twice as many peak minutes and unlimited night times.

For unlimited data that you’d presumably be able to share with your laptop via bluetooth that’s not a bad idea. I wonder a few things: why would people use SMS if you have email included for free? Also, why are they hoping to make on the 5000 vs. unlimited weekend minutes.

I think I’m firmly in the “wait for rev 2,” which will presumably have faster internet. But frankly if they make an ipod tablet (ie. iphone without the phone,) I’m so there…

tycho chris and I worked something out regarding networking and information transfer today which felt really good to get done.

`dave <http://www.soliloqueer.com>`_ networking and information transfer? is that code for something dirty?

tycho no like the internet only in 10,000 years

Hmm, this intro looks a lot like the one from last week. I hope you don’t mind, everything remains relevant: Welcome to episode #4 of Station Keeping. I hope you enjoy, and can welcome a few more characters to the station keeping family. As always, this project is a collaborative one, and I look forward to hearing from you for any reason, but particularly if you would like to contribute in any capacity. But please do enjoy! -- ty

Nan Gee really wanted a drink. The bar wasn’t quite open yet, but she thought that maybe she’d be able to talk someone there out of one of those beers sitting on the counter. She would pay, it wasn’t like there was anything else to spend her diplomatic-salary on.

David nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw her standing in side the bar. He could have sworn that he had locked the door. “Hello there, we’re not actually open yet, as you can see,” he said, point to the exposed wiring on the wall opposite of the bar. Someday there would be a nice light fixture there. If the designer ever got back to him, that is.

“That’s alright, I just really want one of those,” Nan said pointing at the cases of beers stacked on the bar. It was a local brand that had just been shipped up from Hanm. “I can pay.” She appended, trying to look hopeful.

David paused, unsure of exactly what to do in this situation, he had work to do, and he didn’t want the entire station getting the idea that he was open for business. “What the hell,” he thought. “You like them room temp?” he asked, relenting.

“That’s the way we do it ‘round here.” She looked a bit relieved.

“Ok, well we really aren’t open, but I have something to work on in the back, why don’t you join me with your beer and we can talk” David suggested, as he turned. “Oh, whats your name, by the way,” he asked as he walked.

Nan followed the barkeep, without quite knowing why. It seemed better than any of the alternatives that came to mind. “Right, I’m Nan, Nan Gee: the diplomatic liaison to the station.”

“Oh, right, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” David said, he turned at an open door way and pointed to a chair in an office. “I’m David Conrad, I’m just the bar owner around here, but I suspect that the Navy will probably start begging once the communications lines are more open, but they won’t get me.” He chuckled

“Oh, you’re Navy?”

“Used to be. I got to the top of the game, and found there wasn’t much see. Time to move on, you know. They want me back, but know better than to force it. It’s better this way.” David said looking at Nan. The tension between the Navy and the people of Hanm was very present on the station, even now, and almost entirely understandable. “So why the rush to get a beer,” it’s still a bit early and all." David hoped to deflect the conversation away from his past, he also turned in his chair and brought up the display on his workstation.

“It’s been a long day, not that bad, I just don’t know what to make of it, but I’m pretty sure that I have no power, and it’s not like there’s anything else to do on the station yet.” Nan was surprised at her verbosity in front of this stranger. This stranger with a navy past, even! But the beer tasted like home, and the decorations on the walls were different, even if the walls themselves looked suspiciously familiar.

“Well, I’ve been working like a dog to lodge all the appropriate complaints with the new commander, about the Navy’s presence here, and so forth. Our space, ‘much as anyone’s, and all they do is give us notice and expect our help when they need it, because of course this station was built with our sweat and blood!” Nan’s speed increased with her furry, but she sipped the drink to slow her self down.

“What did Eli say?” David asked.

“Eli?”

“The new commander?”

“Oh, do you know him or something?”

“You could say that, but you already got me to talk this is your story.” David hoped that she would ignore the fact that he hadn’t really told her very much.

“Ok. Um.” Nan had a bit more of the drink before she continued. “So after sending him a series of reports and requests, he called me in for a meeting, and he just talked to me.”

“He talked? Amazing. He never used to.” David was talking over his shoulder as he worked on something on the workstation screen. “What did he say?”

“Really?” Nan stared at a box on the wall.

David realized she wasn’t really paying attention. “No, of course not. Continue.”

She did: “Well he didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on between the Hanmists and the Navy, and agreed to work with me on station policy and governance. I didn’t have anything to say. I feel like I made an ass of myself.”

“That’s Eli for you, I guess.”

“Being clueless? Or for making an ass of your self in front of.”

David chucked: she was pretty sharp and quick after all, admirable qualities indeed. “So you’re upset, because he’s a reasonable guy…”

“I suppose I am. Its hard when the bad guys turn out to be pretty nice. Makes my job plenty hard. I wasn’t ready for this wrench in the gears.” Nan’s earlier anger returned, but this time it wasn’t shrouded in historical interplanetary relations.

“Well there are plenty of bad guys to go around, and lots of work to be done.”

“Aye.” Nan took another quick swig. The bottle wasn’t finished, but she was. “Thanks for this, I’d like to pick your brain at some point, but maybe at the beginning of the day rather than the end.”

David’s simple response of “Indeed” was both non-committal and positive. He walked her to the door way of his half finished bar, “This is sure going to be interesting,” he though as he watched Nan Gee walk amongst the light crowd toward the residential section of the station.

“Diplomacy Maneuvers” was written by, `tycho <http://tychoish.com/tycho>`_, the creator of `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and `Station Keeping <http://tychoish.com/hanm>`_. He is a student and knitter by day and a science fiction writer by night, you can read his work elsewhere on `TealArt <http://tychoish.com>`_ and at `~/tychoish <http://tychoish.com>`_.

…so I stumbled upon a nifty website for SF writers and it started with something morbidly funny, which I will reproduce here for your amusement.

she wants to lead a glamorous life:

“Hypothetically, being a writer-for-a-living means you never get a day off. Ever. The deadlines don’t typically move much, so it’s rather like having a permanent term paper due -- if you’re lucky. If you’re not lucky, it’s like not having any work due. And then you starve to death.

But I digress.”

(from SF Novelists.)

…but then, near the end she talked about “research” as “pre-writing” in a way that sounded a lot like what I would call “outlining.” The academic in me tends to understand “research” as “reading.” Thus I think of my writing research as broadly defined reading. But if I can get away with calling outlining “research,” I totally am.

So there.

Ok, maybe not, but it made for a good title, and I don’t want to be here in two years thinking “yes, but which ‘this week on tealart’ is that?” when I’m looking through the archives.

There will be a Station Keeping update tomorrow, and I’m quite excited by it, it’s one of my favorites, we introduced to more new characters, but I think we get to see interesting sides of both characters, and it was a joy to write.

Also tomorrow, I start a job working in an academic library/archive. I’m excited about that, and I think the work will be really interesting, this means that my time will probably be a bit short from here on out, but that’s how these things go. I think I have enough time to keep up all the projects that I’m currently working on. The goal, is of course to get to a place where I can write effectively for TealArt (and other avocational projects) in a way that is efficient skillful. Or something.

I also admit that I’ve started a new blog tealart.com/tychosh, but I’m just calling it tychoish. Anyway the idea is that by focusing some of my nattering tendencies elsewhere, TealArt can fit the blog-magazine format that it keeps trying to be better, and I can have fun elsewhere. I’m not really using the LJs any more, I’m not getting rid of them, but I much rather doing it on my own, and I’m quite pleased with the way it works. I’ve used, as you might know, tumblr and I feel like the new site does all that I would want in a non-tealart site. And so while you think, “ah, he’s dividing his energy, that can’t end well” I think in a lot of ways, I’m really consolidating. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The other news of last week, is that I got (all) my wisdom teeth out last Thursday. It kind of sucked, but I’m almost feeling normal by now. Thankfully it was quick, and I’m feeling better now. I’m glad that I forwent general anesthetic, and kind of sad (but not) that the narcotics made me more sick. Aside from some lingering pain and obvious tenderness, about all I have to show is a bruise on my cheek,¹ and a few days of lost productivity. I think that’s why I spent so much time futzing with /tychoish--it was the main thing I had spare time for.

With luck we’ll get a geek-related post from Chris this week, but I have my own in store: I wrote a post about note-taking and computer usage which I think is relevant to the kind of geek that I am, and I have recently come into a PC laptop which I’m faced with the problem of rescuing some files and then getting a working operating system installed on. I’m going to give Ubuntu a try (after, of course, I use Knoppix to rescue the files), but I think it might be interesting to document this process a bit more. This is probably not on the table for this week, but in the future…

There’s always more Deleuze to get through, and I’ll have a good one for you this Friday. I think I need to at some point--perhaps not immediately--do something to ground it a little better for the casual reader. I’m not sure what yet. I also finished reading a science-fiction book last week, and I think something of a book report is in order. Also, I know that the pictures of the knitting were popular, and I’d like to do some more of that soon.

Anyway, I hope you have a good week, enjoy what you read here. Tell your friends about this little corner of the internet. It can’t hurt!

cheers, tycho

My friend Jeff Kirvin’s website require registration for commenting, so because I’m lazy I’m going to reply to a couple of things here:

Secondly--and this follows right from my last response--Jeff posted about the Foleo, a new laptop-replacement/mobile device from Palm Inc.

Jeff panned the concept, and I think in a lot of ways he’s right--from the geek perspective. Folks like us--geeks, off-label users--wouldn’t have a lot of use for something like this, we’d either take a laptop, or be content with the smaller device. And the price is really quite high. I’m not sure how businesses will take to this device. It’s hard to say. I won’t be getting one, that’s for sure; but I think the concept is a pretty neat one.

When apple stopped producing 12 inch laptops, a lot of people cried out in anguish(!), and one of the most persistent rumors in mac-land for many years has been a tablet/sub-notebook kind of computer. Something thin: no CD drive, solid state storage, a good keyboard, good battery life, etc. And the Foleo has wi-fi, so really, what more do you need?

The Foleo sounds a lot like this dream product, so at least the concept for the Foleo, is a keeper, even if the implementation sucks. Frankly I’d be a lot more comfortable if it were running a flavor of OS X (over a Palm OS flavor) but such is life.

Here’s some third-degree linking. At tychoish we’re nothing if not on top of our citationality.

Jesus who?:

Schulman, who’s currently working on an oral history of ACT-UP, remembered that she’d never heard the name Jesus Christ until one day in her schoolyard. ‘I ran home and asked my grandmother ‘Who is Jesus Christ?’ and my grandmother said, ‘Well, there was this girl named Mary who got in trouble and made up this story.’’

Priceless. (Link courtesy of FAWARB.)

(from Jeffrey Ricker.)