Em-U-Late
Context: I built a vintage video arcade cabinet about two years ago. It ran Ubuntu Linux and the MAME arcade emulator on an old off-the-shelf PC I had laying around. About six months ago, that PC died. To be fair, it was at least a decade old. I bought a new PC and set it up with Windows XP. Using Windows presented several challenges, the primary one being Windows’ […]
Everybody Wave!
Last week, the Google Wave team announced that Wave is now open to everyone. It’s out of beta. Just head over to http://wave.google.com and sign in. This is a good time to go over what Wave is and how I’ve been using it. What Wave Is Wave is a collaborative communication platform. The creators started by wondering, “What would email look like if it were created […]
Beautiful Nightmares
I love poetry, though I know very little about it. I read arguably more poetry than most during my childhood, thanks to my parents and my home-schooling, but poetry’s always been a mysterious, otherworldly thing. Not something I can analyze. Which fits poetry well, now that I think about it. Such is the case with Galway Kinnell‘s The Book of Nightmares, which I finished reading a few days ago. It’s a themed […]
Veg
I was surprised recently to overhear a co-worker complain that vegetable gardens require a lot of work. Perhaps a large vegetable garden, sure, but they don’t have to be. Vegetables are plants — you put them in good soil and water them frequently, and they grow, all other things being equal. My setup is pretty straightforward: I bought a bunch of 10-foot 2×6 boards, cut them in 6′ and 4′ sections, […]
Why I started using LinkedIn again
In a Fortune article published in March, a representative of management consulting firm Accenture revealed that he expects up to 20,000 of Accenture’s new hires this year to come from social media. 20,000. And knowing the social media landscape, when it comes to professionals using social media, you know that this doesn’t mean hiring through Facebook. The vast majority of those will come through LinkedIn, since that’s by far […]
Artists Wanted
What’s the best way to manage an artist? I have a few top-secret projects going on right now, and they need artists. And by that I mean people who draw people and creatures. Here’s my process for finding and working with an artist: Browse art sites. I use DeviantArt mostly, because it’s so big and includes such a wide array of artists. Send a basic proposal. There’s a delicate balancing act here. I strive to intrigue the artist, while […]
Amish Friendship Bread
Ten days ago, a co-worker was kind enough to drop off a bag of starter for some Amish friendship bread. The starter is a light-beige mush that has to be squeezed every day, and fed with extra ingredients (milk, flour, and sugar), until the tenth day. On the tenth day, one creates four more bags’ worth of starter and bakes two loaves of cinnamon bread with the rest. As I’m sure you’ve figured […]
Astro Boy Made Modern
I want to talk about craziness for a moment. In Japan, there’s a manga creator named Naoki Urasawa. He’s known for his complex, intricate stories that are aimed at adults. His most famous is 20th Century Boys, a modern thriller about a middle-aged man who learns that one of his childhood friends now runs a murderous cult. A few years ago, Naoki Urasawa contacted the son of Osamu Tezuka, Japanese […]