Archives for February 2008
How to Build a Paper Research Database. Great post I was pointed to from the 43f forums. Explains how Taylor Branch used an access database to take notes on and then sort hundred of sources for his Pulitzer Prize winning biography of Martin Luther King. Branch did it in Access, and this article recommends Excel. I’m looking for something better. Bento doesn’t seem quite there yet.
Great deal: Buy a 32 GB iPod Touch from Amazon and get a free iPod Shuffle for the gym or to give away.
More on why writing is difficult
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- The Moleskine GTD tabs hack
- No choice but to get things done (on retro computing)
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Via Delightful.
Clinton as executive
According to The Politico, just-filed financial reports show that “Hillary Rodham Clinton ended January with $7.6 million in debt—not including the $5 million personal loan she gave to her campaign in the run-up to the critical Super Tuesday elections.” Meanwhile, Barack Obama managed to raise $37 million in January and spend only $31 million. The New York Times characterizes Clinton’s spending as profligate:Nearly $100,000 went for party platters and groceries before the Iowa caucuses, even though the partying mood evaporated quickly. Rooms at the Bellagio luxury hotel in Las Vegas consumed more than $25,000; the Four Seasons, another $5,000. And top consultants collected about $5 million in January, a month of crucial expenses and tough fund-raising.
Also, the Clinton campaign recently had a top management shake-up. Campaign Manager Patti Solis-Doyle was fired, some say, because she kept from Clinton the true state of the campaign’s finances after the loss in Iowa. And we’ve seen how Bill Clinton has mucked things up as well. The Obama campaign staff, by contrast, has been disciplined and focused.
So, with all that in mind, I’d just like to point out that the only executive experience either of these two candidates has ever had has been running their campaigns. I think this says more about Clinton than Obama, but quite revealing nonetheless.
No choice but to get things done
Two ideas recently converged for me in one device. The first idea is the notion of self-imposed limitations, and the second is the concept of retro-computing. The device is the AlphaSmart Neo. Here’s how it all fits together.Self-imposed limitations
I’m not the first to note the challenge that modern computing presents to human concentration. Writing is a hard thing to do, and when you have to do it, easy things like email, feeds, and Facebook can tempt and paralyze you.
The name of the game is focus and a cottage industry of apps has sprouted around eliminating distractions. The poster-child for these is WriteRoom, which hides everything on your screen except a monochrome text-editor. Slate has called these programs “zenware,” while the New York Times took a more Western tack and called them “biblical.”
These programs work because they allow users to self-impose limitations in order to concentrate and get more done in less time. Internet-related distractions are not the only target. In large part these tools are a revolt against the tyranny of Word. That was the focus of the New York Times piece, which was inspired by the Steven Poole essay “Goodbye, cruel Word.” In it he explains how the Microsoft flagship long ago gave up the pretense that it was a tool for the art of writing. A good tool disappears in the act of creation. Word might once have been such a thing, but that’s certainly no longer the case. Poole, an author of two books and countless articles, writes:
Many people agree that revision 5.1a, specifically, was the best version of Word that Microsoft has ever shipped, combining utility and minimalist elegance with reliability. Sadly for me, although it wasn’t strictly necessary, after a few years and a colour Performa I “upgraded” to Word 98, and somehow the magic was gone. Yes, I turned off all the crappy lurid toolbars and tried to make the compositional space as simple as possible, but by this time Word was stuffed with all kinds of “features” that let you print a pie-chart on the back of a million envelopes or publish your cookery graphs to your “world wide web home-page”, and it already felt to me that Word was only grudgingly letting me write nothing but, you know, words. Trigger Happy got out of Word 98 and onto the streets, but not without routine crashes and the occasional catastrophic loss of a few finely honed paragraphs.
He goes on to say that he’s converted to WriteRoom and Scrivener, but not before giving us a tour of the tools that he’s loved the most. Apart from Word 5.1a, they include a Brother LW-20 electric typewriter with a 6-line LCD screen, and an ultraportable Psion 5. What he likes so much about WriteRoom and the rest, he says, is how much they imitate the single-minded purposefulness of those old tools.
Retro-computing
That brings me to the second theme in this story. One way to achieve zen word processing is to hide the fact that your modern computer is a modern computer. (Out there, no doubt, is someone who paid $1,800 for a MacBook Air only to then run WriteRoom on it.) It’s an attempt to travel back to a time before virtual tailfins. Another way to zen, however, is to simply use the tools from that era—the era in which word processing had been perfected.
Writer Paul Ford, has said that his weapon against distractions was installing WordPerfect for DOS on his computer—the original that WriteRoom emulates. As a result of switching to the mouse-less, crash-less WordPerfect he says, “My average daily word count has doubled, and my stock of fresh ideas seems to be replenishing.”
Another promoter of retro-computing is Andy Ihnatko who inspired me to look not just to old software, but to old hardware as well. He sings the praises of his NEC MobilePro 790, a Windows CE device he picked up for $10 at the MIT flea market. It doesn’t have the MacBook Air’s 1.6 GHz or good looks, but it matches its weight, comfortable keyboard, and more than serviceable screen. But when distraction-free writing is the goal, the latter matters more than the former.
The AlphaSmart Neo
I think I did Andy one better, though, or at least more retro. I discovered the AlphaSmart Neo, in part thanks to Paul Ford’s writings because the Neo is his companion to WordPerfect. What is the Neo? It’s a full keyboard with six-line LCD attached. That’s it. No distractions. It’s a thing of beauty.
At two pounds, I take it everywhere. I love my MacBook, but it kills my back, and for no good reason since most of the time I just want to write. Instant-on, and automatic save of every keystroke make it even more appealing. Some other retro advantages:
- At an all-day conference my three-hour battery isn’t much help and I have to be on the hunt for limited power outlets. (The NEC MobilePro wouldn’t fare much better.) The Neo’s frugal processor and simple screen, on the other hand, gets me 700 hours from 3 AA batteries. That’s about a year’s worth of normal use.
- The keyboard is amazing. It’s a real, honest-to-goodness keyboard with satisfying travel and quiet clickitiness. It really feels better than my Apple Bluetooth Keyboard, which is the same design as the Air’s. It also beats out the MobilePro’s slightly cramped keyboard.
- AlphaSmart was started by two former Apple engineers and it has overtones of the eMate 300. Like the eMate, the AlphaSmart was designed for the education market, and it shows in the build quality. If it’s tough enough for kindergardeners, it’s tough enough for me.
Most important, though, is that it keeps me focused. If I go to a coffee shop to get some work done, the only thing I can do with my Neo is write. There are no distractions. There isn’t even bold or italics (something I get around with Markdown). When writing is the only thing you can do, you get it done, and it remains an enjoyable activity because it’s not the thing that’s keeping you from Twitter.
At some point in our technological past we perfected word processing. Every feature since then seems to have subtracted from the experience. Do yourself a favor and look into some single-purpose, “underpowered,” and self-limiting tech.
I’m on Tech Policy Weekly discussing the latest activity on the net neutrality front, possible outcomes in the Microsoft-Yahoo merger proposal, and recent efforts to tax and regulate video games at the federal and state level. Take a listen here.
Yes, but the sign says differently
What is up with the signs elected officials insist on having at every official press conference? I think they mean to take control of the message, but do they really think a Kinko’s foam-core sign is going to do it? Following up on my earlier riff about the role of head of state, this is so undignified.
Did they learn nothing from “Mission Accomplished”?
I’ve been meaning to post this since I got a flyer for it in my copy of the Inland Empire DVD: David Lynch has his own brand of organic coffee. It’s called David Lynch Signature Cup and it kinda reminds me of Trump Steaks, “The World’s Greatest Steaks”™ available exclusively from the Sharper Image.
You weren’t able to make it to Macworld this year? No problem. Audio and slides of all the presentations are available for free online. My weekend is shot.
In Conversation
Folks, I’d like to tell you about the new podcast I’m doing with my friend Cord Blomquist. It’s called “In Conversation” and it’s a weekly talk show for nerds. You can find it at www.inconversation.net. This is the third week we’ve recorded a show but the first time we’re actively spreading the word about it. Please do check it out and subscribe for free using iTunes or your favorite podcast client.
In the new episode Cord tells us about his experience as a guest on C-SPAN TV’s The Communicators show (you can listen to the show on this MP3). We also discussed the reasons why neither of us vote, Ross Perot’s original copy of the Magna Carta, web applications and webmail, the Alphasmart Neo, primitive computing, and self-imposed limitations with a sprinkling of copyright and Ron Paul. You can take a listen right here, but I hope you’ll check out the site and subscribe.
The AlphaSmart Neo. The latest gadget I’m lusting after. All it is is a word processor. A bit of self-imposed limitation. I’m looking for a used one and they’re hard to come y on eBay, so if you have one you’d like to sell, do get in touch. Here’s an insanely active user group. Here’s the Wikipedia page for AlphaSmart. No surprise it was started by ex-Apple engineers.
TPW 35: Network Management Redux
I’m on Tech Policy Weekly this week discussing net neutrality issues. Other guests are Adam Thierer of PFF, Tim Lee of Cato, tech blogger Matt Sherman, and George Ou of ZDNet. Take a listen! Out Loud: This isn’t about slides. Good essay on giving presentations. I’ve got three coming up this month. My technique is to first outline the talk with OmniOutliner, then create slides with Keynote. I only make slides for one-word section headers or things that need illustration with graphs or pictures. Then I practice over and over and I discover what needs to be changed.
Be Afraid of President McCain. No doubt old news to many readers of this space, this article by Matt Welch is worth flagging for those who haven’t read it, especially now that McCain will likely be the Republican nominee. For more wars is all I’ll say. Also, Welch’s new book, McCain: The Myth of a Maverick, is just out.
Obama for Head of State
Today I took an online political quiz that asked me a series of question about my views on current issues and then ranked the presidential candidates in order of compatibility with my views. Not surprisingly, Ron Paul came up first. Quite surprisingly, Mike Gravel came in second. But most surprisingly to me, however, is that Barack Obama came in last—even after Hillary Clinton.
After a moment’s thought, this isn’t that surprising. So why are many folks of my bent falling for this guy? It’s obviously because of his personality and because of what he represents, which is what he’s running on. But I can’t buy into all that fluff, can I? I think I can, and here’s why.
In their wisdom, the Founding Fathers made the President both the head of government and the head of state. In many other countries the head of state is a monarch or an elected president, while the head of government being the prime minister or some other functionary. The head of state has little power and is the living embodiment of the nation. The King of Spain or the President of Germany, for example.
This is salutary separation of roles that I wish we had. In England, for example, the Queen is owed respect, while the prime minister is just a public servant who is always accountable to the people. This is why they have their delicious Question Time and why British reporters don’t cow before the prime minister. In this country, however, it is difficult to be critical of the President as head of government without at the same time maligning the President as head of state. It’s also common for the President’s conduct as head of government to malign the role of President as head of state.
For almost 16 years the head of state in this country has been an embarrassment, and there hasn’t been a decent one in at least 20. I think one reason why some of us who are ideologically opposed to Barak Obama are nevertheless drawn to him is because we’d like to see him in the role of head of state. To the extent that we are a nation, Obama would be a wonderful living symbol of it. Not only as it is, but of its aspirations as well. Whatever your beliefs, you must admit he’s an inspiring and uplifting force.
So, given the alternatives, I don’t see why it would be so bad to have a President who is good at at least half his job.
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This is the personal site of Jerry Brito, a lawyer and writer in Washington, D.C. He’s an academic researcher and the creator of Unclutterer and several other blogs. More »
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