Wow, not very often you see a company fully admit they are completely jealous of another, but with the conversion of every thing google (reader, gmail, the google header on all google pages, even the search page) to the google+ look (flat text driven with a good amount of white space) they are completely showing their hand. They have metro envy big time. Metro, which has been co-opted by Windows for their Windows 8 release describing the new UI and API. But, it predates that by a good amount of time, first in Zune and Xbox and Windows Phone 7 and the changes and ideas that came out of there. It is not a bad look look, flat and text driven. A bit more angular than the normal web 2.0 rounded corners look. But, sad to see google go the Linux route of playing follow the leader to Microsoft rather than making a stand, right or wrong, for something new like Apple. I always love Apple, not as a fan boy, but as a company that is willing to fail shooting for the moon. Biggest failure I see of the 90’s and the Oughts is Linux not becoming a dominate player in computers for everyone. Instead of taking the multi-user, X windows world and figuring out how to make it awesome for consumers, they spend the next 20 years trying to be Windows. This is a failure, because even if they succeeded, they fail. Trying to be Windows sacrifices everything that makes Linux/GNU/UNIX great. Google is going the same path. Instead of trying to go on their own facing towards consumers and changing the world, they are starting to lap at the corporate trough and like Linux the easy money of enterprises is opiate to innovation. They can only fail if they continue down this path. Sure, they can hold on like Microsoft does, but the will end up a footnote like IBM or HP.
So, again I am skipping NaNoWriMo (national novel writing month), again. I like the ideals behind it, but for me I have two problems. One, I have enough half completed pieces lying around and getting them done is more important to me than creating another 50k that I cannot use. The goal of NaNoWriMo is quantity not quality, and with my goal being publishing something or having something out for review to be published, I need the quality. So, for my personal projects, NaNoWriMo is not a help for me. That and I don’t have the ability to contribute the time. I have to be a father and the main bread-winner, for the time being. So, my writing has to be a secondary concern and 3k words is I would say 3-4 hours of work a day going for pure quantity. But, working full time and being the dad I want to be, I don’t have 3-4 extra hours. That is unless I am not going to sleep and have a meth or cocaine addiction to keep me going. Which, though Aaron Sorkin popularized, does seem like a less than good lifestyle decision. Maybe next year.
Instead of NaNoWriMo I am working on LuMaGoWriHaMo or Luke Makes Good Writing Habits Month. Which my goal for the month is to carve out 1-2 hours a day to write. When I am home, I am doing this after lunch. I work at lunch and then take an hour after that and get pages done. Now, I think I need to explain my process a bit to explain what finishing pages means. I write rough, rough drafts, usually written by hand or in a minimal editor (like notepad or emacs or such), so no spellcheck, no grammar, no nothing. I shoot for sentences and maybe some spelling, but generally just getting ideas out my head onto the page. After that, I leave it for a bit, usually writing some more, and then come back. I edit, refine, rework, rewrite, spell check, grammar check, etc. Then I leave it again, and rinse, repeat. Until, it is done. No set number of drafts, just getting the pages done one at a time. Though my goals now are to get a chapter up and done, ready for proofreading and feedback (a.k.a.getting the draft to Jodi and Shiri, respectively). Goal is to get the first chapter of the project code names “The Four” to them. All of my projects have names I give them, not really titles but more like code names, just so I have a say of thinking about them while I work on them.
Off to NY for the end of this week and the weekend. Should be fun, get to see Amanda and Ian, and crashing up at Melissa’s. Were going to get a hotel, but the New York Marathon is this weekend. Getting home Sunday might suck.
New section here, words I am going to eliminate from my personal usage. First up, “dunno”. I have no problem with the word itself, and ‘”wanna” and “kinda” are still allowed for me. I just have found myself reaching for “dunno” too often and punctuating random thoughts with it. So, out it goes.
Thanks to my daughter I now know a Justin Beiber song, actually I knew it, I just did not know that I did. So, thank you Auntie Ali and dance class. Thanks a ton. Off to acquire good kids stuff for her. Thinking Muppets and They Might Be Giants.
Luke W. McCullough | lm3m @ msn.com | 11/02/2011 | looking a field on the accla some where between Boston and New York City