I still get letters in the mail, mostly from cracked-up men in tiny rooms with factory jobs or no jobs who are living with whores or no woman at all, no hope, just booze and madness. I get most of their letters on lined paper written with an unsharpened pencil or in ink in tiny handwritings that slants to the left and the paper is most often torn usually halfway up the middle and they say they like my stuff, I’ve written from where it’s at, they recognize it truly, I’ve given them some chance, some recognition of where it's at. it’s true, I was there, even worse off than most of them. but I wonder if they realize where their letter arrives? well, it's dropped into a box on a wire fence behind a six-foot hedge and a long driveway to a two car garage, rose garden, fruit trees, animals, a beautiful woman, mortgage about half paid after a years residence, a new car- two cars, fireplace and a green rug two-inches deep with a young boy to write my stuff now, I keep him in a ten-foot square cage with a typewriter, feed him whiskey and raw whores, belt buckle him pretty good three or four times a week. I’m 60 years old now and the critics say my stuff is getting better than ever. — Charles Bukowski
Why I’ve put typewriters into my writing routine
There was a time when the typewriter ruled the earth and the dinosaurs were roaming into oblivion.
But that was a time when the typewriter liberated writing. It was the easiest and most direct way to put down on paper a structured text that could be given to anyone without being ashamed of the handwriting.
Yes, typewriters limited the typography available to the user, and all they had was monospaced fonts. But they allowed people to register their thoughts in unprecedented ways. They become a tool to organise the mind. The typewriter as a writing instrument became the tool of writers and journalists as much as the fountain pen or the pencil and pad of paper.
Test your writing speed at typeracerIn some cases, this was taken to extremes. Jack Kerouac used a typewriter to draft ‘On the road’ and was known to write at speeds in excess of 100 words per minute—I myself type on computers around 60wpm and find speeds over this to be very difficult in the typewriter—and did it on a scroll roll of continuous paper See picturesduring a three-week stay at a friends’ house.
— Are typewriters dead?
I don’t think so, I’ve managed to acquire a few typewriters recently see pictures on my Flickr account. Two of them are those beautiful Olivetti from the post-WW2 period when the Italian company hired many architects to design their products. They work flawlessly and provide you with a writing tool that makes it easy to draft documents without worrying with editing.
The biggest problem I feel I have when typing directly into the computer is that I’m constantly being distracted by email, by social networks or by some new kitten video from my someone in the virtual extended list of online ‘friends’.
Even when I use focusing tools I use Isolator on the Mac, I end up distracted by the editing possibilities of the tool. You pause for a moment and immediately you start thinking that you could edit the previous paragraph in some way. This editing task is a deterrent to the writing flow. That’s probably why so many participants of the Nanowrimo competition use typewriters. In this way, they don’t stop their thoughts to edit text. They just punch the keys and put their ideas down on paper. Editing is for later. Going back to Kerouac, when he wrote ‘On the road’ he even didn’t use paragraphs breaks Or used them sparsely to save time while going through the 36 meters of the paper.
— So you use typewriters?
I mainly use them as a note taking tool, the same way I use a notebook and a pen. I always have a typewriter on my working desk near my computer and I load a new clean sheet of paper every morning where I just put the date. When I’m reading something—a paper or a book, or even a website that I need to reference—I just make a small note—usually two or three lines of text—and move on doing what I have to do. In this way at the end of the day I collected a lot of notes that are already ‘printed’. I can reread them and organise them better in this way. I don’t need to fight my handwriting and if I want I can give it to someone and be confident they will understand the notes.
— Should you use a typewriter?
Probably no. If you have one, don’t use it, send it to me.
Sexo, mentiras e Blogger
O Blogger anunciou que não quer sexo. Nada de sexo, nudez, ou algo que possa minimamente assemelhar-se a tal. Ponto final, finito. A verdade é que o Blogger há muito que tem feito por se tornar irrelevante e esta é mais uma pequena acha para uma fogueira que já não tem grande chama.
– Se o Blogger se está a tornar irrelevante porque falas dele então?
– Foi lá que comecei a blocar, lá pelo ido ano de 2002. O Blogger era ‘a plataforma‘, era fácil de utilizar, e tinha uma comunidade em crescimento.
– Mas entretanto o Google comprou-o ao inventor do Twitter?
– Sim, e com isso começaram os problemas. Resolveram mudar o sistema de templates que ninguém entendia e era/é ainda um mistério como funciona. Inventaram um modo beta para a parte de administração que basicamente nunca evoluiu e continua ainda hoje basicamente igual. Começaram os problemas com a lentidão do serviço que fazia com que os sites ficassem algum tempo offline.
– E mudaste para o WordPress?
– Sim, em 2006. Houve um momento em que já não era possível continuar a suportar tanto disparate por parte do Google e o WordPress era a plataforma a utilizar para quem queria ter um site self-hosted. Ainda experimentei a versão hosted durante algum tempo, mas o controlo permitido era pouco ou nenhum. A versão self-hosted dá um pouco mais de trabalho mas compensa pelo controlo que se tem. E aliás mais uma vez se prova com este caso do Blogger matar o sexo que quem controla os conteúdos é quem controla os servidores da plataforma e não os autores.
– E no futuro? Continuas no WordPress?
– Para já sim. A minha instalação recorre a um plugin desenvolvido por mim para gerar versões estáticas do site de forma a que os requisitos do servidor sejam mínimos. Ainda pensei utilizar coisas como o Jekyll ou Pelican, mas achei melhor aproveitar o WordPress como base. O WordPress continua a ser muito bom e a evoluir ao contrário do que aconteceu com o Blogger ou com o Typead.
– E sugestões hosted?
– Nos pacotes tipo SUMO EM PÓ em que é só juntar água, o Tumblr desde que foi comprado pelo Yahoo! cresceu muito e está muito bom. Se tiver que montar um projecto rápido para alguém ou para um grupo, sem ter que andar a gerir nada, é certamente a plataforma que escolho. A Marissa Mayer está a fazer um bom trabalho no Yahoo!, ainda que não seja fácil recuperar o tempo dado de avanço à concorrência.
– E nacionais?
– Queres que fale do Sapo Blogs? Funcionam. Experimentei em tempos mas foi um casamento que não funcionou, mas para quem quiser algo em Portugal vale a pena, até porque honestamente não há alternativa em condições em Portugal.
– E agora?
– O Blogger está a definhar, os outros vão aproveitar alguma migração de utilizadores. Mas o que isto mostra é QUEM NÃO CONTROLA O SERVIDOR NÃO CONTROLA OS CONTEÚDOS.
Lisboa sem carros? Para quando Re-imaginar a Cidade?
Atravessar o centro de Lisboa de carro é um pesadelo. De tempo perdido, de poluição sónica e poluição atmosférica (CO2, CO, NOx, etc… ). E o pior é que as ligações Rotunda – Praça do Comércio não passam de ligações de passagem. É como despejar um camião do lixo na porta do melhor restaurante da cidade e esperar que os clientes achem … “etnográfico” <sic?>.
Zona baixa de Lisboa impede circulação a veículos automóveis mais antigos entre as 7h e as 21h. Área de circulação para carros anteriores a 1996 será ainda mais restrita.
Sim é muito interessante que se restrinja a idade dos carros ao centro, mas isso não acaba com a circulação dos mesmos, não cria oportunidades de criar um centro vocacionado para o peão, para quem realmente precisa de ir à baixa em vez de apenas passar por lá. Porque não planear os centros das nossas cidades verdadeiramente para o século XXI? Porquê continuar a ter um Rossio como uma grande rotunda para carros que vão e vêm. A baixa é já servida pelo metro, que devia ser a porta de acesso a esta zona da cidade. Talvez um dia. Talvez os nossos URBAN PLANNERS possam começar a pensar fora do casulos que todas as manhãs os levam a atravessar a cidade em direcção às suas repartições, aos seus cubículos, e à sua falta de imaginação para re-imaginar a cidade.
Urban planners are finally recognizing that streets should be designed for people, not careening hunks of deadly metal.
Je Suis Charlie
I am still chocked by the happenings today in Paris. The way a group of animals behaved in the name of their faith is totally repugnant. I make mine the words of Salman Rushdie:
“Religion, a medieval form of unreason, when combined with modern weaponry becomes a real threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism has caused a deadly mutation in the heart of Islam and we see the tragic consequences in Paris today. I stand with Charlie Hebdo, as we all must, to defend the art of satire, which has always been a force for liberty and against tyranny, dishonesty and stupidity. ‘Respect for religion’ has become a code phrase meaning ‘fear of religion’. Religions, like all other ideas, deserve criticism, satire, and, yes, our fearless disrespect.” — Salman Rushdie
Quick update
I’ve been back to programming a lot in Java for the past few weeks as part of a paper I’m writing with E. Rodrigues. Coming back to Java after last year’s programming for T174 at the OU was very nice because Java 8 is finally out. It brings lambdas and streams and all that. I am really enjoying it(sic), although I still need to get my head around the “Java Way” of writing code for them. I still like to prototype my ideas in python or R, but it is also nice to go back to Java from time to time.
In the meanwhile I’ve been so busy with work that I haven’t posted much lately. I only managed to do some small changes here in the blog by adding the Trends section on the menu. I’m going to invest some time in this. It is using Storify and if I like it I’ll probably create new streams connected with stuff I’m usually interested in (complexity, chess, &c.). Lets see how it works out.
Siri’s Inventors Are Building a Radical New AI That Does Anything You Ask
The inventors of Siri are confident that their next creation will eclipse the first. But whether and when that will happen is a question that even Viv herself cannot answer. Yet.
via Siri’s Inventors Are Building a Radical New AI That Does Anything You Ask | Enterprise | WIRED.
Are we getting to the point of Her? Is this the Singularity? In any case AI is fun again!
Why I gave up on Evernote
- Evernote has been bon out of a great idea, but in the end didn’t evolve into anything special. Looks like a last decade application right now. It is dated in some aspects that one would think a modern note taking application should have
- Space and features. The basic free account limits are pre-historic for modern day standards. The limits were probably right for when Evernote was launched in 2008, but are now just crazy annoying. Yes, they want to buy the Premium accounts but with this Freemium user experience… I wouldn’t recommend it anymore in 2014
- Bugs, and support. Evernote isn’t perfect.
- Evernote doesn’t support Markdown with syntax highlight and export features.
- Evernote is intrusive – There’s a bug in the software since 2009 that makes Evernote lunch the menu bar helper when you start up your computer, even when you explicitly said in the Preferences that you don’t want it. It consumes computer resources and does it against your own will. This is a symptom that the Evernote team is not really interested in fixing this and another reason not to buy into the Premium.
- Evernote doesn’t have a text based backend. This is a problem when I need to access my notes with other editors.
Evernote Alternatives
- As I said in a Portuguese post, there are good reasons to use a text file based note taking system. I’ve used nvAlt for most of the past year and Markdown files to take note of everything I need. Synchronisation of the notes across computers is done via Dropbox and this makes them completely accessible everywhere. The notes are not in a proprietary format (they are just text files) and one can edit them with any editor (textmate, emacs, text wrangler, etc.). Simple and functional.
- The GTD (getting things done) mantra is something that isn’t dependent on the software, it’s up to you. I use a system of analog note taking with pen and paper called Rapid Logging. It is very simple and very powerful (Great things usually are). I’ve implemented the same thing with text files. Don’t know why one should stay attached to the green tame elephant. They are very difficult to move and don’t usually do what we ask of them.