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The Library of Congress is up to its old tricks again. Chronicling America has a number of scanned newspapers from 1880 to 1922 from various American states. The site, which is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program, allows users to search based on topics and zoom in to read papers from the more than 100 years ago.
A co-worker recently sent me a link to Life's list of 30 Dumb Inventions. I'd say there are probably more than 30, but this list is pretty good. I will admit, though, that I'm a big fan of the flying platform. I could use one of these as a substitute for city driving!
I plan to attend the 2009 edition of the Baltimore Book Festival ... as a customer, though, not as a vendor. But I still feel as if I should be more a part of the action. So, for the rest of September, I decided to give away a few copies of my workplace humor novel, "The Developers," in conjunction with raising money for Southwest Baltimore Charter School.
As a knockoff of my literary agent list, I have decided to supply you with the short list of publishers I have contacted for my latest book venture. After querying agencies for a few months, I started contacting more mid-range publishers with the hopes of avoiding agencies altogether. This is not to say that bypassing an agent is beneficial to everyone; I think it's worthwhile in my case for a few reasons:
There are numerous ways to get people's attention in an email, although, let's face it, people would rather watch YouTube videos than read emails. But if you work at the New Zealand firm ProCare, you may want to avoid anything other than basic black text. Two years ago, the company fired Vicki Walker for sending an email that highlighted a specific date and time in red, as well as an important message in all caps.
There's nothing like a good vacation to help you get back on track with life.
I should warn you now this isn't one of my regular computer columns, whatever regular might be. Although computers and work play an integral role in my life, they are not my entire life. Sure, without a job, I would probably be stuck eating grilled cheese every day, but I do really, really like grilled cheese.
For those of you who are unfortunate enough to be up ridiculously early Sunday morning, I will be appearing on WHAS-11 in Louisville, Ky., sometime around 7:10 a.m. to discuss "The Developers." I'm not sure what I'll say about it, but maybe I'll juggle, since it's silly to juggle while on the radio.
There are a lot of reasons to make the best choice for president this fall. As a technology writer, I think it is my duty to mention something about the election. The problem is that I have not spent much time delving into the similarities and differences between the candidates with regard to technology.
However, other people have. I'll also admit that I have only skimmed these articles, so we can read them in more detail together!
During high school and college, I worked at Kentucky Kingdom amusement park in Louisville, Ky. Besides battling racuous crowds and the blazing heat, one thing that was interesting to me was trying to keep track of the different people I was seeing throughout the day. As a games attendant (a.k.a. carnival barker), I would attempt to personally say things to people that I saw multiple times, whether at different games or at different parts of the park. This was mostly just a sales tactic, and I think the customers likely thought I was training to have my own magic show.
There's nothing worse than people complaining about a product because it works too well.
For instance, there's glue. Try using that stuff that holds elephants from a trapeze by their teeth. If you accidentally glue the elephant's ear to the swing, the immobile animal will be stuck forever.
Another example is plastic wrap. You try to wrap something in it, but the stuff just clings together. Being persistent, you try to unwrap it. But the static forces that bind the universe won't allow a simple tug to do the trick.