Iain B. Simpson

How much would you like pain-free and pretty hosting of your words on the web? A tool that just works, and gets out of the way of your writing. I have hunted high and low for a long time to find such a tool.

And now I’ve found it1 in Calepin: “the easiest way to self publish online”

You write a piece in Markdown2; save in your Dropbox; visit calepin.co; click publish3; and you’re done.

One-click publishing: No updates. No danger. No tears. Having experimented with Wordpress, Tumblr, Squarespace, and HTML+CSS, I can happily say that Calepin has blown me away.

I’ll be switching my main site to Calepin once custom domains and themes are supported.

Calepin is stable, new and evolving. Made available to all during November 2011, the creator is taking good feedback and making Calepin even better.

Write. Publish. Done.

Thank you Jökull Sólberg for creating and sharing this.

Well actually, Koralatov told me about it. ↩︎

Markdown is a wonderful plain-text formatting system that is easily [human] readable and can also be processed to output structurally valid HTML. ↩︎

Not for the first time in my life, I feel a complete idiot.

Standing at Platform 6N, I embark upon a train (the 7:37 to Dyce). The train disembarks the station. Only, it’s heading the wrong way! Stomach churning, I realise I’m on the train to Stonehaven. This is in the opposite direction to where I want to go. My fault.

What do you do when you’ve made such a mistake?

Well, after the mania of internal panic, I recomposed my face into a smile at my ignorance. Oops you fool.

Then I rang the company I’m training with (putting my hand up to apologise), and now I’m looking at a gorgeous sunrise. No déjà vu.

If something goes wrong, deal with it, else it will bury you. Then; move on.

“What I think” versus “[W]hat I’ve learned”. Arguably, they are equally important. In my experience, I’ve derived more value from doing and learning (after planning of course), than thinking alone.

Two things:

If you spend all your time thinking, and none of it doing, you’re either thinking inappropriately, or fear has overcome you. This is stopping yourself from doing worthwhile things. You don’t have much time. Evaluate what feels right and get on with it.

While you’re doing, it’s worthwhile keeping a note of how you overcame any obstacles and sorted out issues. Then, when you’ve done your thing, you can share with others: “Here’s what I’ve learned….”

A thoroughly interesting website, in both content and design:

From their about page:

Mulling over Hans Petter Eikemo’s thoughts on iPhone photo lag. Echoing his sentiments; the problem occurs as I experience some fleeting event. I want to capture it. From my trouser pocket to taking the photo takes me about six seconds, three if camera.app was open and active before I locked my iPhone. I have missed the moment. No Henri Cartier-Bresson chance; the man has met the puddle.

Hans Petter Eikemo of Ideon proposes [for a future iPhone]:

When the camera app is inactive, a press on the new [camera] button will launch it.

Every press captures a photo, even outside the camera app. As a remedy for the most fleeting of photo ops; you shoot instantly from the hip, and when the app is ready, you may review the results or continue to shoot assisted by the viewfinder.

Press and hold the button momentarily to record video. The subsequent press stops recording.

I am against a new button, because we don’t need one. The shutter release (sic - pixel sensor ready and capture) could be initiated in different ways depending on the situation. Let’s go through some [iPhone] scenarios.

The phone is asleep in your pocket. You want to take a photo. Quick! Take if out of your pocket and either:

double-click volume-up button (hold for video)

double-click volume-down button (hold for video)

depress volume-up and volume-down button simultaneously (hold for video)

depress-volume-up and home button simultaneously (hold for video)

depress volume-down and home button simultaneously (hold for video)

Notes:

A setting would allow you to enable the feature to capture photos and/or video from sleep mode. Thus, Private Percy's Privacy is Protected from Prankster Peter.

A setting would allow you to launch into camera.app (or not) after taking photos from sleep mode.

Initiating video capture from sleep mode would launch camera.app while you are shooting that video.

Currently reading Dick, Philip K,. “We Can Build You”, bought from a very interesting book store in Skye this weekend passed: Mòr Books.

My sister bought a small book of Montaigne, and was chatting to the proprietor –a fascinating and helpful gent– when P.K. Dick caught my eye. At the time I was scanning for original cover Herbert, Frank, Dune books.

From Susan McCarthy's brilliant biographic article of Gary Larson (creator of The Far Side):

(I have no problem with the thagomizer, though I am a little worried by the unscrupulous cow in the life raft who is detected by the other passenger in the act of sipping from a glass. "Hey! That's milk! And you said you were all empty, you stinkin' liar!" shouts the indignant man. My problem is not the man and cow in the lifeboat, the talking cow, nor the question of where the cow got the glass, but -- why does the cow have stubble?)

This 1999 article is a great read, including McCarthy's quirky fascination with white-out.

Lane Hartill of The Christian Science Monitor takes a stab at journalising this in 2001.

I prefer McCarthy's description of Larson's world, "[p]opulated by the lumpy, the big-nosed, the bespectacled, the bug-eyed and the foofy-haired" to Hartill's: "The doughy humans and brainy wildlife of Gary Larson's 'The Far Side' cartoons made people bend over with laughter for more than a decade."

The Far Side is timeless humour, and I hope it will be archived for posterity, as a gift to future generations. By then, some of Larson's imagination might become reality.