The Monkey Store Has Closed

I lived, for about three and a half months, in an apartment on la rue Denis Papin in the city of Blois, France, a few floors above the Monkey Store.

We called it the Monkey Store – and I’m sure we weren’t alone – because of its name. It was a Singer sewing machine store. Singer is a familiar brand in the United States, but in France it has one of those unfortunate names that don’t translate well. Singe is the French word for monkey, and singer, the French verb for “act like a monkey” or “to monkey around.” So obviously it was the Monkey Store.

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We lived on the third floor – second to the French – right in the middle. One night, Elder Merchant accidentally knocked a two-liter bottle of Coke down onto the balcony below. He was content to leave it there, but Elder Duersch wasn’t. We tied some sheets together and he climbed down, retrieved the Coke, and came back up. No one in the Monkey Store was the wiser, but we called Elder Duersch the Blois Monkey from then on out.

Now the Monkey Store is no more. Gone. Replaced by something called “Sergent Major,” which apparently is a kids’ clothing store. That’s fine. But no one wants to live above military personnel, do they?

At least the Caisse d’Epargne is still there. Classic French bank/lending society, whose mascot is a squirrel – and that’s probably one of the hardest words to say in French: ecureuil. Ironically, squirrel is one of the hardest English words for the French to pronounce. So there’s some equity there.

We Need to Merp the Merp to Avoid A Merpity-Merp

If you’ve ever opened your Facebook feed and just found it too overwhelming to read all of the updates you’re getting from your friends, the folks at TigerLogic have something for you.

Or, conversely, you could be just like me and wonder: “Just how hard is it to read a Facebook feed?”

Yes, I’m on Facebook. And on Twitter. I’m a member of – and part-owner of – www.uncharted.net, a social network that focuses on travel, writing and photography. I run six blogs and read about two dozen others on a regular basis. I’m what you might call a bit overstimulated, atechnologically, at least when words and such come into play.

But I manage it all.

Oh, I don’t read everything. I skim a lot. That’s just part of the Internet territory. And I use one of my blogs as kind of a central input spot for everything, so all my other links are just a click or two away. I’ve also got a mobile device I can check while in bed, on the potty, et cetera. I do fairly well, thank you very much.

But the TigerLogic folks, they want to make things easier for folks like me. That’s why they’re offering “PostPost.” A newspaper/newsfeed whatchamacallit that lets you pre-program whose Facebook updates you want to read and presents them in a tight, concise little package. You know, kinda like Facebook.

I love the Internet. This social networking thing is starting to grow on me. But do I really need a service to help me read my services more efficiently? Can’t I do that already in Facbook, either manually or by limiting the number of friends I have?

Or do I really need PostPost, whose architects – or at least press agents – demonstrate a keen grasp of the relevant buzzwords:

Under the hood, PostPost employs jQuery Masonry, created by David DeSandro, to make efficient use of page space and organize posts in tight columns for quick reading. Additionally, PostPost is integrated with TigerLogic's yolink search-enhancing technology to help readers search PostPost's vast real-time content and return actionable search results with key terms in context.

Literally, bodies are hitting the floor as they try to plow through this news release. (And whenever I hear the phrase “news release,” I just have to add: “Engineer finds cure for cancer while saving baby from burning building.”

And, frankly, I think they’re going to hear from the folks at the New York Times and the New York Post and have to explain some of the design coincidences PostPost shares with those publications.

What I’m waiting for is a service that integrates all of my various social media feeds, needs, and wants. Oh. I’ve got that already: this blog. Thanks Santos.

DRILL!

 

Don't know the status of this one, but here's where I found it.

You know you’ve got a pretty good job when the biggest part of your anxiety and job stress stems not from the work they hired you to do, but from some of the volunteer work you got roped into doing after they hired you.

Today was such a day.

I work at the RWMC – the Radioactive Waste Management Complex – part of the Idaho National Laboratory, as a technical writer. I write procedures and other documents used to handle radioactive waste and to track the fire protection program at RWMC. Thoug at times this job can be a stresser, it’s 99 percent the good kind of stress, the kind of stress that makes me function well. I love my job.

Then there’s the volunteer stuff.

I’m part of one emergency response team. When there’s an accident or incident at work, we respond as a team to coordinate everything from notifying local sheriffs departments to working with the INL Fire Department and other internal organizations to handle toe emergency event.

I’m what’s called a notification specialist – I’m basically the bridge between the team and the INL’s communications center. When we classify emergencies, it’s my job to notify the comm center as quickly as possible so they can do their notifications. That all has to take place within 15 minutes. I had to do two of those notifications today during our drill, one right on top of the other.

And I did it.

Felt good. Felt great. Of course, I went over the steps in my mind the night before, and then again on the bus coming to work today. Also brought the Lord in on it, and I feel that with the practice I put in mentally preparing myself for the job, we got it done. Glad it’s over. Glad it's over especially because each time I'm involved in a drill, I remember something Homer Simpson said about safety:

“Our safety is in the hands of people no brighter than you or I. Some of them, incompetent boobs!”

I know precisely well where I fit on the “incompetent boob” scale.

No one who works on these emergency response teams gets anything for it other than the occasional safety vest – I’ve got two now, one orange, the other purple. I’m very well-dressed for drills. The only ways out of these positions are either a job transfer that takes you away from RWMC or – and this is only half a joke – death. I’ve thought a few times it would be rather nice to get out of the position, but then I think it’s something else I can put on a resume and makes me just a teence more valuable to the company. Though that value is a relative thing.

That’s the major point of stress I have at work – the drills. So I’m hopeful I can keep working here for a long time.

Arsenic-Based Life? Just Add Water.

Barely a week after announcing the discovery of a bacteria from California’s Mono Lake a group of NASA-funded and –associated scientists insist incorporate arsenic compounds, rather than phosphorous compounds, into their DNA and other cell structures – thus broadening our view of conditions conducive to life – others in the field are shaking their fingers at the science.

Read it here at Slate.com.

To sum up: The scientists Slate spoke to don’t deny that arsenic-based life could exist, they merely challenge what they call sloppy methodology in the NASA experiments that don’t take into account that arsenic is much more prone than phosphorous to dissolve in water – leaving arsenic-based DNA in tatters, rather than the chunks the scientists identified – along with the fact that some of the salts fed to the bacteria were “contaminated” with phosphorous, thus not eliminating the possibility that the bugs merely “eked out” an existence on the available phosphorous rather than substituting the arsenic.

I don’t pretend to understand the intricacies of the science, but I’ve always loved a good flim-flam story, especially when those accused of the flim-flammery retreat rather than address the criticism. Rosie Redfield, a microbiology researcher at the University of British Columbia and one of the experts quoted by Slate does what I assume is an admirable job of taking apart NASA’s research here. Another explanation of the phosphorous/arsenic in water trick can be found here, written by Harvard microbiologist Alex Bradley (I found this one a bit more accessible to my layman brain).

What I appreciate about the approach the critics are taking is that they’re not saying, “Oh no. Arsenic-based life can’ exist.” Because they’re scientists, they want to look at the evidence before they reach any conclusions. What they are saying is that the methodology used in the NASA paper doesn’t prove that these Mono Lake bacteria are arsenic-based life forms. Bradley sums it up pretty well by saying that even in the absence of esoteric biochemical processes which could keep arsenic-based DNA from dissolving in water:

In the absence of biochemistry, pure chemistry takes over: any arsenate-DNA would have been quickly hydrolyzed in the water, breaking down into fragments of small size. Alternatively, phosphate-DNA would not hydrolyze quickly, and large-sized fragments might be recoverable.

Slate’s story is worth reading for the explanation of the science, as well as to see how quick some scientists are to announce Earth-shattering news and then equally as quick to hide behind peer-review procedurals when their science is called into question. Carl Zimmer, writing for slate, quotes Jonathan Eisen of UC-Davis as saying:

If they say they will not address the responses except in journals, that is absurd. They carried out science by press release and press conference. Whether they were right or not in their claims, they are now hypocritical if they say that the only response should be in the scientific literature.

It does seem odd to me to use the penny press to announce your news, then scurry behind the peer-review structure when the critics come out – and you knew the critics would come. So I’ll be watching this with much interest.

(Tactful) Tech Writer for Hire

How exactly do you approach a company and tell them their documentation sucks?

I have to figure out how to do this nicely and professionally, because there is indeed a nationally-recognized company based in Rexburg that I want to approach to offer my contract services as a technical writer. They have proof on their website that they have someone who can type, but not someone who can actually design documents that don’t make them look foolish.

I’m going to start with a fellow I know, a local man-about-town, or at least a man-about-the-business-community, who may know someone who knows someone who works in a higher capacity for the company, to whom I can present my offerings.

And I need to say our offerings, because I’m probably going to drag Michelle into this as well. Together, I think we make a pretty good team. I don’t mind talking to any Tom, Dick, or Harry, nor going onto the site to get a feel for what is needed, documentation-wise. And Michelle is aces with InDesign and making things look absolutely right. We’ve both got the editing and writing credentials to start our own business: I’ve been in journalism for ten years, technical writing in five; I’ve got a masters degree in technical writing. She, meanwhile, designed award-winning yearbook pages for Sugar-Salem High School, has edited one manual for Madison Memorial Hospital and is in the same masters program I finished just over a year ago.

One of the ideas I’m pondering is this: This company in particular offers their manuals publicly – to their clients, ostensibly – on their web page. They’re in a format that is easily downloadable, cut-and-pastable; a format we could easily take and use to recreate the manual but in a manner that makes it look as if it were designed, not merely pooped out on the slab of Microsoft Office. But do I dare take one of their manuals, re-write it and re-design it on spec, then take it to them under fear that they’ll flip out that we, a non-customer, have got and modified one of their manuals without their express knowledge? Even if the first manual were done on spec, and offered to the company at a discount price, that seems like a risky avenue to take. So it’s back to the man-about-town idea.

Another problem is this: There’s definitely a good ol’ boy vibe afloat in this town, and I’m fairly certain it infects this company in particular. I’m hesitant to approach them as an uppity outsider without knowing a bit more about the people behind the corporate voodoo masks. Again, that’s maybe an assignment for the man-about-town. He’s beginning to loom larger in my perspective.

Also is this: We ought to offer a grant-writing service, but to do that we need to write a successful grant. That would help us expand the business’ offerings, especially in an area where few if any school districts (offhand, I can think of two) who have dedicated grant writers on staff. So the ball is rolling on that. Just sent the preliminary letters to our local school district today. Hopefully, 2011 will bring some success on that front.

Again, No Teachee

It appears once again that I’m a teacher without students.

Registration at BYU-Idaho for next semester has been open for a month now, and the section of English 101 I’ve been assigned is still without students. That situation may change over the next few years as the university increases its enrollment cap by another 2,500 students, but that really doesn’t do much for me in the here and now, when the money and the experience would be most welcome.

So what’s a guy to do?

I’d offer a premium to join my section – Join now and I’ll spot you an automatic 50 extra credit points – but I’m not sure the university is open to that kind of competitive bidding for students among its online adjunct faculty members.

I’m sure they have legitimate reasons for setting up the sections the way they do. This is what I suspect: Teachers with the most experience at the university get top billing, with new teachers like me on the bottom of the barrel. Makes sense, right? Except that the new teachers like me never get the experience they need to first of all see if this kind of experience cuts their jib and spurs them on to further teaching and study. It’s the old I can’t get a job without experience but I can’t get experience until I get a job conundrum. Then again, my theory may be flawed. Maybe it’s a lottery system; whomsoevers number is called gets to teach that semester. That makes as much sense as anything else I can cook up.

I have applied to teach a business writing class, also on the bonehead level, but I’m sure there are many in my position (I got hired on with a fairly big block of other potential English 101 teachers) who are eying the job. So I guess it’s hurry up and wait.

I’d still like to teach, though. So I’ll remain patient and see what chance throws my way. Or, conversely, what chance throws up my way.

Christmas Agony

I’m beginning to dread Christmas.

Or at least the part of Christmas that means we have to buy stuff and bring it into our already bursting-at-the-seams home.

Have to? Well, of course not.

We don’t buy a lot. And we are managing to get some stuff out of the house as other stuff comes in. This year, for example, we scored a victory in finally convincing the kids that they didn’t need to cling to their Duplos any more. They can thus be passed on to their younger niece and nephew.

Also this weekend, we went through a bin of little toy bits and pieces, kept the good stuff and chucked the rest. Don’t stress: What got chucked is much too pathetic to give to those less fortunate than us. Just like us, our kids cling to a lot of junk.

Still, the thought of more stuff coming in is disturbing. More stuff needs to leave. I’ve got a box of clothing I haven’t touched in years. It’s going to Deseret Industries this week. So I can use the box to store some books for which we no longer have room on the bookshelves because of all the new books I keep bringing home from the DI. But I think if I do a little moving around I can get my Asterix comic books off the floor beneath my desk in the study into the spot in the upstairs closet where the box of clothing is. That does put the kids at a disadvantage of getting at them, but then it does save them from being damaged when the kids get at them. They can still read them. They’ll just have to ask.

Yes, we know Christmas isn’t about get-get-get, no matter what Lucy says. It’s about this:

(I know. Not in the public domain. But used here for fair use education and commentary purposes.)

That’s why, this weekend, as we took our kids to do their Christmas shopping, we emphasized that we give gifts not because people need more stuff, but because we want to help each other enjoy each other, and if we can do that by occasionally dropping some coin on them, that’s fine. Not extravagance. Just thoughtfulness. That’s how we explained the Duplos’ departure from the house, and how we’ll explain the departure of other items over the next few years. We’re in a family where things get passed down a lot. We’ve already send on little toddler ride ‘em toys that were passed on to us, bicycles and tricycles that were passed on to us, and other such items.

Still, as much fun as it is to see our kids enjoy giving and getting at Christmas, I’ve entered that stage of adulthood where I’m happier to see the stuff go than to see it coming in.

How 'Bout This?

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The Rewards -- and Dangers -- of Internet Publishing

In his book "Here Comes Everybody," Clay Shirky makes it a point to say that with the Internet, the question of whether to publish something has transformed from "Why publish this?" to "Why not?" This is supposed to be a liberation of the realm of publishing from the bottlenecks and gatekeepers of traditional publishing, opening up the world to anyone with a website and a message to send out.

That's good, right?

It has a serious drawback: It opens up the world to anyone with a website and a message to send out.

Now getting published means one of two things: Getting published in the traditional sense, as in via some kind of entity with editing and quality controls and a method for paying the producer a little bit of money for the trouble, or the kind of publishing you're not reading on this blog now since this blog has a worldwide audience but NOBODY is coming here.

My gosh, what a choice.

It's liberating, yes, to realize that there are so few gatekeepers and bottlenecks between me and my audience. It's disheartening, however, to realize that, as of right now, my audience doesn't exist. And you know what, now that everyone can publish, the traditional publishing houses that give you money rather than fifteen picoseconds of Internet fame, they're trolling Oh yeah, they're trolling. But if you don't have a built-in audience now -- one you've had to work for, of course, through your labors -- they won't touch you. The playing field hasn't been leveled, it's just been digitized.

Not that we shouldn't have audiences we hand-build. That's the great advantage of the Internet age. But to "get published" in the traditional sense, you'd better have a hot commodity and the audience to back it up. You can't just have a good book now -- it seems you've got to have a following. It's like the publishing houses have seen the light and realize that maybe they can save a little money by choosing commodities from the flotsam of the Internet that already have a following so they've got a built-in audience for their product once it starts rolling off the assembly line. So it's pretty much what the Amigos did in "Shootin' for Love."

Faith Restored

As long as things like this keep happening, I'll always be a happy guy.