06:49 – I finally finished cleaning off the kitchen table Sunday. I’d had the microscope and various other stuff set up there to shoot the cover image. Barbara’s happy that she has her kitchen table back. I’m happy that I have my microscope back. It wasn’t doing me any good sitting on the kitchen table.
Instead of moving the microscope back onto the microscope desk in my office, I set it up on a stackable table that’s about 18″ (46 cm) high. That puts the primary eyepiece a bit too low to be comfortable, but it also puts the back of the Pentax DSLR at a level where I can see it without standing up. That’s desirable because I’m now shooting images with the Pentax K-r, which is the first Pentax DSLR we’ve had that offers live-view. That’s important because it’s nearly impossible to focus through the microscope using the focusing screen. Without live-view, I often shot literally 15 or 20 images with slight focusing tweaks for each to get one usable image. With live-view, I can instead focus on the 3″ (7.5 cm) LCD monitor, which is both brighter and sharper than the TTL focusing screen, so my success ratio should be a lot higher. Not to mention that it’ll take a lot less time and effort to get usable images.
I’m not exactly going on hiatus, but posts and replies to comments here are going to be short and sporadic for about the next three months. I just talked to Brian Jepson, my editor, yesterday, and we agreed on a drop-dead book deadline of 31 January. Brian needs that to make sure the book will be available in time for Maker Faire next May, and of course I also want that. Not to mention the fact that being available in time for Maker Faire also means the book will be available in time for summer session.
I’ve already been on a seven-day work schedule for some time. Well, the truth is that I’m always on a seven-day work schedule. But now I’m going to ramp it up somewhat, to perhaps eight hours a day of actual writing on weekdays (which is kind of like working 12-hour days at most jobs; ask any writer) and at least six hours of actual writing on weekend days. I won’t have time (or energy) to do much else.
Good luck with it, Bob!
Eight hours of buckling down and working steadily at home is easily equivalent to twelve hours in an office environment. Sixteen, probably. Mandatory all-hands meetings, loudspeaker announcements, chatting with cubicle neighbors, being unable to avoid cube neighbors chatting, filling out timesheets, wading through pointless email, etc etc ad nauseam.
I’m self-employed, too, programming and writing and consulting, working from home. It’s painfully easy to see the difference in productivity between my (remote) butt-in-seat contract work, with incessant conference calls and IMs and urgent emails, and my self-directed projects. And even more obvious when I compare to what I was able to get done in an office on butt-in-seat contract work. Even setting aside issues of competence and managerial friction, it’s no wonder that IT departments have to have so many people to get anything done. No one can concentrate and get any good work done.
Based on the history of the old forum, this will be a time of some of the more provocative posts, even if they are short and sporadic.
Well, what is there to write about that’s provocative? The Greek government has collapsed, the Italian government is collapsing now, and the Spanish government is about to collapse, soon followed by the French government. Belgium’s government would collapse, but they haven’t had a government for something like 18 months now.
As they say “sleep is optional”!
Best of luck with the book – we’ll hope you still manage to find time for the odd comment…
That, by itself, is easily a full time job for some of us.
Sincerely,
Proud Slacker 🙂
Amazon now lets you “borrow” books if you are a Prime subscriber. I assume you have to update your Kindle to get the borrow menu option. I’m a Prime member and use the shit out of the two day delivery. I’m in Vegas and if it is stocked at Amazon, I usually get stuff the next business day if I order in the am.
I also decided to pre-order the Touch w/ads. One of the kids will inherit the graphite.
Bill wrote:
“~I’m not exactly going on hiatus, but posts and replies to comments here are going to be short and sporadic for about the next three months.
Based on the history of the old forum, this will be a time of some of the more provocative posts, even if they are short and sporadic.”
I never take his claims about slowing down posts seriously. I’ve never noticed a slowdown when he says he’s slowing down.
Question for knowledgeable gadget nerds, and I heard there might be one or two in this venue: I have a basic cell phone and when I recharge it off the AC unit in the house it takes 2-3 hours. But if I let it rip off the 12-volts in the car while driving to and from work, it is done in a half hour. Why?
Q: An Irishman, a Greek and a Portuguese go into a bar and have a few rounds of drinks. Who pays?
A: The German.
This just in: There is now conclusive proof that Osama bin Laden and Muammar Quaddafi are dead. They both registered to vote yesterday in Chicago.
A guy goes into a New York bar and there’s a robot bartender.
The robot says, “What will you have?” The guy says, “Martini”.
The robot brings back the best martini ever and says to the man, “What’s your IQ?”
The guy says, “168.”
The robot then proceeds to talk about physics, pure mathematics and medical technology.
The guy leaves, but he’s curious – so, he goes back into the bar.
The robot bartender says, “What will you have?”
The guy says, “Martini.”
Again, the robot makes a great martini gives it to the man and says, “What’s your IQ?”
The guy says “100.”
The robot then starts to talk about Gridiron, Coors Beer and SUVs.
The guy leaves, but having found it very interesting, decides he’ll try it one last time. He goes back into the bar.
The robot says, “What will you have?”
Again the guy says, “Martini” – and the robot brings him another great one.
The robot then says, “What’s your IQ?”
The guy says, “Uh, about 40 …”
The robot leans in real close and says,
“So, you people still happy you voted for Obama?”
Good one, sir! Unfortunately, the hard truth is that it was probably a lot of people with high IQs who voted for this commie bullshit artist. We’re surrounded by the buggers here in Vermont, and they all think they’re so darned smart and cute. WTSHTF, things will not end well with them. A guy wrote a book about a lot of these people titled “Bobos in Paradise,” i.e. Bohemian bourgeoisie. Rich and phony hippie types.
But I will pass on your joke to Mrs. OFD, who, believe it or not, voted for the bugger. She also voted twice for Larry Klinton and his lovely wife Bruno. What can I say? Upstate New York Democrat Irish for life, apparently. But my Buchananite influence is creeping in….
There are right wing Irish Catholics who’re Republican, aren’t there? Yeah, there have to be a few, like Peter King, an IRA^H^H^HRepublican congresscritter from NY.
A communist, an illegal alien and a Muslim walk into a bar. The bartender asks “What will you have, Mr. President”.
No, he’s an atheist. Our host told us that months ago.
He is whatever the situation requires, like a number of his predecessors. No real faith in anything but power and wealth and his own Prophetic aura. And up against him next year we are gonna have one of the dopey Repub clowns who pile out of that tiny little car.
The dogs bark, and the caravan moves on.
The car charger is putting out more power. My current gadgets use a combination of a wall wart and a USB cable for their AC charger. I wouldn’t be surprised if the design for wall warts is generic enough that it puts out +5V DC at low current, possibly at most what a standard USB device can handle. The car charger may put out a higher voltage and or more current. At the most extreme, your car charger could be feeding +12V DC to charge the cell phone.