Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Art, Augmented Reality, Brave New World, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, NPR, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: art, augmented reality, AWARE camera program, blogging, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, David Brady, direct publishing, feedback, free, GigaPan, gigapixel, hospice, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, NPR, photography, promotion, science, Science Fiction, technology
This is a really cool application of imaging technology: a massed ball of high-quality digital cameras which can capture a gigapixel panorama in one instant. And the neat thing is that one of the main people behind this understands that while he can imagine some uses for such a camera system, there will come applications which he cannot now envision. From the NPR story:
His team has photographed Duke University football games, for example, that let you zoom in and see the ball in the air, plus the faces of all the players in the field, and the faces of all the fans in the stands.
“I can’t imagine … how people are going to use these things,” Brady says, “and, of course, since I’m an instrument builder, that’s the real interest. Because I’m sure photographers will use it in ways that I haven’t even thought of.”
Nice to see that awareness of shifting reality.
And a quick reminder of another kind of awareness: Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year are both available for free download today and tomorrow.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Health, Hospice, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Religion, Science Fiction | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, care-giving, Christmas, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, free, health, Her Final Year, hospice, jim downey, Kindle, literature, Merry Christmas, promotion, Science Fiction
Merry Christmas, whether you observe it as a religious occasion or a secular holiday!
And for all those who have new e-readers/phones/tablets/laptops/desktops, here’s a little gift … actually, make that *TWO* gifts: both Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year will be free to download tomorrow through Saturday! You don’t need to own a Kindle — there’s a free Kindle emulator for just about every electronic device. And you don’t need any kind of special code or anything — just go to the Amazon page for either book, and it will be free.
Again, wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Bad Astronomy, Feedback, ISS, Kindle, Marketing, Music, NASA, Phil Plait, Promotion, Science, Science Fiction, Space, YouTube | Tags: Amazon, Bad Astronomy, blogging, Communion of Dreams, feedback, ISS, jim downey, Kindle, music, NASA, Phil Plait, promotion, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, video, www youtube
Yeah, what Phil said:
Stop whatever you’re doing (unless you’re performing brain surgery) and watch this astonishing and enthralling time-lapse video, showing the Earth from space using photographs taken by astronauts aboard the International Space Station
Ahh …
Oh, there’s a new review up for Communion of Dreams. Here ’tis:
I rarely read sci-fi anymore, but this reminds me of the best I read when I was younger. There’s a lot of background on the worlds the author is creating, followed by a resolution to multiple problems in the worlds. I truly enjoyed it.
If you’ve read the book and haven’t yet gotten around to posting a review, please consider it. It’s a little thing that does more than just massage my ego — it helps others have some idea what to expect from the book. And every so often I do things like give away nice hand-bound copies of the book . Thanks.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Kindle, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, health, Her Final Year, hospice, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, literature, predictions, promotion, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, writing
So, without a lot of fanfare I went ahead and scheduled a two-day promotion for the Kindle edition of Communion of Dreams the other day, as mentioned. After I posted something about it on Facebook, John Bourke, my primary co-author on Her Final Year asked whether we might as well do a similar promotion for the Kindle edition of that book. D’oh! An oversight on my part.
But, I think, an understandable one. Right now I’m focused on writing St. Cybi’s Well, the prequel to Communion of Dreams. So there’s that.
And there’s something else. This passage from a post last February sums it up for me:
I am frequently struck just how much of our life doesn’t make sense until seen from a distance. Just recently I was surprised at the revelation of *why* the failure of Her Final Year to be more successful bothered me as much as it did: it was because I had seen the book as being a way to create something positive (for the world) out of the experience of being a long-term care provider. To have the book only reach a limited audience was, in my mind, saying that our roles as care-givers didn’t matter.
Yeah, that. In a word: disappointment.
And when things disappoint, it is only natural to disengage somewhat from them, to not sink a lot of additional emotional energy into it. At some point you just say “well, OK, that’s done — time to move on.”
Except moving on isn’t always the best course, or even possible. John reminded me of that. So I went ahead and scheduled the promotion for Her Final Year to run the same time as the one for Communion of Dreams did.
And guess what? Her Final Year, for the very first time, did better in terms of the number of downloads than Communion of Dreams did. Not by a lot — just a dozen books — but still, it did better. Whereas in the past when we did promotions for the two books at the same time, CoD almost always did better, by upwards of a factor of 10. And for the first time, one of my books was downloaded through the Amazon Australia portal. Guess which one it was. Right: HFY. And I think that’s pretty cool.
Now, the numbers in either case aren’t huge. Just 271 copies of Communion of Dreams, and 283 copies of Her Final Year. But I find myself somewhat surprisingly pleased.
I hope you had a similarly good Thanksgiving holiday.
Jim Downey
PS: If you missed this promotion, don’t worry. For people who get new computers/readers/mobile devices, we’ll repeat in shortly after Christmas. And of course you can always just go to the links above and buy either book for only $3.01.
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Connections, Feedback, General Musings, Health, Hospice, Kindle, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, Society | Tags: Alzheimer's, Amazon, blogging, care-giving, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, health, Her Final Year, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, promotion, Science Fiction, Thanksgiving, writing
As those close to me know, I’m not really “into” holidays the way many people are. Oh, I’m happy to have an excuse to eat and drink more, to visit with family & friends, to relax a bit more than usual. And I can appreciate the rituals which surround the holidays, and how those rituals can give some definition and context for things. Marking birthday milestones. Taking time to remember loved ones and Veterans. Observing the change of seasons and acknowledging the passing of years. Giving thanks.
Those forms are important. I understand why holidays exist even unto this modern age, when everything seems to exist in a constant froth of work, commerce, and entertainment.
But it is easy — far too easy — to come to think of those holidays as things in themselves, rather than reminders. The meanings of the rituals are lost, and only the rituals themselves become important.
And there, I just did the same thing. I just fell into the ritual of bemoaning how holidays have lost their meaning.
*sigh*
What I want to say is this: thank you. Thank you for being family, thank you for being a friend, thank you for just reading my stuff. I try to remember to be appreciative for all this, and for so much more, to make that appreciation more of an attitude than a holiday.
Jim Downey
And a different kind of reminder: both Communion of Dreams and Her Final Year are available for free download today and tomorrow. Please help yourself and spread the word.
Filed under: Amazon, Connections, Constitution, Feedback, Humor, Kindle, Promotion, Publishing, Religion, Science Fiction, Society | Tags: Amazon, blogging, Christians, Communion of Dreams, Constitution, direct publishing, Edenists, feedback, free, highlights, humor, jim downey, Kindle, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction, Thanksgiving
I was scheduling a “free Kindle copy” promotion of Communion of Dreams a while ago, and as part of that I was poking around a little deeper into the Amazon ratings/rankings/comments. Something they evidently added a while back that I hadn’t noticed is that people can “highlight” passages in the Kindle edition, and share that info with other readers.
Anyway, about a year ago someone highlighted a passage (in italics below) and added a comment which I find rather amusing, and I thought I’d share it:
JohnB: I resent the author’s allusion to Christians in this negative light. More unConstitutional bashing.
Take your worst nightmare right-wing Christian fundies,
Really makes me wonder if he continued to read the book at all past that point.
You can find all the highlights here. Oh, and the Kindle edition will be available for free this Thursday and Friday.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction | Tags: Amazon, art, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, jim downey, Kindle, leather, promotion, reviews, Science Fiction
You have until midnight tonight to get your entry in for a free copy of a full leather binding of Communion of Dreams. If you haven’t posted a link with your review on Amazon in this blog post, then you are NOT entered into the drawing. And we’ll also be drawing for the last of the “nearly perfect” cloth copies. Full details in that blog post.
And my judge for this drawing has posted some information about how and when she will handle the particulars: Planning ahead [echo]
Good luck everyone!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Art, Connections, Feedback, Gardening, Humor, Marketing, Predictions, Preparedness, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction | Tags: Amazon, ants, art, blogging, bookbinding, canning, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, drawing, feedback, free, gardening, humor, jim downey, leather, MargoLynn, planning, predictions, promotion, reviews, science, Science Fiction, tomatoes
It’s been said that our ability to conceive of and plan for an uncertain future is one of the hallmarks of human intelligence. Some ants and other critters might beg to differ.
Nonetheless, today’s crop from the garden is largely going to be canned for enjoyment this coming winter:
That’s about 20 pounds of mixed tomato varietals in the dish drainer, and another 5 or so pounds of Roma tomatoes in the colander. I’ll chop and can the bulk of them, then sauce all the Romas and the left-over juice/bits from the canning. So far this season I’ve put up 44 pints of chopped tomatoes and about a gallon of sauce.
I like to plan ahead.
And you should too. There’s about 36 hours left to get your entry in for the drawing for a full leather, hand-bound edition of Communion of Dreams. And we’ll also be drawing for the last of the “nearly perfect” cloth copies:
Finished product.
I’ve managed to talk my old friend MargoLynn into handling the drawing for me, so you should send all bribe attempts to her. Winners will be announced sometime Sunday.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Amazon, Apollo program, Astronomy, BoingBoing, Connections, Feedback, Kindle, Marketing, Mars, movies, NASA, Paleo-Future, Politics, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Space, tech, Travel, Wales | Tags: Amazon, Apollo, ars technica, blogging, BoingBoing, bookbinding, Communion of Dreams, direct publishing, feedback, free, jim downey, Kindle, Mars, movies, NASA, politics, predictions, promotion, reviews, science, Science Fiction, space, technology, The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain, travel, Venus
Imagine three astronauts, 125 million miles from the Earth, talking to Mission Control with a four-minute time lag. They have seen nothing out their windows but stars in the blackness of space for the last 150 days. With a carefully timed burn, they slow into orbit around Venus, and as they loop around the planet, they get their first look at its thick cloud layer just 7,000 miles below.
It might sound like the plot of a science fiction movie, but in the late 1960s, NASA investigated missions that would send humans to Venus and Mars using Apollo-era technology. These missions would fly in the 1970s and 1980s to capitalize on what many expected would be a surge of interest in manned spaceflight after the Apollo lunar landings. They would be daring missions, but they would also be feasible with what was on hand.
Somewhat surprisingly, I don’t remember this at all. Though of course these were just “proof of concept” studies which were put together for NASA. Still, they were fairly well thought-out, as the article on ars technica demonstrates. As is often the case, technological limitations are less of an absolute factor in accomplishing something than economic/political limitations are. To borrow from a favorite old movie: “You wouldn’t believe what we did. It’s possible. It’s just hard work.”
What isn’t hard work? Getting entered into the drawing for a leather-bound copy of Communion of Dreams. Full details here. Yesterday’s Kindle promotion pushed us over 500 copies of the electronic version given away this month, and that puts the total number of copies out there somewhere in the neighborhood of 26,000. There are already 65 reviews posted to Amazon. Yet so far only 9 people have entered the drawing. You have until midnight this coming Saturday.
Jim Downey
Via BoingBoing.
Communion Of Dreams 