Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Connections, Expert systems, Feedback, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, tech
The term “bump” has been used online for at least the last couple of years, particularly on larger group blogs when someone who administers the site wants a specific post or comment to get more attention or not be lost in the flow of information.
Curious now that there’s an emerging use of the term pertaining to another aspect of information: “bumping” technological tools to share specific information. From a column by a friend sent me:
From University of Chicago, a bump joins networking grind
It is fitting that University of Chicago business school students would develop an iPhone app that works by bump.
After all, it was a former U. of C. professor, President Barack Obama, who helped to popularize the fist bump.
The new iPhone app, called Bump, transfers data from one iPhone to another simply by bumping. When two people holding iPhones bump hands, detailed contact information or just certain data, such as a phone number, can be shared.
I bumped an iPhone with an iPod Touch and contact information was transferred between the devices in about 5 seconds. Both gadgets asked for confirmation.
As my friend said in the email:
Not quite as handy as the handshake in your book, but on its way.
Well on it’s way, indeed. For those who don’t recall (or who haven’t yet read the book), the standard tech people use for my novel contains a palm ‘key’ which is linked to a worn (actually, embedded) personal computer. Among other things, this key allows people to just shake hands and exchange business-card type information, which is automatically filed away for reference by your personal expert system.
As I’ve said before, it’s always fun to see the technology developing as I predict in Communion.
Jim Downey
No, not more poetry. But you know how it is – your brain gets working that way, and soon you can’t escape making such references.
Rather, this is post #600 for this blog. That works out pretty well to 100 posts every four months, since I launched this blog right at two years ago. Of late I have had some thoughts about the natural lifespan of a blog – whether I should be considering a good point to close it down. But there’s no hurry – I’ve not yet accomplished getting Communion of Dreams published, and I still find plenty of things more-or-less related to it to write about, though the primary focus of the blog does seem to have shifted yet again. Oh well. For now, I will be sticking with this venue, and I promise plenty of warning if I give serious consideration to shifting over to something else.
Anyway, happy 600.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, General Musings, Promotion, Publishing, Writing stuff
It’s interesting to look back a year and see where things were, and where we’ve come in the intervening time.
Downloads of the novel itself has been almost exactly the same: 6,288 in 2007, and 6,182 in 2008. That is remarkably consistent and more than a bit surprising to me. I also find it curious that more people have downloaded the novel than actually visited the site last year, by about a thousand. In other words, the link to the download of the book has been shared elsewhere, allowing people to download the thing (in either audio or .pdf form) without having to visit my site. Interesting.
This blog has grown by about double in terms of hits and readership – 10,834 in 2007, and 21,959 in 2008. Last year I wrote 333 posts total – an increase of 86 over how many I posted in 2007. Not as prolific as some, but I like to think that my quality is what brings the huge traffic. *cough*
Well, I have something else to get ready for this morning, but as I said last year: Thanks to everyone who visits, links, comments, or helps to promote this blog or my novel. Stick around and I’ll try and keep things interesting (I already have some new ideas and projects I’m working on).
Cheers for 2009!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Guns, Marketing, RKBA, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
One afternoon last week I was delivering a batch of work to a client here in town. Everything went fine, and after we had gone over the work I had done and the charges, the person I was meeting with asked whether I knew anyone in the area from whom they could learn a particular skill.
“Sure. Contact Professor X in the art department at the University. They should be able to help you out – either get you into a workshop or tell you who you can get private lessons from here locally.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“No worries. Tell them I sent you – I used to represent Professor X at my gallery.”
“Gallery?”
“Yeah, I ran an art gallery downtown for 8 years.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that.”
* * * * * * *
I got copied in on a note from Jim K to a magazine editor he is working with for an article about our ballistics project. It was discussing the reaction that people have had to the whole thing, and it reminded me of this passage from a post last year:
Well, from that discussion emerged an idea: conduct the necessary tests ourselves, compile all the data, then make it freely available to all on a dedicated website. Sounds like one of those great ideas which no one will ever get around to doing, because of the time and expense involved, right?
Well, as you know, we did do the whole project, and it has indeed been a pretty phenomenal success. But 18 months ago, it really was just one of those ideas that people would dismiss. That specifically happened to me at my favorite local gun shop, when I told the sales guy I usually chat with about the upcoming project.
“Oh, they did that,” he said, “back in the 30’s. Guy chopped down a rifle, measured the velocity drop-off.”
“But no one has done it with modern handgun calibers,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, true. So, when you going to get it all done?
“We’ll probably do it next spring.”
“Yeah, right.” It wasn’t said sarcastically. Well, not completely so.
* * * * * * *
The last few days have been filled with the news of the Madoff debacle, the latest in a long string of examples of poor judgment and questionable ethics in the financial sector, all of which have played a major part in the economic collapse that we are experiencing. This one meant losses of some $50 billion last I heard, though of course there is still a lot of uncertainty about the actual numbers.
It’s weird, but it actually makes me feel somewhat better about the losses I caused my investors with the gallery.
See, for 8 years we struggled to make a go of it. Most of that time I (and my business partner) did without a salary, scrimping and saving to make the most of the capital we had. Still, when the end came I felt really guilty about having cost my friends and family members the thousands of dollars they had invested in the business, because I couldn’t make my dream work out exactly the way I wanted. In spite of their disappointment, I don’t think any of my investors agreed with my sense of guilt – they knew they were taking a risk and that I had done all that was possible to make the business succeed.
But still, I have continued to feel guilty about it. Blame my Catholic upbringing.
Now, that sense of guilt has been blunted a bit. I wasn’t running some Ponzi scheme, violating the law and the trust of my investors. I wasn’t living high on the hog, bilking people of their entire life’s savings. I was doing my level best, and we just failed (financially – the gallery was a success by about any other measure). That’s life. I still have debts to pay, and will be getting to that this next year if my bookbinding business holds steady.
* * * * * * *
In spite of my (mock) complaining about resenting the success of the ballistics project, I c0ntinue to be very pleased with the ongoing (though slowing) spread of my novel. The ‘official’ tally on the website is 12,500 but this last week alone almost another 150 people have downloaded the book. Yeah, I’d still love to see it conventionally published, with a “Bestseller” table at the local bookstore featuring the book – but given the broken nature of the publishing industry at present, that is pretty unlikely.
And I’m looking forward to getting more serious writing done this next year. First, a book on being a care-provider, then the long-delayed prequel to Communion. Something to look forward to.
* * * * * * *
Tomorrow I deliver another 104 volumes to a client, as I mentioned on Monday. I have confidence that the client will be quite pleased with the work, and consider my fee for doing it more than fair.
And as I have worked on these books the last couple of weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Some of that has peeped out here on this blog, but a lot of it has just been simmering. The comment from the client I mentioned in the first section of this post sort of gelled a number of things for me. That client, and the one tomorrow, consider me to be a talented and successful craftsman. And that is a good feeling.
But it is also only one aspect of who I am.
On gun forums around the world people now know me as one of the guys involved in the ballistics project that almost everyone praises.
Over 12 thousand people have downloaded my novel. It’s just a guess how many have actually read it, or how many of those found it interesting, but I do get some positive feedback about it on a regular basis.
My art gallery was something of an institution here in my community for almost a decade. Now there is a used CD store where it used to be.
My Paint the Moon project captivated the imaginations of many around the world – but also gave plenty of fodder to those who wanted a good laugh.
Things change. Most people know you for only one slice of time, from seldom more than one perspective. What does it all add up to?
I dunno. But the common thread for me through it all is passion. Coming up with an idea, evaluating it, then attempting to do it whole-heartedly. Being passionate enough to be willing to risk failure.
I don’t care if people don’t know something about me. But I do hope that what they do know about me reflects my passion about that one thing.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, BoingBoing, Emergency, Failure, Feedback, Government, Guns, Kindle, Marketing, NYT, Politics, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, RKBA, Society
An update to this post… In the four days since the site went public, we’ve had almost 75,000 hits. That’s more hits than I’ve had to the Communion of Dreams site this entire year. I’d say it’s off to a good start. Interesting that it has already started to propagate beyond the usual gun forums and whatnot – we got a lot of hits from a link on SomethingAwful, and we’re seeing some links from people’s Facebook and Myspace pages.
* * *
Did you see this post in the NYT about the future of publishing? I was going to write about it, but have been occupied with other matters. Then I saw this piece by Clay Shirky in response, and figured I’d just tell people to read what he said. An excerpt:
There are book lovers, yes, but there are also readers, a much larger group. By Gleick’s logic, all of us who are just readers, everyone who buys paperbacks or trades books after we’ve read them, everyone who prints PDFs or owns a Kindle, falls out of his imagined future market. Publishers should forsake mere readers, and become purveyors of Commemorative Text Objects. It’s the Franklin Mint business model, now with 1000% more words!
* * *
Got a note from a friend in response to yesterday’s doom & gloom report. He asked what my advice would be for anyone wondering about how to handle some modest investments (and acknowledged that I am not a financial advisor in any professional way). My reply:
Warm clothes and sturdy shoes.
* * *
Well, I have other matters to attend to. Have a longer post working in the back of my mind, perhaps for later.
Jim Downey
Firstly, the alpha test site for Ballistics by the inch I mentioned the other day has some additional components now complete. Specifically, the link to the photo set under DOCUMENTATION is now good, as is the link to the .pdf of all the email exchanges which led to the test. Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback about the site so far – and for those who haven’t done so, please feel free to poke around and either send me an email or leave a comment about your thoughts.
Next, some numbers, just because I got to wondering. We’re now solidly over 12,000 downloads (it’s about 12,300) of Communion of Dreams to date. Just under half of that number were downloaded this year. There have been ups and downs in the number of downloads from week to week and month to month, but it has stayed remarkably consistent – in the 500-600 per month range, with little evidence of dropping off. I find this interesting, and more than a little encouraging – thanks to all who have helped to spread the word about the book!
So, maybe another travelogue later –
Jim Downey
I have mentioned a number of times the big ballistics project that I have been working on with a couple of friends over the past year. And it is finally all coming to fruition. There’s still the actual results database to sort out (we have the data, we just need to decide exactly how we want to have it displayed and searchable on the website). But the basic website is now put together, and because you’re a faithful reader of this blog you get a sneak preview:
Do me a favor and take a look, poke around the site a bit. Not everything is finished – as I said, the results are not yet posted, we still need to put in some links to other resources and whatnot, I still need to build a flickr set of photos from the testing, set up a blog related to the project, et cetera – and just offer some feedback. With a little luck we’re only a week or so away from having the site go ‘live’ under its own domain (already reserved), and I’d like to have this as a shakedown period. Consider this the “alpha test” of the site, to see how it works on a variety of browsers and whatnot. Send comments to me – the contact email on that site is not yet active – and I’ll pass it on to my good lady wife who has done all the drudge work of putting the site together.
Thanks! It’s really exciting to have this project almost complete – it has been a lot of work for all of us, and I want it to launch successfully. Your help at this stage is very appreciated.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, Marketing, N. Am. Welsh Choir, Patagonia, Promotion, Publishing, Travel, Writing stuff
Well, this is post #500. Figuring that posts average about 500 words (that’s a guess, but I bet that it is pretty close), this blog has generated about 250,000 words – about twice the number of words in Communion of Dreams. Of course, even at that it has still been a whole lot less work overall than it was to write and revise the novel. And it has been a good venue for me to promote the book, as well as to explore a number of things happening in my life.
A bit about that first point: CoD has now had just shy of 12,000 downloads, and I would once again like to thank all those who have helped to spread the word. Given that this has been done entirely word-of-mouth, that’s very gratifying. In the coming weeks (once we’re back from vacation and things settle down) my wife will be taking over the job of promoting the book – I just haven’t had the emotional energy for the long slog it takes to try and go through round after round of submissions and follow-up. She’ll be a bit more removed from the thing, but still has a great desire to see it succeed. And she may decide to explore some non-conventional options for publishing and may do some guest posts here to solicit ideas and support.
In a week we’ll be going on vacation – I’ll set up the blog to automatically post some items, so those who like to stop by will find fresh content on a regular basis – but I will not be posting from Patagonia. Look forward to getting some travelogues from our trip later, though! Things might also be a bit light in terms of posting here over the next week, because I still have a lot to wrap up before we leave.
And speaking of such, I need to get busy . . .
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, Marketing, Predictions, Publishing, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
A couple of quick items . . .
We’re now over 11,400 downloads of Communion of Dreams – that’s about 400 in the last month.
Sometime overnight we passed 25,000 hits to this blog. I mentioned a few months back that Welcome to the Hobbit House was far and away the most popular post I’ve written. It still is, by a factor of 10x. It seems to pop up fairly high when people search for “hobbit”, “hobbit house” and variations thereof. Not my most thought-provoking or literary post, but there you go.
Oh, yeah, this is post 461. Given my usual rate of posting, I should cross 500 sometime in October. I’ll try to make note of it. Since my posts tend to average 400 – 500 words, that means we’re somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 words, or half again the number of words in Communion. But while I do try and put a little thought into most of the things I post here, that is nothing like the amount of work required to write a book-length work of fiction.
So, thanks to one and all who stop by here (particularly those who comment), and who have downloaded Communion and told friends/forums about the book. Sometime in the next few weeks I’ll have a small bit of news about the novel (no, I have not been contacted by a publisher or anything).
Maybe more later today.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Feedback, Guns, Health, Migraine, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Ray Bradbury, Science Fiction, Sleep, Society, Writing stuff
As I have noted, I have been fairly busy of late. And in looking back over the last couple of months, I can see a real change in both my energy level and my ability to focus – it’s no longer the case that I want to nap most of the time. Yeah, I am still going through a detox process, still finding my way back to something akin to normalcy – but there has been a decided improvement. Fewer migraines. More energy. A willingness to take on some additional obligations.
So I had to debate a long time when I was recently contacted by a site wanting to expand their scope and impact. These folks. They were wanting me to do a column every two weeks, more-or-less related to Science Fiction (giving me a lot of latitude to define the scope of the column as I saw fit). They have a lot of good ideas, and seem to have a pretty good handle on where they want to go in the future. And the invitation was a real compliment to me – not only did they say nice things about my writing, but they have a good energy and attitude which is appealing.
But I declined the invitation. Why? Well, to a certain extent it’s like Bradbury says: “You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”
I may come to regret this decision. It could possibly have helped my writing career, at least in terms of landing a conventional publishing contract. And I know from writing my newspaper column that the discipline can do good things for me – forcing me to address a specific topic rather than the more general musings I post here and at UTI. But I really do have a lot on my plate right now, and they are all things I want to do well, rather than just get done. Blogging here (which is really quite important to me). Participating at UTI. Crafting this book about being a care provider. Getting the ballistics project website up and running. All the book conservation work waiting for me. Eventually getting to work on St. Cybi’s Well again. And enjoying life. There’s been precious little of that these last few years.
So, I declined. But if you perhaps would be interested in the gig, they have contact info on their homepage.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 