Get the sponge... the cup's overflowing!
Mar. 7th, 2005 10:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexpgpI probably spent more time on the patent over the weekend than I've spent on any assignment in recent memory. The primary problem had to do with the structure of the Russian, which tended toward ridiculously run-on sentences (I'd quote one, but that'd be like giving away too much information about my client!). Suffice it to say that two sentences in the "meat" of the document each occupy approximately 1/4 of a typewritten page!
I spent a considerable amount of time in the store, starting with opening the place at 8 am. The spreadsheet I worked on during the weekend (between clauses of the patent) still has some striking holes in it, and I am not quite certain how to proceed with testing it, aside from creating a suite of package data (said suite covering both normal and "pathological" cases, e.g., odd sizes, borderline weights, etc.) and running them through the thing.
Anyway, during the time I did spend in my office, I received a series of assignments: two relatively small, and one that I might have refused under other circumstances (too much, due too fast, in a subject I'm not enthusiastic about), except that I'm not really in a position to be picking and choosing assignments right now. (As punishment, I halfway expect to get offered an assignment tomorrow that's right up my alley, with a reasonably large word count due in a reasonable time... but you know what they say about a bird in the hand...).
I went into the store to help out around 3 pm and finally made it back to home from the store in time to crash for something I'll charitably call a nap, but my consciousness took such a swan dive when my head hit the pillow I'm frankly surprised to have awakened so soon. (Then again, maybe I'm experiencing the sleep disorder that hit me the other night, except I'm doing so within an acceptable time frame... qui sait?)
So I'm working, trying to clear the decks of the two small jobs so I can start on the big one tomorrow morning with my batteries completely recharged. I'll need to lay 3500 source words down on phosphor in translation, per day, to make Friday's deadline.
* * * The word "podcast" has been showing up under my eyeballs the past few days. Initially, I thought this was something you needed an Apple iPod to do, but it actually is a lot simpler than that. Simpler, from a technical point of view, and at the same time more complicated, from a practical point of view. More on that later.
In essence - and I may be way off here, but I think not - a podcast is simply an audio file (apparently, MP3 is the format of choice) that's made available from a conventional site on the Web. The content of a typical podcast file is analogous to a radio spot that features the spoken word - I'd say "talk radio," but there's a lot of baggage associated with that term. (Some podcasts undoubtedly feature music, but there are copyright issues to consider.) People who want to do this sort of thing more than once can make their files available via an RSS feed, and other bells and whistles can be added for effect.
Sturgeon's Law applies, of course, and for every one voice out there that sounds pleasant and has something coherent to say, there are 99 other sound files out there featuring people with little or nothing to say, hemming and hawing their way into obscurity, and wasting bandwidth along the way.
Are people really so untalented? I don't think so. But that's where the complex nature of this new medium raises its ugly head.
Most of us have been taught since birth that any kind of activity having to do with school is supposed to be hard. Writing is hard. Math is hard. Foreign languages are hard. That's some kind of societal expectation and we end up going through life not really questioning it. You're not good at math? So what?
On the other hand, the one thing that comes easily - talking - is something we're discouraged from doing in school, not to mention singing and dancing (unless duly supervised, of course). All of our cultural icons - the people we want to be like - sing, or dance, or show up on the big or small screen and act, making us think - through their actions and words - that they're someone else. It looks easy, and it's is the reason so many people set out with confidence on the road to Hollywood and what they believe will be eventual stardom, only to find - surprise! - that singing/acting/whatever requires its own form of discipline to which relatively few are willing to submit.
You don't believe me? Take a newspaper article and try reading it out loud without stumbling over your teeth. It's not as easy as it sounds, yet it's only a very basic broadcasting skill.
You want to be the next Garrison Keillor because you think you're at least as good? Step right up to the mike, friend! But watch out for all the little potholes and deadfalls along the way that can only be negotiated with knowledge generally borne of experience (in other words, after paying your dues). Indeed, I think the current explosive growth in "podcasting" is going to be followed by a just as violent implosion, as legions of wannabe Frankens, and Limbaughs, and Keillors find that this stuff is Just Too Hard™.
Just as the written blog has the capability to place us ordinary citizens on an even par with "professionals" who wield the written word on a daily basis (blogs being a virtual 21st century version of Sam Colt's ingenious "Equalizer," and notwithstanding recent court decisions in California), podcasting has an analogous capability, in the audible range, to allow individuals to build audiences of listeners to rival the masses that currently listen to "established" broadcast voices in the media.
(To cut to the chase, podcasting is very much like audioblogging and making phone posts here on LJ, without the limitations. :^)
* * * Having said all of that, you know I had to do this:
I spent a considerable amount of time in the store, starting with opening the place at 8 am. The spreadsheet I worked on during the weekend (between clauses of the patent) still has some striking holes in it, and I am not quite certain how to proceed with testing it, aside from creating a suite of package data (said suite covering both normal and "pathological" cases, e.g., odd sizes, borderline weights, etc.) and running them through the thing.
Anyway, during the time I did spend in my office, I received a series of assignments: two relatively small, and one that I might have refused under other circumstances (too much, due too fast, in a subject I'm not enthusiastic about), except that I'm not really in a position to be picking and choosing assignments right now. (As punishment, I halfway expect to get offered an assignment tomorrow that's right up my alley, with a reasonably large word count due in a reasonable time... but you know what they say about a bird in the hand...).
I went into the store to help out around 3 pm and finally made it back to home from the store in time to crash for something I'll charitably call a nap, but my consciousness took such a swan dive when my head hit the pillow I'm frankly surprised to have awakened so soon. (Then again, maybe I'm experiencing the sleep disorder that hit me the other night, except I'm doing so within an acceptable time frame... qui sait?)
So I'm working, trying to clear the decks of the two small jobs so I can start on the big one tomorrow morning with my batteries completely recharged. I'll need to lay 3500 source words down on phosphor in translation, per day, to make Friday's deadline.
In essence - and I may be way off here, but I think not - a podcast is simply an audio file (apparently, MP3 is the format of choice) that's made available from a conventional site on the Web. The content of a typical podcast file is analogous to a radio spot that features the spoken word - I'd say "talk radio," but there's a lot of baggage associated with that term. (Some podcasts undoubtedly feature music, but there are copyright issues to consider.) People who want to do this sort of thing more than once can make their files available via an RSS feed, and other bells and whistles can be added for effect.
Sturgeon's Law applies, of course, and for every one voice out there that sounds pleasant and has something coherent to say, there are 99 other sound files out there featuring people with little or nothing to say, hemming and hawing their way into obscurity, and wasting bandwidth along the way.
Are people really so untalented? I don't think so. But that's where the complex nature of this new medium raises its ugly head.
Most of us have been taught since birth that any kind of activity having to do with school is supposed to be hard. Writing is hard. Math is hard. Foreign languages are hard. That's some kind of societal expectation and we end up going through life not really questioning it. You're not good at math? So what?
On the other hand, the one thing that comes easily - talking - is something we're discouraged from doing in school, not to mention singing and dancing (unless duly supervised, of course). All of our cultural icons - the people we want to be like - sing, or dance, or show up on the big or small screen and act, making us think - through their actions and words - that they're someone else. It looks easy, and it's is the reason so many people set out with confidence on the road to Hollywood and what they believe will be eventual stardom, only to find - surprise! - that singing/acting/whatever requires its own form of discipline to which relatively few are willing to submit.
You don't believe me? Take a newspaper article and try reading it out loud without stumbling over your teeth. It's not as easy as it sounds, yet it's only a very basic broadcasting skill.
You want to be the next Garrison Keillor because you think you're at least as good? Step right up to the mike, friend! But watch out for all the little potholes and deadfalls along the way that can only be negotiated with knowledge generally borne of experience (in other words, after paying your dues). Indeed, I think the current explosive growth in "podcasting" is going to be followed by a just as violent implosion, as legions of wannabe Frankens, and Limbaughs, and Keillors find that this stuff is Just Too Hard™.
Just as the written blog has the capability to place us ordinary citizens on an even par with "professionals" who wield the written word on a daily basis (blogs being a virtual 21st century version of Sam Colt's ingenious "Equalizer," and notwithstanding recent court decisions in California), podcasting has an analogous capability, in the audible range, to allow individuals to build audiences of listeners to rival the masses that currently listen to "established" broadcast voices in the media.
(To cut to the chase, podcasting is very much like audioblogging and making phone posts here on LJ, without the limitations. :^)
