Nels Lindahl — Functional Journal

A weblog created by Dr. Nels Lindahl featuring writings and thoughts…

Month: July 2017

  • Getting used to writing on a Chromebook

    Today may be a day full of writing. Part of this week was spent traveling to Table Rock Lake. I’m not really one for enjoying the full lake experience. That is probably not going to change any time soon. It took me a long time to get used to writing on a Chromebook.

    I’m pretty comfortable writing on my ASUS Flip C100PA Chromebook. It is possible that at some point I’ll make the switch up to the ASUS Flip C302CA. For a couple of weeks it seemed like I was going to end up buying the Samsung Chromebook Pro. The purchase was very close to happening. I actually got one preordered on on Amazon. Strangely, it did not ship and during the delay I elected to actually just stay with my C100PA for a little bit longer.

    The keyboard has a little bit of travel. Typing for a long period of time can work out ok, but the keyboard does not have any backlights. I do not really need lights on my keyboard, but it always does seem to be something that I look for as a feature.

    Today was the first day I gave streaming video no my cell phone a try. The YouTube gaming application allows streaming in 720P. It was pretty easy to accomplish. My first effort did not have enough bandwidth to work correctly. The stream kept freezing and was pretty much unwatchable. However, the second attempt at a live stream worked out ok. I must have had enough bandwidth to make it happen.

    Streaming video is interesting. Without question the written word will stand the test of time. Our video quality today will probably be obsolete within a few years. Things will probably be changing significantly over the next 5 years. Both video and images will end up being an immersive experience. It could end up having a certain degree of depth, a higher quality level, and views that span from 360 degree to spherical.

    Within the next 5 years the experience will probably still be from a single point of view. It will be from a single point in time and from a single place. The big push would be to have an immersive experience that does not conform to a fixed point in time or where the point of view can be moved around.

    Imagine taking a hike and being able to record video in a way that somebody can retrace your steps within the video, but elect to look a different way or change the progression of time to accelerate a sunset.

  • Working on a new publishing plan

    My thoughts have drifted toward doing a daily or weekly top five topic vlog. Over the last couple weeks, I have been aggregating artificial intelligence and other news links on my Twitter account. It would be pretty easy to just do a daily or weekly show that covered my Twitter feed. That would give me an opportunity to talk about things that have caught and held my attention. It could be a good way to go to produce some interesting content. Overall, my vlog experience has been interesting. It is something that helped me learn a lot about the process and a lot about how to edit video. At some point, I’m going to convert my notes on the matter to a more long form piece of writing.

    That is always the goal at this point. I have so many false start or never starts that need to be flushed out into full on prose. Even the best intentioned writer has a hard time keeping up with the tidal waves of creativity. That is a much better situation than having to break through a never ending writer’s block. Finding the topics that can compel you to write for hours a time is the key to capturing passion and using it help push things forward.

    Some issues are so engrossing that you almost feel compelled to write about them. Those are the issues you have to seize on. Those are the ones you have to push forward. Finding the spark that kicks off a writing session becomes key. It becomes about converting passion into action. That speaks to one of the central questions in how things get organized. It takes a community to push some things forward. It could be a community of place, circumstance, or issues. It takes a spark to help the community move forward toward a common goal. Given the current state of civility and the broader social fabric of the nation only a truly focused community could make progress. That type of focus cannot be discounted and it certainly cannot be sustained without a common spark that was shared between the members of the community trying to work together.

    People cared deeply about chlorofluorocarbons and took action to help protect the ozone layer. That type of focus has to be nurtured and encouraged to help solve the grand problems of our time.

  • Wondering where all my old laptops went

    It seems like a long time ago that I wrote on a Sony VAIO Laptop VGN-T250P. Some of that writing happened back in Boulder, Colorado. That seems like a long time ago. It was a much simpler time. That little laptop worked well enough. Processing power did not really stand out. Portability and the oddly cramped keyboard are the things that I remember most about it. The device was not revolutionary, but I do remember it. Over the years I have had a few laptops. Both cell phones and laptops are something that seems to get updated every few years. My latest writing system happens to be an ASUS Flip C100P. The keyboard does not have enough travel, but you get used to using it after some time.

    I’m gearing up for the 4th of July tomorrow. You could probably say that I have been slightly under the weather recently. It seems to be a rare summer cold or maybe just a bug of some type. Things like that tend to wipe me out for a little bit.

    Learning how to use Twitter took me longer than I expected. For the last couple of weeks, I have been using Twitter to share links to articles that I enjoyed reading. That seems to be a great use of Twitter. It has been working out pretty well. Sharing links is pretty easy to do and is something that I will continue to do moving forward.

    My research interests have pivoted almost exclusively to artificial intelligence. That may be a topic that is still developing, but it has enough occuring to keep me busy for years. I have contemplated developing a weekly artificial intelligence recap show on YouTube. That may be something that I give a try here soon. Sometime in the next few weeks I’ll give it a shot.

  • Keeping up with observations

    I actually got to see a Samsung Chromebook Plus at Best Buy the other day. The 3:2 screen ratio is different from what I expected. My ASUS Flip has worked fine, but I really want to move to a USB Type C system. The ASUS proprietary charging cable for the flip does not support mobile charging. We will see if I can accept the 3:2 screen ratio. I’m looking for a new daily writing computer/Chromebook to get back to producing more than 1,000 words per day.

    Writing seems like the thing to do. Writers write. The more unfortunate part of that endless wave of writing happens to be all the writing about writing. Weblogs seems to specialize in that form of banality. It could be worse. It could be Vogon poetry. We all seem to be safe from that scourge. My writing is about to focus more on producing observations. It is going to be focused on trying to make sense of complex things. That means venturing beyond the intersection of technology and modernity.

    It would be less than bold and daring to take on the observational style of Alexis de Tocqueville. Hot takes have become the epitome of social media personalities. The internet is full of hot takes. My writing style has always been a little more reserved. Our observations have to be about more than the moment. History has a certain weight about it.

    We are all keeping up with observations these days. News networks are nothing more than echos of observations past their prime. Talking heads just seem to echo news on a repeating cycle. That is pretty much the basis of cable news networks. Broadcasting news on location would be hard to manage logistically and expensive. It is much easier to report and talk about things that have happened vs. reporting about things that are actively occurring. That might seem like a small distinction, but it makes a huge difference.