Posts filed under 'Culture'
A personal invite goes out to you all for a special sneak preview of my new blog, A Study in Sherlock, set to launch tomorrow. This site is devoted to the life, times and influence of the Great Detective himself, perhaps the most famous fictional character in history.
There’s a tonne of material already in the queue, and so it’s my intention that there will be something new every weekday, and occasionally on weekends. That includes original pieces (many of which are written for newcomers to the Canon), photographs, teasers for the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, illustrations, news stories, book reviews, audio snippets, “workshop” projects (such as do-it-yourself reference cards or CDs), radio plays, and featured sites. Most of these entries are selected to offer something for neophytes, but –hopefully– also provide ample occasion for discourse amongst the more experienced.
I appreciate any and all feedback from you fine folks — a contact form can be accessed from the top menu, and the comment forms are ready to go, so please don’t be shy. I hope you enjoy!
March 12th, 2006
One of the reasons why I decided to keep a blog in the first place was to force my mind into gear and keep learning. After all, nothing obliges you to delve into a topic quite like having to share one’s thoughts and opinions about it. (The old teaching dictum: “The best way to learn is to teach.”) Of course, to stick with something long-term, you actually need to have either a personal stake in it, or a burning interest for it, if not an actual obsession. While I do have a personal stake in this blog and DIYPlanner.com, sometimes the endless marching forwards of productivity methods can get a little wearisome. The subject matter is inherently practical and work-related, never something I’d pursue to unwind or relax. (At least, not any more.)
To that end, I’m thinking of beginning a new multimedia blog. The catch? This one will be about Sherlock Holmes and his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Since I first learned to read, I’ve always been fascinated by this character. I’ve read the Canon (the 56 short stories and four novels) dozens of times, the rest of Sir ACD’s works at least two or three times, and I have shelves and shelves of scholarly books, pastiches (books in the “original style”), biographies, films, graphics, television programs, radio recordings and more. While I possess nowhere near the knowledge of most Holmes scholars (alas, I have yet to subscribe to the Baker Street Journal), I figure this is a perfect opportunity to immerse myself in a lifelong interest, become more proficient in the subject as I go along, learn to relax a little, and offer some daily illustrations, links, photographs, texts, reviews and old-time radio shows for those who follow the life and times of the Master Detective.
Everyone needs a hobby to unwind. I figure a thirty-year obsession is about as close to a persistent hobby as I get….
February 21st, 2006
About six years ago during the height of the dot-com madness, I was flown across the continent on very little notice for an e-learning consultation, and promptly placed in a high-end hotel (the type that feels no need to include “quality” in its title). Each morning the hotel would sponsor a special e-networking breakfast room for select guests, and it was here one morning that I stood, overlooking San Diego while indulging in aromatic coffees, decadent pastries and exotic fruits. There I made the acquaintance of the CEO of a newly-public company (e-something- or-other, of course), a man in his mid-twenties, just a few years younger than I, but far better-groomed and clad in clothes costing more than a luxury sedan.
The first ten minutes of the conversation was decidedly one-sided, and he went on at length about how he outsmarted his stock advisors and “stuck it to the vulture capitalists” to attain the nearly $40 million he needed to pursue his super-secret business idea (which, true be told, once he explained it to me, sounded like a flaky advertising project to create and sell ads to run within a company’s own intranet). R&D money, for him, meant wining and dining celebrities and high-powered executives in epicurean and orgiastic parties held in rented designer mansions. To determine what people actually wanted, of course.
He asked what I did, and I told him why I was there, and a little bit about my jack-of-all-trades background. He didn’t seem interesting in anything besides himself, so I kept it short. The conversation then went something like this….
“Listen, guy,” he said, mouth half-full with baklava no doubt flown in from Greece –he called everyone guy, even the women in the room– “there are two types of people in the world: the generalists and the specialists.”
I nodded, trying to hold up an tiny expresso cup in my large hands without jutting out a pinkie, because my father told me it wasn’t a manly thing to do.
“The specialists back themselves into a corner, you see. They only have one set of skills, and when those aren’t needed any more, where are they?” He awaited my response, a Socrates probing his Plato, while he picked his teeth with his forefinder and flicked the flakes ramdomly.
“Where?” I asked, cleaning off my tie in as subtle a fashion as possible.
“I’ll tell you where, guy… no where!” he exclaimed, slamming down his empty cup upon the table by way of punctuation. “But people like you and me, we’re too smart for that.”
“Are we?”
“You betcha, guy. You see, we’re the people who evolved, while others got left behind. You don’t see us running around with apes, do you?”
My mind returned to university, when a female friend of mine started dating a large and uncouth individual with an excess of body hair, but I simply shook my head.
“We’re the ones who adapt, who know enough about how everything works that we can be leaders. And leaders are leaders.”
A brilliant observation, I observed.
This went on for another ten minutes, wherein he expounded upon the virtues of those people who knew little about anything in particular, but about many things in general.
It almost made me feel good, however briefly. I had always been a generalist –I prefer the term “well-rounded”– with a hand in everything from project management to art and design, from high-tech multimedia production to marketing, from programming to teaching high school literature. I’d always adapted, often quickly, to whatever role was necessary at the moment, learning whatever skills were needed. It wasn’t a waste of time after all, I reflected.
In 2003, after the dot-com collapse had bankrupted the technology-based private college I was working for, I started going through all the business cards I had collected a few years previous, partly out of curiosity but mostly in the vain efforts to catch a few leads. The CEO’s company, like all the others, was redirected to a squatter’s perch with the pitch “This domain name is available and can be yours!”
Meanwhile, I’m still in pursuit of permanent employment with a good future, while all my specialist friends have been gainfully employed for years with decent, stable incomes. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a generalist, I’ve decided.
January 14th, 2006
You knew people like me in high school. We sat at the sides of the classroom, snug against the wall, rarely daring to be heard. Our marks were above-average, our fashion sense decidedly dated or dictated by what we received as birthday presents. We tended to be poor as jocks, soft of voice, timid in manners. We liked showing up on the last day before Christmas or Easter vacation, because we got to chat one-on-one with the teacher and other folks like us (of course, if you weren’t like us, you probably didn’t know this, but pipped off and headed to the mall or went driving around town). We saw all our crushes fall for the popular kids, and we cursed our looks and inability to fit in, and then we felt sorry for ourselves. And strangely enough, for all our supposed brains, we trembled, sweated and stuttered as we were forced to read speeches in front of the class. We were the watchers of the world, ill-fitting and uninvolved.
A recent post by Henry Sharam over at DIYPlanner concerning introversion and extroversion has me thinking about how things might have been.
If you’re an introvert with a bit of life experience under your belt, you know that thought that hits you when you drive pass a high school: “If I could deal with people then like I deal with people now, how much better could it have it been?” You’d be able to deal with the loud people. You wouldn’t be afraid to share your mind. You wouldn’t have frozen in your tracks when face-to-face with the secret object of your affections. You would have seized the brass rings.
That life experience generally comes bundled with confidence as you grow older, as you achieve a string of successes that reinforce your identity, self-discipline, and knowledge that you have something important to say. Yes, that’s all very nice, but still you wonder, what if you could have escaped the little mental and social traps of being one of the quiet ones — when you were young enough to really enjoy it?
January 6th, 2006
My big Christmas gift to myself came as a result of wandering through the Mystery section of PublicDomainTorrents.com.
While my collection of Sherlock Holmes DVDs are well rounded-out with Brett, Rathbone and others, some of the earliest films have always eluded me, and in particular those of Wontner and Owen as the Master Detective. I did find Wontner’s The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes for $1 in the discount bin at a Wal*Mart, but all three copies they had there were defective, crashing Windows and refusing to be read by either Mac OS X or Linux. So it was a pleasant surprise to trip across four Wontner and Owen films in this torrent archive (the films fell into the public domain years ago), free for download.
The quality is not the greatest, of course –these are films made in the 30’s and these copies are not taken from the masters– but they’re still a great find for me nevertheless. If you’re interested, point your BitTorrent client (I use Azureus) to PDT and catch Reginald Owen in A Study in Scarlet (1933, and bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the novel), and Wontner in The Sign of Four (1932), The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935), and Murder at the Baskervilles (1937, a.k.a., Silver Blaze). There are also a few of the Rathbone/Bruce films in the Mystery section as well, although those are somewhat easier to find elsewhere.
December 29th, 2005
When I heard that the Spielberg was going to remake the War of the Worlds, and heard some early commentators claim (mistakenly, in retrospect) that he was going to remain faithful to the original spirit of the book by H. G. Wells, I was excited. After all, this is the main who put such care and effort into recreating a different time (both physically and psychologically) for Schindler’s List, and Wells’ allegory of humanity’s Empire-building aspirations is as powerful a lesson today as it was over a century ago. Rather than consider Schindler’s List (in which Spielberg had an emotional investment) as a reference, however, perhaps I should have remembered Hook.
Herbert George Wells was like the Shakespeare of science fiction. Not the first, but the earliest person of influence, one whose works have blazed the path for the genre to come. Besides The War of the Worlds, we have The Invisible Man, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Time Machine, The First Men on the Moon, The Days of the Comet, and several other major works of fiction that still stand up today as powerful commentaries on how technology can affect our lives. In The War of the Worlds, he tackled the imperial attitude of British colonialism and expansion, usually to the detriment of native civilisations, and the chilling effects of a “higher” culture’s inherent ignorance of other races and creeds. (And, after all, isn’t this somewhat parallel to events happening in Iraq today?)
This issue is central to the book: the English, secure in their sense of superiority and complacent in their providence, cannot believe that the slow and sluggish Martians pose any threat to them. Think about how British invaders might have looked to natives of Africa and India… scrawny, pale, overdressed soldiers marching slowly shoulder-to-shoulder with bright red coats, a line of walking targets. But, oh, when the fire-power and organistion was brought to bare, things changed. And so the Martians destroyed the infinite complacency of the Londoners who thought themselves invulnerable, who were astonished by the coordinated attack of the three-legged machines with their deadly devices.
Instead of pursuing this allegory, Speilberg instead focuses on Joe Everyman (played by Tom Cruise), an ineffective father surprised by the emergence from beneath the street of alien machines, and whose struggle throughout the movie is to get his children to Boston where their mother now lives. This sets up the special effects extravaganza that is the only reason to watch the film. Humanity succumbs, but not in a moral lesson, but rather to a long series of computer-generated explosions, death rays, disintegrating bodies, and metal tentacles.
Spielberg can do adventure, and do it with aplomb. But this roller-coaster carries none of the wit or keen observations of films like E.T. or the Indiana Jones series. I was actually bored by stretches of this film because I just couldn’t learn to care for the characters.
For better versions, I’d certainly recommend the 1938 Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater broadcast that supposedly caused panic across the nation (which was truer to the original premise of the book, albeit with a complete change in format), and the 1952 film version, which at least was a lot more fun, despite the primitive special effects as compared to today. However, the book still holds up well today. A nice version with Edward Gorey drawings can be found at Amazon, and you can always download the book at Project Gutenberg if you don’t mind reading it on a computer or printing it out.
See War-of-the-Worlds.org for an overview of the many versions of this story, and The History of Mr Wells at the Fortean Times for a great article about his life and influence.
November 23rd, 2005
Anyone who has worked in video/film or larger multimedia projects knows that the tasks of scriptwriting and pre-production are not as easy as they first appear. Now, it’s not just the rigid structure of the script itself which is the only issue — if it were, the simple macros for Word, OpenOffice.org Writer and other word processors would suffice — but it’s also the need to track characters, share the script with others, write production notes, do breakdowns of scenes, characters, props, CGI, special effects, locations, and so on. And if you opt for a professional scriptwriting applications like Final Draft or Movie Magic Screenwriter, you’ll have to forfeit several hundred dollars US for applications that are often buggy, or at least outmoded by modern UI standards. So if you’re a budding screenwriter or a multimedia scripter on a limited budget, what are your options?
A few hours away from me, in the unassuming little provincial capital of Newfoundland named St. John’s (pop. about 120K), there toils a little crew pumping out some high-class software. Their flagship product, a screenwriting and pre-production application called Celtx, is something I’ve kept one eye on for a long while. (Coincidentally, I wasn’t even aware that this was a local project at first.) An Open Source application based on the Mozilla –yes, as in Firefox– code, it’s come a long way in the past year or so. When last I peeked at it, it was a very early version that proved rather slow, bug-ridden, and the cause of much aggravation when doing any degree of writing. But how it’s changed! Now, it’s a little shining star carrying with it hope for all those who have been burned by the unstable and costly Final Draft (or one’s inability to afford it in the first place).
Celtx is a comprehensive software package designed for people who work in the Film, TV, Theatre and New Media industries. It combines full-feature scriptwriting with media rich pre-production support and enables online collaboration. (celtx - Overview)
I’m seen a number of Mozilla-based applications in the past, but this one puts them all to shame. Not only doesn’t it “feel” like a browser in any way, but the functionality is, by far and away, one of the most comprehensive scriptwriting experiences I’ve ever encountered. Besides including a server synchronisation that permits others to see the script, its pre-production breakdown and database system allows you to insert text, graphics, video and audio which are all linked to the salient parts of your script. For example, when you mention a particular location, for example a park, you can have the script link directly into its database where you can keep a picture of the park and some key points to remember about it. Almost anything can be linked into this database, including props, makeup, F/X, production notes, electrics, and so on. In essence, it’s a one-stop shop to take you from writing the script all the way into pre-production — perfect for multimedia use and independent filmmakers.
And since it’s Open Source, it’s free of charge. If you’re a scriptwriter of any type, or dream of writing the great American/Canadian/etc. screenplay, be sure to check out Celtx.
November 21st, 2005
Readers of this blog will note a certain minor obsession of mine with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary creation Sherlock Holmes. Stanford University is now publishing paper and PDF facsimiles of the original stories of Sherlock Holmes exactly as they appeared in Strand Magazine, over a century ago, complete with the wonderful illustrations of Sidney Paget. You can subscribe to either version for free.
Over 12 weeks from January through April 2006, Stanford will be republishing, free of charge, two early Holmes stories, “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Speckled Band”; the nine-part novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles; and the famous “last” encounter between Holmes and Moriarty, “The Final Problem.” If you would like to receive paper facsimiles of the original magazine releases, you may sign up on our website. If you would prefer to download the facsimile as a pdf from the website, each installment will be available on successive Fridays.
Discovering Sherlock Holmes - A Community Reading Project From Stanford University
If you can’t wait, you can certainly download these stories from many different places on the Net (they are now in the public domain), including 221B Baker Street and Project Gutenberg–see Sherlockian.net for plenty more– but this is something very special. It might even make a nice little Christmas gift for the mystery fans you know.
November 17th, 2005
Even since I was let loose at the age of seven in a school library with a “paranormal” section, I’ve been captivated by Fortean phenomenon, those strange events, places and creatures that can’t easily be explained by our current body of scientific knowledge. This includes UFOs, the Sasquatch (or Bigfoot or Yeti), frogs falling from the sky in hailstones, the Bermuda Triangle, magnetic children who attract spoons, ancient astronauts, the Loch Ness Monster, well-documented ghosts, and so on. I attribute this interest to a scientific mind trapped inside a wild imagination… each incident is like a intriguing and challenging puzzle to be solved (far more interesting, at any rate, than those “one car leaves from Toronto going east at 60 km/h, and another…” style problems) .
But despite the strange things reported at sites like the Fortean Times –a quality magazine, by the way, striking a good balance of skepticism and weirdness– I’ve noticed that a lot of the stranger things have fallen off the map in recent years. At first, I just related it to a certain boredom in such matters among the public, the same tediousness of topic that doomed series like the X-Files. After all, the Net should allow people interested in such things to connect and grow, right? Well, that’s partially right, and it did happen that way about a decade ago. But a new piece over at TCS: Tech Central Station - Internet Killed the Alien Star helps to put things into perspective.
The Internet processes all truth and falsehood in just this fashion. Wild rumors and dubious pieces of evidence are quick to circulate, but quickly debunked. The Internet gives liars and rumor mongers a colossal space in which to bamboozle dolts of every stripe — but it also provides a forum for wise men from all across the world to speak the truth. Over the long run, the truth tends to win.
Great food for thought, especially given the number of bloggers today who comment upon –and attempt to debunk– anything that hits the news. Are we learning to be more critical?
On the other hand, one can bring up the notion of Intelligent Design as science, or a bamboozled public when it comes to giving up one’s fundamental rights, even to the extent of allowing torture….
November 10th, 2005
Back in 1986, during my last year of high school, there was a radio trivia contest to win tickets to a concert. I didn’t have much money, but I really wanted to go see this particular group, so I sat myself beside the radio one Monday morning, phone in hand, and waited. Now, my head has always been overflowing with completely useless information –probably more so at that time in my life– so I knew I stood just as good a chance as anybody else. Finally, they asked the question: “What was David Bowie’s theatrical rock-star persona backed by the Spiders from Mars?” I dialed as quickly as I could, but (hampered by my old rotary phone, no doubt) I was not the first, and so didn’t win the tickets. For three more mornings, I did the same, each time knowing the answer, but failing to be the first to call. On that Friday, however, the question was much harder: “Whose band did Canadian singer Gowan borrow for the recording of his Strange Animal LP?” This time I won the tickets. (The answer, by the way, is Peter Gabriel, who was recording in the same studio around the same time.)
I was proud of my accomplishment, elated by that vindication of the sheer width and breadth of the mostly impractical data stogged tight into my brain. It seems a little foolish in retrospect, but the accumulation of knowledge was –for me– the most distinguishing facet of my self-identity.
Back then, information was far less transitory. I remember reading and studying endlessly, trying to retain every nugget of information I could, whether it was useful or not. Now, I have become lazy. When a question is asked and I don’t know the response, a quick search on the Net will generally take me directly to the right information. The question answered, the details then drop away from my mind, and I usually forget it completely. I suspect most people do this nowadays, relying upon the Net far more than memory. When someone dials a friend from Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, are they really choosing their most knowledgeable friend, or simply the fastest with Google? Who would you phone?
I have a very large library, encompassing thousands of books and covering hundreds of topics (many quite obscure), and I’m very proud of it. The problem is, sometimes I neglect to use it. The other night, I spent the better part of an hour Googling for information about tree identification. I found lots of bits and pieces, but little of any coherent and wide-ranging coverage. Then I realised… there were several books on the bookshelf behind me concerning that very topic. Yes, I can be oblivious at time, but in this case I think it was more a matter of how technology is changing the way I seek and retain knowledge. My need for a “quick fix” led me to a search engine, and not the shelves.
All of this makes me a little concerned for students today. True, the Internet is probably the best resource possible for scholars and teachers: the world’s largest conceivable library, with mostly free access to almost any snippet of information mere moments away. But with so much data, so free-flowing, has information become a mere tool, like pencils and erasers, fit for the moment and then quickly discarded once beyond its utility?
One might make the point that there was no guarantee that students would remember information culled from a paper encyclopedia, or that they might retain information of no pertinent and practical usage. But information was harder to come by, and –I believe– dissected slower. They say that in 1900, we encountered 1000 pieces of significant information per six months. In 1960, it was within one week. Today, it’s within one hour. How much knowledge can we actually retain when our “seven plus or minus two” short-term memories have to constantly filter, direct and trash most of that data?
It also begs a question: which is better, the instant access to vast quantities of lower-quality (on average, that is) information, or the more difficult access to rarer quantities of high-quality information? A Google search, or the hefty Encyclopaedia Britannica up on the library shelves? The accumulated and often erroneous perspective of thousands of writers, or the careful crafting and fact-checking by a skilled few? (This, of course, is one of the main reasons given by the Britannica company for continuing to use their rather costly work instead of the Net at large, and especially the Wikipedia.)
I wonder how long will it be before each student carries PDAs that display answers to any common question at the click of a button? (The time is almost here, I know.) Where, then, will that lead the education system, and how can it adjust to the notion of near-instantaneous research replacing memory?
I’ve been spending a lot of time recently wondering about this, how our educational tools might better compensate for new ways of learning, filtering information and retaining useful knowledge. Many minds far greater than mine are occupied by these same thoughts, I would guess.
Hmm… perhaps I can Google for them….
October 7th, 2005
The past few days, I’ve been waylaid with a bad back, and have had to seriously curtail my computer usage. This has left me rather stir-crazy. It’s difficult to be very productive when you’re lying down and barely able to move. I don’t tend to watch much TV, and my eyes were getting quite tired from too much reading. Thankfully, I had a great way to spend the time, and one that requires little or no money: Old Time Radio. Read on if you’re interested in trying something that puts most audio books to shame.
Back in the days B.C. (Before Cable), over 25 years ago, I had a little treasure. My father, who had grown up in the late 1930’s and the 40’s, had often waxed sentimental about the radio shows he had heard as a kid. The mere mention of the Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Jack Benny, Amos and Andy, and The Green Hornet would send him drifting back to his youth. In the late 1970’s, when I was still in elementary school, he came across a magazine ad from a company called Radio Reruns that produced cassette tapes with classic episodes of the old series. The selection seemed huge at the time: there were about 100 for sale. He ordered a dozen, and when they arrived, we sat down with my clunky Tandy tape recorder (you’ve seen the type gathering dust in pawn shops, each one the better part of a shoebox in size) and listened to each one in turn. It was one of the few times we had ever really bonded. I had never heard of the shows, but The Shadow, Inner Sanctum, Suspense, and the others captured my imagination like nothing else up to that time. In the following years, I heard them each a hundred times or more, and I knew every line by rote.
A few years ago, Dad asked me if I could jump on the Internet and find out the names of the actors that played The Shadow (I think a Jeopardy question got the gears of his mind churning). Sure enough, I found a list of the half-dozen actors, but I found much more besides: a whole community that pursues the hobby of OTR (Old Time Radio) in the efforts to preserve both the pleasures and the recordings of the almost-extinct medium. Within a few days, I was able to track down almost every existing Shadow broadcast in MP3 form. After listening to a few of them, the fever had started, and I branched out to collecting the great old horror/thrillers like Inner Sanctum, Quiet Please, Suspense and The Whistler. From there, I started collecting classic science fiction like Dimension X and X Minus One (many episodes of which were top-notch dramatisations of stories by Bradbury, Asimov, Pohl and Heinlein). Then there were the various versions of Sherlock Holmes and other mystery shows. And so on, and so on, and so on. In all, over a few years, I collected over 3000 shows of almost every type and quality. I sent many back to Dad, burnt onto CD’s, and hopefully it awakened a few pleasant memories before he passed away.
Nowadays I always keep a few radio shows on my Palm to listen to, as the mood strikes. When people ask me if I know any good audiobooks to toss on an MP3 player, I never hesitate to send along a few shows. True, the ownership of the copyrights is is rather murky, with few people in agreement, but this has never been an issue for me. Regardless, the shows are easy enough to find if you look hard enough.
It was only a matter of time before a group stepped forward to ready these shows for podcasts. Radio Memories offers several shows a week, covering a number of various genres. If streaming radio is your thing, Live365 has quite a number of OTR choices in their directory. If you want to sample a series, see the amazing list of shows at OTRCat: each one has a free episode for download. (The price of his MP3 CDs are hard to beat –as little as 5 cents a show– and it’s a heck of a lot easier than tracking down individual shows for download.)
As you might expect the sound quality of radio shows from the 30’s to 50’s is quite variable. The ones that have come down to us on E.T.’s (electronic transcriptions, like really big vinyl records) are generally excellent, while the ones recorded from radios onto reel-t0-reel tape are… um, less excellent. The volume drops and static are quite authentic, and –if you hear it in this light– can take you back in time. The quality of the shows’ content can be just as variable. Some are quite tepid compared to today’s radio offerings, and there are instances that are far from political correctness. It’s important to see the shows in the context of the time. This isn’t to say that there aren’t quite a number of great series available for your listening pleasure, no matter what your interests.
Probably the most famous broadcast is Orson Welles’ production of War of the Worlds, as first heard on the Mercury Theatre on the Air, October 30, 1938. This broadcast allegedly caused mass hysteria among the populace that tuned in, because many believed that the drama was actually a real news broadcast covering an invasion from Mars. If you haven’t yet heard this historic show, pop on over to OTRCat and download yourself a copy (look for the little radio mid-page). It’s a lot of fun, and a great introduction to OTR.
When you listen to these, be sure to sit in a quiet room, turn up the volume, close your eyes, and fall deeply into the broadcast. Listen to a show like Quiet Please (and especially The Thing on the Fourble Board) in a dark room in the dead of night, and I guarantee you an experience like none other.
June 16th, 2005
“You see,” he explained, “I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”
- Sherlock Holmes to Watson during their first case, A Study in Scarlet
From hints in the Canon, I’m positive that Holmes nurtured a own home-grown content management system (CMS) of notes, newspaper clippings, pages torn from journals, snippets from medical textbooks, monographs on fingerprints and head measurements, observations on mud types and tobacco ashes, criminal trial transcriptions, and so on. Some of this was no doubt kept in his “attic” for casework, but there was much that didn’t fit (such as the fact that the Earth revolved about the sun, he claimed) and –should a pertinent nugget need to be recalled to solicit a possible solution for a case– that would require safekeeping for ready reference and analysis later.
I’ll leave the theorising as to whether Holmes would even bother with computers in this day and age to those Baker Street professionals who take great joy in debating such topics. However, I can’t help but wonder what sort of system he, as a knowledge worker, would utilise today.
I guess one might refer to me as a “knowledge worker” in the purer sense of the term (if you can indeed filter out the buzzword poisoning). Most of my time is spent instructing, consulting, preparing coursework, developing (mainly educational) multimedia, researching, writing, and coming up with solutions to uncommon problems. To do this requires a tremendous body of knowledge and information, very little of which I can actually retain in the little attic of my mind. Over the past few years, I’ve tried quite a number of ways to store and retrieve information, and they all have their pros and cons. In particular, I am very impressed with Tinderbox and the way in which it leverages agents, queries which act upon its freeform database and associated metadata to produce groups of links to items that match (and that can be further utilised in other scripts, like exporting to HTML for a website). However, I’ve never been able to find a content management system that also does an excellent job of handling non-textual media and concordance –finding items that are similar, based upon word relationships drawn out by context. That is, until now. Its name is DEVONthink.
Because of the necessity for heavy-duty content management in a recent contract, I’ve spent quite a bit of quality time recently with DEVONtechnologies’ DEVONthink. I had tried the 1.7 series a while back, and found it rather lacking for my purposes. However, the most recent versions have seen quantum leaps forward, especially with a number of features that are helped along by Apple’s new Safari/WebKit and OS X 10.4.x. While the basic DEVONthink 1.9.3 is quite suitable for most purposes (especially since it has received a number of features hitherto reserved for the behind-schedule Pro version), the professional version certainly piques my interest. I spent a week exploring the demo of the standard version, and the past few month using the DEVONthink Pro beta. While the latter is definitely not quite ready for prime time –there are quite a number of minor glitches, and some features that are not implemented or honed yet– I think I can say with a great degree of certainty that this is the type of application for which I have been searching several years.
Obviously, my needs may not be the same as yours. Here is a list of the most important criteria upon which I must determine an application’s suitability for knowledge management, at least for my purposes, and how DEVONthink (or DTPro) fills those needs.
- Full textual support: This goes without saying, since most of my material will be text in some way. The system should make allowances for plain text, RTF and HTML, and be able to somehow import Word .DOC and PDF files without too many extra steps. Reading this material should be easy on the eyes, with decent aliased fonts, multiple zoom levels and various ways of viewing information (for example, outline views vs 3-pane views).
DT has no problem with the cut-and-paste, import and writing of plain text, RTF and HTML. For example, I can copy a body of text from a web page (in Safari) or a word processor, and paste it straight into an RTF page in DT. It retains most formatting, links, colours, and even graphics. The Word import uses OS X’s native text conversion abilities to translate .DOC files into RTF, and PDF files are likewise no problem. Since DT is a native Cocoa application, you have full font anti-aliasing, and can use styles for paragraph spacing and so forth. Multiple font sizes and zooms are available, and there are several views for laying out the various panes to show information in different ways (with extra views available in DTPro).
- Web integration: A goodly portion of my digital information comes to me via webpages, either as snippets of data that I trip across in online journals, wikis, blogs, news articles or static pages, or via email, most of which I read in a browser using Gmail. All of this needs to collected and categorised with due attribution (URL, date, author, etc.).
There are a number of mechanisms for important web-based data into DT, depending on what you want and how you want it. For example, I can drop an URL straight from Safari into a DT group (that is, a topic folder). Clicking on that item will then call up a webpage live for browsing. I can then right-click and “Capture Page”, which saves a local copy of the page as an archive, complete with graphics. Or, I can select some text and –via an provided AppleScript– send the text/graphics to a new text or RTF entry, or even append to an existing one. I can also use scripts to send the page straight from Safari to a selected or predefined group within DT. Any type of URL import or capture will also save a copy of the exact URL as metadata, so you know exactly where it came from, and can refresh to a new copy if you wish. (Note: because Firefox is not a 100% Cocoa application, it doesn’t support a number of OS X services and abilities that Safari does. This means that I’ve actually been spending far more time in the latter lately; it hasn’t been too unpleasurable.)
I should mention that DEVONtechnologies sells a product called DEVONagent, a web search agent which is supposed to integrate quite well with DT in ways beyond a standard browser. While I did download the demo for it, I must admit that I haven’t spent more than an hour with the application: I’m so familiar with the strengths and foibles of Google that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around why I’d user another application to search. However, given how strong the company’s other offerings are, I have no doubt that I’ll devote some time to it in the future. (The two are available as a bundle from DEVONtechnologies’ shop.)
- Non-textual file support: I also create or use a number of other files, including various graphic formats, PDF files, OPML, video, audio, spreadsheets, charts, presentations, and so on. These need to be stored, categorised and annotated.
This is one of the areas where DT really shines over many of its competitors. You can drag any of these files straight into DT and –depending on your settings– either link to the originals, have them copied into the DT file storage, or insert them directly into the database itself. Scripts allow items to be added from the Finder as well. PDF files can be converted into regular text for indexing, and you can view the PDF files right inside of DT. Graphics are displayed as thumbnails, and you can view full size or zoomed versions. Any QuickTime-supported video or audio file can be viewed inside the system as well. DT seems to have support for more file types than any other application I’ve tried so far; file formats that are unknown are simply linked into DT for viewing in external programs, but you can add annotations, comments, etc., for searching, and then classify and categorise them appropriately.
- Writing tools This system should ideally hold my writings, as I consider them as another part of the work I must collate and reference. In peak form, I write over 20 original pages a day, and need an application that does not impede my flow, but yet has enough capability that I’m not aggravated by a lack of basics. As such, I need a simple word processor that can accept the occasional graphic or chart, and the system should certainly allow me to view multiple files at the same time (a major fault with a couple of other applications that I’ve tried). Also, I don’t want tools distracting me or getting in my way: I need to concentrate on content, not fonts or ligatures.
DT has a good balance of writing tools, in my opinion. If I’m writing in RTF, I can choose to show the “Ruler”, which has controls for styles, spacing, lists and justification. I can turn on the “spell-check as I write”, do a find/replace, insert graphics easily, choose fonts, do highlighting and so forth. However, there aren’t a half-dozen panels splattered all over my screen to distract me from the task at hand: writing. DTPro also has a full-screen mode, all the rage amongst writers nowdays seeking to avoid distraction.
One handy writing feature I have to mention is DT’s wiki abilities. You can create wiki links to items within the database quite easily, and even give a document multiple aliases that allow you to reference it under different names (which Pascal Vernier notes is handy for uses like bibliographies).
- Rapid data entry and management: All the above needs to be stored, categorised and catalogued extremely quickly, within seconds. I cannot spend all my time cutting and pasting, adding keywords, creating meta-tags, and massaging information to fit.
In addition to the cut-and-paste and import tools mentioned above, DT has many ways to create items, as well as a fairly easy classification system to push items into the right topic. (It has an auto-classify feature that I don’t dare turn on yet, but later I’ll get up my courage.) Once an item is imported or entered, you can Cmd-Shift-I to see its info box, and add comments, aliases, an URL and so forth. This is mainly only needed if the content is not text (and therefore difficult to index).
- Nested topics: There should be multiple tiers of topics, subtopics, subsubtopics, and so on, so I can group information how I see fit, and drill down to an appropriate snippet in the hierachy. For example: “Technology -> Education -> Learning Management Systems -> Open Source LMS -> Moodle”. My “sweet spot” seems to be four or five tiers deep.
This was one of the major problems I had with AquaMinds’ Notetaker. I wanted to be able to create nested topics, but wasn’t able to go any deeper than sections, subsections and pages. Sure, I could put different topics into different “notebooks” and select each one from the library, but that didn’t seem to be too wholistic to me, nor condusive to the ways in which I manage information. DT allows me to nest topics quite deep, and so I can categorise and group topics in a neatly-maintained taxonomic hierarchy.
- System integration: There should not only be an easy way of storing information from the file system, but also retrieving information (i.e., copying data) into the file system. For example, a graphic could be dragged from the application straight into a folder for synchronising with a webserver. Synchronisation with an external file folder would be an added bonus.
To store information from the file system, either use an import script or drag and drop the item from the Finder into the appropriate place in DT. To move items out, simply drag the item from DT into the Finder. I tried this with a mounted FTP server, and was easily able to upload a graphic right from DT to my webserver. DTPro also has a file synchronisation feature forthcoming, whereby it can “watch” a folder and sync files to and from DTPro to the folder.
- Data surety: The system should allow for peace of mind via: a) intermittent (preferably user-defined) back-ups; and b) easy export to non-proprietary forms, like RTF, HTML, JPG and so on.
DT standard allows you to back up and optimise the database whenever you want. (You can set the preferences to say how many back-ups you wish to keep.) Also, the folks at DEVON Technologies believe that your data shouldn’t be held captive, and that’s a refreshing change from the multitude of commercial applications that hold your work hostage within a locked-in proprietary system (forcing upgrades, enforcing loyalty, and so forth). With this in mind, they allow you to easily export folders and files. Personally, I’ve only tried this once, but it seemed to work well. You can also concatenate entries; for example, you can write chapters of a novel in several different documents, select them all, and then export them as one RTF file.
- Semantic “searching” of material: The search should be smart enough to find items by meaning, not just exact words or regular expressions. For example, a search for “primate” should also find texts that contain ape, monkey, chimpanzee and so forth, but not necessarily contain the word “primate” itself. This semantic connection can be made either through concordance derived from context, or from dictionary lists. In either case, it should be very fast.
This seems to be a particular strength of DEVONthink on OS X (and Nota Bene on Windows, someone mentioned to me). Concordance in DT seems to be generated based upon words in a similar context. For example, it’s quite natural that articles about primates would also use the words “ape”, “monkey” and so on, and the proximity of these words within articles would indicate a relationship. Or so the theory goes: it sounds perfectly sound to me. The only problem with this is that the concordance must be built over time: the more text and articles you create or import, the better the system becomes as recognising these relationships. At first, it’s a little hit-or-miss. That being said, the thousand or so articles I have within my system have already led to a drastic improvement in DT’s ability to find similar pieces.
Speaking of seaches, this is one area in which I find fault in DT’s current version: non-semantic searching. The base search function allows you to find exact words via ALL or ANY, a phrase (words in an exact order), or wild cards. However, it lacks decent boolean and more advanced search techniques. For example, I’d like to search for primate AND (monkey* OR chimpanzee*) NOT ‘a million monkeys typing’. Mind you, I’m sure that this would require quite a bit of CPU as your database swells in size, but it’s very hard to refine word searches otherwise. I hear that DT is getting the boolean search capabilities of its counterpart DEVONagent, so this is definitely a step in the right direction.
- Smart folders: I need to be able to find, group and save items gathered from the system, essentially query result lists that refer to items stored elsewhere. For instance, I might have a smart folder called Primates that contains all the articles found in the search mentioned above. Whenever I click on this folder, I should see all the relevant items from all throughout the system on this topic in one place.
This is a feature in DEVONthink Pro. It consists of groups (folders) which automatically “trigger” AppleScripts whenever they are opened. This script can be a regular query, a request to download feeds, a gathering of to-do items with checkboxes (theoretically, as I haven’t tried this) and so on. However, because the current beta of DTPro is currently lacking meaningful metadata capabilities and therefore the ability to search using it, it can only find items by querying regular content and comments. From perusing the forums and the README file, it would appear that keywords, tags, categories and (hopefully) the ability to search using this information is forthcoming. In an email to Eric Boehnisch-Volkmann, President of DEVONtechnologies, I asked about this. He responded:
The final version of DEVONthink Professional shall feature categories, that could be used for what you’re suggesting, and a future version is supposed to also have the possibility to add custom metadata fields.
- Alternate data forms: Although I definitely require a freeform database, it is sometimes helpful to have a more structured form for storing and manipulating data, like that you might use for a bibliographic entry, a contact, or an application form.
The DTPro betas have just started to incorporate something like this. It certainly shows promise, but I’m going to hold off expressing any opinions until it’s more complete.
- Dependable developers: The system should be developed by a team whom I can trust, and they should respond well to user feedback, incorporate improvements on a frequent basis, and be dedicated to the product for the long term.
The owner, chief developer and an “evangelist” hang out on the DEVONtechnologies Forum, and take time, effort and care to respond to users. Ideas for future additions to the application are often acknowledged with gratitude, problems tend to be quickly solved, and (although there aren’t a lot of members) there appears to be a sense of community at work. Regarding frequent improvements to the software, I can personally vouch for the vast number of changes since the 1.7 version not so long ago, and few point versions I’ve seen and used lately have demonstrated a continual commitment to adding functionality and addressing user concerns. True, the Pro version is quite a bit behind schedule, but many of the Pro-only features have actually been added to the standard version in the meantime, so users certainly shouldn’t feel neglected.
In passing, I just wanted to mention a particular topic in the forum: it was announced that DEVONtechnologies had a new partial owner, a U.S. firm who does work as a contractor to the Pentagon. Now, you can imagine the feelings of many international (and more liberal American) users: the thought of doing business with a company that has anything to do with the Iraq war, the prison scandals, bullying (”You’re either with us or against us”) and an irrefutable record of power-mongering and curtailing of personal freedoms, well… it’s not unforseen that strong opinions and resentment should occur. The president of the firm posted his feelings on the matter and how his company was handling the situation, and his posts were passionate and devoid of the PR spin that I had half-expected. I must say that not only did I overcome any feelings of apprehension, but I actually formed a much stronger sense of respect and trust in them.
- A dedicated tool: I want a tool for managing information, not planning my schedule, laying out newsletters, retouching red-eye, or finding studs in my wall. I simply want a quick and powerful system to store, annotate, categorise, organise and retrieve multiple types of data.
Although I’m sure that some AppleScript or Automator wizards will no doubt be able to twist DEVONthink to do many things (a little AppleScript that’s provided to translate languages is a nice example), its central focus is on managing and organising information, not creating blogs, setting up GTD, or any other peripheral task. Although some people will no doubt push the application in innovative ways, the DEVONtechnologies folks know where their primary focus lies.
Please note that the above is not a slight against an application like Tinderbox, which is extremely powerful and adaptable (and –with the proper encouragement, scripts and attachments– could act, no doubt, as a stud-finder). The point is, I want a freeform database that’s easy to use with many types of data without extra clicks, writing import/export scripts, many hours of (albeit pleasurable) experimentation, or being distracted by all kinds of alluring but complicated geek tools, all stock-in-trade of Tinderbox. In effect, Tinderbox is much like the Emacs of personal content management systems. But, like Emacs, its power and peculiar ways of doing things are often far too complex for simple tasks. DEVONthink, on the other hand, lets me concentrate on gathering, creating and organising content with intuitive and almost reflexive methods.
- OS X friendly: While I would generally prefer for the system to be cross-platform and server-enabled for multiple users, my main “hunting and gathering” machine is a Mac, and so this application should at least take advantage of Mac OS X services, scriptability, integration, and other enhancements.
This is one of the major reasons why I ultimately chose DEVONthink instead of Tinderbox. True, the latter can be controlled via powerful internal scripting variables, agents and other mechanisms (witness how people can actually produce quite functional blogs with the tool), but it is not aware of the Cocoa services and AppleScripting that make working with DEVONthink such a joy. For example, I can drag an “import droplet” into my dock, and whenever I drag a file from my Finder onto it, DEVONthink will copy it into the DT database directories, index the contents, and even create RTF/text from certain types of binary files like PDF and Word docs. The application has an embedded (Safari) web browser, and can view pages right in the main window, as well as capture full web pages –complete with graphics– for offline or archival use. It works with Tiger’s PDFKit to view and manipulate PDF files. It uses OS X’s WebKit to allow you to create HTML files right in the application, with access to source coding. You can cut-and-paste material from a Cocoa browser like Safari, and all formatting and graphics can be preserved. With the new Pro betas, there are quite a lot of AppleScripts included to use and learn from; the AppleScript dictionary for it is quite impressive. In other words, it is very OS X friendly, and a good citizen.
So there you have it. Aside from a few issues surrounding searching and metadata, which are currently in development, DEVONthink fits my criteria almost perfectly.
Dealing with a CMS should be a long-term commitment. Once you have begun to insert entries, categorise data, and feed it daily, the last thing you want to do is export the whole mess and start again with something else. It is a sign of my high opinion of DEVONthink Pro that –for the first time– I feel perfectly comfortable in entering all my more important data into it without any apprehension of a time when I’d switch to something else. (Although, since the application is still in beta, I’m not foolish enough not to back up the my daily.)
So there you have it. A great personal content management system that is able to handle almost any type of data and find those relevant associations that aid and enrich almost any project. It is an infinite and well-organised attic. Holmes, I think, would appreciate DEVONthink Pro.
May 22nd, 2005
One of the more interesting quizzes I’ve done, but then again I’m a history nut: Your Medieval Personality Type. My results were:
You are a “bilious” Choleric, with an abundance of yellow bile (believed to have originated in the kidneys). Cholerics are characterized by the element of Fire, the season of Summer, early adulthood, the color fiery red, and the characteristics of “Hot” and “Dry.” Famous Cholerics include St. John the Baptist, St. Paul, and St. Ignatius of Loyola.
If you were living in the Age of Faith, perfect career choices for you would be Crusader (leader of the Crusades, of course), the knighthood, King, mayor, head of a guild, founder of a new religious order, or housewife or father with a well-organized, well-behaved brood, each of whom you expect to excel.
Of course, most of the above “career choices” would generally necessitate being born into the upper echelons of a tight class structure (a statistical improbability), but it’s an interesting quiz nonetheless. There’s a full page on each personality type, so you can suck in a bit of medieval “psychology” when you’re finished. There are also comparisons therein to historical figures and the Bible (hey, it’s a Catholic site).
Please, no comments on the implications of “Crusader”… it’s been done.
February 14th, 2005
Ah, ’tis a wonderful accessory for your planner that allows you to read the great literary classics in two pages or less. Save yet more time in your busy schedule. FranklinCovey: Compact Classics Book Summaries:
Compact Classics’ 130 book summaries — with works ranging from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Road Less Traveled — are just right for leisure reading. These summaries, coupled with an additional 90 research overviews, make for great reading — wherever you love to read.
The English teacher trapped inside me is very sad….
February 8th, 2005
When I was nine, I remember the quasi-religious experience of going into my grandfather’s room, huddling up in front of the radioactive television set (we had only two channels, by the way), and sitting in complete awe watching the original Battlestar Galactica series unfold. There was nothing else like it at the time on television –Star Trek? — puh-lease… that was for kids– and I got caught up in the action, the allusions to ancient Greek and Eqyptian legend, the bouts of humour, and the almost-oppressive atmosphere of the rag-tag fleet’s continual flight from the deadly machines that were the Cylons. It was a new mythology for me, one connected with both the past and the future, and it was fascinating.
Like many others, especially those who have closely followed Richard Hatch (the original Apollo) and his struggle to convince the powers-that-be to launch a continuation of the original series, I awaited the new “re-imagined” Battlestar Galactica with an overwhelming sense of dread. Would it be a complete disaster? Would it wipe out, in one stroke, so much of the pleasure I derived from the series as a child? Would it look like yet another modern Star Trek rip-off, filled with female aliens in skin-tight costumes, weak plots, and boring politically-correct lead characters?
Lately, I’ve had the occasion to watch the two-part miniseries of the new Battlestar Galactica and all 13 episodes of the series.
In a word… wow.
I must admit that the new series –while being completely unlike the earlier– is one of the best-written shows I’ve ever seen. I’m also a fan of Babylon 5, but even that now seems a little too “slick” by comparison to the gritty “reality-style” filming, plots and acting of the new series. The characters are well fleshed-out and the situations real enough to identify with — for example, political power struggles, father-son issues, torrid relationships, alcoholism, religion and interpersonal blow-ups. There’s enough action and suspense to keep you on the edge of your seat, there’s enough plot threading through the series to keep you involved, and there’s enough subtle emotional tug-of-war to make you really feel for all these people.
By far, one of the biggest issues that fans of the original series were lamenting was the re-imagining of Starbuck, originally and ably played by the charismatic Dirk Benedict, as a woman. Yes, a woman! The horror! The cowboy-esque role-model for a generation of thirty-something males is now a woman! Psychoanalists are no doubt grinning with the possibilities. Strangely enough, the new Starbuck is sufficiently macho enough to pull this off. She takes the original to a whole new level through a kick-ass, defiance-of-authority attitude. And, unlike most other stereotypical kick-ass women in the shows today, she (like everybody else) can screw up regularly. That’s one of the “reality” bits that makes this show so watchable.
I only have one complaint about the show. Guys, would it have killed you to inject a little humour every now and then? We cry, we cheer, we cringe, we pity… but we almost never laugh. The oppressiveness is nigh-overwhelming. I am fully aware that the writing and filming is carefully contrived to evoke this atmosphere, and that’s well done indeed. But humanity is humanity because we can display a whole range of emotion, and especially in the worst of times, a sense of humour can take our courage, inspiration and perceptive faculties to a whole new level. By avoiding the subtleties and intricacies of humour, the scriptwriters are taking the easy way out. And the abilities clearly demonstrated through the wonderful scripts show them capable enough to tackle this all-too-important aspect of human nature and survival. Please, for season two…?
By the way, there’s a nifty DVD shoot-out between the old series and the new mini-series over at DVDTalk.
January 31st, 2005
Previous Posts