Ramblings and webcomics from LeEMS
I marked my calendar, but I still lost track of time and Mini-Comics Day 2013 is on March 24th!
I don’t know what I’m going to do! I have no earthly idea….wait, I’m having an idea. Maybe I’ll actually be ready for Mini Comics Day. Except, I did not get extra color ink for my printer. Hmmm, have a day to fix that though.
edit: What?! I post nothing but a link? This looks like spam. This is totally not spam, though I have no idea what was going through my head, scheduling this when it wasn’t nearly done. What is Mapping History, you might wonder. It is a fabulous, educational, internetal device that shows the passing of history via maps. I love maps, and I love history. Did you know that I had planned my first ever book to be a discussion of the evolution of battle strategy? No, I know you didn’t. But it’s true. Mapping History will give you hours and hours of diversion while also teaching you something. I recommend it heartily.
Another story that I had been sitting on is up on the Bean, only not completely sitting. I printed up some copies of “Peachtree” one year for Christmas and bound them and made cloth covers and gave them away. I didn’t manage to make one for my own shelves, though. I’ll have to fix that. So now ya’ll can read it too. “Peachtree” is a story about another town in Ocean End. Have you noticed a theme by now? After writing Penelope Sea and Ocean End, I got to thinking about the environment, and I got to reading more Carl Sandburg, and then I got to writing about the non Penelope Sea bits of Ocean End. I should probably write more. I might even just do that.
That wife that Richard of DM is talking about is me. Yes, I am that LeEtta, and I wrote an article for doomedmoviethon, that Richard just talked about on the Cinema Somnambulist, and it is: Vampire Cheese Board.
I am finally back in the saddle of keeping up with my fellow library schmucks and I’ve scrolled through enough news items for the ‘e-books not print books,’ ‘death of libraries in face of digital materials,’ ‘no one has personal libraries anymore’ chants to finally give me a headache. I understand it’s posh and edgy to make such sweeping pronouncements but it’s only done to get a rise. I mean, isn’t it? You all don’t really believe that digital literature will replace all things print?
Lo and behold, my personal library. I weed it often but it never decreases appreciably in size. And you know what? My collection of digital literature, some duplicating but most unique, is probably growing to be just as big. Arguments abound from people who rose to the bait of the digital over physical headlines generally go like this:
PRO Digi:
PRO Print:
I find I use print and digital books in different ways. I used to keep list of books I wanted to read but didn’t have the time right now, you know, the ones libraries don’t reliably carry. Now I buy the e-book because, although it is a purchase, it seems like less of a commitment. It doesn’t take space in my home and when I am done with it, deleting it will feel a whole lot less of a waste than trying to donate a print copy in a responsible way. E-books equal easy to dispose equals somehow easier to buy. I buy print books when I know I will want to revisit the thing many many times, when I know I will want to lend it to a friend. A lot of my print collection is picture heavy, harkening back to a standard print pro. Increasingly my print collection houses several indie publications, not only rare for their small printing, but because the indie comic and zine making community is still very hands on.
People who cultivate personal libraries will probably just add digital material to their print collecting. Libraries are a multimedia experience after all. People who bought the best seller, or the book their friend recommended, to read and then discard, or sit on an ignored shelf in the family room, will probably move their habits to digital if inclined in that direction. My point: there is no either or decision to be made, and each circumstance will be different for each consumer. If we’re talking about publishers making calls to best sell/market their material, maybe format on demand will be the fashion, where the consumer can choose what format they would like at checkout.
Finally, I buy print because when the big electromagnetic bombs go off and plunge our world back into the middle ages, I am going to have the most kickin’ access to entertainment all in my spare room.
And I don’t like to erase, apparently. At least, I don’t like to erase on doodles. But, aren’t they cute?!
Boo Hoo, Google Reader is going away. Allow me to do something that thousands of other people are doing right now: look at a bunch of replacements.
What I already like: folder organization, bulk ‘mark read’ for the times when I need to catch up by missing stuff, being able to view one feed at a time instead of having everything in a pot (i like to read feeds in an order that has no bearing outside my head), show only unread or not.
What I went looking for: web based, because I move around, and not requiring any download because: hassle. This had the effect of eliminating a lot of options, so if you like browser add-ons and such I suggest looking at things like Feedly (which is getting a lot of recommendations right now).
What I looked at:
FeedBooster – has an easy import feature and allows you to browse by folder, but amalgamates all posts within a folder to one stream of content. Bad for me because: webcomics. NOT FOR ME.
FeedReader – no categorization or organization. Everything in the pot and no import feature that I could find. Thus no picture. NOT FOR ME.
Netvibes – more like a replacement for iGoogle, which has been plastered with messages about future unavailability for ages. At a cube for each feed it’s not going to suite my needs. But, wait, on second look….there is a reader list style reading pane as well. Reading something makes it disappear, so there is no going back? Posts work like an inbox – open to read, check box on the side for actions. The best part: dashboard templates for changing themes and organizations. The worst part is premium accounts for sale. I always find that, though free versions might give you some thing to play with [the Brain], they always end up being frustrating in some way. This is the only such reader I really checked out, I passed up all others with the paid accounts schema. MAYBE FOR ME? SECOND CHOICE.
The Old Reader – still in beta and a little busy to give me any immediate gratification on trying it out, but I am hopeful. The tour looks like it has everything I already like, in fact, was made to replace just those things. Plus there’s hints of social networking with other people using The Old Reader. I think I am interested in this though I don’t know how I’d use it. I’m going to say that THIS IS IT. I only hope they don’t crash because of mass migration.
Hello, I was jumping around on the internets and read this fabulous ‘fat acceptance’ article by Marianne Kirby at xoJane. I quote ‘fat acceptance’ ’cause I never heard of such a movement before. I just thought it was about liking yourself in opposition to everything that people say to you. But fat is regarded crazy ill in this country, so I’m glad there are people out there like Marianne Kirby to write about it in a touching, elegant, and witty fashion. I am going to go read her book and think about how I would really love to know her better. She seems awesome! She does NaNoWriMo!
Watching a lot of Danny Kaye recently and at a loss for what to draw. Put the two together and voila!
I was in the bookstore when I saw Tiny Stories vol. 2. I picked it up and was wooed and bought it, along with something else that made me say, “bookstores put books in the ‘humor’ section because there is no section called ‘awesome.'” Have you noticed? I mean Kate Beaton was in the ‘humor’ section next to things like 100 Fart Jokes and Galvin and Jobbs. What are they thinking?! Something like, ‘oh gee, I dunno where this goes so lets through it in the only catch-all section we have,’ or ‘this has pictures, but it’s not a graphic novel, so it must be humor.’ Maybe…diatribe for another day.
Back to Tiny Stories vol. 2. In it is a little blurb about sending your own tiny stories to http://www.hitrecord.org/ for the next volume. I am relatively addicted to trying my best to get involved in an anthology project, so I had to check it out. What I found was interesting and unusual. hitRECord is something like a collaboration engine, where creators of all sorts surrender up there bits in the hopes of matching it with other people’s bits, squishing them all together and making a fabulous new thing. I am skittering on the edge as I do with most virtual socializing nite-clubs, but it looks really cool, so I wanted to say.
is fun, really.
I’m a little late for ‘happy new year!’ but it is the year of the snake for 10 or so more months.
Oh, yeah, the whole story of original sin/human acquisitions of knowledge is fascinating to me. Thus the apple.