Speaking Out

Petition to Sponsor the Construction of a Voting Advice Network

2012-01-19T11:11:00.000-08:00

Well, I tried. I am 100% certain that a voting advice system will create a network of voters and advice-givers that makes money irrelevant to politics. (That idea is explained fully at CitizensAdvisory.org) I figured, if I could get that idea in front of the White House then, in the ideal world, they might say--Hey, that's the right thing to do. Let's give you a job with the charter to make that

"Proper" writing, and the use of "you"

2012-01-16T11:25:00.000-08:00

I just posted this at LinkedIn. It's worth sharing here, particularly for the perspective on what "proper" really means. My comment started in response to this post: > A properly written technical manual should be impersonal. > Use active voice to tell the reader what to do About the Use of "You" I agree with the second part. It's usually the preferred way, and perfect for steps. But when you (

Republican Chicanery Refutable by Voting Advice Network

2011-12-05T15:50:00.000-08:00

A friend just sent me a pointer to this great post about Frank Lutz--the person behind much of the Republican's linguistic mischief, such as calling a pollution de-regulation bill the "Clean Air Act". I knew about the devious practices, but didn't know that Frank Luntz was behind most of it. I was particularly struck by this:"independents … are Frank’s real aim. These are the people who don’t

Government Collapse, Aristocracy of Wealth, Voting Advice Network

2011-12-01T11:04:00.000-08:00

This is a letter I sent to a friend of mine, who is having trouble with a mobile home park, and who is finding that other small park owners have been beset with suddenly-imposed, draconian regulations. She wondered if government were "falling apart". I explained how things have come to that point... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On the government side of things, the meltdown is by

Reviewable, Runnable Specifications Ensure Software Quality

2010-06-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

Designing Programs with RSpec and Cucumber gives a good introduction to what is arguably the most important part of the agile development process, when it comes to quality. It does a good job of explaining that the real goal is not to “test” your code after you write it, but rather to create a “runnable specification” before you write it. Read more at Artima.com >>

Meditating in the Cafeteria

2010-05-19T18:02:00.000-07:00

When I first started training in Jung SuWon, Great Grandmaster (and Dr.) Kim told us that one day, we would meditate anywhere, any time--even in the middle of a noisy crowd. I found that hard to believe, because anything other than total silence totally broke my concentration! But here I was, meditating in a busy cafeteria! About a quarter to noon, I was in the cafeteria, waiting for my lunch

As It is In Heaven (5 Stars)

2010-05-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

I just watched a Swedish film called As It Is in Heaven. It comes closer than anything I have ever seen to capturing the kind of personal growth and transformation I witnessed, and experienced, in my martial arts training--but it does so in the context of a choral group. The conductor's goal is make music that opens people's hearts. As a famous conductor, he had been working for fame and his

What's Wrong with American Corporations?

2010-04-28T10:51:00.000-07:00

American corporations are not regulated by the market, by the government, or by themselves. They are so far out of control, in fact, that they have a bigger impact on government than government has on them. There is no chance whatever to create a healthy population or a healthy society until they are reined in. If you've read What's Wrong with Partially Hydrogenated Oils? and What's Wrong with

A Short Citizen's Guide to Reforming Wall Street

2010-04-21T11:53:00.001-07:00

Great ideas. But...The street is spending $500 million to lobby against it, and the Supreme Court has determined that corporations can spend all they want to influence elections--which gives those lobbyists even more power.How can corporations with more money than the government ever be controlled by a government they effectively own?I submit that job number one is to make money irrelevant to

Capitalism: A Love Story -- Synopsis and Review

2010-03-28T11:31:00.000-07:00

Capitalism: A Love Story is a must-see video. It's an eye opener that reaches a far more radical conclusion than I expected. Somehow, Michael Moore manages to keep a sense of humor throughout it all, so the video winds up being entertaining, rather than depressing (no small trick). It's full of things you probably knew, but contains quite a few surprises as well. Did you know: In America, 1% of

Books on Writing that are Worth Reading (and some that aren't)

2010-03-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Some books on writing are worth reading--and some aren't. Here is my list of must reads, and one must-avoid. There’s one manual that focuses on modular technical docs (Highly rated, and I bought a copy after skimming it. But I confess I have yet to read it.) Developing Quality Technical Information: A Handbook for Writers and Editors (2nd Edition) Microsoft style manual is excellent for

Need to Check Links before Running the OT

2010-03-16T07:00:00.000-07:00

>(Re-post) I just encountered a situation that underscores the need for a Link Checking step that runs before the OT. It applies to those of us who are using DITA in organizations that haven't shelled out big bucks for a content management system. [Note: XDocs is the only really affordable CMS there is. It just needs to add Link Checking to be a really stupendous buy.] In this case, a topic that

Using a Blog to Track Documentation Issues

2010-03-15T07:00:00.000-07:00

Bug tracking tools intended for developers are too “heavyweight” for documentation. They don’t help at all with workflow, and invariably have categories and status options that make no sense whatever for documentation. Well, here’s a tool in the “featherweight” division that does a pretty darn nice job: http://knownissues.blogspot.com/search/label/outstanding Assuming you can see that page (I

Is DITA a "semantic tagging" standard?

2010-03-14T18:29:00.000-07:00

As much as DITA has the capacity to be a system for totally semantic tagging, the reality is that what happens to those tags totally depends on what kind of output you're generating, and what processing engine you're using to do it. So the answer to the question posed in the title is, "It isn't yet. But hopefully it will be, soon." This post explains why. Here's a small example: If you're

Titles, NavTitles, and SearchTitles

2010-03-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

This is one of the decision-areas for departmental standards that needs to be decided at a new installation. It’s more about long-term implications than short-term. But as the number of topics grows, the long term begins to arrive. The issue is this: When a body of material (topic) only ever appears in one context (a book), and everything around it relates to the same thing, then putting the

Finally! Access to my Yahoo Account

2010-03-12T07:00:00.000-08:00

This Yahoo bug has been plaguing me practically forever: My ID and Password work everywhere they’re requested at Yahoo, except for one place: Account Management. That bug made it impossible to associate a new email address with my account when I started a new contract, which was a royal pain. But I finally stumbled across the solution: Use IE to access my Yahoo account.They seem to be making

Writing in 2nd Person

2010-03-11T07:02:00.000-08:00

I have been writing in 2nd person for the majority of the last decade, mostly because it just felt better. But just the other day I realized exactly why it is the right voice to use for technical documentation. (It's rather astonishing how long it took, in retrospect.) For starters, let's understand that there is a right time to use 3rd person. For example, a functional specification written by

Heck of a good blog site

2010-03-10T07:00:00.000-08:00

Having just gone to Google's Blogger.com to create this blog, I am forced to admit that they really got it right. Blogspot is one great blogging site:It was easy to set up The editor is really decent Most of the features I really wanted were standard: o Commentso Email alerts for comments, with the ability to send them to multiple addresseso The ability to save and edit multiple draftso

DITA Tip: Use alt tags to plan your GUI writeup

2010-03-09T18:10:00.000-08:00

Quick tip here. Use alt-text attributes on images to plan your GUI topics. Later, when you fill in the actual screenshots, the accessibility work is done! Accessibility guidelines require text in the alt attribute for each image in the topic. That can be something of a pain, when you have to go back over a large document and add the missing attributes. At the same time, writing GUI topics can