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Tag: musings

The Pen Is Mightier…

I bought myself a treat the other day: a handcrafted pen by Gunnar Langemark of Langemark Pens (site in Danish). I was struck by the beauty of the colors of this pen. The black wood is “bog oak” – oak that has been buried in a bog for hundreds of years, even thousands. This particular bog oak comes from the area around Roskilde, Denmark. One of Gunnar Langemark’s friends discovered it when he was out riding in the forest. The lighter colored wood (my photograph doesn’t do it justice) is called “Purple Heart”, which is a popular name for a tree that is native to Central and South America. It has a nondescript story, but it is beautiful to hold and behold. Gunnar has videos on his site so you can see how he makes the pens. I hope you can sense the care he puts into bringing these bits…

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Making the Future

Reading about the augmented future of technical communication triggered a memory. Many years ago, when I worked at Computer Associates, they produced a product called CA-7/OLC. (I think that was the abbreviation.) It was an enhancement to their CA-7 software, which is still used for scheduling jobs on big old mainframe computers. The interface for CA-7 was, of course, the good old green screen – green text on a black background. The software came on – are you ready, kiddies – magnetic tapes. CA-7/OLC was different. The demo included a large piece of hardware that played a 12-inch laserdisk. (Gee, I forget the names of all the parts after all these years.) The product was on a PC using 3.5-inch diskettes, and the laserdisk had some additional magic not possible on the PC back then. When you ran the program, you saw the usual green-screen interface. Slightly boring, with a…

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Meditation from Reboot11

Reboot11 was my first reboot conference. It was a milestone in my life. Nothing less. As a member of the reboot book crew, I took notes on all the speakers presenting in the main hall. It didn’t take long to see a pattern emerging – there was actually a sequence to the topics. Speakers were referring to topics already raised – and building on or enhancing those topics. It was stunning to watch this happen right before me. I asked Thomas Madsen-Mygdal, the driving force behind Reboot, whether he had planned it that way when lining up the speakers. He said that if I saw it that way, then that was my contribution – interpreting the pieces brought together at Reboot. Here is what I saw emerge at the end of Day 1 of Reboot11. The Meditation We Reboot11 activists need the superpowers that let the body become all eyes.…

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