I'll be in Austin at the interactive slice of SxSW (Where screencasts come alive!) for a few days starting this Wednesday. Mostly I'll be wandering around with a churro in my hand, muttering, but I'll also
be on a panel, moderated by Jeffrey Zeldman and featuring Erin Kissane, Lisa Holton, and Mandy Brown. It's called "New Publishing and Web
Content" and it's about teaching a meerkat to drive cuddling releasing a super-plague new publishing and web content. I'm working the door.
Here's information from Jeffrey regarding the panel, and an interview with Jeffrey about, among other things, the panel. Panel! (As a side-effect of this actual in-the-flesh attendance I'm sorry to say I'm
not doing six-word reviews this year. I have not the proper strength.)
I've never been to SxSW before. It surprises some people when I tell them that. It also surprises people when I cry or vomit,
or get into bed with them well after all the other guests have gone home. But I've never had a job where they want to spend
money to send me places to learn things. I think that's a very NYC thing; ideas and talent are supposed to come to us, preferably kneeling and begging, not the other way around. This approach is why the finance and publishing industries are
enjoying such great years.
So I bought myself a ticket on a jet, and if you see me say hello. I look like this as of a few weeks ago. (Caveat: The device I use to keep my head molded into a cube shape may not be allowed by TSA rules.)
If there are any webhatchets or resentments or awkwardnesses left over from the old days, I apologize. Let's just bury those
and be nice. I have nothing left in me for across-the-room awkward twinges but lots of room for niceness.
PEEK
Ftrain.com is the website of Paul Ford and his pseudonyms. It is showing its age. I'm rewriting the code but it's taking some
time.
FACEBOOK
There is a Facebook group.
TWITTER
You will regret following me on Twitter here.
EMAIL
About the author: I've been running this website from 1997. For a living I write stories and essays, program computers, edit
things, and help people launch online publications. (LinkedIn). I wrote a novel. I was an editor at Harper's Magazine for five years; then I was a Contributing Editor; now I am a free agent. I was also on NPR's All Things Considered for a while. I still write for The Morning News, and some other places.
If you have any questions for me, I am very accessible by email. You can email me at ford@ftrain.com and ask me things and I will try to answer. Especially if you want to clarify something or write something critical. I am
glad to clarify things so that you can disagree more effectively.
POKE
Syndicate: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Links: RSS1.0, RSS2.0
Contact
© 1974-2011 Paul Ford
Recent
@20, by Paul Ford.
Not any kind of eulogy, thanks. And no header image, either.
(October 15)
Recent Offsite Work: Code and Prose.
As a hobby I write.
(January 14)
Rotary Dial.
(August 21)
10 Timeframes.
(June 20)
Facebook and Instagram: When Your Favorite App Sells Out.
(April 10)
Why I Am Leaving the People of the Red Valley.
(April 7)
Welcome to the Company.
(September 21)
“Facebook and the Epiphanator: An End to Endings?”.
Forgot to tell you about this.
(July 20)
“The Age of Mechanical Reproduction”.
An essay for TheMorningNews.org.
(July 11)
Woods+.
People call me a lot and say: What is this new thing? You're a nerd. Explain it immediately.
(July 10)
Reading Tonight.
Reading!
(May 25)
Recorded Entertainment #2, by Paul Ford.
(May 18)
Recorded Entertainment #1, by Paul Ford.
(May 17)
Nanolaw with Daughter.
Why privacy mattered.
(May 16)
0h30m w/Photoshop, by Paul Ford.
It's immediately clear to me now that I'm writing again that I need to come up with some new forms in order to have fun here—so
that I can get a rhythm and know what I'm doing. One thing that works for me are time limits; pencils up, pencils down. So:
Fridays, write for 30 minutes; edit for 20 minutes max; and go whip up some images if necessary, like the big crappy hand
below that's all meaningful and evocative because it's retro and zoomed-in. Post it, and leave it alone. Can I do that every
Friday? Yes! Will I? Maybe! But I crave that simple continuity. For today, for absolutely no reason other than that it came
unbidden into my brain, the subject will be Photoshop. (Do we have a process? We have a process. It is 11:39 and...)
(May 13)
That Shaggy Feeling.
Soon, orphans.
(May 12)
Antilunchism, by Paul Ford.
Snack trams.
(May 11)
Tickler File Forever, by Paul Ford.
I'll have no one to blame but future me.
(May 10)
Time's Inverted Index, by Paul Ford.
(1) When robots write history we can get in trouble with our past selves. (2) Search-generated, "false" chrestomathies and
the historical fallacy.
(May 9)
Bantha Tracks.
(May 5)
![[Top]](art/EndFleur_40x21.gif "Top"){kind=small}
