Jay Maechtlen – technical writing, lasers, and stuff

I dug through my stock of Optimo goodies and took photos.
See the parts page.

tough choices for nuclear power

Good article
I’d say there are different kinds of risks, with differing likelihoods and differing consequences.

The difficulty of discussing such complex sets of choices- (ok, that’s excessively fancy)
- we need better ways to share information via graphics, text,
ways to display and compare alternatives

techno-social media?

John Fox (the Golden Rule Guy) recently blogged about callings. http://bit.ly/g5UU28

What I started to post as a comment wasn’t going to fit, so it can go here instead.

I’ve never been sure what my “calling” was/is. If there was a voice in my heart or in my ear, I’ve been too deaf or fearful to hear it.  In such a case, how do you find your calling?

In short, do what you can, as well as you can. Then look for better things to do, and do them as well as you can. Repeat. And observe to see what you enjoyed and what was productive.

I like learning things, and I like doing things. I’ve  often been a compulsive explainer.  Don’t know if this is a calling, or just  a neurosis resulting from feelings of inferiority. Anyway, much of my work at Amada and since has involved learning things and explaining them to others. Technical writing follows that pattern.

I also enjoy helping and guiding others. Perhaps that’s another side of explaining? Perhaps that’s the more important side of the ‘itch’ that writing and teaching scratches.

At times, I’ve done work to be proud of. Sometimes, it took a while to gain perspective and BE proud of what I accomplished. Remember- we’re often too close to see the whole picture.

Perhaps a pattern is emerging.

Over at Copyblogger, there’s an article about content re-use. It uses Avatar as an example: Lots of 3-D movies have been done, both recently and long ago. Lots of similar stories have been done, ditto. And yes, It was Fern Gully. And no, Fern Gully wasn’t a pioneer either. But, Avatar was a well-told story with about every cool trick in the book. It had the hero getting a new body in place of his broken one, and riding horses. He got to tame a dragon, and ride it. It had a love interest, nasty bad guys, lots of nifty and nasty technology. Cameron threw everything into the pot, and did it well. Maybe there was a kitchen sink too?
So, the total story was good, and the presentation was great.
So? Our presentations don’t have to be 100% new or novel. They have to possess some combination of presentation and content to make them worthwhile for the reader. Cheat the reader, and they will go elsewhere.