Writing Tools

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 16

Once a week we’ll send out a page from Cool Tools: A Catalog of Possibilities. The tools might be outdated or obsolete, but the possibilities they inspire are new. Sign up here to get Tools for Possibilities a week early in your inbox.

The best writing tips

Writing Tools

This two-sided page contains the wisdom of an entire book on how to write better. Nay, it distills an entire shelf of the world’s greatest writing manuals (and I have them all). After 30 years as both a writer and editor I can’t think of much I would add to these 50 short tips. This PDF is now my favorite guide to writing well. You can print it out for free. If you want its pithy reminders fleshed out with more examples, see the book form, or the website. But the free tip sheet itself — one paper printed both sides — rewards a quick review anytime you get down to serious writing.. – KK

How to liveblog a conference

Tips for Conference Bloggers, Free PDF Bruno Giussani & Ethan Zuckerman, 2007, 6 p.

There’s an emerging new media I use more and more: an online summary of a conference. Known as liveblogging, it presents a synopsis of each presentation, talk-by-talk, in nearly real time. This saves you time and money traveling to distant cities, and suffering through introductions and equipment failures. At its best, reading the liveblog can be better than attending the talk. All the chaff has been winnowed, and almost every talk captured. (Most conference attendees don’t even get to every talk.) Video recordings of conferences are becoming more popular, but a good liveblog is much quicker to scan and digest. But at its worse, a liveblog will offer little more than snarky comments about the speaker.

At the creation end, you need some skills to separate the best from the worst. Ethan Zuckerman, of Geek Corp, is one of the best conference bloggers alive. He teamed up with Bruno Giussani, another star liveblogger, to produce this free short 6-page PDF booklet on how to blog a conference with effectiveness. When you blog a conference it forces you to pay attention. My first book Out of Control began as an online blog of every talk at the first Artificial Life Conference (although no one called it blogging in 1987). The requisite focus of summarizing each talk clarified many ideas for me, and the response to the “blog” of the conference encouraged me to write a book. Other livebloggers find the same. They listen harder, and remember more.

Get good at this and you have a free pass to many high-priced conferences. Organizers are increasingly looking for first-rate livebloggers to generate press and future attendees. Or, like Ethan you can generate your own audience who follow you because your liveblogging skills. – KK

• It’s relatively easy to blog good and great speakers: They follow a narrative path through their talks and speak at a pace the audience can understand. It’s harder to blog inexperienced speakers(because they may be too technical, confusing, fast, etc.) and multispeaker panels (because the discussion can take many different unstructured turns). But you don’t need to transcribe the whole talk, you need to capture the gist of it. A 20-minutes talk can often be summarized in a 20-lines post.
• Always remember that what you’re writing will be read by people who weren’t in the room, so they haven’t seen the slides, the video, or the gesture. Hence, you have to compensate for the lack of context. Don’t be afraid to create a narrative by saying “He shows a slide with data on …” or “She walks on stage carrying a big suitcase” or “He shows a YouTube video” etc. And if the speaker shows a YouTube video, or a picture, remember that you’re online: Open another browser window, go to YouTube, find that video, and link to it; or go to the speaker’s website, find that picture or another similar or related item, and link to it (or republish the picture within your post). Yes, this requires effective multitasking. It’s at the root of conference blogging.
• Conferences usually give out a program ahead of time. Use it to prepare for blogging: Do a quick Google search for each speaker, and save (in the same text file) links to their sites, blogs, and the institutions they’re affiliated with; write a one-or-two-sentences “biography” for each; and for the speakers you’ve never heard of, try to get a general sense of who they are and what they do. To write the mini-biography, use also the speaker information distributed by the conference organizers (booklet, website, etc.). For the key speakers, save a picture on your laptop (from their websites) and pre-format it for Web use, in case you will need it. If you prepare sufficiently, you’ve got the first paragraph of each post almost written ahead of time.

The best thesaurus ever

The Synonym Finder

This is the best thesaurus there is. It supplies more synonyms, analogs, parallels, equivalents and comparable words in English than any other source, online or off. No other thesaurus comes near to it for completeness or breadth. Compiled in dictionary form, like the one in your word processors, there’s no index or cross-referencing. Just look up a word, any word, and it proceeds to overwhelm you with alternative choices (a total of 1.5 million synonyms are presented in 1,361 pages), including short phrases and only mildly related words. Rather than being a problem of imprecision, the Finder’s broad inclusiveness prods your imagination and prompts your recall.

Its single downside, however, is a major frustration: it is not available digitally, in a form compatible to the way most people write these days. It should live on your computer in a pull-down option, or plug-in for Word or the like. I’m totally baffled why it is not. As it is, it’s a huge fat book — a great book! — sitting within arm’s reach when I write, but not near enough for the power that it offers. – KK

Soundly Sleeping/Small squid cable/Mandala Designs

Recomendo: issue no. 339

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Brown noise for better sleep
I use a simple and free app called Soundly Sleeping to play brown noise while sleeping. It muffles the wheeze of my CPAP machine and other unwelcome nighttime noises. (Brown noise is mellower than white noise). — MF

Small squid cable
A squid cable is a power cable that splits into multiple strands so that each arm can be connected at once to the same source. I carry one as my main charging cable while I travel. There are many generic no-name brand models that are very lightweight, efficient, and versatile. My Puxnoin Multi Charging Cable ($13) is an All-in-One deal; it can charge (but no data) up to 4 devices from one USB plug. The four-foot long cable divides into two lightning cables (iPhones), a Type C cable (IPads, tablets, Samsung, Pixel), and a MicroUSB (Android, Windows, headsets, controllers). One cord to rule them all. — KK

Mandala coloring book
One of my resolutions for 2023 is to “play” more often, but also figuring out what kind of “play” works for me. My friend Camille described it best when she said play should have no consequences. That inspired me to start coloring before bed, which is very relaxing and seems to help unravel all the busyness I have in my head before I sleep. I’m currently coloring a book of sacred geometry designs by Martha Bartfeld, which is now of print but I found the newest edition here: Mandala Designs. — CD

27 life-changing micro habits
If you’re not the type to make resolutions for the new year, you might like this list of 27 Life-Changing Micro Habits That Require Only A Few Minutes. Here are some of them: Vow to walk around for two minutes every hour you sit at your desk. Start each workday with five long and deep breaths to calm your mind and get ready for the day ahead. Practice gratitude while you’re in the shower. Write for two minutes in the morning as you drink your coffee. — CD

Easier international internet
Most newer phones allow you to install an eSIM, which is like a SIM card without the physical card. I buy cheap eSIMs from Airalo to give my phone fast internet data when I travel to foreign countries. I can top up my eSIM when it runs out of data. — MF

Custom murals
Last year I drew or painted one art piece each day. This year I chose one piece to display as a mural on our living room wall. It came out fantastic! I used Wallsauce to print it out as repositionable wallpaper. I uploaded my digital file after I up-rezed it. My huge picture was 65 x 50 inches ($140), and arrived as two perfectly matched strips. The print was easy to apply (no glue, no mess) and looks like a genuine mural. The paper is a canvas-y textured plastic film, with very dense coloring. We are now hunting for other walls to beautify. — KK

— Kevin Kelly, Mark Frauenfelder, Claudia Dawson

David Brin, Astrophysicist

Show and Tell #347: David Brin

David Brin is an astrophysicist whose international best-selling novels include The Postman, Earth, Existence and Hugo Award winners Startide Rising and The Uplift War. He consults for NASA, companies, agencies and nonprofits about the onrushing future. Brin’s first nonfiction book, The Transparent Society, won the Freedom of Speech Award. His new one is Vivid Tomorrows: Science Fiction and Hollywood. His website is davidbrin.com. You can find him on Twitter and LinkedIn @davidbrin, and on Facebook @thedavidbrin. 

TOOLS:
0:00 – Intro
1:20 – ThinOptics Keychain Case and Readers Rectangular Reading Glasses
6:00 – LED flashlight gloves
8:59 – Elikliv LCD digital microscope
12:20 – Craft cutting tool
14:40 – David Brin’s recent books

Inexpensive Flight Routes/50 Great Books/Walking Tours

Nomadico issue #33

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

Inexpensive Flight Destinations

Travel search company Kayak released its “Travel Trends for 2023” report a couple of weeks back, based on its own data. One category was the destinations outside of North America that had the lowest round-trip flight prices from North America. The 10th cheapest destination airport was Krakow, Poland. #1 was my cheapest international flight of 2022: Bogota, Colombia. Medellin was #2, Warsaw made two for Poland, Ecuador’s two largest cities made the list, and so did Lima and Lisbon. Your travel budget might not do so well after landing in two of the cities though: Copenhagen and Reykjavik.

Biggest Currency Declines of the Year

I thought I’d save some time and ask the Open AI chatbot which currencies declined the most against the U.S. dollar this year and it spat out all kinds of incorrect figures and calculations no matter what prompts I put in. Don’t use this for your homework kids! Many currencies have rallied at the end of the year, but declines of 10% or more are still on the books for Argentina (70%+), Egypt (56%), Turkey (39%), Colombia (17%), Japan (14%), and India (11%). The best tool for getting (correct) historic exchange data that I have found is fxtop.com.

50 Books to Consider From 2022

Lots of publications have put out lists of the best novels published in 2022, but I like this 50 Best Books one from the BBC because it’s not afraid to look to outside reviewers and quote them. This solid list has plenty of big names, but also some newcomers who made a splash. You’re likely to find at least a few to put on your reading list.

(Sort of) Free Walking Tours

You can get a “free” walking tour in most European and many American tourist cities by checking out the listings on Free Tours by Foot. These are more accurately described as “pay what you wish” tours, but most guides are knowledgeable and passionate about their city and will show you around the cooler spots personally for a reasonable tip. – via Kevin Kelly

REQUEST TIME! – Do you have a big event or conference for digital nomads and/or remote workers coming up in 2023? E-mail it to me at tim@timleffel.com for inclusion in a future issue.

RescueME Personal Locator Beacon

Alert emergency services wherever you are

Per manufacturer specifications, the battery in my previously reviewed McMurdo FastFind 210 PLB expired in 2019. Oddly enough, the battery test still shows a full charge, but I’ll leave it to a chemical engineer to explain the resilience of lithium manganese batteries. Since replacing the battery would incur 2/3 of the cost of a new device, I decided to use the opportunity to procure an even lighter and more capable model.

Enter the rescueME PLB1 from Ocean Signal, which I’ve been carrying on backcountry hiking and camping trips for the last 21 months. The most notable improvements are MEOSAR coverage and support for Galileo/Glonass, which significantly reduces the time needed to detect a distress signal and triangulate the user’s position. Thankfully I haven’t had to personally verify this yet, but you can research real-life cases on the NOAA website if you’re truly interested.

The above picture is of my two PLBs compared to an AA battery. It’s hard to believe the tiny rescueME can talk to a MEOSAR satellite 19,000-24,000 kilometers (12,000-15,000 miles) above the Earth and broadcast for a minimum of 24 hours; this is borderline sci-fi technology. The battery shelf-life of my new unit is rated for 7 years (vs. 5 years for the FastFind 210) despite being noticeably smaller and lighter; again, technology just keeps improving.  It’s a small point, but the antenna for the rescueMe requires manual extraction, so plan to involve your teeth if you don’t have use of both hands.

As with all PLBs, satellite coverage is worldwide, and there are no subscription fees. Faced with the seemingly weekly reports of drivers, hikers, hunters, sailors, and other people being injured or lost in remote locations without cellphone service, a MEOSAR-compatible PLB is probably one of the best investments you can make for the safety of yourself and your loved ones while recreating outdoors.

One last point — some readers will no doubt point out that the iPhone 14 series includes emergency SOS messaging via satellite. This is essentially the same satellite communication with SOS functionality as used by SPOT and InReach. Apple will be relying on GlobalStar for this service, which doesn’t have the same pole-to-pole coverage as COSPAS-SARSAT. Apple also hasn’t clearly stated what will happen when the complementary 2-year service ends; a monthly or annual subscription is likely. Caveat emptor.

Wet-It! Dishcloth

Alternative to sponges, paper towels, and washcloths

My wife bought a set of these Wet-It Dishcloths and it changed our kitchen and bathroom cleanup habits. We have cut down our use of paper towels by 2/3rds using these reusable towels. The thing that really distinguishes them from sponges and dish towels is their absorbency and easy cleaning. Unlike a sponge or dish towel, they mop up moisture, when well wrung out, almost as good as a fresh paper towel, leaving the surface dry and clean. Throw them in the dishwasher once a week. This is a case of a small change, using a mid-tech solution, causing a profound change in the usage of a product that should be used much less. In other words, a tool win! Inexpensive, habit-changing, good for the planet. 

What’s in my NOW? — Ben Reuter