I don’t make any claim to having found the best books, but all of those I’ve listed here are ones that I think are worth reading, either for enjoyment or for education.

The post Books Worth Reading appeared first on Parting Thoughts.

Most non-fiction history books, however, are too dry to hold my interest. (There are some notable exceptions, which I’ll list in a future post — what I call “readable history”.)

One of the things you get from good historical fiction that is rarely found in non-fiction is a deep, emotional sense of what it was like to live in those times, and in those roles. Taking advantage of the artistic license that fiction allows, historical fiction can convey rich stories and deep personalities that are representative of the true events and characters.

In most cases, details such as private conversations are not available to non-fiction history, but this dialog brings stories to life. We are at the mercy of the authors, alas, to restrain their creative impulses from introducing too many inaccuracies.

Historical Fiction is a vast genre, covering many periods of time. I will follow this post with a series of posts on historical fiction I’ve enjoyed, initially focusing on great historical fiction about the World Wars and then moving on to other periods of time.

For an extensive listing of historical fiction from all eras, see historicalnovels.info and Goodreads.

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Click the full-screen button at the bottom right of the video player to fully enjoy this hires time-lapse video.

Note: this is not my creation, though I wish it was; I am just sharing it.

I am working on some time-lapse videos of my own, of my garden — samples to come soon.

The post A Day on San Francisco Bay in 4 Minutes appeared first on Parting Thoughts.

On physical media, though, my audiobook listening was limited to long drives. Traditional audiobooks are also expensive, typically costing more than hardback books.

Now that audiobooks have gone digital, and almost everyone carries a device capable of playing them, the audiobook world has exploded.

The Pioneer

With the arrival of Audible.com in January 1998, everything changed. It took a while to mature, but Audible — now owned by Amazon — is the 800-pound gorilla of the audiobook world.

At launch, Audible faced a daunting challenge. There were no MP3 players, so Audible had to manufacture a device, the Audible Player, in addition to being a web-based service. The Audible Player was the very first portable digital audio player in volume production.

Memory cost was a huge issue, as was download time over Internet connections that were still using phone-line modems at perhaps 56 Kbits/s. Audible created its own format, designed to deliver acceptable speech quality at a very low bit rate, as well as providing DRM (digital rights management, aka copy protection).

As MP3 players began shipping in volume, Audible was able to eventually get out of the device business. Now, with the near-ubiquity of smartphones, almost everyone carries a great audiobook player with vastly more memory, and much higher Internet speed. Audible now offers an app for iPhones and Android phones.

Scaling Up

At its debut, Audible touted “thousands of hours of audio”. Today, Audible has hundreds of thousands of hours of audio content.

The success of the iPod, plus lots of new content, drove Audible’s early growth. The iPhone took it to the next level. Then a big boost came in 2008, when Amazon bought Audible for $300 million. They had 80,000 programs at the time; today, they have more than 180,000 programs.

Audiobooks are not quick to produce, so how did the number of titles on Audible increase by 100,000 in seven years?

Before the acquisition, Audible had a stated goal of 150,000 titles. Jeff Bezos was quoted after the acquisition as saying that the goal is now “everything”.

Audible started by acquiring the rights to existing audiobooks, but now the company produces most of the new titles. Audible Studios is now the world’s largest producer of audiobooks.

It is now rare that I go looking for a book and find it not available from Audible; the selection is truly impressive.

My Audiobook Habit

I was one of the first people to have an Audible Player because I was at an industry conference where recently-launched Audible gave one of the $200 players to every attendee. But I didn’t start buying audiobooks from Audible until 2003, using an iPod.

I confess to being an audiobook addict. I have more than 1,000 books in my Audible library, purchased over the past 13 years. I don’t get through every book, but I’d guess that I’ve listened to the entire length of about 80% of them.

I like to read in print as well, but audiobooks enable me to “read” so many more books. I make it through maybe a dozen books a year in print, compared with 50 or so as audiobooks.

Since I stopped spending much time outside of Sonoma County in 2007, driving has ceased to be my primary listening time. I listen while I’m walking the dog, working in the garden, picking up around the house, or lying in bed sick or unable to sleep.

A Personal Guide to Great Audiobooks

Coming soon: my recommendations for some great audiobooks.

In the meantime, you can sign up for a 30-day free trial and get two free audiobooks by clicking the button below.

The post The Wonder of Audiobooks appeared first on Parting Thoughts.

Cat cafes have been around for years in Asia and Europe, where health codes are much more forgiving of animals being in places where food is served. According to Wikipedia:

Cat cafés are quite popular in Japan, with Tokyo being home to at least 39 cat cafés. The first was Cat’s Store (Neko no Mise), by Norimasa Hanada, which opened in 2005. The popularity of cat cafés in Japan is attributed to many apartments forbidding pets, and to cats providing relaxing companionship in what may otherwise be a stressful and lonesome urban life.

In the U.S., it has been a challenge to open cat cafes, due to the prohibition on, well, cats in cafes. The solution is actually pretty simple: the cats just need a room that is entirely separate from the cafe. If you choose to buy some tea in the cafe and take it into the cat room, that is your choice; the cat room is not subject to the health codes of the cafe.

Cofounders Courtney Hatt and David Braginsky, with lots of crowdfunding backers and a lot of persistence, worked on creating KitTea in San Francisco starting in early 2014.

The cafe opened in mid-2015, and it seems to be doing well. You can stop by any time and get some tea and look at the cats through the big window, but you should make a reservation if you want to go into the cat lounge.

KitTea was a very friendly place when Irene and I visited in November. Their primary goal is to find homes for cats, but they also pay attention to creating a fun experience for the cats and the people.

KitTea  is at 96 Gough St. in San Francisco’s Hayes Valley.

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In the first few years, I wrote a hundred or so posts, mostly technical. For the past few years, I’ve managed only a few posts a year, mostly about events I or my family am involved in.

What’s a blog good for, anyway?

Personal blogging is sort of an odd beast. Back in the day, it was de rigueur for anyone serious about having an online presence. Today, it has been largely overtaken by Facebook updates and tweets, or Stack Overflow and Github for developers, while multi-author "blogs" have turned into online magazines.

I’ve never been able to sustain any frequency of social media updates for more than a few days, being more drawn to long-form pieces and lacking the urge to tell everyone where I went for lunch. So a blog, while out of vogue these days, is a better fit for me.

So, why?

Which brings me to why — who am I writing for, and for what purpose?

I never quite figured that out in this blog’s early years, but I had some ideas. I wanted to try being more public, and see what became of that. I wanted to share some the things I was learning, and some of the things I’ve learned and done in the past. And I wanted there to be a way for potential business partners or other colleagues to be able to check me out.

As my startup, Webvanta, became ever more all-consuming, and my personal life became busier and more complicated, I just didn’t find the time to write.

Changes

The past year has been the most challenging of my life in many ways.

In the fall, we sold the West County country property where we’d lived for 22 years and moved into town (Sebastopol). Sorting through and packing up a collection of stuff that spans raising two kids, building three businesses, and enjoying a couple of large-scale hobbies literally took all my time for more than a year.

We gave away vast amounts of stuff, sold a few things, and still have a storage unit full of boxes. But we are, at last, minimally settled into our new house.

Just a week after moving the house, we moved our office. This was a great move, to a wonderful space for Webvanta, but it neverthless added another layer of craziness to an already hectic life.

The end of a generation

Last November 6, my step-father, Ray Zager, died of a stroke. After a month, it became evident that my 92-year-old mom could no longer live on her own. So right after moving our office, we moved her into assisted living — my third move in four weeks.

Her health deteriorated rapidly, and in February we moved her once more, this time into skilled nursing. She died two weeks later.

I’ve always been close to my mom, and I spent a lot of time with her during her final two years. Being with her during her decline and passing has been the most sustained, intense experience I’ve ever had. It was full of wonderful times of connection, some very painful moments, and lots in between.

But that is a story for another post.

Now, back to "why"

During these past few intense years, I didn’t find much time to write, but I never stopped writing blog posts in my head. Earlier in my career, I wrote many hundreds of newsletter and magazine articles, as well as several books. Writing ceased to be central to my business, and in the press of priorities I didn’t find time for it, but the urge persists.

My step-father was fanatic about his diary, which he kept for decades. He also wrote several books about his experiences (see www.diarylibrary.net). It struck me, upon his death, how many stories and memories he left behind for others to read. Had he not been such a motivated writer, it all would have been gone forever.

My mom’s death further intensified my thinking about what each of us contributes, and what we leave behind. In my mom’s case, it was a vast body of ceramic art (see www.helenslaterdesign.com), and dozens of friends and apprentices she supported and mentored.

Which brings me back to thoughts of writing. I have always enjoyed writing, and I have all these stories running around in my head. I now feel motivated to try giving them a life outside me.

It feels good to write. I’m not entirely sure why. I sort of hope someone is reading, but I’m not sure it matters.

That’s it for the setup. Now come the posts. Soon.

The post Welcome to Michael’s blog, reborn! appeared first on Parting Thoughts.

If you get a chance to go see him, don’t miss it. You may not get another chance. His schedule is posted at MoseAllison.net, though as of this writing there’s only one 2010 date listed.

We recently saw him at 19 Broadway in Fairfax. Here’s a clip of “You Are My Sunshine” from that performance.

The post Mose Allison Performs appeared first on Parting Thoughts.

Why is it nearly universal in legal agreements that there’s a couple paragraphs in ALL CAPS that state that the product or service is offered “as is,” that the provider makes no representation that it is good for anything or will work as advertised, and that they are not liable if it causes you to lose your business, your spouse, or your right arm?

I can understand what drives the disclaimers in general, but I was curious about the specific language that is always used, and especially about the bizarre use of ALL CAPS. Is that supposed to make it somehow more forceful?

The Uniform Commercial Code

As it turns out, this all has its origin in something called the Uniform Commercial Code. Among other things, it states that:

“Unless excluded or modified, a warranty that the goods shall be merchantable is implied in a contract for their sale if the seller is a merchant with respect to goods of that kind.”

And:

“Where the seller at the time of contracting has reason to know any particular purpose for which the goods are required and that the buyer is relying on the seller’s skill or judgment to select or furnish suitable goods, there is unless excluded or modified under the next section an implied warranty that the goods shall be fit for such purpose.”

So that’s the reason for these paragraphs. Unless you explicitly disclaim it, your act of selling someone something can be taken as an implication that the thing you’re selling will actually meet the user’s needs. Heaven forbid!

SO WHY ALL CAPS?

OK, so now we understand what drives the disclaimer language, but what about the typography?

It turns out that comes from the U.C.C. as well. It specifies that any disclaimers must be “conspicuous,” and the code includes a formal definition of conspicuous:

“A term of clause is conspicuous when it is so written that a reasonable person against whom it is to operate ought to have noticed it. A printed heading in capitals (as: Non-Negotiable Bill of Lading) is conspicuous. Language in the body of a form is “conspicuous” if it is in larger or other contrasting type or color. But in a telegram any stated term is “conspicuous”. Whether a term or clause is “conspicuous” or not is for decision by the court.”

So to avoid the risk that a court might rule that a notice was not conspicuous, lawyers fall back on the unambiguous statement that “A printed heading in capitals is conspicuous” and just toss all the text into caps (since larger type or a contrasting color is typically not available in a contractual document).

So here we have it: a terrible typographic decision enshrined in the conventional wisdom of legal documents because it fits within the safe harbor defined by a widely used statute.

I’m going to take a radical chance and use bold for the disclaimers in our Webvanta terms of use.

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(For a higher-resolution version, see girleffect.org.)

This was produced by The Nike Foundation to spread the word about its efforts. It’s nice to see all those sneaker-selling skills and profits being put to a higher use.

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