Gary D. Robson's Blog: Reading & Writing with Gary Robson

Branding Montana

Branding had a whole different meaning in the 1800s–or did it? Montana is a marvelous juxtaposition of old and new, archaic and modern, and if you need an example of that, ask some random Montanans what branding is.

Gotchas in Book Contracts

When I had an opportunity to move from self-publishing to traditional publishing years ago, I didn't think I needed a literary agent. As it turns out, microelectronics business contracts and book contracts are very different things.

AI in Microsoft Word: Not Ready for Primetime

It seems like every product on the tech market has to have artificial intelligence these days. And it's amazing how many of these products are just not ready for prime time. Let's take a look at Microsoft Word's grammar checker, for example.

Does Matter matter?

Getting started in home automation was exciting. It was also extremely frustrating.Smart home devices have been around for quite a while now, but Apple, Amazon, Samsung, and Google each had their own ecosystems and device manufacturers all had their own apps. Nothing worked together.But now, there's Matter.

Animals Healing People & People Healing Animals

A couple of weeks ago I started working for an exciting new nonprofit in western Montana called the Arlee Rehabilitation Center. By “new” nonprofit, I mean both new to me and new as an organization. They started up during the pandemic lockdowns—a feat in and of itself—and have been growing steadily ever since. They’ve takenContinue reading "Animals Healing People & People Healing Animals"

Poop Emojis: Law and Confusion

As the Who 💩 in the Park guy, I have opinions on the “smiling poop” emoji. Any emoji aficionado would know that there are a lot of ways to interpret 💩 and that it’s frequently seen in text messages. When it was first added to Unicode 6.0 in 2010 as U+1F4A9 (a.k.a. :poop:), the imageContinue reading "Poop Emojis: Law and Confusion"

Amateur lawmakers still don’t understand what science is

Montana’s State Senate Education Committee is considering a bill that’s not only written by people who don’t know what a scientific theory is, but want to redefine the word. SB 235 would make it illegal for science classes in public schools to teach any “theory,” limiting them to only “scientific fact.” In casual speech, peopleContinue reading "Amateur lawmakers still don’t understand what science is"

Of College Degrees and Teaching Credentials

When I started college at De Anza in 1976, I was convinced that my future was entirely centered around software engineering. Since I’d been working — and playing — with computers for years, I bypassed a lot of the early classes and jumped right in to higher-level classes. I was living the computer dream, workingContinue reading "Of College Degrees and Teaching Credentials"

Designing your own book cover: Artwork

Designing your own book cover is deeply satisfying, but also fraught with peril. Securing rights Securing the rights to your cover photos seems like obvious advice, but even the big companies can goof this one up. When I wrote The Closed Captioning Handbook, it was picked up by Elsevier, a multi-billion dollar publishing company. WhenContinue reading "Designing your own book cover: Artwork"

ATS: How to make your resume pass the test

Being in the job market again is an … interesting … experience. After leaving my previous job, I went to work updating my resume as I’ve always done in the past. Unfortunately, “in the past” was a long time ago and things have changed since then. Most of the jobs I’ve held in my lifetimeContinue reading "ATS: How to make your resume pass the test"