Cesar Torres's Blog, page 18

Spider-Man Meets H.P. Lovecraft

Today, in a rare Friday treat, we bring you tights, mutated graduate students, inter-dimensional dread and some storytelling inspiration for writers in the form of a…cartoon. We tip our hat off to H.P. Lovecraft, writer of weird stories.

This vintage Spider-Man TV episode has been called "simply the most terrifying cartoon ever made". Thanks to Galleycat for the story, btw.

Part 1

Part 2

Also, I LOVE the musical score to this cartoon. Quentin Tarantino's aesthetic is well served.

Emotion Markup Language

It's a big week in the world of technology. The W3C consortium has proposed we create markup language to capture emotion. I am !

"As the web is becoming ubiquitous, interactive, and multimodal, technology needs to deal increasingly with human factors, including emotions. The present draft specification of Emotion Markup Language 1.0 aims to strike a balance between practical applicability and scientific well-foundedness. The language is conceived as a "plug-in" language suitable for use in...

Apple–> iWork –> Pages — > E-Pub –> NO WAY!

Lately there's so many new developments in the world  of of publishing and e-reading, that it's hard to keep up. You, Gentle Reader, may only be visiting this blog to see what I've been up to, and I can tell you that my word count was low last week. I also went on a crazy 60 mile bike ride of the Chicago Boulevards, and I survived.

But you, yes you, the other Gentle Reader, the one in the corner taking notes quietly on your iPad, you are probably here for some tidbits about the publishing...

A Writer's Update

This morning, a series of updates.

On the writing front, I am currently working through some deep problem solving in my latest project. This one will be a novel-length work, and though I tend not to have any problems producing a word count, this time around I have raised the bar much higher for myself, to the point where I am really hesitating before moving forward. I am looking for leaner, more lyrical prose, and of course, a plot that lives up to expectations. I have spent about a year...

My Guest Blog Spot on Usability, and a Writer's Update

This morning, a series of updates.

In the world of usability, I have posted an entry to the HIMSS blog this morning explaining my current role in user experience. Hot off the virtual press,  "Why Should Usability in Healthcare Technology Matter?"

On the writing front, I am currently working through some deep problem solving in my latest project. This one will be a novel-length work, and though I tend not to have any problems producing a word count, this time around I have raised the bar much...

A blog's evolution

Back in 2005, when I originally devised this blog as a way to chronicle my foray into becoming a published author, I imagined a fairly linear path. I envisioned posts about writing inspirations, habits, techniques. Not in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine branching out into music, topics of heartbreak, cognitive science and the culinary wonders of worms.

It's now summer of 2010, and so much has happened. My first book, "The 12 Burning Wheels," released this year, not just as a book, but...

Writing Inspiration via Flyer Miles

Perhaps no single act has ever done more for my creative and artistic renewal than travel. The further the better, literally and figuratively, I say. It is in those moments when we realize we can no longer see the front door of our home, when we have gone so far on a trip that we cannot recognize our surroundings anymore, in which we are on our way to becoming. It is the becoming which I think matters the most in the creative process. When we become, our writing, our music, our sculpture and ...

'Inception': When We Write About Dreaming

I saw Chris Nolan's film "Inception" on my birthday this week, and within twenty or so minutes, I was already breathless, amazed at how close the ideas about dreaming, collective dreaming, cognition and even top-down processing were such a part of the suspense film. The film itself was a good roller coaster ride that asked the audience to do some work of its own in unraveling the plot, but nothing too cryptic.  For headier work, see the works of David Lynch.

However, when I walked out of the t...

Spirals: Cognitive Science, Memory and Fiction

I'm starting a new series of posts called Spirals, devoted to some of the work I am doing in graduate school in the realms of cognitive science, usability and human factors in digital reading.

Today we kick off with an ode to the master, Marcel Proust, who literally unraveled memories and the act of remembering into a fine art. I recommend reading his works later on in life. When I tried in my twenties, its impact was lesser. After all, I had fewer memories to turn over in my mind. I imagine a...

Great American Road Trip 2010 and MORE

Not a lot of updates around here, lately. Summer vacation is in full swing, and the break from grad school, blogging, and even writing (more on this later), has been well received.

This summer, as part of an exercise in palate cleansing and inspiration building, I am traveling. Just recently I went on the Great American Road Trip. I will also be traveling to Mexico soon. There's a couple more trips ahead, too.

Usually I schedule travel as a reward for completing a writing project, but this...