Sawyer Paul's Blog, page 75

Kobo Aura HD

Kobo Aura HD is the only premium eReader, offering an unprecedented immersive reading experience for the book lover. Unlike other eReaders, Kobo Aura HD elevates the reading experience by combining the most advanced, highest resolution, extra-large screen with a book-inspired design that feels natural and comfortable to hold.

The big feature here is the giant 255 PPI screen, which is leagues above current eink readers (the Kindle Paperwhite is 212, and my Kobo Touch is a measly 167), but the sleeper feature may be the ridged backing. Kobo's have always had the coolest backs of any reader, and this one looks like they spent the time figuring out exactly where fingers should rest. Excited to check this out when it hits stores.

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More Things, April 15, 2013

Gambit Wielopolskiego

This week, I've been inspired by Jessica Stanley's Read Look Think to restart my own link blog. Enjoy the new More Things.

"So, dear reader, I implore you: If this post at all rings true, sounds a little too familiar, do yourself a favor — take a vacation. Get away from your work for a bit. Reset. And when you come back, pick some number under 35 and try working that many hours per week, and no more." | "How much time do I spend with my daughter? How much time is spent with my wife, just the two of us or as we spend time with my daughter? There are moments where you need to be unplugged. When we are unplugged from the internet the screen time we have through TV and cinema is longer and undisturbed." |

Contranyms | "I now realize graduate school was a terrible idea because the full-time, tenure-track literature professorship is extinct. After four years of trying, I’ve finally gotten it through my thick head that I will not get a job—and if you go to graduate school, neither will you." | Diary of a Pakistani Soap Opera Star." |

Turns out brain games are hokum. I just bought the new Brain Age, too. | I read, but most men don't. Bryan Goldberg's next project is focused on women, and he explains why.

"My point with this is not to make fun of bad design. My point is that bad design is a symptom of a young and underserved market." | With the 'bikelash' reduced to incoherent rants, pro-car common sense is losing traction. | So to attempt to change the pattern, let me expose the wound.

Thanks to @maskedtweeter, I've got more to read about André the Giant.

Great Bitches of Hollywood 4: Carole Lombard vs John Barrymore

Carole Lombard divorced William Powell…so she could marry Clark
fucking Gable. John Barrymore reported the San Fransisco earthquake on the
radio…and made everything up. Lombard had reconstructive surgery in 1926
following a car crash…and refused anesthetic because she believed it would
somehow make the scar worse. Barrymore is still considered the greatest Hamlet
and Richard III…even though George Bernard Shaw thought he was a hack. Lombard
inspired Hitchcock’s thing for blondes…and was given the goddamn Medal of
Freedom by Roosevelt. Barrymore’s corpse got “Weekend at Bernies’d”…in a
drunken prank director Raoul Walsh played on Errol Flynn.

Carole Lombard and John Barrymore star in both of our movies
and steal each other’s spotlight. Barrymore is no match for the sheer
shrillness of Lombard’s performance in Twentieth Century, and you don’t even
notice Lombard is on the screen when Barrymore shows up in True Confessions. What
do we do about this? Obviously we play them both and imbibe in a way that would
make them both proud. Well, not Barrymore. Nobody could drink like Barrymore.

Join us on April 27 as we screen Twentieth Century and True
Confession and figure out who out-Diva’d who. We’ll provide snacks and a
special drink in the grand tradition. You bring more booze. There should be
lots of booze for this one. They’d both want it that way.

Right Here - Calgary

I'll admit, this made me pretty homesick.

Gredunza Podcast logo updates

I've been meaning to unify the logo scheme for Gredunza Press podcasts for a while, since I've wanted a quick way to add artwork for new shows. Heavily inspired by the 5by5 Network's design scheme, I know I'm not nearly at that level yet but what I've got here is a solid start. iTunes recently began requiring 1400x1400 images if a show is to be promoted, so I thought the time was as good as any.

I'm not requiring the podcast authors to use these, so if you're a subscriber to any of these fantastic shows you may still see their preferred logos in your feed. Of course, you can check all these shows out at the website. What do you think?

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Podcast starts conversation about local arts

Putting on a podcast has also allowed Marshall and Baker the freedom to make the show they want to make without having to deal with financial restrictions or having to go through other organizations.

“[A podcast] gives us the opportunity to do what we want and not be restricted by not having any money,” Baker said.

So happy to see a podcast as good as Trivial Pursuits get some recognition. They're a great show on Gredunza Press.

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Welcome to the People Party

So, while we applaud Facebook for working to give some Android owners a taste of what a “people-centric” phone can be like, we’d humbly like to suggest that you get the real thing, and simply upgrade to a Windows Phone.

When you get your Windows Phone, simply log into your Facebook account (along with Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn and Gmail) and pin your best friends and family to your start screen, and we promise you’ll be feeling even more at “home”.

 Can't argue with that.

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The Trunk

My fiancee's brother gave us his old TV this weekend, and we needed a stand for it. A saturday of antique shopping later we had our perfect TV stand. It's an old vinyl/wood trunk that's huge and heavy and incredible.

The Moonbow Easy

I began writing The Moonbow Easy this week. It's my new novel. I hope to finish it in under 8 months, do one round of edits, and release it for ten bucks this time next year. You'll be able to read it on anything.

It's about a girl who works for her uncle in a resort hotel in Colerado. She went to a terrible college with strict religious studies and a crooked student loan arrangement. Under incredible stress to pay back this debt, her uncle takes her in and agrees to square it with her. The arrangement is she has to work at his hotel until the debt is paid off.

Her faith broken, her life frozen in place, and her future bleak, she has a chance encounter with a thief. Their relationship defines the book. They might fall in love. He might kill someone. I've still got to figure a few things out.

The Moonbow Easy's main themes surround the system of schemes, the idea of someone else saving you, and whether or not we can ever really be square with the world and the people in our lives. I have no idea if there's a market for a book like that but that's a shitty way to think about writing a book anyway.

How do I find my Squarespace RSS feed?

Squarespace uses this format for RSS feeds within your site:

feed://sitename.squarespace.com/pageU...

To find your specific RSS feed URL, you will need to locate your site name and the page URL.

 A little clunky, I have to say. Squarespace is so elegant and easy in almost every other regard, I'm surprised RSS is handled this way. 

If it were up to me, RSS for any particular blog would look like this: feed://sitename.com/rss. Any extra blogs would be feed://sitename.com/blog/rss.

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