(Mirrored at http://studio.michaelsmanley.com/2010/06/23/notes-on-apple-pim-functions/.) Apple is now four versions into its “cloud” PIM service, MobileMe, and its associated mobile device, the iPhone. These have been built to integrate with Apple’s OS X PIM apps — Contacts.app, Mail.app and iCal.app — with the intent of giving users of the apps, the device and the service synchronized, portable access to [...]
I enjoy investigating little splinter subgenres of fiction. Movie novelizations were probably the first niche I dove into, having read copies of WarGames and Goonies into tatters in junior high. Then the punk years: cyberpunk, splatterpunk, steampunk, dieselpunk, biopunk, slipstream/new weird, urban fantasy: I dove into most and came up stinking. I spent a little [...]
The freshman class of “Atlantic Fiction for Kindle Short Story” ebooks has been released into the wild. Being a fan of a) the Kindle, b) The Atlantic (though moreso in former days than lately) and c) short fiction, these would appear to be cultural products aimed directly at my demographic. And so, being as good [...]
Books Here, I’m not so proud. I didn’t hit my usual goal of 50 or more books in a year, and looking back over what I did read, I read a lot of crap. Resolution #1 for 2010 is to read better books. Also, read more short stories. Favorite books of the year are probably [...]
Unless I am too impatient to wait for a collection, I generally avoid single issues of comics. I prefer a whole story in one package, not paced out across months (which also constrains story structure, usually to a 5-act drama form). Currently, Stumptown is the only series I am picking up in individual issues. This is [...]
Experiment from Rick Moody & Black Clock: http://bit.ly/4qWKVL You can read the whole thing if you scroll down a few dozen messages on @blackclockmag. There’s an issue with “tweet fiction”: If you read real-time, the order works. Otherwise, Twitter frustrates the reader by going backwards. So, what about the “Contemporary Characters” in “Some Contemporary Characters?” [...]
Scott Johnson: Do you remember your story that ended, “And for a moment he looked glorious.”? You really stuck that landing. MSM: She, not he. Yes, “Mansions in Heaven,” a story I went over with Prof. Stuckey so many times in grad school that one afternoon the poor thing fell apart into a heap of [...]
