All posts for Uncategorized / General in April 2021
If You Hum A Few Bars I Can Fake It
Ersatz Vangelis and fake Tangerine Dream, coming up! And maybe something more original after that.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2021-04-29 08:00:00-04:00 No comments
Another new toy arrived in the last month or so that I haven't said much about yet — an Arturia KeyLab 49 Essential, a MIDI controller that came with a ton of assorted software. I'd been mulling teaching myself to play keyboards for some time now, and so I dug into my remaining technology fund and splurged. In truth it wasn't that expensive; there's actual keyboard keyboards I've bought for my PC that were about as much.
The Leftover Effect
Many of my books owe at least a little something to their immediate predecessors, chiefly because whatever it was I did with the idea the first time didn't use it all up.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2021-04-21 17:00:00-04:00 No comments
After having done this for about a dozen times in a row (write books, that is), I'm starting to see a few patterns. One of them is how many of the books tend to end up owing at least a little something to their immediate predecessors, chiefly because whatever it was I did with the idea the first time didn't use it all up.
Crosseyed And Painless
Good thing I set aside all that money for PC upgrades, right?
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2021-04-19 08:00:00-04:00 No comments
Good thing I set aside all that money for PC upgrades, right? Last week I noticed something funny about my desktop monitor, a 22" Samsung flatpanel that I'd had since 2011. Yes, 2011. The face of the display now had a whole smattering of little discolorations in it that couldn't be wiped off — they were actual abrasions in the surface of the panel. Figuring I might as well upgrade now, I picked up a Gigabyte M27Q 27" 170Hz display. It was a little like going from a little forty-seat community arthouse theater to an IMAX. It took an entire day of staring at it to get used to it, and I'm still not used to it. But it was absolutely worth making the jump.
Death By A Million Brands Of Toothpaste
On choice paralysis in creative work and how to avoid it.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2021-04-16 08:00:00-04:00 No comments
Early last year I wrote about creativity and the toothpaste paradox, the latter being the cognitive breakdown many of us experience when we go into the toothpaste aisle at the store and can't choose between the umpity-dozen-zillion different varieties of the stuff presented there. It's all the funnier (for some definitions of funny) when you realize the vast majority of toothpastes have virtually no difference in terms of their efficacy; it's almost all marketing and picayune personal preferences.
Choice paralysis is, as you can guess, a major issue in creative work. Because you have complete control over what you put into a story, that can manifest as being stranded between too many choices, and you end up in a Toothpaste Meltdown, goggling at the screen and drooling into your keys.
A Shot In The Arm
For both myself and others.
By Serdar Yegulalp on 2021-04-06 18:00:00-04:00 No comments
Yesterday afternoon I received the first of two doses of The Vaccine, all handled with great efficiency at a location less than a mile from my house. Right now I'm typing this with only a mildly sore forearm, although Mein Frau seems to have gone down for the count with a case of the one-day post-jab bug (body aches, chiefly). Better that than a full-blown case of the COVID Crud. We've even been pre-registered for the next dose in May.
