Mark Niemann-Ross

Phantom Sense - my latest collaboration with Rick Lovett

Thu, 2 Sep 2010 12:27:35 -0700

Analog - November 2010

The November issue of Analog features something a bit unusual: "Phantom Sense," a powerful novella by Richard A. Lovett and Mark Niemann-Ross, and a companion science fact article by the same authors about the real science and technology at the core of the story. Science fiction has often explored the consequences of people having capabilities far beyond those of most of us, but what if those abilities can be conferred by technology--and that technology is only available to a few? "Phantom Sense" will put you into the mind of a man with a complex of such abilities that is almost at our fingertips right now, and has potentials both exhilarating and terrifying. But the real problems lie in how the man who has those capabilities can relate to those who don't. . . .

You can buy a copy from Fictionwise

Vacation Rental

Sun, 22 Aug 2010 19:34:19 -0700

We are offering two private rooms in the back wing of our house as a short-term vacation rental. These are most suitable for singles or couples wishing to stay in Portland Oregon, but desiring something other than a standard Hotel experience.

The two rooms share a bathroom, and are connected via a hallway to the rest of the house. There is a separate, private entrance, and a door between the main house and the bedroom wing.

The main room is large and sunny, with a small walk-out porch, closet, dresser and view of the back yard. The secondary room is smaller, also contains a dresser and bed, with a view of the chickens and their yard. Given the opportunity, we may choose to rent out both rooms on a given evening, which would imply that the bathroom would be shared between the occupants of the two bedrooms. Before we do this, we will confirm that this is OK with both visitors.

Janell and Mark are a friendly, professional, middle-age couple with one older child living at home. Mark works at home, and is often available for suggestions on visiting Portland.

The house is located near the South-East Hawthorne District, three miles from downtown and eight miles from the airport. Both are easily accessible via public transportation. The neighborhood is quiet, and you can safely enjoy walks to local dining and shopping at all hours of the day or night.

Pets are discouraged, but negotiable. They must be well-behaved, housebroken, and are not allowed to chase our chickens.

If you would like to use the kitchen, please discuss this with us before arriving. It is an additional $25 per day, and is subject to approval.

Please contact us no later than one week before your anticipated stay.

Writing for Oregon Music News

Tue, 22 Jun 2010 10:44:23 -0700

I'm currently writing for Oregon Music News. If you're looking for fresh content, take a look here...

Expensive Things You Can do to Foul up Your Developer Program

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 16:08:30 -0700

Here is the handout.

"Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex. It takes a touch of genius to move in the opposite direction." - Albert Einstein (paraphrased)

Developer programs go through three phases.

One of your engineers posts an unauthorized skunk-works API on the Internet. Other developers find it, and start using it.

A large customer builds a dependency on the skunk-works API - you respond by formalizing the developer program and associated API.

Someone at your company decides to take it to the next level...

The third phase is where companies go astray in creative and expensive ways. I'm going to share some "lessons learned" about these phase three mistakes, associated costs, and strategies for course corrections.

For an issue to make this list (and this presentation) it required two attributes:

expensive to implement.

does more harm than good.

The Take-Away
If you need to leave early, the take-away is that developers aren't focused on making you successful. They are focused on making themselves successful (or happy)Evans Data Corporation. Developer Marketing Patterns 2009. pg 27. . You happen to be a vehicle to that success - don't screw it up!

And here they are - Expensive ways to foul things up...

Create Multiple and Specialized Program Entry Points

Dramatically improve the API

Install an Expensive Partner Relations Management Tool

Build Your Developer Program with You In Mind

Combine Developer Marketing with Internal Marketing

Create a web-based storefront for your developers

Adobe Certified Expert - Acrobat 8 & 9

Tue, 9 Mar 2010 16:51:09 -0800

ACE_Acrobat.png

One of the perks offered to Adobe Employees is waiving the $150 fee for the Adobe Certified Expert tests. I figured that since I'm in a transition phase, I'd take advantage of the offer and pick up an Acrobat Certification. Adobe doesn't offer a "certified developer test" (perhaps I should have pursued that) so programming Acrobat seems like a close second.

Hey - these things are hard! Specifically, the test isn't just about concepts - they want to know if you have a handle on where things are located. Sure - import form data. No Sweat. But would you know what menu item to use to compile form data?

Fortunately, I passed so I don't have to retake. Now that I've got my sheepskin, what am I going to do? Probably look into helping the legal field with security and data processing issues - and I'll start to haunt the Acrobat support forums and grab whatever questions are left laying around.

After that - still working on mnr.next ...

Out of the Chaos - Psalm 130

Mon, 1 Mar 2010 16:30:03 -0800

Here's a recording of the song I wrote for Jazz Sunday on February 28th, 2010. Performers are Andrea Llafet, Piano; Don Barnes, Tenor Saxophone; Ben Lincoln, alto saxophone; Dan Schlesinger, Euphonium; Jeff Lewis, Drums and myself on Bass. Vocals by Carolyn and Lynelle Tarter.

"Out of the Chaos" is based on Psalm 130, aka "De profundis." This song came about when Jeff Lewis suggested I should write something for Jazz Sunday on February 28th, 2010, which falls during Lent. I did some research on psalms, and this one seemed to have the right visuals that I could manipulate into a jazz piece.

I knew I wasn't going to use the lyrics directly from the Psalms - I'm sure the original song in Hebrew works musically, but not so when translated into English - much less Jazz. But the concepts in the Psalm are compelling. The author is apparently writing about how his people are messing up. Things are bad. Things are getting worse. All they can hope for is God's continued forgiveness for a bunch of losers.

Regardless of where you stand spiritually, this strikes me as a really strong message for any of our relationships. We screw up. We're forgiven by whoever we wronged. And then probably screw up again. It's not our intent to mess up our lives, and the lives of those around us. But we do, and then we hope for the best.

Here's the original Psalm 130 as found in the Revised Standard Edition:
A Song of Ascents.
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!

If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with you, so that you may be revered.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope;
my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
It is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.

And then, here are the words I used in the song:
Out of the chaos. We call to you
We are still waiting. We call to you
We are still Suffering. We call to you

We will wait for your forgiveness like a watchman waits for dawn

We sin. You forgive
we sin. You forgive
we sin. You forgive.
We sin....

This was probably one of the most complex pieces I've written so far, due to accounting for two vocalists, as well as the instrumentation. It's interesting that I can hear it in my head - but getting it down on paper is difficult. Perhaps it's because a lot of what I hear is the general picture - but the essence is in the details.

If you'd like to perform this, let me know. I have charts for vocals, piano, Eb, Bb and Bass. It assumes that you're going to do some improvisation, so don't plan to play it exactly as written.

DAMN YOU, MUSE!

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 06:45:39 -0800

20100216-31652611v2_225x225_Front.jpg

It's official - as of March 31st, I will no longer be your Friendly Creative Suite Developer Evangelist. I'm working to finish up the May Developer Summit, but after that, I'm on to the next big thing.

I just turned down a creampuff of a job at Adobe. Great group to work with. Great Boss. Great Benefits, etc. Great Job - wrong time. With so many peers scrambling for work (any work) I feel like an ungrateful boob for turning this down. BUT - a greater fear is that I'll look back and regret. Perhaps the next big thing won't be visible until I look for it.

I mentioned earlier that I have a muse. A very busy muse. And it wakes me up at night - something that hasn't happened for quite a while. There I am, lying in bed, cursing that I can't get back to sleep, knowing that unless I get up and write, create, practice, etc, I'll be stuck, lying in bed, cursing. My muse provides me with a list of things to do - every morning, at about 5:30 am.

In any case, I'm demonstrating my trust in the process - it's OK proceed, not with caution, but with wild abandon and enthusiasm.

Clever Music Videos

Mon, 1 Feb 2010 16:46:31 -0800

When MTV first came out, I was thrilled by the creative mix of music and cinematography. Granted, there were a bunch of musicians (or their agents?) that mistakenly viewed this as a channel to broadcast live concerts filmed in abandoned warehouses - no need for additional creativity. But some musicians "got it."

Remember back to early television, which was little more than radio shows retooled to accommodate a video camera? MTV, or more precisely, music videos, started with the same problem all over again. We continue to learn that each media is unique, and only borrows concepts from the previous media.

This is a collection of my favorite music videos - as I find more, I'll add to the list. Note that this isn't my list of favorite songs - just the best examples I've found of creative cinematography overlapping creative songwriting. If you have something to add - send it to me via http://www.niemannross.com/postoffice

Her Morning Elegance / Oren Lavie - Oren has done a lot of writing about this song which is worth reading if you're interested in backstories. As for me, I find the combination of story, animation and song appealing. By the way, this chord progression (Bminor, G, A, D) shows up again in a later video.

Camille - Ta douleur (clip) - There is a great interview with Camille on NPR - she's creative and willing to take a chance on her musical expression, watch some of her other videos. Although I haven't heard the entire album, each song is connected by a drone note common to the entire set of songs. You can hear it at the very beginning, and the end of this piece.

Stand By Me | Playing For Change | Song Around the World - These filmmakers recorded a band that never existed.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) - No, Matt is not a hoax, and they did not use animatronic puppets

Jill Barber with Oh My My - I don't know much about Jill Barber, but her song has a nice pocket, and a good storyline that gets fleshed out in the video.

4 Chord Medley: Bm-G-D-A - Remember the chords from Your Morning Elegance? These two vocalists run us through a brief lesson on Current Pop Music and the basis of four chords.

Lily Allen / Alfie - speaking of bringing the unreal world to your doorstep in video, Lily combines polkas and puppets.

Sesame Street: Outdoors with Jason Mraz - Did I mention four chords? They appear again in this song by Jason Mraz. The original video and song is interesting - but Sesame Street always brings things to a amusing place.

Sixteen Military Wives - The Decemberists - The Decemberists are a local Portland band made good. This video came out in 2005, shortly after the United States showed their unique new stand on diplomacy. Poor Carl.

Ok Go - Here It Goes Again (The Treadmill Video) - A recent exceptional dance routine by "OK Go." If you like this one, check out "This Too Shall Pass"

Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer (1986) - Peter Gabriel endorsed the "Clever Video" category WAAAYY Back. As I recall, this was the first impressive video I ever saw. In 1986, this animation was cutting edge, and to see it synced up with a great song was stunning enough to cause me to make the bartender wait for my order until the video was finished.

KT Tunstall vs Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer & The Cherry Tree (DJ Schmolli Mashup Mix) - So if you liked Peter Gabriel, this mash-up of two videos does a spectacular job of staying in the pocket.

Peter Gabriel - Steam - You probably don't remember "Lawnmower Man" or "Max Headroom" - the first real jumps into use of 3d mapping applied to faces and bodies. Here's Peter (again) jumping around on the cutting edge of video. Most every scene is using layers of static and animated artwork, new animation techniques (at the time) and a great beat!

Mother of All Funk Chords - At some point, all media performs a self-referencing backflip. Painters who include paintings, photographers taking pictures of photographs.YouTube videos that consist of youtube videos...

By the way - if you're on Facebook, you're not seening the links. They are all at http://www.niemannross.com

My Spammer Friends

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 09:05:28 -0800

Spammers rationalize their behavior as simple commerce, but for most of us, they ignore the basic guidelines of polite society. Those of us that were paying attention in class learned that interrupting a conversation is boorish (as in "with tusks, crashing through the forest") and if you monopolize a conversation, you'll soon have an audience of one.

I like to engage in open conversation - but spammers believe open conversation is one-sided. If their comments were REALLY interesting, that would be good. But I REALLY have all the watches I need, and am uncertain about ordering non-prescription vi_A-gre from an international source with no return address. ("Does this have fresh goat extract?"). So I've taken steps to block them.

The spreadsheet shown above is a real-time list of unsuccessful attempts to post a message at http://www.niemannross.com/postoffice . If you go there, you can select a member of my family and send them a message. But you also have to recognize and type in two words supplied by a service called recaptcha . Machines don't know how to do this, and will therefore add a line to the above spreadsheet. (Note: some computers can now recognize these visual puzzles - so you'll see the visual puzzles getting more difficult)

Some interesting notes about the spreadsheet:

On Sunday, January 24th there is a sudden cessation of activity. That's the day I removed the postoffice link from this webpage. Spambots can't find it anymore, and hey presto, no more spam.

They used to be a lot more polite, including a saluation ("Hello! I like your thoughts") followed by their own thoughts about cheap watches. Now they just dump their paper bag of flaming feces on your doorstep and run.

The IP address indicates where the spam came from. The time and date indicate when it came from that address. Given these two pieces of information, an internet provider could track these guys down and give them the boot. But they don't because it's not financially rewarding to do so. As an experiment, I did notify a few internet providers, and the ones that I could actually contact did the right thing. But the job is un-ending, and until I automate the process, I have other things to do.

By the way - if you're not seeing the spreadsheet or links, you can view the original post at http://niemannross.com/nucleus/index.php?blogid=1&itemid=93

Ten Expensive Things You Can do to Foul up Your Developer Program

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 07:41:22 -0800

ten fowl things

It appears that my personal and private lives are crossing. I suppose it was inevitable, and some business associates made the connection long ago.

Or perhaps having thirteen chickens scratching around the side yard colors everything I write and say. (I'll have to be more aware of that. Kind of like being at a Toastmasters meeting and having some guy clink their glass every time you say "and...um.")

Or perhaps my personal and private lives were never separate. That's probably the best explanation, considering I work at home.

In this case, my personal/private lives have collaborated on the title of a presentation for the Evans Developer Relations Conference. In November, I breezily suggested a presentation for the conference, titled "Ten Expensive Things You Can do to Foul up Your Developer Program." The clever title would have been "Ten Expensive Things You Can do to Fowl up Your Developer Program" - fortunately, my "don't be cute" filter caught that one and grepped out "/fowl/foul/g." But I do wonder about the feathered part of my brain slipping in a reference.

All bird references aside, I'll be in San Jose March 15th and 16th, condensing twenty years of experience into ten points (in 45 minutes!). I've already identified fifteen topics I'd like to cover - so I'll need to trim.

What about you? You're probably a developer, or have worked with developer programs. If you were my co-presenter, what three points would you put on the slide?

if you can't leave a comment, send me mail at http://www.niemannross.com/postoffice