Technically Speaking

Today is Uncle LaVon’s funeral, so I thouht I would re-print his obituary from the Deseret Morning News.

LaVon Urie, age 76, passed away Saturday, Nov. 19, 2005. He was born June 25, 1929 in Cedar City, UT to John Milton and Ruth Gottfredson Urie. He attended Cedar City High School and later graduated from the University of Utah with a degree in engineering. He married Mary Evelyn Carpenter in the Manti Temple June 4, 1954. He worked as a civil engineer until his retirement. He was also active in the Air Force Reserve for many years. He was an active member of the LDS Church. He served a fulltime mission in the Northern States, served in various church callings including ward clerk, stake high counselor, and stake librarian. He was currently a temple worker at the Bountiful Temple, which gave him great joy and fulfillment. LaVon was a wonderful father, neighbor, and friend. He never knew a stranger. He is survived by his three children, Karen Longmore (Keith), Kim Urie, Jane Gould (Charles); and brothers, Gene Urie (Inez) and John Urie (Ollie); 10 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. He was preceded in death by both his parents; his wife of 43 years; and his brother, Hurschell Urie. The family would like to thank all the wonderful neighbors and friends who have taken such good care of him the past few years. Funeral services will be Wednesday, Nov. 23, 11 a.m. at the Bountiful 45th Ward chapel, 115 Wicker Lane. A viewing will be Tuesday night 6:30-8:30 p.m. at Russon Brothers Mortuary, 295 North Main Street, Bountiful, UT and prior to the funeral services from 9:15-10:15 a.m. He will be interred next to his wife in the Bountiful Cemetery. Online guestbook and map quest at www@russonmortuary.com

Published in the Deseret News on 11/20/2005.

I bet you haven’t guessed that we went to see the new Harry Potter movie over the weekend. Unlike my brother, we didn’t see it twice, but then I remember my single days when I went to see Pearl Harbor three times in the opening week. So I can relate to him.

Anyway, I thought I’d post my Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire response here at Technically Speaking. I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars. It was a really good movie, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

(Oh, and by the way, I wanted to say thanks to Dave and Courtney for saving our place in line; we watched the movie at a Provo theater which was over an hour away from our house, when you consider traffic. I mean, we passed five (maybe six?) theaters that were playing the movie in order to watch it in Provo. So, um, sorry we were late… )

I won’t go ahead and rehash the plot; if you don’t know it already, you can find it on plenty of websites. Instead, I’ll just give my reactions to the movie.

First, I think that the latest Harry Potter installment was well-written. Props go to Steven Kloves, who adapted J.K. Rowling’s massive novel into a 2.5-hour movie. Kloves did a great job trimming the book and adapting it into a movie. Some loyal Potterites have expressed disappointment that there were a number of specific details that were different in the movie and in the book, but that is to be expected, in my opinion. The film medium is distinctly different from the novel medium, and they have different conventions and practices that distinguish them. The things that make for a great novel aren’t all of the same things that make for a great movie. Thus, when a novel is adapted to film, changes are usually necessary. Characters have to be combined or eliminated. Plots have to be simplified. Kloves did a great job finding the central plot and theme of the novel, and then he adapted it in a way that did the novel justice while modifying it in a way that fits the conventions of a motion picture.

I really liked the pace of the movie. It was funny in all the right places, and I thought it was well-acted. Since the complexity of the story has increased, the number of characters has increased. This means that some of our best-loved characters of former films had less screen time in Goblet of Fire, but I think it worked.
Read the rest of this entry »

So I’m back. It’s Monday and I’m back at work and back blogging. I was home sick the last couple of days with the first cold of the season. It is pretty lousy to be at home and sick in bed for three days. I mean, if I’m going to be home, I want to be out doing stuff, not stuck in bed. But then again, I guess that is the difference between a sick day and a holiday.

Today I came across the following optical illusion that you have to check out. I’d love it if somebody could explian to me how it works. (Nod to Bruce from TCH who pointed this out in the TCH forums.)

Here is the link: illusion

So, if you watch the rotating dots, they all stay pink. But if you stare at the black mark in the middle, you will see a rotating green dot. Now if you concentrate on the black mark, all the pink dots seem to dissappear, and all you see is one rotating green dot.

As the site puts it, “we don’t always see what we think we see.”

Since I switched to WordPress as the back-end software for my blog, I’ve required users to log in before they could leave comments on my blog. The reason for this was simple: Spammers won’t create an account, and if they do, they are easy to deal with–I can just delete their account.

However, whenever I find a blog that I would comment on but that requires registration, almost invariably I just give up and don’t bother creating an account. I realized that there are probably readers of Technically Speaking that would comment if they didn’t have to register for an account.

Therefore, I’m announcing a policy change today. You are no longer required to have an account with Technically Speaking in order to post a comment. In an effort to catch spam, I’ve installed two separate spam-fighting programs on the blog: Spam Karma 2 and bad behavior. Hopefully that between these programs and me we can keep comment spam down to a minimum. If however, we find that there are too many spam comments making it through, I reserve the right to re-enable the restriction that only allows registered users to post comments. But I hope that won’t be necessary.

In the mean time, happy commenting.

I like the Society for Technical Communication. I’ve been a member now for about three years, and now it is time to renew for my fourth, and I’m not even questioning whether or not I should renew.

Actually, last year I was able to get my work to spring for the $150 annual membership, and it looks like they are going to do the same in 2006–but even if they didn’t, I’d find the money somewhere, because I think it is a valuable organization.

If nothing else, STC classic members get a subscription to Intercom magazine and the Technical Communication journal, and that is one of my favorite parts of STC membership.

Intercom’s recent articles include tips on expanding your sphere of influence as a writer, an article on creating on line help for touch-screen applications, and ten tips on creating a great index. Now many of you, who are not technical writers, probably think that these sound like boring articles. Some of you wonder who cares? Well, I do! I think its actually pretty cool.

Technical Communication is the quarterly scholarly journal published by STC. Just last week I got my November issue, and it is full of scholarly articles with the latest research in the field. Even if the research isn’t interesting to you, you’ll benefit from it because hopefully its principles will trickle down into the technical documentation you read every day–from owner’s manuals to prescription drug leaflets.

A while back I attended an STC regional conference. At the conference, I was able to network with colleagues from all over the country. I attended seminars on the latest technology that is affecting the way we will be doing documentation in the near future. I was able to take the principles I learned at the conference and apply them directly in the work I was doing.

Yes, STC is a valuable group for me, and I’m glad to sign up for another year. Thanks, STC for your great work. I’m proud to be a card-carrying member.