tychoish, now without a net

I rewrote the about page for tychoish this weekend. Because it was about damn time, really, and though this one doesn’t cover much new ground the format isn’t so… ass-y. And because it’s a slow blogging week, it’s also a post. Have a good day, check out today’s critical futures story, and I’ll catch you around tomorrow.–ty

This place is mine, I’m your host tycho garen. I’m just your average geeky, male knitter, who write science fiction, and posts to his ‘blog about things like writing, current knitting, technology, academia, and other shiny topics that catch my attention.

I’ve been blogging for a long time, the archive goes back to 2003 (but I don’t think you should read those anyway) and I’ve found residual evidence of my online presence going back to early 2001, and I’m pretty sure that I was doing this kind of thing since mid ‘99 give or take a little, but I’m almost glad that there isn’t a firm record of that early stuff. Once upon a time I collaborated on sites with Chris Knittel, but in 2007 we decided to divide up the archive and start posting independently. Hence tychoish.com.

In truth during the first (many years) I posted infrequently, but since the spring of 2007, I’ve made a point of posting something at least once a day. When I started tychoish, I thought that it would be like my paper notebook–a random collection of thoughts, lists, and raw ideas–only digital. Which meant that I might actually go back and use it more than once, and it might be a cool discussion starter, since I don’t have a lot to hide. Also, about this time tumblelogs became popluar (again), and I thought “nifty! want.” And seeing that I tend to post several hundred words of rough prose every day, you can see how well that idea went.

With the rhythm of daily posting pretty much under my belt, and a rather substantial reevaluation of the role of fiction writing in my life, in July of 2007 I launched a new website called Critical Futures. I’ve been interested in hypertext and the future of prose and fiction on the internet for a long time, and CF is a blog where I post manageable snippets of stories every day of the week. Eventually, I hope that CF will be a paying market and there’ll work from other similarly minded SF writers, but for the moment it’s a fun experiment and great motivation to write and edit (somewhat) my work regularly.

And before you ask, tycho garen isn’t really my name. I mean, it is in a sense, it’s just not what people in real life call me, nor is it what’s on my birth certificate. I like it for both of these reasons, and because it references some of my early writing, it allows me some measure of privacy or separation between my cyber- and meat-space identities, and it helps that it is an unequivocally cool name. I don’t capitalize it (nor my given name much) because names are as much adjectives as they are proper nouns, and particularly since tycho isn’t an official name, it seems even sillier to capitalize it.

That’s me. My email is all over this site, and my username on most major websites/communications services is “tychoish,” if you want to get a hold of me, you know how. I love hearing from readers and fellow bloggers.

If I left something out, don’t be afraid to ask.

Onward and Upward!

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tagged: annoucements • TealArt

Ok, you all have spoken and I’ve changed the tagline to “now without a net,” which I like because of the “stunt/sport”¹ reference/tone. So we’ll see how long this one lasts.

Though I’m about to provide a quick status update on the state of the tycho, I’m thinking bout imposing a limit here: I’ll try and keep the “what’s going on with me,” journal entries down to one or two a week, unless something big happens. Creative constraint and all that.

Also, you all seem to like when I post about things that aren’t me.

Here’s the update:

Days on the Waitlist: 20

I have committed to a job for the summer, which will be good particularly if I get in off this wait list. If I don’t, I’m going to still have the summer job, but I’ll be working to get a job elsewhere as well, and I’m still looking around, of course.

On to the real topic of the post: my knitting.

I’m working on the body of the sweater. The batteries are charged so it’s not inconceivable that I’ll take some pictures this afternoon. There’s not a lot of progress. It’s now 7 inches, which is way behind where I’d like to be, but it does mean that I’m almost half way to the under arm point on this sweater. Ho-Hum.

This is why I think I’m such a bad knitting blogger, in the end, I work on long projects and get really excited if I get more than an inch done a day. Though I have to say that Joe is doing really good blogging job, despite the fact that he’s been working on the same lace tea cloth for weeks. I clearly have much left to learn.

I sent the pi shawl pattern to Zach for review and commentary, and I did some tweaking of my basic toe-up sock pattern/instruction handout. It’s a really in-depth narrative-ish description of how to knit socks thats intended as a pedagogical device, rather than a “design,” per se. I’m planning to release it under a pretty permissive creative commons licensee so that teachers and shop owners can use/distribute the pattern (with attribution) for free.²

If anyone wants to look at either of these (particularly the pi shawl,) I’m not looking for test knitters, just eyeballs, that would be great.

Ok, I’m off. I’m going to a used computer store with this referb computer that I’m working on, to see if I can get additional ram, a wireless card, and maybe a less sucky monitor, and other stuff.

I’ll be in touch.

Onward and Upward!

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tagged: interwebs • knitting • TealArt

Here’s the running list of things I’m thinking about for tag lines. I’ve changed it to “tychoish, think as if you lived–” but this is only temporary, unless people like it.

I really like the comma in this one, really like the comma.

I’m even going to put them in the right font/size.

I hope you don’t mind the visual oddity.

Below the fold

Continue reading Tag Lines

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tagged: journal • lists • TealArt

It was my intention today to work on further invoking good karma to collect upon myself to the end of summoning good news from graduate school. Oh, by the way…

Days on the Waitlist: 17

…anyway, so in this direction, I finally pulled the plug on TealArt. Which was waiting to happen, and I think it’s good that I just got it done with and I’m on to doing things that I think are going to be really productive in my life. Though its sad to let it go, tychoish is where it’s at for me, and to be cliched: taking irons off the fire is a good thing right now.

Another part of list of “things I’m changing,” is I’m going to re-title this blog to be less journalish and more blogish, and hopefully begin to start (continue?) to push my posts in that direction. If someone has a good pithy blog title, I’d love to hear it. I have to throw away a bunch of crap that I’ve collected, and I’m also still in search of some symbolic rite, but I’m working in the right direction.

In other news:

I wrote an entire knitting pattern for this shawl today:

I need to find out who took that picture, though, because I don’t have that info on my records, it was someone who went to Meg Swansen’s Knitting Camp 1 last year, someone who might be reading the blog right now. It’s sort of important that I find out, because I don’t have the shawl any more, and I want to use the picture in the pattern.

Anyway, the deal with this pattern, and it’s going to be an experiment in pattern publication. I’m going to post, probably tomorrow, the terms/description of the licensee that I’m including at the end of the pattern tomorrow for your feedback. I’m looking for the proper middle ground between “I’m going to be stingy and try and prevent people from copying this file,” (which seems to be futile anyway), and “I’m giving it all away for free.” I’m also concerned that if I cripple the distribution system somehow to make it more “secure” (by only selling print copies, or limiting downloads,) that I’ll prevent my best method for advertising.

So I’ll get that copy to you tomorrow and you can tell me what you think.

That’s about all the news I have.

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tagged: journal • knitting • TealArt

Hello kind knitters! I have a brief story for you:

Once upon a time I wrote a couple of patterns that you used to be able to find on a website that I used to run. This website was called TealArt. Much to my surprise, this all attracted some degree of attention.

Then I got all weird about the way my website organized, and I had a minor existential crisis about my digital persona, and one thing led to another, and now those patterns aren’t here. In fact, that website doesn’t exist, but rather redirects to tychoish.com.

Though, to be fair–and because I’ve worked as an archivist and am the child of a historian–I haven’t deleted these archives, most of them are here, buried for posterity. So the patterns are still around, they’re just maybe a little hard to find.

Now I recommend these patterns with a bit of trepidation: They’re old. They’re vague, and frankly they’re in dire need of a revision. The good news is that revising and re-knitting these patterns are all very high on my list of things to do.

For the time being:

• Simple Beret (Be sure to read the comments before knitting the pattern works, if you’re careful.)
• Basic Beanie/Watchclock Cap (This is, pretty much my, standard hat pattern and I still use it, my only comment/revision is that I try to always cast on a multiple of 8, but this isn’t crucial.)
• Quick Reference (This isn’t a pattern per se, but it’s an outline of how I think about sweater design that you might find helpful.)

Revisions and more coming soon, I hope.

If you have any problems with these patterns, please email me, at garen@tychoish.com and I hope to be able to help you.

Knit on in good health!

–tycho garen
28 March 2008

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tagged: knitting • TealArt

I’ve done a few things differently today, which leads me to think that I am on the road to some sort of recovery. Still stressed, and I think what at happened is that I’m finally realizing how little there is to do, and in light of this, I’m able to let go a little.

In any case I’ve done a few new and interesting things. I borrowed a very nice drop spindle from my mother. This means, despite my annoyance with knitting at the moment (and my hand pain/ache), I now have some sort of craft thing that I can do upstairs. Also, spindling is fun, if slow. Someone’s going to get a damn nice skein of lace weight at some point. Drop-spindling is something new for me, really (I’ve done it as a learning experience, but never–really–with the intention of making something), and I think I need new things in my life at the moment.

I also finished spinning the singles for my second 80-90 gram skein of fingering/sport weight yarn on the spinning wheel. Good stuff. I bought 2 pounds of BFL at the Yarn Barn in December, and I’m hoping that I’ll spin through what I have by the time my wheel comes.

Also, I did some tweaking to tealArt, and I think I have the design almost nailed down. You’ll notice a few changes around the edges on tychoish, which unifies both sites. I’m still hoping that dave will design me a nice little 100 pixel wide banner for the top corner of tA. In any case, I feel like this project is back on the rails, and in control: which–like so many things–it hadn’t for quite some time.

The main thing to do now is get the main page of TealArt.com to work and function in a really cool way that will hopefully make the site function as a more cohesive whole. While I really like what I’ve been able to do with tychoish.com and I’m generally pleased with the response, I think long term I want to produce a site that isn’t so ego centric. There are things that I want to do with this internet-stuff that I don’t want to be all about me. Just saying.

So doing these things is pretty productive for me, and it’s a change of pace, which is what I think I need at the moment.

Anyway, hunger strikes.

Onward and Upward!

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tagged: interwebs • journal • TealArt