Month: June 2017

How I became a technical writer in the Silicon Valley

Post author By joel
Post date June 28, 2017

A good way to communicate is to tell a story. Here is mine. The purpose of my telling is to help you tell your story especially if your story concerns your high technology business and if you do not feel especially comfortable writing.

I became a technical writer by accident. It was Labor Day of 1990. My wife Diana pulled up the family Ford to the headquarters of the U.S. Postal Service in Washington, D.C. where I had originally been hired to write speeches for the Postmaster General. I was 43 years old and not at all happy with my job. My wife Diana was working for the U.S. Department of Commerce as international economist negotiating textile and apparel agreements. Diana had negotiated in India, Bangladesh, and China. Her title was impressive. So was mine.

Together we had trouble making our mortgage payments. The public school system in Washington D.C., once the envy of the world, had declined tragically since the end of World War II. My six year old daughter Joanna was in first grade and learning very little. My second daughter Amelia was less than a year old.

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Often it may become necessary to interrupt. I am interrupting myself to let you know where the story is going and why. The story ends at a Christmas party for a startup company in the Silicon Valley of California. The company was founded by entrepreneurs who were born in India but relocated to the U.S.—to San Jose specifically—because of opportunity. They saw the opportunity to develop a relatively-small switch for data transmission. I had been hired under contract to write a user’s guide. The subject of the guide was highly-technical.

The guide’s purpose was to help readers who were eager to use new technology to make their business successful. Some experience with the basics of data transmission was assumed. My readers knew something about digital transmission, but I had to write clearly and simply. Perhaps a new employee had just been hired who was in the process of being trained. My manual had to be understandable to the relative novice (without talking down to her or him) and yet also worth reading for an experienced hand. What is the first thing I needed to do to write such a document?

The first thing I needed to do was understand the subject.

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Spoiler alert for the return to the story. The family Ford was going to Diana’s best friend Betsy who lived outside Charlotte, North Carolina. On the way, we stopped in the Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina. Specifically, we stopped at the home of Patric and Trina Mullen. Patric was an old friend. He had been a lobbyist in Washington, D.C. introducing me (when I was a newsletter editor relatively young to my profession) to members of Congress helpful to me. In return, I included his observations into articles I published. It was not simply tit for tat. We were friends with a similar world view which had extended itself to his relocation to North Carolina then booming with major advances in education and in attracting high technology business.

One of the businesses North Carolina had attracted was Northern Telecom, a Canadian based manufacturer of digital telephone switches which for decades had brought prosperity to the state. Patric’s wife Trina was a rising executive at the company. Her next door neighbor Kathleen Atwater was in charge of a marketing group of technical writers. Kathleen came over to meet us. In her kitchen, Kathleen said she was hiring a senior technical writer. I had never been even a junior technical writer. However, my publication record was considerable. I was hired in Patric and Trina’s kitchen and by Thanksgiving a 16 wheel truck had relocating all our family belongings to Durham. It was there I learned about digital transmission and most especially how to switch large data packets (for example, television).

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To be continued is the story of how I wound up in the Silicon Valley of California writing about data transmission for a company owned by Indian-born entrepreneurs. What I am planning to tell is how a writer learns about technology and expresses my learning in simple English.

English is a marvelous language especially useful for communicating technology. This post is a roundabout way of appreciating the beauty of our language and how four months before my 70^th birthday, I have learned to use English to help women and men in business achieve their objectives.

Between now and the next installment, please feel free to get in touch regarding your language needs. Are you having trouble with a grant proposal, a technical manual, an SEC filing, a speech, a press release, an especially significant email?

Often I do not tell long stories keeping the reader wondering what will happen next. This time I am taking advantage of telling a long story with many installments in the hope that you will read within the lines concepts that may be useful to you.

Until next time, I remain,

–Joel

[email protected]

814-689-9363

http://www.siliconindia.com/profiles/Joel-Solkoff-C5W8MGcL.html

https://joelsolkoff.com/technical-writing-philosophy-sample-availability/

https://joelsolkoff.com/book-store/books/the-politics-of-food/

http://blogs.siliconindia.com/JoelhelpswithbusinessEnglish/

Tags Clear writing, Disability and Elderly Issues, Grant proposals, Public relations, SEC filings, Silicon India, Silicon India Magazine, Technical writing, Telecommunications

Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm

Post author By joel
Post date June 20, 2017

A hundred eyes were fixed on her, and half as many hearts lost to her. The Warden of Judas himself had mounted on his nose a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Him espying, the nymph darted in his direction. The throng made way for her. She was at his side. “Grandpapa I” she cried, and kissed the old man on either cheek. (Not a youth there but would have bartered fifty years of his future for that salute.) “My dear Zuleika,” he said, “welcome to Oxford! Have you no luggage?” “Heaps!” she answered. “And a maid who will find it.”

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ZULEIKA DOBSON

OR AN OXFORD LOVE STORY

By Max Beerbohm

Click for full text

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1845/1845-h/1845-h.htm

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Wikipedia

Zuleika Dobson, full title Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story, is a 1911 novel by Max Beerbohm, a satire of undergraduate life at Oxford. It was his only novel, but was nonetheless very successful. This satire includes the famous line “Death cancels all engagements” and presents a corrosive view of Edwardian Oxford.

Zuleika Dobson
Cover for Penguin’s 1961 edition of Zuleika Dobson. Illustration by George Him
Author	Max Beerbohm
Original title	Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Genre	Satirical, novel
Publisher	Heinemann
Publication date	26 October 1911
Media type	Print
Pages	350

In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Zuleika Dobson 59th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

The book largely employs a third-person narrator limited to the character of Zuleika (pronounced “Zu-lee-ka”, not “Zu-like-a”),^[1] then shifting to that of the Duke, then halfway through the novel suddenly becoming a first-person narrator who claims inspiration from the Greek Muse Clio, with his all-seeing narrative perspective provided by Zeus. This allows the narrator to also see the ghosts of notable historical visitors to Oxford, who are present but otherwise invisible to the human characters at certain times in the novel, adding an element of the supernatural.

Dr Robert Mighall in his Afterword to the New Centenary Edition of Zuleika (Collector’s Library, 2011), writes: “Zuleika is of the future… [Beerbohm] anticipates an all-too-familiar feature of the contemporary scene: the D-list talent afforded A-list media attention.”^[2]

Beerbohm began writing the book in 1898, finishing in 1910,^[3] with Heinemann publishing it 26 October 1911.^[4] He saw it was not as a novel, rather “the work of a leisurely essayist amusing himself with a narrative idea.”^[5] Sydney Castle Roberts wrote a parody Zuleika in Cambridge (1941).

Plot summary

Zuleika Dobson—”though not strictly beautiful”—is a devastatingly attractive young woman of the Edwardian era, a true femme fatale, who is a prestidigitator by profession, formerly a governess. Zuleika’s current occupation (though, more importantly, perhaps, her enrapturing beauty) has made her something of a small-time celebrity and she manages to gain entrance to the privileged, all-male domain of Oxford University because her grandfather is the Warden of Judas College (based on Merton College, Beerbohm’s alma mater). There, she falls in love for the first time in her life with the Duke of Dorset, a snobbish, emotionally detached student who—frustrated with the lack of control over his feelings when he sees her—is forced to admit that she too is his first love, impulsively proposing to her. As she feels that she cannot love anyone unless he is impervious to her charms, however, she rejects all her suitors, doing the same with the astonished Duke. The Duke quickly discovers that Noaks, another Oxford student, also claims to have fallen in love with her, without ever having even interacted with her. Apparently, men immediately fall in love with her upon seeing her. As the first to have his love reciprocated by her (for however brief a time) the Duke decides that he will commit suicide to symbolise his passion for Zuleika and in hopes that he will raise awareness in her of the terrible power of her bewitching allure, as she innocently goes on crushing men’s affections.

Zuleika is able to interrupt the Duke’s first suicide attempt from a river boat, but seems to have a romanticised view of men dying for her, and does not oppose the notion of his suicide altogether. The Duke, instead pledging to kill himself the next day—which Zuleika more or less permits—has dinner that night with his social club where the other members also affirm their love for Zuleika. Upon telling them of his plan to die, the others unexpectedly agree to also commit suicide for Zuleika. This idea soon reaches the minds of all Oxford undergraduates, who inevitably fall in love with Zuleika upon first sight.

The Duke eventually decides that the only way he can stop all the undergraduates from killing themselves is by not committing suicide himself, hoping they will follow his example. By an ancient tradition, on the eve of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come and perch on the battlements of Tankerton Hall, the family seat; the owls remain there hooting through the night and at dawn they fly away to an unknown place. After debating whether to follow through with his suicide, while seeming to decide at last to embrace his life as just as valuable as Zuleika’s, the Duke receives a telegram from his butler at Tankerton, reporting the portentous return of the owls. The Duke promptly interprets the omen as a sign that the gods have decreed his doom. He proudly tells Zuleika that he will still die, but no longer for her; she agrees as long as he makes it appear that he is dying for her by shouting her name as he jumps into the river. Later the same day, a thunderstorm overwhelms the Eights Week boat races while the Duke drowns himself in the River Isis, wearing the robes of a Knight of the Garter. Every fellow undergraduate, except one, promptly follows suit.

All of the Oxford undergraduates now dead, including, with some delay, the cowardly Noaks, Zuleika discusses the ordeal with her grandfather, who reveals that he too was enamoured by all when he was her age. While Oxford’s academic staff barely notice that nearly all of their undergraduates have vanished, Zuleika decides to order a train for the next morning… bound for Cambridge.

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Tags Disability and Elderly Issues

Charging my surgically embedded battery

Post author By joel
Post date June 19, 2017

The equipment consists of my back, the kit provided by Medtronic and the electrical outlet (see below)l

After a  three-year multi-state pursuit of surgery to control chronic pain, in October 2016 I had a spinal stimulator surgically implanted in my back. The stimulator helps control pain by sending an electric impulse up my spine. The electricity blocks the brain's ability to receive signals that tell it, "You are in pain." The stimulator is a vibrator which gets its power from electricity. The power comes from a rechargeable battery.

Previously, power for medical devices were limited to batteries that could not be recharged. Consequently, surgeons had to replace batteries. The advantage of a rechargeable battery is that it requires less surgery in the long-term. The disadvantage is that considerable maintenance is required. My spinal surgery requires that I charge the battery for three hours a month. My initial focus is on describing the process of recharging by describing the equipment and how I use it.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia-Vs3gXmNc

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I have two surgically-implanted Medtronic devices.

1. A battery-operated pacemaker. The pacemaker keeps my heart beating. Period. The pacemaker was implanted over 15 years ago before rechargeable batteries. Consequently, every 10 years I require surgery to have the battery changed.

2. A rechargeable battery operated spinal stimulator (formal name “neurostimulator.” ) The stimulator dramatically reduces my chronic pain. Rechargeable means a reduction in surgeries to replace the battery. Currently, I am describing how I recharge my battery (see below). Although I have been recharging since October, describing the process is comparable to asking a centipede “How do you walk? Do you coordinate your first pede with your second pede and your 50th pede with your 64th pede?” Hence the description is a work in progress. Note to self: Stop writing and recharge, [2]

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