A mixed bag this weekend…

Managing Ideas

I’ve been searching for some kind of application that can help me keep track of and manage ideas. Like a digital index card system… but a little more robust. Something that supports “tags” and multimedia attachments, perhaps outlining, fully searchable. Best case scenario would be some kind of PHP app so I could run it from a website and access it anywhere. I’m coming up dry. The closest thing I’ve found is Personal Knowledge Base, which I guess is fine… but it’s not database driven. Looks like it’s something I’ll need to write for myself. The plus of having it online would be the collaboration possibilties.

What’s in a filename?

I was sifting through my machinima downloads folder the other day, and was reminded of something that really gets on my nerves. Why do people distribute files on the internet with non-descript filenames like “episode2.avi” or “movie.wmv” or “tcs1e14.divx”? I guess some users rename every file as they download it, but that seems grossly inefficient. How hard is it for the creator of the file to go ahead and name it something descriptive? Seems like a common courtesy that people with tunnel vision overlook.

Celtx

I’ve been playing with the open source script management program, Celtx. I’ll plan on doing a full review some time soon, but it’s made a very good first impression. There is one particularly NASTY shortcoming in the program that, while easy to work around, is highly dangerous nonetheless. Read about it here.

Negativity

I find that the older I get, the less tolerant I am of chronic negativity. It’s not that I question the next guy’s right to be of a negative bent, I just question my desire to be around it. Everyone has good days and bad… but there are just some people who are so determined to extinguish any sign of the light of hope in their lives, that it really starts to stink of self-pity and gets to be downright intolerable to be around. Every conversation with them is a predictable pattern: them complaining about [insert random externalized source of anger here], and you throwing out ideas and possible solutions… for them to blast out of the sky like clay pigeons. Ever been there?

If for no other reason than to reduce the chance of emotional contagion sapping my own fire for life and creative pursuits, sometimes I find it’s wise to purify one’s social circle a bit. There might actually be some science to the fact that negative people are bad for your health. I’m a firm believer in making every effort to help someone find their way out of an eternally negative worldview. But there comes a point - after having been very patient - when sometimes the only recourse is to sever ties to quarantine the infection. It’s not at all a happy moment, that decision… but it is life-affirming if you understand that, barring that course of action, they would likely drag you down with them.

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Wow, didn’t mean to launch us into the weekend on such a downer. But maybe it fits, given the darker-themed winner of the machinima category at the FMX/06 film festival, “Am Ende der Distanz (At the end of distance)“. Congratulations, David Riedel, for an engaging and disturbing piece with very nice production values.