Simplicity: Don’t use big words when you can use small ones.
Clutter: Cut out anything you don’t need. Simplify.
Style: Keep it personal by writing from first person and cutting out the I’s afterwards. Be honest.
The Audience: Forget them. Write to please yourself.
Words: Avoid cliches. When in doubt, look it up. Consider the sound of words when spoken.
Usage: The laws of usage are relative. If a word or phrase fills a real need, go ahead and use it.

These are of course just principles not rules, and this is as much a reminder to myself as help to anyone else. If anyone has recommendations for other books on the construction of non-fiction prose, journalism or criticism go ahead and bother me on email or @thesjef. Cheers.

In review of last years projects; baseball, bash scripting, breakfast & alcoholism:

• I played a season of baseball, our team sucked the least out of those that belonged in our division & we ended the season 3rd of 8. Result!
• I scripted nothing. The linux box in the kitchen was mostly used to stream Al-Jazeera while cooking.
• Eating proper breakfasts didn’t happen.
• Alcoholism never really took off, though I did develop a taste for Scotch.

This year’s major personal project (besides a return to shitty writing) is an experiment in post-national tech-nomadism. While remaining based in Amsterdam with our studio I intend to go without really being locked down into one place of residence and spend a couple of months here and there in other cities. I might also take up swimming. Bring it 2012.

The discerning WordPress type nerd will have noticed this theme is based on Neutica+, nothing too fancy but a good upgrade from Neutica which I was running previously. I also have one custom plugin that tweaks a few styles & adds some new behaviour, the rest is all stock WordPress & various plugins because really, who needs the extra fucking work.

Now check back next year, and there might be some actual new new content. Later!

In the interests of full disclosure I should say this isn’t the complete list. I’ve withheld the stuff from the last couple of weeks, and culled about 30% for being just too stupid, angry, incomplete or incoherent. Enjoy, I guess.

Pissing away another hour of life because I can’t spell otpion correctly… #debuggingsucks

If growing a beard has taught me anything, it’s how easy it is to lose combs.

My new system for rating mixes in iTunes? 1 star per gunfingers. Yes, I need to leave the computer more often. #thesunitburns

Now that imminent global economic collapse trader man is not a hoax again do we resume the panic or is that just funny old news now?

Reform copyright. Fix patents. Protect privacy. Institutionalize social innovation. Re-tool defunct industries. #talklikeapirateday

Bester’s ‘Stars my Destination’, @bruces’s ‘Schismatrix’ & @shineanthology’s uh, Shine anthology. Pretty good spread I thought.

’8 hours work’ doesn’t mean it will be done in a day. This is a design studio, not a sausage factory.

Read article -> Gain hope for future of humanity, problems are there to be solved! Read comments -> Lose all hope, want to kill everybody.

I think about half the tweets I type out get thrown away without posting.

That pink cowboy hat makes me think you’re a shitty, boring person.

I swear some designers think the web is rendered by rainbow pixies shaking unicorn bones at the screen.

Who uses the ignorant asshole commenter or juvenile troll stereotypes when designing their use case personas? Why not?

Hipster tourists out wandering around looking like lost time-travelers, kicked out of 3 last centuries by fashion police. #atemporality

“You’ve got the votes & the money, you’ve got no conscience. Get out of the way. Over the long term you attitude is fatal.” -@bruces

I wonder how much of that black teflon shit I’ve ingested out of frying pans over the years. Must be like a woks worth.

There you go. I can’t believe you actually read that. Check back in like another 4 months when I have another super exciting blog post to share!

In other news, Google+ now exists and for the first time in the history of the social networkings I have a publicly visible profile. You can find me at http://gplus.to/sjef. I’ll be more active on there, so bar robo-posts until I embark on some noteworthy project that requires documentation this place will probably be pretty dormant for the time being.

1. He decided to persevere in his search to find a cream to soothe his itchy bites.

Epic.

2. The general heard a rumor that his adversary was planning an attack.

We’ll just assume appropriate action was taken.

3. The mischievous boy ran away in the confusion of the fire.

This must have been around the time friends of mine had built pipe-bombs using legs we broke off school chairs & filled with powder from shotgun shells someone stole off their Dad. We lit those off in a forest, over cans of petrol we siphoned out of his dirtbike. Amazingly that went well. Good times!

4. He was rather impatient but he treated everyone with equality.

No idea who I had in mind.

5. The guardians domocile was rather messy.

Again, no idea.

Spelling & Handwriting is schoolwork I did 20 years ago to the day. Great stories are told if you can handle the boring bits.

1. Lost and Never Found II is a book full of stories about people who have disappeared.

That’s nice.

2. He was always very methodical when packing his portmanteau.

And I never used that word to mean suitcase ever again.

3. His popularity took a dive when he lost the miscellaneous objects needed for the project.

Haha, the project manager is always such a popular guy.

4. After too long he had accredited a negative additude.

Bastard, I still don’t have any credentials for that. Also, I don’t think I knew what accredited meant 20 years ago. Neither did my teacher, apparently.

5. He resolved to find the problem with his subterranean 100% oxygen free sea-saucer.

I wish I remembered why I might have thought 100% oxygen free was the way to go.

6. Roger Ramjet caught the dare-devil racketeer.

I forgot about Roger Ramjet, that’s some atomic shit.

B+ Sjef, you could have done better.

Spelling & Handwriting is schoolwork I did 20 years ago to the day. It’s super exciting and you love it.

1. The naturalist got pnuemonia.

Served him right, probably.

2. The narcotic person dicided drugs were unavoidable.

When I grow up I want to be a narcotic person. Oh wait, that happened.

3. His resolution for the year was not to be so sensitive to his dog.

Instead, he was a dick to his dog I guess.

4. It was a melodious sound.

*insert your own lame fart joke here*

5. The meaning of vehicular transference and mechanisation are not in my dictionary.

What a cop out Sjef, you lazy bastard.

This time I give myself a C. Shit spelling and no story. Boooooo.

Spelling & Handwriting is an ongoing series showing off my 20 year old school work. It will continue till the year ends or I am torn apart by ravenous fans.

1. The Coke advertisement was ancient.

k.

2. The soldiers in the siege were fatigued.

Makes sense.

3. “I guarantee that is the most adventurous game since Prince of Persia” said the salesmen selling 1+1=2.

Jordan Mechner was one of my childhood heroes. I hope he’s still getting them Prince of Persia dollars.

4. They had a conference to see what to do about the epidemic.

No idea why I was so big on conferences & committees when I was 10.

5. Macgyver proceeded to create a diversion for the boy.

I can’t figure out if this is a good or a bad thing.

Overall 10 year old self, this time I give you a B. No major spelling fuckups but the lack of a central narrative kinda brings the whole thing down. And watch the size, omg.

Spelling & Handwriting is a series of posts showing schoolwork I did 20 years ago. I’m going to bore you with this stuff all year.

Personally I still construct all my mousetraps in the toilet, makes perfect sense to me. I give myself an A-, mostly for conquering the dialogue.

Update 17-04 – Figure I should add transcripts to these posts to see what they turn up in weird Google searches.

1. Their sovereign designed an electric mousetrap.

2. It looked horrible.

3. The comittee had a conference to decide wether it was environmentally freindly as it made c.f.c’s.

4. The comittee found that that their trap was not very hygienic either, as it had been made in the toliet.

5. The maker argued that he was immune to all the diseases related to that fact .

6. The dialogue that followed was not suitable for anyone under nineteen but the man who made the trap was the conqueror.

7. But then the humanitarian of the group pointed out that most people were not immune to the diseases and the mousetrap maker to agree to a certain set of restrictions and they all lived mouse-free ever after.