![]() Orders started rolling in, and one month later, investors had the confidence to pony up $2 million dollars to make the Fitbit a reality. The billing system collected names, addresses, and verified credit card numbers, but no charges were actually processed until the product was ready to ship, which gave the company an out in case their plans fell through. The same day they announced the Fitbit idea to the world, they started allowing customers to preorder a Fitbit on their Web site, based on little more than a description of what the device would do and a few renderings of what the product would look like. It’s a neat concept, but creating new hardware is time-consuming, expensive, and fraught with risk, so here’s what Friedman and Park did. The Fitbit device tracks your activity levels throughout the day and night, then automatically uploads your data to the Web, where it analyzes your health, fitness, and sleep patterns. ![]() ![]() Founded by Eric Friedman and James Park in September 2008, Fitbit makes a small clip-on exercise and sleep data-gathering device. ![]() “Fitbit is a company that knows the value of Shadow Testing. ![]()
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![]() What do you think is the most important advice you can give to developing writers? Welcome! As a guest lecturer at this summer’s Odyssey Workshop, you’ll be lecturing, workshopping, and meeting individually with students. You can find out more about Alma on her website, her Facebook page, or her blog. She is a novelist, anthologist and short story writer who currently shares her life between the Pacific Northwest of the USA (where she lives with her husband and two cats) and the wonderful fantasy worlds of her own imagination. She was born in a country which no longer exists on the maps, has lived and worked in seven countries on four continents (and in cyberspace!), has climbed mountains, dived in coral reefs, flown small planes, swum with dolphins, and touched two-thousand-year-old tiles in a gate out of Babylon. ![]() Alma Alexander’s life so far has prepared her very well for her chosen career. ![]() Fantasy author Alma Alexander will be a guest lecturer at 2015’s summer Odyssey Writing Workshop. ![]() ![]() ![]() TWTSML is historical fiction that is gripping, heartwarming, and empowering. ![]() A PhD librarian in charge of children's and young adult purchases for a major library, I like to say she keeps me abreast of the best, and my own library has dozens of children's books when the youngest person in my home is 10 years out of college. Of course, this is a book I never would have selected without the guidance of my watchful and wise librarian sister. The winner of the 2016 Newbery Honor, as well as winner of the 2016 Schneider Family award and a NY Times bestseller, The War That Saved My Life is marketed as a *Young Readers* book, yet ranks in the top 10 of my 2016 *best of* reads. Normally I wouldn't write a review for a book with so many lovely reviews already posted, but there is a chance that somebody will read just one more review, and make the decision to read this fantastic book. Great historical Fiction - 2016 Newbery Honor ![]() ![]() We tried to stick to traditional methods. you get away from this feeling of it being hand-drawn and handmade – that’s not in the spirit of the show. ![]() “With a lot of 3D and even 2D effects that are generated. “3D was used for vehicles and things that need to be perfectly formed when turning,” Kosmala reveals. Harmony was the primary animation software while the minimal 3D work was done in Maya. It’s a balance of finding the contrast between those two and peppering them throughout an episode.” ![]() We balanced our animation styles to be immediate in places where we wanted to keep energy up so we can save time and budget for when we want to get flowing and have lots of in-betweens to say either the action is cool here or we need to do moments where the acting is more high level and the characters are feeling grounded and real. “One of the biggest challenges with the show was getting this high quality of craftmanship and drawing and still have it move well. who worked with the team at Flying Bark Productions. ![]() “One of the things that I love about these designs is that they have a modern blend where you have structure and anatomy so the characters can turn and move dimensionally, but you also have that mixed with flat graphic elements so you can do pushed expressions and things that go far away from structure,” states Animation Supervisor Kat Kosmala. Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur is not trying for realism. ![]() ![]() ![]() Above shown is a second printing dated 1983 in Dutch, the first appeared in 1973. The book covers of these softcover editions follow a well designed approach. The back cover is easy to read and contains a photograph from the Orwell Archives.Ī different design approach is applied by the Dutch Publisher Meulenhoff in the Netherlands to several editions of Orwell’s books. ![]() The book cover design is by Kees Kelfkens, and although it uses a similar brown background it creates much more excitement with the large somewhat faded on purpose black letters. It is a Dutch softcover edition published by the Arbeiderspers in 1971. So lets compare the visual impact on the above cover with the one shown below. Of course, these are purely my observations from a discerning eye’s viewpoint. We are just looking at the design of the book cover in this post not the book content. ![]() ![]() The cover designer(s) listed as “Format”, is (are) not known to me. This British hardbound 1974 edition was printed in Finland. Who has not read George Orwell’s most famous book Nineteen Eighty-Four? This book title is continuously in print! The above shown book cover is, in my opinion, a rather stodgily designed one though. ![]() ![]() ![]() Linda, the protagonist of the story is the beautiful second daughter of the family. Their mother, Fanny’s Aunt Sadie is a mild-mannered woman. Their father-Uncle Matthew is a slightly eccentric, short-tempered, overbearing man. The Radlett children have an unusual upbringing- bereft of any formal education. They live in a large manor house in the Gloucestershire countryside called Alconleigh. There are six Radlett children and their parents are Uncle Matthew and Aunt Sadie. ![]() Aunt Sadie, mother to the Radlett children is the third sister. Fanny’s mother- wittily described as the ‘Bolter’ in the story due to her tendency to form a series of monogamous romantic attachments, abandoned her daughter at a very young age, leaving her to be brought up by her younger, unmarried sister- Aunt Emily. The story is told through the eyes of Fanny Logan, cousin to the Radlett children. However, at the heart of the tale is the story of a young woman’s lifelong quest to find love. The threat of impending war and its repercussions play a major role in the unfolding of the story. The time frame of the story is set in between the two world wars. The Pursuit of Love was the first novel that brought Mitford popularity and is semi-autobiographical. It is the first novel in a trilogy of which Love in a Cold Climate and Don’t Tell Alfred form a part. ![]() The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford is her fifth novel published in 1945. ![]() ![]() She had to find something to eat and drink or her journey would end right here, in this crypt that used to hold a forest. Her brain thumped against the inside of her skull with dehydration. Her empty stomach sucked the ribs into the middle of her body, trying to fill that void. His cruel smile winked out as confusion stole his countenance. The sentence structures are weird and full of cliches. Here’s what I mean by the writing being awkward. Not a diss, just pointing that this book reads like a work in progress. ![]() The writing comes off as awkward and juvenile and blunt, not unlike the style of a first draft and not unlike an exercise piece you’d see in creative writing classes. I found it a struggle to get through, even just the first chapter. But this time, I think it’s the book’s fault for the simple fact that the writing is just not… any good. I’m always looking for a new series to get into, so I was very interested. ![]() ![]() She described it as high fantasy with a kickass heroine, and she’d read all the books in the series several times. This book came to me highly recommended by a friend who loves the Kate Daniels series, so of course I had to give it a try. ![]() ![]() Said Heidicker: “I’m beyond thrilled at the prospect of Mia and Uly romping onto TV screens to chill a wider audience with the importance of scary stories. ![]() “We’re thrilled to have the immensely talented Lena and Peephole Productions be a part of what we see as a true family classic based on this incredible, scary and heartfelt novel.” Jon Rutherford, President, Boat Rocker Studios Kids & Family, added, “Lena’s participation in this project further bolsters our strong slate of leading Kids & Family titles designed for global audiences.” Said Bob Higgins, EVP Content, Boat Rocker Studios, Kids & Family. ![]() “Kids aren’t daft - they know when we’re holding back the scary bits, so I’m so happy to be part of a great team to bring Christian’s book to life in a way that feels authentic.” “During our first meeting at Boat Rocker I was asked what I was interested in, and we started talking about horror for kids, how there is a space for this, and not to shy away from putting stuff out there that’s dark and smart,” said Headey. ‘House Of The Dragon’: HBO Reveals ‘Game Of Thrones’ Prequel In Production, Will Debut In 2022 Headey and Christian McKay Heidecker will exec produce with Boat Rocker Studios and Untitled Entertainment. It comes as she is starring in the company’s co-production of Zak Penn’s television adaptation of Hugh Howey’s sci-fi novel Beacon 23 for Spectrum Originals and AMC. Noah Centineo To Star In Netflix CIA Series From Alexi Hawley, Doug Liman & eOne ![]() ![]() ![]() "Once my character and I have reached an understanding," she explains, "then I begin the detective work-reading old books, old letters, old newspapers, and visiting the places where my subject lived. ![]() In her role as biographer, Jean Fritz attempts to uncover the adventures and personalities behind each character she researches. Since then, her refreshingly informal historical biographies for children have been widely acclaimed as "unconventional," "good-humored," "witty," "irrepressible," and "extraordinary." Generally people don't bother to speak to me unless there's a good chance that I'll take them on." Throughout almost four decades of writing about history, Jean Fritz has taken on plenty of people, starting with George Washington in The Cabin Faced West (1958). A character in history will suddenly step right out of the past and demand a book. "The question I am most often asked," Jean Fritz says, "is how do I find my ideas? The answer is: I don't. ![]() ![]() ![]() For the most part, Miles avoids the idealized and overly romantic haze that can surround stories like this and the result is a much more grounded and empowering book for those who read. ![]() It’s the story of food pantries blossomed all over San Francisco, ministries of hospitality that have extended the table of the church far beyond the bounds of the sanctuary. It’s about the out-working of that conversion in the feeding of the poorest and most marginalized in her home city. The beauty of Miles’ book is that this is more, far more, than a story of personal conversion. And nothing in Miles’ life, nor in the life of her congregation, would be the same again. ![]() In this act of ‘eating Jesus’, she discovered the beginning of a radical turn-around in everything that mattered to her. Miles, a left-leaning journalist, political activist and atheist, was not the most likely candidate for conversion to Christian faith, yet stumbling into a celebration of communion in an Episcopal church in San Francisco, Miles found an experience of profound change. I can’t claim it a life changer, but as a memoir of conversion centered at the table of God, it’s a book that’s affirmed for me so much about faith, eucharist and church, and in the most compelling way. ![]() No doubt, one of the best reads for me in the past two years was Sara Miles’ Take this Bread: A Radical Conversion. ![]() |
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May 2023
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