Movie Reviews for Remembrance Day

Flickr Photo from Normandy American Cemetery by nathangibbs

Whether you call it Remembrance Day, Armistice Day, Veterans Day, or in Poland’s case, Independence Day, November 11th of each year is kept in memory of the great wars of the twentieth century, and of the many sacrifices made in the fight for freedom.

Until relatively recently, movies about the two World Wars have focused almost exclusively on the heroic exploits of a few soldiers, with relatively little attention drawn to the horrors of war. This romantic view of modern warfare has changed more recently, with movies which are not nearly as one sided in their portrayals of armed conflict.

In 1993, Schindler’s List was released, addressing issues of the Holocaust. This marked the first of many award nominated war films by director Stephen Spielberg. While some have complained that this film focuses on the 600 Jews who were saved, rather than the several million Jews who were murdered during the Second World War, it is an emotionally powerful film.

Spielberg followed up in 1998 with Saving Private Ryan. This was one of the first movies to portray the horrors of war as just that: horrifying. The landing scene at Omaha Beach is chaotic and deadly, with a frenetic pace as soldiers died to take the beachhead. Of particular note in this film is the framing device, the and elderly veteran visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial, to honour his fallen comrades. There is a great deal of focus on what we do with our lives, and how to live them in a way which honours the fallen soldiers in these great wars.

In 2001, the HBO series Band of Brothers followed the men of Easy Company as they fought in WWII, along with interviews with the surviving members of Easy Company. This series goes beyond any other that I have seen in depicting the war, and the terrible toll it took on the soldiers who fought in them. It’s a visually stunning film, and extremely emotional. Part 9, Why We Fight, is one of the most heartbreaking of episodes, and invariably brings tears to my eyes.

While I have not yet seen it, in 2010, the HBO miniseries The Pacific focused on the efforts of the US Marines in the Pacific front in WWII. This forms a counterbalance to Band of Brothers which focused exclusively on the European front.

There are a number of documentaries about the war as well. I’ve recently watched Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State, a BBC documentary narrated by Linda Hunt, which uses multiply sourced historical documents to portray the Nazi’s genocidal program at the concentration camps. It’s a powerful documentary, in clinical precision detailing how the Nazi regime carried out the mass murder of over six million Jews and undesirables.

There are also films which show Hitler‘s rise and fall. The film Downfall has become famous for various YouTube spoofs where Hitler learns of some new event, for which he is then angry. The real film is quite powerful, showing a Führer out of touch with the realities of the war, and of his own people.

Another highly fictionalized portrayal is Hitler: The Rise of Evil. This film covers the period from the end of the Great War to the Night of the Long Knives. This movie was uncomfortable to watch, and not just because it was showing the beginning of the Nazi regime. The filmmakers made several decisions which seemed to make a caricature of Hitler, well beyond what would have been necessary. Choices in the film are entirely fictionalized, even contradicting historical evidence. This was a disturbing film to watch, slough perhaps not in the way the filmmakers intended.

There are of course many other recent films which depict the wars and the Holocaust. Passchendaele, by Canadian director Paul Gross shows the futile battles fought over fields of mud in World War I. Life is Beautiful, The Pianist, The Counterfeiters, and The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas all cover stories of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust.

Film plays a great part in remembering the past. All the more so today, when there are so few veterans of the Second World War alive today. Their personal testament to the horrors of war have gone silent, and these films, although they often contain fictional elements, are now the most vivid reminders of worldwide war.

Related articles

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RIM: So long, and thanks for all the fish

Image by Gossamer1013 via Flickr

So, this is it. My last day of employment at Research in Motion. After nearly five years at the company, I’m leaving a great team.

Handing in my resignation letter was a liberating experience. It’s definitely preferable to the alternative means of termination. I feel for the two thousand employees laid off earlier this year. I’ve been in their position before, and it’s not a fun place to be.

My time at RIM has seen some interesting transitions. When I started, the original BlackBerry Pearl was the latest device, marking the entry into the consumer market, from a pure enterprise position. Most recently, the Playbook has staked a tenuous position in the tablet market.

It’s been a fun ride, but it’s time to switch streams. As many resignation notices on the tech world state: So long, and thanks for all the fish. There were after all, some delicious fish along the way. As Douglas Soltys pointed out in his post yesterday, there are a number of colleagues that I leave behind. It’s been a blast working with them.

Next Monday I’ll start my next chapter of employment, with a quarter of the commute. I look forward to a fun challenge, one in which I’ll be able to directly see the results of my work in the company. That’s part of the challenge in working for a smaller company as well. There is more responsibility, but a greater stake in the rewards.

Here’s to the future.

NaNoWriMo To Go

I’m taking a stab at NaNoWriMo this year. Writing a novel in a month certainly sounds like a challenging task, especially as I’m perpetually busy.

One of the most common pieces of advice I’ve read is to take every possible moment to write. The whole point of NaNoWriMo is not just to drive aspiring authors insane, but to foster the habits of daily writing.

What tools can help an author on the go? Software like Scrivener is great if you’re sitting down at a desk, but it’s not as helpful when you’re on the go.

My challenges in time management mean that I need to be able to write anywhere, at a moments notice. Lugging around a laptop just isn’t going to cut it. Even carting around an iPad isn’t going to give me the flexibility I need.

I’ve already started writing my novel on the iPhone. It’s a compact device I always have with me, and it’s possible to type one-handed. I’m impressed with the autocorrect behavior, even when typing one-handed.

While typing speed may not be as fast as with a full-sized keyboard, the main point is that you can write when you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. You can fill in those otherwise dead spaces, and actually write.

The recent advances in cloud computing allow the work to be saved online, which both provides backups as well as the ability to resume writing on a different device when the opportunity arises. For example, this post was composed on the iPhone to this point, where I switched to writing it on the iPad with an attached bluetooth keyboard. Before published my post, I did a final edit on the desktop in a browser.

If the primary block to writing is finding the time, consider using a mobile platform. A common saying in writing is “butt in chair, hands on keyboard”, but that doesn’t really serve the mobile writer very well. To fill in those smaller blocks of time throughout the day, I’ve found that I need a solution that doesn’t involve sitting in a particular spot.

As a tool, I’m using the Elements text editor on iOS, by Second Gear software, which has Dropbox support. It has a folder structure, which allows me to group files together, and separate the work by chapter, or as supplemental notes. Also important is the easy info button which provides the important word counts. Because it’s plain text being stored in Dropbox, it’s easy to do any later edits on the desktop.

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Blogging from the iPad

Image via Wikipedia

A few things have changed since I last covered blogging from the iPad. Both the BlogPress and WordPress apps have received multiple updates. There is also a new app called Blogsy, which has some interesting media integrations.

The three apps share some common features:

• HTML text editing mode (you cannot edit in a live web view from any of the apps)
• Support for HTML blocks of data
• Support for WordPress.com and self hosted WordPress blogs

Here are some additional features of the tools:

Blogsy

Blogsy has support for posting to WordPress, Blogger, and Posterous. While Blogsy may not support as many networks as BlogPress, they do have support for the big ones.

Blogsy has some interesting gesture support. Horizontal swipes will switch between editing and preview modes, which makes the lack of live editing slightly less annoying.

Blogsy departs from the more traditional UI shared between WordPress and BlogPress in that it does not show all the previous posts on the main screen. In order to view and edit earlier posts or drafts, you select the gear icon next to the current post, which brings up a selection dialog. This has the advantage of giving more space for the editor, as you likely don’t need to switch between posts frequently.

Blogsy does offer some of the same HTML and formatting options as WordPress and BlogPress, but these are presented as a toolbar on the screen, and not on the keyboard or in a menu. While text cannot be entered while in preview mode, these styles can be applied in preview mode, which is actually quite helpful.

When connected to the network, Blogsy also has rich media integration. Blogsy can use Flickr, Picasa, YouTube, Google Image Search, or the iPad photos app to insert media into your posts. Blogsy also has a built in web browser from which you can drag links into your post.

Key summary:

• Modern UI
• Rich media support
• Easy link dragging
• WordPress support
• Blogger support
• Posterous support

BlogPress

Unlike Blogsy and WordPress, I can’t seem to find any preview functionality in BlogPress. When I initially reviewed some of the blog apps for iOS, BlogPress seemed more stable than WordPress. There does not seem to be many additional features added to BlogPress, and the functionality is relatively basic.

Where BlogPress excels is in support for a variety of blog platforms. BlogPress can post to WordPress, Blogger, MSN Live Spaces, MovableType, TypePad, LiveJournal, Drupal, Joomla, Tumblr, SquareSpace, and My Opera.

Support for HTML tags are accessible through a drop down menu, which while accessible when using a Bluetooth keyboard, remains awkward.

Media support is limited to images or video from your device.

• Basic UI
• Limited media support (upload from device)
• Extensive platform support
• WordPress
• Blogger
• MSN Live Spaces (which shut down in 2011)
• MovableType
• TypePad
• LiveJournal
• Drupal
• Joomla
• Tumblr
• SquareSpace
• My Opera

WordPress

If you’re using WordPress, there are several compelling reasons to use this app. As the name indicates, this app focuses exclusively on WordPress features. In addition to blog entries, this app also provides comment management and static page support. While there is also a stats page, which presumably mirrors the functionality of the stats page in the WordPress dashboard, I have been unable to get it working.

One of the things that the WordPress app does well is the post preview. If your iPad has an active data connection, it renders your post using the theme from your blog. If you are out of data coverage, it renders in a much more limited preview.

The WordPress app also provides an extra row of keys to the keyboard, which has several common HTML elements, such as list tags. This is a useful addition, but is inaccessible if you are using a Bluetooth keyboard.

Like BlogPress, media support is limited to photos and video uploaded from your device.

Key features

• Only supports WordPress.com and self-hosted WordPress blogs
• Limited UI
• Limited media support (upload from device)
• Comment moderation
• WordPress stats view

Summary

Each of these apps have particular strengths. For those who wish to manage their comments on a WordPress blog, the WordPress app has some useful features. However, if you use a more niche blog platform, you may have to settle for BlogPress. Overall, I like the new challenger, Blogsy. It has a cleaner, modern interface. The Blogsy developers seem to have considered the application’s usability, focusing on the best way to make an ideal workflow, and not pushing for a more basic level of functionality.

Related articles

• From BlogPress for iPad (amfischer.com)
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Steve Jobs: In Memoriam

Image via Wikipedia

Steve Jobs passed away October 5, 2011. It came as no great shock, as he stepped down earlier this summer due to terminal illness. It came as no great shock, but with a great deal of somber reflection. Steve Jobs helped us Think Different.

In my youth, I never really had much exposure to Apple Computer. The first 19 years of my life were spent with PCs. I ran with DOS 3.3, then later Windows 95. By the time Windows 98 was released, I was running Linux, probably RedHat, SuSE and later Debian. Macintosh was easy to make fun of back then. After all, where was the command line? Why did their computers have a single mouse button? I had heard that the memory management was behind the times. If an application crashed, it could take down the whole system. These were the days of Classic Macintosh, right around the time of the first great transition from the Motorola 68K processors to ARM.

The phrase “Think Different” certainly applied to Macintosh, but it wasn’t really clear why being different was a good thing. Then Steve Jobs returned to Apple, and everything changed.

The iMac and the first iBooks were colourful machines, bringing life and energy back to the dull beige of computing. One of my friends at the University of Waterloo had one of the Blueberry iBooks, and introduced me to the first beta releases of Mac OS X. Built upon the technologies of NeXT, it showed a new way forward in computing, which combined the power of a Unix kernel with the graphics of the Mac interface.

Under Steve Jobs’ leadership, Apple launched several new innovations in computing. The Mac Cube was largely seen as a failure today, but its heritage lives on in the Mac Mini, a smaller device.

During this time, Apple drove changes in technology. The iMac G3 was the first computer to drop PS/2 ports and floppy drives in favour of CD drives, USB and FireWire ports. The MacBook Air has continued this transition by removing not only the DVD drives, but also removing the ethernet ports from its most recent models.

Apple has continued to innovate, bringing iTunes, the iPod and the iPhone to computing. With Steve Jobs at the helm, Apple continued to redefine the way we think about computing.

Steve Jobs also changed the way people think about presenting great ideas. His keynotes are famous for what is known as the Reality Distortion Field. Apple’s presentation software is named Keynote because it was designed for his keynote speeches, which were carefully practiced stories around a product release.

Steve Jobs popularized a narrative form of presentation, backed up by slides containing images and short words or phrases he used to emphasize key points of his story, rather than paragraphs of text to be read aloud. Steve brought charisma to the role of CEO.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Steve, you changed the world. Because you were different, the world is a better place. You will not be forgotten.

Related articles

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• Farewell Steve Jobs (tagn.wordpress.com)
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Kindle Fire: What Amazon Got Right

Image by Dekuwa via Flickr

Amazon’s recent launch of the Kindle Fire, priced at $199, and the entry of the low-end Kindle at $79 is a very interesting strategy.

When Apple launched the iPad in 2010, it built upon the architecture and infrastructure of the iPhone, which launched in 2007. Even the iPhone built upon the success of the iTunes infrastructure which supported earlier iPod models. Amazon is likewise dealing from a position of strength, building upon the technology of the Kindle ereaders, and Amazon’s existing delivery and hosting infrastructure.

Amazon ships much more than just Kindle books. The Amazon MP3 store has been an iTunes competitor for several years now, and was the first to offer music without Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology. Amazon now also offers instant movie downloads as rentals or purchases, as well as Android application sales. Amazon offers a comprehensive alternative to the Apple iTunes infrastructure, and the Kindle Fire is another key part of this strategy.

The next key step of the Kindle Fire’s introduction is how Amazon differentiates this new tablet from the iPad. Like several other tablet manufacturers, Amazon is launching a smaller 7 inch tablet. While this form factor is not unique (the BlackBerry PlayBook, the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and the HTC Flyer all fit this size), Amazon has also cut the price point for the Kindle Fire. At $200, it is clear that Amazon is entering the low-end of the space, not directly competing against Apple at the moment.

When you consider the HP Touchpad fire sale in August, where a drastic price cut finally saw another tablet outselling the iPad, there is clearly a market for a lower-end tablet. One where Apple isn’t actively targeting.

If Amazon can successfully lay claim to this part of the market, you can expect to see future attempts at Amazon launching into the higher upscale market that the iPad now claims. One thing is for certain, Apple is watching Amazon very closely.

Amazon may have a razor-thin margin on the Kindle Fire, but the important thing to note is that it will drive sales to the Amazon store, where the real money is made. Just as Apple takes a 30% cut on sales on the Apple App Store, I expect Amazon will take a healthy cut off anything sold through their online store, while at the same time depriving the Apple economy of sales.

Amazon sent a clear message to other tablet manufacturers: This time, amateur hour really is over.

Related articles

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Language Matters and Computational Linguistics

Image via Wikipedia

I’m rather disappointed with the second edition of Language Matters, by Donna Jo Napoli and Vera Lee-Schoenfeld. The second edition was published in 2010, which has some minor updates to the earlier 2003 edition, along with some added material.

Chapter 7, “Can computers learn language?” received only minor edits, changing references in the examples. They change the term VCR to a DVR. The example they use however, has not changed, nor has their conclusion.

The two examples they use are:
1) Record “Law and Order” at 9 P.M. on Channel 10.

2) If there’s a movie on tonight with Harrison Ford in it, then record it. But if it’s American Graffiti, then don’t bother because I already have a copy of that.

As Napoli notes (Lee-Schoenfeld was not involved in the first edition), this task would involve asking the computer “to scan a list of TV programs, recognize which ones are movies, filter out the particular movie American Graffiti, determine whether Harrison Ford is an actor in the remaining movies, and then activate the “record” function on the DVR at all the appropriate times on all of the appropriate channels.” (Language Matters 2nd Ed. p 99).  Napoli continues to suggest that “we’d be asking the computer to work from ordinary sentences, extracting the operations and then properly associating them with the correct vocabulary items, a much harder task”. (Language Matters, 2nd edition, p 99).

Of interest here is that Napoli’s summary does not follow the lexical and linguistic parsing of the command. In particular, Napoli filters out American Graffiti before performing any searches for Harrison Ford. This appears particularly strange to me, as the first step in parsing this statement would be the same whether by a linguist or a software parser. Parse the first sentence before attempting to add context from the second.

While Napoli and Lee-Schoenfeld make several bold, definitive statements throughout the text which I found lacking in support, in this case they seem to dismiss the concept as “much harder task”.  This statement may have gotten a bare pass in 2003, but in 2010, it’s a harder sell. Admittedly, the Jeopardy! showdown with IBM’s Watson may not have yet occurred, but in a text revision, I would expect some level of research to validate these claims. There are several journals on computational linguistics available, such as the Journal of Computational Linguistics, which has been Open Access since March of 2009.

In particular, the example given above is domain specific. It deals with television specific language, for which there are databases of particular terms, such as movie titles and casting information.

Even before Watson, I would not have considered a problem of this scope to be extraordinarily difficult, primarily due to the limited domain. While a more general domain would increase the difficulty considerably, current research is looking more hopeful. While computers are still not ready to pass the Turing test, there are some indications that this may happen in the relatively near future.

Language Matters is a very accessible text, covering many aspects of language and linguistics to those without much experience in the field. Aside from the chapter on computers and language, this book provides a good introduction to a number of topics. I wish that in the revision process, the authors had revisited some of their conclusions in an active field of research.

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The Quest for Excellence

Now that my daughter has turned three, she’s moved up to the next level in gymnastics. Instead of having myself out on the floor spotting her in a class of younger kids, she’s now out on the floor with a group of older kids and a coach. The difference has been spectacular. As the youngest kid, she has suddenly become motivated to try harder, to follow instructions, and generally behave more responsibly than when she was the oldest. Where a month ago she was afraid to let go of my hands while walking on the balance beam, for three weeks straight she has walked solo, without a hitch.

Gymnastics, like many other sports, encourages participants to excel, not just through self improvement and positive reinforcement, but also through the examples set by more experienced gymnasts. Before her sessions, my daughter watches the teenaged gymnasts practicing their backflips on the floor. “That’s cool!” she exclaims.

This same quest for excellence can be seen in the technical fields. With the recent launch of Google+, many authors have begun writers hangouts, where they can talk shop and write together. More traditional writers groups, such as the East Block Irregulars, continually challenge each other to write great fiction. The results can be seen by the number of nominations the writers in the group have received recently. The trick with writers groups is to properly match the skill levels of all the members. Just as it wouldn’t make sense to pair a three year old with a thirteen year old at gymnastics, a beginning writer such as myself would slow down an experienced group such as the Irregulars.

Even without participating in one of these groups, the wider writers community still provides support and encouragement. Attending local conventions provides inspiration and a sense of belonging.

Of course, nothing helps quite as much as the practice of writing words down. This too is an area where accountability with other writers can help. Some authors can seem to write two thousand words in a day. I’m not anywhere near that point in my writing career. I’ve got enough other things on the go right now that I’m happy with a few hundred words a day. Right now, I just think it’s cool to see how many words the writers I look up to can write in a day. Someday, maybe I can reach that same level of excellence.

Murdoch Mysteries

The realm of television crime dramas is rather crowded. With the remaining Law and Order spinoffs, there are the various CSIs, the JAG spinoffs of NCIS and NCIS:LA, and any number of cop and lawyer dramas. It’s difficult to find a part of the market that isn’t already saturated with the competition.

source: murdochmysteries.com

Murdoch Mysteries, which airs on City TV, fits an interesting niche, breaking new territory as a Victorian era detective story set in Toronto, which strives for period authenticity, within a fictional narrative. There doesn’t appear to be a lot of competition in this admittedly small niche.

Stephen Harper in cameo role for Murdoch Mysteries. Image from CityTV

Still, it is a niche that has found its fans, including our current Prime Minister. Murdoch Mysteries is not the first show in which Stephen Harper has played a cameo role. Like former Prime Minister Paul Martin, Harper has previously appeared on Corner Gas. What’s not to like, for our prime minister? Victorian crime fighters may have had limited tools, but punishments were severe. Capital punishment was still on the books, and a failed hanging formed the plot for one episode of the show. The current government’s “tough on crime” persona seems to be a good match for Murdoch Mysteries, where the lead character is morally upstanding, almost to a fault. Murdoch’s morality works to humanize the Toronto of the 1890s, bringing compassion to the otherwise unenlightened days of criminal enforcement.

What then, can we find of interest in Murdoch Mysteries? The fictive detective brings a scientific method to his investigations. Detective Murdoch investigates crimes using the precursors to the more modern techniques used in shows like CSI. The writers appear to take pleasure in their numerous anachronisms, by playing this man of science against adherents of other, more traditional forms of investigation, mainly coercion and interrogation.

Parts of the show have been filmed in Cambridge, Ontario. With modern signs covered up by period pieces, it retains the feel of Victorian Toronto.

While the show attempts historical accuracy, it very much plays to our modern conceptions of the Victorian era. Historical figures such as Nikola Tesla, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and H.G. Wells figure in the plots of several episodes, emphasizing the science and imagination that Murdoch represents.

A significant theme of Murdoch Mysteries is retrofuturism, particularly when compared to these historical figures. While the television show remains too firmly grounded in historical reality to be truly considered steampunk, there are clearly elements of several episodes which could be seen as steampunk. In particular, the season three finale, the “Tesla Effect” involved a microwave death ray machine.

Of the characters in the show, perhaps the most amusing is Constable Crabtree, whose youthful enthusiasm leads him to extrapolate towards modern technology from what he sees Murdoch use on the show. As noted on the Steampunk Scholar blog, Crabtree’s role in the web series “Curse of the Lost Pharaohs” leads much closer to the realm of steampunk, incorporating other common steampunk elements.

Writing With a Baby

With an infant, tablet computers like the iPad are great. They provide casual use of the internet from an extremely portable position. The thing is, they still aren’t that great for content creation. The adage of “butt in chair, hands on keyboard” is difficult to do without a keyboard.

It’s even more interesting when there’s a three year old around as well. It’s very difficult to find the time or energy to find some time to sit down and crank out any writing.

The trick appears to have a chair where you can partially recline at your desk, with the keyboard within reach, and have your infant on your chest, snuggled up against your shoulder. There isn’t much mobility available, make sure the mouse is within reach.

In the reclined position, the monitor is likely further away than usual. Increasing font sizes, or remembering the hot key combinations to increase zoom levels would be a good idea. On the Mac, pressing control while scrolling your mouse wheel will zoom the screen in.

Inevitably, you’ll end up shifting slightly, disturbing the peaceful rest of the little furnace on your chest. If you’re lucky, this will be momentary. Other times, it’s game over, and your writing will be left in stasis, until your eventual return. Over the past month and a half, I’ve had a number of half-finished posts which seem to take forever to complete.

When I come back to them, it is sometimes difficult to piece through the half-connected thoughts on the screen. Other times, I’m just too tired to think through them coherently. I’m reasonably certain that this post is going to come across as a stream of consciousness. The trick is to let the words flow.

Some advantages of writing with a baby on your shoulder is that you’re likely to be left alone. After all, you’re making sure the baby isn’t crying. (Note well: this advice does not apply to three year olds. They’re even more likely to want to interrupt if you’re trying to write and hold a baby at the same time). Disturbing your peace is likely to wake the baby. There is some common advice, “don’t wake a sleeping baby”. Use this to your advantage.

And keep the words flowing. Seriously, the slight tapping of the keys gives a gentle rocking motion to your body, and to the small bundle you’re supporting. With a proper writing cadence, this can be relaxing. Or maybe that’s just my overtired eyes closing on me.

Hush! The little one awakes…