kindall

1,215 reputation

bio	website	jerrykindall.com
	location	Seattle, WA
	age	44
visits	member for	2 years, 5 months
	seen	Apr 14 at 19:14
stats	profile views	33

I'm a technical writer at Tecplot, Inc., makers of fine data visualization software for aerospace/CFD, oil and gas exploration, and general scientific/engineering uses. Python is my Swiss Army Knife of choice. I use it to help build and validate our documentation and help, among other things. I also have some proficiency with HTML, XML, AppleScript, C#, C, and if anyone ever has a question about 6502 assembly language, I'm your man. :-)

	1,215 reputation	bio	website	jerrykindall.com	visits	member for	2 years, 5 months
38 badges		location	Seattle, WA		seen	Apr 14 at 19:14

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29 Comments

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Jan 16	comment	Should you use two spaces after a period, or just a single one? You whippersnappers and your fancy "fonts"!
Nov 26	comment	What does active voice mean? The question I was answering was whether laid or lying was correct. Oh, sorry, I see that you were using "laid" not "were laid" -- I read your previous comment too quickly. You're correct, and I deleted my previous comment.
Feb 19	comment	How to handle taxes for a self-published book You can avoid the underpayment penalty by making sure you pay in at least as much as you owed the previous year. But you might still owe a big lump at tax time.
Feb 19	comment	How to handle taxes for a self-published book You will also need to pay the employer's half of Social Security in addition to your half as an employee of yourself. The employer's half is deductible as a business expense, however.
Feb 13	comment	What exercises will help me write my co-author's character? a werechat room?
Feb 12	comment	2nd Draft- Fix spelling/grammar or plot first? Typo: short for "typographical error," an error made while typing. You knew what word you wanted, and how to spell it, but the message didn't make it from your brain to your fingers. If you would choose the same word or give the same spelling e.g. when asked to respond aloud or when writing with a pencil: not a typo, just plain old misspelling or word confusion.
Feb 1	comment	Is it worth switching to Dvorak? This matches very well with my experience. I switched nearly 20 years ago, when I had just started freelancing and realized how badly my wrists were hurting after a marathon writing session. I will add that what really tripped me up was the fact that A and M are in the same place in both layouts. I'd be typing Dvorak, then type an M and mentally switch back to QWERTY... that lasted a couple of weeks.
Jan 31	comment	Best text procesor— keyboard focussed UI In that case use OpenOffice with the features turned off and Word with them turned on, or Word in two separate user accounts, or a separate copy of Word on a virtual machine, or...
Jan 30	comment	Will science fiction as a genre ever go the way of the western? You can even set science fiction in the past of the world. It's literally anytime and anywhere.
Jan 29	comment	Best text procesor— keyboard focussed UI If you don't like the automatic things Word et. al. do for you, why not turn those features off?
Jul 13	comment	2nd Draft- Fix spelling/grammar or plot first? Good question. I suppose I was in a more "don't scare off new writers" mood when I wrote that. :-) Here I'm talking more about an ideal, a goal to be striven for (in, as always, my opinion) than what's actually feasible for a given writer. And even if you get there, there's still a vast gulf between "this won't embarrass me too much if it gets published" (the ideal first draft) and "this is pretty much the best I can do" (the ideal submission).
Jul 13	comment	2nd Draft- Fix spelling/grammar or plot first? I think the value of the advice depends on whether you're writing to a deadline. But if you aspire to write for a living (or a significant portion of one) you will eventually have deadlines, and at that point, being able to turn in publishable copy at any time is literally a valuable skill to have.
Jul 13	comment	How do you reference pop culture in a dialogue without proper attribution? ... as long as you're not using a snatch of lyrics from a song. Your publisher will insist that you get permission for every song you quote, and you'll have to pay whatever the owner of the song copyright wants. (There are no compulsory licenses for lyrics, either.)
Jul 7	comment	What's a good writing software for Android phones/tablets? Google does have an official Docs app now for Android (it's in the Market).
Jun 27	comment	No English degree, what are my chances on successfully publishing a novel? Certainly, me too, and for posterity. :-)
Jun 26	comment	No English degree, what are my chances on successfully publishing a novel? Yes, I was assuming you were interested in mainstream commercial publishing, rather than small or literary publishers. Getting an MFA would probably guarantee publication in a journal affiliated with your alma mater.
Jun 24	comment	No English degree, what are my chances on successfully publishing a novel? Edited to expand on that.
Jun 23	comment	Which goes first: summary, background or justification? A lot of times I've put pure background first in software manuals, as knowing what problem the product's intended to solve, and how it addresses it, can be very useful to some readers. Those readers to whom it's not important know how to get to the next chapter.
Jun 23	comment	I'm getting tired of “he said” “she said” in dialogue; how do I get around it? I imagine Edward put his example together in a few minutes, and really doubt he intended for it to be classic literature for the ages! I agree this can be a useful technique. I find using dialog tags useful to help readers keep track of who's saying what, but that doesn't mean every utterance needs to be tagged.
Jun 22	comment	I'm getting tired of “he said” “she said” in dialogue; how do I get around it? Yeah. Kind of like the crossword clue: "Four-letter word meaning 'intercourse', ends in K... oh, TALK!"