|
READY.
FIRE!
AIM!
5/16/2013
4:18 PM
The
Casanova Complex: Compulsive Lovers and Their Women
★★★★
Book Review
I
suspect my own motives in reading this book. Was I trying to learn the
secrets of how to sexually manipulate foxy women? Probably.
I marked the hell out of this book; underlines, margin marks; but not so
I might scatter my seed; rather, as research: if I ever have an
over-the-top-womanizer character in my novel, I can nail it!
What? Was that a politically incorrect way to phrase it?
I was surprised at all the different "types" of compulsive lovers, and
their different motivations.
And no, this book had ZERO EFFECT upon my Love Life.
Curiously, the only book that has had a positive, measurable improvement
on my ability to "pick up chicks" is the book "SURELY YOU'RE JOKING, MR.
FEYNMAN!" by Richard P. Feynman. But that's for another review.
@hg47
5/14/2013
11:31 AM
POSERS and MORE POSERS
books by Philip Kaplan
Book Review
★★★★★
Which is worth
more, a carton full of $5 gold pieces or an identical carton half full
of $10 gold pieces?
I have both POSERS and MORE POSERS. I credit these books and others like
them for the fact that I can think at all. That, and the fact that my
Dad would throw problems like these at me when I was a kid.
The sweetest problems, in my opinion, are in POSERS; but MORE POSERS
also has some good word puzzles.
Have kids? Use books like this to get them to think, and keep them in
the habit of thinking.
@hg47
5/14/2013
7:09 AM
Google Glass at the Office Christmas Party
So
I'm wearing jailbroken Google Glass at the Christmas 2014 office party
and I spot a hot chick.
GOOGLE-GLASS to Harvey: “Her name is Joan, but she likes to be called
Joanie. She has posted 476 cat pics to Facebook, so a good opening line
would involve cats. Joanie is divorced, but her husband Ralph has
custody of the kid (Juan, 6) and has put out a restraining order against
Joanie. While you are chatting Joanie up, here is a slide show of nudie
pics of Joanie culled from the Internet. If you are serious about any
kind of relationship with Joanie, blink twice to cue up JOANIE DOES
JOHANNESBURG and display her medical records hacked from her insurance
company.”
@hg47
4/28/2013
9:40 PM
Spot of Bleach & Other Poems and Prose
by
Joy Leftow
Book Review ★★★★
This book is valuable to me as "source material" on the "found
weirdness" of other people. I have no clue whether it "works" as poetry,
as I no longer know what poetry is. Also, Joy Leftow apparently writes
not to be read on a page, but for readings during live music in clubs. I
know from bitter personal experience that writing a short story for
publication and writing a short story to be memorized and spoken for an
audience require different literary modes. Words that get a standing
ovation in a club when backed by music might get a: "Sorry, that isn't
poetry," when coldly confronted on the black and white two dimensional
dead-tree paper page.
Trees died so that I might read from beginning to end of BLEACH, and
mark up sections so that I might "steal" from Joy for my own future
work. Reading this book calmed me. It had a soothing emotional effect
upon me. I don't know why.
@hg47
4/13/2013
8:44 PM
The Legend of the Bloodstone
by
E.B. Brown
Book Review ★★★★
Well, I’m a sucker for anything involving time travel, but this “time
travel romance” was a lot of fun. As an “old guy” I am not the target
demographic for this genre. But E.B. is a great storyteller with an
excellent sense of pace who always surprised me. I didn’t even know
“Time Travel—sub-genre historical-romance was a thing.”
Red-headed girl Maggie in our present accidentally time travels back
hundreds of years and is captured and/or rescued by Indians as a slave
and/or…
I’m waiting for the movie version of BLOODSTONE: Dances With Time
Travel.
The Indian tribe knows all about time travelers like Maggie, and the
Warriors have been commanded to kill all time travelers.
A romance develops between Maggie and a powerful Warrior that saves her
life.
Later, “rescued” from the “savage” Indians by whites, even though she
meets other time travelers, Maggie feels kidnapped, and getting back to
her future time seems hopeless. She thinks the Indian she loves is dead.
Confess, I’ve read a few Harlequin & Love Swept & other romance novels
in my literary explorations. I’d give BLOODSTONE ★★★★★ except the eBook
version could use a copy-editor and an improved upload. Little things,
like dashes instead of em-dashes, misplaced commas, incorrect pronouns;
that type of thing. The actual story holds up “as is.”
@hg47
4/1/2013
8:42
AM
The Adventures
of Don Valiente and the Apache Canyon Kid by John A. Aragon & Mary W.
Walters
Book Review
★★★★
When
I knew John Aragon he was a semi-pro rugby player who occasionally beat
me at chess. Now, John is a trial lawyer, a novelist, and he is so good
at chess that I may as well just tip over my king now. I don’t know
which is worse. Actually, I do know: that he can clobber me at chess is
worse.
Tfitoby
goodreads.com was looking for noir westerns awhile back. This puppy
just may be one. “Noir” in the sense of: Just Throw Out All Your
Preconceptions About Western Novels Now, Because Whatever You Think This
Novel Is Up To, That Ain’t It, And Every Time I Thought I Might Know
What Was Going To Happen Next—Nope.
A
short description would be something like: A retelling of Don Quixote
with a lesbian Sancha Panza.
The
long description would include a jail-break, multiple murders, two
posses, a hero(ine) the “good guys” try to hang three times, more
fumbling about and incompetence than Cervantes could have imagined, a
location movie set shot up with actual bullets, a movie star rescued (or
kidnapped, depending on who is telling the event), a Sheriff fired, oh
and did I mention courtroom drama?
For
me, this novel improved as I got further into it. The free sample just
barely got me to buy it; then, the story slowly grew on me. Good job,
John!
The
eBook version irritated me because many of the apostrophes were rendered
as opening single quotes (curly facing the wrong way). I know from
experience with my own eBooks, that automatic software conversion
programs get these wrong; and that it is hard to hunt down every
occurrence and fix them all. But here, it looks to me like the writers
didn’t even try to fix this problem. Possibly, they proofed in a font
with straight quotes, where the problem would not show up. For my
sci-fi novel DAUGHTER MOON, I eventually decided to live with a few of
these backward curlies (and a couple of misspellings) because the
thought of proofreading the whole damn thing ONE MORE TIME was just too
much.
@hg47
3/23/2013
12:50
AM
Nemesis
by Isaac Asimov
★★★★
Book Review
There
is a suspicious periodicity in Earth's mass extinctions: a strong
argument can be made that every 26 or 27 million years (depending on the
cited source) "something happens." Oh, sorry, forgot you are a
conservative Republican Christian who believes that the theory of
evolution is the Devil's work, the Earth is less than 6000 years old,
and we could easily halt Global Warming if we would just position those
pesky Groundhogs so they would see their shadow Every Day Of The Year.
Anyway, pretend along with me . . .
I read NEMESIS as research for a sci-fi novel of my own I was writing.
Probably I am over-rating this book for sentimental reasons. Isaac
Asimov is one of my science fiction heroes. [Don't tell anyone, but
NEMESIS is probably only a ★★★.] So, what happens every 26 million
years? Does the Universe have the hiccups? Every 26 million years, HIC!
Or maybe our star has a companion similar to the wild-ass orbit of
Pluto, but much more massive and with an orbit more eccentric that goes
further out (a lightyear?) but when it comes close (every 26 million
years) it disturbs the Oort clout of comets and sends thousands of them
into the inner solar system, where an Earth impact is likely.
Actually, Asimov has something different in mind, and he piles on the
science fiction goodies, nearly-light-speed travel, then
above-light-speed travel, sentient bacteria, End Of The Solar System As
We Know It. Actually, for all the literary bells and whistles, I still
prefer early Asimov. This puppy was written near the end of his life
when he had 10 or 15 typewriter work-stations positioned around his
apartment, each set-up on a different "work" he was writing
simultaneously. Would one of my stalkers please give me a lethal heroin
overdose if I ever start writing like that?
@hg47
3/20/2013
4:34
PM
Short Story eBook Review
The
Guns of Napoleon
by
Peter K. Lean
★★★★
Finally! Those pesky Brits are forced to drive on the "correct" side of
the road!
This is a fun little Time Travel sci-fi short story. Off-beat? Every
time I thought Peter Lean would ZIG he ZAGGED. I liked that he continued
to surprise me.
The idea of an underground wormhole first discovered when a workman's
tools disappeared is perfectly understandable to me, and to you too! I
have one of those in my home, and I can persuade you with a one word
argument:
"Socks!"
@hg47
3/13/2013
2:23
AM
Book
Review
★★★★
Disclosure
by Michael Crichton
Disclosure is not my favorite Michael Crichton novel, but so far as I
have been able to determine, Crichton was actually unable to write
badly. I personally rate most of his science fiction books among the
top 50 sci-fi books ever written by anyone. Maybe what I don’t like
here is that the hero Sanders is on the defensive from page one,
fighting a losing battle that progressively gets more hopeless. And
he’s kind of a wimp. Still, Crichton got me to read this twice.
Problems at home, problems at work, limping from a company touch
football game wound, late to work on the most important day of his life,
an old girlfriend of his is brought in as his new division boss (taking
the job he expected to get), a merger bringing two companies together,
dashing the job security of everyone until things get sorted out,
unresolved issues with a new drive are so serious that someone high up
may be looking for a fall guy, then a sexual encounter with his
new-boss/old-girlfriend goes so wrong it seems like a set-up. It is a
set-up.
Now I
have to identify with a hero who everyone thinks sexually assaulted his
boss, for, the, rest, of, the, novel…
But
then I started enjoying the legal aspects of the novel, identifying with
the company lawyer Sanders goes to for help. Once the lawyers get
involved, this puppy picks up.
From DISCLOSURE:
“I see. Those studies are wrong. But the
studies about sexual differences are right?”
“Well, sure. Because sex is fundamental.
It’s a primal drive.”
“I don’t see why. It’s used for all sorts
of purposes. As a way of relating, a way of placating, a way of
provoking, as an offer, as a weapon, as a threat. It can be quite
complicated, the ways sex is used. Haven’t you found that to be true?”
The woman crossed her arms. “I don’t think
so.”
Speaking for the first time, the young man
said, “So what’d you tell this guy? Not to litigate?”
“No. But I told him his problems.”
“What do you think he should do?”
“I don’t know,” Fernandez said. “But I
know what he should have done.”
“What?”
“It’s terrible to say it,” she said. “But
in the real world? With no witnesses? Alone in the office with his
boss? He probably should have shut up and f---ed her. Because right
now, that poor bastard has no options at all. If he’s not careful, his
life is over.”
But
then Saunders grows a real pair, the pair he didn’t use in the sexual
encounter with his boss, to fight back against the accusations, and the
novel gets fun for me. Eventually, I started enjoying the power plays
and corporate back-stabbing. ©1993, Michael Crichton goes astray with
an extended virtual reality riff that just seemed clumsy to me, and
overall I didn’t like the hero much; Sanders seemed too clueless and
distracted about the behavior of other people until the end.
I
like the book better than the movie; although as I recall, the movie had
some good moments.
Crichton reverses the sex of the usual participants of sexual harassment
for this novel; I’m sure there are some guys perched in powerful jobs
who are actually far worse than the gal in this book was.
@hg47
3/9/2013
6:48
PM
★★★★★
The Rainmaker
by John Grisham
This is one of my 2 favorite Grisham
novels—don’t bother with the movie, it’s a campy mess of bad acting and
awful direction IMHO (actually, the movie is so bad that it is
occasionally amusing).
I love courtroom drama. RAINMAKER
pits the law student who hasn’t even passed the bar yet and his
“paralawyer” against the Big Bad Insurance Company that routinely denies
EVERY claim made against it—initially.
Grisham is at the top of his game here; most of his novels are great
first-reads (then give it a toss), but this one has pulled me back in
for many re-reads. The out-of-court action keeps veering off into
sidebars that ultimately tie-in to this David versus Goliath tale. In
court David nukes the giant, doesn’t just bang him in the forehead,
which is perhaps a weakness in this novel; but the Baddies manage to
slither out of judgment by declaring bankruptcy.
The hero gets the girl, murders her abusive husband and gets away with
it, kills a naughty insurance company, and retires from the law after a
1-0 lifetime score and a $500,000,000.00 victory. What’s not to like?
@hg47
3/7/2013
7:48
PM
★★★
THE
OVERLOOK
by
Michael Connelly
If
it's a Harry Bosch novel I want to read it. Actually, I've probably
already read it.
3.5
Stars?
For a new writer I'd give this a 4-star, or if I really liked the new
writer, maybe even a 5. The writing and plotting is very clean. But for
Connelly? I'm sorry, IMHO he was slacking-off in this one. I only read
OVERLOOK once, and I'm not going back for a re-read.
[And I hate when FBI agents are the Bad Guys; killers breaking the LAW.]
Plot-wise & Action-wise this puppy has everything going for it, but the
only few gem-moments for me were when Harry was seeing more in crime
scenes and the motivations of people than his superiors and the FBI.
If I was stuck on an airplane flight and this was the only thing decent
I could find in the airport bookstore, I'd re-read this. Only then.
@hg47
3/4/2013
1:17
PM
The Runaway Jury
by John Grisham
Book Review
★★★★★
John Grisham novels are a good “first read” for me; but I usually have
no desire to revisit the books. RUNAWAY JURY is one I have gone back to
re-read many times. The movie is also a treat, with Gene Hackman &
Dustin Hoffman.
A potential juror and his outside partner target and stalk the trials
against Big Tobacco; hoping to get him on as a juror in a big case,
which they manage to accomplish. While Big Tobacco is pulling every
dirty trick in the book and inventing new dirty tricks to force the jury
their way, Juror #2 is tilting the jury the other way from the inside.
To confuse the issue and spice things up, Juror Number Two’s partner
offers to sell the jury to Big Tobacco: “Pay us and the verdict you want
is a done deal.”
RUNAWAY JURY is ©1996. In the “Truth is Stranger than Fiction” category,
in 2002 Winona Ryder was on trial for shoplifting. The store and the
district attorney were both playing hard-ball, and hit Winona up with 3
felony charges. Surprise, surprise, Peter Guber, a former movie studio
chief who made three films with the actress wound up on her jury. Call
me cynical, but Peter Guber is one of the most persuasive men who has
ever lived; I don’t know what the Hollywood Power Players did to get him
on the jury, or how they blackmailed the prosecution to not bump him
during jury selection; but I’m sure the final verdict was exactly what
Peter Guber wanted. My guess? His agenda was to avoid the Commercial
Burglary charge at all costs while selling the other jury members on the
lessor charges of vandalism and grand theft. Who, me, jaded?
I’m a big fan of courtroom drama, in movies and books. Usually, I prefer
books that fight it out within the legal rules; but in THE RUNAWAY JURY
the dirty maneuvering outside the courtroom and outside the law is
spectacular. Also, John Grisham is at the top of his game here; if you
like courtroom drama, and haven’t tried Grisham yet, this is a good one
to try. Bet you like it! @hg47
2/28/2013
7:16
PM
KING
RAT
by
James Clavell
★★★★★
At
one time or another I've read most or all of James Clavell's novels.
KING RAT is by far my favorite. I've lost count of the number of times
I've read this novel. I also own the movie version of the story on DVD;
and yes, I've lost count of the number of times I've watched the movie.
I like the book better.
Clavell survived as a POW in WWII. The sub-story is that the Peter
Marlowe character in KING RAT is a fictionalized version of James
Clavell and that the Corporal King character is a fictionalized version
of the buddy in the Japanese camp who actually saved Clavell's life.
I think all of Clavell's novels made it to either TV or Movie form; in
some cases he wrote the screenplays, in most, not (he was too busy doing
other more important things in Hollywood, or writing his next
blockbuster novel). His career in Hollywood is almost as impressive as
his novels (Due to lessons he learned the hard way in the POW camp?
Correction: Due to lessons he learned the hard way in the POW
camp!). Did you know that Clavell wrote the movie THE FLY? Did you
know that Clavell co-wrote the movie THE GREAT ESCAPE? Did you know that
Clavell wrote and directed the movie TO SIR, WITH LOVE?
I won't sport with your intelligence by relating the plot of the famous
KING RAT story as told in novel and movie beyond to say that it is the
story of how an American prisoner in a Japanese internment camp became
more powerful than the Japanese warden.
For those fond of "How To" books like How To Succeed In Business, or How
To Win At War, I wouldn't mess with SUN TZU or the latest rewording of
Machiavelli. Go to KING RAT.
@hg47
2/25/2013
6:30
PM
Book
Review
★★★★
NEUROMANCER by William Gibson
When
I first read NEUROMANCER, sometime around 1990 I think, I was pretty
excited. I went out and bought everything by William Gibson I could
locate. I found that I tended to like Gibson’s short stories better
than his novels. Science fiction went somewhere, but it didn’t bring me
along for the ride. Heinlein got bloated. Asimov went for quantity
instead of quality. Bradbury stopped slinging his new stories out into
the world. Most of the new sci-fi kids on the block seemed to favor
flash and mood and tricks instead of basic story-telling. If a book is
too much work and not enough fun, I stop and find something else to
read. I tried to read VIRTUAL LIGHT, MONA LISA OVERDRIVE, and one I
particularly wanted to enjoy, THE DIFFERENCE ENGINE. But I didn’t
finish any of them. Later, I tried IDORU. I have not tried his more
recent work. How picky am I? Every time I read the first sentence to
NEUROMANCER I want to remove the comma.
NEUROMANCER is a piece of work. Gibson’s sentences seem hard and stiff
to me; but his impressive but elusive vision holds my interest; he is
definitely a major force in the Science Fiction field.
@hg47
2/21/2013
3:44
PM
Book
Review
★★★★★
BAND
OF BROTHERS
by
Stephen E. Ambrose
Ashamed to admit that I came to this book backwards. I rented one of the
DVD discs of the HBO Miniseries BAND OF BROTHERS, and was hooked. I
bought the Miniseries on DVD. I wanted more. I bought the book it was
based on.
I have no clue how Stephen does the extensive research and gets insiders
to open up and spill all the tiny secrets that makes a book like BAND OF
BROTHERS shine and thrill me. This non-fiction book reads better than
most fiction books I’ve read; Ambrose not only digs to find the facts,
he makes them sing; and then dance; and then slide up to me and whisper
into my ear…
Yes, I am something of a WWII buff. Now, I have Churchill’s six books on
The Second World War, and I’ve slogged through parts of those books;
although the “winner” is framing the tale here, I trust Winston when I
want to hunt down a particular fact or get his take on some incident. (I
actually prefer the fictionalized Minority Report of WWII presented by
German General Armin von Roon in Herman Wouk’s WINDS OF WAR and WAR AND
REMEMBRANCE; added bonus: the presentation of the Battle of Midway in
REMEMBRANCE, which is the clearest explanation of that naval battle I’ve
read, and sometimes brings tears to my eyes.)
If suddenly my kindle will only download Stephen E. Ambrose books, I can
probably live with that for a long while, because looking at the list of
the other books he has written I can see more than ten books that
interest me just by their title and the fact that Ambrose wrote them.
BAND OF BROTHERS is about a Company of “Airborne” soldiers, starting in
basic training until beyond VE Day. Is the HBO thing better, or is the
book better? Don’t know. I’ve read the book 3+ times, watched the DVDs
7+ times. They are both great; but without the Stephen E. Ambrose book,
the HBO thingie would not exist. @hg47
2/17/2013
6:07
PM
Book
Review
★★★★★
LONESOME DOVE
by Larry McMurtry
An
argument can be made that LONESOME DOVE is the greatest Western that has
ever been written. I will not dispute that. It won the 1986 Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction. It moseys along at its own pace so gradually that I
was fifty or a hundred pages in before I realized that the book owned
me.
My favorite part is when Gus was tracking an evil Indian who had stolen
a woman from their cattle drive. Gus gets ambushed and caught in the
middle of a flat plane by other Indians and a buffalo hunter sent to
kill him. Gus has to kill his own horse to use as a fort. He fights off
the initial attack, killing some of the Indians, but then is trapped
hunkered down behind his horse while the buffalo hunter is taking
long-range pot shots at him. Gus is really irritated by this
development. There is going to be a lot of waiting. The worst part is
that he has no one to talk to.
The entire novel up to that point was like the set-up to that surprising
line, which, a moment after I read it, was not surprising, but
inevitable. Gus is a great talker; his main delight in life is talking.
I will not attempt to do justice to the character of Augustus McCrae; my
literary skills are not up to the task.
[But when Gus died--actually, when it was clear that Gus chose death
over losing his leg, the novel died for me. I couldn't bear to read on
to the end. Perhaps I identified with Gus too much. For me, this novel
is a flawed Masterpiece.]
I have read no Western novel to match this one in literary greatness,
but this is not actually my favorite Western. The Western novel SMOKY
VALLEY by Donald Hamilton plays me like an organ, pulling out all my
stops, and hitting that thunderous 32-cycle note that thrills my oddball
soul.
@hg47
2/13/2013
2:33
PM
Book
Review ★★★★
COUNTERPARTS
by
Gonzalo Lira
COUNTERPARTS is almost a litmus test for the reader. If you demand that
your thriller novels stick to the tried-and-true you will hate this
book. If you like surprises, counterpoint characters, noir plotting that
goes off-topic, a female lead who is tubes-through-the-roof tough, and
an impossible collaboration between the FBI & CIA hunting a killer, you
just may love this novel. COUNTERPARTS speeds up when I want it to slow
down; when I'm revved-up for COUNTERPARTS to blast down the fast-lane it
flips and lands upside down in a ditch. If your reader's ego must be
pampered and gently lead through every chapter with predictable
characters and in-the-groove plotting, STOP READING NOW! DO NOT EVEN
THINK OF READING THIS BOOK! @hg47
2/10/2013
10:12
AM
Book
Review ★★★★
A
TABLOID HISTORY OF THE WORLD
by
Kevin McDonough
Hypothetical: The National toilet Enquirer has been reporting "the news"
since THE BIG BANG. That's your History Lesson. (Well, that version of
history is no sillier than ➜Far➜Right➜ over-the-edge-of-the-Flat-Earth
Fox News.)
This
black & white picture book won't teach you much history; but the more
history you know, the funnier you're going to find this. A special treat
for History Buffs. Unfortunately, the Internet Kids will have to Google
to get it; and then, it doesn't really translate into I'm Feeling
Lucky.
@hg47
2/10/2013
5:42
AM
Book
Review ★★★★★
THE
SLANTED LENS
by Jay
P. Morgan
I like to give a copy of
this book to new friends and acquaintances. At one time I had 15-20
copies. I'm now down to 5. Time to stock up at Amazon: I (we?) can get
more copies at a penny plus shipping!
http://www.amazon.com/The-Slanted-Len...
In the photographic tradition of B&W Philippe Halsman, but with a bent
toward full-color "photocomics," Morgan ©1997 goes for the laugh.
If this book doesn't make you laugh out loud, MANY TIMES, I'll eat my
entire Goodreads author profile, every zero and one.
"Jay P. Morgan's photography is truly a hilarious comic strip executed
with magic. I would know. I spent several entertaining hours playing air
guitar on a skateboard that was literally suspended on a desk that was
itself suspended in air. No blue screen. No stripping. No retouching!
[and no Photoshopping!
@hg47]" — JUDGE REINHOLD
2/4/2013
11:05
AM
Book
Review ★★★★
You’ll
Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again
by
Julia Phillips
A
little dated, circa 1992, but still relevant if you want to figure out
the Hollywood movie subculture. LUNCH is autobiographical and as much a
cautionary tale of drug addiction as insider info. I had a brief run-in
with Hollywood when my novel BLUES DELUXE was published in the mid ’90s;
had my very own Hollywood Agent for a while, but nothing ever came of
it, and B.D. is now out of print. Looking back on it now, my experience
was a bit of a Catch 22: she snapped me up, on the chance that my book
might hit the best seller lists, when she would then be positioned to
make a deal; I was trying to do it backwards, by finagling a movie deal
to hype book sales.
Anyway, LUNCH is a lot of fun to read; the gal is a hell of a writer.
Julia makes herself look so bad that it’s hard not to believe every word
of her story. For sheer fun, this book is hard to beat, and you may
learn a thing or two about Hollywood while you are smiling and laughing.
And then groaning at how a once powerful woman could get herself into
such a mess.
WHAT DO YOU SAY WHEN WARREN BEATTY SUGGESTS A THREESOME WITH YOU AND
YOUR TEENAGED DAUGHTER? Julia: “We’re both too old for you.”
I also enjoyed James Bacon’s HOLLYWOOD IS A FOUR LETTER TOWN, but that’s
even more dated, at 1976, about a supporting actor who mingled with a
lot of “the greats.” It has Steve McQueen, Jackie Gleason, Red Skelton,
Stan Laurel, Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Zsa Zsa, Groucho, Sinatra, etc.
Another awesome book on the Hollywood power structure, also from 1992,
is THE CLUB RULES by Paul Rosenfield. Very literary, and perceptive;
Rosenfield made me stop reading often to think about the implications of
what he was writing.
I haven’t kept up on the latest Hollywood Exposé books. But the central
Hollywood truth won’t change no matter how the tiny details adjust.
Nobody In Hollywood Wants To Hear About Anyone They Haven’t Already
Heard About.
You won’t “break in,” they will hear about you and then they will come
for you (with every intention of robbing you blind); so get 3
independent experts to sextuple-check any deal you are thinking of
signing.
I have a shelf of books on how to break into Hollywood and how to write
screenplays, stuff like that. Reading most of them was a waste of time.
(Except that I’m a “carrot” not a “stick” kind of guy, so maybe I needed
to read lots of crap to “keep the dream alive” so I would keep moving
forward.)
David Chasman’s thin book of aphorisms, EVERYTHING I NEEDED TO KNOW
ABOUT SUCCEEDING IN HOLLYWOOD I LEARNED FROM MY PIT-BULL, circa 1995
still kicks ass in 2013.
THE DEVIL’S GUIDE TO HOLLYWOOD by Joe Eszterhas ©2006 is the most
up-to-date Hollywood book I’ve read, but, while I do recommend this
book, it mostly expands on the info in PIT-BULL.
In the mid Ninties I wanted to write a screenplay of my novel BLUES
DELUXE. My vague idea was that this would somehow help me to “Break Into
Hollywood.” The actual screenplay format is a simple structure; even so,
I knew I didn’t dare jump right in and write the BLUES DELUXE
screenplay. I needed a learning experience. So, I wrote an original
action adventure screenplay first. It’s actually not too bad. (Needs
work.) But I learned a lot, by actually writing a screenplay: so that is
my advice to other writers who want to learn how to write a screenplay.
Write one! Then write the one you really want to write.
I am somewhat disappointed that I actually prefer the BLUES DELUXE
screenplay I wrote to my original novel. The screenplay is actually
better, in my opinion. [insert sad-face icon] Now go read YOU’LL NEVER
EAT LUNCH IN THIS TOWN AGAIN. @hg47
2/2/2013
8:13
AM
The Night, They Say, Was Made for Love: Plus, My Sexual Scrapbook
by
John Callahan - Book Review
This
is one of those books that I bought a bunch of copies of to give away to
friends and acquaintances…damn,
I am now down to 2 copies.
NO! I am not going to give one to you!
John Callahan does sick humor line drawing cartoons. You're going to
make some noise when you read go through these cartoons. You may
groan. You may laugh out loud enough to disturb the neighbors. You may
roar and/or make zoo noises. Statistically, you are likely to be
offended.
What can I say? The guy pushes all my buttons.
@hg47
1/30/2013
2:19 AM
Book Review ★★★★★
Red
Storm Rising
by
Tom Clancy
I’m
guessing Tom Clancy novels are mostly a “guy thing.” If it’s a Tom
Clancy novel I’m probably going to check it out. I’m something of a
“Naval Action” freak. I blame the 1943 Lawrence O’Donnell science
fiction short story CLASH BY NIGHT, which I read in Junior High, for my
fetish. Asimov made me want to read more science fiction; Lawrence made
me want more Naval Action!
RED STORM RISING presents a global non-nuclear war between the U.S. and
Russia that involves our NATO allies. The first read-through I read
everything, but on re-reads I skip many parts, depending on my mood, and
focus on the parts involving the weatherman in Iceland, a U.S. Air Force
lieutenant who is the main hero. There is also a cute love story that
develops here.
There is some great submarine action here. Many readers think Clancy
novels are technical over-kill, but what he does in RED STORM RISING
works for me.
@hg47
1/29/2013
5:42 AM
Book Review ★★★★★
THE
LONELY SILVER RAIN
by
John D. MacDonald
What I like about John D. is that the writing in the Travis McGee series
is consistently excellent from first to last. Donald Hamilton’s Matt
Helm Series became disappointingly bloated mid-way through the series.
Robert B. Parker’s Spenser and Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall novels
became abbreviated toward the end: Robert B. would write a few words,
and expect his readers to know him well enough to fill in the blanks.
Travis McGee novels are not the best or easiest “first read forget me”
books but in my opinion they hold up better over time, and have a high
re-readable factor.
In SILVER, the last one, Trav goes hunting for a boat stolen from a rich
friend. Trav finds the 54-foot cruiser, but there are three murdered
bodies on board. Trav doesn’t know whether it’s drugs or counterfeiting
or something else, but he suddenly doesn’t want any part of any
recovery; he doesn’t want anyone to know that he was even looking for
the boat. Too late, Trav.
And then someone mails Trav a bomb as a gift to kill him.
And then things get really interesting, with Trav caught between two
fighting syndicate families, who maybe both want him dead.
Oh. Should I mention that Travis has a kid?
“Stop calling me kid!”
@hg47
1/26/2013
6:17 AM
Book Review ★★★★★
CINNAMON SKIN
by
John D. MacDonald
In
DREADFUL LEMON Trav’s boat gets wrecked by a bomb: Trav wakes up in the
hospital; ditto Busted Flush, which still floats. But John D. is on a
roll here. In CINNAMON SKIN Meyer’s boat John Maynard Keynes is blasted
into tiny scraps of floating debris, while Meyer was giving a speech
ashore, but Meyer’s niece Norma and new hubby were borrowing the boat.
Meyer: “We’re each expert in our own death.”
The Feds descend on an incompetent terrorism investigation that changes
into a drug smuggling investigation (well, CINNAMON was ©1982), but
Travis quickly suspects that Norma’s husband was not aboard during the
explosion.
Travis: “And so I am separated from my own true love by fifty-three
proctologists?”
Lots of Meyer in this one, which is a bonus. Now, John D. is famous for
using his novels to sneak in social commentary riffs. Some readers hate
it; some love it.
From CINNAMON: …we passed one shop which sold computers, printers,
software, and games. It was packed with teenagers, the kind who wear
wire rims and know what the new world is about. The clerks were
indulgent, letting them program the computers. Two hundred yards away,
near the six movie houses, a different kind of teenager shoved quarters
into the space-war games, tensing over the triggers, releasing the eerie
sounds of extraterrestrial combat. Any kid back in the computer store
could have told the combatants that because there is no atmosphere in
space, there is absolutely no sound at all. Perfect distribution: the
future managers and the future managed ones. Twenty in the computer
store, two hundred in the arcade.
That piece of the riff has haunted me for two decades. But there are
things in this novel that haunt me more, like the serial killer and
destroyer of many women that Travis and Meyer are hunting.
@hg47
1/21/2013
10:58 PM
Book Review ★★★★★
Free Fall In Crimson
by
John D. MacDonald
This is one of the better Travis McGee novels, in my opinion, although I
am sometimes surprised to find that a reviewer I respect trashes a McGee
novel I absolutely *love* while also praising to the skies another McGee
novel that just barely worked for me.
Tastes vary.
Books I love may be books you will hate; the way around this, I think,
is to find reviewers with tastes similar to your own. That way, you know
if they ★★★★★ a book that at the very least you will find it tolerable,
and you may just find it a thrill.
Robert B. Parker used a shrink/girlfriend for Spenser to put a PC spin
on everything he was doing and thinking, as they talked about his cases.
The weakness in the Travis McGee series is, first that John D. created
Travis in the Sixties era of Hugh Hefner, and second that although Meyer
softens Trav, there is no way to make Travis McGee politically correct
by any decade’s standard other than the Sixties.
John D. was by now (FREE FALL is ©1981) responding to this sexist
backlash. Slightly. I think John D. was also on the final stretch of his
run, and had recovered his second wind.
--
From CRIMSON:
She dipped a finger in her remaining half inch of Moselle and drew a
slow circle on my chest. “Hmmm,” she said.
“Hmmm what?”
“I guess everybody has heard that ancient joke about how do porcupines
make love.”
“Very very carefully,” I said.
She reached and set her empty glass aside. Her eyes danced. “So?”
I gathered her in. “Let me know if it gets to be not carful enough.”
--
Actually, my favorite part of this puppy is when Trav jumps out of a hot
air balloon to avoid being killed.
This resonates with me because I’ve done a bit of hot air ballooning.
First off, did you know that Hot Air Ballooners have to file a flight
plan? This has always seemed absurd to me, and maybe it is no longer
necessary, it’s been awhile since my last ride. On my last balloon ride,
there was a Velcro-failure on the third group: there were no deaths,
since it happened at a low altitude, but the riders were pretty
banged-up, and some of them may have gone to the hospital. Actually, I
think that because of this near disaster, and others, Velcro-strips may
have been eliminated from Hot Air Balloons. An Internet search is
showing an improved balloon circa 2013 without a Velcro strip. Now,
apparently, the pilot has an on/off valve at the top of the balloon to
dump out hot air on an as-needed basis: Much Better! On my rides the
pilots had a cord to pull that would open a Velcro strip in the side of
the balloon to quickly dump the air out to make landings safer in the
event of high wind. Otherwise the wind would drag the basket along,
banging the passengers around. Problem was, if the pilot used the Velcro
strip on the first or second trips, he would have to re-assemble and
re-inflate the balloon from scratch, which would take time and expend
propane. The second ride banged the balloon around quite a bit, which
apparently loosened but didn’t quite break the Velcro strip. Until the
flight of the third group. I watched them go up slowly…I turned away and
was talking to a friend who stopped and suddenly pointed…I turned and
saw the balloon going down quickly on the other side of a hill…I didn’t
see it, but the basket hit an angled soft dirt hillside. I remember
watching an earlier balloon being assembled and inflated, on my first
ride ever, and worrying out-loud about the Velcro: “Velcro? This thing
is held together with Velcro??” That pilot told me: “I’ve never had a
Velcro failure. I’ve never even heard of a Velcro failure.”
--
Anyway, Travis McGee takes on a Biker Gang, Hollywood Power Players,
Stuntwomen, and possibly the most frightening creature imaginable: an
actress Superstar. @hg47
1/19/2013
5:05 AM
Book Review ★★★
VEIL
by
Aaron Overfield
I’ll be interested to check out what Aaron Overfield is writing in 3 or
5 years more time. When he matures as a novelist, he is going to be
Dangerous!
I got 13% into VEIL, then stopped, realizing that I didn’t really like
any of the characters, or the waiting for the science fiction, or the
way the story was being told, or the unnecessary expletives. Oops. I’m
forgetting the excessive Naughty Bits and Uck-Fay Wordplay I used near
the end in A WALK IN THE RAIN. My bad.
The whole “Being John Malkovich VEIL science fiction thing” was still
hidden behind Aaron’s veil 13% into the novel. The most interesting
character, Jin, was killed straight off (Jin’s constricted relationship
with Suren reminded me of Brautigan’s work; at first, it seemed
precious, but once it was gone, I missed it). I jumped ahead, several
times, trying to find an enjoyable place to restart. Nope. Either I was
unable to suspend disbelief on what was being presented, or the dialogue
was too “on the nose,” or the writing seemed smoothly superficial,
lacking depth.
On the plus side, Overfield’s writing is very easy to read (this is
actually a considerable accomplishment for a novelist, which is why I
look forward to future Overfield output). Most of the experts will
confirm that “Easy reading is Hard Writing.”
I have been assured by a writer I respect that VEIL gets better later
on. It can get better without me. @hg47
1/17/2013
1:36 AM
Book review ★★★★
THE
GREEN RIPPER
by
John D. MacDonald
This is the darkest of all the Travis McGee novels. Trav infiltrates a
group of terrorists on a mission of revenge. My favorite parts are where
Travis does a Rambo; kicks ass, takes names and anyone who manages
(excuse me, *womanages*, see DAUGHTER MOON) to survive gets tied-up &
turned into the Feds.
I don’t quite buy the build-up, with McGee mooning over lost love, but
John D. is the consummate professional, the top notch craftsman; even if
the spark of early John D. MacDonald genius is missing, the story still
holds me. I’ve read it at least twice, three is my guess.
@hg47
1/12/2013
11:24 PM
Book Review ★★★★
The
Empty Copper Sea
by
John D. MacDonald
"I
turned my head and saw, beyond the shoulder of my beloved, the empty
copper sea, hushed and waiting, as if the world had paused between
breaths."
About Travis McGee novels: he usually gets in over his head. Then
something snags his legs and pulls him twenty-five feet underwater,
fast. Somehow, with super-human-something-or-other Trav breaks free.
(Analogy). This is probably my least-favorite Travis McGee novel, even
though it was made into a Sam Elliott movie. I saw the movie. It sucked.
But I didn’t think it was Sam. I thought it was that other guy playing
Travis. Rod Taylor. But no, the blogs tell me Rod Taylor was the Travis
McGee for the DARKER THAN AMBER movie.
John D. still has his literary chops, but for this novel I’m not sure
his heart was really in it. There is nothing spectacular here that makes
me want to re-read it. I shouldn’t bitch. Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm
series started strong then got so bloated it tested my loyalty to the
series. Robert B. Parker’s Spenser series went BANG from the Get-Go,
then quickly added a lady shrink to fine-tune the political-correctness
for a long productive run before devolving into abbreviated
air-guitar-detecting near the end. John D. MacDonald was a consistent
wordsmith worthy of study by other novelists; even the worst McGee novel
has lessons we writers can learn from.
My advice remains the same. “So you want to be a successful novelist?
OK, go read every Travis McGee novel. Write a million words. Then,
maybe…” @hg47
1/11/2013
6:44 PM
Book Review ★★★★
THE
DREADFUL LEMON SKY
by
John D. MacDonald
Travis McGee novels get better for me on the re-read years later. Rarely
my first choice for a quick easy first read of escape, the John D.
MacDonald McGee novels are the survivors, the keepers, the books that
don’t get thrown out when I move and go through my library getting rid
of the books I know I have no use for anymore.
The basics of the plot here are standard McGee: one of Trav’s old
Friends-with-Benefits playmates leaves a big gob of cash with him to
hold for her secretly. She leaves. She dies. Instead of keeping the loot
and drinking Plymouth gin, Trav has his newest quest: Did someone kill
her? Why? Who? [evil Travis grin] They are going to be so sorry they
ever messed with my Friend-With-Benefit! (It should be mentioned that
the plot details for Travis McGee novels are all over the map; GPS
nonfunctional, map grids unrecognizable.)
Actually, my favorite parts of DREADFUL LEMON are the conversations Trav
has after his boat the Busted Flush gets blown up by a bomb. Don’t
worry. It still floats. Sort of.
Trav talking to the Southern investigator, who replies: “I don’t really
think you came up here to straighten out the distribution of pot in
Bayside County.”
Later, Trav talking to the political power-player who is backing a
serial rapist and murderer for office:
“All right. Here is your deal. Twenty-five thousand dollars cash to get
out of this county and stay out.”
“Judge, we have arrived at the end of our discussion. Weird as it may
seem to you, I think your protégé is a murderous, spooky fellow. I think
he has been going around killing people. I think he killed two friends
of mine. Tell him that.”
John D. created Characters outside my range as a writer; his Evil is
beyond what I even want to think about; his Death hits me like “harsh
studio lighting” “under the dreadful lemon sky.”
@hg47
1/5/2013
3:57 PM
Book Review ★★★★
THE
TURQUOISE LAMENT
by
John D. MacDonald
So
you want to be a Great American Novelist? OK. First, read every Travis
McGee novel by John D. Then write a million words of crap
(unfortunately, your first million words likely won’t have much value).
After that, yes, you will be a Contender.
THE TURQUOISE LAMENT ©1973 – The plot here verges into the experimental,
as John D. by this time was “Big Enough” as a successful writer to write
any damn thing he pleased, exactly as he pleased; like Heinlein after
STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. But John D. was always far more disciplined.
Heinlein novels after STRANGER seem bloated to me. John D. was always
tight and relevant, even here in TURQUOISE when he uses several pages to
have Trav argue with himself, as if in court, “ALL RISE! Travis Versus
Travis. The Honorable…”
Confession: I have a serious bias; possibly many flaws of judgment. I
believe that Jane Austen created the format for The Modern Novel when
she wrote PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, the format which we all read today in
2013 [And please, will someone explain to me why we didn’t go straight
from 2012 to 2014—need I mention Apollo 13, or Every Building Everywhere
which refuses to recognize the 13th floor? Airplanes have no seat 13.
Oh, no: it’s the 113th Congress…]. Obviously, Jane did not believe any
such thing about her own awesome creative originality, because *ALL* her
later novels conform to the styles of her day (where passive narration
was “the thing”); possibly British critics crushed, Crushed, CRUSHED her
playful excessive use of dialogue.
The literary character of Travis McGee was hatched in the Sixties while
Hef was expounding on the Playboy Philosophy. Trav is a “bad guy” by
2013, excuse me, 2014 standards of PC. Also, don’t try to read TURQUOISE
while stoned, it is tricky and complicated; something of a tour de force
at presenting Travis McGee as an ineffectual wimp. In TURQUOISE Travis
is outsmarted, outmaneuvered, outfought, and kicked to the curb. John D.
seems to be working overtime to make his hero look bad. Trav’s most
competent moment in TURQUOISE LAMENT is when he buries a man alive to
obtain information, making him appear as evil as any antagonist; his
anger so intense Trav nearly actually kills the man.
The half-win at the end is just another trick of fate; Travis just a
battered bystander.
“Oops, mister.”
@hg47
12/31/2012
3:51 PM
The Scarlet Ruse
★★★★★
John D. MacDonald
This is one of the better
McGee novels in my opinion. It's fun. It has lots of Meyer. It has rare
stamps. It has a woman Travis McGee is actually going out of his way to
impress. It is an actual salvage operation [they stole from you--I'll
steal it back, but I keep half], in addition to a favor for Meyer. It
has devious mobsters. It has John D. doing his underworld riff on the
way the bad guys really operate. It has Meyer waxing philosophical and
pessimistic about developing nations. Did I mention rare stamps? And I
love the dialogue when Trav is being questioned by the police. ©1973. As
you read through the Travis McGee novels, you are probably wondering if
Trav will ever become politically correct. Sorry, no. You are probably
also wondering if Trav will ever NOT be fooled by women. Sorry, no.
@hg47
P.S. - Rare Stamps!
12/29/2012
12:28 PM
Book review ★★★★
A
TAN AND SANDY SILENCE
by
John D. MacDonald
This is not one of my favorite Travis McGee novels, although it is
competently constructed, and has some good moments. Any McGee will do if
I’m bored, and there’s nothing else around to read. This puppy didn’t
really grab me until about page 66; even then, I could pull free anytime
I wanted. TAN is a serviceable Hunt-For-A-Girl story. Maybe I don’t much
like TAN because Trav gets tied up and almost killed twice!
@hg47
12/23/2012
7:30 AM
Book review ★★★★★
THE
LONG LAVENDER LOOK
by
John D. MacDonald
This puppy is my favorite Travis McGee novel; and it’s a good reminder
to you that the Bad Guys out to kill you can belong to any profession
and/or any sex.
THE LONG LAVENDER LOOK is also a good reminder to me that connections,
powerful friends in high places, are part of the equation that allows
McGee to survive; and may be necessary for me to prosper as a writer.
In my opinion, John D. was at the absolute top of his game when he wrote
this. ©1970. I think he peaked with this one. That’s just me. Some of
what John D. MacDonald writes is not politically correct according to
2012 standards. I don’t care; I’m willing to cut the guy forty-two years
of slack.
Travis is speeding along a Southern back-road at night in his old
bastard Rolls Royce pickup with his best friend Meyer, when a woman runs
across the road. Trav swerves to avoid hitting her, and his Rolls stops
upside down underwater in a ditch. Meyer pulls Travis out, saving his
life. They walk back toward the nearest town, but a guy in the first car
to come along starts shooting at them. Eventually, Travis & Meyer get to
a town, where they are both promptly arrested for premeditated murder.
I love the opening, I love the part where Travis is locked up in jail by
a Southern Sheriff (the absolute last place any of us would want to be),
but most of all I love the part later where Travis brings a knife to a
gunfight. Enjoy! @hg47
12/20/2012
6:05 AM
Book Review ★★★★★
DRESS HER IN INDIGO
by John D. MacDonald
Travis McGee takes on the Isle of Lesbos, below the border, copyright
1969. You’re thinking of oral sex, aren’t you? Stop that! Below the
border refers to Mexico.
John D., having done such an awesome job with A DEADLY SHADE OF GOLD
below the border in 1965, sends Travis down there again. [Stop it!] He
pushes the limits of the crime novel, setting new standards, taking on
the hippie culture of drugs and free [not] love [Not!], throw in revenge
and torture almost of the “family honor killing” variety then add a dash
of sex not according to Republican rules.
McGee is on a “Find my girl, she ran away and I’m worried about her”
Quest. Did I mention that along the way Travis gets involved with an
older woman who damn near destroys him in bed? Did I mention that the
last person Travis would ever suspect is torturing and killing the boys
who hung out with the girl he is searching for in such evil ways that
the Mexican authorities almost kick Travis out of Mexico just because he
is looking for her?
Yes, Travis finds and “rescues” the girl, but it’s the last thing she
wants, and she hates him for it. This novel is a ©1969 piece of work.
@hg47
12/17/2012
11:21 PM
Calling eBook authors who write science fiction and/or mainstream
romance: sling me a tweet or an eMail or a comment, if you would like to
do a Guest Post here on Area 47. Surprise me.
@hg47
12/15/2012
10:45 PM
★★★★★
THE GIRL IN THE PLAIN BROWN WRAPPER by John D. MacDonald
© 1968 for the Wrapped Girl – So be forewarned, Ladies, Travis McGee is
not politically correct, judged by 2012 standards. The best rendition of
the I HATE TRAVIS McGEE point-of-view may be Amanda’s one star GoodReads
review:
http://www.goodreads.com
The gals have their Loveswept, Silhouette & Harlequin
tubes-through-the-roof romance novels—the guys have our Phillip Marlowe,
Travis McGee & Jack Reacher balls-to-the-wall action novels.
BROWN WRAPPER is half way into the Travis McGee series, #10 I think,
when John D. was still pushing the limits of the crime novel, before he
became bored with Travis. There is a lot of elaborate back-story here,
that may put off readers who want a murder on the first page, a fist
fight on page two, and a car chase by page five; but John D. is at the
absolute top of his game: the story he has to tell sucks me in and holds
me. As usual, Travis goes shuffling and blundering into some potentially
criminal situation driven by misguided loyalty or a debt he thinks he
owes to someone; in this novel a dead woman. It isn’t until page 59,
when Travis is all set to give up on his foolish notion that anyone
needs rescuing from anyone, when he discovers that someone has searched
his hotel room: BAD GUY ALERT! My guess is I’ve re-read this about 4
times over the years.
By page 72 a man and woman try to drug Travis and question him at
gunpoint.
By page 103 Travis is questioned by two detectives—because the woman
half of the pair who tried to question him at gunpoint was found
murdered, and Travis is the main suspect.
I don’t like the plot for BROWN WRAPPER, but I can’t think of any way to
improve anything. And BROWN has some of my all-time favorite scenes of
Travis McGee dialogue. And the ending! Oh, baby! I absolutely LOVE the
ending.
What I want to know is how John D. MacDonald knew so much about human
nature to write scenes that surprise me and awe me with secret knowledge
about us critters called humans. Was he tapping random phone
conversations? Was he privy to police interrogations? Was John D.
listening into shrink/patient conversations?
Oh, shit. The NSA has access to all that now; they’ve read this review
before I posted it, before I even saved it to my hard drive: like John
D. MacDonald got a read on all of us back in the Sixties.
@hg47
12/15/2012
5:17 PM
The
STUDIOS: "Give Up On DVDs!"
TV
on DVD - Poor Picture Quality.
I
don't have a television. But my computer plays DVDs. I get
my TV-fix by watching TV on DVD.
I
have NCIS Seasons 1 through 7. I may also have Season 8, but I
can't find it at the moment. I got a good deal on Season 9, which
I almost didn't buy, because the writing seems to have fallen off in
quality and/or maybe the actors aren't having fun anymore. The
show isn't what it used to be. Season 9, however is so blurry that
I can't watch it. The video clarity is inferior to prior seasons.
I suspect the industry is doing this intentionally to migrate viewers as
quickly as possible over to Blu-Ray. In protest, I gave my Amazon
purchase a 1-star review, and explained why.
When I bought BLUE BLOODS Season two, I noticed the same issue: inferior
picture quality compared with BLUE BLOODS Season one. The fuzzy
picture wasn't quite as bad as NCIS, so I was able to watch the shows.
But I also protested with an Amazon 1-star review. What was
interesting, was that in a few scenes, the picture was as sharp as
season one, then at the end of the shot, the fuzzy would return.
Apparently, someone screwed up, and didn't run those shots through the
fuzzy filter.
Both shows are CBS shows, so this may just be a "CBS thing." Time
will tell. But it pisses me off that DVDs are deliberately being
delivered to consumers with inferior picture quality compared with prior
seasons.
I
suspect that these actions are driven by economics. It costs more
to support multiple formats. Also, there is more money in Blu-Ray
sales. The quicker we give up on the DVD format, the more money
the studios will rake in. They are trying to "encourage us to give
up on DVDs."
@hg47
12/5/2012
3:36 PM
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE SHORT STORY?
I
can't think of one particular short story that thrills me above all
others, but I do have a few gems that I keep rereading over the years.
Two of the short stories in Vonnegut's WELCOME TO THE MONKEY HOUSE make
me cry every time I read them. The story that speaks most to me in this
collection is WHO AM I THIS TIME? Personally, I prefer Vonnegut's short
stories to his novels, which though mildly amusing never really worked
for me as entertainment.
My favorite western short story is A MAN CALLED HORSE by Dorothy M.
Johnson.
I have about 15 collections of Ray Bradbury short stories. Every few
years I go on a Bradbury Binge, reading only Bradbury for a few days or
a week. He has five or six shorts that almost always make me cry. The
story of his that haunts me the most is THE FRUIT AT THE BOTTOM OF THE
BOWL. The plot also keeps resurfacing with variations in many TV police
procedurals. By the way, Bradbury wrote hundreds of short stories that
were never published; would the Bradbury estate please get on that!!!!
We don't care if he didn't think they were up to the standards of his
best work: We Want To Read Them!
My favorite science fiction short story is VICTORY UNINTENTIONAL by
Isaac Asimov. Two other lifetime personal sci-fi short story favorites:
SURFACE TENSION by James Blish and MICROCOSMIC GOD by Theodore Sturgeon.
(I just now noticed that I have been mispronouncing and misreading the
title for more than twenty years; seeing it incorrectly as MICROSCOPIC
GOD. Oops.)
I do have a favorite short-short story. MEIHEM IN CE KLASRUM by Dolton
Edwards.
How
about you? What is your favorite short story?
@hg47
11/28/2012
10:49 PM
Book Review ★★★★★ PALE GRAY FOR
GUILT by John D. MacDonald
This is one of my favorite
Travis McGee novels. I've read it at least 5 times. It might be my
second favorite.
A warning for the Ladies, circa 2012: Travis McGee is like a big T-Rex
from the Cretaceous Period--excuse me, I mean like a big macho man from
the Sixties. You won't like the way he thinks about women. But us guys
just love the way Travis CHOMPS on the Bad Guys. Chomp, Chomp, ROAR!
A warning for the Gentlemen: MacDonald wrote at least twice as many
non-McGee novels as McGee novels; I bought and tried to read 10-15 of
them, but with the exception of THE GIRL, THE GOLD WATCH, AND EVERYTHING
none of them worked for me, and I couldn't finish them. And I almost
gave up on GOLD WATCH (glad I didn't; it's Sweet!)
PALE GRAY is a tale of revenge, Southern style.
"What are you?" she asked.
I stood up and put my hands on her upper arms, near the shoulders and
plucked her up off the sawhorse and held her. Maybe I was smiling at
her. I wouldn't know.
"And," I heard myself say, "Tush killed himself but not with that damned
engine block. He killed himself with something he said, or something he
did, and he didn't know he was killing himself. Maybe he didn't listen
very good, or catch on soon enough. I listen very good. I catch on. And
when I add up this tab and name the price, I'm going to look at some
nice gray skin, honey. Gray and pale, oily and guilty as hell, and some
eyes shifting around looking for some way out of it. But every damned
door will be nailed shut."
I came out of it and realized she was making little hiccupy sobs and
looking down and to the side, and her cheeks were wet, and she was
saying, "Please, please."
I love courtroom drama. This novel doesn't get into court, but the legal
maneuvering is impressive. The bad old boys think killing Tush will get
them the land they need for a huge land development deal. I love the
parts where Travis brings in a Southern Judge as an advocate for his
position, and elegantly pisses off all the power players who had counted
on a Sure Thing.
If you are going to kill a dinosaur's friend, don't kill the friend of a
T-Rex!
@hg47
11/23/2012
2:52 PM
Book Review
★★★★
ONE
FEARFUL YELLOW EYE
by
John D. MacDonald
At the moment, due to Amanda’s excellently written complete trashing of
Travis McGee in her ★ review of MacDonald’s DARKER THAN AMBER (she may
have even called it Book Rape, I forget), a cautionary note to potential
female readers may be appropriate.
Amanda's AMBER
Review
ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE is Copyright 1966. Travis McGee’s views on women
are anchored in the Sixties. Travis easily makes my Top Ten List of
favorite literary characters, but savvy 2012 women are going to have
“issues.” So, please Ladies, if you really want to pretend to be a
hulking macho 6’ 4” male animal for a few hours, may I suggest a nice
Spenser by Robert B. Parker? Just not the first one. In THE GODWULF
MANUSCRIPT Spenser commits the penultimate PC boo-boo by having sex with
both his client and his client’s mother. Go for one of the later novels
where Spenser is dating the shrink, and can put a politically correct
spin on everything he is thinking and doing.
Also, in ONE FEARFUL YELLOW EYE the scene where Travis stumbles upon a
dead guy who had been tortured for information so freaked me out that
this may be the only one of the twenty-one Travis McGee novels that I
have only read once. So far. Cut me some slack; Travis was also freaked
out.
Some elegant plotting in this puppy near the end when it’s clear that
the good gals and guys have won, things abruptly tumble into hopeless
disaster.
Book Reviews are almost obsolete in the post-Wikipedia era when copious
details about any book can be accessed by anyone with just a couple of
effortless mouse clicks. I don’t know what to spill and what to hold
back. In this one, McGee is again doing a favor for a friend. Although,
there is a bit of loot to be recovered, if Travis can compose himself
enough to stop looking at and thinking about that fearful yellow eye.
@hg47
11/19/2012
11:38 AM
The
Masculine Equivalent of the Harlequin Romance Novel
I have yet to figure out an MO for the whole “Book Review” thing. I seem
to be treating Amazon book reviews different from GoodReads book
reviews, which seems strange. I don’t have a comfortable routine yet:
what to say; what not to say. I don’t even know if I’m going to continue
to do it. Is this just a time sink, or is it something I really want to
do? Even if I enjoy doing this, will there ever be any benefit what will
accrue from this online behavior? Will my reviews actually influence
anyone? Will I make online friends? Will readers be lead back to my own
novels, which might result in readers and possibly fans of my own work?
No clue.
On GoodReads I thought I might slowly go through the special books in my
personal library, rate them and say a few words about them. Somehow I
started on the shelf where I keep my Travis McGee collection by John D.
MacDonald. Living room, top right, South wall.
After rating DARKER THAN AMBER by MacDonald ★★★★ Stars, I read down
through what other GoodReads members had posted about this novel. One
review caught my eye, stirred up my emotions, and made me think
seriously about the whole Travis McGee series.
Amanda's Review
of DARKER THAN AMBER
Amanda is an excellent writer, and I look forward to reading something
book-length from her; I may not agree with her message, but I’m sure
I’ll enjoy how she explains it to me. She eloquently trashed DARKER THAN
AMBER with an epic length ★ Star review of heroic hatred for McGee’s
attitude toward women. Amanda was obviously having a blast while dumping
on Travis; many other GoodReads members picked up on her enthusiasm, and
approved.
It got me thinking. Just what is the appeal of the Travis McGee series
for me? I own all 21 novels. Many I have re-read several times. I love
escaping into them. Does that make me another misogynistic woman hater?
Emotionally, for a moment, I felt Amanda’s review almost as a personal
attack upon me.
Why?
The Travis McGee novels were written early 1960’s to middle 1980’s.
AMBER is copyright 1966. To judge something written in the Sixties by
2011 notions of political correctness seems not only unfair but absurd.
Besides, Travis McGee is a “Guy Thing.” And then I made the leap. (Thank
you, Amanda!) Travis McGee, Matt Helm by Donald Hamilton, Philip Marlowe
by Raymond Chandler, Spenser by Robert B. Parker, Jack Reacher by Lee
Child . . . The Louis L’Amour westerns where I get to imagine myself a
gunfighter, the Douglas Reeman WWII novels where I pretend I’m the
captain of a Destroyer. These are male fantasies, the masculine
equivalent of Harlequin Romance novels for females.
It’s a guy thing.
For a few hours I’m not the guy at the party too shy to even talk to
anyone. I’m not the guy at high school who got beat up, or worse,
ran from a fight. I’m not the guy who falls in love with women who just
laugh at him: “Harvey, Harvey, funny Harvey.” No, for a few hours I can
be Travis McGee, the big macho beach bum who has more women then he
knows what to do with, who rights wrongs, clobbers evil doers, and hides
his cut of the action on his floating houseboat Busted Flush.
If a woman doesn’t like my masculine literary fantasies, so what? Why is
she reading ancient John D. MacDonald anyway? Did she run out of new
Chick Lit? But Amanda’s review sparked a new chain of thought in my
mind.
Possibly my reviews of Travis McGee novels should have a warning: Men
Only. Excessive testosterone may upset women.
I suspect testosterone may be illegal soon anyway. Little boy babies, if
allowed to be born at all, will probably have their testicles removed at
birth, and huwomanity will reproduce by cloning.
@hg47
11/19/2012
6:21 AM
A
Few Passionate Readers Are Better
(Than Many Bored Readers)
For those of us at the bottom of the electronic slushpile, selling only
a few copies a month, it is better to have only a few readers who like
your work, than thousands of free downloads to readers not on your
wavelength.
Better a few ★★★★★ reviews filled with praise, than many mixed reviews
with many ★, ★★ & ★★★ Reviews.
For example:
THE WEEPING EMPRESS
by Sadie S. Forsythe
THE WEEPING
EMPRESS
Sadie ran a free book promotion over the summer that hooked in a lot of
downloads and got many readers. A narrower sales pitch that explicitly
communicated more details about what her novel was (and wasn’t) would
probably have been more beneficial in the long run.
I have noticed this in my own sales pitches. I got a disgruntled ★★
Review from a male reader for my novel A WALK IN THE RAIN.
A WALK IN THE RAIN
I wasn’t getting the female readers that I wanted, but rather male
readers who were after pornographic sex scenes.
Looking at what I have on my Amazon pitch page for this novel, I can see
it needs another rewrite. I added “Chick Lit” but that clearly isn’t
enough. Think I’ll just point those who land on the pitch page to my
free sample. They will either like my style of writing, or they won’t.
@hg47
11/5/2012
8:15 AM
Dead On Electronic Upload
Most of my favorite authors are dead. Does that date me? Does that
condemn me to the Over The Hill Ghetto?
Ashamed to admit that I’ve only purchased about 20 newly-written eBooks
by living authors this year (only read about 15 of them). Half of them
have formatting problems when viewed on my Kindle, not to mention
grammar errors and misspellings. Please understand, personally I am weak
on the proof-reading aspects of my own writing, so if grammar glitches
bother ME, I’m certain that the problem is SERIOUS; because I know my
proof-reader would find at least 2-times the errors and maybe 5-times
the errors. Or more.
Did Publishing’s slushpile just get shoved online?
Worse, my major problem with the eBooks I’ve read this year is that they
are boring. One glowing exception: THE WEEPING EMPRESS by Sadie S.
Forsythe. I voted it Best Fiction in the Opening Round of the 2012
Goodreads Choice Awards. So there are a few gems in this online
slushpile.
Link to Sadie’s book:
http://www.amazon.com/
Link to my review of Sadie’s book:
http://hg47.blogspot.com
But I see a major disconnect between SALES and QUALITY OF WRITING and to
a large extent the REVIEWS and the up or down bent of the reviews. I
will say this: if an eBook starts selling significantly, the formatting
errors and grammar glitches disappear: someone had money to throw at the
problem.
But my observations are leading me to believe that Quantity Of Marketing
Will Bury Quality Of Writing Every Time. Good eBooks online without
hefty Marketing and SERIOUS Networking are D.O.A.–or as I like to say,
D.O.E. Dead on electronic upload.
Let’s examine the Amazon stats on Sadie’s book. Her Kindle edition sells
for $1.50. Her Amazon page has 51 Facebook LIKES and circa 11/5/2012
6:58 AM, 22 customer reviews.
12 ★★★★★ Reviews.
9 ★★★★ Reviews.
1 ★★★ Review.
Her Amazon Best Sellers Rank (or as I like to call it, Amazon’s
Non-Seller Rank: #272,161 Paid in Kindle Store. If she’s lucky she sells
5 Kindle copies a month (judging by my own sales figures when I am
ranked similarly).
My own books are probably selling worse. I don’t even bother to check
anymore. It’s too depressing.
On the Internet you go viral or you go nowhere.
The @hg47 eBook Internet Rule:
For every 1 on top, there are 100 who can replace; and 10 who could do
the job better but will never have the chance.
I joined a Facebook writers group; watched and read the posts and
comments for several weeks; then tried to bring up the issue of eBook
success being possibly due more to networking than the actual book, and
the other writers clobbered me, damn near kicked me out of the group for
having the wrong attitude and wanting to game the system. (Sorry, it’s
too much trouble to dig up a link to my public Facebook humiliation;
hell, I’m afraid to even go back there.)
I was somewhat encouraged by the violence of the negative reaction,
however, and so modified the post a bit and sent it to 11 writers in the
science fiction field as a test contact email. I do have a link to what
happened:
http://www.velcro-city.co.uk
In self-defense I will only add that I know how to improve the level of
my writing: write another novel. I also know how to improve any novel I
have already written: cut 20,000 words from the draft. Reading books on
writing and clocking long hours in creative writing classes probably
hasn’t actually hurt me, but I can only think of one idea from classes
or books that has proved helpful.
Now that I’ve written the damn thing, how do I sell it?
Never mind. I’ve got my plan. Posthumous success & fame & veneration
after I’m dead.
What? Your plan is better? You’re not “gaming the system” are you??
@hg47
10/25/2012
1:59 AM
Book Review ★★★
OPEN YOUR EYES by Paul Jessup
This tiny science fiction novel is excruciatingly weird. Paul’s mind
goes to places I only visit in dreams. That said, he didn’t bring me
along for the ride. The supernova impregnation was the beginning of my
disconnect with the book’s message.
OPEN YOUR EYES was difficult for me to read. Jessup is in good company:
Erica Jong is hard for me to read (but her surprises usually keep me
going), Tom Robbins is hard for me to read (but one chapter of Robbins
is better than a semester of creative writing at college). Fifty pages
in, I realized that I didn’t know what the hell was going on, that the
hints and ambiguity had gotten me lost; and that I would have to start
over, a-n-d……r-e-a-d……s-l-o-w-l-y……a-n-d……c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y to “get it.”
Maybe take notes. And then I realized that I would rather stop and read
something else.
I have to give Paul points for peculiar.
@hg47
10/24/2012
6:48 PM
Book Review ★★★★★
THE WEEPING EMPRESS by Sadie S. Forsythe
I’m
a new Sadie S. Forsythe fan. Empress is not my preferred type of
reading, but Sadie won me over completely with her superb narrative
drive. She is a GrandMaster—excuse me, GrandMistress—at narration. This
book should be on bestseller lists, if there is any justice in “this
world.”
Now my method of dealing with time travel is to go all High Tech, get
into Time Renormalizing Theory and Closed Timelike Curves and then
cop-out by saying that superior aliens developed the technology which is
beyond our poor human brains to understand anyway. I almost like Sadie’s
way better; she just dumps the time traveler into a new time: “Deal with
it, girl!”
I got sucked into the story in the first few pages, and quickly became
caught up in heroine Chiyo’s new life. She has to fight to survive, from
hour one. She chooses her allies on the enemy of my enemy theory.
The only structural flaw in this awesome story that I could see was the
lack of flying weapons, like spears and arrows; but it didn’t dent my
enjoyment, just made me wonder why there weren’t any.
Stop reading reviews! Read her free sample! If you don’t buy it, I’ll
eat my digital bits: my 1s and 0s.
@hg47
10/19/2012
6:35 PM
Pissing Someone Off
If you’re not pissing someone off, you’re not doing your best work.
Most of my test contact eMails sent to other science fiction writers get
zero response.
One test eMail sent to 11 writers got 2 positive responses, 1 neutral
response, and 1 severely negative response, where the writer got all
fired-up and blogged about my eMail. If you want to read about me
getting trashed and mustard-gassed in public, you may enjoy the link to
the pummeling.
@hg47
http://www.velcro-city.co.uk/an-open-reply-to-a-self-published-author/#comments
10/19/2012
6:03 PM
In
A Perfect World
In
a perfect world I would only write First Drafts and date Supermodels. I
am happiest while writing the First Draft of a new novel.
I would have
#bindersfullofwomen
to take care of the details. A copy-editor and a Chief Editor to crank
out 2nd, 3rd & Final Drafts. A Hollywood scriptwriter to punch-up my
First Chapter (I can never get the opening of my novels just right). I’d
have a marketing expert and a promotional pro to have the 47% jumping up
and down to read my newest work; at least two agents and a lawyer to cut
the best deals and get my work translated into ALL written languages;
SEO pros and web programmers would craft my online presence to
perfection: search for Any Writer and my site would pop up first. Romney
would be President, the Rich would get richer without effort, and I
would be part of the 1%.
In my world, I am the 47%. #HarveyInABinder. I have to do it all myself.
Writer-Editor-AdMan-Agent-Lawyer-SEO&programmer.
My eBooks live or die by the remorseless logic of the Internet. Winner
Takes All. The Number One Player in any niche takes 85% of the loot; the
Number Two Player pockets 5%; players Three through Nine split up 9%
amongst themselves; All Other Players are left to split up the crumbs,
the remaining 1%.
IRL for everyone On Top, there’s One who can replace. On the Internet,
for every Ruler of a Niche, there’s 100 who can replace, and 10 who
could do the job a hell of a lot better but probably will never get the
chance.
I haven’t even figured out how to get reviews. I eMail reviewers;
they’re too busy. I eMail other writers; they pull out the
mustard gas. GF won’t review my books; BJ, yes; BR, no. My brother
won’t review my books. My best friend won’t review my books, even after
promising that he would.
I’m not looking for a short cut. I’m looking for any door to open,
anywhere.
I’ve written about a million words, plus or minus 200,000. The best way
I know to improve my writing is to write another novel. The best way I
know to improve one of my novels is to cut 20,000 words from the draft.
I spent 2.5 years writing the first draft to my last novel DAUGHTER MOON
and about twice that picking at it and polishing it and cutting down the
word count. The level of my writing may improve in the future, but I’ll
never again invest that much time in a single project, which is why I
say it’s the best thing I’ve ever written or ever will write.
DAUGHTER MOON
@hg47
10/12/2012
2:19 PM
DVD Review of THE TRIUMPH OF
LOVE
http://amzn.to/QrXCMu
★★★★★
If you enjoy period-piece
costume movies, give this puppy a try. Mira Sorvino OWNS this movie.
Dressed as a man, with her female companion also dressed as a man, they
break into a wealthy estate. Mira proceeds to seduce everyone she
encounters inside, male and female, either with promises of love or with
gold coins for the servants. When caught in a lie, she then proceeds to
tell a more outrageous deception. Everyone in the movie is at the
absolute top of their game. When I wasn't smiling, I was laughing out
loud, or going back to see a favorite scene again. And again. Even "The
Movie" is having fun: it breaks fourth-wall a few times in a way I
hadn't seen before.
@hg47
10/07/2012
8:56 PM
Book Review –
★★★★
OUTIES by J.R. Pournelle
If you read this on a Kindle, before you start reading hit the
Prior-Page button a whole bunch of times, until you get to the Cover
Art; then, start paging forward. If you don’t, you miss the maps and
other important background material.
The CHRONOLOGY was not formatted correctly for Kindle: Words in some of
the paragraphs extended beyond the edge of the viewing screen on my
device.
Even 5% into the novel, I feel this novel ADDS to the Motie Fictional
Universe rather than SUBTRACTS, as for example the DUNE sequels do (in
my opinion). I wish I had never read any DUNE sequel. I wish those
images would leave my mind.
I am so biased and prejudiced by multiple readings of THE MOTE IN GOD’S
EYE and THE GRIPPING HAND that I have no clue if OUTIES is a good
“stand-alone” novel. For me it is useful as an Appendix of additional
information on the fictional Motie universe. POV goes into the thinking
of inferior Motie classes and a horse, which at first seemed odd, but I
get it. The effect works.
50% into OUTIES, everything suddenly gets a lot more interesting for me.
One nice thing about eBooks is that a Version 2.0 can be issued. I
believe OUTIES could be strengthened by some professional and ruthless
editing in the first half. This novel would work better for me if the
action at 50% hit at about 5% or 10%. I sometimes felt like the author
was a paleontologist slowly brushing away dirt from a buried fossil; I
was in a hurry to have the thing dug out the ground. Next chapter:
brush, brush, brush; revealing another rib.
(I prefer the short version of Heinlein’s STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND. In
my own novels, I have noticed that if I have to cut ten or thirty
thousand words from the text, that years later I prefer the shorter
version: the forced cutting seems to improve my own writing.)
OUTIES is a variation on the “The Moties Are Loose!” cry in The Gripping
Hand.
Noticed a few minor grammar glitches and formatting errors. The Kindle
version would benefit from a new cleaned-up conversion, a proof-reader,
and a professional edit.
J.R. Pournelle has a career in science fiction, if she wants it.
@hg47
9/28/2012
11:27 AM
Book Review -
★★★★★
ENDER'S SHADOW by Orson Scott Card
I rate this book #8 on my all-time list of favorite science fiction
novels. Number Eight.
Usually, when I re-read ENDER’S GAME, I follow that up by re-reading
about half of ENDER’S SHADOW.
Card wrote a whole series of Ender novels. I own several of the other
ones, but they didn’t hook me enough to make me continue reading them.
Confess I am hard to please.
When I first read ENDER’S GAME I read the whole thing. On re-reads, I
generally skip most of the non-Game stuff. The Game is where the action
is.
With ENDER’S SHADOW, the extensive non-Game parts don’t work for me. I
kept trying to get into them, but kept skipping forward. The parts of
Bean in Battle School completely work for me, and are a joy to read.
Curiously, even though I regard this novel as weaker than ENDER’S GAME,
and was unable to even read huge parts of it, ENDER’S SHADOW has had a
greater effect on me and MY writing. ENDER’S SHADOW takes the essential
story presented in ENDER’S GAME and re-tells it, putting a whole new
spin on the Humans versus Bugger War, from another character’s
point-of-view. I plan sequels to one of my science fiction novels;
ENDER’S SHADOW made me realize that one of my sequels can be a
re-telling of the essential story from another character’s
point-of-view.
Some readers have complained that ENDER’S SHADOW takes away from ENDER’S
GAME, in that it reduces the original hero Ender by spotlighting his
mistakes. As Card wrote it, ENDER’S SHADOW is a more authoritative
re-telling of the essential Game story; while it enriches the original
story, it also “locks in” the essential truth of what happened. The
sequel is more an “OK, here’s what really happened,” than an “OK, here
is how another main character in the action saw things, and what they
thought happened.”
If I do a “re-telling” sequel, I don’t want my sequel to be more
authoritative than the original. That said, ENDER’S SHADOW is a hell of
a story! You can get the basic plot of the Ender novels at Wikipedia;
you don’t need this review for that.
@hg47
9/16/2012
12:46 PM
Mica LayDbibo
http://laydbibo.com/
This is a raw, interesting blog about rape and childhood abuse (rape of
children—what could be worse?) that is painful for me to read. But I
keep reading.
Either it doesn’t go back further than January of 2012 or there were
server problems, because I could not access earlier posts.
Most of us are the walking wounded, in one way or another. Some of us
are able to hide our wounds so well others never suspect. Some are
overwhelmed by our wounds. Some are angered by the injustice of our
wounds.
My hope is that Mica will find an artistic outlet for her anger.
Her Twitter:
https://twitter.com/LayDbibo
@hg47
9/10/2012
2:08 PM
Laet Oliveira
An
interesting post from one of my new Twitter Buddies on how Fear can have
a lasting impact upon a person's life:
An Endless Year
I
know very little about South America, but this guy is one of the Deep
Thinkers.
Here's
his Tumblr:
http://laetoliveira.tumblr.com/
Here's his Twitter:
https://twitter.com/LaetPO
@hg47
9/10/2012
11:25 AM
Book Review -
★★★★★
The
Naked Sun by Isaac Asimov
There will always be a soft
spot in my heart for Asimov's I ROBOT short story collection and his THE
REST OF THE ROBOTS short story collection. But this is my favorite
Asimov novel; it is also one of my all-time favorite detective novels,
SF or non-SF. It is sort of a sequel to an earlier novel of his: The
Caves of Steel. But I like this one a lot better. You don't need to read
them both, or read them in order; but it is true that the two novels
enrich each other in defining a future allegorical world view, and in
highlighting the relationship between the two detectives.
If you are one of those people who absolutely must read things in order,
I would start with the Positronic Robot short story collections, then
take on the novels in order, finishing with the final short story: I
ROBOT; THE REST OF THE ROBOTS; THE CAVES OF STEEL; THE NAKED SUN; THE
ROBOTS OF DAWN; MIRROR IMAGE. I have not read Mirror Image. I consider
The Robots of Dawn the weakest novel in the series. I think Asimov got
bored with the series toward the end (while writing Robots of Dawn?) and
went on to other projects. When fans wanted more, all he could deliver
was a final short story.
A human detective: Elijah. His partner Daneel is a robot so perfectly
humanoid that other humans, and other robots, think it is human.
What keeps me coming back to re-read The Naked Sun is the strongly
allegorical presentation, the "male bonding" between the human detective
and the robot detective, the robots (yes, I'm a robot freak), and the
awesome detective "who-done-it" at the center of it all. The detective
aspects are not as lyrical as Raymond Chandler nor as breezy as Robert
B. Parker, but they are vintage Asimov at the absolute top of his game.
In this series Asimov takes neurotic mental quirks, pushes them to their
logical extremes, and elegantly builds a future out of them. Elijah has
lived his entire life enclosed in tiny habitation boxes of overcrowded
Earth; a mob of people pressing in upon him is comforting, while a free
open space cripples him with terror. On Solaria, where the detectives go
to solve a murder, humans rarely come into actual physical contact;
almost all human intercourse is done by "viewing" which is so "lifelike"
that Elijah at first mistakes it for actually being with another person.
On Solaria, with each human residing on a separate estate cared for by
an army of robots, the idea of actually being in physical proximity with
another person is disgusting.
The copyright on this puppy is 1956. Nature versus Nurture. In this
future Asimov pushes the limits of Nurture: the people in these novels
are the product of their environment. Powerful Spacers versus powerless
Earthers. This was state-of-the-art Science Fiction in the Fifties, and
it still kicks ass and takes names in 2012. I almost wish another writer
would take on this future with a few more "authorized" sequels. If
someone paid me to write one, the moment I came up with a default-plot I
would jump in, full-tilt boogie!
@hg47
Oops!
P.S. - that would be Postscript.
P.R. - that would be Post Review.
On GoodReads I just learned about a 4th novel in this series I was not
aware of: Robots and Empire. Asimov's fans demanded, and the dude did
deliver. My mistake.
@hg47
8/29/2012
11:47 AM
Book Review -
★★★★★
Farnham's Freehold by Robert A. Heinlein
Farnham's Freehold is #6 on my list of All Time Favorite Science Fiction
Novels. Number six. I probably reread this novel about every three
years. Heinlein was clearly having a lot of fun while he wrote it, and
that shows. Copyright 1964. Structurally, it's cleaner than Stranger in
a Strange Land; although it lacks the brilliance of the first half of
Stranger.
My favorite part is the love story between the old guy and his son's
date. I probably like that too much.
Nuclear War. Time Travel. Fascinating family dynamics. A future where
the power hierarchy is completely restructured.
There is some "racial stuff" going on that will probably piss off people
obsessed with political correctness. But I like the way Heinlein handled
it.
Do you like to play Bridge?
@hg47
(And yes, I am guilty of stealing from Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold and
sticking background bits into one of my own novels. Can I call it
"tribute?")
8/29/2012
11:23 AM
Book Review -
★★★★★
ENDER'S GAME by Orson Scott Card
Ender's Game is number five on my list of favorite Science Fiction
novels. Number Five. I usually re-read this a couple of times a year.
Confess I skip over most of the family background stuff on re-reads.
Rationally, I can't get with the whole Using Kids To Command Fleets Of
Spaceships thing; not that it's morally wrong, just that I can't see any
advantage to doing so. And logically, I don't understand how success in
the arena of null-grav, leading an army of boys in The Game would later
translate into success in directing fleets of spaceships. But Orson
Scott Card is such a terrific writer that he makes me forget all my
objections and get completely lost in his story. It's no sillier than
Harry Potter.
These kids who are commandeered from their parents at an early age,
drafted into Battle School, split into competitive Armies to fight each
other in a null-grav game area, are our civilization's only hope for
survival against a powerful alien race we can't even communicate with.
And Ender seems to be our best chance to live: the ultimate commander.
But he's too young, too small, and there's little hope to get him
trained in time for the spaceship battles soon to come.
As I understand it, while writing this, Card felt he was being
distracted from the story he really wanted to write about by this story
of The Game and the boys and a few girls playing it.
If you enjoy Ender's Game, I recommend you try Ender's Shadow by Card
(book 5 in the Ender series). It retells "The Game" from the POV of
another player, an even younger player named Bean. Yes, I also skip the
background non-game stuff in this one during re-reads. The idea of
retelling the same story from another character's point of view has had
a powerful influence on my own novels. @hg47
8/10/2012
6:20 AM
Book Review –
★★★★★
Dune by Frank Herbert
Dune is my third favorite Science Fiction novel. Number Three. Dune is
clearly a masterpiece that resonates with many women and men. This is
the only Frank Herbert novel that works for me as entertainment; but he
hit one out of the ballpark with this Home-Run novel. I have re-read it
at least ten times. On the re-reads I perhaps skip 20%.
Dune is so famous that I won’t sport with your intelligence by wasting
words on plot or characters.
[David Lynch lost creative control of his Dune movie: *SOUND OFF* bits
of it might have some use as visuals for a Dune music video, or
Full-Length as silent visual art for Dune lovers, but as entertainment
or story-telling . . . is it possible to give Zero Stars? ~ The 4.5 hour
long John Harrison Dune 3-Disc DVD set starring William Hurt is actually
pretty good. Most Dune lovers will like it.]
Herbert wrote a previous novel Under Pressure about submarines where his
Minimum Ecology theme was first introduced. This is the only other Frank
Herbert novel that I find readable. But I think here he worked out all
the bugs of the Minimum Ecology thing, so a decade later when he wrote
Dune he was ready to take it to the next level.
The science may be “soft,” the elements of fantasy may turn off
hard-core Sci-Fi fans, but Frank Herbert does everything else so
perfectly in Dune that I am jealous and disappointed: I know that I will
never be able to write a novel as perfect as this puppy. @hg47
Dune-Frank-Herbert
8/9/2012
5:50 AM
Book Review –
★★★★★
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
Stranger is my second favorite Science Fiction novel. Number Two. I
regard the book in the same “flawed masterpiece” category as Larry
McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove: in Dove as soon as Gus dies the novel no
longer works for me; in Stranger, after Jubal & Smith win against the
government forces, the novel slowly falls apart.
Smith, a human infant survivor from a failed Mars expedition is raised
by Martians, and later brought back to the Earth. Although his DNA is
human, his Martian training & upbringing makes him more Martian than
human. Heinlein was clearly having a ball when he wrote this, pushing
his own limits as a SciFi writer, and pushing the limits of the whole
SciFi genre.
It is also possible I am over-rating Stranger for emotional and
sentimental reasons. Heinlein novels and stories have given me enormous
pleasure over the years. His early work, like Orphans Of The Sky and
Beyond This Horizon was tightly-written well-crafted hard SciFi. After
Stranger in a Strange Land, and after Farnham’s Freehold, Heinlein was
big enough that he could write whatever he wanted to write, exactly the
way he wanted to write it. As a result, I find his later work somewhat
bloated, although usually still interesting.
There are both short and long versions of Stranger. My brother prefers
the long version; but for me the long version only highlights for me how
great the short version is. I have noticed this effect in my own
writing; if for some reason I have to lose 30,000 words, after the
cutting from my novel is all over I come to prefer the shorter version,
even if I have to ditch sub-plots dear to my heart and “literary”
descriptions that took me days to achieve.
Heinlein is not for everyone; viewed through the lens of today, he is
not politically correct. Copyright on this puppy is 1961. There seems to
be a Love/Hate thing for Heinlein these days in the SciFi chat threads:
some love him, some have virulent hate for him. @hg47
Stranger In A
Strange Land - long
8/8/2012
Midnight
Book Review –
★★★★★
The
Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
This is my favorite Science Fiction novel. Number One. It starts with a
bang. The level of writing is excellent. When I re-read it, I read
almost everything. If God’s Eye doesn’t hook you in the first few pages,
you may be unhookable. It has it all. Space battles. A central love
story. A surprising depth to the characters. The prose is unusually
nuanced for hard Science Fiction, and a joy to read.
Larry and Jerry raised the bar for the “First Contact” SciFi novel, and
as far as I can tell, no other novel has come close. (I am eager to read
any suggestions in the “First Contact” category which may approach this
puppy.) Just as a great romance novel succeeds because of the
misunderstandings between the protagonists; here God’s Eye really shines
due to the misunderstandings between the humans and the Moties.
It’s actually hard to find anything wrong with God’s Eye. Yes, with a
copyright of 1974, the slant on women is a bit dated—one woman on a ship
with hundreds of men may confuse today’s female readers as much as the
alien Moties were confused by this. One female SciFi fan posted on an
Amazon thread that the first three quarters of God’s Eye is the finest
Science Fiction she has ever read. I see her point. The ending takes on
a different emotional character, when our political leaders have to
actually decide what to do about the alien Moties. But the ending works
for me, and I don’t skip it on re-reads.
Confess most of Niven’s and Pournelle’s other novels don’t really work
for me. I did enjoy The Legacy of Heorot. I am a difficult reader to
please. Many Science Fiction novels fail for me, I think, because the
author had to pop the book out quickly to make a living at all in the
genre. Somewhere in the dusty shelves of my library I have an interview
(I couldn’t find it, and so am relying on untrustworthy memory) that
claims that the first submission of The Mote in God’s Eye was rejected
by their editor, who returned the manuscript with copious notes on how
the novel should be structured, and many other additional suggestions. I
believe God’s Eye is a masterpiece because of this forced rewrite &
reorganization, which gave them more time to take the story to the next
level.
And so the next time my editor marks up my sacred text, I’m going to
think long and hard before telling her what she can do with her red
pencil. @hg47
The-Mote-In-God's-Eye
7/9/2012
12:36 PM
While searching the Internet for blogs & Information Pages on
Matriarchy, I am finding many dead blogs, and pages that haven’t been
updated in years. So I am starting a list of active blogs on Matriarchy.
Initially, I will host the list on this page. As the list grows, I’ll
probably give it its own dedicated page.
I believe that the future of Mankind is Womankind: when we move into
outer space, due to terrorism concerns, Patriarchy will quickly prove
unworkable.
My current plan is to find active blogs on Matriarchy, list them here,
and attempt to contact the writers about DAUGHTER MOON. This is me,
trying to “network.”
@hg47
7/4/2012
2:32 PM
Ever fix an HTML problem, but a week later you can't remember what you
did? I now have no clue what I did, but I have to replicate it.
(spaces between my OBAMA art pics)
Who, me? Disorganized?
@hg47
7/3/2012
1:20 PM
The
agenda today is adding more columns to this site.
"More?!" my detractors scream.
Yes, yes. Your website is better. But mine is W-I-D-E-R. You call
it my weakness. I call it my competitive advantage. Hey, I
own the WIDE niche.
My
"CENTER POST" column is now far left. I had to kill my original
far left column because Chrome insisted on putting my second column
below that one; and I am not quite geeky enough to figure out a fix.
Then, pics of my @hg47 twitter feed. No clue how often I will
update this. Once a week?
Then, the first 2 chapters of my Science Fiction novel DAUGHTER MOON.
Free sample. This eBook is not my best seller, but it is my best
work. (In my opinion.)
Then, I plan to add pics of my
@Obama140Art twitter
feed. This is where I put my OBAMA SuperTweets. I want to get THE
PREZ ReElected. Once a month updates?
Then, maybe a free sample of my romance novel best seller, A WALK IN THE
RAIN.
My
detractors also complain that they can't complain about my posts.
They want to leave angry comments. This site is very much a DIY
venture: not sure I can activate comments, even with professional help.
My temporary plan is to activate comments on my mirror site,
All EBooks All The Time, and put
links here on where to comment there.
@hg47
6/19/2012
1:33 PM
This page is in transition. Firefox and Internet
Explorer both like just about anything I try to do here, but Chrome is a
bastard. I had to dump my whole first column just to get “barely
adequate” rendering.
Yesterday, I dumped all my “old stuff.”
Today, I am working on Multi-column compatibility for Firefox, IE &
(fast but super-picky “we only render what we feel like”) Chrome.
@hg47
6/18/2012
3:48 PM
Recently, I got some constructive criticism from a
fellow writer concerning this website. He came down on me pretty hard
for my Ctrl-V column. At first I was amused. Then I was irritated. Then
I was pissed off. For a moment, I was probably even frightened.
Then—EUREKA!—This was an opportunity. Why should I link-back & repost
the best bits from what I find on the Internet? Instead, focus on ME,
ME, ME! I have a few good bits in me, don’t I?
So, that’s my new plan: Out with the OLD; In with the NEW (me, me, me).
Thank you, [insert writer’s name later, when I look it up].
Hell, I may even get around to tweaking this site so Chrome renders it
properly & deleting the old broken links.
@hg47
6/10/2012
1:35 PM
BADLY BEHAVING EBOOK AUTHORS
I’m doing better in 4 months with Amazon eBooks than I did in 2 decades
with paper publishers.
So what kinds of promotional activities are legal, moral & ethical for
the EBook Newbie like myself?
I notice some writers asking for Facebook LIKES, promising to
Like-Back-In-Return. Is this OK? I have never tried to LIKE any of my
own eBooks on Amazon; afraid I would break some rule and get banned for
life. I have LIKED all the books I review, however.
Would a large number of LIKES on my Amazon EBook Page make my sales go
up? Are there Facebook rules against the I’ll-Like-You-If-You-Like-Me
strategy?
Why not start a Facebook Group: “The EBook Likers?” Join the group, and
you pretty much agree to go around and LIKE all the other Member’s
eBooks which are on Amazon. The Power of LIKE! (My guess is that
Facebook would shut the group down, but there is no reason the group
couldn’t organize off of Facebook; it could be done without even a
website, strictly by eMails!) Brings me back to the earlier question:
What are the Facebook rules on LIKES? Amazon may have its own rules on
reciprocal LIKES.
Something like this goes on every day at Twitter. (My background is
Twitter - @hg47 – it’s where I go to let off steam) The
I’ll-star-your-tweets-if-you-star-my-tweets factor. Most tweeps on
Twitter rarely, if ever, favorite any tweets at all. But there is an
in-bred niche of super-favoriters who go to Favstar to track exactly how
many stars and retweets each of their tweets get.
By analyzing the data, it becomes clear that the Favstar Superstars
don’t achieve their status with superior content, but with superior
networking. Take any Favstar Superstar and examine several of their
tweets in detail, and you will find the exact same avatars always at the
beginning thirty spots, with just a few odd avatars; the further up the
number of stars a tweet gets, the more variety in avatars. But Always
The Same Exact Gang At The Start. Favstar defaults to the 50 fav
Leaderboard; but there are also 10-fav boards, 30-fav boards, and
100-fav boards. Once a tweet gets on these leaderboards, they glom extra
favs from “outsiders” not in a person’s Fave-Back gang. I’m just a
bit-part player on Favstar, but I have noticed that if one of my tweets
gets more than 10 stars quickly, it ALWAYS gloms several extra stars
from avatars I have never seen: usually 3-7. I imagine the 30-fave board
gets a 10-15 bump: it explains the variety of avatars I see in the
higher numbers when I analyze the Superstars. The 50-fav board seems to
be the tipping point. Get to 50 quickly, and you are assured of an
avalanche of extra Star-Love from the gazillion extra tweeps who see
your tweet when they view the default Favstar Leaderboard. (I have
noticed another strategy in operation – Favstar Superstars will delete a
tweet if it doesn’t get a lot of stars quickly – so that their
Gang-Of-Star-Backers won’t waste their starbacks on a tweet that
probably won’t bust into the 50-Leaderboard.)
Forgive the digression; but it is in the nature of an analogy. It is an
example of how the I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-mine factor
operates within Twitter.
So, are Review-Backs a thing? I’ll buy & review your book if you buy &
review my book? What about a Facebook Group of authors that review each
other’s books? Is this more bad EBook Newbie behavior? Or is this a
valid networking strategy to help our eBook pages move a few extra
sales? Again, if Facebook is not the place to “host” such a group, it
could be done on any website, or again, it could be done in stealth
mode, by eMail.
Hey, I’m asking questions! Cut me some slack! If these behaviors are
“gaming the system” then I will humbly add that many of todays “Winners”
gamed the system to get where they are. I personally believe that if you
are going to speed in an automobile, that first there must be no
children anywhere near, and second that I don’t want to be the fastest
car on the road. I want someone else to be faster, so that they get
pulled over instead of me.
[As an example of “speeding” I offer this: There are sites which track
Twitter Users recent following & follower history. I happened to load up
http://twitter.com/Scobleizer
one night and the history was interesting. Within a 2 week period he
dropped the number of people he was following down to about 20,000 (from
something like 90,000). And in the next 2 days, followed about 40,000
more people! The time period was March, April, 2009, something like
that. Social Media Whores can’t do that anymore on Twitter. Robert’s
response to this change was to unfollow everyone and continue bitching
because he isn’t on the Suggested User List.]
I don’t know how much LIKES and Reviews even help a purchase, except to
give whoever is viewing the eBook page a bit of “trust.” I have found
the best predictor of whether I will enjoy an eBook is reading the Free
Sample. Screw the reviews, if I like the sample I’m probably going to
dig the book.
Amanda Hocking’s success strategy is interesting. She bombarded book
bloggers and eBook reviewers and got them working for her! I’ve been
wasting the last two decades querying agents and editors about my
novels. Should I shift gears and focus on book bloggers & eBook
Reviewers? There are online lists of book bloggers and eBook Reviewers.
I can bombard them with eMail queries. Hell, with the help of PeekYou
and some other services I can get their actual physical snail mail
addresses.
Imagine how freaked out they will be when they get my physical promo
package!
@hg47
6/6/2012
3:40 PM
Just started a Google AdWords Campaign for my eBook
on Amazon, DAUGHTER MOON. No clue if this will be just another drain on
my finances, or the eventual key to breaking out as a money-making
author. My Guess: Messing about with Google AdWords may teach me a thing
or two. And I can always kill it after a month or two, if nothing much
is happening. My budget = $5 per day.
Keywords:
matriarchy
“science fiction”
DAUGHTER MOON is a Science Fiction novel about a space-based future
civilization that is such an extreme matriarchy that the male sex has
been eliminated. Into this mix, I throw a male time traveler from the
past.
You know me: I am egotistical enough to think that DAUGHTER MOON is a
breakout novel that could leave DUNE in the dust.
You know me: I will report the results.
Oops! Already got a result, after about two hours: my first display URL
was rejected. (story of my life)
First try at display URL:
http://amzn.to/AqPwaY
Second try at display URL: Amazon.com
More results: my ad went live; but apparently it is so goddessawful BAD
that it is damaging servers. A Google rep contacted me by eMail,
urgently suggesting I call her to rework some improvements, so that
eight hundred gazillion people don’t need to see my ad before 1 of them
clicks on it (due to finger-tremor error or defective mouse).
Even more results: I put my ad in PAUSE mode. It is costing me about $1
per click.
I need to study up on this whole Google AdWords thing.
I eMailed the GoogleGeeks (twice tried their phone system, which they
asked me to call, but both times it was DOWN, during the hours they
promised it would be UP); I want:
1 - Books to read on AdWords
2 - Websites to read about AdWords
3 - Examples of good ads and so-so ads and bad ads
4 – [and don’t just tell me to read the help faqs]
@hg47
4:00 PM - Go, Google! Just got an eMail
asking me to rate my experience on their AdWords Help Website (when was
I there?). If Google doesn't get back to me, I'll go to Amazon and
enter "Google Ad Words" into their product search engine. One
thing I have noticed about Amazon is that they LEARN. If they
don't have something I search for, I come back in a week or two, and
they have it!
6/4/2012
8:59 AM
Days when you can get some Amazon eBooks FREE
Science Fiction, Romance, Science Fiction shorts, Romance shorts,
Philosophy, even an Epic Poem
http://amzn.to/w1FAEQ
FREE PROMOTIONS:
TOO SHORT - June 8
TIME ON MY HANDS - June 9
LOVE ON THE BEACH - June 10
KING OF LUST - June 24
HOW ROBIN MARRIED PAUL - June 8
DEVIL WITH ELECTRIC GUITAR - June 30
DAUGHTER MOON - June 22, June 9
CAMP DAVID - June 24
BLUEPRINT FOR UTOPIA - June 16, June 22
A WALK IN THE RAIN - June 30, June 24
30-METER (EQUIVALENT) EYEBALL - June 15, 29
000.001-999.999 - June 15
@hg47
5/27/2012
6:43 AM
I think I’m ready to handle the conversion of novel
length projects now to Amazon as eBooks. As a sort of test case, I
uploaded a group of 6 short items as a collection.
TOO SHORT
http://amzn.to/LqQfEv
Active TOC I think is the term: but the Opening List of items functioned
as links which when clicked on my Kindle immediately moved the display
to the beginning of that item.
This means when I convert my novels, I can open with a list of chapters,
which when clicked on the reader’s Kindle, will immediately display the
start of that chapter.
Two minor glitches. I still do not know how to force two paragraphs to
display together on the same page automatically. There are certain
instances where it is desirable to not separate a pair of paragraphs.
Also, one of my forced page-breaks didn’t work (but I think I know what
happened, and I think I may have a fix for this issue in the future). It
is cleaner if new chapters start on a new page.
There is a short window of business opportunity for eBook conversion
companies. Right now, much of the work I have seen is inferior. I am
confident that I can now convert text-only books better than 75% of the
firms charging money for it.
I downloaded & reviewed a book written by one of my Twitter friends, and
was surprised by the occasional glitches in the text on my Kindle.
A couple of days ago I bought a science fiction eBook from a contact on
Amazon discussions. But the formatting was so goddessawful that I gave
up about 15% of the way into the book (have to admit that the level of
writing also was not really thrilling me). But whole paragraphs kept
showing up indented (instead of just the first line), frequent half
spaces between paragraphs, frequent instances of [‘] that should have
been [“]. It pissed me off that the formatting was so bad.
And don’t get me started on how expensive and how inferior the work was
delivered by “Tele-mucus Pus,” the first company I tried to deal with to
convert one of my books to eBook: ¼ quality at 4 times the price!
Schedule of when you can get some of my eBooks free:
http://amzn.to/w1FAEQ
A WALK IN THE RAIN - free = Sunday, May 27
000.001-999.999 - free = Friday, June 1
30-METER (EQUIVALENT) EYEBALL - free = Saturday, June 2
BLUEPRINT FOR UTOPIA - free = Sunday, June 3
CAMP DAVID - free = Friday, June 8
DEVIL WITH ELECTRIC GUITAR - free = Saturday, June 9
HOW ROBIN MARRIED PAUL - free = Sunday, June 10
KING OF LUST - free = Friday, June 15
LOVE ON THE BEACH - free = Saturday, June 16
TIME ON MY HANDS - free = Sunday, June 17
@hg47
5/25/2012
9:11 AM
So far this month (05/01/2012 to 05/25/2012) my
Amazon eBooks have been downloaded more than 1000 times. 902 downloads
(12 paid) for Amazon.com. 143 downloads (2 paid) for Amazon UK. I just
learned today about my stats in Amazon’s UK, DE, FR, ES, & IT markets.
I’m new to this. Most of those downloads were free promotions. 15 actual
sales, this month, for which I will eventually receive payment.
There is a huge “Free Feeding Frenzy” on Amazon.
No clue if I will ever make a living at this. But it is satisfying to
think that my writing has infected more than a thousand Kindles with the
@hg47 virus (a joke! a
joke!).
5/23/2012
11:03 AM
For those of you who like free stuff: days when my
eBooks on Amazon can be downloaded to your Kindle FREE.
I’m not spewing tweet-links to my eBooks to PROMOTE them! I’m the new
puppy in your life so happy to have a home I’m peeing on your floor!
http://amzn.to/HHMLMy
Amazon has made uploading eBooks so easy, even I
can do it. Why aren’t you doing it? That “thing” you have stashed in
your drawer, that you never show anyone: upload it to Amazon as an
eBook. You will thank me. Yeah, yeah, I get it: it’s the new “slush
pile.” Writers outnumber readers. Hell, writers outnumber reviewers
(there’s a HUGE waiting list).
I say, kill all my novels and let God sort them out. I mean, let the
AMAZON numbers sort them out.
@hg47
1 - DAUGHTER MOON - free day = Saturday, May 26
2 - A WALK IN THE RAIN - free day = Sunday, May 27
3 - 000.001-999.999 - free day = Friday, June 1
4 - 30-METER (EQUIVALENT) EYEBALL - free day = Saturday, June 2
5 - BLUEPRINT FOR UTOPIA - free day = Sunday, June 3
6 - CAMP DAVID - free day = Friday, June 8
7 - DEVIL WITH ELECTRIC GUITAR - free day = Saturday, June 9
8 - HOW ROBIN MARRIED PAUL - free day = Sunday, June 10
9 - KING OF LUST - free day = Friday, June 15
10 - LOVE ON THE BEACH - free day = Saturday, June 16
11 - TIME ON MY HANDS - free day = Sunday, June 17
5/17/2012
9:04 AM
Joe Konrath on his blog recommended Bookrooster.
His point was that the only thing you are guaranteed was that your eBook
would be sent to reviewers, not what kind of reviews you would get; but
you would get exposure, and you might find new fans.
I'm new to eBooks. Joe is my hero: the guy is a promotional animal!
Honestly, I think his blog is the best of his writing. If you are an
Amazon eBook author who wants promotional ideas, click over there.
Anyway, Bookrooster accepted my money and that was the last I heard from
them. Their last eMail to me around the start of March promised an
update on my "status" around March 28.
I'm still waiting.
So I eMailed them today (May 15):
Hey, Martin!
Please cancel my order with Bookrooster, and terminate any actions you
may be doing or contemplating on my behalf. Also, if possible, please
refund my money.
You don't do what you say you are going to do: "we'll contact you around
March 28 to give you a progress update."
Starting to believe you guys are some kind of scam operation.
Anyway, please STOP. This is me asking nicely.
Also, please refund my money.
I'm not a major player, so you don't need to take me seriously. My
Twitter Klout score was only 44 last I checked. But I'm going to be
around a long time. Do you really want me for an enemy?
@hg47
It will be interesting to see what happens.
My current theory is that there are more eBook authors than there are
eBook reviewers; and that this is A HUGE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY.
Right now, I see paying Bookrooster as a mistake. Hey, I'm new at this!
Cut me some slack! You never made a mistake on the recommendation of a
POWER PERSON?
Am I wrong? Any thoughts?
@hg47
5/8/2012
4:25 AM
If You’re Not Free, Why Aren’t You Free?
That seems to be the Universal Question everyone is asking on the
Internet.
I just ran my first Amazon eBook promotion. Both days, the weekend of
5/5/2012 & 5/6/2012 I offered my romance novel A WALK IN THE RAIN free.
My theory was that there would be an Amazon Free Feeding Frenzy.
There is.
I’m new to the whole eBook thing. My focus at this time is to get all my
Oldies But Goodies up online as Amazon eBooks. I haven’t even started
thinking about promotion yet, much less doing much in the way of
networking. I’m in the “Shove it up there & if anyone stumbles into it,
Great” phase.
If anyone doubts the power of the Free Paradigm, here are my recent
personal stats:
5/1 to 5/6/2012
A WALK IN THE RAIN – units downloaded at 99-cents = 2
5/5 to 5/6/2012
A WALK IN THE RAIN – units downloaded at Free = 429
If I’m doing the math right (2 downloads in 6 days versus 429 downloads
in 2 days), that is a 643% download increase for the weekend.
The Free Frenzy Bad News is not everyone who downloads your book will
read it; or even start reading it. Part of a “Free Frenzy” is the
emotional drive to obtain all the free stuff during an imaginary finite
window of opportunity. Yes, it’s “Free,” but it’s too good to be true,
“So I Want To Glom As Much As I Can Before Amazon Changes The Rules!”
Download! Download! Download! “Yeah!”
The Free Frenzy Good News is most of the people who downloaded your free
promotional item got some quick impression of you as a writer. That
quick impression of you will live on in their memories. (Yes, there are
a few SuperGeeks who can write automatic scripts to automatically
download every free Amazon eBook every day, but they are in the
minority.) {Business Opportunity?} Also, readers are persnickety—it is
hard for us readers to find authors that really THRILL us and suck us
into a story. Once we find an author that we love, our first impulse is
to check out what other things they have written. So a Free Promotion is
likely to have collateral damage: it will have an impact on your other
titles in increased sales.
Some of those downloaders will find in you a writer they want to read
more of. (I like to piss-off High School English Teachers)
Here is what I've got up on Amazon:
http://amzn.to/HHMLMy
@hg47
5/5/2012
7:41 AM
(theoretical) Amazon Free Feeding Frenzy
Last Thanksgiving I saw my first Kindle; owned by a daughter of the
friends of a friend. I didn’t think about it at the time, but her father
told her how to find FREE eBooks on Amazon. This kept her happy for a
while, while she downloaded title after title to her Kindle. Free.
I just started my first eBook promotion. My novel A WALK IN THE RAIN
will be free all weekend. On the program I am on with Amazon, I am
allowed to drop the price of each title for up to 5 days. I chose 2 days
for this title, the weekend, to see what happens. Yeah, OK, here’s a
link: http://amzn.to/wpbsSV
EBook Promotions probably last one day at a time,
typically, which makes me realize that if you log into Amazon every day,
you can pick up a hell of a lot of FREE eBooks. I don’t have links on
this yet, but probably if you just do an amazon search for “free” you’ll
get to the goodies.
FREE is a magic concept on the Internet. I don’t know the music
situation now, but 5-7 years back, I knew a guy who was downloading
music off newsgroups about one hundred times faster than he could even
listen to it. His MO was download everything, then sort it out later. He
had, like 300 DVDs of mp3s & flacs & apes & Goddess knows what other
formats. I told him: “Hey, why don’t you stop downloading, and start
listening to this music?” He had about 50,000 songs entered in his music
player, but maybe a million songs that he hadn’t even listened to yet.
I am wondering if something like this is happening at Amazon with
eBooks: a “free feeding frenzy” where people are furiously downloading
books at a rate faster than they can ever read.
I will have more information on this soon, and will give links & stats.
For now, this is just a HEADS UP!
@hg47
5/2/2012
6:40 AM
AMAZON EBOOKS = EMINENCE FRONT
Are Amazon EBooks the New Vanity Publishing?
Let us assume the worst. Let us assume that YES, for 95% of all the
writers uploading their books to Amazon in eBook form that it is All
Vanity. Let us assume that for 95% of all writers uploading their books
to Amazon that they will NEVER make any significant income.
So?
When you commit yourself to an Internet Strategy, and go FULL TILT
BOOGIE in one direction, it’s not about “The Way Things Are” it’s about
“The Way Things Are Going To Be SOON!”
My take? Amazon is going to crush the eBook competition and make paper
publishing a niche business like vinyl records.
Does my Kindle Store get me laid at parties?
http://amzn.to/HHMLMy No. I do
that with wit and by lying shamelessly. But that page looks pretty
awesome on her SmartPhone. It makes a good impression.
WHERE THINGS ARE GOING:
Amazon is going to evolve into a Social Network that just may kick
Facebook in the book. I mean, butt. Right now, Amazon has a lame-ass
discussion & thread social network: a few minor changes would explode it
into a game-changer. It already has a huge database of Players; is just
needs to shuffle the rules a bit: add a “Follow” or “Friend” or “Amaze”
button to the discussions & threads & reviews.
Even if Amazon never sends me “life-changing” income, my sales are
slowly, slowly adding up. Amazon income is in my future. When was the
last time Twitter sent you a check? When was the last time Facebook sent
you a check? When was the last time G+ sent you a check?
Why are you posting on those social networks when you could be compiling
your creativity and uploading your awesomeness to Amazon in eBook form?
Or hell, do both! Spew to your favorite social network(s); compile the
best; upload to Amazon in eBook form. It’s easy. If I can do it, you can
do it.
Here’s how:
http://hg47.blogspot.com
@hg47
5/1/2012
10:28 AM
WHEN AMAZON ADDS THE FOLLOW FEATURE
Discussions. Threads. A ready database of eBook authors & readers. Not
to mention everyone who has an Amazon account & buys stuff.
What will happen when Amazon adds a “Follow” or “Friend” button to
Discussions & Threads so that the reader can find the interesting (to
that reader) writers posting to Amazon discussions, and have all posts
by that person & other interesting persons compiled together for easy
viewing?
I sense a new social network here.
And if I were Amazon I wouldn’t call it Following or Friending.
When I clicked on the link, it would say: AMAZED.
@hg47
4/25/2012
5:11 AM
HOW TO PREPARE YOUR SHORT STORIES AND/OR ARTICLES
FOR EASY UPLOAD TO AMAZON AS eBOOKS
I’m an eBook Newbie. I’m the guy who has trouble with Facebook. So, if I
can successfully upload my eBooks, you can too. Just uploaded my fifth
item. This is my Kindle Store:
http://amzn.to/HHMLMy
I’ve got a system for uploading works under about 10,000 words. Soon,
I’ll have a system for uploading novel-length projects; but I’m not
there yet. In a couple of months I’ll have that down. When I do, I’ll
post how to do it. The novels in my Kindle store were done by Rebecca
Swift & 52 Novels. The amateur covers for my short work I’m doing right
now, because I can’t afford the Good Guy (and Gal) for lots of tiny
projects.
Rebecca Swift does my novel cover art.
http://www.rebeccaswiftartwork.com/
52 Novels converts my novels.
http://www.52novels.com/
My plan is to upload all my old work that I like as Amazon eBooks; then
figure out how to network & promote & advertise to get reviews & sales.
So, right now, I’m the Nothinghead with no reviews and very few sales.
I’ve given up on pestering agents & editors about my work. I’m the guy
with the first novel that bombed in the bookstores. Nobody in publishing
will touch me. LOSER!
THE SHORT ANSWER:
To prep text for Amazon upload, first paste it into Notepad to strip off
all the crap. Then paste the result back into a fresh WORD document for
final touches, prior to Amazon upload.
The rest of the post is the Long Answer.
If you have computer files, great! I don’t. So I’ll start with what to
do if what you want to upload to Amazon as an eBook is on paper.
My “Oldies but Goodies” only exist now in paper form. So I had to scan a
mountain of paper. I’ve still got 5” floppies with most of the computer
files; but it was an Epson QX-16 machine running Valdocs software. Don't
think so! I bet even the geeks at NSA would have trouble with my files.
If you are scanning documents on paper, I recommend you use the 300dpi
B&W setting. Most optical character recognition software programs prefer
that.
I use OmniPage 18; I think it cost me about $140. If you only have a
couple of short items, pay some kid to type it. If you have a lot of
paper, go with OmniPage 18. OCR is not the place to scrimp & save.
You’ll wind up paying in TIME to fix the mess.
I recommend that you do separate scan and OCR operations. In other
words, scan everything you want scanned; just doing enough OCR to verify
that your scan method will work later; and only when you are finished
scanning everything, then start up on the OCR.
The best paper version of my novel BLUES DELUXE is the version published
by Longstreet Press. I retained all auxiliary rights (which made me a
lot of enemies at the time of publication, as Longstreet wanted to split
any movie or other rights 50/50.) Neither of us had any idea about
eBooks in 1994.
If you’re scanning a book, I recommend you use a scanner with a page
feed function; and that you cut up 2 books and prepare the pages by
chapter so your scanner can eat them quickly. Then store the page scans
into chapter folders. I had to create special paper guides for BLUES
DELUXE. Anything you can do during scanning to make it easier for the
OCR and avoid missing pages or duplicated pages or pages out of order
will pay off later in saved time.
If you are scanning a book, which you absolutely cannot destroy, I would
try holding the book down to the scanner while blocking opposite pages,
so that only one page is scanned at a time. The other option would be to
split every scan into two image files prior to running OCR; but that
seems like more work than scanning twice with half the book blocked
every time.
A post-OCR WORD document may look pretty clean, and visually appear
great on your monitor. But, as is, it’s worthless as an eBook upload,
where the reader can choose the font & text size for custom viewing. In
order to achieve the OCR “What you scan” is “what you get” appearance,
OCR adds a lot of invisible tricks you have to completely remove. Your
goal is raw clean text into default paragraphs.
I run OCR to a Microsoft WORD document #1. I don’t bother trying to fix
errors within the OCR program; I’ve tried it, but it’s easier to fix the
goofs later. My basic technique is to then delete things like headers
and all the big, obvious errors that can be done quickly. Then I paste
the whole remaining thing into Notepad to strip off all the invisible
formatting crap. I organize it a bit in Notepad into proper paragraphs.
Then I paste the resulting file from Notepad back into a fresh WORD
document #2 to finish the clean-up.
First thing I do with the fresh WORD document is select ALL and format
all paragraphs.
PARAGRAPH SETTINGS:
Alignment: Left
Outline: Body Text
Indentations
Inside: 0”
Outisde: 0”
Special:
First Line By 0.5”
Spacing
Before: 0pt
After: 0pt
Line Spacing
Double
On the Paragraph Menu, many of the settings will be blank to start. I
recommend that you specify every value. Line spacing seems to have no
effect on eBook conversion, but I need double-space to proof my text.
Headers, I confess, in a post-OCR document are something of a headache,
which I haven’t figured out how to easily deal with. I haven’t found a
command in the header menu which will always delete them. Sometimes they
linger on like a festering sore. When that happens, my solution is an
intermediary WORD document. OCR to WORD document #1. Cut & paste a page
of text at a time without the header to fresh WORD document #2. Paste
all of #2 to Notepad. Paste from Notepad back to fresh WORD document #3.
This is an example of how preparations during scanning can save you time
later. Learn from my mistakes. If I had to scan everything over, I would
paste a very narrow strip of white paper over the top area on the glass
scanner area, so every page fed to the scanner would have the header
area blocked and unseen by the scanner. I am converting short stories
now. It is possible that for two of my very long novels, that I may
decide to scan them all over again to block out the headers on every
page to eliminate this extra step. It is also possible that a bit of
study & reading of the OCR help files may show me a quick way to
eliminate this nonsense.
Another option for me would be to take every image file for my long
novels and crop the header off before running OCR. Actually, I think
I’ll try this for my next short story with headers to see if this is a
time saver or a time waster.
Underlined text in manuscript generally means italic (or sometimes an
alternate font) on the printed page. If you leave underlined text as is,
it will remain underlined in your Amazon eBook. If you want it to be
italic, you must select the underlined text and change it to italic
yourself.
One of my recurring literary techniques is a pause in the action which I
indicate by “. . .” but it is important to use hard-spaces between the
periods so it will wrap on eBooks as a unit. In Microsoft WORD, you can
enter a hard or non-breaking space by entering Ctrl-Shift-Spacebar. The
other alternative is to just hit three periods together, which WORD will
convert to a single-character “…” but I personally prefer the look of
the 5 character group.
For the " & ' characters in most of my old printouts (and possibly
yours) it is simpler to leave them all vertically aligned; but if you
want to take the time to separate them into forward and backward angled
characters (I don’t know the correct terminology here) it will look
slightly better on most fonts on Amazon eBooks. They will usually render
like this:❛❜❝❞. By the way, 52 Novels converted 2 of my novels, but they
had problems both times with my use of the ’ which was occasionally
angled ‘. Minor, but it does make a difference.
I like to use oddball alternate characters in my writing occasionally,
but Amazon eBooks do not support them at this time. Amazon has a list of
supported characters on their site. Instead of a standard space between
paragraphs to indicate different sections within a chapter, I like to
put an oddball character centered on the line between the paragraphs.
Instead, for eBooks I now use “***”.
When you paste from WORD to Notepad you will lose all your underlining
and italic. You will have to add it back in later, after you paste back
to WORD. You can try eliminating this step (pasting to Notepad), but
I’ve learned the hard way to just bite the bullet. Perhaps a Microsoft
WORD expert can one day enlighten me and save me some time. Until then,
the only way I know to strip text clean and ready it for eBooks is to
dump it onto Notepad and then put it back onto a fresh WORD document. If
I don’t, I often get paragraphs that aren’t, and other strange text
behavior. Also, while it’s in Notepad, select the text and look at the
selection: make sure there are not extra spaces at the end of things.
My ancient IBM Executive typewriter had two spacebars; one for between
words (two nudges) and another for between sentences (three nudges).
This finesse is a thing of the past. You have to choose: do you want one
space between sentences or two? Confess I can’t edit text properly
unless I put two spaces between sentences. Also confess, I think this
may not matter to your eBook uploads. Anyway, OCR always puts 1-space
between sentences. And I always add back in a second space. That’s the
way I am. I just have to do things that way.
Here's the starting link to check out your future
on Amazon in eBooks:
https://kdp.amazon.com/
@hg47
4/17/2012
10:09 PM
"Do you believe the moon landings were faked?" May
I answer your question with a question: "Have you ever tried to keep a
secret?"
What, you need more? OK. In order to plausibly fake a Moon Landing
pre-Seventies would have required an army of SuperGeeks—the very group
least likely to keep secrets. These are the guys who re-route phone
calls three times around the world as a joke, who hack the Drudge Report
on a dare, who sign their names to computer chips. These guys would have
kept absolute proof of the fake, and spilled it a hundred different
ways, conclusively, enough even for Republicans who don’t believe in
Science.
@hg47
4/14/2012
8:51 PM
I used to love the GAMES section of Scientific
American. In High School I used to play Conway's Game of Life on a
special board I had to make, with pennies as markers, manually sorting
out the live/die generations (long before I had a computer that would
run it). I never understood the theory of Evolution, no matter how many
books I read on it, although I sort of believed it, since so many
scientists espoused it. But a game I got from Scientific American GAMES
gave me proof of concept. Conway's Game of Life showed me how if a mess
accidentally stumbles onto a pattern of symmetry, that if the group
lives, the symmetry is maintained. That given a simple set of rules on
live/die that patterns tend to automatically become more beautiful.
Given energy; order results from chaos. A game taught me that.
@hg47
4/13/2012
10:43 PM
Finally got a post that will make you fall out of
your chair with laughter. I just posted an Epic Poem to Amazon. I’m
charging money for it.
(I’ll wait a moment for you to pick yourself up off the floor, and clean
off your keyboard and monitor where you spat out your mouthful of
drink.)
Now I have 3 Kindle eBooks live on Amazon. A science fiction novel, a
romance/thriller novel, and a big-gob of poetic-like substance.
http://amzn.to/w1FAEQ = a link to my
@hg47 Kindle Store.
Once you start uploading eBooks to Amazon, you will have daily updated
stats on your sales. By comparing your own item’s sales to its Amazon
Best Sellers Rank, you will quickly get a strong sense of how other
authors are doing on Amazon. Especially, when you compare your items
which sell, versus your items which don’t, and their corresponding
rankings.
It’s the Internet Paradigm all over again. The top player in any niche
takes 85% of the business. The #2 player in that niche gets 10% of the
business. Players #3 to #9 in that niche split up about 4% among
themselves. This leaves 1% of the total business in that niche FOR
EVERYBODY ELSE!
The bad news is that the vast majority of the authors posting eBooks to
Amazon will never make a living at it; but they will probably
occasionally get a check payment from Amazon.
The good news is that sooner or later, Amazon will send you a check. If
you’re lucky, cool, or a promotional-animal, Amazon may send you a lot
of checks for a lot of money. When was the last time Facebook sent me a
check? Never. When was the last time Twitter sent me a check? Never.
Sometimes, if you ask the right question, you can come to see things
more accurately. My question is this: Is this a sales platform or a
social media platform?
Nothing is beautiful unless it is shared. The only way creative people
can stop creating is if they medicate themselves into a stupor or
overdose into death. Amazon has made uploading content to eBooks so
easy, even I can do it. And they keep making it easier. Far as I know,
there’s no minimum content limit.
So let’s use an analogy. My background is Twitter, so let’s use that
one.
An eBook upload is a tweet (instead of a 140-character limit, you’ve got
50MB). An item purchase is a ReTweet. A review is a star. Amazon is
probably working on the DM right now.
My point? This is a Social Media Platform right now. EBooks can be very
tiny; just a few words; and they are very easy to upload. SALES is how
Amazon pays the bills. SALES is how a few writers pay the bills.
When Amazon grows, expands & develops the social media aspects of Amazon
eBooks, Facebook is done. As soon as you can get Facebook stock:
sell-short. Why bother to post to Google+ or Facebook, when you can post
to Amazon, and occasionally get a check! Beats hell out of going to
Favstar and obsessing about getting on the Leaderboard.
@hg47
3/15/2012
2:53 PM
[How did the future space-based civilization become
dominated by women? Terrorism + Insurance Rates + Advances in Cloning.
One terrorist can kill everyone in a 30,000 population space station.
The male/female ratio of terrorists is 50 to 1. Sexual-profiling. Space
habitats where males had no access to high security areas were
empirically safer, with drastically reduced insurance rates, which made
them economically more viable. Within a thousand years the verdict was
clear: boys were just too dangerous to allow to be born. (Anyway, who
needs ’em? We have TomBoys!)]
Science Fiction is all about the Geeks.
What Girl Geek could resist a hyper-tech future run by Women for Women?
What Boy Geek could resist identifying with a future hero who is the
only male in the solar system?
Kali, a skilled computer hacker on Daughter Moon, is womaneuvered into
taking charge of the suicide mission to rescue the time traveler in
trouble down upon Mother Earth.
Lunar’s resources are no match for Earth’s lifeless eNet computer
complex which has evicted huwomanity from Mother Earth. But the time
traveler who makes periodic unstable appearances (Goddess Kronos, the
focus of the Moonie Religion) has a defensive 5K Field stronger than
anything Lunar or Earth have. If the time traveler can be rescued and
her 5K Field duplicated, huwomankind will be able to defeat eNet and
reclaim Mother Earth.
Brought into the top secret meeting as a technical advisor, Kali makes
the mistake of speaking up and giving her honest opinion of her leaders’
hopelessly incompetent plan. She is goaded into offering up an alternate
plan of her own which she thinks just might be possible. Instead of
getting demoted and kicked out, Kali is chilled to find herself in
absolute command of the rescue, where she will go down to Mother Earth
herself with her own picked team.
Kali’s team succeeds in rescuing the time traveler. Unfortunately
Goddess Kronos is a boy. The only male in the solar system. “We can’t
bring that testosterone infected creature back to Daughter Moon!” More
difficult than rescuing the boy from eNet may be keeping him alive on
Daughter Moon, which Kali must do, since his technology resists
analysis.
DAUGHTER MOON is Old School hard Science Fiction at 122,840 words, with
Matriarchy as the twist. All the Usual Suspects: Alien Invasion,
teleportation, space battles, nanotechnology, virtual reality; a nobody
suddenly given incredible powers; a struggle for the survival of our
race and the future of the Universe; a Love more powerful and decisive
than any technology. The ending sets up the first sequel should there be
a market for this. Have default-plots for possible prequels & sequels.
Twitter = http://twitter.com/hg47
eMail =
hg47@a47.info
Website =
http://www.a47.info/
Amazon eBook page for DAUGHTER MOON =
http://amzn.to/AqPwaY
3/13/2012
3:20 AM
Chapter 14: flamingingly
Chapter 48: The Regal ‘rRhoid Resistance
I just approved the final eBook version of DAUGHTER MOON, even though I
found 2 minor errors when proof-reading it. 52 Novels did the conversion
for me, and they are the “Go To Guys” from my POV. 52 Novels has the
right mix of low-cost & high-performance for converting novel-length
projects to eBook format.
The Chapter 48 glitch I could blame on 52 Novels, except that I approved
Robert’s failure to correct a single character’s mis-direction. So, I am
100% to blame.
The Chapter 14 misspelling I would love to blame on my proofreader,
since I originally slammed down “flaming” only to have her correct it to
flamingly. Usually, I kept her corrections, even though I often did not
like the way her changes impacted the flow of my prose. Sometimes, I was
obstinate, and overruled her. And sometimes, I flip-flopped, changing
back and forth between her version and my version. It is easier for me
to believe that I inadvertently added an extra “ing” into the word
during my last flip-flop, than that she corrected my “flaming” to
“flamingingly” in her edit. Somewhere is a CD-R or a DVD-R that has the
answer to this question, but not the answer to the blame, which must
remain 100% with me, since I recognized the problem, but refused to fix
it.
If I tell Robert at 52 Novels to fix these 2 minor problems, he probably
won’t charge me any additional fee, but I will then have to either
accept on faith his changes or read through the whole damn novel again,
critically, slowly, looking for problems. No, I just don’t have the
energy to do that.
It is good enough. Five Sigma?
@hg47
2/28/2012
8:47 AM
There is a new Audio/Visual cable connection in
town, girls & boys, and it’s catching the computer geeks off guard. HDMI.
My new Dell Windows 7 computer’s sound card uses Realtec HDMI for the
Digital audio out. Three different geeks at Best Buy (where I bought my
computer) all told me that the digital out was the green mini-plug jack
on the rear of the machine (software switchable between analog &
digital). That’s the way it was on my old Dell XP that died. And that’s
the way the current front-line geeks all think it works on my current
machine.
WRONG!
My problem is I need a Digital Coaxial or Digital Optical in for my Sony
5.1 sound system.
Wasted an afternoon on the phone with Dell Tech Support, who put me on a
conference call with Sony Tech support, and they were all telling me
that the HDMI out on my computer was video not audio, and they kept
telling me the green mini-plug was the digital out. Hell, the Dell guy
even took over my computer remotely, so he was seeing exactly what I was
seeing (there is no menu to click to choose analog or digital for the
mini-plug out) and he was still telling me the green mini-plug, which
was calmly feeding analog front right and analog front left speaker
signals.
Finally, I just gave up. Turns out HDMI is both video & audio; and it
takes a computer chip to pull the audio out of the signal, a simple HDMI
plug to RCA jack cable won’t do diddley (I tried that too).
Online research & talk with a Radio Shack guy and a high-end installer
of custom sound systems confirms that HDMI has both audio & video, but
that I either need a new receiver with an HDMI in or something
equivalent to the “4x1 HDMI 1.3b Certified Switcher with Toslink &
Digital Coaxial port.” About 50 bucks.
I dug out an ancient receiver that will handle 5.1 audio in 6
multi-analog-ins. Still works. Temporary great sound. While I’m
thinking. @hg47
2/24/2012
1:58 PM
Chrome
doesn’t like Area 47. IE & Firefox render this experimental page
adequately. With Chrome I get a mildly-amusing text & pic train wreck.
Good news for Google: Chrome renders this mess faster than IE or Firefox
can accurately handle this page. Go Google! Speed trumps Accuracy! What
is interesting is that IE & Firefox both start to render the page wrong,
then they sort of pause and go: “Wait, there’s more going on here.” Then
they render Area 47 accurately.
(I shouldn’t complain. This is where I try to push the limits. And I
still use FrontPage!) @hg47
2/19/2012
8:53 AM
Just uploaded my first eBook to Amazon. My novel
COURTNEY, which I retitled to A WALK IN THE RAIN.
http://amzn.to/wpbsSV
Rebecca Swift does my cover art.
http://www.rebeccaswiftartwork.com/
52 Novels converts my novels.
http://www.52novels.com/
I’m worried about the Winner Takes All nature of
the Internet. Not sure how the whole eBook thing will play out. Within
any Internet niche the #1 Player takes 85% of the business. The #2
Player gets 10% of the action. Player #3 gets 2%. Players #4 to #9 split
up 2%. And ALL OTHER PLAYERS Split Up The Last 1%.
If you see a situation where two major players seem about even at the
top, you’re witnessing an unstable equilibrium, where competitors are
fighting. Come back in a year and one of them will be crushed and the
other will be King. There are multiple Positive Feedback Loops that
favor anyone who gains a significant edge to shove additional business
their way.
Right now, it seems that the only defense against the Winner Takes All
nature of the Internet is for a writer to Create A Niche or Own A Niche.
If you are sufficiently unique & talented: Do Your Own Thing Full-Tilt
Boogie. You become the Brand. YOU become the Niche. The other alternate
is to scout around. “All Publics Are In The Public Domain.” If you see
someone doing something cool on the Internet, and you see a way to do it
better while you’re having fun, you can take over their niche and push
them out. In a year or two, you can own 85% of their market, bumping the
originator down to 10%.
Two examples follow of Pushing someone else out of a niche from my
observations on Twitter.
I started doing vertically aligned tweets back in February of 2009. But
I did not make a niche out of it. I just threw them out occasionally
into my @hg47 Twitter stream to spice things up. I knew I could never
achieve alignment across most devices, so I just had fun with it, and a
few people saw things right and were AMAZED. That was enough for me. A
niche had not yet been created.
@140Artist (Tom) saw an opportunity, a niche, and dedicated his Twitter
account to aligned #TwitterArt. (I’m late to the whole hashtag game; it
was later when Twitter Artists started using tags seriously.) For
several months @140Artist was the only guy doing vertically aligned Art
full-time on Twitter. He saw an opportunity and created the niche. I
never saw a niche, and was pleasantly surprised when others started
specializing in vertical alignment. It seemed to validate my artistic
explorations. Then Matt jumped into the game with @tw1tt3rart. Matt
Moved In And Over The Period Of About A Year And A Half Completely
Pushed Tom Out Of The Niche. Matt dedicated his @tw1tt3rart account
exclusively to vertically-aligned tweets; he did no @Replies from there,
but rather created a separate account to @reply. Matt made his Twitter
Art account the “GO TO” place to find #TwitterArt. Matt tracked his
ReTweets, did tests to determine the best times to tweet, how often to
tweet. Matt restricted his characters and techniques so that his work
would appear correctly on the maximum of devices. Matt created art for
every occasion. But Matt’s scientific genius was really illustrated
during the World Cup, where Matt created SuperTweets for all (or at
least, most) of the countries playing in the cup; and made people wait
for his tweets.
Tom also made some mistakes (from my point of view). He tried some
experimental work, and got pissed off when he wasn’t ReTweeted
sufficiently. Then he ranted about it, insulting his followers. (Well,
I’m doing experimental vertically-aligned stuff all the time; and yes,
sometimes I’ll do a whole sequence and get zero feedback. But I don’t
take it personally.) At the moment Matt OWNS the #TwitterArt niche,
Tom’s heart is no longer in it: he’s just a bit-part player now. In my
view, Tom is the better artist, but Matt is the better scientist. Matt
won.
Another example from Twitter of pushing someone out of a niche is Favrd
versus Favstar. I have no inside information on this. I’m just a
long-time observer. Favrd was a website that tracked which tweets got
the most stars. Favrd was a one-man-band as far as I can see, with no
meaningful business model. But the site got a huge number of hits. Favrd
created a niche. Then the Big Money Boys moved in with Favstar. Favstar
is continually rolling out new features, and charges extra for Bonus
Features. The Favrd guy saw his Internet traffic drop, and it was clear
that he could never compete. Favstar crushed him.
On the Internet quantity trumps quality. Forty⋆⋆⋆Reviews motivate a
BUY-CLICK while Four⋆⋆⋆⋆⋆Reviews motivate nothing. One awesome eBook
online doesn’t count for much; while 20 half-assed slapped-together
eBooks gloms interest and several impulse purchases.
My current plan is to get as much of my writing into eBooks as I can, as
fast as I can. Digital Shelf Space.
@hg47
2/15/2012
1:38 PM
OK, I give up.
I’ve been trying to break into Publishing (and make a living as a
novelist) for so long it’s embarrassing to put dates on it. So I won’t.
But I will spill that it’s been longer than 2 decades. I once
wallpapered three walls with rejection slips. I used to have a box full
of rejection slips that stacked in excess of 1 foot 2 inches high. Many
of the rejections were not 8.5” x 11”, but tiny slips of paper, so exact
height measurements were not possible due to that fact, and the fact
that I was drunk at the time and could barely work the tape measure.
Perhaps I should have measured my rejection by weight. I was also drunk
when I threw the box away.
(OK, OK, full disclosure: one of my novels did find a temporary home at
Longstreet Press. BLUES DELUXE. Longstreet paid me a $1000 advance. The
novel quickly went out of print. Longstreet also quickly went out of
print (out of business). Hey, at least I got to keep my advance, tiny
though it was. Go to Amazon: you can probably get a used copy of BLUES
DELUXE for 1 penny plus shipping.)
All I have left is to do a DIGITAL DUMP of my work on Amazon.
Some savvy writers are making money by using the electronic
self-publishing route. No one has ever accused me of being savvy. No
clue if I will sell 1 copy after 1 year. Or if I’ll sell 10 copies after
1 year. Or if I’ll sell 100 copies after 1 year. Or, etc.
My hopes are not high; it’s just that I have nothing else left.
While writing, I always think that I am a genius, and can’t understand
why I haven’t been “discovered” and given multi-millions of dollars for
my work. This unreasonable quantity of EGO may be a necessary part of a
novelist. I thought I was a genius when I wrote my first novel: I
eventually burned that total piece of crap. I thought I was a genius
when I finished my most recent novel. (This leads me to believe that if
I ever do actually SUCCEED as a writer, that I will become an obnoxious
egotistical jerk.) @hg47
1/12/2012
9:18 AM
The quickest way to contact me is to send me a
tweet. I’m @hg47 on Twitter.
The slowest way to contact me is to eMail me. hg47 @a47.info Actually,
that isn’t currently true: it might take months to contact me via
Facebook. Or years. I’m on Google+ but I don’t understand it yet, and
have no current plans to do much with it. (Facebook Rebooted?)
If you want to get my attention, send me a cute tweet and/or star my
tweets and/or ReTweet my tweets. That Will Get my Attention. S/He likes
me, S/He really likes me! [Apologies to Sally Field] Or send me a really
interesting eMail (spark my interest in SUBJECT LINE or I won’t open
it). @hg47
1/1/2012
3:05 PM
Here’s something interesting. December, 2011
stats: 77 people clicked the HARVEY YOU ROCK link for Area 47; 77 people
other people clicked the HARVEY YOU SUCK link for Area 47.
@hg47
12/23/2011
5:05 AM
I can’t write erotica. A long time ago I tried
to write erotica; well, actually, I wrote several short erotic stories;
but the experience was always unpleasant. The unpleasant experience,
however, taught me something about Human Sexual Response, which has, a
decade later, helped my “Sex Life.”
When I am sexually aroused, there is an endorphin rush that is the major
Feel Good Factor. Yes, my dick gets hard, but it’s the endorphins that
make it a “This Is Great!” Experience.
However, when writing erotica, I rarely got hard, although I did leak
copious amounts of fluid from the tip of my penis. Also, while writing
erotica, I did not get an endorphin rush; the body feelings were “tense”
not “pleasurable.”
And as a result I’ve learned that just because a woman I’m with is
“wet,” well, that doesn’t mean that she is having a good time with the
sex we are sharing. Sexual Arousal isn’t ON/OFF. Sexual Arousal is a
sliding scale: If she is wet, that is just Stage One.
@hg47
12/27/2011
5:57 PM
Karen Eliot & Gregory Wadsworth are two Twitter Artists who define
State-of-the-Art when it comes to drawing pictures within tweets.
I don’t know how they do it, but I suspect their work is computer
assisted. I don’t mean that in a bad way.
A couple of years ago I explored the idea of drawing pictures in tweets.
I may slap a #twitterart hashtag on my tweets, but it’s just
vertically-aligned WTF. If a sleepy-eyed tweeter is reading down tweets,
and her eyes snap open and she goes, “Huh?” -- that’s all I’m after.
But early in my vertical-alignment explorations, I realized that it
would be possible to specialize in actual complicated ascii pictures on
Twitter. My first-generation research indicated that to create the
SET-UP would require something like 100 hours of time and anywhere from
$500 to $3000 in software experimentation, hardware controller &
interface additions. My response was: screw that. It might only take 50
hours and a grand today; software & hardware are improving.
The SET-UP would be software that would be tweaked to convert thousands
of actual line drawings into ascii text at a Twitter-friendly
line-length, using only a limited set of characters; with the ascii
equivalent of an ARTIST COLOR PALETTE in easily displayed & easily
dragged & dropped characters into the work area of the tweet under
construction. My technique would be first to tweak an ascii drawing
software program so that it would display hundreds of attempts at
computer art. Most of them would be worthless. But a few would be
interesting & fixable. Then the key would be a SET-UP where the computer
mess of almost a picture could be fixed by quickly dragging and dropping
in the right characters to fix it.
Anyway, that’s how I would do it.
@hg47
12/10/2011
9:36 PM
Pre-emptive Strike.
Once a week or so, I like to turn up my stereo LOUD and blast some
tunes. I like to do it when my neighbors aren’t around.
True story. My apartment in Irvine had the best soundproofing of any
apartment I’ve ever lived in. We had a NO NOISE Clause in our contracts,
which did concern me a little. One day after I had first moved in, I
noticed the upstairs guy come home, so I thought I’d do a sound check. I
turned up my stereo to a moderately loud level with booming base the way
I like it, then I went upstairs to ask if my stereo was bothering him,
and hopefully to hear for myself how loud it was up there.
When he answered the door, we introduced ourselves, and I was surprised
that he had his stereo on, fairly loud. He said, “Don’t worry, I’ll turn
it down.”
And the more I tried to explain that I had just come up to see how loud
MY stereo was downstairs and whether it was bothering him, the more he
became convinced that I was a bitchy neighbor pissed off at HIS loud
stereo. Finally, I just gave up trying to make myself understood.
I lived there 2 or 3 years, and all the time I lived there I never heard
one peep from his apartment.
@hg47
11/28/2011
6:32 PM
Evil Republicans have a point: Research on the
spread of “selfishness” throughout history reveals that egalitarian
societies (read: “Liberal”) have more difficulty in expanding in times
of crisis than societies where the poor suffer disproportionately.
[Harper’s Findings]
Is this why girls like bad boys?
@hg47
11/25/2011
5:32 PM
I am unable to improve on this sentence from
Harper’s Findings, December 2011:
In Britain, where one sixth of cell phones were infected with fecal
bacteria and gonorrhea was becoming drug-resistant, scientists noted an
uncoupling of the brain’s “hate circuit” in 92 percent of depressed
Chinese.
@hg47
11/19/2011
5:10 PM
ANDY WARHOL: “Everybody will be famous for 20
minutes.”
Harvey Griffin: “Everybody will be published for 20 copies.”
So you’ve written a novel. Good for you.
Submitting is easier than ever. Getting Published is harder than ever.
The old publishing paradigms are dying like dinosaurs. Anyone who can
stick two words together has access to spell checkers & grammar checkers
& laser printers & eMail. Web sites tell writers how to format, how to
query. Literary Agents & Publishing Editors used to get 10 or 20 snail
queries every day, now they get 100 to 200+. Everyday. They get more
paper queries, submissions & partial submissions & proposals than they
can read, even if they wanted to read them all, even if they hired 3
assistants to read them all.
Also, all the veteran Literary Agents & Editors have been burned by
their own love of literature. They’ve each “fallen in love” with a
project that came to them “out of the blue” and then went on to invest
months of their time on it. Maybe they called in favors they had
accumulated over years to get it published & promoted, thinking it would
be a “Game Changer” that would Rock The World, only to see it Pfffffft.
Die. Earning them nothing. Costing them BIG in credibility.
Now with Kindle “Book Killers” and Digital Publishing destroying Paper
Publishing, it’s like the last days of the Roman Empire, with all the
Major Players scrambling to avoid the flames, screaming: “Which
neighborhood won’t get burned? Where should we run?”
In the Internet, yesterday’s “Track Record” doesn’t mean much; but for
the Old School People, it is still the only relevant metric. The
Publishing Power People think you Are what you Were.
HARSH REALITY:
You can’t “find” a Literary Agent.
The Literary Agent must “find” you.
@hg47
9/22/2011
11:27 PM
AIR CONDITIONING BLUES
My living room air conditioner has never worked right. It’s a built-in,
supposedly 10,000 or 12,000 BTU, but totally inadequate during the hot
summer days. Right after I moved in it kept shutting off for no reason.
The maintenance guy (one of the good, competent guys), did some tweak
with a special tool that kept the A/C running that summer and the next.
Just barely keeping me just barely cool enough.
I had to buy a separate air conditioner for my bedroom, but the
manager/owner at the time I bought it wouldn’t let me deface the
apartment by mounting a unit sticking out of the window. So for the
bedroom, I had to settle for an 8,000 BTU portable, that exhausts hot
air out a tube, with the window slightly open. I usually work graveyard
and sleep during the days, so I need a cool bedroom to sleep
comfortably. The portable A/C does a just barely adequate job. Problem
with blowing hot air out is air has to come in from somewhere. If it’s
95-degrees outside, that means 95-degree air coming into the apartment
heating it up at the same airflow rate as exhaust air is blowing out my
bedroom window. Another portable A/C problem: it doesn’t function well
if the room is hot to begin with. If I come home to a 90-degree hot
bedroom (yes, bedroom gets afternoon sun) it takes about 2 hours to cool
the bedroom down to the mid 70s so I can sleep – and I can’t just turn
the A/C on, I have to take the set-point slowly down 1 degree at a time
every 10-minutes or the unit will overheat and shut off.
Probably won’t be living here much longer, or I would throw out the
portable A/C and mount a 10,000 BTU window unit (or 2 fives—but I’ll get
to that in a few paragraphs), since my current manager/owner doesn’t
give a damn about external apartment appearances. I can’t recommend a
portable A/C unit to anyone unless for some reason a window mount is not
possible.
Last summer my living room air conditioner kept tripping out on me.
Sometimes, it would go BANG, tripping the breaker. Sometimes, it would
just shut down the compression, but the fan would still blow. My theory
was that it was shutting off because it was overheating. It was late
Friday, the temperature outside showed 98-degrees on the thermometer
outside on my front door. Weather predictions were for a very hot
weekend. I knew it would be Monday or Tuesday or maybe Wednesday before
Maintenance would even get to working on my A/C. So I went down to Home
Depot and bought an outdoor water misting system. I brought along a
fitting from under my kitchen sink, and got an employee to help me rig
up fittings & connections so I would have a garden-hose-out under my
sink.
I mounted 2 mist sprayers to spray down into the air conditioner just
before the exhaust fan blows air through the hot-heat-exchanger. Tried
the air conditioner again, but it shut off again, before I could get the
tubing all connected up from my kitchen out the window to the sprayers
on the A/C.
When I got the water spray going, the A/C stayed on, and cooled the
apartment down so fast I was surprised. The cold air coming out of the
A/C was definitely colder. I got through the rest of the summer with no
more A/C shut-offs.
I ran controlled tests over the next weeks, at different inside and
outside temperatures. With the A/C on high-fan the air temperature
coming out of the unit into the living room was about 3.5-degrees cooler
with the water misting system on. Three and a half degrees may not sound
like much, but believe me, on high fan IT MAKES ONE HELL OF A DIFFERENCE
in cooling an apartment. On the hottest days, it’s the difference
between being comfortable and miserable. Effectively, my living room air
conditioner has now a higher BTU rating. How much higher? I don’t know.
10,000 to 12,000? 12,000 to 15,000?
An air conditioner has two phases to it. A compression phase and an
expansion phase. During the compression phase, the gas is compressed,
which creates HEAT (radiated away outside). During the expansion phase,
the gas is decompressed, which creates COLD (cooling the room inside).
During the compression phase, the more effectively the HEAT can be
radiated away, the better (which is where my water spray comes in),
because a cooler gas temperature at the start of decompression means a
much cooler gas temperature at the end of decompression for cooling the
room. This is why the hotter it is outside the less efficient air
conditioners are, because the A/C unit can’t get rid of the heat as well
during the compression phase.
Air conditioner engineers will tell you to never spray water on them the
way I am doing, because calcium build up from the water spray will
destroy the aluminum fins attached to the copper tubing that circulates
the fluid inside the A/C.
This summer—2011—my living room air conditioner is further damaged. The
temperature control is busted, so it is locked into Permanent
Compression On (my water spray had nothing to do with that). Also, on
the exterior of the heat radiator, I can see extensive damage to the
unit from the water spray. On the outside, about the bottom fifth of the
radiator is damaged, blocking most of the air flow through that part. I
hate to think what the inside must look like.
I can’t precisely compare last year’s summer temperature readings with
2011 because the thermometer location is slightly different, 1 grill on
the A/C is now missing, and my fan in front of the A/C to distribute the
COLD throughout the room is different. I estimate I have lost about
1-degree of cooling power since last summer. Difference between
no-water-spray and water-spray is now about 4.5 degrees. Clearly, my
water spray is damaging the air conditioner. But just as clearly, the
BTU performance NOW is better with-the-spray than it was any summer I’ve
been here without-the-spray (even with the damage my spray has caused).
Almost certainly, A/C performance will be degraded next summer (if I’m
here).
Air conditioner engineers will tell you it is better to exactly match
your BTU cooling requirements than to guess. Not enough cooling power
will leave you TOO HOT! Too much cooling power will leave you physically
comfortable until you pay your summer electrical bills. The right BTU
air conditioner that remains in compression mode most of the time is
economical. A higher BTU air conditioner that clicks in and out of
compression mode will cost you dearly in electrical charges: just
starting compression pops 50-85amps, then the air conditioner draws its
maximum amp rating for several minutes before the amount of air cooling
becomes significant. This constant on and off, on and off, on and off of
a higher BTU A/C requires more kilowatt hours than a smaller BTU A/C
that just stays in compression most of the time.
Over the years, I have noticed some interesting trends. The prices for
air conditioners are lower every year. The electrical cost to cool by
air conditioners goes up every year. A 5000 BTU A/C can be had for $100
now. That’s less than the cost to run it for one summer in many places.
Call me crazy, but for my next apartment, I may put a couple of 5000
units adapted with my water misting system in my bedroom window. Most of
my actual costs are going to be electrical anyway. On the hot days, I’ll
just turn on one unit; keep it in compression all the time to save on
electricity. On the REALLY HOT DAYS, I’ll run them both & open the
bedroom door with fans to help the rest of the apartment. After three or
four years, I’ll throw both of them out and buy two more. They should be
$85 each by then. Call me crazy, but with electrical costs going up and
A/C purchasing costs going down, it makes sense to turbo-charge them and
UP the actual cooling power of them, even if it drastically shortens the
life of the units. @hg47
7/27/2011
12:59 PM
It’s so cute how Republicans & Democrats are
playing Chicken with the National Debt. How cute? THE ONION offers the
most pertinent analysis: "Congress Continues to Debate Whether or Not
Nation Should be Economically Ruined."
This won’t be our first default. We defaulted in 1790. We defaulted in
1933 with our gold obligations.
In 1979 a few individual investors were paid
late. This single tiny 1979 glitch (technically, a default) raised our
interest penalty, our nation’s borrowing cost six tenths of one percent.
Forever! From that date, the good old USA was slapped an extra surcharge
of 0.6% on all borrowing! Indirectly, but absolutely, this increased the
cost of every mortgage, car loan, business loan and credit card fee for
American Citizens!
http://www.nytimes.com
There may be a last-second political maneuver that avoids default. My
problem is our public demonstration of “seeming economic incompetence”
has already slapped on an extra surcharge for all future borrowing. Our
trust has been busted. @hg47
6/9/2011
10:39 AM
A philosophy of life is a bias to correct
imperfections within the soul. If I were perfect, I wouldn’t need a
philosophy of life. It would be like Zen—I would just DO IT, I would
just live. But since I’m imperfect, I identify the problems that need
corrections, and I develop a philosophy of life to correct for my
defects. But my defects are not your defects. So my philosophy of life
may not work for you—it may be entirely inappropriate. The same with my
rules for writing—they are for me—to correct my natural tendencies. They
are a bias: the rules + me = good product. But the same rules + you
could be shit! It could be anything—YOU HAVE TO DEVELOP YOUR OWN
PERSONAL BIAS! @hg47
5/18/2011
10:21 AM
Lately, my thing is multi-part tweets.
Firefox updated me to 4.0 - While Firefox is the *only* browser to use
for #TwitterArt, this new version is a step sideways, from my POV, not
up.
On
the plus side, Firefox 4.0 is faster, much faster at JavaScript. Also,
it lets me do certain things on some web pages that I couldn’t do
before. For example, on Twitter, it lets me increase the size of the
Compose Window.
On the negative side, I have to shut Firefox down every couple of hours
or my computer will slow down and then lock up. It takes me 10 or 15
minutes to get my computer back! I’m on an old Dell running XP. I keep
it because it has been trouble-free and stable. My problem with Firefox
4.0 may be an XP-thing. And I confess, there is one other app that I
can’t leave on all night: Google Desktop. Sometimes I like to listen to
music from my computer’s music files softly while sleeping, but I have
to turn off Google Desktop or the only thing working properly when I
wake up is my dBpowerAMP player.
Keeping my fingers crossed that Firefox will fix my problem.
Another negative: Firefox 4.0 displays some characters in Twitter (and
other web sites also) differently than previous incarnations. As far as
I’m concerned #TwitterArt is all about compelling vertical alignment.
This is achieved by knowing the width of characters and testing groups
of characters in a private account before tweeting the #140art for real.
Firefox 4.0 changes the display width of many characters. It also
changes how certain fonts interfere with other fonts (some fonts will
reduce the width of adjacent & following characters of other fonts
within a line). I’m probably just whining & nit-picking here. Sorry. But
I was disturbed when I first got the 4.0 install & then drilled down my
@hg47 twitter page to find that half of my #TwitterArt was slightly
altered, and some of it broke up.
@hg47
3/27/2011
10:32 AM
My take on President Obama versus the GOP:
@hg47
2/22/2011
11:43 PM
Internet searches hint that the Lara Logan
“sexual assault” may have actually been far more Monstrous.
Here's just one link:
http://www.debbieschlussel.com
http://english.aljazeera.net/ apparently hasn’t even reported
the Lara Logan “sexual assault.” Just did a site search. The only
Lara hit was a 14 Feb 2007 story.
@hg47
1/25/2011
10:19 AM
My take on Wikileaks:
@hg47
12/13/2010
4:56 PM
In the Totally Useless but Fun Category
An eight-tweet experiment.
@hg47
11/11/2010
4:55 AM
Category: Bragging Rights
On 9-10-2010 I tweeted a #140Art sequence
depicting the fall of the Twin Towers.
On 9-11-2010 I tweeted some statistics about 911
and some translations from the Koran; and then repeated the Twin Tower
sequence without the hashtag.
My friend Tom (@140Artist) sent me this
screenshot of my sequence on his monitor at the moment when 911 people
listed me:
My SuperTweets are formatted for
the Firefox browser at default and +1 text sizes (Windows XP OS).
Tom uses Apple. One of my SuperTweets broke up on his computer.
[12/13/2010; 4:01 PM - Correction: Tom does not
use Apple. Vertical Alignment is dependent upon exact calculations of
Line Length. At the moment, I suspect the display differences are due to
a different mix of installed fonts on our computers.]
My friend Matt (@tw1tt3rart) got very angry with
me & unfollowed me. I fear our Twitter Friendship is finished.
Matt's anger was very educational. What I thought of as: "clearly
viewing a serious long-range threat to our Western Way Of Life"; Matt
thought of as: "hatemongering" and inciting hatred toward Muslims.
Matt has a point. But I think I also have
a point.
Matt's reaction was educational because it
forced me to confront several issues concerning Islam.
1) If I have a bias or a prejudice, I want to
know about it. I am interested in the Truth. I am not
interested in hating or urging others to hate. I have experienced
intense jealousy. I have experienced intense hatred. Both
those emotions crippled me, drained my artistic energy.
2) It was interesting that the strongest
negative reaction to my Islamic Tweets came not from Muslims, but from a
fellow Twitter Artist.
3) Twitter, which I regard as "therapy" more
than communication, is leaving a historical record of my tweets, so I am
going to have to be careful when I tweet about Islam. A Muslim may
put out a hit on me. A multiculturist may permanently brand me as
a hatemonger.
Matt is by far the most popular Twitter Artist.
In the #2 spot is Tom. In the #3 to #999 spots are all other
Twitter Artists. (This is the universal Internet Paradigm.)
[12/13/2010; 4:09 PM - Matt and Tom are both
technical specialists, but Matt is the stronger scientist, while Tom is
the stronger artist. Tom's influence is difficult to measure since he
has multiple accounts.]
If I were cynical, I would say that my whole
purpose in tweeting a #140Art sequence depicting the fall of the
Twin Towers, was to give me an excuse to tweet the exact same
emotionally-loaded tweet over and over (with just a slight variation) so
as to get the maximum number of ReTweets and Stars.
(Oh, yeah, right, here's the brag I promised:
these 911 Twin Tower tweets were retweeted more than 10,000 times.)
Partial verification is at:
http://favstar.fm/users/hg47
@hg47
8/18/2010
12:20 AM
Lately, I’ve been thinking about starting a
separate Twitter account just to Tweet nice things about President
Obama. (Right. As if Twitter isn’t enough of a waste of time already.)
AlterNet’s exposure of a group of power Digg users who have banded
together to bury any liberal online link, and promote their Far Right
agenda gave me something to think about.
http://bit.ly/cZOhZo
It made me realize that TwitterSearch is also
under systematic pressure from the Far Right. All Twitter political
hashtags—yes, ALL Twitter political hashtags—are skewed by organized
Heavy-Duty Twitter Power Users spewing Far, *FAR* RIGHT propaganda,
drowning out, probably, what the hashtags were set up to discuss and
“form a community around” in the first place. It’s the Twitter version
of the Digg story.
Here’s a Tweet about it:
The RIGHT is organized, focused, & passionate: they fight dirty in
attacking Obama. The LEFT is inept: so principled they attack him too.
And now my FAIL WHALE CONSPIRACY THEORY. (This
reminds me that I have re-started multi-part Tweets. I did it early on,
as an experiment, then lost interest.)
@hg47
6/2/2010
8:23 AM
May 4, 2010, I Tweeted what I
think must be a World's Record in Tweet height. In Firefox at
default text size the Tweet was 17-lines high; it sits 16-lines high in
Updates. I'm already pretty sure there is a way to beat that.
[12/13/2010; 4:23 PM - Well, this boast of mine
was totally false. @hotdogsladies did a 35-line high tweet more than a
year earlier! I have been unable to replicate his method; which in
theory could create a 138-line high tweet.]
[1/25/2011; 10:02 AM - Correction to my
correction: My Tweet height record stands. I viewed the @hotdogsladies
tweet in question on Favstar. His actual tweet broke no height
records. Favstar handles the ENTER key as an actual line feed, or
carriage return; Twitter translates the ENTER key as a soft space.]
I've been experimenting with word position
within Tweets. I've also been using the minimalist SuperTweet
format for some of my @Replies; and yes, Twitter handles them as
standard @Replies.
And here's a couple more of my recent
favorites.
@hg47
5/14/2010
4:15 AM
Shia versus Shia
I work with an Iraqi refugee. (A previous post
here detailed a little of his situation.) I asked him about the
shootings & bombings in Iraq the past several weeks threatening the US
withdrawal and the election. He tells me that al Qaeda has very little
to do with it. And it isn’t a “Sunni killing Shia” thing either. He
tells me that there are 5 different Shia sects; that the violence of the
past three or four weeks especially is almost all Shia versus Shia
infighting. And it isn’t about religion; it’s about Political Power and
Oil Money. The real issue is which group can position itself to bleed
the “state of Iraq” of the Oil income. He says the whole idea of
“Voting” over there is a big joke. The real ballots are cast with
bullets and bombs. We have political ads on TV to influence voters; they
have clerics in mosque chanting for death.
@hg47
3/31/2010
4:29 AM
Queries to 10 Science Fiction editors.
Previously published
novel: BLUES DELUXE, Longstreet Press, 1994.
Query for a Science Fiction Series.
Time traveler in trouble, Jack Kronos, is rescued by astronaut
Aeromancer and computer hacker Kali, 16,000-years in the future, who
think they are midwifing the birth of Goddess Kronos. (Due to terrorism
concerns, this space-based civilization subordinated and then completely
eliminated the male sex. Boys. Just can’t trust ’em.)
But Goddess Kronos is a boy! No boy babies have been allowed to be born
for thousands of years. One astronaut tries to kill Jack. Aeromancer
takes him to bed.
But while the Queen and the FemorRhoids are arranging for Jack’s public
execution, powerful Alien beings have invaded on a pest control mission
to kill all life in our Solar System. The fact of Jack’s travel through
time and Aeromancer’s love may be huwomanity’s strongest defense.
All the usual suspects: nano-technology, force fields, alien invasion,
space battles, intelligent computers, teleportation, time travel. Should
there prove to be a market for the first book (122,000 words), the
ending sets up the first sequel.
Request permission to send you a short submission package; 50-page
sample with outline & supplementary material. Or will comply with your
specific needs.
Keith “JB” Howick Jr.
WindRiver Publishing
S.R. Howen
Wild Child Publishing
Ms. Ardy M. Scott
Twilight Times Books
Debra Staples
SynergEbooks
Gavin J. Grant
Small Beer Press
Brett Fried
Silver Leaf Books
Angela James
Samhain Publishing
Whitney Scott
Outrider Press
Patricia Feuerhaken
New Victoria Publishers
Michael Combs
Mountainland Publishing
@hg47
2/26/2010
7:23 PM
Minimalist Tweets
Twitter keeps tweaking the code for its page. Two times in the past
month, I’ve noticed altered Tweet behavior. Most Tweeps won’t notice
(99.99%), but the hard-core #TwitterArtists have noticed, I’m sure. One
of my tested SuperTweets ran into overflow and turned into a train
wreck. (And I noticed that 7-10 SuperTweets by others on #TwitterArt got
ruined by line-overflow problems. Then, one of my SuperTweets which
tested at 9-lines high (a record for me) broke at 8-lines. Oh, well.
My Twitter art has been strongly influenced lately by the Guy Vincent
character. I suspect it’s a hair space [U+200A (8202 decimal)]. But I’ve
just been copying & pasting it. It makes possible some unusual
minimalist effects.
OK, I admit, I'm also sneaking in
an Arleigh character here and there.
@hg47
1/25/2010
7:12 AM
Publishing Stats
The most successful Artists and Writers of this Millennium are the
Marketing Geniuses. Yeah, it helps a bit to have some Artistic Talent,
if it doesn’t come with too much deadwood Integrity. Those Artists (and
Writers) raking in the really Big Bucks do the marketing first, and only
later, as an afterthought, manufacture the actual art.
Well, I have many weaknesses as a writer, and poor marketing skills have
to rank near the top of my problems to overcome. Salesmanship? Don’t
have any. I’m an introverted loner who has alienated most of my friends
& lovers with my obsessions, addictions & compulsions.
As a novelist, my standard response to a stack of rejection slips is to
throw the novel in a drawer, and start writing a new one. Writing a
novel is the fun part; the first draft the most fun and challenging.
Selling the puppy is worse than going to the dentist every day.
Anyway, enough of that.
It’s 2010 & I want to find a publisher for my SF novel. TIME TRAVEL JUST
ISN’T POLITICALLY CORRECT. A series of Science Fiction novels, actually.
The first one is too good, and the series has too much potential for me
to throw it in a drawer and start writing something else.
Part of the way I am going to deal with the REJECTION is to Post & Tweet
the Stats of my slog through the Publishing Industry on the way to a
Publisher.
My first round of query letters & sample chapters were sent out to these
10 literary agents:
Ms. Colleen Lindsay
Dr. Vladimir P. Kartsev
Ms. Jennifer Pope
Ms. Caitlin Blasdell
Ms. Sandra Dijkstra
Mr. Steve Malk
Mr. Joshua Bilmes
Mr. Paul D. McCarthy
Dr. James Schiavone
Ms. Eleanor Wood
Mr. Steve Malk – NO!
Mr. Joshua Bilmes – NO!
Ms. Caitlin Blasdell – NO!
Dr. Vladimir P. Kartsev – NO!
Dr. James Schiavone – NO!
Ms. Eleanor Wood - No! (3/31/2010)
Others non-responsive thus far. Time to send out 10 queries & sample
chapters to editors. @hg47
1/9/2010
1:24 PM
Other Twitter News:
WIRED Magazine just interviewed Matt -
http://twitter.com/TW1TT3Rart
– about #twitterART, so he is poised to become famous! Go Matt!
A month or so back, Twitter changed their code to reduce the text size
within Tweets. This change wrecked the vertical alignment in some of my
SuperTweets, and killed a class of SuperTweets I liked to do about once
a month. I also don’t like the way it appears in Firefox. There may be
benefits to this code change, but I don’t see any at this point. I test
for vertical alignment with the standard Twitter page in Firefox at
default and +1 text sizes, and some of my old tricks don’t work anymore.
If this code change enables new tricks, I haven’t found them yet.
Two or three months back, one of the Tweeps posting to #TwitterART
noticed that anything in a line between a hashtag and a standard
character would change color to link-color in Tweets. I think it was Tom
who first demonstrated this in a Tweet. He mostly is posting rectangular
abstract art at
http://twitter.com/140Artist now. His Twingdings site -
http://twingdings.com/ - has some
great tools for Twitter Artists. Tom lost interest in this, but Matt -
http://twitter.com/TW1TT3Rart
- and I immediately jumped on it. Before we could go very far with it,
Twitter changed the rules, shutting down the link-color for
alt-characters. I’ve still got a stack of 10-15 colorful SuperTweets
that I tested but never got around to Tweeting. And none of them work
anymore, so they’re unTweetable.
Of course the best Twitter Artist Tweeting on Twitter is Guy at -
http://twitter.com/Guy_Vincent
– but he has never been particularly concerned with vertical alignment.
He’s so good he doesn’t have to worry about it. And his art is all over
the place. If he ever focuses exclusively on vertical alignment, the
rest of us are done.
Lately, I’ve been ReTweeting a lot of Dominique Péré -
http://twitter.com/dominiquepere - new kid on the #twitterART block.
She’s shown me some new tricks about color. She’s getting color in parts
where I didn’t think it was possible. I thought a space had to go before
and after the hashtag to get the color. So I have some testing to do
here. According to my tests a hashtag imbedded within a SuperTweet has
to have soft spaces before and after to be indexed by Twitter Search
(this makes vertical alignment harder, especially for different viewing
text sizes). Hard spaces before and after allow the color change but not
the search function. (oops. she's a HE)
12/4/2011
Predating even Guy Vincent at #twitterART was another character: Larry
Carlson. But he was so aggressive about copying other Tweeps and
Tweeting their work as his own, that Twitter has suspended his account.
About 2 or 3 months back Twitter took action on him and a bunch of other
Tweeps who often Tweeted copied art without credit.
@hg47
(2/26/2010 - 4:23) Note: Larry Carlson is back
on Twitter at:
http://twitter.com/Om_Sun - Some love him, some hate him.
@hg47
1/9/2010
11:34 AM
My 2010 New Year's Resolution: Find a Publisher
for my Science Fiction novel TIME TRAVEL JUST ISN'T POLITICALLY CORRECT.
@hg47
[(12/4/2011) I give up.
Agents don't want me. Editors don't want me. Publishers
don't want me. (GF doesn't want me.) Changing the title of
my SF novel to DAUGHTER MOON & planning to do a Digital Dump.
(Kindle, Baby!)]
11/3/2009
3:52 PM
Attention Twitter ASCII Artists
A month or so ago, Twitter changed their code. It is now possible to
bump the entire first line down so that it begins within the Tweet on
the second line. The technique is to over-extend the initial string of
characters. (The length of the user’s Twitter name effects this.) Here
is an example of this.
When I first joined Twitter, Tweets functioned this way, but early this
year, Twitter made a change so that the first line of a Tweet could not
be bumped down, no matter what. (It would over-extend beyond the line,
not displaying end characters.) Now, it can be bumped down again.
#twitterArT is the standard hashtag to search for examples of Twitter
ASCII Art. I rarely use the hashtag, myself. What, give up
12-characters?? (10 + hash + space.)
My modest proposal is that Twitter Artists create & standardize a custom
hashtag for art. #A, or whatever. 1 character, the hashtag, & the
functional space. I could give up 3 characters for such a searchable
hashtag in most of my SuperTweets. But 12, no way.
Besides, I’m more about the WTF and the vertical alignment, than I am
about the art. Alternate characters don’t display on most devices,
anyway; even in standard browser windows, display varies widely,
according to what fonts are installed, and 3rd party apps like Tweetdeck
wreck the vertical alignment. The browser makes a big difference too. On
my Windows XP Dell, Firefox displays more alternate characters than IE.
For every 2 or 3 “Wow!” or “Awesome!” replies, I get a “What was that
train wreck of boxes you just spewed at me?”
@hg47
10/10/2009
1:48 PM
The Changing Cultural Character
of Twitter
The last six months have seen some changes in Twitter. The rise of
SuperUsers with hundreds of thousands of followers. The migration of the
most socially active and responsive users to 3rd Party apps that filter
the Twitter stream. Trending Topics delivered to users as a sort of
Commons Area. Additional Checks & Balances against Aggressive Followers.
I used to ask rhetorical questions, and get surprised by actual useful
answers. Before Harper’s Magazine was on Twitter, I used to Tweet that
they should Tweet their Index. Often I would get an opinion or reaction
to my Harper’s Tweets. One Tweet went something like this: “What could
be more cost-effective advertising for Harper’s Mag than hiring a
minimum-wage drone to Tweet their Index?” Immediately, two geeks tweeted
more cost-effective methods. 1) subcontract the Tweeting. 2) Automate
it. The other geek gave me instructions on how to automatically Tweet
the RSS feed of the Index, or something like that.
I also used to Tweet something oddball like: This is your brain on
Twitter ٩(͡๏̯͡๏)۶
[And get 10-15 responses. (@replies or RTs)] Now, I’m lucky if I get 3.
Responsiveness has gone way down. Some SuperUsers openly suspect
NonDelivery of Tweets to explain their drop in responsiveness.
I will say this. Twitter used to go Fail Whale; but in the times when it
was up, responsiveness was normal. Now, Twitter thrashes around like a
Dolphin Caught In A Tuna Net during peak usage hours; responsiveness
drops to near null; I often can’t even get to my DMs; sometimes can’t
get to my @Replies; and I have noticed some of my tweets don’t to
Twitter Search, or go to Twitter Search delayed, or occasionally go to
Twitter Search but not my own update page.
I have two alternate explanations for the drop in Twitter
responsiveness. Tweet delivery was never perfect. Hell, 3 days of Tweets
disappeared from my Update Page & never came back. But I think it’s the
evolving nature of the 10-90 Twitter rule. First, when Twitter behaves
like a Dolphin Caught In A Tuna Net, reading & responding becomes so
difficult that the natural response is: Tweet & Run. Secondly, most of
the heavy responders on Twitter have migrated to 3rd Party apps which
filter the TweetStream so that these heavy Twitter Users pay particular
attention to about 1% of the Tweople they follow, and sporadic attention
to their fave 5%-7% Tweeps; all other incoming Tweets are never seen.
Business accounts that started off playful and fun to follow began to
aggressively spew links and hard-sell Tweets. An incoming TweetStream of
hundreds or even thousands can be fun until it turns mostly into
hard-selling advertisements. 3rd Party apps which filter and organize
the incoming Tweets was the answer.
10% of the Twits do 90% of the Tweets. 10% of the Twits click on 90% of
the Links. 10% of the Twits are in a High Responsive Group who Reply &
RT. And 90% of this 10% High Responsive Group now never see 95% of
their low-priority incoming Tweets.
The serendipity, the surprising Tweet from Left Field used to be an
attractive factor in the TweetStream. Following all kinds of different
Tweople for the entertainment. Repeating Tweets was cool. And fun. Many
Tweeps would routinely ReTweet Tweets just ’cause they said Please RT.
But there has been a Global Warming effect on ReTweeting. No longer
cool. Please RT is the kiss of death.
The Favoriting Club has always been a tiny segment of users. Most Users
never favorite any Tweets at all. Most of those who do favorite Tweets,
favorite a few Tweets then stop. This is changing slowly, with increased
general awareness that there are sites which track and rank favorite
activity. But Twitter users who routinely favorite Tweets are something
like 1 for every 500 who don’t. Roughly, 1 in 100 Twitter users
occasionally favorite a Tweet. At present there is an inbred-niche of
SuperFavoriters, who find, follow, and vote on each other’s Tweets while
religiously checking their ranking via the sites which track this.
There are sites which track Twitter Users recent following & follower
history. I happened to load up
http://twitter.com/Scobleizer one night and the history was
interesting. Within a 2 week period he dropped the number of people he
was following down to about 20,000 (from something like 90,000). And in
the next 2 days, followed about 40,000 more people! The time period was
early this year; March, April, something like that. Social Media Whores
can’t do that anymore on Twitter. Robert’s response to this change was
to unfollow everyone and continue bitching because he isn’t on the
Suggested User List. @hg47
7/30/2009
5:50 AM
SuperTweet Gallery
Twitter ASCII Art
Here are some of my SuperTweets, created using
alternate-characters in Twitter. They are formatted for the
standard Twitter web page in Firefox at default and +1 text sizes.
They do not display properly on all devices.
@hg47
6/28/2009
5:53 PM
A Christian friend of mine at work lived in Iraq until a few
years ago. His wife is Iranian. (He only admits to having one wife). He
is dismissive of the whole idea of voting in the Middle East. He classes
Iran’s Ayatollah Khamenei in the same category as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein:
both nut-jobs. Last time he voted (in Iraq) armed thugs threatened him
with death if he didn’t vote for the candidate of their choice.
During the Saddam period, pretty much every male had to go into the
army, unless they bought their way out. My friend had to pay the
equivalent of 4 automobiles in funds to avoid this.
After the US attacked & invaded Iraq, he was repeatedly contacted by a
militant organization, demanding the equivalent of thousands of dollars
of payment, “so they could kill US soldiers.” The group did not identify
itself. My friend still has no idea whether they were Sunni or Shia, Al
Qaeda, or even possibly some Iraqi government extortion racket that just
wanted money and had no interest in killing US soldiers.
My friend repeatedly refused to pay, and was repeatedly warned, mostly
by telephone. Whoever these people were, they knew all about him. They
knew who his relatives were, they knew what properties he owned, how
many children he had (their names and ages), they knew how much money he
had, they knew of his wife’s relatives in Iran.
After a very angry refusal to pay, his brother and cousin were both shot
and killed. Then came another demand to pay. He abandoned his house &
property, and took his family out of Iraq. I asked him, “Are you ever
going back to Iraq?” “I can’t go back,” he said. “I didn’t pay. One
minute after I am back, I will be dead. They will know.”
@hg47
6/9/2009
2:57 AM
My Fave Twits, circa 6/9/2009:
http://twitter.com/advancedscience
http://twitter.com/AnAmericanOmen
http://twitter.com/angie1234p
http://twitter.com/Arcadia1
http://twitter.com/arleigh
http://twitter.com/atomicpoet
http://twitter.com/axlarry
http://twitter.com/BakeMyFish/
http://twitter.com/BasilLeaf
http://twitter.com/blankwhitewall
http://twitter.com/BonedaddyKing
http://twitter.com/Cammmalot
http://twitter.com/catttaylor
http://twitter.com/chacharat1
http://twitter.com/ChiNurse
http://twitter.com/ColleenLindsay
http://twitter.com/cyberbonn
http://twitter.com/davegray
http://twitter.com/db
http://twitter.com/djennfree
http://twitter.com/doyouzooloo
http://twitter.com/drnili
http://twitter.com/duffmcduffee
http://twitter.com/edwardboches
http://twitter.com/eunice007
http://twitter.com/evilgrrl
http://twitter.com/expectwonderful
http://twitter.com/FilmTruth
http://twitter.com/Fireland
http://twitter.com/girlmonkey
http://twitter.com/GuysDoMeAFavor
http://twitter.com/hollo
http://twitter.com/jantallent
http://twitter.com/jennipps
http://twitter.com/JessicaGottlieb
http://twitter.com/JosephBTreaster
http://twitter.com/LaughItUp
http://twitter.com/lisahickey
http://twitter.com/luckyshirt
http://twitter.com/MariaParkinson
http://twitter.com/Mark_Braunstein
http://twitter.com/marklish
http://twitter.com/mashable
http://twitter.com/migukin
http://twitter.com/MIWomensForum
http://twitter.com/moonstruckmania
http://twitter.com/msfitznham
http://twitter.com/nomad_chicken
http://twitter.com/norisakitten
http://twitter.com/pamela1986
http://twitter.com/peterfletcher
http://twitter.com/PowerHungryFilm
http://twitter.com/rainesmaker
http://twitter.com/ramkitten
http://twitter.com/Rayke
http://twitter.com/Remiel
http://twitter.com/rlanzara
http://twitter.com/rnBetty
http://twitter.com/sconstantine
http://twitter.com/secrettweet
http://twitter.com/sids
http://twitter.com/Sternenfee
http://twitter.com/TomVMorris
http://twitter.com/TracyOConnor
http://twitter.com/TruckerDesiree
http://twitter.com/vincereardon
http://twitter.com/wildchildeditor
http://twitter.com/wildmonkeysects
http://twitter.com/willingthrall
http://twitter.com/Xtal
http://twitter.com/zjjtrans
4/12/2009
3:32 AM
I keep breaking my home page.
You know those Tweets that go:
I just updated my webpage with new articles;
Well my Tweet would go:
Just threw out a third of my latest updates.
Well, hell, if Twitter can lose 3 days of my
updates, can't I lose a few articles without feeling badly?
@hg47
3/8/2009
3:25 PM
Super Tweets
Lately, I’ve been messing around with vertical alignment on Twitter. My
basic idea was to use alternate characters to draw pictures or create
multi-line effects. I call them Super Tweets, but they are just
carefully crafted Tweets where each line achieves vertical alignment, so
that the Tweet has a striking visual effect. This is harder than it
sounds, because Twitter uses proportional text.
There are many websites that exhaustively list alternate characters. Or
on my computer, I can simply start going up through the numbers on my
numbers keyboard. Alt-1, Alt-2, Alt-3, etc.
Alt-3 = ♥ (heart)
Something else: An alternate character that appears one way in a Word
document may appear differently if the alt-(number) is entered directly
into Twitter. I’ve seen that a couple of times. To get that character, I
have to create it in Word, then paste it into Twitter.
I see no commercial value to Super Tweets at this time, primarily
because they will only display properly on the standard Twitter web page
with default settings. On third party apps, like TweetDeck, I’m sure
they are just a scrambled mess. So, probably 75% of the TwitterSphere
just sees a retarded mess; but (I hope) 25% sees my finely-crafted gem.
I made a conscious decision, a long time back, not to use an animating
avatar for my Twitter Account. They bug me. And I’ve read a lot of
Tweets from Tweople who also are irritated by animating avatars. I don’t
do Super Tweets very often, for the same reason. It’s like all caps in a
Tweet: it is SHOUTING!
I am slightly worried that perhaps bits or pieces of my Super Tweets
might be lifted, and used by spammers to focus attention on their
Tweets. But I figure it’s coming sooner or later, just like Advertising
on Twitter.
So, if you want to Tweet your own Super Tweets, first do some Google
searches to find out as much as you can about alternate characters.
Second, set up a Test Twitter Account that has the exact same name
length as your Main Twitter Account. Do not Restrict it, because the
restricted icon is part of the first line length, just don’t follow
anybody and don’t let anybody follow that account. Then do all your
testing with the private account, because most of your test Tweets won’t
work.
Another something else: Twitter has rewritten the code for their pages
several times since I joined. Two of my Super Tweets came out slightly
screwed up, because I tested them before Twitter changed the code for
their page. @hg47
2/19/2009
4:26 AM
Welcome to my World
(Incoming TweetStream)
My Fave Twits, Circa 2/19/2009, in no particular
order:
http://twitter.com/thesilverhand
http://twitter.com/eunice007
http://twitter.com/waxingpoetic75
http://twitter.com/angie1234p
http://twitter.com/nomad_chicken
http://twitter.com/pamela1986
http://twitter.com/jennipps
http://twitter.com/inkinmytea
http://twitter.com/ramkitten
http://twitter.com/hellotimi
http://twitter.com/heady
http://twitter.com/Pandaran
http://twitter.com/marinemajor
http://twitter.com/vincereardon
http://twitter.com/christinelu
http://twitter.com/stevenimmons
http://twitter.com/katlogictalk
http://twitter.com/BarbaraUechi
http://twitter.com/jantallent
http://twitter.com/Colleen_Lindsay
http://twitter.com/peterfletcher
http://twitter.com/Twit_Traffic
http://twitter.com/deniPath4Change
http://twitter.com/JerryBroughton
http://twitter.com/lyndajohnson
http://twitter.com/RobReevesStudio
http://twitter.com/hollo
http://twitter.com/doyouzooloo
http://twitter.com/barcelonaphotos
http://twitter.com/LeighaB
http://twitter.com/xizhen
http://twitter.com/MariaParkinson
http://twitter.com/lisahickey
http://twitter.com/migukin
http://twitter.com/compulsivereade
http://twitter.com/TruckerDesiree
http://twitter.com/BonedaddyKing
http://twitter.com/TerenceSmelser
http://twitter.com/GiveAndHelpUp
http://twitter.com/Naina
http://twitter.com/djennfree
http://twitter.com/VoteAudrey
http://twitter.com/zayrayves
http://twitter.com/digitalfemme
http://twitter.com/davidbadash
http://twitter.com/Aquentminister
http://twitter.com/awewriter
http://twitter.com/catttaylor
http://twitter.com/chacharat1
http://twitter.com/CosmosGirl
http://twitter.com/expectwonderful
http://twitter.com/FilmTruth
http://twitter.com/Gnuboss
http://twitter.com/JanieAngus
http://twitter.com/kidsnovelistzs
http://twitter.com/melissaruth
http://twitter.com/norisaxnouvelle
http://twitter.com/PowerHungryFilm
http://twitter.com/susankildahl
http://twitter.com/wildchildeditor
http://twitter.com/Rayke
http://twitter.com/1938media
http://twitter.com/rainesmaker
http://twitter.com/duffmcduffee
@hg47
1/29/2009
7:04 PM
I’ve read of Twitter horror stories about people
losing 80% of the their followers overnight, through some Ghost in the
Machine.
I have seen the Ghost. He was a silent apparition dragging a chain with
ball at the end.
First off: it’s easy to get me to follow you on Twitter. Just send me a
@hg47 that interests me. I will follow you right then and there. But I
don’t automatically follow everybody who follows me. Some I do, some I
don’t. Depends on my mood, the avatar, the update page, how busy I am,
whatever.
Yesterday, I was tweeting & happened to glance over at my stats. I was
Following 0! My Followers were down about 50. I refreshed the page & my
Following stats were now mostly where they should be, but missing about
280. My Followers had gone down about another 25. I was tired, so I just
logged out and went to bed.
Today, my Following is still shy about 280. But which 280? Don’t have a
clue. And my Followers are now up about 100. So I don’t know what is
going on.
I can’t trust the numbers.
I had read about Twitter back-up sites, so I found one (Tweetake) and
backed-up my stats. But here’s the thing: I know from experience with
computers that just because I have a data back-up, that doesn’t
necessarily mean that the back-up will be useful. Sometimes: click,
click, click – and everything is back to before. Sometimes: I have to
spend a day (or a week!) with the back-up data to get things (mostly)
back to before. And sometimes the back-up is flat-out worthless.
Sometimes it’s just easier on the soul to start over. So if @hg47
suddenly becomes @hg53, you know why.
@hg47
1/28/2009
12:14 AM
Tweet Less, DM More
No, this is not a hint. It just seems to be what I am doing on Twitter
lately.
A couple of weeks ago I thought I had a First Approximation on Twitter.
I thought I knew, more or less, what I was doing on Twitter, and why. I
thought I had figured out what my “Agenda” was. Well, wrong, wrong,
wrong & wrong.
My Tweet to DM ratio used to be 10:1, now it’s running about 1:5
What the hell am I doing? Going into stealth mode?
@hg47
1/15/2009
9:48 AM
Follow More, Tweet Less
I’ve been messing with Twitter since mid-November, 2008. 2 Months. Have
a few conclusions.
Full Disclosure: I now have an agenda. (This is new, it took me almost 2
months to even figure out why I was on Twitter.) I want to
establish a “Presence” on Twitter, and hopefully make a few Twitter
Friends along the way. So, my MO seeks a modest steady growth of
Followers, and occasional interaction with those few fine favorite Twits
who warm my heart with their Tweets. I’m gearing up for a run at the
Publishing Industry, so long-range, I hope to prove to Agents and
Publishers that I’m not a total incompetent when it comes to Networking.
Twitter is a kind of networking, isn’t it? I’d like to get my new SF
novel published. I still think the best way to approach editors & agents
is through physical sample chapters & query letters (it’s how I did it
last time), but it might help when they check me out and find my website
& Twitter update page.
There must be something wrong with a Social Networking Website that
would have me for a member and allow me to prosper within it. (Well, I’m
sort of prospering, aren’t I?) Anyway, there is something wrong with
Twitter. It can be GAMED.
Twitter can be used for many things, depending upon the types of
accounts you follow. A news feed, a chat-room, regular text messages
with friends, a place to vent. Most prominently, it sometimes seems,
Twitter is used as a place for self-promotion.
I’m one of those kinds of guys who reads the Owner’s & Operator's Manual
before turning on my new Tech Toy. I may even go online for additional
info before turning it on. Then I play with the Tech Toy, perhaps in
ways the manufacturer did not intend. My basic research on Twitter is
here: (link), although I
haven’t updated it since 12/15/2008 4:36 AM. I’ll try to get around to
updating it soon.
I suggest early on that you decide what you want out of Twitter, what
you want to accomplish, and that you adjust your online behavior
accordingly.
What is more important to you? The quality and spot-on relevance of your
incoming TweetStream (the Tweets from the ones you follow), or the
quantity & quality of your followers (the ones who read your Tweets)?
INPUT or OUTPUT?
If you focus on INPUT, your output will suffer: few will actually read
your Tweets, few will follow. If you focus on OUTPUT, your input will
suffer: you will be buried in irrelevant nonsense, off-target incoming
Tweets that you have to sort through.
If your focus is INPUT, you may now stop reading, as I have nothing here
to help you. You know what you want for INPUT; you don’t need me getting
in the way. You can quite happily do your thing, and succeed in
achieving an awesome incoming TweetStream without me.
If your focus is OUTPUT, I have a hint: Follow More, Tweet Less.
Twitter favors the early-adopters and the aggressive followers. Like an
Amway pyramid scheme, the early ones in will always have an advantage
over you and me. Most of the new Twits will always wind up reading and
clicking on the Top 100 list looking for good people to follow. Those
Top 100 are on Tens of Thousands of Internet lists of good Twitter
people to follow. Most of the Top Twitter 100 not only run multiple
blogs & sites that redirect Internet traffic back to themselves, but are
friends with other Web Heavy-Weights who also run multiple blogs & sites
that redirect Internet traffic back to themselves (and friends who
reciprocate hyperlink redirects). The Top Dogs are going to stay pretty
much right where they are, on the Top Twitter 100, even if they stop
Tweeting for the next four months & vacation in the Caribbean where
there is no phone service or Internet access. But most of the Twitter
Top 100 are working full time to stay on top, because heavy Internet
traffic is big money.
There is a myth going around that there is a relationship between the
value of your Tweets, and the number of Twits who follow you. Bzzzzzzzt!
There is no correlation whatsoever.
There is another myth going around that most of your followers actually
read your Tweets. Bzzzzzzzt! Try clicking through the people who
“follow” you and you will find suspended accounts that are still listed
as accounts that are “following” you. Also, open up the update pages for
a bunch of the accounts that are “following” you and you will find many
accounts that haven’t been updated for days. Further, consider that even
active accounts often are not online and active exactly when you are
Tweeting. Don’t forget the Power-Followers, who follow so many Tweeples
they couldn’t read all the Tweets even if they wanted to. And then there
are the 3rd-Party Apps that most Power Tweeters use these days to filter
their incoming TweetStream, like TweetDeck. These software apps enable
someone to filter your Tweets so they never see any of them, but you
don’t know because they are still listed as one of your followers. I
don’t use any of these apps (I use multiple Twitter tabs in Firefox),
but my guess is that they can filter out even the @messages and DMs you
try to send to them. I have no hard data, but my personal guess is that
every time you Tweet, on average between 5% & 10% of your “followers”
read that Tweet.
(As an aside, I am usually surprised by the reactions to my Tweets. I’ll
spend an hour crafting a special Tweet with loving care and attention,
save it for just the right time; and nothing, no reaction. Another time,
I’ll be half-drunk, can’t think of a damn thing, and throw out some
silly-assed thing, and find a stack of 5 @replys waiting for me, 2 which
state that I’m a genius. Perhaps I should drink more and wordsmith
less.)
If OUTPUT is your focus, the basic strategy is to follow a shit load of
people. Many of those will follow you back out of courtesy or curiosity.
This is how most of the Big Dogs grew to be Big Dogs. Some of the
current Big Dogs don’t follow very many people now, but believe me at
one time they Followed the hell out of the TwitoSphere. Once they were
Big Dogs, they could dump most of the accounts on their Following list
and get away with it: some didn’t notice, some didn’t care, and the lost
followers were quickly replaced by new followers from referral lists on
the Internet and Top 100 Lists.
I’ll tell you another secret: even little dogs like you and me can dump
some of the accounts on the following list and get away with it. Go back
to your back pages in following, starting from the first ones you
followed, find pics that you never see in your TweetStream which are
following you back, and dump a bunch of them. Your Following numbers
won’t change much.
Twitter has certain speed limits. I don’t know exactly what they are, as
I’ve never exceeded them. But apparently, if you try to follow too many
people too fast, you get blocked so you can’t follow any more for
awhile. Again, I do not know the exact limits, and Twitter intentionally
does not make them known so that bots can’t effectively take too much
advantage of them. (Yes, Virginia, there are “following bots” that will
automatically go out and follow shit loads of accounts for you. There
are also websites that will let you know which people you follow aren’t
following you back. Other sites that will, apparently, bulk follow
accounts for you and/or bulk unfollow accounts for you. Probably, you
can even automate it, set it up, and forget it, as the bots do your
following for you.
There’s another limit you have to take into account: the 2000 following
limit. Apparently, when an account approaches or exceeds the 2000
following limit, a real live Twitter person takes an actual look at your
account, your Tweet History, your Following History, to decide if you
are spam. Some accounts they lock them down so they can’t follow any
more accounts until their own following numbers cross the 2000 line.
There may be more limits, there probably are.
Forget the mantra that you have to provide value to the community. I
suggest instead that you just do your own thing; Tweet however the hell
you feel, just don’t rub it in Tweeples’ faces. By this I mean that the
most value packed Tweets online won’t gain you very many followers; but
a good percentage of the Tweeple you follow will follow you back. Also,
the only time I really lost a bunch of followers was when I tweeted real
fast a bunch of sexually suggestive Tweets. In twenty minutes I dropped
13. And I bet I could have avoided most of the loss if I had slowed
things way down; hence my advice: Follow More, Tweet Less. They’re not
going to unfollow you if they don’t see your Tweets, they’re going to
drop & block you if you piss them off.
I have been on Twitter for 2 months, and now (1/14/2009 6:33 PM) have
2,738 Followers. I am not an aggressive follower. I’m in the slow lane;
twits behind me are blinking their lights & honking their horns wanting
to pass. And many zoom around me. So what? I’m doing my thing, they’re
doing theirs.
There’s one gal I’ve been watching for fun. Call her a PowerFollower, a
SuperWoman among PowerFollowers.
@DesignPepper
TwitterCounter Stats Details:
Tracking since: Dec 21, 2008
Followers on Dec 21: 2
Added since then: 6,539
Added since yesterday +492
Average growth per day: 654
On 12/21/2008 @DesignPepper had 2 Followers.
On 1/4/2009 @DesignPepper was following 7,501 and had 6,835 Followers.
Let’s check her today (1/14/2009 7:11 PM):
13,698 Following
13,022 Followers
280 updates
Now there’s a gal who get’s my point! Follow More, Tweet Less!
@hg47
11/28/2008
10:15 AM
Identified still 2 more TweetTypes & added them to
the list below. hg47
11/26/2008
8:14 AM
Identified 2 more TweetTypes & added them to the
list below.
Mobasoft on Twitter has an animated picture.
It animates like the favicon on my home page. What's interesting
is that the miniature of the picture animates on everyone's page when
they follow him! It's probably an animated gif. I'm not sure
I could drink that much coffee.
@hg47
11/25/2008
3:28 AM
I've been messing around with Twitter for about a
week. Too soon to tell if it's useful, or just a time sink.
But I have to admit that it is addictive and fun. I get the
appeal.
I've identified most of the major TweetTypes:
TweetType1
= regular conversation with friends
TweetType2
= news feed
TweetType3
= Here I Am, Deal With It! (hands on hips, scowl on face)
TweetType4
= spit against the wind (reader reaction generally WTF, but sender
feels better)
TweetType5
= the TweetLink (check out this great webpage that *I* found!)
TweetType6
= The New Number Six (testing, testing, 1, 2, 3, anyone listening to
me?)
TweetType7
= Twaiku (a twitter haiku; loosely, any poem)
TweetType8
= self-promotion, self-promotion, mywebsite.com, self-promotion,
myothersite.com
TweetType9
= Tweet-X(of-Y) - MultiPartTweets
TweetType10
= Alt-Language-Tweet (non-understood language, includes programming
language)
TweetType11
= AllQuestionMarksTweet (Asian Tweet)
TweetType12
= the "TweetQuote" (sender often has no clue, but has book of
quotations)
TweetType13
= TweetThirteen - sent in a moment of anger, deleted too late
TweetType14
= the GeekTweet = code; insider language; binary slang
TweetType15
= TomboyTweets - the vibe of most women tweeters
TweetType16
= GirlyTweets - traditionally feminine sweet-sixteen tweets
TweetType17
= AllCapsTweet (shouting, usually with multiple exclamation marks)
TweetType18 = SecretConfessionTweet (via
http://secrettweet.com/ and others)
@hg47
TweetType19 =
the Echo (repeats the tweet of another)
TweetType20 =
the RepeatTweet (resends something one already sent)
@hg47
TweetType21
= the @Tweet (personal message sent publicly)
TweetType22
= the Phony@Tweet (pretend personal message to high & mighty sent
publicly as a publicity ploy)
@hg47
11/16/2008
1:56 PM
Friend Rich just turned me on to: slickdeals.net.
If you're into hunting down the best price, this may be for you.
hg47
11/15/2008
1:33 PM
DeepDiscount.com is having
a secret sale till Nov 23 on DVDs & Blu-ray. 25% off. Enter coupon code
SUPERSALE when you checkout. hg47
11/10/2008
9:53 AM
I found the update on
WHO'S ON FIRST? that I heard a couple of times on the radio, on rock
stations decades ago, but never knew who did it. Finally found out.
The Credibility Gap was originally formed as
Lew Irwin & Credibility Gap in May 1968 by, of course, Lew Irwin
and it was comprised of the news department staff of KRLA-AM, a
top-40 station in Los Angeles, California. The group offered daily
satirical sketches of the day's news that was played after the
regular news.
An album of their KPPC and post-KPPC material
was released in 1977 called The Bronze Age Of
Radio. The selected tracks poked fun at their then-favorite
political targets like Nixon and Ted Kennedy, a commercial featuring
a rare recurring Gap character (sportscaster Dave Schwartz)
and a modern rewrite on the classic 'Who's On
First' sketch where instead of the confusion of players' odd names,
it was rock groups' names ("Who's on first, Guess Who's on second
and in the third act??" "Yes?"). You can still hear this
stand out track occasionally on the Dr. Demento show, or you can
hear it on Harry Shearer's site (along with other Gap material).
The track I've been
looking for is posted on Harry Shearer's site:
The problem is that it
is a .ram file! I have an audio file conversion program, as part of
my dB Poweramp player, but it doesn't recognize .ram files. I
wanted to convert it to mp3, and then re-post it here. I'm
afraid to download the RealPlayer software, because it seems like a
major installation, and I'm worried it will mess up my dB Poweramp
player. I have learned the hard way, that I have to refuse all
updates to Windows Media Player, because whenever I update the
Windows Media Player it tries to take over my computer, and I lose
all my convenient right-click options when running dB Poweramp; even
worse, it won't let me re-establish dB Poweramp as the default audio
player!
If you do not have
RealPlayer, here is a smaller installation freeware that will let
you play the track:
Download 'Real Alternative'
The audio quality on the .ram file
sucks! But that doesn't make it any less funny. hg47
10/13/2008
10:37 AM
There are all kinds of high-tech high-cost
solutions to getting music into every room of your home. But if
you just want a cheap solution with
great background sound, this may do the job. Cost: $100 per room.
SONY Mini Hi-Fi Component System
MHC-EC55. Walmart sells them for a hundred
bucks. They have audio in to take the feed from the main
stereo/computer. And they also have AM, FM, 3-disc CD changer that
also plays mp3s burned to CD-R, which lets every room play something
different.
When I moved to El Cajon, the movers trashed my
Advent Loudspeakers. So I had to go shopping for new loudspeakers.
Now, I've been brought up on the KLH Model 6 (my
dad added a folded 12-foot-long air column tuned to 32 cycles per
second, so he could enjoy the lowest notes on his organ tapes), later
the Bose 901, later the original Advent Loudspeaker, and the Smaller
Advent Loudspeaker. After Henry Kloss left the company, Advent
produced many trash loudspeakers, but the original Advent Loudspeaker
and the Smaller Advent Loudspeaker hold up as the finest home
loudspeakers for reproducing music in the home, regardless of price,
regardless of what music you prefer. Neither Advent requires a
subwoofer; in fact, both kick the ass of most of the subwoofers on the
market.
Before my dad died, he traded in his Advent
Loudspeakers for Gale loudspeakers. The GS401A. They were
very pretty, black with silver sides, sitting on silver speaker-stands.
For several months, I used the Gale GS401A as my main speakers.
The sound was very sweet, but it lacked the bottom octave of bass that
the Advents provided. I remember thinking that if I just added a
subwoofer, that these Gales would be the ultimate sound solution.
But eventually, that very sweetness began to bother me: I was listening
to the speakers, not the music. I was also starting to record and
master my own music then, and I realized that I couldn't use the Gales
for monitoring; I needed accuracy, not honey poured over the sound.
So I got rid of them.
It has been a long, long time since I shopped
for loudspeakers. My dad got his Gales at a high-end custom stereo
shop; but I got my Advents at the local Pacific Stereo. So I went
down to the local Best Buy, and was moderately surprised that nothing
regardless of price satisfied me. I Googled some appointment-only
places; but before going to one of them, I tried Circuit City. I
found some Polk Audio speakers that work for me.
I bought four Polk Audio Monitor 30s, and one
Polk Audio powered subwoofer, PSW12. I've had the Polks for about
two years. Are they better than the Advents? Or worse?
I have no idea. I would need to do A-B tests. What I do know
is that they are adequate for my needs; I also trust the Polks to
monitor and master my own music.
I originally bought the Sony MHC-EC55 for work.
It was worth a hundred bucks to put my own music system at work so I
could listen to my own music every workday. The Sony MHC-EC55 has
a 3-disc CD player, audio in, AM, FM, and it plays mp3s burned to CD-R
or CD-RW. And when it is set to the "Pop-DSGX" EQ setting, the
sound is awesome for a hundred bucks. hg47
8/18/2008
1:22 PM
http://www.dvdavenue.tv/
(the same company seems to be doing business at
several different sites, with slightly different availability of
product)
These guys record TV shows off cable onto DVD-Rs
at slow speed, every episode, every year. The sound isn't very
good. The picture isn't very good. Shipping is like
20-bucks. Occasionally, a DVD-R won't even play. But they
have some material that isn't available anywhere else. I'm a nut
for courtroom drama; for me the sound and picture quality is OK for
that. If there's some old show you love, but it isn't available
yet on DVD, and you don't want to wait, this might work for you.
hg47
8/11/2008
5:29 PM
Statistics don't lie.
Your mother lies. Your girlfriend lies.
Your boss lies. The President of the United States lies. But
statistics don't lie.
If you get a pet, you will live longer.
How much do pets cost? How much longer will you live?
It costs you $45,000.00, total, over your
lifetime, average; and you live 7 additional years, average. hg47
http://www.freemoneyfinance.com/
October 15, 2007
Would You Pay $45,000 to Live Seven More Years?
Stick with me on this one. It's a bit of a round-about post, but I
think you'll see where I'm coming from by the end.
I've posted a ton on
the cost of pets and have come to the conclusion that
a pet costs roughly $1,000 a year. Bigger dogs may cost more, a
hamster will cost less, but I use $1,000 as a nice, round number to work
with. And I know that none of you spends this much each year, but
someone is spending a ton because those are average numbers. But we're
not here to talk about that issue today anyway. For now, let's just all
agree that a pet costs roughly $1,000 per year.
So, if you had a pet from the time you were out of your parents house
(we'll say age 22) until age 67, this would give you a pet for 45 years
(I'm assuming three pets that live 15 years each, but you can plug in
your own assumptions here.) In this case, those pets would have cost you
$45,000.
I was watching a commercial for AIG Insurance the other day when they
flashed a startling fact on the screen -- that owning a pet can extend
your life by seven years. Of course, I was skeptical of this claim, but
knowing what I do about advertising and big companies, I knew they
weren't making it up -- they had to have some sort of reasonable back-up
for this claim. So I emailed them and asked where they came up with it.
They emailed me this link on
Ten Small Things That Can Add Big Years to Your Life (which I'll
probably cover in more detail on a later post) which includes the
following:
Several studies have shown that owning a
pet lowers a person's blood pressure, increases self-esteem in children,
decreases the mortality rates of heart attack victims, decreases
cholesterol, decreases depression, relieves stress, and increases family
happiness. Pets also make people, particularly younger people, more
likely to participate in extracurricular activities. On a whole,
research predicts that those who own pets will outlive those who don't
by an average of seven years.
Here's that last sentence again:
On a whole, research predicts that those
who own pets will outlive those who don't by an average of seven years.
Ok, so let's put it all together. Owning a pet during your adult
years will cost you $45,000. Owning a pet during your adult years will
add seven years to your life. Therefore, for a $45,000 investment, you
can get a pet and expect to add seven years to your life.
Sounds like a good deal to me. What do you think?
--
8/11/2008
11:09 AM
Guest Post, from Rich Mansfield:
richman0829@yahoo.com
Meet the Hues.
Hai and Mai Hue are
fictional “boat people”, refugees from Vietnam - and they’d just as
soon never see a boat again! We’ll draw a kindly veil over their early
hardships and pick them up as U.S. citizens and Army Reservists.
They start off not
even speaking English. After they make it to the promised land - the
U.S. - they pick up their English in free classes, through library
videotapes, and on the job at MacDonald’s.
They get a couple
hundred bucks each from one weekend of duty a month with the Reserves,
and another couple of hundred by going to school on the G.I. Bill. They
get teaching credentials and do sub work. Hai calls himself the “Sub
Dude”, because of his subdued personality. When they’re not working,
they’re scouting for better jobs, trying to break into either the movie
industry or longshoring, both of which are like hereditary royalty; hard
to get into, but lucrative. They live in a 15-foot, 30-year-old
aluminum trailer they bought for $100 cash, in a trailer park that’s
cheap but safe, and near a bus stop. Hai asks Mai if this is okay, and
she replies, Ban là kidding? Sau cái gì chúngtôi cho là su xuyên qua
dieu này ca hai là thiên duong! Which of course translates to: “Are you
kidding? After what we’ve both been through, this is paradise!” They
have enough government bonds to buy food and supplies for three years.
They plan to buy a neighbor’s two-bedroom mobile home when he dies; by
that time they hope to have food, supplies, and maintenance covered for
twenty years, and can start a family. Their first child, Hoan Hue, is
born, and he’s such fun that they don’t do much work after that. And
he’s soon followed by twins, Thu and Tri. Hai asks if she wants any
more, Mai says no way... But accidents happen, and little Ngo Hue is
born. Hai swallows his pride and a couple of aspirin and gets a
vasectomy. From what they’ve seen, other parents sacrifice everything
for their kids and are surprised when their kids treat them as
second-class citizens. They decide on a different approach. Their kids
have two choices: Mai Hue or the Hai Hue. The kids eat what’s set
before them, and dress in Thrift Shop duds like their parents (jeans and
t-shirts, mainly) until they can afford to buy their own $150 sneakers.
But Mom and Pop pay the kids to do stuff they’ll need to know when they
go on their own, like cleaning, cooking, and managing money. Most of
the money goes into a Permanent Portfolio for each kid; they’ll each
have enough to buy a trailer and food for life at age 16, when they can
get a GED diploma and gain their freedom. And besides, the kids get a
realistic perspective of the world by flying space-available to every
military base Mom and Pop can get to, whenever school is out. They know
from experience that not having a $3,000 birthday party is not to be
seriously deprived. All the kids wind up joining the Reserves and
becoming officers, doing their monthly weekend and getting their college
education paid for without dunning Mom and Pop - who are by now
retired military, flying space-available around the world, living in
military bases and enjoying the maid service.
8/9/2008
6:21 PM
Sorry, I couldn't help myself. But I am
Poptimistic about my future. And your future. hg47
6/23/2008
11:58 AM
My brother Greg gave me a double screen digital
picture frame for my birthday.
He turned me on to digital picture frames.
They’re kind of tiny—but fear not: Target has a thing for $40 to convert
any TV into a digital picture frame. Got a huge LCD or a projection TV?
This can be your digital picture frame.
I put Greg’s gift in my kitchen, so when I stop by for a snack, a hit of
coffee, or some booze, I get a little visual entertainment. I got so
excited that I bought another digital picture frame, a single bigger
one, and put it in my bathroom.
But it turns out that digital picture frames are not ready for prime
time.
The one Greg bought me keeps crashing. I put a special surge protector
ahead of the transformer that powers the thing, and it still crashes
occasionally. Seems like it needs an uninterruptible power supply, which
costs more than the digital picture frame.
The digital frame I bought for the bathroom does not know what to do
with progressive-scan jpegs. Instead of displaying the picture, it
displays an error message. A lot of my favorite pictures snatched from
the web over the years seem to be progressive-scan jpegs. But Windows
doesn’t have any way to identify progressive-scan jpegs. So I had to
download IrfanView and do bulk conversions of all my jpegs to eliminate
any progressive-scan jpegs.
But wait, it gets weirder. Greg sent me a 2G flash memory card “full” of
pictures, along with the double-screen digital picture frame he gave me.
Strange that there was only about 175 pics total on the flash memory
card, at about 5% of the 2G memory limit.
I bought several USB memory chips, 2G & 4G. When I first tried to fill
them up with pictures, I ran into the same limit. At about 175 pictures,
an error message would pop up, stopping any further pictures from going
into the chip. Turns out the memory has to be formatted at fat32 to
fully use the full 2G or 4G capacity—otherwise at about 175 pics, an
error message pops up stopping any further loading of pics. My digital
picture frame for my bathroom has internal memory of 128M, but was also
not formatted to fat32, so it stopped loading pictures to internal
memory at about 175.
I Google-searched the error message, and found that people putting mp3s
onto USB chips and into several portable mp3 players are running into
the same problem. The memory has to be formatted at fat32 to fully use
the capacity, otherwise it maxes out at about 5%.
This tells me that the technology is getting ahead of the consumers. I
read Owners & Operators manuals, whether printed or online. There was
nothing in any of my manuals, printed or online, about these problems.
So the majority of users are filling up their digital picture frames
with only 5% of the actual capacity. And many users of USB chips and mp3
players are not using the full capacity of their devices. hg47
10/29/2007
2:23 PM
". . . and if I filled my shiny new 160gb iPod up legally, buying each
track online at the 99 cents price that the industry has determined, it
would cost me about $32,226. How does that make sense? It's the ugly
truth the record industry wants to ignore as they struggle to find ways
to get people to pay for music in a culture that has already embraced
the idea of music being something you collect in large volumes, and
trade freely with your friends."
(link)
('Nuff said.)
10/29/2007
2:14 PM
Please ship Seattle rain C.O.D. to
Southern California. Admit it: you've got more than you need.
Arnold will pay any amount you stipulate!
Last night I was paranoid, worried
about the wind changing direction and blowing embers onto my
apartment complex. So when I went to work I packed a few extra
things into Mom's car. Software back-ups of my documents & music
files on DVD+R & all my current different corrections of glasses, so
I can see the fire, no matter how far or close it gets to me!
It's important to burn clean: I just
dusted, wiped, vacuumed & mopped my whole apartment.
hg47
10/21/2007
8:41 AM
Subject: emoticons
(o)(o)
perfect
oo A
cup
{O}{O} D
cup
(+)(+)
silicone
(oYo)
Wonderbra
(^)(^) cold
(Q)(O)
pierced
\o/\o/
Grandma's
(@)(@)
big-nipple
|o||o|
android
(-)(-)
flat-against-the-
shower-door
hg47
8/6/2007
7:11 AM
You've probably read this on a
poster somewhere:
"There are 10 types of people in
the world. Those that understand binary. And those that
don't."
There are different levels to
sexual arousal, different degrees of sexual response. Some guys
get it. Most don't.
"Hey, when I get a hard-on, I'm
turned on. If I don't sport wood, that babe is not for me."
There has been considerable laboratory research
on human sexual response. Federally funded. Grants are
available to insert sensors into vaginas. Which brings new meaning
to the phrase "pork barrel politics."
But the point is that guys have been poking into
vaginas forever and twenty minutes, since before the earliest historical
document (porn, actually, papyrus copied from—probably—a broken stone
tablet, some assert, detailing a kind of "dry-hump" sexual activity
supposedly guaranteed to thrill female humans).
I've long been fascinated by the
stats on human sexual response, particularly when human female sexual
response would be measured. The squints would insert their probes
& sensors into vaginas, and show the women naughty pictures, then
measure "sexual response."
According to laboratory testing,
most women are sexually aroused by viewing naughty pictures.
According to the women themselves, most strongly deny this. "No, I
was not aroused. Disgusted, yes."
The mostly male testers most
always conclude that this
discrepancy is due to the
"mystical romantic essence" of their test subjects, "bundles of
contradictions
masquerading as adult
women."
"The silly females don't even
know when they're turned on!"
Allow me to offer a counter-point to this POV.
First off, it's not 100% clear to me that any
guy can fully understand any gal.
Second off, any guy who wants to try can start
by reading Shere Hite & Nancy Friday.
Third off, (pun warning) let me tell you where
I'm coming from. Subjectively, when I am sexually aroused, yes, I
get a hard-on, but I also get a supremely pleasurable feeling, a high
like a drug, endorphins coursing through my bloodstream. It's a
yummy good feeling. A few minutes later I start to leak a slippery
fluid out the tip of my penis.
Fourth off, some years back, I wrote a series of
erotic stories similar to Anais Nin. The surprising thing is that
I usually didn't get a hard-on while I was writing, but I always got
sticky underwear because of all the lubricant my penis was leaking.
What was up with that?
"No, I was not aroused. A bit on
edge, perhaps."
There was no highly pleasurable feelings, no
erection, but I was lubricating. Then I made the connection: if
the lab boys were measuring my lubrication, they would conclude that I
was sexually aroused.
If the lab rats are measuring vaginal
lubrication, and calling that sexual arousal, they are missing the
point.
Lubrication is just the first level, that
doesn't begin to get near the subjective experience of sexual arousal.
hg47
7/13/2007
7:27 AM
Getting some renewed interest in my screenplay
version of BLUES DELUXE. Remind me to keep my casting ideas to
myself. Let's not forget that Margaret Mitchell wanted Groucho
Marx to play Rhett Butler in GONE WITH THE WIND. hg47
7/9/2007
8:59 AM
In Defense Of Colin Powell:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Powell
'Nuff Said?
If not, how about this for a Post Script.
Still don't get it? Read the next post for
context. hg47
6/17/2007
12:42 PM
So there's this young smart U.S. Black dude,
with his whole glorious life ahead of him, here in the good ol' United
States of America, circa June 2007. He has no money for school.
But he's not into rap or carjacking or dealing drugs, no, this guy has
the mind of an accountant. Stats. Probability Theory.
He takes a cold hard dim view of his likely future here in the "good ol'
U.S. of A.," and he decides to play it safe. He knows the death
rate for young male Blacks is not good. But he knows how to beat
the odds. He knows how to survive. He knows how to
"beat the system." It's easy. He goes to his worst enemy,
and kills him. Calls 911. Waits for the police patiently,
with his hands upon his head, still, motionless. Confesses to
murder.
Why? Because the safest place for this
young Black man is in prison, and he knows that.
"Factor by which the overall
death rate for U.S. blacks aged 15 to 64 exceeds the rate for blacks in
state prisons: 2" (Bureau of Justice Statistics
<WASHINGTON>/National Center for Health Statistics)
Are you outraged yet? hg47
5/14/2007
5:07 PM
A friend of mine just shared with me a short
story he's written about a near future where a start-up company is able
to extend on Google Earth a bit and get much better resolution, to the
point that it's like having a security camera in the sky, watching down
over every business that signs up for the service.
The owners get rich & retire, the cops are able
to catch the bad guys, crime drops to near zero, and businesses are able
to drop the prices of their goods, consumers get cheaper products, and
they feel much safer.
The story has a happy ending.
I realized that I could never write that story.
Transparency is a
double-edged weapon, in my view. There are costs and benefits. I
do not see increased transparency as reducing crime, however. To me
it seems like the classic race between the safe builders and the
safe crackers, between the lock makers and the lock pickers, etc.
The better cops get at looking, the better the criminals will get at
camouflage & hiding.
I would take that POV,
that "message" as my starting point.
That's how I would
write the story. My writing is not as friendly, as warm and fluffy
as yours. I'd take it to the edge. My writing only gets good when
I get fired up, emotionally involved. To get excited, I'd have to
pervert the original intent. After the first bank robbers got
caught, and the satellite service got expanded, and everything
looked rosy, and crime seemed to be going down . . . I'd have a
major high-tech gang of bad guys move in and concentrate all their
efforts on the area of satellite coverage. I'd have them secretly
tap into the satellite coverage, so they could watch in real time
the location of all the cop cars, I'd have them tracking the money
delivery trucks so they could easily steal the cash when they were
most vulnerable, and I'd probably throw in stuff like using the
satellite coverage to blackmail bank executives having homosexual
affairs into helping them steal hundreds of millions from banks
. . . I'd push it to the limit so that ordinary citizens weren't
safe on the streets anymore! I'd have the gang selling information
to child molesters so they could find easy children to snatch, I'd
have the rapists knowing exactly where and when the foxy female
runners exercised alone. Maybe I'd end the story with a riot, or a
civilian lynching of the owners who started up the satellite
service, but I would probably end with the service shut down of
necessity, BECAUSE IT WASN'T SAFE, AND IT WAS RUINING THE TOWN!
Anyway, that's my
default plot; that's how I would write the story, if I couldn't
think of anything better as I was writing it.
Why would I write it
that way? Because, I answer, with a sneaky grin on my face, Because
It Would Be FUN!
hg47
3/26/2007
8:47 AM
I'm still having life-draining time-consuming
anger-generating problems with my new blog
TruthPics. Everything else
in my life has jammed to a stop while I wrestle with this.
It's more proof for this TruthPic:
Everything good and worthwhile takes longer than
you think it will. hg47
P.S.
3/27/2007
8:42 AM
As a further example of "How Long It Takes," one
surfer correctly pointed out to me that my understanding of metric
sucks. In the above pic, "Actual length of your penis in mm" is
something longer than 35 inches. I have deleted the original post,
fixed the pic & reposted. hg47
3/12/2007
9:50 AM
** My Procrastinations Often Give Me A Necessary
Frame-Of-Reference For The Artistic Work That Follows. **
hg47
3/8/2007
7:31 PM
I'm supposed to be finding a male agent for my
new SF novel 42N8 F8 (the working title). Instead I'm dredging
through Excel help files. I got this great idea for a blog:
TruthPics. Actually, it's
more like Chart-Art.
Excel makes charts from raw data, so I jumped
into the blog before I'm really ready. I did a test with Excel &
Paint that worked well for the first pic. So I posted it & started
the blog. But for my second try, I can't make the chart come out
right.
And It's Pissing Me Off!
I planned to do a few Excel Chart-Arts, then up
grade my software and do a bunch more Chart-Arts, then REALLY UPGRADE my
software, and do animated Chart-Arts with companion dashboard
attachments.
But I can't even figure out the damn Excel
charts! hg47
3/2/2007
10:43 AM
Do an "Inventory of Cutting-Edge Effects" before
you start that new project. Yeah, sure, you could do a Cave
Painting with animal blood and plant dye. Don't write your next
novel on soft stone tablets chiseled with hard rocks. Maybe your
future readers are reading you on their cell phones! hg47
|
Remind Me To Get Pushy
 Ｓｏｍｅｔｉｍｅｓ
Ｉ ｆｅｅｌ ｒｅｊｅｃｔｅｄ ｗｈｅｎ Ｔｗｅｅｐｓ ｄｏｎ’ｔ ｒｅａｄ ｍｙ ｍｉｎｄ ａｎｄ ｐｒｏｖｉｄｅ ｗｈａｔ Ｉ
ｗａｎｔ ｕｎａｓｋｅｄ.
My family moved around a lot while I was growing up. I average a
different school for each year during the first 12 years of my
schooling. I went to 6 different high schools. Why bother to make
friends when the entire cast of characters will change in a few
months? So I have no "smooth social moves."
ᅠ
ᅠ
ᅠ
ᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠ⥨ᅠᅠQuantity Of Networking Kicks Ass
ᅠᅠ⥨✹⥨
ᅠ⥨✹⨠✹⥨
ᅠᅠ⥨✹⥨
ᅠᅠᅠ⥨ᅠᅠQuality Of Product Lies Bruised & Bleeding.
ᅠ
ᅠ
On the Internet, it isn't the Job You Do, it is who
is posting about the Job You Do. And I have no
clue how to deal with this harsh truth or how to take advantage of
it since I always thought that the quality of the job you do must
always come first.
Whenever I try to get pushy, I seem to find myself in a Flame War.
I'm doing everything wrong. I'm not subtle enough. I'm offending the
"right people." So be it. @hg47
Ｙｏｕｒ
Ｗｒｉｔｉｎｇ Ｎｅｅｄｓ Ｓｏｍｅ Ｓｈａｒｐ Ｅｄｇｅｓ
I’m not here to be user friendly.
If you are idiot-proof you are also probably reader-proof; meaning,
no one will want to read your work.
"Easy to read" isn't necessarily a problem, but your writing needs
some sharp edges.
Let's not forget that no matter how cute the kitty pic and the
caption, that cats have claws and teeth!
Surprise them with your prose; make a few enemies with what you
write about.
@hg47
⡮⡆⢎⡁⢎⡁⣟⡁⣇⡀⣟⡁⡯⡂⡮⡆⢹⠁⡇⢎⠆⡏⡆
 Didn’t
you get the CHANGE Memo? It’s not where you were, it’s Where You Are
Going. It’s not who you were, it’s Who You Will Be.
Things are changing so fast that the Mountain you are standing on
top of as King NOW may not be worth a used-condom a year from now.
The sands are shifting.
How fast you are moving, your velocity of change becomes more
important than your position now.
No, sorry, it's even worse than this. Your
acceleration today, your increasing under-the-radar
"skateboard" speed of change in preferred directions, can over-power
the current Kings on the Mountains, and make the franchise-fools
into your own tools.
@hg47
₩ҤλŦᅠ₩ØUŁÐᅠҎł₡λ$$ØᅠŦ₩€€Ŧ?
ᅠ
₩ҤλŦ
ᅠ₩ØUŁÐ
ᅠᅠҎł₡λ$$Ø
ᅠᅠᅠŦ₩€€Ŧ?
ᅠ
I've read 3-5 Picasso bios and 3-5 Lover's-Of-Picasso
books-about-him and their relationships and some other books about
Big-P.
His daughter Paloma once wrote that early on she began to get a
sense that her father was not like other men. One day when she was
playing she stopped to watch a man who had come to visit her father
leave. He was backing away, bowing every few steps, backing away,
never turning his back on her father, until the man had backed out
the front door. [I am probably mis-remembering this slightly. Go
read Paloma's works for the exact quote.]
What would Picasso tweet?
You tell me!
@hg47
Ａｒｅ ｙｏｕ ｒｅａｌｌｙ ｏｎ ｔｈｅ Ｒｏａｄ Ｌｅｓｓ Ｔｒａｖｅｌｅｄ？
 It’s
OK if nobody listens. In fact, it’s better if nobody listens. That
is CONFIRMATION that you are on The Road Less Traveled.
I've already given up on Fame and Success while I am alive. It's
"Plan B, Baby!"
If my written works don't kick ass and take names after I'm dead,
they never will.
I can testify that my own personal road less traveled is lonely. I
can perceive no light at any possible end to this tunnel.
@hg47
Jane Austen Giggles Like A Little Girl And Writes On Strips Of Paper
2" Wide
 Jane
Austen gave me a blurb for my time travel novel DAUGHTER MOON! Jane
said…“Harv, you are a time traveler…you must be in need of a wife.”
So I time traveled back in time on the hope that my literary heroine
Jane Austen would give me a blurb for my time travel novel DAUGHTER
MOON. But all Jane could think about was fixing me up with a friend
of hers: “Harv, you are a time traveler…you must be in need of a
wife.”
I tried to tell Jane that her novel PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, with its
perky narrative and excessive dialogue and crisp immediate
presentation had created the format for the modern novel which we
still used in 2013 (and still in use in 2147 according to my other
time travels; although the novels are not actually read in 2147 but
implanted as firmware updates). I pleaded with her to use the same
dialogue overdrive with playful narration for all her other novels,
but Jane just blushed and said that her good friend Courtney was
from a respectable family, and that Courty had specifically
mentioned that time travelers make the best lovers.
Sadly, I am not married to Courtney. Of even greater sadness, Jane
Austen failed to heed my advice for her subsequent novels.
Paragraph deleted by the Time Continuum Police.
@hg47
irony
 AVOIDᅠANNOYINGᅠPROLOGUES
(with annoying prologue).
A year ago I would have killed for a 16-line high tweet that looked
good. That's not true. But I might have slapped someone.
I love this tweet because it is nearly all prologue, with finally a
three word exhortation to avoid exactly what has just been
demonstrated. As a bonus, it is mostly space, which agrees with my
minimalist temperament.
On average, a couple of times a year, Twitter does a major re-write
of their source code. Most users don't even notice the change. But
as a nutjob hard-core vertical-alignment freak and exposed #TwitterArt
(ist) who is always trying to push the limits of Twitter, I am
sensitive to these changes.
A few months ago, Twitter shut down my favorite #140art trick. My
hard-space no longer works. Twitter requires, correction,
required a character to start a new line, but Twitter thought a
hard-space (Alt-0160) was a character, and although I had to enter
each hard-space manually within the composition window for it to
work, it allowed me to "make chess moves off the board that were
still technically valid."
A month later, Twitter, enabled the ENTER key for its Internet feed.
Since I joined Twitter, back in November of 2008, an ENTER was
rendered as a soft-space. Favstar renders the ENTER key correctly;
is Twitter now taking cues from favstar?
The ENTER key Twitter change is so major I
still don't know what to make of it. My first impression is: "Chill,
Harv, this is just Twitter, where you blow off steam; your tweets
don't mean anything, they have never meant anything, they never will
mean anything; it's 140 characters for Goddess sake! And after the
first EMP bursts of WWIII all that Internet info will be lost
forever: Nanobots to nanoscrap in nanoseconds!"
Then I start fixing up my obsolete #TwitterArt that hasn't worked
for years, but can now be modified to work, and I start thinking
that maybe, just maybe, I can take some of my old 3-tweet sequential
#140art pieces and cram them down into single tweets!!
Of course, by the time I get them ready to spew, Twitter will
probably upgrade their code again, wrecking all my planned tweets.
@hg47 (1/3rd filled glass
Harvey)
I Stole This Tweet
 Most
of the media might as well say ‘Congratulations on wasting your life
perfecting a worthless skill.
The original tweet, by @lovemydogduck was: Most of the
medals might as well say ‘Congratulations on wasting your life
perfecting a worthless skill.
Hey, I did inform her that I was going to change one word. I left
the quote open-ended, because Eve did in her tweet.
The whole social media, Internet, blogger, Facebook, G+, Pinterest,
Twitter, eBook, GoodReads thing eludes my understanding. I get that
we all want to share. Maybe that is enough. Maybe that is all the
reward there ever need be. In that sense, posting and commenting and
blogging is a slight improvement upon passively watching TV.
The cynic in me does not regard "page views" as "page reads," sees
"comments" less as "feedback" and more as "networking." The loner in
me sees a few messages that go viral when helped along initially by
in-bred networked power players who gang-up to spew in military
formation. The gambler in me sees the vast majority of messages
posted languishing virtually unread unheard unacknowledged while we
all continue to post and blog and comment and then keep checking our
stats hoping for a big Lottery Win.
@hg47
Ŧ€₡Ҥ₦ØłØḠ¥ ₦UÐḠ€$ U$
 When
tech lets us do things more easily, we do those things less
reflectively. We are not thinking about where tech is pushing us.
Technology succeeds by making things easier. But that technological
success can be disruptive.
When I upgraded from a typewriter to a word processor, that change
did not increase the quantity of my word count output, it
reduced it. It allowed my bias toward quality to move from
the background of my artistic creation to the foreground. While I
was getting bogged down in the first draft trying to smoothly
integrate poetic depth and literary special effects into my prose,
other writers were doubling and tripling their productivity.
I imagined that I could regain my productivity, and super-charge it,
by getting into voice recognition software! I would dictate the
first draft, brainstorming out-loud, and crank out a novel in a
month! Perversely, I am unable to talk and create original sentences
at the same time. Probably for the same reason that I can never
think of the witty repartee until after everyone at the party has
gone home.
So, while I imagined that technology would speed up my writing, when
I moved from typewriter to computer, instead it emphasized my
internal bias to getting it all "just right" in the first draft.
Technology moved me, but not in the direction I anticipated.
Sometimes I think people are the reproductive organs of Technology.
[Naughty sexual analogy deleted]
@hg47
ⓈⒾⓁⒺⓃⓉ ⒷⓊⓉ ⒹⒺⒶⒹⓁⓎ
Life Is Shorter Than You Think!
 Life
is short, like a tweet; your days, like characters, are all used up,
almost before you click TWEET.
Starting to realize how little time I have left. The multiple dreams
of my youth laugh at me. Well, yes, I could have achieved
THAT, if I had a 400 year lifespan and an unlimited
supply of beta-blocker pills.
Please women in bed? Well, no, time or penis size or tongue
agility doesn't seem to be a factor here for me: ain't gonna happen!
Ever!
But most people's dreams are limited by time, and by personal
application, by focus, by dedication, by nose to the grindstone. Or,
in my case, by my addictions, my compulsions and the occasional
perverse whim that becomes a habit.
Sometimes I feel like MY LIFE is drifting, falling, like a
soon-to-be-dead leaf separated from my tree.
@hg47
P.S. -- What's your pleasure? Rake? Or leaf blower?
Ｗｈｅｎ Ｉ
ｃａｎ’ｔ ｔｈｉｎｋ ｏｆ ａｎｙｔｈｉｎｇ ｔｏ Ｔｗｅｅｔ
Ｗｈｅｎ Ｉ ｃａｎ’ｔ ｔｈｉｎｋ ｏｆ ａｎｙｔｈｉｎｇ ｔｏ Ｔｗｅｅｔ, Ｉ ｊｕｍｐ ｕｐ ａｎｄ ｄｏｗｎ,
ｗａｖｅ ｍｙ ａｒｍｓ ｗｉｌｄｌｙ, ａｎｄ ｔｈｒｅａｔｅｎ ｔｏ ｈｏｌｄ ｍｙ ｂｒｅａｔｈ. Ｖｉｓｕａｌｌｙ.
For a tweet I can use an alternate character set, angled text, or
spew a #TwitterArt pattern, on the theory that if I say nothing
pretty enough, maybe my friends will think it is something.
That takes care of tweeter's block, but what about writer's block?
What about a novel? How do I get started, and keep going on a
project that may take a year or two just to complete the first
draft?
I've read so many HOW TO WRITE books that the main thing I can say
with confidence is that what works for me, won't work for you
without modification. Probably. All my writer heroines and heroes
seem to have different methods of coaxing the words out onto paper.
Jane Austen wrote on little strips of paper about 2 inches wide, yet
with PRIDE AND PREJUDICE she womanaged to create the format for the
modern novel which novelists use today 2013 with our word processors
& Print On Demand & eBooks & Legacy Publishing Houses crashing and
burning in flames all around us. (Critics in Jane's time seem to
have trounced her enthusiasm for playful exposition and excessive
dialogue, because all Jane Austen's later novels conform to the
styles of her day.)
For me, I have to become emotionally invested in a project and get
emotionally "fired-up" to actually start a novel. If my emotions
don't drive me, the project won't go anywhere.
By now I have an established MO for writing a novel. I start
brainstorming for a month or three on a rough idea for a novel; I
throw in any thoughts that might work from my personal library, and
usually do some or extensive research on specific points that might
be useful. Along the way, I am developing a DEFAULT PLOT: this is
the plot of the novel I will write if I can't think of anything
better. I am also developing a DEFAULT OPENING: a way to start the
novel, if I can't think of anything better. By thinking and working
on this, pretty much EVERY DAY for a month or so, eventually, I get
so excited that I have to start; and I jump into the first draft.
As I write the novel, I continue to work on this brainstorm file,
modifying the Default Plot as I write. My first draft "opening"
never survives as the opening of the final draft, although it might
find a home in the final draft modified later in the text. The Final
Draft Opening is the toughest writing for me: I can never get the
opening to a polished excellence that pleases me; at some point, I
just give up tinkering with it.
I know from experience that I need at least a 3.5 hour block of time
for my writing, or there is no point in even starting for that day,
as it takes me about an hour to get up-to-speed so that I am
actually writing new words. The first hour is mostly re-reading and
polishing the prior pages, while I get up to "escape velocity" where
I am so buzzed on coffee and my vision of where my novel is going
next, that I start actually typing NEW WORDS. I am not a morning
person. I work best at the end of the day, after a couple of cups of
coffee.
I do not recommend my method to anyone else. It is slow. The fastest
first draft I ever wrote for a novel was BLUES DELUXE at 9 months.
DAUGHTER MOON took me 2.5 years to complete the first draft. The
advantage to my method is that my actual finished product has
subtlety and depth. QUALITY versus quantity.
If you want QUANTITY, try doing your creative work brainstorming an
OUTLINE of 25-100 pages that can then be "translated" into first
draft prose quickly (by an assistant, if you don't have the time).
@hg47
So, how is your literary career going?
 Me: “Read
my book!”
LITERARY AGENT: [grabs book; slaps me in the face with it; throws
book in mud]
Me: “So you’ll think about reading it?”
So, how is your literary career going?
@hg47
Blurbs From Dead Writers
 Damn.
The only blurb Homer gave me for my time-travel novel DAUGHTER MOON
was: “The journey is the thing.” He wouldn’t even look at me!
One of Barbara Rogan's posts made me laugh, the way she was
humorously presenting obviously fictional blurbs for her books from
dead writers.
http://barbararogan.com/blog/?p=163
There may be a meme here. Anyway, her idea has sparked some
creativity, and I'm doing some variations on this, all tweet-sized.
All Shakespeare said about my time travel novel MOON was:
“What man art thou that thus bescreen’d in night So stumblest on my
counsel?”
“Housekeeping ain't no joke,” Louisa May Alcott said as I tried to
get a blurb from her for my time travel novel while doing her
laundry.
Well, my science fiction novel DAUGHTER MOON is about time travel;
can't I, the author, go back in time to get blurbs from dead
writers?
@hg47
⢇⢇⠇⡗⡇⡮⡆⢹⠁ ⡎⡎⡆⡮⡆⡧⡂⣟⡁⡪ ⢣⠃⢎⠆⢇⡇ ⡪ ⡯⠂⣟⡁⢎⡁⡇⡮⡆⣇⡀
 It is
possible to chase the positive feedback, produce product that
resonates, change your very thoughts, emote differently, until you
automatically please and reinforce and multiply the positive
feedback. Some would call this success.
Well, yes, if you don't mind becoming someone else. Some would call
that losing your soul.
⢇⢇⠇⡗⡇⡮⡆⢹⠁ ⡎⡎⡆⡮⡆⡧⡂⣟⡁⡪
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
⢣⠃⢎⠆⢇⡇ ⡪ ⡯⠂⣟⡁⢎⡁⡇⡮⡆⣇⡀
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
ᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠᅠ
⢹⠁⢇⢇⠇⣟⡁⣟⡁⢹⠁ ⡇⢹⠁
Bring your uniqueness to the party. That which makes you different,
is that which makes you YOU.
@hg47
The Internet
 I keep
pressing the lever. When do I get my reward?
The Internet: two and a half billion humans pushing keys to
get their reward pellet.
We're getting something out of sitting in front of
computers, tapping away for hours, but what exactly?
Obviously, we are getting "rewards" or we would not keep doing it.
Perhaps many of us are finding a sort of interactive dreamworld that
trumps IRL in narcissistic pay-off.
A few of us are actually making money at this activity of staring
into computer screens and fingering keyboards; others of us, see our
"page view numbers" increasing and our "eBook purchasing numbers"
increasing and our LIKES increasing, and we smile: my life may be
shit now, but extrapolating from the "numbers" my future is so
bright I have to wear Time Travel bracelets on my wrists and escape
into another TIME and hide inside a 5K protective Field to survive
the envy and stalkers and paparazzi and angry competitors who want
to be me.
@hg47
My Procrastinations Can Beat Up Your Procrastinations
 Quick, what
am I doing, Right Now? I am "goofing off" spewing a GoodReads blog
post that doesn't even go to my GoodReads timeline; because it is
FUN!
A stack of procrastinations, things I've done before that I
like to do, that are safe and friendly and ARE KEEPING ME TRAPPED
INSIDE A CAGE!
I talked about "being a writer" for about a year before I wrote
much. Eventually, talking about "being a writer" wasn't enough, so I
started reluctantly writing. "Talking about being a writer" was my
form of procrastination.
So, choose your procrastinations wisely. If you are clever about it,
your procrastinations will edge you, ever so slowly, into your
destiny. @hg47
Want A Bright Future?
 When they
tell you to "Get Your Life Together" what do they really mean? We
are a bundle of involuntary responses, unconscious actions, habitual
behaviors, compulsive activities, and addictive maneuvers [excuse
me, womaneuvers ] masquerading as human beings. Our
"free-will" is like the froth floating on a beer—which we habitually
and enthusiastically drink down, until there is nearly none.
Change A Habit And You Change Your Whole Future
Want a bright future? It's easy. Just replace your habits, one at a
time.
Nah, gimme another beer. @hg47
The Value Of Contrast
 I am a great
believer in the power of Contrast. If everyone else is doing it, why
are you doing it? If you must copy someone, emulate some oddball and
do it even weirder.
If everyone else is shouting and screaming and jumping up
and down in promotional mode…go slow-motion mime.
Others are "Preaching the truth?" Kidnap the truth and chain it in
your basement.
Others are knocking on doors? Climb in the window.
@hg47
Actually Doing It (Hah!)
 Knowing
what to do, and actually doing it, are not just different but an
order of magnitude of difference. A grain of sand versus a boulder.
PLAN A: Putter about, smoking & drinking & screwing my life away
while my literary career goes nowhere, dying ignominiously, to
ultimately be declared a genius. (What? Your Plan A is better?)
PLAN B: Get with the Internet Game, and actually draw some attention
to my written work. Nah, gimme a smoke, I'll have a Jack Daniel's,
and Hey, Babe!
The shortest distance between A and B is a straight forget it! Ain't
gonna get there! Without all sorts of possibly illegal and immoral
twists and turns.
♂: “The dog ate my motivation.”
♀: “You don’t have a dog.”
♂: “Had to put her down.”
♀: “For eating your motivation?”
♂: “And my ingenuity.”
For me the saying AS YE START, SO SHALL YE GO carries a lot of
weight. My personal problem seems to be with transitions, with
change-of-state. Once I actually get going on something, it's hard
for me to stop.
What I am supposed to be doing (according to my rational judgment)
is directly contacting science fiction book bloggers by eMail, after
possibly lurking around their sites for a month or two, commenting
on their posts, pretending to be interested in their message.
Nah.
"Don't Bogart that joint, Babe."
@hg47
Literary Flight Simulators
 "The Novel"
is still the "Night Carrier Landing" for TOP GUN Literary Power
Players. But for how much longer?
Short stories = flight simulators for novelists.
My theory is that the eBook format favors SHORT rather than LONG.
"The Internet" with its repetitive pervasive "Blog Posts" is a SHOUT
in the direction of Shorter; Twitter is a W.T.F. also pressuring
every coherent message in the direction of compact meme.
If Ayn Rand were starting today, circa 2013, Wednesday, March 06,
2013, (Sorry, I'm not brave enough to complete this thought
imagining a severely truncated Ayn.)
While there is no substitute for reading a thousand novels and
actually writing a few novels to comprehend the form; the short
story is a kind of miniature writing exercise that has done me more
measurable benefits than classes, degrees, conferences (admittedly,
without any of the networking and connections and promotional
opportunities).
@hg47
my GoodReads female friends
Guys reading guys reading books?
 Somehow the
GoodReads Women seem more like REAL WOMEN than Internet Ladies
Elsewhere. Yes, I am going to judge GoodReads Women by their book
cover and their avi. If she reads like a girl, reviews like a girl,
and kicks my ass like a girl, She's A GoodReads Girl!
@hg47
Artistically Efficient?
 My question
is this: "Is it possible to mate these two words together in a
sentence: artistically efficient?" Or would those two words be like
homosexual penguins in a zoo that would refuse to mate into meaning?
My inefficiency, my “goofing off” is part of my artistic
growth. If I were artistically efficient, I would be perceptually
static (& bored)
If there is ONE THING I have learned from reading multiple HOW TO
WRITE books, it is this: Every writer who rises above the background
noise to greatness has their own peculiar technique, unique method,
spastic irrational improperly-nested routine that WORKS FOR THEM.
(And would not work for anyone else.)
Yes, there are monomaniac drones who single-mindlessly promote
51-weeks-every-year their "whacked-out-in-a-week" "written product"
onto best-seller lists. This may be the future. It is not my future.
Hopefully, it is not your future.
@hg47
Run-Away Positive Feedback On The Internet
 Six words:
My Pope joke tweet was excommunicated.
So I was tweeting half a month ago, and I was reading all these Pope
joke tweets going by. Sadly, I didn't have one. After about an hour,
it was embarrassing; I couldn't even think of one. But I could think
of an excuse for why I didn't have a funny Pope joke tweet. So that
excuse was my throw-away tweet.
Right or wrong, I tend to view Twitter as a microcosm of the
Internet.
There is a "Winner Takes All" "Runaway-Positive-Effect" thing going
on on the Internet. I'm probably getting the percentages slightly
wrong—they change according to niche, and time, and other
variables—but basically, the #1 Player in a niche gloms about 85% of
the traffic, the #2 Player grabs about 10% of the traffic, Players 3
through 9 split up about 4% of the traffic, AND ALL OTHER PLAYERS IN
THAT NICHE HAVE TO SURVIVE ON THE DREGS, THE BOTTOM 1%. That's the
bad news. The good news is that you can always create and define a
new niche, and go full-tilt boogie all over it, until you are the
boss of that new niche, owning 85% of it. Also, you can go Niche
Shopping: If the niche is new and the Number One Player is coasting
along, you can MOVE IN and go Full-Tilt-Boogie on #1's ass until you
own 85% of the traffic and they are just the New Number Two busted
back to 10%
Tens of thousands of bloggers are all tracking What Is HOT Right
Now This Minute, trying to figure out and jump-start What
Will Be SUPERNOVA HOT An Hour From Now,
so they can slide in FIRST and take advantage of the Avalanche of
Page Views that will accrue to them if they guess right. Anything
that gets quickly a little bit ahead in Internet Rankings, soon gets
MONSTROUSLY AHEAD because of multiple Positive-Feedback-Loops!
In the Twitter microcosm, who will read your tweet? Who will respond
to it? First, you have your Followers. I love Twitter; it's where I
go to play and blow off steam. Never mind my personal cynical
opinion that 80% of all Twitter accounts are bots that will never
read any of your tweets and exist to spew links, you do have a few
actual persons reading your tweets, occasionally (Also, keep in
mind, that statistically, many of the "Twitter women" are actually
boys who have chosen a female persona. Who, me? Jaded?).
Anyway, if someone ReTweets you, whether a manual RT or a
Twitter-approved RT, more people will see your tweet. If someone
favorites your tweet, it gets put on a list at favstar: "Faved By
Friends" which means more people see your tweet. If your tweet
receives 10 stars quickly (I have no clue what the time limit is;
I'm just a bit-part player on favstar) it goes on the 10-star
leaderboard which gains a big bump in readership. There are 30-star
boards; 50-star boards; 100-star boards; 250star boards; there are
favstar accounts that the in-bred favstar Power Players religiously
follow that ReTweet any tweet that gets 50 stars; another account
that ReTweets any tweet that gets 100 stars; you get the idea. The
more positive feedback you get the more positive feedback you get.
What was the Biblical phrase? Them that's got shall get?
Now, my lifetime tweet average was 2 stars and 1 RT per tweet, last
I checked, but occasionally one of my tweets will kick up a fuss;
and it's usually not one of my favorite tweets.
There are multiple take-aways here. But if you haven't figured most
of them out by now, why should I spill?
@hg47
ⓉⒽⒾⓈ ⓅⓄⓈⓉ ⓄⓃⓁⓎ ⒼⓄⒺⓈ ⓊⓅ ⓉⓄ ⓃⒾⓃⒺ
 ⓉⒽⒾⓈ ⓉⓌⒺⒺⓉ ⓄⓃⓁⓎ ⒼⓄⒺⓈ ⓊⓅ ⓉⓄ ⓃⒾⓃⒺ
Am I the only one who thinks that the Internet has cranked it up to
Eleven? Well, my writing only goes up to Nine. So what's a novelist
to do?
Asking a question here. What? You have no answers for me? OK, then I
will plod on, fake it, muddle through. I will entertain the best I
can, knowing I will never be in the Shakespeare class.
Yes, I did pee on that hydrant.
Marking my territory, y'know! Spewing my uniqueness.
What makes us US ; that spark inside each
of us that somehow survived parents, authority, school, jobs, that
occasionally peeks out to make a "mistake" according to the World's
View: (hell, my errors are more REAL than anything else about me)
Cultivate THAT; Find A Voice For THAT; Make THAT Sing & Shout &
Dance! @hg47
a high-tech space-based Matriarchy without the pesky male sex
 Me?
Womaneuvering huwomanity into womanufacturing UTOPIA one
Tubes-Through-The-Glass-Ceiling tweet at a time. What’s your gig?
Idly daydreaming about terrorism in outer space one day, I got to
thinking that given the vulnerability of space habitats to
terrorism, and the fact that terrorism is statistically mostly a
"guy thing," I wondered if sexual profiling might take place out
there in the future; meaning, space colonies where the "dangerous"
male sex was restricted from high-security areas might be safer
places to live, with reduced insurance rates, which would make them
economically more viable (in competition with space colonies where
"boys will be boys.") Once women got an edge, I wondered if that
edge would snowball. Thus was born DAUGHTER MOON, a high-tech
space-based Matriarchy where the pesky male sex is extinct; and then
I threw in one lone male time traveler for dramatic interest. At
least, that will be the "approved and authorized" version, I hope.
Ignore the vicious rumors that I write like Socrates on acid.
Please. I never once used the Socratic method, not in any of the 54
chapters of DAUGHTER MOON!
A Universe where women are THE BOSS and Adam ate the Apple that
banished all good and true women from The Garden Of Eden requires a
new vocabulary. A feminized vocabulary, where the superior female
sex is exalted and where a boy has fewer legal rights than a pet
owned by a woman.
Got it covered.
@hg47
My WILL-POWER Is A Bit-Part Player In My LIFE
 Ｆｏｒ
ｍｅ, ｆｏｃｕｓ ｉｓ ｔｈｅ ｐｒｏｂｌｅｍ. Ｍｙ ｈａｂｉｔｓ, ｃｏｍｐｕｌｓｉｏｎｓ ＆ ａｄｄｉｃｔｉｏｎｓ ｄｒａｇ
ｍｅ ｔｈｒｏｕｇｈ ｌｉｆｅ. Ｍｙ ｗｉｌｌｐｏｗｅｒ ｉｓ ｏｕｔ ｏｆ ｉｔｓ ｃｌａｓｓ.
I am supposed to be checking out UTube right now, opening up an
account, figuring out the site, and uploading my music video RIGHT
NOW. Instead, I am doing a blob blog post. This is
comforting. I've done this thirty times before. I hate to do new
things. I know when I try to upload my video it will take me 2
or 3 days to get it right, and I'll be pissed off and irritated
until I figure it out.
Once I actually get started on UTube I'll plow through and finish.
At the moment, clicking on UTube is at the bottom of a stack of
procrastinations, things I've done before that I like to do, that
are safe and friendly, and ARE KEEPING ME TRAPPED INSIDE A CAGE!!!
@hg47
NEXT: The Writer's Keyword App
 Internet
writers don't use words, they use keywords.
There's probably already an app (but if there isn't there will be
soon) for professional writers to convert the text of what they
write so that "words" are automatically converted into "keywords"
with one click. Potential Synonyms of every word in an Internet
Writer's text will be evaluated according to "keyword rank" and
converted into a LOUD BLAST into Search Engine Algorithms so the
meaning of the post is raped but the page rank triumphs.
My most popular Blogspot post is two orders of magnitude
better in hits than my average post. It's just a drunken rant. But
to be fair, most of my other posts are also drunken rants. But that
particular post has top ranked keywords in the title, and is a
keyword orgy in the short text.
This is just another variation on the Internet Paradigm: winner
takes all. My average tweet on Twitter gets two stars and one RT.
But my all-time top tweet glommed over four thousand ReTweets.
Not sure if it is Integrity or Stupidity that prevents me from
"chasing the positive feedback" so that I tailor my twitter feed for
maximum RT, or rewrite my would-be literature into Search Algorithm
Heaven.
Yeah, I know. Stupidity. @hg47
GoodReads Best Social Science Fiction list
 My
novel DAUGHTER MOON is #46th on GoodReads Best Social Science
Fiction list.
http://bit.ly/W17QFb You thought I only did #TwitterArt?
I don't understand GoodReads lists yet, much less GoodReads, or even
the Internet. But this tweet has a bit of a history (in Internet
years, would 6-days old put it in the Paleozoic Era or the Mesozoic
Era?). Just a throw-away brag, this tweet was on the #TwitterArt TOP
TWEET list after about 2 hours (I know that one: the Internet
Pleistocene Epoch). At most, it had 1 RT & maybe 2-3 faves at that
obsolete outdated time. I should mention that #140art and #TwitterArt
tags are moderated: actual humans choose which tweets make the TOP
cut, and which tweets get dumped from the tag altogether.
Circa 2/10/2013 5:42 AM this tweet is still on the #TwitterArt TOP
list (the TOP list is the default, what searchers see if they search
the tag, when they are then presented with other options for
expanding or restricting their search). Now, at 7 RTs and 15 faves,
there is some justification for the tweet being on that hashtag's
TOP list. But it is sort of a self-fulfilling prophesy: Someone put
it on the list, so it got the stats to stay there because of all the
extra people who saw and read the tweet.
@hg47
And now for my hashtag P.S.
Did you know that half the ads during the Super Bowl carried Twitter
hashtags?
http://www.digiday.com/brands/brands-...
All those tags . . . the system obviously wasn't ready for it . . .
This Explains The Super Bowl Power Failure! Hashtag Overload!
Make Art that most people don’t want
 Make
Art that most people don’t want.
That’s your starting point.
Then you may discover
that some people hysterically NEED your Art.
In "Real Estate" the rule is "Location, Location, Location."
On the Internet the rule is "Niche, Niche, Niche."
10 Rabid over-the-top fans trump 1000 lukewarm Facebook Likers.
@hg47
Are You Connected?
 The
Web doesn’t separate the Exceptional from the Average, it
supercharges the CONNECTED.
Jimi Hendrix: "Are you experienced?"
@hg47: "Are you connected?"
Go read Kevin Kelly's NEW RULES FOR THE NEW ECONOMY for "10 Radical
Strategies for a Connected World." Copyright 1998 and still
State-of-the-Art in 2013, IMHO, on the issue of
CONNECTION.
http://www.amazon.com/New-Rules-Econo...
On the Internet: Quantity Of Networking Kicks Ass And Takes Names
While Quality Of Product Lies Bruised & Bleeding.
If you are a blogger, you're not writing for people anymore; you are
writing for search engines.
It's not just favstar starback buddies and
Facebook likeback buddies and
blogger linkback buddies or eBook author
reviewback buddies. It's the 90% promotion versus 10%
actually-create-art ratio that bugs me about 2013's superhero
artists. Actually, it's much worse, because today's Artist
Superheroes create art only if it is positioned as a marketing
device; if the marketing isn't built into the art, why bother?
My "internet presence" is a train wreck, an SEO's nightmare of
unsearchable and unfathomable [insert expletive with alliteration].
For
http://a47.info/ I had to dedicate a mirror site
http://hg47.blogspot.com/ just to activate the ability of
readers to make comments on my posts.
Blogspot is all about the stats. One winning strategy on the
Internet is to chase the statistics: if something you spew gets an
avalanche of hits, specialize Baby! Do a hundred different riffs on
that theme! Of course, a year later, you will be someone else, your
thoughts will be those the SEO marketplace directed you to think.
You will have adapted. The world will own you. You will be just
another tool.
Internet writers don't use words, they use keywords. Case in point.
My top Blogspot post is nearly two order of magnitudes greater in
hits than my average post. It is just a throw-away drunken-rant as I
imagined Amazon plunging into social media.
Post Title:
WHEN AMAZON ADDS THE FOLLOW FEATURE (Watch Out, Facebook!)
Post Text:
WHEN AMAZON ADDS THE FOLLOW FEATURE
Discussions. Threads. A ready database of eBook authors & readers.
Not to mention everyone who has an Amazon account & buys stuff.
What will happen when Amazon adds a “Follow” or “Friend” button to
Discussions & Threads so that the reader can find the interesting
(to that reader) writers posting to Amazon discussions, and have all
posts by that person & other interesting persons compiled together
for easy viewing?
I sense a new social network here.
And if I were Amazon I wouldn’t call it Following or Friending.
When I clicked on the link, it would say: AMAZED.
@hg47
If I analyze the words in the above post and the above title, I find
keyword heaven.
But I'm getting seriously off-topic here. While it may be possible
to "connect" with search engines in your writing, that's not the
type of connection I really mean.
[insert quotation from Mario Puzo's THE GODFATHER on Friendship]
@hg47
The Seeds of New Dreams
 Tears
from my eyes fall into the soil where my dying Dreams gasp and
expire; this moisture seeps down, activating the seeds of new
Dreams.
In a changing world Scratch That. The ancient Greeks—B.C.,
Baby—had a saying, something like, "Judge no man happy until he is
dead." This may have been a reaction to a Sophocles play, but
thousands of years later the point is still valid, even if you don't
kill your Mother by mistake and accidentally marry your Father.
I was going to do a riff on the exponential growth of technology and
change. But, hell, before Christ the Greeks were already bitching
about that high-tech sundial device, about how it was hacking their
lives into wretched little pieces, and compelling them like slaves
before their new Master: Time.
Only little dreams work the first try. Big dreams are only
actualized after multiple Death/Rebirth Cycles, which are, in my
experience, excruciatingly painful.
So cry a little.
And then try again, differently.
@hg47
GoodReads
 Facebook:
“58 Cocktails your friends will love! Please LIKE!”
Twitter:
“Just gimme the hard stuff. No ice. No glass. Now get lost!”
GoodReads:
"Books are my drugs. Reading gets me high. Books are my movies.
Reading puts me there living it out; I am the hero, I am the
heroine. Books are my news. Reading gives me news that stays news,
behind-the-scenes news that will still be news in another 500 years.
Now where did I put my reading glasses?"
@hg47
The Third Option
 Your
Choice: Distinguished Or Extinguished
Actually, there may be a third alternative: WTF?
Projecting an Eminence Front can yield measurable results.
But there is something to be said for being unable to
refusing to play the standard game. Besides, I don't think I'll ever
be able to compete by turbo-charging my prose with keywords. And
it's so cute when SEO Experts send me URGENT! eMails on how
to "fix" my website.
Contrast.
If everyone else is FULL-COLOR…go
B&W.
If everyone else is shouting and screaming and jumping up and down
in promotional mode…go
slow-motion mime.
If all your marketing is wrong…then
wear wrong like a scarf. @hg47
minimalist #TwitterArt
 In
Feb 2010 I found a hack to do minimalist #TwitterArt …Twitter just
shut down my exploit. Never date & break-up with a Twitter Admin!
Guy Vincent -
https://twitter.com/Guy_Vincent - discovered sometime early in
2010 an em-width space, that when you put a bunch of them together,
Twitter would treat as a word, meaning the group of spaces wouldn't
break. This made it possible for a tweet to be several lines high
with just a few visible characters.
Then I discovered that I could start a line with a hard-space, but
that the non-breaking space could not be copy/pasted, but had to be
entered into the composition window by the Alt-0160 code. What I
hadn't appreciated until recently was that this procedure made my
antics on Twitter difficult to reverse engineer. Anyone who
copy/pasted my tweets trying to steal them, would get non-functional
tweets, because Twitter treats the hard space when pasted as a soft
space.
Anyway, we're in a new era. Twitter's recent upgrade went to an
active composition window, that changes a lot of things, and the
hard space no longer functions (or if it does, I haven't found a way
to use it yet). I found a temporary work-around of limited value. I
don't really understand the new composition window; but I shouldn't
feel bad, different browsers don't seem to understand it too well
either; the rendering differences between Firefox & Chrome just got
a lot more varied. Call me paranoid, but I suspect Twitter will soon
shut-down my work-around. Cheers! @hg47
Links to my early #TwitterArt:
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/twit...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/mini...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/worl...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/art-...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/cate...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/in-t...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/my-t...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/obam...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/deve...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/play...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/turb...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/why-...
http://hg47.blogspot.com/2013/01/pre-...
Reevaluate The Choices You Have Made In Life
 If
you are reading this Blog Post it may be time to reevaluate the
choices you have made in life.
How To Become A Better Writer:
read 100,000,000 awesome words;
write 1,000,000 original words.
How To Succeed As A Writer:
haven’t a clue.
I can always tell when one of my tweets gets on favstar's 10-star
leaderboard because it gets a big bump in stars and ReTweets. Not
because the tweet is actually better, but because a lot of extra
people see it and react to it.
What I really want to do is write the first draft of my next novel.
What the world wants me to do is spend all my time drawing attention
to what I have already written. (When I say, "What the world wants
me to do," I mean that's where the rewards are, the fruit the world
dangles to entice me, just out of reach.)
Unfortunately, not only do I not know how to aim attention at my
writings, I hate even thinking about it. So, why are you still
reading this post? I am not any kind of role model, and I have no
answers.
@hg47
Who's the Boss?
 My
soul doesn't just grab the steering wheel of my body and stomp on
the gas.
My mind likes to think that it's the boss, but I'm not so sure.
Sometimes I feel like a backseat driver, shouting directions, while
my addictions and compulsions are fighting over the steering wheel
and my emotions are popping the breaks or accelerating pedal-to-the-Electroshock-Therapy-electric-accelerator-approved-floormat.
My Life: Should I stay seatbelted going the wrong way too fast, or
throw myself out the passenger door?
@hg47
Islam
 Want
to know about Islam? Get an autobiography of a former Muslim who
quit the religion & had members of his own family try to kill him.
Don't get me started on Islam. I get it that any religion is by
default THE GOOD and that anyone who attacks any religion is by
default BAD.
But I am suspicious of a religion that demands the death of any
member who tries to quit. I am suspicious of a religion that demands
death for anyone anywhere who criticizes the religion. I am
suspicious of a religion that legally, morally and ethically
codifies the inferiority of women such that it is impossible for a
Muslim male ever to be convicted of rape in any Islamic country.
Last I checked, Pew Research in late 2010, I think, showed that the
majority of Muslims in the world believe that the laws of whatever
country they are living in must allow for the death of any Muslim
who quits Islam. Yes, there are "moderate" Muslims; but most Muslims
are not "moderate" by infidel standards of moderation.
But I've already written too much. It is dangerous to talk or write
negatively of Islam. One might be accused of hate speech, which is
punishable in Western Countries by imprisonment. One might be
targeted for assassination.
So, I'll just give you my Reading List.
WHY I AM NOT A MUSLIM by Ibn Warraq
THE MYTH OF ISLAMIC TOLERANCE edited by Robert Spencer
CRUEL AND USUAL PUNISHMENT by Nonie Darwish
STEALTH JIHAD by Robert Spencer
ISLAM AND TERRORISM by Mark A. Gabriel, Ph.D.
THE POLITICALLY INCORRECT GUIDE™ TO ISLAM (AND THE CRUSADES) by
Robert Spencer
I have no clue what to "do" about Islam. I do not advocate any
particular agenda, except caution. The whole "Arab Spring" thing
looks more to me like "Islamic Implosion." I will shut up now.
@hg47
Break Out Of The Box
Break out of the Box
or shrivel inside the Box.
Your "box" may look like a gilded cage from the inside. But unless
your horizons are expanding, you, Yourself, the-essential-YOU is
contracting, getting smaller, dying a little every day.
@hg47
How To Avoid Jury Duty
 HOW
TO AVOID JURY DUTY.
[The Long Answer]
When I was the Superintendent for Colby Plastics, a couple of
decades ago, the Office Manager had a full page letter that got me
out of jury duty twice; essentially, it explicitly stated in detail
why my presence was essential to the function of the company, and
why I could not be spared for even one day. Complete nonsense, of
course, as I had trained the foremen and maintenance men and
operators so well that even in a worst case scenario, Colby Plastics
would be fine without me for any duration: except that my boss, the
Vice President of Manufacturing, might have to get his hands dirty
for some of the tougher jobs.
Circa year 2013, Congress 113, these types of "dirty tricks" require
actual "political pull." Yes, you can get completely out of jury
duty, if you know someone who knows someone. But I recommend that if
you have that kind of political capital that you save it for when
you really need it: arrested for drug possession or suspected of
being a serial killer. If you have the kind of influence that can
get you excused from jury duty, SAVE THAT INFLUENCE FOR WHEN
YOU REALLY NEED IT . Just eat the first day of jury duty;
get yourself kicked from days 2-x by deviant behavior.
Every year, jury selection becomes more important, and the actual
arguments during trial become less important in determining the
final verdict. For background on this point read THE RUNAWAY JURY by
John Grisham. The result of a single trial can make or break
careers, not just for the Defense and the Prosecution, but for the
Judge as well: none of them wants some weird principled hold-out
juror who might dead-lock the whole thing into a mistrial by
stubbornly sticking to a 1 to 11 vote over and over: bad for the
judge, bad for the prosecutor, bad for the defense.
Ask two weird questions, and it's like RED FLAGS & FIREWORKS
shooting up that only the Judge and the Prosecutor and Defense
Attorney can see. The Judge will immediately want you out of his
courtroom fastest. You'll probably go quickly by peremptory
challenge, but if not, the Judge will bend over backwards to allow
either side to bump you for cause.
@hg47
It's A "North Of The Equator Thing"
 Disclaimer: I
am a RINO. I'm a moderate Republican living in California who voted
for Obama twice.
Recently I read an analysis of the Republican Party that placed the
majority of its membership in the Southern states. The South. Closer
to the equator.
Then it struck me: It is about where you live, not about your
politics or your religious beliefs. Republicans aren't gun-carrying
Christian fanatics out to shoot holes in the globe if it threatens
to warm. No. Republicans are mostly the gals and guys in the South.
"Hey, in the winter it's always cool, in the summer it's always Damn
Hot, excuse my German. Global Warming? I don't see it."
In Canada everyone believes in Global Warming
except the 2% of people there in mental institutions or on
Twitter.
Close to the equator people don't see the effects of Global Warming.
But in Canada people who have lived in the same place for forty
years know that the lake they used to ice-skate on every winter
rarely even freezes over anymore. They used to need 6-layers of
clothing to walk next door in the winter; now they sprint over in
their long-johns (What? long-johns aren't appropriate attire for a
coffee-klatch? Are you a Democrat???)
If you don't get my point by now, you never will: toward the poles
there are changes happening that are obviously permanent and scary.
We are talking: Common Sense.
By the way, I got those percentage stats for the picture/tweet from
Harper's magazine.
SOURCES -
Canada: IPAC-CO2 Research (Regina, Sask.)
America: Yale Project on Climate Change Communication (New Haven,
Conn.)
RINOs & "real" Republicans: Pew Research Center
(Washington)
@hg47
Not Asking For Directions - Just Need A Second Opinion
♂: “Asking directions for a friend. If he was to go from here to
Main and 42nd Street, how should he go?”
♀: “You are so busted.”
@hg47
Can't Succeed? Fail UP!
 Try
to fail in an upward direction.
I have no "New Year's Resolutions." But I am putting together a
bunch of promotional experiments to run. Most or all of them won't
"work."
When I try to promote my written work, I feel like I'm the Village
Idiot: "Read my book, please?" Whoever I say that to grabs my book
out of my hand and slaps me in the face with it, then throws my book
into the mud.
But, if I'm climbing a hill, or climbing stairs, and I fall down,
I'm failing up, aren't I?
This is actually my favorite sort of tweet.
Minimalist.
Lots of space. The #TwitterArt reinforces the actual message. Best
of all, for my ego, I'm doing tricks that no one else even knows
how to do on Twitter! And, yes, I prefer the clean look of a
tweet without hashtag.
Actually, there are at least 5 #TwitterArt (ists) who know how I am
doing these sorts of "special effects." Two artists, I explicitly
confessed to via DM. Two long-time #140art heavy-hitters know me
well enough to have sussed me out: my guess is they leave me alone
because of respect, or fear, or their own personal integrity.
What? People can't have integrity? By the time you read this, it
will be 2013: I proclaim this the year of integrity!
@hg47
Television Studios: "Dear DVD, Just Die Already!"
 TV studios
are starting to pull back on DVD picture quality to kill the format
and make Blu-Ray look better than it is by comparison. I don't have
a television, but I watch DVDs and TV-on-DVD on my computer. My best
friend has gone Blu-Ray, but he is into movies not TV on Blu-Ray, so
I have not yet done A-B comparisons. But the picture quality on some
of my favorite shows is on the down.
Another example: THE GOOD WIFE Season One picture quality on DVD is
pretty good; starting with Season Two, there is a digital blur that
is added to the DVD video that pisses me off.
If you want to watch CSI Miami, season 10, or NCIS, season 9, I
recommend you avoid the DVD versions and upgrade to Blu-Ray now as
the TV studios obviously want. The picture quality of TV on DVD is
on a downward slide for many series. The TV studios are deliberately
shipping DVD discs with inferior video to kill the format and to
make Blu-Ray look better than it is. With NCIS-9 and CSI-Miami-10,
the DVDs are so blurry I can't watch them. I CAN'T SEE WHAT IS
HAPPENING! I own most, possibly all seasons of CSI Miami and NCIS on
DVD; the early seasons are fine, CSI Miami 10 is a visual mess,
NCIS-9 is a mess.
SEA HUNT Season One on DVD ©1958 *underwater* has sharper picture
quality than CSI MIAMI Season Ten DVDs. I'm not joking: if you don't
believe me, check it for yourself! CBS wants us on Blu-Ray.
I have yet up upgrade my viewing to Blu-Ray; but there may also be
another factor at play. Remember first generation STAR TREK, where
the close-up shots of the sexy female guest star would be shot
through a lens that made her look sexier by blur? David Caruso would
look like a wrinkled grandfather if Blu-Ray did a high-resolution
close-up on his face; and Emily Procter is also getting up there in
years. I suspect a state-of-the-art optical lens during shooting
supplies just the right blur for the Blu-Ray discs to obscure the
age of the stars, knocking the actual viewing experience back down
into the DVD realm; but the studio can't ship the exact same viewing
experience on both DVD and Blu-Ray discs, so the studio adds an
additional digital blur to the DVD discs.
Can you say, time for a Class Action Suit?
@hg47
Good Intentions Versus Good Addictions
 My soul
doesn't just grab the steering wheel of my body and stomp on the
gas.
I do believe in Free Will. Even if Determinism should one day be
scientifically proven by quantum theory, we will still have to
pretend that we have Free Will to function. So the whole Free Will
Versus Determinism debate is dead to me. I don't care, because I
have to act as though I have Free Will anyway.
But I have whims that over time become habits. Some of my habits
seem to lock me into a cage of inevitability.
Repetitive pleasures take on the nature of addictions. Unconscious
compulsions push me, lead me, bully me.
IMHO whatever Free Will I have is best employed in seducing my
habits, misleading my compulsions, and kicking my addictions in the
ass. @hg47
Bumper Sticker
 First
Lady Bill in 2016!
I have no clue if Hillary will run in 2016, but if she does I can't
imagine her losing.
IMHO that should be the Democratic bumper sticker. Why? First,
because it would piss off Republicans. Hell, they might put that
bumper sticker on their own cars, thinking they are making fun of
Dems, just giving Hillary added push.
The Far Right is already in a Rage about a half-Negro
in the White House. The idea of a First Gentleman in the
White House would throw them into a Hissy Fit.
@hg47
The Best Lie
 Telling
the best LIE to Ourselves may be the Paramount Strategy in dealing
with the Lies Of Others.
The following is just one example.
I don't know about other writers, but before I can emotionally
commit to writing a novel, and actually devote a year or three years
of most of my spare time, I have to actually believe that what I am
creating is going to be AWESOME+
Don't get me wrong, writing the first draft of a novel is the most
fun I can have with or without my clothes on, but it is the
antithesis of easy. To keep me at it requires every wily seductive
device I can bring to bear.
The Islamic suicide bomber has his vision of Paradise to press him
forward against Israel; I have my somewhat different vision of
Paradise to press me forward and sit me down at the computer
everyday, to keep me returning to my difficult task.
@hg47
Free of Big Government!
 THE TWEET:
1) Texas secedes from the U.S. 2) Mexico attacks, retakes
Texas. 3) Texas screams: “We want back!” 4) Obama: “Not! You voted
against me!”
THE TAKE-AWAY:
The idea of one of the States seceding from the United States is
difficult for me to take seriously. I think we’re stuck with each
other till the bitter end. I can imagine no peaceful scenario of
secession. Even if massive public unrest caused ten, twenty, or
thirty States to attempt to secede from the USA, the Feds would
fight to keep us all together. There would be actual civil war: War
Between The States 2.0 – and don’t forget, even if some paramilitary
State units stole Nuclear weapons from military bases inside their
States, the codes are Federal, worthless without Federal activation
numbers.
My personal political bias is as a moderate republican who voted for
Obama. I think RINO is the technical term.
The Whole Is Greater Than The Sum Of The Parts; and I don’t think
the secessionists fully appreciate that. FDA, FDIC, FBI, Social
Security; and a hundred other Federal agencies that impact our lives
regularly, that we depend upon, that we don’t really notice until
they are no longer there.
Suppose Texas seceded peacefully from the USA. Suppose the Feds
allowed it to happen. The Military packs up and leaves. The FBI
packs up and leaves. FDA? Not! Eat whatever you please. FDIC? Not!
Who knows if your money will be in the bank when you try to get it
out. Social Security? Hah! The joke’s on you! EPA? Breathe all the
coal dust and plutonium particles you like! OSHA? You will lift and
carry these 92-pound boxes all day, every day, or you’re fired! Oh,
and, Texas, that whole border defense with Mexico is Federal, and
now it’s undefended, abandoned, shut down.
But Mexicans don’t want to sneak into Texas, because Texas is no
longer the Promised Land of Opportunity in the United States, Texas
is just another crappy piece of dirt—but, WAIT! Texas used to be
ours! Texas used to be part of Mexico! Hell, the United States
doesn’t want Texas, LET’S GRAB IT BACK. Viva la Mexico! [Remember
the Alamo! (with a twist)]
Mexico versus the new country of Texas with no nukes, no Federal
troops, just State cops and NRA wingnuts; sorry, it would be NO
CONTEST. Texas, you don’t really think Canada will come to your
rescue, do you?? It ain’t gonna be the USA who saves your ass: You
Voted Against Obama! Loser!
(Hey, my musings on the issue of secession are no sillier than the
goofballs who actually imagine that secession is possible, and that
finally they will be free of BIG GOVERNMENT! Oh, please.)
@hg47
Cliff-Diving
Cliff-diving at the Car Lot. Obama: “I’ll offer you $2000
for that new Ford in the window.” GOP: “I’m flabbergasted! It’s
$43,619,808.05!”
No, I am not worried about the fiscal cliff. I'm more worried about
the trend in American politics where Republicans and Democrats have
fewer and fewer incentives to compromise on anything. Ever. Congress
has become Nongress. Without compromise, without meeting "the enemy"
part way near the middle, U.S. government stalls: Republican NOs
kill any Democratic bill; Democratic Nos kill any Republican bill.
My areas of expertise are Plastics Extrusion and Writing Novels, in
that order. But this blog post is no sillier than a professional
tennis player expounding on global warming or a Hollywood actress
pleading for an end to starving children in Africa.
President Obama & House Speaker Boehner have each proposed starting
points that absolutely NEVER would pass through the Senate and the
House of Representatives. All I see are "talking points" and
"political maneuvering" (or "political womaneuvering" in my SF
novel) and sound-bites. This whole fiscal cliff is just another can
that was kicked down the road, because a year ago an agreement could
not be reached. It wouldn't surprise me if Nongress finds another
way to kick it down the road another year. I'm already reading
analysis that Congress—excuse me, Nongress—can retroactively use tax
credits and other tools to mitigate during 2013 whatever disaster
most people are imagining. You and I won't fall off a cliff and die,
we will just both slip down a few yards, getting our skirts and
suits all muddy. Don't worry: Nongress will pay for your Dry
Cleaning!
It also worries me that in Washington who gets the credit for it is
about ten times more important than the essential facts of whatever
"it" is. Case in point is ObamaCare. Now, both the Republicans and
the Democrats have been trying to get some kind of "mostly
universal" Federal Health Care Plan up and running for decades. The
first President Bush proposed a Health Care plan very similar to the
current iteration of ObamaCare, but the Democrats killed it. "We'll
do it right!" Can you say, "First Lady Clinton Boo-Boo?" Many
conservatives trash-talk President Barack Obama, but it is clear
that he prefers compromise, that he isn't out to kick ass and take
names, but that he genuinely wants to achieve a consensus, "where we
all get along" so that government actually governs.
What a pipe dream!
Right now, fresh from re-election victory, he's trying to play
hard-ball, but I bet he blows it. The GOP has been perfecting their
"NO! Ain't Gonna Happen! We Won't Give An Inch!" game for 4 years.
The surviving parts of ObamaCare (circa December 8, 2012; 9:40pm)
are essentially conservative ideas initially proposed by the GOP
think tank Heritage Foundation. Barack Obama didn't propose a
radical left wing health care plan; essentially, he took the Right's
ideas. Probably he thought that he could get support from across the
aisle for this puppy. WRONG! He only got half-hearted support from
Democrats who wanted a more Big Government Makes All The Decisions
Plan; and ALL Republicans conformed to vote "NO, No, Hell no, and
the horse you rode in on!" Remember that guy who just ran for
President? Mitt something? Mitt Romney! You can bitch about the
details, but ObamaCare is basically just RomneyCare gone Federal.
President Obama went with "free market principles" and "business
competition" for his plan.
It always amused me to see, what's that guy's name again, right,
Romney, trash-talking ObamaCare because his name wasn't on it. Now
that the Tea Party is pulling all Republican's over to the ultra
RIGHT, the GOP (Gold Over People?) can almost claim with a straight
face that ObamaCare is not their own free market health plan ideas,
but some radical socialist agenda that will kill jobs and . . .
Oh, please. @hg47
Target the "Wrong" People
 THE TWEET:
This Tweet is using all the right words, but sending all the
Wrong Signals. That’s OK: There must be a few “Wrong” people out
there.
THE TAKEAWAY:
I have up-loaded a good portion of my best writing to AMAZON and
SMASHWORDS, but it mostly just sits there. I have no clue how to
draw attention to it, no clue how to promote it. Everything I try is
the wrong thing.
I don't "get" the whole eBook thing. On my Dark Days it just looks
like the Slushpile went online.
I'm actually hoping that I don't find a way to make a living at
eBooks, because I'm pretty sure it would involve spending 12-14 hour
days doing all the things I hate.
What I really want to do is write the first draft to a new novel.
Historically, my MO has been:
1) write a novel
2) try to sell novel
3) give up
[REPEAT]
Hey, maybe I will win the boobie-prize: success after I am dead.
@hg47
P.S. - Oh, yeah, about "Wrong" People, sorry, I got distracted. The
"Right" People are going to be too busy for you, or you're going to
need an introduction by a Power Player or a Mafia Don…or you may as
well just go on doing your own thing (which is "wrong"), pissing
people off right and left, hoping that you accidentally stumble into
an insider who "gets" you.
Talking Myself Into It
 I had
to talk about being a writer for a couple of years before I did much
writing.
When I moved into my current apartment, I went through all my
writing papers. Boxes and boxes of papers I've saved through the
years. These were the survivors.
Most of my early writing, I destroyed. I didn't want to have it
lurking around to embarrass me someday. Hey, Plato was a poet before
he switched to writing the dialogues involving his version of
Socrates, which made him famous: he destroyed all his poetry. I'm
not the only one!
I pulled out stacks and stacks of stuff that I thought might have
some use to me now. Old poetry that I thought might occasionally be
used as tweets. Hip Files: collections of amped-up language that I
used to use occasionally to turbo-charge my prose. But I
particularly wanted to get my three SAM DUKE novels out for a fresh
look. I've always wanted my own Travis McGee, or my own Spenser, or
my own Philip Marlowe.
My SAM DUKE novels were worthless, as is; they got better each time
I wrote another one, but even the third one was nothing I wanted to
now share with the world. I had a fresh idea for a way to take SAM
DUKE to a whole new level for the fourth novel, that I thought I
might kick out into the world as the "First."
Problem was, when I finished going through all the boxes of papers,
I didn't have the second SAM DUKE novel. It was missing. WTF!
I rarely get angry. When I do get angry, I cool down quick, usually
within a minute. For about an hour I was in a rage, tearing through
boxes that didn't even have paper in them, going through boxes I had
already gone through. I was actually glad that I was alone, because
I couldn't trust myself to deal with other people in my then state
of mind. Not only was the second SAM DUKE novel missing, but all the
supporting papers were gone too; and there were not multiple drafts.
I might have discarded early draft prints, but never the final
version of the novel, never the brainstorming files that I use to
write the novel; it's sort of an evolving default plot and
compilation of all sorts of things that I might be able to throw
into the actual writing.
When the going gets tough, writers get drunk.
After I had calmed down, I tried to think: I realized that I
couldn't even recall what the second SAM DUKE novel was about. The
basics of SAM DUKE 1 and SAM DUKE 3 were easy to remember. SAM DUKE
2? My mind was blank.
Then a sneaky suspicion crept into my mind. I remembered that
initially SAM DUKE 3 had been written in 1st Person, but that near
the end I had changed my mind and rewritten the whole thing into 3rd
Person. Could it be that I had been counting the 1st Person and the
3rd Person versions as different SAM DUKE novels to inflate my
numbers when I talked about my writing to agents and editors and
friends?
Right now, I think that's what happened: I told a lie to myself and
everyone, and over the years came to believe that lie; so that when
I was faced with "proof" I refused to believe that proof. But I'm
not absolutely sure.
Pink Floyd has a song: "Careful with that axe, Eugene." My version
goes like this: "Careful with that lie, Eugene."
@hg47
Why Do I Trust You?
 Why
do I trust you? You told me the harsh truth when an easy lie would
have fooled me. You kept that difficult promise you could have
broken
It's the things we do, when we don't have to do them, that
ultimately count the most, that define Who We Are, that Make Other
People Love Us.
Eric Hoffer wrote that if you want to judge the intelligence of an
American worker that you do it not by listening to her or his words,
but by working with her or him. I concur. He wrote it better.
At work, there are guys who call me Sir, that I don't want anywhere
near me when I'm doing something "Mission Critical." Other guys,
that I've seen "in action" who may not even know my name, are the
ones I choose to help me.
Why?
Because in moments when they didn't have to do anything, they moved
in to help; because they flat out told me I was doing something the
Wrong Way, and then suggested a better way.
I may not always recognize the "better way" the moment someone
insults me by TELLING ME I AM WRONG!!!
But I usually calm down. Within a minute or two. Or a day or two.
Or a week.
@hg47
I Tell The Truth (If Only)
 I
tell the Truth. No impact. So I tell a lie that makes People trip
over the Truth & then pick themselves up & look down at the Truth.
Occasionally I have to do that to myself.
My relationship with the Truth is awkward, and I'm probably going to
make a mess of this post.
When I use the word "Truth" I mean something like the underlying
cause and effect driving the surface appearance of events.
Sometimes I think the Internet has nothing to do with transmitting
Truth, but is more about inoculating people against the harmful
effects of the Truth. Until we only click on links that appeal to
our own personal bias. Until we only join groups that appeal to our
own personal bias. Until we [insert ten to ten thousand other
examples separating the US from the THEM].
The Internet: many tiny islands of shared interests and beliefs that
occasionally grow to become continents of isolation.
Any communication involving two or more people is SOCIAL. The social
strategy of hiding the truth, and instead using rhetoric to push the
"Hot Buttons" of those receiving the information (or disinformation)
to provoke desired emotional reactions can have huge pay-offs.
Bluntly voicing a perceived "truth" often achieves less than
nothing: it can turn potential friends into lifelong enemies; it can
fall flat, achieving only an awkward pause.
Artists with their multiple points-of-view that give them additional
perspective on their subjects; Neurotics unable to constructively
utilize their disruptive multiple points-of-view; Psychotics with
actual multiple personalities; so-called Normal People who try not
to listen to the crazy thoughts that spring up unasked in their
internal dialogue: Telling the best lie to ourselves may appear the
best strategy.
Communicating the Truth isn't about prettying-it-up for your target
audience but about flying under the radar, bypassing the spam
filters, tricking the internal censor that lives inside of each of
us.
@hg47
Spin
 Sometimes all
I see is spin. The original raw "message" gets so cropped and
air-brushed and re-framed and prefaced that it gets devalued in my
mind.
Take for example, Fox News. I don't particularly object to a RIGHT
slant on news, but Fox is so blatant about it, that I no longer
believe anything they write or say. The moment I see the Fox logo, I
close the tab.
Pick your issue, and there are Image Consultants to reposition
whichever side you want to land down on, so that polling numbers are
on your side or religious groups will back you or it is obvious to
ANYONE that only serial killers and rapists would disagree with you.
@hg47
Nine Lines High
Sometimes I just like tweeting a pattern that displays 9-lines high
that has embedded functional hashtags.
On Twitter WTF usually trumps KISS.
The whole #TwitterArt thing is slightly silly, like those guys who
create art so small it will fit on the head of a pin. So what?
@hg47
The Clouds Of My Mind
 Ａ ｄｅｃｉｓｉｖｅ
ｄｅｆｅａｔ ｗｉｌｌ ｑｕａｓｈ ａｌｌ ｔｈｅ ｓｉｌｌｙ ａｓｐｉｒａｔｉｏｎｓ ｆｒｏｍ ｔｈｅ ｃｌｏｕｄｓ ｏｆ ｍｙ
ｍｉｎｄ, ａｎｄ ｇｒｏｕｎｄ ｍｙ ｆｕｔｕｒｅ ｉｎ ｔｈｅ ｐｒｏｓａｉｃ.
Am I the only eBook author who thinks that somehow, just maybe, I
might be able to make a living at this Electronic Book thing? Don't
think so.
I am one among more than 50,000 authors officially granted Author
Accounts on GoodReads. I wonder how many of my GoodReads Peers are
making a living at this? My silly aspirations are leading me to
compromise my career in Plastics Extrusion, study and engage in
disgusting behaviors like Networking, Marketing, Promotion, when all
I really want to do is start writing a new novel and completely lose
myself in a new First Draft.
Hey, a New Novel's First Draft is my drug of choice.
What is really scary is: What if I find a way to win at eBooks, but
it takes almost all of my time doing all the things I hate to do,
leaving me no time for the things I enjoy? First Draft, Baby!
@hg47
Going Too Far
Going too far is my signature move.
Like spending 2.5 years writing the first draft to a high-tech
science fiction novel about women in space in a future where the
male sex is extinct.
Like sending out emails to 100 science fiction authors trying to
make contact; crashing and burning in 95 of the encounters. Tried a
bunch of different approaches. One reaction dropped me into a flame
war.
http://www.velcro-city.co.uk/an-open-...
In 2009 I started vertically aligning some of my tweets. Going Too
Far Squared.
Writing novels has never paid any bills. I do it because I can't not
do it. I see an eBook "revolution" happening, but I have no clue how
to take advantage of it. I pay the bills by working in Plastics
Extrusion; I'm in Profile Extrusion now. When the parts are good, I
am very timid about making adjustments. But the moment a part can no
longer be saved, I go into TOO FAR mode; I'll make 3 or 5 drastic
changes to the line at once. I almost always find a quick fix back
to good parts; but often I have no clue which of my adjustments
dealt with the problem.
With respect to eBooks, I see the Author database expanding and the
Reader database contracting. I applaud GoodReads, for providing a
place for readers to gather together. This is my first GoodReads
blog post. I'm probably already going too far.
Cheers!
@hg47
c40.jpg)
|
In Outer Space "Mankind" will become "Womankind"
DAUGHTER MOON - Science Fiction by @hg47
One male time traveler into a WOMEN ONLY high-tech future
solar-system where the male sex is extinct. Can you work with that?
Check the free sample!
01
Place:
DAUGHTER MOON - DateLine: 4196 A.K.
The bed woke
Kali up with a soft caress, dressed her in her favorite comfy robe,
and gently deposited her, standing vertically, in one-sixth gravity.
“I’m awake,”
Kali snapped. The bed stopped holding her steady. “But why am I
awake forty-six minutes early?”
“WARNING, you
are about to be teleported into the Queen’s Palace.”
Kali moved her
hands out to her normal working position. Through gesture
recognition, nanotechnology, and teleportation, the Churn computer
placed her floating left-handed keyboard under her left hand,
positioned her right-handed 5-joystick finger-controller under her
right hand, and displayed her default Systems Controller status
information via shielded 3D holographic monitor. Kali’s eye-laser
mouse was always active.
She quickly
wrote a one-shot addendum to Churn’s software, which would initially
deny teleportation for Kali’s #ID due to life-threatening
extenuating circumstances, and then reset the search.
A soft chime
sounded. The door to Kali’s personal dwelling dilated, and a somber
Leslie Ann entered.
“Peaceful
morn——” Leslie Ann started to say, but Kali cut her off and put her
to work.
“Leslie Ann.
Psyche is with the Lunar City detectives investigating . . .
something. I haven’t broken the classification code yet. Warn
Psyche’s coach that Psyche is about to be teleported into the
Queen’s Palace.”
“The Queen’s
Palace!” Leslie Ann said, invigorated. “Oh, won’t Psyche love
that? I’m so happy for her.”
“You have
permission to be happy for yourself as well, because you and I are
also invited to the Palace.” Kali tried to keep a straight face.
Leslie Ann was not a search/teleport target.
“What? No.”
“Absolutely.
You’re invited too. Think you can find something for us to wear?
Oh, you look fine, but I definitely need something. And my hair is
a wreck! Think you can wash and set it for me, please? Don’t just
stand there, girl, you’ve got about one minute to get us both ready
to face the Queen.”
“Yes,
Mistress!” Leslie Ann said, with a sharp mock salute, before she
sprang into action.
In this
instance, there had been No Official Advance Notice. Only Kali’s
devious programming tricks had saved her from preemptive
teleportation.
It was
probably Gail Sudie, the Queen’s own Personal Systems Controller,
who had somehow designed a way to teleport people by surprise,
without their advance notice. How embarrassing for Psyche. (“And
this, Your Highness, the girl in the frowzy bathrobe and ratty
slippers, is my SysCo.”)
Kali opened
her mind to the Direct Interface news. Nothing seemed pertinent,
just a lot of religious ceremonies and events related to the
upcoming Kronos Appearance. So Kali tapped into the Royal Security
and Classified Military transmissions.
As Kali
waited, wondering if her code-breaking algorithms would succeed in
time, she could feel her hair being washed——probably by Leslie Ann’s
coach——and see, out of the corner of her right eye, Leslie Ann
parading & posing in front of an active-mirror display which had
suddenly appeared. It was showing 360-degree views of Leslie Ann’s
photosphere-bright yellow dwarf-star miniskirt outfit complete with
clusters of black sunspots in eleven-second cycle, her blonde hair
done up in a solar prominence.
However,
Leslie didn’t like that dress. In a flash it was gone like a
supernova.
Kali’s Churn
Agent Interface was urgently trying to get her attention. To Hell
with that, Kali only had seconds, so she abandoned all but one of
her queries into the military database.
Leslie Ann was
now agonizing over a full-length Flame gown that actually appeared
to be burning fire covering her lush body: cool blue flames hugging
her neck, red-hot flames usually covering her breasts, fluttering
orange and yellow fire hips, all down along her white-hot legs to
her Bunsen burner tipped high-heel shoes.
TOP SECRET:
Ninety-eight Registered Telepaths in Lunar City suddenly dead of
unknown causes.
That’s what
Psyche must be investigating!
Kali turned
away from her holographic monitor in complete confusion. As she did
so, her work tools all vanished.
Leslie Ann was
now modeling a conservative thunderstorm gray business suit/dress
with lightning flashes streaking down her legs, and 1G rain
splashing her silvery galoshes.
Kali held out
her arms to Leslie Ann. “Give us a hug.”
Leslie Ann was
voluptuous compared to Kali, who was thin and had caramel skin.
“What do you
think?” Leslie Ann asked, gliding over.
“It’s
wonderful!”
“Oh, you.”
Leslie pushed her, playfully. “Do you like your dress?”
“It’s
perfect!” Kali drew the other girl into her arms, and they hugged.
“Silly. You
have to look at it to answer that question.”
Leslie Ann
automatically started to draw away from the hug, but Kali was
holding her exceptionally tight, with both arms wrapped around her,
so that when the Universe slid sideways to teleport Kali, both girls
curved instantly into the Queen’s Palace.
02
While a stunt
like preemptive teleportation could never repress the irrepressible
Kali, the assemblage within the Queen’s Council Chambers awaiting
her arrival accomplished exactly that.
There was, of
course, Her Most Royal and Imperial Highness and Majesty, Ishtar
XVI, by Grace of Goddess, Queen of the Empire of Women, leaning
forward upon her levitating throne of gold and jewels, frowning down
at Kali.
Ishtar’s loyal
SysCo, Gail Sudie, was standing beside her Queen on the resplendent
dais, furiously angry with Kali.
Five Star
Astronaut-General Sheela, Supreme Allied Military Commander of the
Solar System (except Earth), with her Flag Lieutenant aide-de-camp,
were both in privately screened holographic communication with
outside sources, and seemed not to particularly notice Kali’s
arrival . . . but General Sheela’s presence was a signal to Kali
that Something Big was in the works.
In addition,
there stood Medusa, the Moonie High Priestess, near the far edge of
the dais, instead of upon it, glowering in her hooded crimson robe
at Kali. Delete “Big” and insert “GIGANTIC.”
Psyche was
there, as Churn’s highest ranking Systems Administrator should be,
but the old girl looked a bit out of her depth among these
heavy-weight “power planets”; like tiny Mercury trying to be noticed
by Jupiter, Saturn & Neptune.
Among these
“heavenly bodies” Kali felt like a dirty little snowball (a comet).
Everyone was
standing except the Queen, and only Gail Sudie was allowed upon the
dais.
Kali released
Leslie Ann, who whispered very quietly, almost without moving her
lips, “You naughty girl,” and then pirouetted into a cute little
curtsy for the Queen.
Kali gave an
abbreviated bow.
Gail Sudie
spat out a fervent: “TWitch!”
Possibly in
response, Leslie Ann’s dress CRASHED with the sound & light flash of
sharp close lightning and a distant rumble of thunder.
“Your
Highness,” Psyche said, “this is my SysCo, Kali; and our SysAs,
Leslie Ann.”
“Get rid of
Miss Cloudburst,” the Queen told Psyche.
Before Kali
could object, she heard, from behind her,
“Countermand.”
The Queen
looked as if she had been slapped. Indeed, everyone in the room
took special note.
Kali turned to
see a very old Professional Antagonist behind her, wearing the
traditional off-white soft peasant cloth of matching palazzo pants
and simple over-blouse tied with a black cloth belt. She was
entirely unassuming . . . and potentially the most dangerous person
here. Leslie Ann would stay.
At that
moment, Kali realized the full enormity of this encounter. The
Queen’s Council Chamber was white and austere, emphasizing space,
and in violent contrast to the remainder of the Palace, which, with
its database of 65,536 rooms and a memory of 256 rooms (simultaneous
maximum), was a monorail wreck of wealth. (Kali had written some of
the programming for the connecting architecture, and so was familiar
with the visuals of ostentatious interior decoration.)
The Council
Members, however, were not present: the entire representative
government of the Solar System was out of-the-loop on this one!
Kali watched
the Queen. The Queen’s right hand held a shining scepter of
precious stones set in rare metal, and she wore an awesome
illuminated crown, which extended a full meter above her head. In
her left hand, resting in the lap of her Royal raiment, Queen Ishtar
held a bejeweled ball. Her Aristocratic skin, black as night,
gleamed with fragrant oils.
The High
Priestess stamped her foot in anger. “The Daughters demand the
Magic Flight Return to Mother Earth!” She had been glowering at
Kali, but then she turned to the Queen. “Kronos will not be
denied!”
Queen Ishtar
responded formally, “What cannot be denied must be. I do not deny
Kronos this.”
High Priestess
Medusa nearly shouted, “Kronos will not be delayed!”
Again, the
Queen responded formally, “What cannot be delayed must begin. I do
not delay Kronos this.”
“Very well,”
Medusa sneered sarcastically. “You do not deny. You do not delay.
What does not delay, must guide, else lose all light from Mother
Earth. Reveal your guidance.”
“As it should
be,” the Queen intoned, “so shall it be.” Then, in a very different
voice, almost flippant, “General. Please explain our plan.”
General Sheela
terminated her outside communication.
Sheela was a
large woman, in every dimension. She was like a big She-bear. Her
eyes were hard and her voice carried the authority of life and death
decisions. “I speak from the military viewpoint. I believe, as we
all do, that Kronos shall one day stabilize in existence, defeat the
evil eNet, and return us to Mother Earth. However, I do not just
accept this on faith. I view things from the technical angle. I
think in terms of strategy and tactics, capabilities and weaknesses,
weapons of attack and means of defense. If I seem to speak
blasphemy, please allow me to complete my statements, and fully
explain them from a technical basis. I believe you will find that I
am a loyal and useful Moonie.
“ENet
possesses a defensive 5K Field which is far more stable than ours.
For military reasons, the stability of the 5K Field is decisive in
most conflicts, and usually outweighs all other factors. Moon’s
Churn cannot compete on even terms with Earth’s eNet; Churn has
long-range strategic superiority, which can occasionally be used to
great advantage, but in any immediate tactical encounter, eNet is
superior. ENet is twice as fast as Churn in processing speed, which
gives them better Field control.”
This statement
created gasps of disbelief within the Chambers, but Kali had been
unable to stop herself from laughing outright.
“Excuse me,
General,” Kali said, feeling Leslie Ann’s hand softly touching her
shoulder. With difficulty, she said no more. ENet was 1,100 times
faster than Churn in direct computation speed, although it was true
that eNet was only about 17 times faster in effective computing
speed.
The General
blinked several times and looked from Leslie Ann to Kali before
continuing. “As I was saying . . . We control space, we have the
high ground, because all of eNet’s assets must first fight their way
out of Earth’s 1G gravity well. Upon the planet Earth, our isolated
military platforms are quickly defeated because we are unable to
maintain the stability of our defensive 5K Fields.
“The Queen
proposes that we obtain a superior 5K Field; specifically, the Field
that Kronos uses to protect herself. We know that Time Travel is
possible, because Kronos, herself, is doing it. We do not know how
she is doing it. The traditional Moonie view is that she is a
Goddess . . . and this is explanation enough. ENet has attempted to
destroy her protective 5K Field at each of her recent appearances,
without any success. We have monitored their attacks and determined
that each would have been more than sufficient to unbalance and
destroy one of our Fields. We do not know how she is controlling
her 5K Field with such precision.
“I know that
the religious meaning of the appearances of Kronos is to give us
hope, proof that salvation is soon at hand. Scientifically, her
appearances can be analyzed thusly . . . The angle of incidence
between her time wavefront and the surface of our time is too great,
creating angle modulation of the interfering time wavefronts. These
phase modulated timewaves are usually out of phase with our reality,
and her . . .”
Kali could
discern that the General was parroting a scientific explanation
given her second-by-second from her coach. Sheela understood
nothing of what she was saying. Why doesn’t she just say, ‘Like a
flat spinning stone skipping along the surface of a Nature Pond?’
Some of us might understand that.
That was the
problem with coaches. Kali knew that much of her own personal
success was indirectly due to the success of Psyche, her
work-family’s leader, who had pounded to the top through aggressive
determination and by religiously following the politically perfect
advice of her coach. The coach was perfect, the advice was
invariably dead-on, the suggested actions always achieved optimum
results, and the warnings always avoided real danger.
Kali, while
still in her teens, had disabled her own coach nine years ago.
Whose life is this anyway? My mistakes are the essential me!
Kali looked at
the Queen, who seemed bored, listening to the General drone on.
Kali couldn’t understand what all this talk of 5K Fields and Kronos
and timefield refraction had to do with the murder of Lunar City’s
entire community of telepaths.
General Sheela
was saying, “Systems Administrator Psyche has developed the
technology to stabilize the next appearance of Kronos, to tilt her
angle of refraction to perpendicular, and pull her permanently into
our timeframe. Regardless of the religious ramifications, from a
purely technical viewpoint, once we possess her superior 5K Field
and duplicate it, we can easily defeat eNet once and for all and
reclaim the planet Earth for all women——”
Kali could
restrain herself no longer. She interrupted, “But what about the
murdered telepaths?!” There was Leslie Ann’s warning touch on her
shoulder again.
“What murdered
telepaths?” Queen Ishtar asked a moment later.
“Heaven help
us,” Kali said.
“Did someone
die?” the Queen asked.
Kali noticed
Psyche’s hand signal to SHUT UP, so Kali silently indicated with an
arm motion that Psyche would answer.
Psyche said,
“Your Highness, my Systems Controller is suffering from temporary
dissociative reaction due to a particularly violent Direct Interface
Lifetime, this morning. Please excuse her if she makes an
occasional faux pas. I greatly value her expertise, and beg that
she be allowed to remain.”
“Very well,”
the Queen graciously agreed. “General Sheela, please give the
pertinent details of our plan, so that we may have an end of this
meeting, which grows wearisome.”
Kali had long
heard rumors that Queen Ishtar was a lightweight who had been cut
out of the power control loop. Nevertheless, it was quite a shock
to see just how far her subordinates had duped the Queen.
General Sheela
said, “There is another factor, Your Highness. ENet has constructed
an inverted time lock and a temporal trap. They seem to have
abandoned hope of destroying Kronos, and seem intent upon preventing
her appearance. These devices, operating in tandem, shortened the
last predicted appearance of Kronos from an estimated forty-seven
seconds to about 1/1000th of a second. It seems blasphemous to
suggest this, but Kronos may actually need us to rescue her.”
High Priestess
Medusa said, “Do you mean, General, that the Moonies may be required
to actively participate in our own salvation? That it is not enough
for us to passively believe, that we must also actively behave in
accordance with our beliefs?”
“Thank you,
Medusa,” General Sheela said. “That is what I mean.”
Kronos on Moon
skis! Kali swore under her breath. These two were operating from a
prepared script! But what was the point? What was their game?
General Sheela
said, “From Lagrange-1 we will direct an incursion team of Churn
Analogues into the Holy Ground. The temporal trap and time lock
will be destroyed. Kronos will be pulled into this time
permanently. The incursion team will withdraw, bringing Kronos back
to Daughter Moon. Does this plan meet with your approval?”
The High
Priestess was nodding her approval. The Queen said, “Plan is
approved. Proceed, General Sheela. Keep me informed. This meeting
is at an end.”
“One moment,
Your Highness,” the Professional Antagonist spoke. Her voice was
not particularly loud, nor rushed, but the fact that she had spoken
at all seemed to freeze all motion in the room.
Queen Ishtar
drew her breath in quickly . . . and held it for a long moment.
“Yes, PA Dryad?”
“A few
questions.” PA Dryad stepped lightly to the foreground.
“It is your
right.” The Queen did not seem happy.
“Churn Systems
Administrator Psyche,” PA Dryad said. “We are contemplating the
initiation of direct conflict between Moon’s Churn and Earth’s eNet.
Is this a good way to proceed?” Psyche almost jumped, but the PA’s
question was spoken in a relaxed way.
Psyche
immediately said, “General Sheela has given us an excellent plan of
action.”
(Your coach
knows that’s the politically perfect thing to say, thought Kali.)
The
Professional Antagonist seemed to accept that. “And you, Churn
Systems Controller Gail Sudie. We are considering the start of what
may one day become total war between Churn and eNet. Do you approve
of this plan of action?”
Gail Sudie
paused for so long that she must have been listening to conflicting
advice. The Queen turned to give her a hard commanding look. Gail
Sudie gulped, and said, “Every plan has positive points to recommend
it, and negative points to be considered. I believe the goal a good
one: To actively participate in our own salvation.”
The
Professional Antagonist thought about that for a moment. “And you,
Churn Systems Assistant Leslie Ann. Can Churn protect us against an
angered eNet once we violate their territory and frustrate their
objectives? What think you of all this?”
“I haven’t a
clue,” Leslie Ann said, sweetly. “Talk to Kali.”
PA Dryad
smiled slightly. “And why should I listen to someone suffering from
temporary dissociative reaction?”
Leslie Ann
giggled. “There’s nothing wrong with Kali. See this dress?
Strictly 5’s and above. I’m a 19. I shouldn’t even be wearing it.
But Kali fixed it so I can wear any dress I want. She knows what
Churn can do, and what it can’t do. In fact, she can make Churn do
what it can’t do!”
“Thanks,
girlfriend,” Kali said, “talk me down to a 50, why don’t you?”
“Oh, this nice
PA wouldn’t let anything bad happen,” Leslie Ann said.
The
Professional Antagonist gave the Queen a look. “There will be no
disciplinary action taken. Understood?”
An angry Queen
nodded agreement.
Professional
Antagonist Dryad turned to Kali and said, “Kali, let us discuss
Leslie Ann’s dress.”
Both military
personnel groaned at this “totally irrelevant” diversion, but they
were helpless. They were all helpless. The Queen, the most
powerful person in the Solar System, was helpless.
“Her dress?”
Kali asked.
“Yes. I’m
curious. Why only 5’s and above?”
“You’re
serious?” Kali asked. “You really want to know about her dress?”
“Yes. If you
can tell me.”
Kali moved her
hands in front of her: Churn instantly responded by gesture
recognition. In a flash Kali had keyboard and 5-finger-joysticks
controller on her fingers and was viewing a shielded holographic
monitor.
“All right,”
Kali said. “It’s a question of energy consumption. That’s a
7000-megawatt dress.”
“Is that a
lot?”
“Enough so
that only 5’s and above are allowed to burn up that much energy.”
“Can you
explain exactly why 7000-megawatts are required for Leslie Ann’s
dress?”
“Yes. The
thunderstorm she’s wearing, the clouds, the lightning flashing down
her legs and the sound effects are no big deal. But the 1G rain is
a serious engineering problem. For all of us, when we have
experienced rain, it has been during a Direct Interface Lifetime, in
subjective conditions of 1-Gravity. Lunar rain, at 1/6th Gravity,
just doesn’t look real. Therefore, her dress has a hollow
cylindrical 5K spin-2 graviton Field, to make the rain fall at 1G
without weighing her down a metric ton. If it’s engineered right,
she shouldn’t feel a bit heavier. That’s almost 6990-megawatts
right there. The other 10-megawatts or so is mostly rain
choreography.”
Leslie Ann was
by now strolling, twirling, and posing like a DI model on a runway.
“Notice how
the floor right under her is totally soaked, just splashing with
rain, but how as soon as she walks away, the floor is instantly
dry? In addition, even though there’s always rain splashing down,
there’s never any runoff. Puddles never develop. Nobody else ever
gets splashed. That eats up a good bit of nanotechnology too.
Hell, the Queen’s levitating throne over there is only
350-megawatts. If this is a test, and you’re grading me on a curve,
I hope you’re grading me on Leslie Ann’s curves.”
The old
Professional Antagonist looked at Kali long and hard, long enough to
make Kali uncomfortable. “And you, Churn Systems Controller Kali.
Can Churn protect us against an angered eNet once we violate their
territory and frustrate their objectives? What is your opinion?”
“Oh, no you
don’t! I like my Level-9 access; I’m not getting busted back to 50
again.”
“You may speak
freely, SysCo Kali. Your Churn Level Access-9 is secure.” She
spoke in such a deceptively soft voice.
Kali glanced
around the Council Chambers at all the power people glaring at her.
“I’ve got enough enemies.”
“The future
life or death of the extended family of women means nothing to you?”
Kali relented
a little. “I wouldn’t worry. ENet isn’t going to be very angry.”
PA Dryad gave
Kali an odd questioning look.
Silence.
Kali relented
a tiny bit more. “Not if we’re just sending down Churn Analogues.”
“And why,
exactly, is that?”
Kali relented
a smidgen more. “Because they’ll survive about twenty seconds. We
may violate eNet’s territory a bit, but we won’t be frustrating any
of eNet’s objectives.”
“What do you
mean?”
Kali decided
to take the hit. “If we seriously want to rescue Kronos, we’ve got
to send a team of astronauts down there, and an expert on Churn has
got to go with them.”
“Could such a
mission to rescue Kronos succeed, if it were properly planned with
full knowledge of Churn’s limitations and proficiencies?”
“Possibly,”
Kali answered after a few moments online, dancing through the
information maze.
“And what
would eNet’s likely response be, should we succeed in our mission of
rescuing Kronos?”
Kali was
suddenly smiling at her foolish self. She had been so determined to
say nothing, and the PA was adroitly womaneuvering her into saying
everything. “Unpredictable. I could list various scenarios, but it
would all be guesswork. However, if we are able to duplicate the 5K
Field which Kronos uses, it won’t matter.”
“Would you
like to be in charge of this mission, and go down with the
astronauts to Earth?”
“Whoa, whoa,
whoa!” Kali objected, an instant before Queen Ishtar shouted: “PA
Dryad! Cease! This is totally unacceptable!” High Priestess
Medusa was calm in reassessing things, but the military personnel
were just about jumping up and down in anger. Psyche was on tiptoes
of excitement herself, probably considering how this might affect
her own good fortunes, while Leslie Ann carelessly rained on the
Queen’s parade (dais).
“It’s damn
near a suicide mission,” Kali said.
“Ah, come on,”
Professional Antagonist Dryad cajoled, with a twinkle in her eyes,
and a waltz in her voice. “To lead the military mission that
rescues Kronos, to go down to Mother Earth and stand in 1-Gravity as
a woman should, to face down the evil eNet and return flushed with
success, come on, say yes! Say you’ll do it! Come on, SysCo
Kali.” She winked, and added with a naughty smirk on her face and a
rough ancient gravelly voice, “It’ll Be FUN!”
Kali’s heart
was beating hard, and there was fire in her bloodstream as she
confronted her destiny. “All right,” she said. “All Right!”
The
Professional Antagonist winked once more at Kali, and then turned
formally to the Queen. Her voice was now cloaked in her official
function. “On my authority as a Lunar Level Thirty-Slash-One Churn
Access Professional Antagonist, this date, this time, I do hereby
exercise my right of single-use Churn Level-1 Access to achieve the
following. One: Reassignment of Churn Systems Controller Kali’s
Level Access from Level-9 to Level-1 until such time as Kronos is
rescued and we have duplicated her 5K defensive Field, or until such
time as these objectives are determined by Professional Antagonist
Review Panel to be impossible, whereupon SysCo Kali’s Churn Level
access shall revert to Level-9. Two: Official designation and
sanction of SysCo Kali as Leader of Priority One mission to rescue
Kronos and duplicate her 5K Field. Three: Reversion of my own Churn
Level Access to Level 100. Four: Awomen.”
“Awomen,” the
High Priestess seconded.
As of that
moment, Professional Antagonist Dryad was stripped for life of all
her Churn Access powers (to be from now on as powerless as any
4-year-old girl), and Systems Controller Kali was from that
moment——temporarily——the most powerful person in the Solar System.
“Heaven help
us,” Kali said.
Kali, the
person here who most fully understood the meaning of Level-1 Access,
was chilled, not exalted. For all practical purposes, Kali was now
a Goddess, with almost no limits on her behavior. She could not go
rampaging and killing and maiming throughout Lunar City on a drunken
whim——no, a killing rampage would require darn good reasons. But
should she decide this second that Lunar City would relocate to the
far side of the Moon, Churn would immediately go to work and set
about getting everyone packed.
Queen Ishtar
sarcastically said, “Shall I vacate the Palace? Are you moving
right in?”
Kali said, “Of
course not, Your Majesty.” She tried to speak humbly and
appropriately. “My duties and obligations are carefully
proscribed.”
The Queen
teleported away, with a dark look of hatred, taking her SysCo with
her.
5-Star General
Sheela approached Kali, and stood stiffly to attention. “I place
myself and my command under your authority and await instructions.”
Kali held out
both arms for a handclasp. Kali and the General clasped hands, and
the General relaxed somewhat.
The General
was almost a full head taller than Kali, with at least twice the
mass. The two continued to hold hands. “We work together on this,
General Sheela. I am only interested in the mission. When is the
next Kronos appearance?”
“Ninety-four
hours.”
“Give me three
hours to organize my thoughts and do some research. Then we’ll get
together and make some decisions.”
“Yes,
Mistress.”
Kali released
her hands, and the General teleported away, taking her aide with
her.
The Moonie
High Priestess approached Kali next. “We pray for victory in your
battles with eNet, and your safe return. May the forces of Good
triumph and quash the sickness of Evil!”
Kali couldn’t
resist: “Prayers should be for preventing war, not fighting it.”
High Priestess
Medusa gazed intently into Kali’s face. She started to turn away,
but instead, on impulse, handed Kali a small disc. “Please view
this in private, offline from Churn.” Then, without waiting for a
response, she turned and said, “Come, Dryad.” The High Priestess
teleported herself and the PA away, which left only Kali and her
work family.
Kali held out
her arms to Psyche and Leslie Ann. “Give us a hug.”
Kali, a skilled computer hacker on Daughter Moon, is womaneuvered
into taking charge of the suicide mission to rescue the time
traveler
in trouble down upon Mother Earth.
Lunar’s resources are no match for Earth’s lifeless eNet computer
complex which has evicted huwomanity from Mother Earth. But the time
traveler who makes periodic unstable appearances (Goddess Kronos,
the
focus of the Moonie Religion) has a defensive 5K Field stronger than
anything Lunar or Earth have. If the time traveler can be rescued
and her 5K Field duplicated, huwomankind will be able to defeat eNet
and reclaim Mother Earth.
Brought into the top secret meeting as a technical advisor, Kali
makes
the mistake of speaking up and giving her honest opinion of her
leaders’ hopelessly incompetent plan. She is goaded into offering up
an alternate plan of her own which she thinks just might be
possible.
Instead of getting demoted and kicked out, Kali is chilled to find
herself in absolute command of the rescue, where she will go down to
Mother Earth herself with her own picked team.
Kali’s team succeeds in rescuing the time traveler. Unfortunately
Goddess Kronos is a boy. The only male in the solar system. “We
can’t bring that testosterone infected creature back to Daughter
Moon!” More difficult than rescuing the boy from eNet may be keeping
him alive on Daughter Moon, which Kali must do, since his technology
resists analysis. Another problem: one of the astronauts has already
fallen in love with the boy.
DAUGHTER MOON is Old School hard Science Fiction at 122,840 words,
with Matriarchy as the twist. All the Usual Suspects: Alien
Invasion,
teleportation, space battles, nanotechnology, virtual reality; a
nobody suddenly given incredible powers; a struggle for the survival
of our race and the future of the Universe; a Love more powerful and
decisive than any technology.
[How did the future space-based civilization become dominated by
women? Terrorism + Insurance Rates + Advances in Cloning. One
terrorist can kill everyone in a 30,000 population space station.
The male/female ratio of terrorists is 50 to 1. Sexual-profiling.
Space habitats where males had no access to high security areas were
empirically safer, with drastically reduced insurance rates, which
made them economically more viable. Within a thousand years the
verdict was clear: boys were just too dangerous to allow to be born.
(Anyway, who needs ’em? We have TomBoys!)]
|
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My name is Harvey,
I will be your Emergency Evacuation Coordinator,
please leave Area 47 in an orderly fashion,
there is plenty of time,
do not trample the other patrons,
exits are clearly marked.
Science Fiction Book Bloggers I like:
http://fantasticreviews.blogspot.com/ Aaron Hughes; writes as Van
Aaron Hughes
http://www.sfbrp.com/ - Science Fiction
Book Review Podcast by Luke Burrage (also check out:
http://www.lukeburrage.com/blog/
)
http://scifichick.com/sci-fiction-home/ - Any gal who likes science
fiction and blogs about it is OK in my 5K spin-2 gravaton Field.
Active Blogs on Matriarchy:
http://eccentricyoruba.wordpress.com/
http://ayeshafonseca.blogspot.com/ - sexual & extreme
http://www.womanist-musings.com/
http://www.feministe.us/blog/
http://www.blogher.com/ - mainstream
LINKS:
https://twitter.com/#!/hg47/ascii
This is my ASCII Twitter List. (circa 6/20/2012)
When I log into Twitter I usually check back a day or two.
I like to see what my fave Twitter Artists are up to.
3-5 times a year I'll take a day to drill down the links below
(circa 6/20/2012) (in no particular order) to see what's up in TwitterArt.
Not all Twitter Artists bother with hashtags,
and at least one awesome artist is shut off, she
can't post to any hashtag:
https://twitter.com/#!/MargaRlda
If there's a new kid in Vertical Alignment town, I'll probably find her/him
in an RT.
https://twitter.com/#!/MargaRlda
https://twitter.com/#!/Guy_Vincent - Guy is my muse. His Twitter Art
inspired me to explore vertical alignment. Later, his brilliant use of the
em-space moved me into minimalist Twitter Art.
https://twitter.com/#!/140Artist
- Tom seems to have retired from Twitter Art. He's the FAIL WHALE guy; he
created the most ReTweeted, most stolen, most copied, most imitated Twitter
Art image ever. His robot cartoon account still spews; but it may be on
automatic.
https://twitter.com/#!/TW1TT3Rart - Matt is the Twitter Art King.
https://twitter.com/#!/o0I0o
https://twitter.com/#!/nehmer
https://twitter.com/#!/l_I__I_l
https://twitter.com/#!/newmoticons
https://twitter.com/#!/ASCII_art
https://twitter.com/#!/Joomarvel
https://twitter.com/#!/leglesslegs
https://twitter.com/#!/cobrelon
https://twitter.com/#!/LTRK140
https://twitter.com/#!/TRUTH_4U2_B
https://twitter.com/#!/OzMelo
https://twitter.com/#!/elcosmonauta
https://twitter.com/#!/AndreaPacione
https://twitter.com/#!/twart1st
https://twitter.com/#!/TakashiFujita
https://twitter.com/#!/riv7art
External Comments:
http://familyfocusblog.com/steampunk-science-fiction-books-for-struggling-readers/
★
http://www.meilinmiranda.com/drifting-isle#comment-56926
HyperLink Heaven:
http://www.giganews.com/
Niniane's Overflow Writing
Niniane's Blog
http://niniane.blogspot.com/
Cool Tools – One new tool recommendation per day
Current Trends – One new cultural and technological trend per
day
Street Use – Visual glimpses of how people actually use
technology
True Films – Rave reviews of great documentaries and non-fiction
films
The Quantified Self – Self-monitoring methods for self-knowledge
Asia Grace – My on-going love affair with Asia
Geek Dad – Summaries of projects completed by nerdy dads
Long Views – Reports on efforts to encourage long-term thinking
Kevin Kelly – Personal doings that only my mom cares about
Super
Word Smith Links courtesy of
World Wide Words!
Regional
English:
American Dialect Society - Includes a
searchable archive.
Estuary English - Documents and links
at University College, London.
Scots Online - An introduction to the
spoken and written Scots language.
Slang:
Dictionary of Slang - Slang from a
British perspective. Updated monthly.
The Jargon File - A comprehensive
collection of terms relating to computing. The original online
source from which the printed New Hacker’s Dictionary was compiled.
Maledicta - A learned discussion of
multilingual insults, including obscenities. Not for the
faint-hearted or rigid of mind.
Online Slang Dictionary - A large
selection, mainly user-contributed.
Dictionaries:
American Heritage Dictionary - Fourth
Edition from Bartleby.com. Searchable.
Cambridge Dictionaries - Online look
up in any of five dictionaries.
Merriam-Webster - Search the
Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary.
OneLook Dictionaries - Gives access to
several hundred online dictionaries.
Oxford English Dictionary online - An
expensive subscription service, but some background documents and a
Word of the Day are available free.
YourDictionary.com - Dictionaries for
200+ languages.
Dictionary Centers:
Australian National Dictionary Centre -
Compilers of the Australian National
Dictionary and other works.
Linguistics/phonetics:
FAQs About Linguistics - By Professor
John Lawler.
Linguist List home page - Mailing
lists and archives.
Sociolinguistics - From the University
of Oregon.
Mailing
lists:
A Word A Day - Sent out every weekday.
dictionary.com - Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster Daily Buzzword -
Follow the links to subscribe.
Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Day - A
daily mailing
VocabularyMail - A daily mailing.
Regular
Web columns:
New York Times Learning Network - A
word of the day mailing.
Take Our Word For It - Updated weekly.
Vocabula Review - A monthly magazine
on language.
The Word Detective - Updated
fortnightly.
General
interest for writers:
alt.usage.english - A vast archive of
material from this very active Usenet newsgroup.
The American Language - The Second
Edition of H L Mencken’s classic is online at Bartleby.com.
Banished Word List - A list of words
which, according to Lake Superior State University, should be banned
from the language through overuse or misuse. A slight site, but
thought-provoking.
Common Errors in English - Paul Brians’
site.
e-editor - A British site for
copyeditors, “mainly aimed at helping and supporting e-editors and
non-news editing staff everywhere”.
English-to-American dictionary - A
large collection of words in British English that are likely to
confuse Americans in particular. Includes slang and colloquialisms.
Focusing On Words - Particularly the
Latin and Greek elements used in English. Mailing list.
Fun With Words - Daniel Austin's
wordplay site, including word puzzles and games. The Funny Signs
gallery is worth a visit alone.
Good English and Bad English - Many
links, especially to British sources and to educational and
linguistics sites.
Jack Lynch’s style guide - A online
style guide with information designed originally for business
writers.
The Language Hat - A regularly updated
and interesting language blog.
Luciferous Logolepsy - A collection of
over 9,000 obscure English words.
Dave Wilton’s Etymology Page - A
collection of short articles on the origins of words in English.
Words and Stuff - Jed Hartman’s
language columns, on a great variety of subjects.
(@hg47 - Last change: 21 October, 2007.
{checked 6-23-2012} Still, some interesting stuff here in the
archives.)
Word Wizard - Your questions answered,
a selection of new words provided, plus “snappy quotes and elegant
insults”, competitions, Fancy Word Parties and Lexicographer’s Club.
-
Strange and Unusual
dictionaries - Resources for SCRABBLE® games, bar
bets, and other trivial pursuits
How to Speak
About Women and be Politically Correct
Oblique Strategies -
Brian Eno gets you unstuck from your Artistic Rut
broadband
reports - Broadband News.. Want to know
your IP? http://www.broadbandreports.com/whois tells you
success4.html
- Magical Marketing Strategies for Creating an Endless Stream of
New, Repeat, and Referral Business
SciTech Daily Review - science,
technology, future development -
Here's the best intelligent, informed science and technology
coverage and analysis you can find on a daily basis, sourcing a huge
range of great writers and excellent publications.
stalled.htm -
Stalled Careers, Writer's Block, and Monsters Under the Bed
World of Ends
- What the Internet Is and How to Stop Mistaking It for Something
Else.
U.S. National Debt
Clock - Circa 6/23/2012 it is at:
[insert unfathomable big number]
The estimated population of the
United States is 313,007,423, so each citizen's share of this
debt is $50,440.16.
Truth Or Fiction - email
reality check - verify rumors
New Scientist.com - The
World's No. 1 Science and Technology
The Museum
of Unworkable Devices
The Museum of
Hoaxes
Unusual Museums of the
Internet Web Ring
-
Gizmodo The Gadgets Weblog
cosmic recursive fractal flames
Boing Boing A Directory of
Wonderful Things
-
Kevin Kelly's Reading
List
Brian Eno Home - EnoWeb
Futurismic
kuro5hin.org technology and
culture, from the trenches
-
City of Tomorrow
Modern Cellular
Automata
Traditional Cellular Automata Rules
Windows
- screensavers
-
Equinox Java section
-
Disobey --- Content for the
Discontented
Stephen Linhart
-
yourDictionary.com • Specialty Dictionaries
Fleshbot
http://www.thousandreasons.org/
My Way - News
Alexa Web Search - Top 500
-
{fray} drugs - the things
we do for love
isen.blog
-
ResourceShelf
John Battelle's Searchblog
-
EDGE THE SECOND COMING
Camille Paglia
-
yourDictionary.com • 100 Most Often Mispronounced Words
yourDictionary.com • 100 Most Often Misspelled Words
Search Engine Watch Tips
About Internet Search Engines & Sear
ShawGuides, Inc. Writers
Conferences & Workshops
Edge
Small Times News about MEMS,
Nanotechnology and Microsystems
-
Simply Australian Aussie Food Biscuits Tim Tams
CritFinder
Critters Writers'
Workshop
-
George W. Bush, Jr. -
The Dark Side
Record songs
from the radio - Loop Recorder
Funfurde
THE
MERCK MANUAL--SECOND HOME EDITION, Table of Contents
-
Brand
Autopsy
gapingvoid
Seth's Blog
-
The
Propaganda Remix Project
Unleashing The IdeaVirus
-
BuzzMachine ... by Jeff Jarvis
Loop Recorder Sound Recording
Software for Windows Record any
The Human Clock - A Photo
for Every Minute of the Day
The Death Clock - When Am I
Going To Die
Network
Overview --- Internet Traffic Report
-
Modern Cellular
Automata - Live Color Cellular Automata
August Addition Cellular Automata Rules
Declare Yourself -
Register to Vote
Monster Cable SVC-75 75W In-Wall Stereo Speaker Volume Contro
Ebert's Great
Movies
Techdirt.
-
Feel good more
often, have a better attitude, do better at wo
tompeters! leadership training
development project management
Crossroads Dispatches
Publishers
Marketplace
|
Idea Farm
hg47@a47.info
my email
Hit Counter:
Note: This site is "old school" experimental.
2/10/2013
8:18 AM
I pulled all my
eBooks off the Internet from Smashwords and Amazon; with the
exception of DAUGHTER MOON. A WALK IN THE RAIN can still be
read right here for free on Area 47. I get it. Everybody
loves DAUGHTER MOON. The reaction to all my other
eBooks is: meh.
Now, my plan is to
get into Print On Demand for DAUGHTER MOON.
@hg47
1/19/2013
9:37 PM
I don't have New
Year's Resolutions. I have New Year's Experiments To Run.
My first experiment
is to see if I can find a way to interact with Science Fiction Book
Bloggers. I think I have something they might find to be a
special gem: DAUGHTER MOON. So far, nothing I try to promote
or market my writing works worth a damn.
What I have learned
so far:
1) Free days lead
to a an increase in paid sales, but they also draw in readers who
are just trolling for anything
free, who are more likely to give you a bad review if they bother to
read your work.
2) When I pulled my
two best novels from Amazon exclusivity, and stopped the free days,
while then uploading the novels to Smashwords, my sales numbers went
down. Still down.
3) Most eBooks are
goddessawful. It's as if the Slushpile just went online.
4) Reviews are a
weak indicator of the strength of an eBook.
@hg47
8/2/2012
July Report Card:
14 units
sold
1 borrowed
482 free
downloads
7/11/2012
Report Card:
25 total
paid sales for my eBooks in June.
613 total
free downloads of my eBooks for the month of June.
A WALK IN THE RAIN Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #81,952 Paid in
Kindle Store
(still no
reviews) (still that guy)
6/4/2012
Report Card:
1154 = total downloads for my eBooks on Amazon for the month of May
ꑰ
http://amzn.to/w1FAEQ
Most of
those downloads were FREE Promotions. Between 10 to 20 of
those were actual paid sales, for which I will eventually receive
payment. Now have 12 eBooks online. Exponential Growth
into eventual GREATNESS? Or just another fancy way to fail?
(still no reviews) (still that guy)
3/31/2012 Report Card:
A WALK IN THE RAIN, total units sold = 1;
DAUGHTER MOON, total units sold = 1.
No reviews.
(I’m that guy.)
A WALK IN THE RAIN
2/24/2012
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,703
2/25/2012
#275,975
2/27/2012
#378,339
3/1/2012
#425,169
3/2/2012
#108,915
3/4/2012
#236,777
3/6/2012
#317,776
3/10/2012
#394,696
3/11/2012
#406,721
3/12/2012
#426,988
3/13/2012
#435,246
3/14/2012
#445,449
3/15/2012
#455,333
3/16/2012
#465,685
Harv Griffin
(@hg47)
eMail:
hg47@a47.info
(Please spark my interest on the subject line of
the eMail, or I may never read your message. My response to Spam tends to
be Select All, Delete All.)
Noah couldn't tell Howard Hughes: "No, you can't store your piss in little
glass bottles!"
Phil couldn't tell John Lennon: "No, we don't need more reverb, and besides,
the song sucks!"
But you can tell me.
Tools & Treasures:
Rebecca Swift does my good eBook cover art. The kitschy
covers I do myself.
http://www.rebeccaswiftartwork.com/
52 Novels converts my novels. The short stuff I do
myself (and I'm now better at it than most who charge for it).
http://www.52novels.com/
Strung out on SF
Thanks to the Times of
London for naming Climate Debate Daily as one of the five top
eco-news sites on the internet.
Uncommon Business is a blog about
people who make money online selling unusual, strange and sometimes bizarre
things or provide curious services. This isn’t “One Hundred And One Ideas For
Your Homebased Business” – only real, working businesses with URLs provided, so
you can do further investigation on your own.
http://pewresearch.org/
Just the Stats!
http://popurls.com/
('Nuff said.)
So you say you want to
research global warming?
Plastics Technology's Extensive
Article Library
Urban Dictionary
1. pineapple upside
down pedro
69'ing and your girl takes a fat shit
in your mouth.
my girl pulled a pineapple upside
down pedro on me last night
STOCK SCREENER
http://www.imdb.com/
- if you like movies, this is the site for you! (Welcome
to the Internet Movie Database, the biggest, best, most award-winning movie
site on the planet.)
The best public
restroom ever. I mean it.
physics & science & space news
 Sun
Tzu on The Art of War
Nick Szabo's Essays, Papers, and
Concise Tutorials
|
|
|
|
|
| PhysOrg
| Roger Ebert
|
Drudge |
gapingvoid |
Gizmodo |
Seth's Blog |
WordLab 
