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greygirlbeastDon't forget, kittens, today is Krampus Day. Behave accordingly.
Bodies, can't you see what everybody wants from you?
If you could want that, too, then you'll be happy. ~ St. Vincent, "Cruel"
Yesterday, I wrote 1,241 words and so began "Another Tale of Two Cities" for Sirenia Digest. I'm hoping very much that it will be finished on the evening of the 7th, at the latest. It might be called science fiction, but I'd rather just call it weird erotica. And speaking of the evening of the 7th, I'm very much hoping to see more replies to the Question @ Hand #5 by then.
Last week, I stopped myself from buying an iPhone, though I seem to need one. In part, I stopped myself out of fear of another wave of "buyer's remorse," such as experienced recently, immediately after purchasing Kermit the iPad. Which I seemed to need for work. Since that purchase, by the way, I have found about fifty wonderful uses for Kermit the iPad...but not a single one of them has been work related*. Sure, endless mobile Japanese porn – no denying that rocks – but not exactly what my editors mean when they speak of "increased connectivity." In the Elder Days, by the way, we just said "easier to contact." Anyway, I didn't buy the iPhone, because (even though my cellphone is a pile of bantha dung), near as I can tell the iPhone and the iPad do exactly the same thing. Only, the iPhone has a vastly smaller screen and keys (and the virtual keys on my iPad are already too small for my admittedly large fingers), and I'll be damned if I can figure out a single useful thing the iPhone does that Kermit the iPad doesn't already do. Well, except make phone calls. And I hate making, and receiving, phone calls. Besides, technically, the iPad does permit video calls, all Jetson-like, using either FaceTime or Skype. Of course, the thought of a video call terrifies me beyond words. It's bad enough that callers can hear me. Let them see me, too? Anyway, point is, other than the fact that the iPhone is much smaller, and therefore even more mobile...why bother? And, by the way, you know, I hope, that all this increased connectivity nonsense, it's nothing but a) a means for the CIA, NSA, BTFA, DHS, and aliens from Planet X to keep track of you, and b) is being sold to us so that we never have a moment free of the grinding machine of capitalism (yes, excessive socialization aids and abets the agenda of the New World Order).
Damn, that's a long paragraph.
Probably, I ought to stop now. Only, I'll first point out that – following this thread – ebooks do the same thing as books, only not as well, and the ones you buy today will PROBABLY be inaccessible in a few years, and you can't donate them to libraries, or leave them to anyone. Meanwhile, my hard copies might well be accessible five hundred years from now, and can be bequeathed to loved ones. However, "we" are increasingly a selfish and short-sighted species (this makes my life easier = this is good), now more than ever before, so none of this is relevant. But I'm beating a dead horse. Whack, whack, whack.
Staring at Kermit,
Aunt Beast
* Spooky says this is not true, as all of Blood Oranges was proofed on the iPad. I will qualify, and say that actually she only used it to read along while I read the hard-copy ms. aloud and made marks on it. Still, I suppose she has a point.
Bodies, can't you see what everybody wants from you?
If you could want that, too, then you'll be happy. ~ St. Vincent, "Cruel"
Yesterday, I wrote 1,241 words and so began "Another Tale of Two Cities" for Sirenia Digest. I'm hoping very much that it will be finished on the evening of the 7th, at the latest. It might be called science fiction, but I'd rather just call it weird erotica. And speaking of the evening of the 7th, I'm very much hoping to see more replies to the Question @ Hand #5 by then.
Last week, I stopped myself from buying an iPhone, though I seem to need one. In part, I stopped myself out of fear of another wave of "buyer's remorse," such as experienced recently, immediately after purchasing Kermit the iPad. Which I seemed to need for work. Since that purchase, by the way, I have found about fifty wonderful uses for Kermit the iPad...but not a single one of them has been work related*. Sure, endless mobile Japanese porn – no denying that rocks – but not exactly what my editors mean when they speak of "increased connectivity." In the Elder Days, by the way, we just said "easier to contact." Anyway, I didn't buy the iPhone, because (even though my cellphone is a pile of bantha dung), near as I can tell the iPhone and the iPad do exactly the same thing. Only, the iPhone has a vastly smaller screen and keys (and the virtual keys on my iPad are already too small for my admittedly large fingers), and I'll be damned if I can figure out a single useful thing the iPhone does that Kermit the iPad doesn't already do. Well, except make phone calls. And I hate making, and receiving, phone calls. Besides, technically, the iPad does permit video calls, all Jetson-like, using either FaceTime or Skype. Of course, the thought of a video call terrifies me beyond words. It's bad enough that callers can hear me. Let them see me, too? Anyway, point is, other than the fact that the iPhone is much smaller, and therefore even more mobile...why bother? And, by the way, you know, I hope, that all this increased connectivity nonsense, it's nothing but a) a means for the CIA, NSA, BTFA, DHS, and aliens from Planet X to keep track of you, and b) is being sold to us so that we never have a moment free of the grinding machine of capitalism (yes, excessive socialization aids and abets the agenda of the New World Order).
Damn, that's a long paragraph.
Probably, I ought to stop now. Only, I'll first point out that – following this thread – ebooks do the same thing as books, only not as well, and the ones you buy today will PROBABLY be inaccessible in a few years, and you can't donate them to libraries, or leave them to anyone. Meanwhile, my hard copies might well be accessible five hundred years from now, and can be bequeathed to loved ones. However, "we" are increasingly a selfish and short-sighted species (this makes my life easier = this is good), now more than ever before, so none of this is relevant. But I'm beating a dead horse. Whack, whack, whack.
Staring at Kermit,
Aunt Beast
* Spooky says this is not true, as all of Blood Oranges was proofed on the iPad. I will qualify, and say that actually she only used it to read along while I read the hard-copy ms. aloud and made marks on it. Still, I suppose she has a point.
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no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 06:01 pm (UTC)*increased connectivity nonsense*
Yeah. Massively over-rated, and it makes me reach for my tinfoil hat. At least I'm more likely to be LJ than Facebook these days - I've only got so many brain cells I can afford to lose. I wonder what PKD would've made of it all.
Would you post a list of SF novels that influenced you at some point?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 06:08 pm (UTC)I wonder what PKD would've made of it all.
A LOT. And I won't get into what William S. Burroughs would have said.
Also, the horns of the Krampus are damned sexy.
Would you post a list of SF novels that influenced you at some point?
Well, I don't really draw a distinction between fantasy and sf, and there were a few "sf" titles included in yesterday's list...but I'll make a specifically "sf" list for tomorrow's entry (which will have to be accompanied by an operative definition of science fiction).
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 06:23 pm (UTC)And agreed on the horns.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 06:27 pm (UTC)I cannot deny my horn fetish.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 11:23 pm (UTC)but I'll make a specifically "sf" list for tomorrow's entry
If you're in a list-making mood, I'd be interested in a list of those books or short stories that formed the bedrock for Sirenia Digest.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 02:26 am (UTC)Let me think on it.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 03:30 am (UTC)Let me think on it.
Please do. I'd guess that Farmer's 'Image of the Beast' might be on such a list, but after that?
Let me know if the PDF didn't arrive safely...
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 06:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 06:17 pm (UTC)Agreed.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 06:36 pm (UTC)I hear it makes phone calls, too, but I almost never use that function.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 06:43 pm (UTC)I find it very handy to have a smartphone so I can run EverNote and jot down notes wherever I am and then trivially access them on a regular desktop computer. [info]obsessivewoman is much happier now that the “evil laughter in the middle of the night” phenomenon is accompanied only by the dim light of my turning on the screen of my phone and writing down whatever story idea showed up in my brain, rather than having me turn on the bedside lamp to jot it down on a piece of paper.
I find none of this even the least bit persuasive. I have no interest in spending hundreds of dollars for a gadget that does what I already can do. And a gadget that will be obsolete (as planned) in a few years, requiring the purchase of ANOTHER expensive gadget.
I prefer my Moleskine for the jotting down of notes, with my mechanical pencil.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 03:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 03:47 am (UTC)I like you're point about leaves, as someone whose notebooks are often filled with leaves.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 07:28 pm (UTC)Hell. I don't think I have the requisite horns.
all this increased connectivity nonsense
Yes. The constantly heightening levels of surveillance. Your e-mail is transparent and your face is all over the screens you didn't even know were there. Writing hardcopy letters starts to feel like the only sane mode of communication, except that yesterday I was informed there are now cameras on postboxes.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 09:21 pm (UTC)Hell. I don't think I have the requisite horns.
Neither do I, which is a shame.
The constantly heightening levels of surveillance. Your e-mail is transparent and your face is all over the screens you didn't even know were there. Writing hardcopy letters starts to feel like the only sane mode of communication, except that yesterday I was informed there are now cameras on postboxes.
Yes to all.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 09:48 pm (UTC)Hell. I don't think I have the requisite horns.
Neither do I, which is a shame.
Sorry, the horns take longer, and I'm not even sure if it'll work that way in any case...
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 10:08 pm (UTC)Sorry, the horns take longer, and I'm not even sure if it'll work that way in any case...
I may to resort to implants. Though, those are all so stubby.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 10:44 pm (UTC)This should perhaps be amended.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 10:50 pm (UTC)If I could, I would. Wonder what the TSA would make of that?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 10:53 pm (UTC)Well, they wouldn't be concealed weapons . . .
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 02:25 am (UTC)Well, they wouldn't be concealed weapons . . .
No...and it's not like I could remove them. "Sorry. Humanoids with horns have hereby been banned from flying."
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 08:29 pm (UTC)Re: The Archival Problems of eBooks
...I don't really have any more to say. My Domesday Book anecdote sums it up for me. But then again, I work at the *fracking* PROVIDENCE ATHENAEUM, so ... that says something about personal ideas/feelings about The Future, I suppose.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 09:23 pm (UTC)The iPhone thing I think works for people who have a very running-aroundish, havingtonsofmeetings, travelingforworkalot kind of life.
Well, this is what I fear may be coming my way.
But then again, I work at the *fracking* PROVIDENCE ATHENAEUM, so ... that says something about personal ideas/feelings about The Future, I suppose.
Very lucky, you.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 09:12 pm (UTC)A wholeheartedly paganistic amen to those thoughts. I yearn wistfully for the Elder Days.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 09:23 pm (UTC)They are gone, and will not come again.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 10:38 pm (UTC)Yep.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 09:23 pm (UTC)And sod electronic book readers of any ilk. Give me a real book and I will hug it and kiss it and call it George.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-05 09:25 pm (UTC)Sometimes it takes me as long to work out what she actually wants me to get as it would take for me to travel home, ask her what we need, then go back to the bloody shop.
Thank you. This is the only thing that has made me laugh today.
Selfish & Shortsighted
Date: 2011-12-05 10:41 pm (UTC)Re: Selfish & Shortsighted
Date: 2011-12-05 10:42 pm (UTC)Indeed.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 12:12 am (UTC)Who is your mobile carrier? They should have decent phones that you can pick up for free with your plan renewal.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 02:21 am (UTC)a local SIM in it.
SIM?
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 07:53 am (UTC)AT&T is GSM, and so their phones use SIM cards. Verizon and Sprint are CDMA, and so theirs do not. Switching phones with a SIM is as simple as removing the card from one phone and putting it into another. With CDMA, you need to contact the carrier to switch phones.
A mini SIM card (used by the iPhone 4 and 4s) is essentially a cut down version of a regular SIM. They're not common yet (but, presumably, they will replace regular SIM cards over time).
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 01:50 am (UTC)I have a small handful (literally - four) of books that were printed in the late 19th century, then another handful from the early 20th. I love them as beautiful, treasured artifacts, but a recent visit with my university's special collections archivist helped put the transitory nature of the printed form into perspective.
Not to rain on your parade - more intended as a commiseration. Ebooks make me sad, too. (Yeah. I leaned in and sniffed the 500-year-old book. I successfully managed to not drool on it, too.)
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 02:24 am (UTC)I have a small handful (literally - four) of books that were printed in the late 19th century,
I think I have about twenty.
Not to rain on your parade - more intended as a commiseration.
Well, you haven't, not really. I know most contemporary books are crap. Don't even get me started about mmp/tp. Those things might last a century. But the subpress books, those will last. And even at only a century on the others, beats the hell out of the electronic stuff.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 03:23 am (UTC)Hah! True that :) The aforementioned archivist was bemoaning the process of trying to maintain the physical integrity of electronically-stored media, too.
no subject
Date: 2011-12-06 06:21 pm (UTC)You got an iPad before me. That's kind of scary.