foxie-pi

The Power of Names

Wed, 28 May 2008 09:30:55 GMT

Walker's gone through another set of revisions, including a name change. I wanted to shift the focus again, bring out a few elements which had been in the background. Not scrawl over them in crayon, but touch the highlights a little to let people know they're there. It's now called -- wait for it --

-- hang on --

Regeneration, and Other Ghosts

I've always been bad with titles, which is why I've never had children. The poor sod would have to wait fourteen years before I give him some amazingly shit handle like, 'Bob Dylan Lassie-with-a-Lightsabre Googie-Chocolate-Cookies Fox'. Generally, I don't advocate patricide, but sometimes you can forgive them.

I'm beginning to realise that titles are, probably the most important part of the story. I've just joined a site called Critters. Each Wednesday, they send you out a bunch of sci-fi, horror and fantasy short stories or novel extracts, and you do a 500 word crit of them and send them back to the author. Not only does it give me a chance to flex my ego as a critter (writer of critiques), but by analysising other people's work and working out what works, what doesn't and why it gives me some insight into my own work. And, of course, I can submit stories for other people to critique.

I've submitted Regeneration, nee Walker, and it's due to go out on the 18th June. It's a long wait, but I'm hoping it's going to be worth it.

Now, I've done one critique so far (you need to do at least one a week), and the first thing I read was the title of the story. That's what I made my first judgement on. If the title sounds obvious or badly phrased or like it's trying too hard, chances are the story will be too. I make the same judgements while reading through magazines.

The other important thing about Regeneration is the length. It's long enough to count as someone's weekly crit, but it's still quite short (stories seem to go from about 4,500 to 8,000). Obviously, the first thing I look for after the title is the length. Human nature, innit?

So, hopefully, Regeneration will suceed on both counts. I've learned a lot from her, certainly. Maybe she's just jealous, doesn't want to fly the nest or share herself with anyone apart from me. I'm going to take what I've learned from her and use it for my 'Human Dog Show' story, which is coming along a treat in the planning. I suppose you could say Walker and I met, fell in love, changed each other ... and are planning our first child.

I think I'll let her name the poor thing ...

Amazing News

Tue, 20 May 2008 19:32:33 GMT

I just wanted to say that there isn't enough WIN on my keyboard -- in my house -- in Britain to express my feelings about this.

Steven Moffat has been responsible for some of the best entertainment on T.V. for the past ten years. I'm looking forwards to seeing a show with characters, with style and wit and dialogue. I'm looking forwards to seeing a show where every character hasn't just come from a Gay Pride march and where emotion is treated with respect and tenderness, and not painted in neon colours and shaped into dildos. RTD has done a great job reviving the show and making it something vital and alive for a modern audience, and Doctor Who has never, and should never be high art ... but there's never, never any excuse for poor writing. RTD, I think, forgot the audience a few times and alienated an important demographic ... the demographic which includes me.

Moffat has a lot of good will to burn through before I get upset with him.

Lovers and electronics

Tue, 20 May 2008 19:12:44 GMT

Well, Walker got turned down on Saturday, and yesterday The 14:08 did, too. A shitty few days, really. Walker's getting one more overhaul, and then she's going to be retired. I'm going to shift the focus a little and then see what The Future Fire has to make of her. I know of the guy who runs it from the Whispers of Wickedness forum. I'm never going to be missed if I never post there again, but the community is a really great place to be. And the Future Fire editor is a really nice bloke, even if I can't help the feeling he has a horde of unwashed Metallica T-shirts he saves for special occasions :)

In other news, I now have a wireless keyboard and mouse. You'd think that I'd be forever losing them, but I'm not. I'm actually really pleased with them -- ... well, that's sort of true. Getting a new keyboard is kind of like getting a new car ... or a new lover ... I mean, each one has a certain feel to it, a certain way it likes to be used and certain noises it makes when you touch it ... You have to learn how hard each new one likes pushed, how you have to use your fingers to press it's buttons ... The wireless and I are getting used to each other. He (definitely a 'he') is a bit stronger, stockier than my ex. Needs to have his keys pushed hard.

autumnsdarling is getting a new laptop on Thursday, and it comes with Vista reinstalled. She wants it wiped and a new, proper O/S installed. I have tried to talk her into getting Ubuntu, but as her main reason for wanting the thing in the first place is to play Star Wars: Galaxies, there seems little point. I'm going to install XP for her. I did have a metaphor for taking a slight, innocent thing like a laptop and striping its O/S away ... but I'm not going to use it while the spectre of Operation Ore is still lurking.

While I was daydreaming away this afternoon, a little voice whispered ... an idea in my ear. And insist I use it. Just the idea of having Shows for humans. Set in the future where there's post-humans, cyborgs, sentient AI's and all that, a kind of Crufts for 'Pedigree' humans. I can just see it now ... Commentator: 'and look at this fine example from the working-man group ... look at that well-defined jaw line, that all-important stubble, those defined muscles ... you can just imagine him leaping from tree to tree, as they float down the mighty rivers of Western Columbia ...' Well, if I want to go a bit more Bill: The Galactic Hero, then that's the way to go, I suppose. At the end of the day, if you can't be good at entertaining others, be good at entertaining yourself. It even works for some people.</lj>

W00T!

Wed, 14 May 2008 07:57:59 GMT

Hell, I cooked!!

FUCK YEAH!!!!!!

Working my way down the road

Mon, 12 May 2008 09:15:40 GMT

We all get older, I suppose. It creeps up on us until one day we've got shaving foam hanging off the hair on our ears, and we're dozing in our chair in front of Saturday football round-up. I don't think it's very fair, really. It's like being taxed on Mars bars -- it happens, you pay up and you don't really notice because there's not a big sticker on it reminding you. And no matter who you vote in, it never changes.

It's just little things. Like, you stop taking sugar in your coffee and having sweetener instead. The music you listen to becomes less lound and angry, and becomes more tuneful and wistful or hopeful. You start window shopping for houses instead of game consoles.

Is it a bad thing? I dunno. Wines get better with age but bread gets mouldy. Am I wine or bread? Guess you've just got to lick me and see.

In other news, Walker is sitting in the inbox of the Nautilus Engine, and The 14:08 from Liverpool Street is with Electric Spec. Electric Spec have previously turned down version 1.4 of Walker. They seem like a good place and it'd be nice to see 14:08 there. Also, they pay $20 dollars per story! And Nautilus pays $10. How great would that be? People paying me for my writing. That's the promised land, right there. $30 ... that's about two peanuts and a seashell in real money.

A few things

Wed, 07 May 2008 21:29:04 GMT

I'm dead proud of myself. I was surfing over one of my favourite sites, and the sound wasn't working. I checked a few other choice sites, and the sound on any Flash-type video wasn't working, either. Hmm, I thought. Most likely a problem on my end. Flash has problems in Ubuntu. I followed the instructions, which got me pictures.

How did I solve the sound problem? Did I spend hours on Google, trawling through forums and looking for an answer, getting more and more frustrated at these people who don't understand that we're not all programmers? Nope. I went into the repositories, searched them for a fix, and found one. Ten minutes. (The file you want is libflashsupport, if you're still looking. Just mark it for installation, click 'apply', and restart Firefox. Worked a charm for me.)

How great am I?

In other news, Walker is now in it's twelfth draft. I think I should start referring to the story as, 'her'. It feels like making a path by walking up and down a field, finding the best way from one end to the other and marking the way by attrition. It's satisfying, in a hypnotic way. It feels like listening to the same four bars of drum pattern until you slip into a trance and the repeated sounds become something more primal than noise. I'm going to wait until Friday, read it through again, and then hopefully send it out again. It feels like fly-fishing.

In the same vein, The 14:08 from Liverpool Street is in a third draft. I wanted to write a short story, and it's coming in at around the 2,000 word mark. That's practically a haiku for me. I don't like writing these sprawling stories that wind on for thousands after thousands of words. I'm sick of it, to be honest. The fact I 'can't' write a story under 6,000 words means that there's something wrong with the way I'm writing. I'm not using my words properly. -- they're flapping and flailing around like de-tuned guitar strings. When I've learned to keep them tight and in tune, I can start writing symphonies again.

So, why 'meh'? Well, the more I live the more I become convinced of the existence of Lanstrom's positive viruses. I woke up this morning with a major case of positive 'flu -- by the time I got into work, I felt great for no good reason. My body has always had a very strong and defiant will, and doesn't like having viruses of any strain. I'd kicked it by about half-ten, and I've been dealing with the sniffles since.

So, meh.

You Learn Well, My Young Apprentice

Sat, 03 May 2008 18:30:12 GMT

Don't worry, I'll run out of Star Wars quotes to use eventually. Or make them witty.

I have my external back up and running. In the end, I decided to format it as FAT32. It's an old system, but it does the job. By the time I need files bigger than 4GB, there'll be a different file system I can use.

I've also had a remarkably incident-free day with Hardy. There are a couple of blips, but as I'd hoped, I was able to find solutions with the aide of Google. (As a side note, Google Toolbar doesn't work with Firefox 3. I've had to go back to using 2. How retarded is that?) All the extraneous crap has been wiped from my hard drive, and now I get the chance to start again, but this time, with some clue as to what I'm doing.

Actually, I'm really just testing out my new LJ client, Logjam. Drivel was great -- it did the job -- but there were a couple of things it didn't do. LJ cut was one of them, but I could live without that. The thing which got me was that I couldn't use it to put tags on entries. I had to update the journal, then go on and edit the entry.

Samba's not working, so I can't share my external with anyone else. I don't know what the deal is there just yet.

Links for Google spiders:
Google Toolbar Fix
nVidia Screen Resolution Fix. Although, I access the nVidia settings via the gksudo like what it says, and then had to go into the normal system>preferences>screen resolution and change it there, too. Go figure.

What kind of writer am I?

Thu, 01 May 2008 20:13:07 GMT

I'm working on a new story. The main characters live in on an ex-council estate about 20 mins by bus away from Ipswitch, called Whitehouse.

Thinking about it today, the name, 'The 16:10 from Oxford' came to mind, and seemed to fit. It reminded me of The Who's 5:15. I liked it.

So, I came home and started looking at rail links to and from Ipswitch. I checked out transport connections between Ipswitch and Whitehouse. I spent an awful long time looking for time tables.

I found out that there is no direct train from Oxford to Ipswitch -- you'd have to go through London, and the Ipswitch train would leave from London Liverpool Street.

There's a shopping centre in Ipswitch called Tower Ramparts Shopping Centre. After the fabled train arrives, the narrator -- Ade -- goes into town to meet with his girlfriend in the centre. The centre closes at half-five, so he needs to get there for about half-four. A bus time table told me that he'd have to catch the 15:57 bus from outside his local Asda, route number 8. (The last bus back is at 23:23, which he's going to have to catch after missing the 22:35.)

Between the train coming in, and Ade going out to meet his girlfriend, about an hour-and-a-half needs to pass. No less.

The 14:41 train doesn't leave enough time, so it's got to be the 14:08.

So, the story is called, 'The 14:08 from Liverpool Street'.

There's a very good reason why it's set around Ipswitch, and why the characters' surname is Woodbridge. I'm not going to go into that, though -- I have more planning to be doing.

Your over-confidence is your weakness

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 18:50:44 GMT

Much as like my 'Prozac Panda' cut-down, it seems I might owe Gutsy an apology.

I have a FreeAgent external drive, and that means I have problems. Apparently, FreeAgent don't like Linux. After fifteen minutes of not being written to, a FreeAgent drive goes on a sort of stand-by which leads to Ubuntu unmounting it. This isn't something you can just fix. In fact, it seems FreeAgent would rather you didn't fix it.

There's a work around, though. And it sort of illustrates my problem with Linux users.

I understand the Open Source philosophy. I understand the whole community thing. I understand the 'shared development' idea. I think it's all brilliant. It's not my bag, but I love the fact it exists and is flourishing.

I think the trouble is the same trouble you get when you put a group of talented, enthusiastic individuals in a room together and say, 'express yourself': you lose track of the end. Film makers forget about the audience. Writers forget about the readers. And programmers forget about the users.

I'm a user, and I don't want to be anything more. Should I be hounded back to Windows for that? Well, Einstein apparently said that you don't understand anything until you can explain it to your grandmother. I take that to mean that you are not a master of your art unless you can engage with someone who wouldn't normally care. Development and expression should have a purpose, and that purpose should be refinement. Hone the knife's blade down until it's one quantum thick. If you're going to programme for the sake of programming -- code for code's sake -- then you're not going to be a master until Yahoos like me are bullying their friends into using your applications. And what's the point in caring about doing anything if you don't want to master it?

I really, really like Ubuntu. I'm willing to fight. But I don't want to fight. And I'm not encouraging any of my friends to take up arms.

Anyway, that's my rant over. I'm allowed the odd one.

And now I sense you wish to continue your search for a working OS ...

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 11:43:32 GMT

Just type:
sudo apt-get install All-Of-Your-Hatred
killall -v emperor-palpatine
and your journey towards the Dark Side will be complete!

Ah, yes, my continuing trials with Ubuntu Gutsy.

The short version is that it's all working, I'm not quite sure how, and I'm going to balls it all up again next weekend.

Actually ... that's not really true. It was true, right up until yesterday. Linux has a few problems, and I'm not going to point fingers, but I'm the one suffering.

I have a very nice external hard drive. It's 500GB and contains all my media and important files, like my writing and drawings. It's formatted in NTFS, because when I got it, Windows said, 'do you want this drive formatted in NTFS -- which is great -- or FAT32 -- which is crap?' FAT32 formatting only allows you to save files less than 4GB in size. I clicked on NTFS formatting. I didn't stop to think that 'NTFS' stood for 'New Technology Filing System'. Because of that, I didn't think, 'hang on, New Technology is the foundations on which Windows is built', and so the realisation that, 'Linux, or any other system for that matter, wont' be able to read an NTFS formatted drive because Microsoft are loathe to let users install non-Microsoft products on their OS, let alone let programmers understand their 'New Technology' enough build compatible systems' didn't drift through my mind.

All this occurred, slowly, over the process of the weekend before last.

So why aren't I taking the opportunity to point fingers at Microsoft?

Well, in Ubuntu, in order for the system to read from an external drive of any sort (flash, backup, mediacard etc etc), it needs to 'mount' it. In my opinion, Gusty Gibbon should really have been called 'Prozac Panda' because it has real problems 'mounting' things. You'll tell it to mount the drive, and it will, and you're listening to a carefully crafted playlist, and a song will stop playing. Why? Your external is no longer 'mounted' properly. Important files will disappear randomly, only to reappear later. .avi files will tell me they're not there, when clearly they are.

The solution is to simply unmount the external, and then remount it. A couple of mouseclicks, but still hugely annoying when you're tying to listen to an album.

And the trouble with unmouting and then remounting your external hard disk is that it's like hard rebooting in Windows: it's going to mess things up. You do it enough times, it's going to stop working.

That's what happened yesterday.

In order to get it to work again, I need to run Check Disk. You can only do that through Windows, because the NTFS is closed source. Well ... closed source isn't really right. It's hidden in a dungeon in a twisting, skeletal castle, at the centre of a labyrinth guarded by animatronic terrors and poorly CG'ed booby traps, through a forest of eternal night and at the bottom of a rotting, festering pile of metaphors.

A couple of days ago, Hardy Heron was released. Next weekend, I'm going to download and install it. (I'm hoping that the intervening two weeks will be enough time for other people to find all the problems, and leave hyperlinks to the solutions.)I am really, really hoping that they have sorted out the mounting problem. It's honestly enough to drive someone back to Windows, it really is.

Honesty is the best policy

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:07:11 GMT

Well, I heard back from Atomjack today -- and they didn't want Walker. Adicus Ryan Garton, the editor, cited 'glaring cliches' as the main reason. Kinda brutal, a phrase like that. It's one of those emotive phrases that punches you in the stomach with a fist that leaves you unable to breathe and your guts hurting for weeks.

It's hard to catch your breath and get past the pain. It's very easy not to.

But, in this case, it's worth getting back on my feet and making the effort to listen. He also said he was impressed by my writing style and the world of the story. As a writer, the story is one of the easiest things to change about a story. A believable, compelling world is gold dust, and engaging prose is the is an art. Coming off from YANA was a bit of a shock. When you write something like that, the world-building is already there. All the hard work is done for you. It gives you the chance to perfect the story-telling and the writing style and YANA allowed me to come along in leaps and bounds in those regards. But writing in an existing world is like moving into a new, furnished house and making it a home. Writing something set anywhere but the world we live in from scratch is like building a new home from a pile of mud up. You don't realise the luxury of being able to say, 'the Doctor stepped out the TARDIS and into ancient Greece' until you have to try and explain what a TARDIS is, what it's doing in ancient Greece, how it got there, what the Doctor is, and why the world doesn't come to an end when he brings foreign time lines into contact with each other.

So, I suppose, more good news than bad on balance.

And speaking of good news, I ordered Judge Dredd, the Complete Case Files Vol. 7 today. Volume 5 -- purchased a little less than a month ago -- reminded me of why I read sci-fi. It reminded me that I'd much rather read Harry Harrison than Arthur C, Clarke. It made me remember that I'd much rather read about depressed and sarcastic androids than wade through pages of 'realistic' space flight and aching searches for the meaning of humanity. Life should be seen in a way that makes you smile.

Now, why Volume 7? Well, way back when, when I was about 14, my uncle brought me a Judge Dredd comic, as he was want to do. It contained about half of two different stories. I loved both of them, and never got to find out how they ended. Closure, rediscovering my childhood, picking up my muse from where I lost him somewhere along the road, something like that. Just don't expect to hear much from me when Amazon get it to my greedy little hands next week.

I like presents which keep you entertained all day

Sat, 12 Apr 2008 19:38:16 GMT

I think I'm finally beginning to get a handle on the difference between Windows and Linux (or Ubuntu at any rate):
Windows -- when you've been through a few reinstalls and it's like an old, battered and tumor-infested dog you can't afford to put down -- is like wanting some chocolate, going down the newsagents, finding something on the shelf you like and tucking in;
Ubuntu -- when the poor old bugger gets whacked by a car and you have your nose an inch-and-a-half away from a carpet of puppy pee -- is like wanting some chocolate, wandering into Willy Wonka's factory, and being given a set of neatly labelled tools and told to help yourself, and when you ask a passing clutch of Umpa-Lumpas for help, they chattered excitedly in Umpa-Lumpa-ish and go away either sighing or laughing (they sound very similar in Umpa-Lumpa-ish).

My computer arrived at 08:30 this morning, and it is now -- mostly -- working. I've spent the last three (or maybe four) hours trying to get DVD playback working. Another good three hours or so was spent trying to get read/write access to my external hard drive. (Anne -- my folder containing all my creative work -- has randomly vanished and now, where it was, I can't create another folder of the same name. That's weird. There's some unrecognised file that I can't delete and which is hidden from me now bearing her name. I'm going to have to sort that, at some point.) The differences between Windows and Ubuntu are really only skin deep.

If I want to download a programme, do I go to the programme's website and download the .exe file?

Nope.

I go into the Ubuntu Universe repository, find the file I need, and install it from there. I get all my codices from another repository. All the little bits of Lego I need to make my system work are in repositories, somewhere in the vague mass of the Internet. I just download them, put them where I think they should be and hope to God it makes things work. It's a different way of working.

I haven't done everything that's going to need doing: re-establishing the home network is a flaming mass of bog water I'm still yet to wade though; burning and ripping (Gods, when someone said 'Piracy', someone took them a little too seriously) is another swamp to be wadded through, but it's looking a lot more friendly; I'm not sure whether my Firewall is working or not, and if not, whether I can get it to work on boot-up; anti-virus definitions need updating ...

Oh, and then there's The Root. Apparently, Ubuntu doesn't think I'm quite ready for absolute power over my operating system yet, and so there's a few things I can't do. Strangely, updating my virus definitions is one of them. To have the full power over Ubuntu, I need to Be The Root. I've not done much looking into it, other than to know I can only do it through CLA. I imagine it's some sort of mystical, mandrake thing I need to dig out from under The Tree (which is no doubt located in a repository), and then somehow ingest. When I start staring at lines of code, I'm expecting the higher resolution of my screen to send me into a trance from which I can embark on a vision quest to find The Tree. When I get there, when I have The Root, I'll Know What To Do.

For now, though, I'm listening to Aerosmith and am planning a bit of a break from LinuxWorld. I don't know what I'm going to do.

I can smell the packing and new plastic

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 20:05:12 GMT

Almost there ... almost ...
A few hours before bed, a few hours sleep, some time waiting ...

Almost there ...

Little steps make mountains small

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 21:17:03 GMT

I checked with Atomjack on Wednesday and they pinged me back today, saying that I could expect to hear about Walker in a month or so. Good news, that: I'd like to see Walker on their site.

Most of my creative energies have been channelled into the tentatively titled Diplomacy. Set in the Manod Quarry during WWII, the national art treasures have been replaced by a military research facility. Semi-supernatural shenanigans ensue and the physicist who's been dreaming of quantum manipulation discovers We Are Not Alone. Of course, with quanta it's not that simple and easy tags like, 'alien' don't fit so well. It's amazing the sort of research you need to do to write a story that breaks all known laws of physics and takes place in an imaginary research facility, populated by imaginary people. Did they have electricity on the site? What would they serve as a celebration? What would a male nurse be doing in Wales in 1943?

I don't know how much is necessary to build a believable story with believable characters, but maybe I just like doing the research. Most of it doesn't make it to the first draft, and most of it gets chucked out by the third. Still, it's a learning curve.

Speaking of which, with two days to go, I think I'm ready for the Great Transference.

I've backed up all my files onto my external (apart from Anne, but I'm going to need to wait until tomorrow for that), and I've spent the week finding the programmes I'm going to need:
Firewall: Firestarter (from what I understand, not really a firewall itself but a GUI for the firewall Ubuntu includes)
Anti-virus: KlamAV (again, not an anti-virus itself, but a GUI for ClamAV) In trying to find an anti-virus, I kept finding people saying, 'Anti-virus? Linux doesn't need an anti-virus!' And that's great and fine, but if I'm going to jump off a cliff, I want a parachute. I don't care how many people tell me my wax wings will work fine, I want a parachute.
CD ripping: Sound Juicer. Included with Ubuntu, I'm reliably informed.
CD/DVD burning: Nautilus CD Burner. Also included.
BitTorrent client: Deluge
IP blocker: Moblock (a Linux version of PeerGuardian)
Media Player: VLC. I'm using it to listen to Bob Dylan right now, in fact.
Journal Editor: Drivel
Firefox, GIMP and OpenOffice are included as standard, which is very civilised.

The Ubuntu forums are already proving invaluable. They are well-organised, civilised and designed to help people with no knowledge of the system use it. Seriously, they're more useful then the majority of programme help files I've had to wade through.

A boring post, I know, but it'll be very useful. All the programmes I need, all linked up, all in the same place. I'll let you know how things go with them, and if any of them need replacing or dropping.

I think it's worth mentioning I'm excited about my computer. I mean, we're talking 10-year-old-on-Christmas-Eve excited. I know it's daft and superficial and not helpful to anyone, but I realised today that I haven't been this excited since I last cared about Christmas. I tend not to let myself get excited, because I've been burnt too many times (not mentioning any names, Mr. Lucas) and if you don't get excited, you don't get disappointed. It's far better to be level-headed and approach situations with realistic expectations, because then, regardless if the news is good or bad, you can deal with it so much better. Every experience becomes something which helps you grow as a person. Mindless excitement isn't productive in that respect. So, have I back-slided? Or am I beginning to learn to loosen the grip I've held on my reigns all these years?

Adventures in LinuxWorld

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:46:30 GMT

Well, Walker is currently sitting in an in-box somewhere in Atomjack's 'In' tray. I'm checking my mail regularly, because they don't have any guidelines as to how long I can expect to wait for a response. I'd expected some sort of auto-reply. But they say they're bi-monthly and have issues in their archives on schedule since their first issue back in May 2006, and another issue is due out this month, so I think there's some slack to be cut there. I'm not a fool but I like the place and the editor seems to be genuine, which is all you can want to find, really (after, of course, a regular and well-kept release schedule -- number one on anybody's list of priorities). They're in the States and probably have someone checking things manually, so I'm expecting a response by this time tomorrow. Just a, 'thanks for your submission, you should hear from us in 3 months' type of thing. If I've not heard anything by Wednesday, I'll query. If I've not heard anything by the weekend, I'll find somewhere else to submit Walker. It's a shame, but you've got to be pragmatic about these things. And life runs so much easier when you have a schedule. That way, you're not sitting around wondering how long is too long and what you're going to do tomorrow.

In other, Ubuntu, news, I'm almost ready. I'll tell you what, it's a step away from Windows. I never thought I'd miss my hand being held by Mr. Gates and all those who sail in him.

I've done quite a bit of reading about the various Linux 'flavors' available from the different 'distros'. For a while, I was worried about Ubuntu. The phrase which seemed to sum up a lot of people's attitude to it was 'n00bed to death'. Now, the last thing I want is to trade my open source, superiorist Windows hat for the an, 'I use the AOL of LinuxWorld and think I'm great'.

More poking around the interwebs seemed to reveal a hearty distaste for GUI's and phrases like, 'or you could act like a real human being and do it via CLA'. I thought for a while that I was being backwards, because I was under the impression that Windows replaced DOS because graphical user interfaces were a step up from command line access. I thought the reason why Microsoft stole the Apple operating system back in the mid-eighties was because the Apple GUI made an Apple Mac ... well ... almost pleasant to use.

Then I realised that the people who were going to look down on me for using Ubuntu were the same people who were already looking down on me for not building my computer out of a rusted tea-strainer and an old Ford Cortina engine. To be honest, they are probably looking down on me for not modding my DNA with flavors of retro-virus because, let's be honest, off-the-peg is sooooo 1968.

See, my computer is like my car: a tool, not a lifestyle choice. Don't get me wrong, I like my tools to work and I like them to be as efficient as I can make them. But ricers don't just do cars. Outside of anime conventions, the next highest concentrations exist among computer users. I tell my garage what's wrong with my car, and they fix it. I tell my GUI what I want done with my programmes, and it does it. And I get on with ricing my fiction.

Wandering into a new city without a map is scary

Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:16:02 GMT

I suppose making the switch to Linux is a thought that lurks at the back of the mind of every Windows user, uncomfortably nestled among being an organ donor and picking up hitch-hikers. Appealing though the idea is in theory, it's impossible to escape the nagging suspicion that it's going to end with various body parts missing and blood all over the walls.

After my birthday and trip to see my parents, I ordered my new computer on Tuesday evening. Yesterday I was devastated to learn that, rather than being delivered this Saturday, I'd have to wait until next Saturday. I think the only analogy to make you understand how that feels is by entreating you to imagine how Sisyphus must feel when he finally gets the damned rock to the top of the hill ... only to realise that there's another ten foot to go that he couldn't see from the bottom.

One of the good things about time, though, is that it carries on regardless. All I have to do is wait and, with measured and predictable certainty, The Time Will Come.

It occurred to me today that I should use the opportunity to make the switch, what with all the other changes swirling around my life right now (sometimes I feel like a bird caught in a whirlwind ...)

As with my switch to OpenOffice and GIMP, the main reason is price. My new computer comes pre-loaded with Vista, and when people start comparing it to ME you know you're in trouble. A copy of XP with the COA is selling on eBay for £60, and frankly that's not great. With XP being phased out on all new machines, that price is only going to go up. The copy of XP I'm using at the moment does the job, but I'm sick of having to live without updates and being scared to register any new hardware I buy.

From what people have been saying, Linux is also a lot slimmer and faster than XP.

The problem that's been scaring me off so far though has only become worse: choice. For some reason, the increasingly prevalent belief that choice equals control seems to be ingrained in the open source community. I get fed up when Winamp demands that I choose a skin, so imagine how I feel about Linux. There is no 'standard' version of Linux, and even the most popular builds need to you make selections for things I didn't even know existed before they'll work. I just want to get on-line, use Open Office, use GIMP, play music and films, and look at pictures. I'd like a new GUI, but I don't want to have to shift through sixteen pages of screenshots to find the one I liked and then work out how to make it work with the version of the OS I've installed. I just want to hit the download button, hit the install button, and start using my sleek, shiny new OS which -- I'm reliably informed -- will make me feel like a super(furry)model has taken a personal and extensive interest in my sexual desires.

Users like me must be on the increase, I'm sure, and it's got to be only a matter of time before someone puts out a 'Safe for Non-Programmers Linux, You Dirty, Disgusting, Filthy Scum' build. In the meantime, though, it's back to my research, I guess.

A Quick Moment of Realisation

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 21:41:06 GMT

Well, I've just finished the latest draft of Walker on Thin Ice. This is the eight draft, which I think is something of a record for me. Technically, it's kind of Walker 2.1 ... After watching Soylent Green, it turned out that major crux of the original version already was a very good movie. That turned what I thought was an interesting and provocative story into a tired rehash. So now it's the same characters, the same setting, but a different story.

I was really pleased with it when I finished the seventh draft (the eighth is just really a polished up version of the seventh). I felt it had buzz about it, the sort of thing I've not felt in ages. I still think it's got that buzz. It's not quite the story I thought it was, though.

It's short for me: 5,000 words or so. On reading it, it occurred to me that it's the literary equivalent of a bag of crisps and a sandwich. I mean, I wanted it to be short, I just didn't realise it would make it seem so transient. The sort of thing you read in one sitting, and then move on. There's nothing wrong with that, and maybe I'm wrong about that. I just thought it was worth mentioning. Should make it a bit easier to find a market for, with a bit of luck.

Good (ish) times in Foxieland

Thu, 20 Mar 2008 19:31:44 GMT

The importance of my job is never far from my mind. I mean, beyond the welcome money it brings in and the friends it keeps me in touch with, the numbers I'm moving around on spreadsheets have meaning. Telling someone that they're going to have to eek out the rest of their lives on £4,000 a year despite having dedicated a significant portion of their lives to helping others isn't something that I want to lose touch with.

It was all brought home rather painfully yesterday. I estimated someone would be receiving about £10,000 more than they actually were. It was due to one of those stupid little errors that happen when you're fighting through the day and just want to get to the end. There I was, talking to them on the 'phone, listening to them tell me that they'd had to take another job because they'd planned to get £3,000 more than they should. The difference a similar rise in my own earnings has made is between sitting in the dark, freezing and eating raw noodles and sitting here, with a fire going, looking forwards to going home to see my parents in a week or so. I can't be too hard on myself -- at the time, I made it clear that it wasn't a promise, and my mistake should have been obvious to her -- but I can't be too easy on myself, either. I've made the most sincere apology I can think of, which is to learn from the mistake and make sure it doesn't happen again. At at time when my self-confidence is fragile and exposed, it certainly didn't help. Ordinarily, I would plunge into my cycle and eventually break out a few weeks (or maybe months) later. The incident would be ignored and I'd get on with my life. But I've been good and used the tools Judith has given me to stay afloat. The trouble is, I still screwed up and screwed up someone's life. What do I do with that? When you stop ignoring that, how do you stop feeling bad?

Anyway, a number of good things happened today. Very good things.

Yesterday, autumnsdarling's computer arrived, and I set it up for her. And you know, I was right. It made me feel like a man. I took her slave drive out of her old computer, plugged it into her new one (I know a small case is a good thing, but it was tighter than a nun's back passage in there!), arrived the new case where she wanted it, plugged all the wires in the back, and stood back, ancestral pint in hand. It booted up, and it was good.

Now, this morning was cold but I still got out of bed and into work on time. I came home, and there were two things on the doormat of particular interest to me. The first was a calling card from DHL. I walked down the road, and picked up my package. I had an idea what it was already, and my palms were slick with anticipation. I took it home with exaggerated care, placing it on the sofa like an empty eggshell onto something even more fragile. I sliced the packing tape. I opened the box and ... you know that bit in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Arc, right at the end where they open the Arc and just before their faces start to melt? It was like that. Just like that. And instead of dust and vengeful spirits, there was my replacement external hard drive. 500GB of storage, a USB port away. You have a computer -- I don't need to tell you what that feels like.

The other thing was, possibly, more significant: hope. There's a chance, a real chance, that I will be able to get my new computer in the next couple of months. For the first time in years, there is real, tangible hope and I can roll it around my mouth, savouring it's flavour. This is the one I've currently got my eye on. For the interested, it comprises, in brief:

Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E4500
2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB Cache
Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Premium
2048MB RAM Memory
250GB Hard Drive

Naturally, I will be formatting the drive and installing Windows XP. With specs like those, I figure it will be good for the next few years. The one I'm using at the moment is five or six years out of date, and still does the job. It just does it very, very slowly. And sometimes it crashes. And it's very, very slow.

Lastly, I just had to pop down the shops to get some firelighters (the kindling I brought the other day is wet through ... fat lot of good that is ...). I was standing there, queuing away, and I saw a copy of Interzone. Just sitting there, quite happily, on the shelf. Interzone is one of the highest regarded sci-fi and fantasy short story magazines, and my only published story to date has a few of it's roots in an Interzone story (The Star Necromancers, if you're interested). Naturally, for someone in my position, it's an invaluable source of inspiration, entertainment and guidance. I'm looking forwards to reading it.

Anyways, I've spent far too long moidering. I have to get back to Walker -- I have a basic plan, and it needs writing tomorrow. I just wanted to share my joy.

More manliness!

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:57:23 GMT

Just downloaded the Semagic update make-happener. I've used it to make this post, which is really only a test. But if it works, yeah! XY rawks on!

Manliness and a Cup of Coffee

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 17:27:36 GMT

Is it unreasonable to want hearts in my knees? I could have lungs in my calves. Just small ones, you understand. Just enough to stop my feet getting cold. I'm perfectly adjusted, but even under my socks and slippers, my feet are cold. I refuse to light a fire or put the heater on just for my feet. And I absolutely refuse to wear another pair of socks. I fell asleep in the bath yesterday and I'll be damned if I lose another battle to middle-age.

I've put Stranger Among Us into a forth draft, and it seems a lot lighter on its feet now. Its less of a task to read it through for the umpteenth time, so with a a bit of luck, someone reading it through for the first time may actually enjoy it. I also put the Great Big End Thing into a final draft yesterday, and it's just waiting for editor approval. Another read through of Stranger, and I might be ready to start sending it out. And then I can start hacking my way through Point Zero. Maybe after putting a few more tweaks on Walker on Thin Ice, and getting that back out. And in my spare time, I've got a book of Raymond Chandler stories to read through. The man was a genius and I'm learning so much. I'm really not a huge fan of detective stories or pulp stories, but his prose is sparkling. It's like admiring a beautiful sculpture or losing yourself in a pitch-perfect aria. A learner admiring the work of a master.

I'm looking forwards to playing with the new computer I've ordered for autumnsdarling. I read a list of things that make men feel manly, and making technology work is definitely one of them. I know full well that all I need to do is plug it in, and anything else is going to cause more problems than it solves (experience ... many, many hours of experience ...). After Easter, I fully intend to draw £200 out of a cash point. I fully intend to enjoy the sound of the machine counting it, and the feeling of walking away and musing, 'I can't draw out any more cash today ...', and the struggle to close my now-bulging wallet. After the eighties and nineties put so much time and effort into making men feel guilty and dirty for being men, it's nice to see the scales being reset.

And speaking of being manly, I've also just sorted out my port forwarding. Yeah ... Foxie makes technology happen! *waves his pterodactyl bone to the sky*

I also spoke on the 'phone with my Mum. Just chatting and catching up, you know. But that made me feel like a man, too. Not in a Gene Hunt kind of way, but in a “I'm man enough to care about my mother” kind of way. Guess we can thank the eighties for that.

Really, the only reason I'm posting all of this is to make myself feel less guilty about watching 3 Simpsons episodes so far today. I mean, it's Sunday, so I'm allowed two (they always so 2 on S4C, but they're always ones I've seen a bjillion times already).

I have a Bob Dylan CD playing through my computer. All seems good. I suppose I'd better get back to Stranger -- still hours until dinner time.

Why do I like lists?

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 20:36:59 GMT

I finished the third draft of Stranger Among Us last night, and that left tonight free for something else. I told myself that I'd put Doctor Who's Great Big End Thing into a final draft. That would relieve me of my obligations for a while.

I'll just have a quick Stumble first, I thought. That was over an hour ago. I just keep clicking through the pages of religious philosophy and cutting-edge science articles, only stopping for lolcats and demotivational posters.

Oh, and lists.

Put anything in a list, and I'll sit there and read it. I just read a list on political sex scandals in the USA. Why did I do that? I don't particularly care about US political minnows, I don't care about scandals, and I don't care about sex when it involves the ugly sorts who usually become politicians. I can't even remember anything I read. But, still I have two list sites bookmarked. And these lists are just someone's opinion. How do I know that these are the Ten Most Bizarre Recordings Ever?

The saddest thing is that a while ago I realised just how much time I wasted wandering aimlessly around the 'net. I tried to think back to my childhood. I tried to remember what it was I did before the internet ate my life, and I realised that I used to read. I used to love reading -- I still do, of course, but I used to have a book sellotaped to my fingers. (Well, at least when I could unstick the joypad ...) I even have a book I'm reading right now. But what did I read instead? ... well, I can't remember.

If I could retain the information I read, then maybe it would be of some use. I could read lists of important historical dates, the definition of obscure words or the mechanics of quantum mechanics. Fact is, though, I can drift through '10 Most Banal Advertising Slogans' with as much long-term gain as '10 Facts That Explain Cell Apoptosis'.

Maybe it's just part of my brain being used for the wrong job, like trying to unscrew a flat-blade screw with a Philip's screwdriver.