And I won!
- Location:In my Happy Place
- Mood:Happy Dance & Squees
- Music:Can't hear anything over the Squeeing.
Last night when thinking of you
Poring over photos of your face
Quite by accident I discovered
A flick of the mouse wheel
Brings you closer to me.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
- Location:Australia, Victoria
It is just that after a heated discussion we had the other day I have been un-friended. This may not matter much to my ex-friend seeing as she has over 300 Live Journal blogs that appear when she clicks on the Friends Page link. I asked how she kept up with them all once and she told me she just skimmed most of them. So having one less name on the list may well make her life that much easier.
So what does this mean for me? Well I can still peruse her public posts which I have been doing for quite some time now. But I will no longer have access to the Friends Only stuff. I have been able access to these thoughts for the last few months and it was something I appreciated immensely. Luckily for me I suppose is the knowledge that most of her trials, tribulations and triumphs she is happy to share with the whole world so I will not miss out on much.
Given that my knowledge of this person comes pretty much exclusively from my reading of her LJ journal, I can honestly say she is a person I respect and as I said to another friend when discussing this, I felt privileged that she listed me as a friend. Perhaps in the future, I will have that privilege again.
- Location:Down in the dumps.
- Mood:Blue
- Music:Mood Indigo
One of my fellow LJers wrote a post a post about this pointing out the derogatory language used in the announcement. The post referred to professional womyn authors as "Girl writers". This was an exceptionally poor choice of words especially given the race and sex fail conversations that blitzed LJ and the SF writing world last year. My LJ friend then went out to point out that she also found the use of "ladies" to be offensive. To quote, "I always read that in a pimp-voice - layyydiees".
I went to the guidelines and read them at this point. I agree that Point One(This has the "girl writers only" bit in it) is very on the nose, but after that it goes onto say:
If you’d like to have your story considered for this issue, stories should be postmarked no later than November 15th, 2010. This will provide enough time to find the right artists (ladies, of course) for the stories. I’ll provide periodic reminders about the submission deadline as we move along.[Emphasis added by me]
But the story didn't end there. The RoF Editor wrote a piece apologising for his crassness-good, but chose to introduce his apology by stating that he had "Ruffled some feathers"-bad. Bad? Once again my LJ friend was on the warpath. Feathers=Choocks=Hens. Are you calling Double X chromosomed people hens? How dare you!
Nothing this man is going to say is going to be good enough here. It is not possible for him to say anything of substance without people of a certain gender or with a particular axe to grind picking apart his words looking for ways in which he is insulting them. Luckily the next time this will be mentioned will probably be when the issue in question will be released and as a male he will no doubt leave his normal editorial commentary duties to someone else. Perhaps the Fiction Editor of RoF can write it. He has the name Shawna McCarthy( funny name for a dude).
And the LJer whose posts I am commenting on?
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
"Girlie" Jones.Postscript: A very real problem that can be shown here is that words used as labels for one gender tend to become highly sexualised and dehumanising while the terms for the other gender do not. I don't think there is yet a solution for this problem yet. We can but hope and keep on trying.
Post-Postscript: JAN 10: I think the real discussion has finished on this one so I am Disabling comments here. Because that means no one will be able to see comments already made I have saved them all externally. Email me if you want a copy, but I don't think further discussion here will be useful.
- Mood:OUTRAGED!!!!!!
- Music:Down Among the Dead Men
I couldn't resist the temptation to blow up Dad's new exercise ball last night. Popping out to the shed to look for a pump didn't appeal to me and I had just been watching the Edinburgh Military Tattoo on the telly, so perhaps it was the influence of seeing all those red faced, pop eyed men marching up and down while blowing energetically into a tartan coloured sack that inspired me. Then again, it may have been the two glasses of wine I had had with dinner.
Mum looked on with amusement while I puffed and blew into a small pipe slowly inflating the giant rubber ball(85cm diameter). I suppose I looked as red faced as the bagpipers by the end but I felt good and not at all light headed. If I do it again I am going to have to learn cyclic breathing though as I am sure at least part of Mum's amusement was seeing me lift my head from the valve and suck in a huge lungful of air before dropping back down exhaling in a great big blow through a tube that looked like a slightly more robust version of a straw.
After I had finished I looked at the instructions and they said that the straw I had been using was in fact the deflation tube and that "Under no circumstances should someone try to inflate the ball with their mouth!" Typical of me to go out and do things the wrong way. Still the ball is ready for use. I can't wait to see Dad on it. It will be my turn to be amused by the antics of others then.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
- Location:Australia, Victoria
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
I am adding this photo as a User Pic. Just popping it up here in full so you don't have to squint when you see it in the top left hand corner next time.- Location:Australia, Victoria
1. Tell you why I befriended you.
2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a colour, a photo, etc.
3. Tell you something I like about you.
4. Tell you a memory I have of you.
5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.
6. Tell you my favourite user pic of yours. (after some searching on my part)
I got the pack and inside were 2 disks. One for the disks was for the 32 bit version and the other was for the 64 bit. I had upgraded the hardware of the machine with Vista Ultimate so the 64bit version would run on it now.
Step One: Start PC
Step Two: Start 7 64bit Install DVD.
Step Three: Installer says that I can't install the 64bit over the current OS. Installer closes itself down.
Step Four: Start the 32bit Install DVD
Step Five: Installer starts.
Step Six: Choose Upgrade OS
Step Seven: Installer says it can't upgrade Vista Ultimate to 7 Home Premium and I would need 7 Ultimate if I wanted to run an upgrade.
Step Eight: Seeing as I am going to have to re-install everything on my Vista Ultimate machine,something I didn't want to do, I popped the 64bit disk in the drive, set the machine to boot to DVD and ran the install from boot.
Step Nine: Spend Christmas Eve will be spent re-installing all my programs.
Bloody Microsoft.
- Location:In front of my F'n PC
- Mood:ARRRGGGHH!
I was going to post something about old behaviour patterns still held onto when they have become redundant with today's tech but I can't get past the words I just saw in an article.
Steven Segal's The Adventures of Tintin
It probably helps that Peter Jackson is listed as producer but... Sorry the room keeps spinning so I had best go have a lie down.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
- Location:Australia, Victoria
I was all organised this year for Christmas. I had a list of all the people I needed to get presents for and put ideas for presents down as well as the final PURCHASED item. I looked at my list with satisfaction today only to realise I have left the name of a close relative off the list.
Of course there is still one day before Christmas so all is not lost. I can just imagine the panic if I only noticed my mistake late Christmas Eve as I sat down to wrap and label everything.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
- Location:Australia, Victoria
gillpolack 's last post was about updating her biography. Except she spoke about author bios. Now call me odd(come on I know you want to), but when I read that my first thought was "Authors have a different Basic Input Output System(computer jargon)? That explains so much!" Now this may of course be a simple coincidence, I may have a screw loose or it may be Gillian has inadvertently stumbled onto one of life's hidden truths. Of course even if you think Option One or Three are true, you may decide Two is true as well.Poll #1500130 Are Authors Different?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 3
Do authors have a different BIOS to everyone else?
3 (100.0%)Is Brendan a loony?
- Location:Funky Town
- Mood:playful
- Music:Won't you take e to...
- Music:Korobeiniki
the trains come in and they go
I've just cracked my first can of Pepsi Max,
still a long day to go
Chorus
Trains go tittay-ta, tittay-ta ta ta tittay-ta ta ta ta ta
Is this the right train to Craigieburn, am I gonna get home tonight?
Your service sucks, why do I pay so much?
If I want to yell, hey, that's my right.
There's the old man who walks around checking the machines for change,
He pretends to pay with dud notes, tells me old jokes,
The same ones again and again.
He is the king of the scavengers, roaming around all the time.
If he catches anyone, they don't see the fun
Of the pepper he throws in their eyes.
Chorus
Every day is a new one, but the problems the same all the time
The migrants who can't say where they want to go today
Even though they've lived here most their lives.
The drunks and the drugged up passengers
Abusive and stinking of sick
If you come too close or ask them not to smoke
It's "Fuck off you great stupid prick!"
Chorus
- Location:Home after aanother day at the office
- Mood:boppy
Now, I will be first to admit I can get obsessed by a good book. I will confess to having blown off work once or twice because I was so desperate to finish a story. I have been enthralled, enraptured, horrified, disgusted and frightened by books. I have been so angry and upset that I have thrown a book across the room and the only thing that stopped me rending it asunder was I remembered just in time that I had borrowed it from someone else.
But gotten so involved I have forgotten I was separate from the characters? Been so drawn in to the story that I become part of it? Identify with a character so much I become him? Na-ah, that way madness lies.
- Mood:Not mad at all!
- Music:Queen: I'm Going Slightly Mad(It's finally happened)
Slow down don't run so fast
If you miss this train it's not the last one
A little wait and you'll be heading home
Patience will make yours and my life easy
Na-na na na-na na life is easy
If you force the door to open
The driver may think that the train is broken
He will lodge a fault and go home
For him the situation is really easy
Na-na na na-na na really easy
Station staff will clear the train
I can tell you a real pa-ain
Lots of passengers very irate
Knowing that the next train will fill to squeezy
Na-na na na-na na full and squeezy
If this happens and people want to know why
I will tell them "talk to that guy,
He forced the doors when you were on your way"
If they rip you apart it won't ruin my day
Na-na na na-na na please go away
- Mood:Groovy
- Music:The Boxer
List seven habits/quirks/facts about yourself.
1: I don't think I have ever been supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
2: There isn't a wocket in my pocket.
3: I have not written a scholarly dissertation on the poem "The Jabberwock" (but for the life of me can't imagine why not).
4: I have blinded people with science(but didn't cause long term damage to their retinas, cones and rods).
5: My head is not green; my hands are not blue; I have not been to sea in a sieve: Ergo I am not a Jumbly.
6: I do not know how many roads must a man walk down. Whether you call me a man is up to you.
7: For me it is not a long way to the shop if I want a sausage roll. I have two bakers and a supermarket within two blocks of where I live.
- Mood:pretty good about myself
One of the main problems with electronic publication(of anything) is I think the role and idea of copyright is going to have to change. Since the user no longer has a physical copy what will their rights in relation to a text or piece of music or video mean? I think that it will be seen by many of the current generation that when they purchase the rights to something they are in fact buying the right to experience that purchase whenever, where ever and for as long as they want. If they don't have a book that they know they "own" on hand they will assume continuing ownership and re-download it.
One question that has arisen already is ownership of electronic media once a publisher or provider stops operating. Where this has happened to date the result has been for the consumer at least, unsatisfactory. Purchasers have found themselves losing their rights to purchased items and if wanting to continue to experience what they own need to resort to re-buying or downloading "illegally" material. It could be argued that under the old regime of print and audio this was the same. If a book, tape or record broke or became otherwise useless the owner would have to repurchase and the music industry in particular has done well out of the changes in media that has resulted in repurchases of content.
All the recent hoo-haa about Google and the add revenue from Google Books could have been a lot more productive. To me it looked like publishers and authors scrabbling to get a piece of a pie that they had been collectively been ignoring and their haste to assert their "rights" once Google had done all the hard work to my mind was to my mind unseemly and disingenuous considering that there seems to be no push to digitise back catalogues and make them available for purchase.
The time and effort getting money out of Google could have been better used in my view looking at how to partner with other electronic distributors for books, music, films and gaming to create a record of purchasers of material. This could be used for individuals to show ownership in the case of loss of locally stored material especially when the vendor the purchase was made through goes bankrupt or otherwise stops being able to support a product or service.
I envisage things such as price, purchaser, conditions of sale(both from author to publisher and final sale to consumer), seller, author or rights holder and conditions of copyright being stored with an onus of especially rights holders to ensure their information is kept up to date. I see this as being an ideal place to check on orphaned works and expired copyright to enable correct transferral of items into the public domain.
The reason why extra emphasis should be placed on the rights holder here is that this person would be the one who has the highest financial stake in the rights associated with the material. Please note I am not suggesting that the rights holder should be footing the bill for this scheme, I would have used the windfall profits from Google Books add revenue to pay for it(so yes it could be argued that by giving up the profit here is costing the rights holder but seeing as this was a form of revenue that wasn't being exploited in the first place there is no real loss associated with it).
All I have spoken of has been in relation or the electronic rights of copyrighted material so far as in the future I see this as the predominant right being sold. For physical media there are additional costs and additional remuneration to publishers and rights holders will need to be considered. I see the sale of such items as being prestige purchases and will be costed as such although the basic electronic right may be included in the purchase price of these items.
Posted via LiveJournal.app.
The Virgin train was very comfortable and fast(no photos again:-() and we got to Edinburgh, jumped in a taxi which didn't take the scenic route and were soon at our accommodation. Then it was time for tea.
Normally this wouldn't be much of a problem since it seems hard to much more than a few blocks without finding a pub but we were staying in the burbs this time. We had a map from the inside of an Edinburgh tourist pamphlet and headed off. The first thing we found was the directions we were given by the landlord didn't put us where we expected-but when ever do directions given by a man on the street get you where you want to go? The next problem was our map. While central Edinburgh was marked well our end of town had few street labels and I had a suspicion some of the smaller byways were left off.
We did get to the place suggested and took one look at he menu before heading off once more. Close by was another pub and as luck would have it they had not finished serving yet so we put worries of the future aside while we had a nice meal, drank a pint or two of the local and watched the soccer-or football as the natives call it.
Then we tried to find our way home.
We didn't go the way we came as we had ended up going a really long way around and now we knew where we had gone wrong we should be able to find a direct route back, right?
Wrong.
Here is where the map really showed how useless it was. Choosing a path based on what it showed took us up some really interesting streets. Past a local fishy complete with young man telling his mate how he was going to 'do that bastard' next time he saw him, down places where stolen shopping trollies shared the streets with broken prams. By now I was just heading north as much as I could because the one thing that was marked on our map was the street we stayed on and I knew there was no way we could miss that.
We didn't miss it and soon found ourselves back at our B&B, safe, sound and tired. It was going to be a good nights sleep before our adventures tomorrow.
Blast no double entendres. The Frenchman was a man who came to the region to train people in horticulture. Learned this in our quick visit to the visitors centre attached to the railway station. We didn't have a long wait till our train but we put it to good use. We also learned that the stairs we climbed the night before were called the "hundred steps". The advice of the brochure we found was that given its steepness he steps be used as a way down from the hills only. Typical of us to do things the hard way by accident.
- Location:United Kingdom, England
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