Crash (of the computer kind)

I suspended my blogging for about a week in order to deal with a computer crash. It was the benign class of crashes: the motherboard went south and since it was old, I needed to buy a new computer. The benign element was that the disk turned out to be fine and I lost no data. But still, it took almost a week to re-install software, find and install a driver for the new computer to use an obsolete scuzzy disk controller card, and to convince Windows-7 that I did have the right to read and write data on the scuzzy disk.

And then there was the issue of using the new machine with two monitors. After finding any answer I wanted on-line (The Dell computer could/couldn't/couldn't-even-with-a-new-video-card), I called Dell and asked them. A very knowledgeable-sounding technician said I couldn't use dual monitors on that particular Dell model. He was wrong. I found an adapter (DVI to HMDI) and tried it. And it worked. You'd think you could trust the company itself to provide accurate information (i.e. you'd think Dell would know about Dell computers). I'm astounded that apparently you can't.

Actually, the computer I use for blogging is an old, reliable, Linux laptop. But until I knew that the data on the crashed computer was safe, I couldn't concentrate on anything else.

So, now I'll resume--tomorrow.

While the worst are full of passionate intensity

     It's about a year and a half to the 2012 US presidential election and already the Republican field, such that it is, has turned nasty. The exception seems to be Jon Huntsman who is, at the moment, showing and espousing reason and civility. But others in his party (and particular, the other candidates) are decrying that very civility. And many think he hasn't a chance of the nomination because of it. Not that it affects me, particularly, as I'm way on the other side of the proverbial political spectrum. 

I've missed W.B. Yeats' birthday (June 13) by ten days.

     The first stanza of his poem, 'The Second Coming" has long reminded me of this most political of seasons (particularly the last eight words).

William Butler Yeats -- The Second Coming (first octet)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
the falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
the ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
are full of passionate intensity.

The Dyslexicon by Carl Frederick (flash fiction)

     From time to time, I'll post some of my short fiction--starting now.
     The 1000 word short, The Dyslexicon, first appeared in 'Flash Fiction Online' in 2008. It is all about wordplay.
     Up until high school, I had a full syndrome of dyslexic behaviors — probably due to my being forcibly switched from left to right-handed in preschool (although I did have the common predictor of thinking mainly in pictures). I did have the usual p,q and b,d confusion and backward slant tendency on upper case Ns. I also was a little prone to Spoonerisms (which make up much of the story) and puns. I learned early to pretend they were intentional.
     In fact, when I wrote “The Dyslexicon”, I created an organization called DOG, which stood for the Dyslexic Geek Organization. I didn’t realize until I’d proofed the story, that it should have been DGO. I left it as DOG, of course.
     Dyslexia is a broad term, and I take it to describe the full gamut of linguistic confusions. I’ve heard dyslexia described as a gift (www.dyslexia.com). While it was a real pain when I was a kid, I now think that in some respects, yes, it was/is a gift. (It did, though, make it very difficult for me to learn any Inuktitut since the rotational angle of the alphabet consonants determines what vowel follows it.)

The Dyslexicon

by Me

     Entry: The DOG (Dyslexic Geek Organization): In these climes of specialized tubs, it snot atoll surprising there’s a club for...

     Nate finished reading the entry, closed the Dyslexicon, and left the library with a growing realization that he must become a part of the DOG. This is his tale.


    As Nate entered the office, the Head of the DOG stood. “Mice to neat you,” he said, extending his hand. “Please don’t take a fence, but you’re a robot, aren’t you?”
    “I’m a violin virtuoso robot.” Nate shook the hand. “And I’m dyslectic.”
    The Head indicated a chair facing the desk. “If I say may, you don’t sound dyslectic.”
    “Oh, but I am,” said Nate. “Musically dyslectic. I’ve a firmware bug that makes me occasionally play notes out of order. I’ve lost my job because of it.”
     The Head eyed him, coolly. “Can’t you just get a wormfair upgrade?”
     “Firmware upgrades cost money.” Nate executed the ironic laugh subroutine. “Shelter and fuel cells aren’t free. I can barely afford my windowless basement room in a sleazy Robotel.”
     “These are tough rhymes.” The Head leaned forward, his chair squeaking under his shifting weight. “I don’t see in what hay the DOG could whelp.”
    “May I join the DOG?”
     “No.” The Head shook his head. “That is absolutely out of equestrian.”
     “But why?”
     The Head stood. “About every month, some young snot-nosed rat breeds in the library about us and then comes and tastes my wine with a foamy membership application. A big joke.”
     “It’s not a joke for me.” Nate invoked a level-three pleading tone. “If I don’t learn how to live in a human society, I’ll cease to exist. I’m a writer now, but nobody wants to buy my books. If I can’t learn what people want to read, I’m finished.”
     “Hmm. A writer.” The Head sat slowly, his expression transforming from cold disdain to a cheerful warmth. “We might have a cot for a sloppy editor. How you are at proofreading?”
     “I can do that.”
     “Here, we sing the body dyslectic,” said the Head, expansively. “And we sorely need a prude goofreader.”
     “Are you offering me a job?”
     “Perhaps.” The Head nodded. “I think we can brain you for a trite future.”
     “What’s the catch? I mean, you know what they say about geeks bearing gifts.”
     “What do geeks gifting bears have to do with it? It’s not as if you’re selling your soul to Santa. Look. I don’t offer a mob to just any jug that comes in. What you do say?”
     Nate widened his eyes by five percent. “It’s like becoming a werewolf,” he said in a dazed voice. “It gives one paws. But I’d still like to be a member of the organization.”
     The Head sighed. “Urine eligible, I’m afraid. Unless you’re a geek.”
     “But I am,” said Nate.
     “You have my attention.” The Head leaned back and clasped his hands behind his neck. “A mall leers.”
     “Well, the first book I wrote was titled String Theory for Yo-yos.”
     The Head shrugged. “I’d think a look for the bay public about string theory would sell rather well.”
     “I’d assumed everyone would be curious why yo-yo strings twist the way they do.” Nate shook his head. “But the book was a bomb.”
     The Head laughed. “You wean the murk was really about yo-yos?”
     “Yes. Of course.”
     “You got me. That’s geeky.”
     “And my second book, Puns, Palindromes, and Inversions in Morse Code, did even worse.”
     “Ultra-geeky,” said the Head. “But what’s an inversion?”
     “It’s really neat.” Nate’s lips formed the default smile. “You write a word in Morse code and then change all the dots to dashes, and all the dashes to dots.”
     “Yeah?” The Head pushed forward a notepad and pencil.
     Nate picked up the pencil. “‘Sat’ becomes ‘one’. ‘Use’ becomes ‘dot’, ‘gnat’ turns into ‘wane’. But look here. This is really neat.” Nate printed the word ‘time’ in big letters, then the word in Morse Code (- .. -- .) . “And ‘time’ becomes ‘emit’. But ‘emit’ is also ‘time’ spelled backwards. Isn’t that amazing?”
     “It really is amazing.” The Head looked up from the pad. “Okay, I’m convinced. I’ll be proud to enter your name onto our rolls.”
     “Wait,” said Nate. “You’re not speaking dyslexically anymore.”
     “It’s one of the reasons DOG exists.” The Head spread his hands. “We’ve found that when a dyslectic geek is being truly geeky, his dyslexia goes into remission — sort of like a stutterer not stuttering when he’s singing.”
     “Really?” Nate sprang to his feet.
     “Tongue-twisters work also,” said the Head. “She sells sea shells. That sort of stuff. Causes a dyslexia overload, most likely.”
    “Maybe it’ll work for me, too. Maybe if I think geeky thoughts while playing violin....”
    “Could be,” said the Head. “Robot firmware is meant to emulate human wetware. But be careful using tongue-twisters. There’s a danger of contracting polyisophonia.”
     “What?”
     “The chronic condition of speaking in long sentences where most of the words start with the same sound.”
     Nate chuckled. “I’ll take my chances.” He pumped the Head’s hand. “Thank you. I’ve got to go and try it.” He bolted for the door. “I’ll be in touch.”
     With new hope, Nate hurried away. She sells sea shells by the sea shore. She sells sea shells by the see-saw. She sells... If this worked, he’d owe a lot to the DOG. Dad’s dead dogs died digging ditches. Dad’s dead dogs...
     Finally, thinking of a bowed violin, Nate returned to his abode, vile inn that it was. There, applying what he’d learned from the DOG, he picked up his instrument and played a Paganini caprice. Perfect! Not a trace of musical dyslexia. He could return to his orchestra. “Neat!” thought Nate, “Now I know I’ll never have another night where knots of nasty nitwits note that numerous notes were neither nice nor normal.”
     Soon thereafter, Nate moved out of his shabby room in the Robotel’s basement and up to the second floor — but that’s another storey.

END

Biphasic Sleep

     For about six months now, I've been a biphasic sleeper--that is to say that I have two sleep periods per day rather than just one.
     I'd tried different sleep schedules but the one that works for me is: bed at 10:30pm, up at 3:am; bed at 7:am, up at 9:30. (Previously, I went to bed at 10pm and got up at 5am.)
It's been good--and makes it feel as if I live 14 days per week.
     I did this for a number of reasons but I have to admit a major one was to get up before my cat. Formerly, I got up at 5 whilst my cat rose at 4:40 and noisily demanded food. I tried leaving out food the night before but, apparently, my cat does not like to dine alone.
     But it was the promise of eventually being able to do with less sleep that drew me in. This hasn't happened yet, but I think it will.
     It amazes me though, how much writing I can get done between 3 and 7 (after a half hour on an elliptical trainer)..
     For years, I've had bad sleep habits: thinking about things as I go to bed--resulting in it taking a long time to fall asleep. I still have that problem with the 10:30 sleep shift. But with the 7:am shift (probably because I have no habits, good or bad, I fall asleep quickly.
     The (minimal) down-side is that I've no idea when things are happening or have happened, what part of the day it is--and I say 'good morning' regardless of the clock.
     As for my cat, he's taken to getting up at 2:45.

The September Analog & SF for Linux Geeks

The September issue of Analog Magazine has just appeared--containing my novelette 'Helix of Friends'. And that means that in two months, I'll be able to e-publish (Kindle & Nook) my anthology entitled,

SF++  Science Fiction Stories for Linux Geeks.

I can't 'publish' earlier because the first story in the anthology, 'The Lycanthropic Principle' is due (I think) to come out in next month's issue of Analog and they have a one-month exclusive.

The book will be free.

Why this book is free

SF⁺⁺ has Linux in its title, and the Linux operating system doesn't cost anything. I thought then, to keep with the Linux philosophy, I'd make this book also not cost anything. And anyway, most of the stories herein have already paid for themselves—seven of them have appeared in Analog Magazine (the one SF magazine for Geeks).

However, if after you read the anthology you find you've enjoyed most of the stories, you might consider (hint, hint) e-hoofing it to Amazon or B&N (with your rooted Nook) and buying one of my other anthologies or novels.

Please visit my website, www.frithrik.com for information about my E-publications.

Preface

If you think the penguin on the cover represents the Penguin Publishing Group, then perhaps this anthology is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you fondly recognize Tux, the Linux penguin, then yes, you are among friends.

Annoyingly often in the science fiction movies of my childhood, one had the Evil Scientist and BSD (not what you might think) the Beautiful Scientist's Daughter. In the public mind, this arguably defined scientists as evil (but having pretty daughters) — whereas we paleogeeks more likely redefined the word 'evil' (evil = wicked, good, spiffy, way out, etc.).

Then, a generation later, geeks and nerds were lumped together and, with their stereotyped pocket protectors and thick, black-rimmed taped glasses, were thought of as smelly hapless misfits.

Not any more. Now, though the wuggies (see story 01) might not realize it, at long last, geeks rule!

I wanted to assemble an anthology for geeks—smart, independent, science and computer savvy geeks with a sense of humor. And, for me, that pointed to Linux. Linux types are smart—they have to be to use Linux well. They're independent enough not to use that other operating system. And finally, there's a tradition of humor and word play in the Linux community: PINE Is Not Elm, if you knew Suse, and all that.

And so, SF⁺⁺ (Note: the anthology is not distro specific—except for one case where Ubuntu is assumed). ++ does not indicate a new object oriented language like c⁺⁺. The first + indicates that in addition to stories, there's a science fact article (Challenge of the Anthropic Universe). The second plus indicates an experiment—a story (Roblocks) that can't be done in dead-treeware. It requires an html capable reader. And indeed, this collection is intended for Kindles, Nooks, or for any Grub (GRand Unified Book Loader).

Most of the 10 works in this ninety three thousand word collection have appeared in pro SF magazines. Many also appear in my earlier anthologies. (If words were kilo-miles, this anthology would stretch from the Earth to the Sun.)

We are Linux!

                        Resistance is...measured in ohms.

Gobsmacking Down-under

(From The Sydney Morning Herald)
Booksellers' jaws dropped today upon hearing that federal Minister for Small Business Nick Sherry had predicted that online shopping would wipe out general bookstores within five years
Australian Booksellers Association chief executive Joel Becker's initial response: "I'm gobsmacked," he said.


I agree with the minister, but I think it's the combination of online shopping as well as e-readers that will do in bookstores.
I wonder what the long-term impact of e-readers will be on used-book stores. Initially I expect that, as people down-size their libraries, the used book stores will get more books. But then, with less books being printed, they will start to run low on stock.


Does the concept of a used e-book make any sense? It might.
And what about remaindered e-books?


I rather imagine that literary agents are (as a group) running scared. As the e-book trend/revolution gathers speed, I expect the agent's main role will be assumed by the on-line 'group mind' and the viral effect. I do think agents could get on-board (somehow) to influence what e-books are given a high-profile, but I doubt if they will. There is such a tradition of literary agents being treated like minor gods that I don't think many of them will adapt to the new publishing paradigms until it is too late. 

Irk of the Day: Salt

   Whenever I see a can of that popular brand of tomato soup--the one with happy kids on the label, one word comes to mind: Poison.
   I love tomato soup but most canned soups are loaded with salt. I don't like salt (my mom never used it in cooking) and I respond badly to it. Fortunately though, one can make a truly great tomato soup using 'no salt added' tomato paste as a base.
   Bread though, is another matter. There's a lot of salt in commercial bread. I eat a lot of bread and have been trying to cut down. And that's even though I eat a 'healthy' 100% whole wheat bread. (I wonder though, what 100% really means. There are a lot of ingredients other than wheat in the bread--including a fair amount of salt.) Of course, I could always buy a low sodium bread, but that's expensive and I don't like paying for what's not in my food.
   So I pulled out my old bread machine, bought some new yeast and, using six year old whole wheat flower from the dark recesses of a kitchen cabinet, made a loaf.
   Gosh, I had no idea wheat could go rancid. I took a bite of the bread and then threw it out. I had considered though, selling it as rat poison. If eating the bread didn't kill the rat, then dropping the loaf on its head surely would have.
   My second loaf (with fresh flour) turned out much better. One more source of excessive salt eliminated.
   Cigarette companies are (in my mind) justifiably excoriated for producing a harmful product. Would that food producers be held to account for lacing their products with what might well be considered toxic amounts of salt.

Things that Irk: Today's Irk

   Today, I needed a bottle of chlorine bleach. Now I know that there is only one active ingredient in same, namely sodium hypochlorite (in concentrations of 3 to 8 or so percent). The only difference between one brand and another is the concentration and the addition of perfumes. I went to my local superstore and looked at the bottles, trying to find which product had the highest sodium hypochlorite content. None of the brands told me. That offends me--almost as much as the concept of bottled water. But they all told me their product would make my whites whiter. How hard would it have been to just put that one little concentration number on the label?
   It reminds me of when I first left home for university--and had to, for the first time, do my own laundry. At that time, in contradistinction to my left-wing political philosophy, I was very conservative with regard to dress. I wore nothing  but white shirts (with pants, shoes, socks, and underwear, of course), and sought a laundry detergent that would clean my shirts. After reading the ingredients of box after box, I found that they all worked by magic or at best by a secret formula. They did promise to make my whites 'whiter than white' whatever that means (sounds like something Gene Wolfe might write). Gosh, I hate marketing, and those that cheerfully do it for a living.

Nook vs. Kindle and B&N vs. Amazon.

Being now a 'indie' e-pub author, I thought I should have a 'tablet'-type e-reader and also an e-ink reader. I bought first a Nook. I did this because I thought I'd eventually 'root' the Nook to get a cheap Android device. The Nook is a terrific piece of hardware and I'm sure that when I do finally root it, it will be a superb Android pad. People I know who have already rooted their Nooks have confirmed it.
   But as an e-reader (for books), the Color Nook does have its disadvantages. One of the less known is the character-set the Nook supports. With the Nook (unlike the later Kindles which support just about every alphabet you might want) you get the normal QUERTY keyboard character set, and a few extra symbols. I found this out the hard way: One of my books required a few Old-English characters. Kindle handled them just fine, but some of them didn't work at all in the Nook. I've no idea how (or if) B&N will sell Nooks in, say, Russia, or even in South America for that matter. I had a similar experience with another book which used some equations. For the Nook version, I had to capture a screen shot of the equations in a word processor, then make a jpeg from the equations and insert them as images into the text. This has its limitations of course as, unlike text, images don't scale.
   The main problem with the Nook (IMO) isn't the hardware, or even the software per se, but the B&N company. They have a miserable (and fully justified, in my opinion) reputation for customer service and responsiveness. One of my colleagues tried to e-pub a book on B&N. Once the book uploaded, the B&N site, for weeks, said 'processing'. My colleague then e-mailed the company for help, got no answer, e-mailed them again, and then again. Eventually, he got a response saying he'd get a e-mail the following day. He did. The e-mail was an advertisement for a Nook. In the last week, some organization came out with a list of the best and worst companies for customer service. I was not surprised to see B&N on the worst list.
   My own personal annoyance is with the recent version 1.2 software upgrade. Along with some cool features, a sample of a Good Housekeeping cookbook was also downloaded to all Nooks. And this cookbook could not be erased from one's nook. The last thing I wanted was a frilly, flower-infested book cover on my Nook screen. That is when I decided it was time to root my nook. (I wonder what you call a rooted Nook. A Nanook, perhaps. [Nanook, BTW, means polar bear in Inuktituk]. How about Nyanook?)
I've just bought the required memory card and will root soon.

   On the other hand, my experience with Amazon has been nothing but good. Their websites (unlike B&N's) are well-constructed, they promote their author's books, they make it easy for authors to interact with the readers, and (I've been told) they're good at providing help.

   I do hope B&N gets its act together. As much as I like Amazon/Kindle (except for Kindle not using the industry-standard epub format), I think it's healthier if there is more than one great power in the e-publishing world.

Who I am

Sometimes, I wonder.
     I'm a theoretical physicist and a science fiction writer. Up until a few months ago, I wrote short stories, exclusively. The bulk of them went to Analog Magazine. I've had over thirty stories published in that keeper of the flame of hard-sf.
    But now, with the arrival of the Kindle and Nook, and the ability to self-publish through Amazon and Barnes & Noble, I've become a e-published novelist as well. I've now e-published eight volumes: three short story anthologies and five novels.
    Marketing is the key. And to that end, I've (with some trepidation and reluctance) started this blog. And I decided I needed a uniform name to use across the e-universe. As the names Carl and Frederick are too common to use for Twitter, Blogspot, Facebook, or to register as a URL, I resorted to my college nickname, Frithrik (the Icelandic and also Old-English versions of Frederick. I'm a nut on Old-English). I figured that while there are billions of English speakers, there are only some 300 thousand Icelanders--so I might have a chance to pick up www.frithrik.com. And I did--and I'm now using Frithrik just about everywhere.
    For my photo, I chose Omnivor, the robot I (and my very small company at the time) built for Omni Magazine for use on their TV program series: 'Omni-The World Tomorrow'. When the series ended, I got my robot back. He stands now in my living room--as a not quite living monument. (He's almost six feet tall.)
   I'm uncertain whether this self-marketing will actually work, but as a character in one of my stories said, 'Blessed are the uncertain, for maybe they shall see Heisenberg'.
   And, of course, I don't expect anyone to actually read this blog--not for a while, anyway. I guess I'll treat it as a diary, albeit not a very secure one.

Who am I--not?

I'm not the Carl Frederick who wrote a book about EST. I'm not even sure I know what EST is. I mean, it seems unlikely that someone would write a whole book about Eastern Standard Time.
And I'm not the superb special effects supervisor at Industrial Light and Magic. (At a SIGGRAPH show once where we both attended and were getting each other's messages, we did exchange business cards via the message board.)
And I am not Carl Frederick Gauss. (He was a mathematician. I am a physicist.)