Found on the Net II

[Patricia]

Whew!

I hope this new chapter in your life is everything you want it to be.

[Andre Jute]

Congratulations, Jeremy.

[J.A.]

Thanks.

[Christopher]

Johnny-come-lately...

In response to the hospital theme, they terrify me. I'm convinced I picked up chlostridium dificile in the hospital when my wife was delivering our eldest. Two weeks after delivery I was down for the count and sopping up the morphine for pain. One of my mottoes: stay out of the hospital at all costs.

[Sharon]

I have a small job in a hospital, won't go into a room with C-diff (or any other high-infectious issue), told them they could stuff the job if they insisted I go in.

Thought it might be a good idea when I retired to have something to force me out one day a week. Took several leaves of absence when my dd got sick and am off again May until October to have the summer off. I doubt I'll go back, haven't missed the place at all.

Won't take dd through the ER, always go directly to the appropriate unit (now renal), stand my ground if someone suggests I go back through the 'proper' route to ER. A few months ago, I skirted a nurse who was trying just that and accosted a Doc who personally lead us to a room and chastized the nurse.

Still, I did not catch anything all those months (years) I spent at the hospitals. Airplanes, though, used to always do me in - until a friend told me to 'stuff Polysporin up your nose' before boarding. Haven't caught anything on a flight since.

[Patricia]

I haven't flown very often, but each time I did, I ended up sick by the time we landed. Not the best start for a vacation. On one trip, I was out walking the night I arrived when I happened to strike up a conversation with a couple who were also out for a stroll. The man said I sounded terrible. I told him it had hit me on the plane. He said he was a doctor, and then and there he wrote me a prescription for something that got me through the rest of my vacation. He said I should have gone to the ER, but since he was an ER doctor he would save me that step.

Another time, another trip, by the time I landed I had a high fever and felt like manure. I found a doctor who'd see me that day. Ended up he also owned a night club, knew all the best nightlife in town, and took me out that night. Sometimes illness has its rewards. He was handsome, funny, and kind.

[Andre Jute]

The sting is in the tail:

"The author should really take a remedial English class before
writing something for publication, even publication on Amazon.
This is nearly incomprehensible, written, if that's the word, in
an English so cracked and awkward it's often impossible to tell
what he means. Apart from anything else, he seems to have no idea
what quotation marks, or brackets, or parentheses are for, or how
they should be used. This is a complete mess, and I am very sorry
to have wasted the money. It is considerably less clear than the
instruction Amazon itself provides for self-publishing."

So this guy, who can't write, is writing instruction for other people on how to write? Only on Amazon!

[Sharon]

What was the context, Andre?

[Andre Jute]

I didn't write the piece. I just found it where the guy being criticized tried to give clearly wrong advice and plug his how-to book. It's on KDP on a thread Amazon is pushing as an exemplar in their newsletter!

[K.A.]

Andre - your new iPad has arrived:

http://www.thepassivevoice.com/08/201...

[Andre Jute]

That's a stupid design because he let the iPad determine the width of the typewriter keyboard. As the last Brazilian-made Olivetti Lettera 32, the best selling typewriter the world ever saw, proved, there is an optimum ergonomic for typewriter keyboards. It is not the width of an iPad. A proper qwerty keyboard is at least 25mm/1in wider than an iPad.

(Yes, Victoria, I know you made a joke.)

[K.A.]

I wish I'd switched to Devoric. It is supposed to be easer on the hands.

[Andre Jute]

Dvorak has to be learned just like qwerty. Most of us don't use only one keyboard.

[Patricia]

(...picturing Andre using two keyboards at once...)

[J.A.]

He's got a lot of the internet to patrol.

[Patricia]

Better get him a couple keyboards for his feet, then...

[K.A.]

Toeboards? Hey, watch this! I'm a toeboarder!

[Andre Jute]

When I was younger and prone to showing off to the less talented (though inevitably rich and beautiful and famous -- I was an expensive friend) after dinner I could be persuaded to show how I would type an original novel with my left hand, with my right hand write an original poem in beautiful script, listen in one ear to a symphony of which I would later be able to whistle the main themes, while dictating perfectly decent music as fully scored notes for a string quartet or carry on a philosophical discussion or tell jokes for that matter; I would also be able to recount accurately the content of pages in any of the languages I spoke turned quite quickly in front of me, two books at a time.. The computer merely increased the opportunities for polymaths like me. But even back before computers, what really grossed out people, and Mini Andre x, my bonobo, was that I could play a duet with myself with my feet on two keyboards while doing all this, any tune that you named. A pianist or singer who was briefly famous for being married to Lisa Minelli came around with a German princess one night, put the feet on the keyboard routine into his show, and sold out his tour.

[Andre Jute]

Kat and me, we know the true meaning of the univeral ommmn that comes only through the toes on the keyboard.

[K.A.]

Kench! Yes, I ommmmn to the beat of the toeboard.

[Sharon]

I love the weirdness that sometimes comes out in here...

[Patricia]

Did you say weirdos or weirdness?

[K.A.]

We are entertaining, aren't we?

[Sharon]

Weirdos, weirdness, it a great form of entertainment for sure.

Perhaps I need to get a life, sigh...

[Sharon]

This just in (though I am certain Kindle would have sent an advisory email which I promply ignored):

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,...

[Andre Jute]

Lotta speculation on very little fact...

[Sharon]

Gonna be interesting to see what they come up with...

[Sharon]

Here's more news: http://www.bgr.com/

[Sharon]

And here is something I found on the net the other day and was drafting a post about when GR completely went off the rails (and took me with them, I was actually shouting at the computer!) and everything was lost.

http://www.bgr.com/2012/09/04/blackbe...

Hype or not, I have never ruled BB out. They were the ones who essentially invented the genus 'smartphone', and their products have always been innovative and quality.

I will likely buy the iphone 5 when it comes out because I like to have an Apple product to see how things are shaking in the ebook world, but I may just wait until the new BB smartphone comes out in the new year. I suspect that may turn out to be a brilliant move on their part, tapping into the after-Christmas bubble.

[Patricia]

I was looking forward to the announcement of the new Kindle models, but none includes text-to-speech so I'm giving them a pass.

One feature I did find intriguing is "time to read" which, based on your reading speed, tells you how much more time it'll take you to a) finish the chapter, or b) finish the book.

[Sharon]

OMG, not sure I would want to know just how long it sometimes takes for me. I am reading a book I'm really enjoying but I only seem to find time to read it as I fall off to sleep and occasionally when I wake up early in the morning. Fortunately I am enjoying it enough to keep the thread of the story going, grin...

[Sharon]

The new Kindle Fire seems to have lit (lighted? brain cramp here) a fire under the techies - here's the latest in a long line of rants (all glowing):

http://gizmodo.com/5941061/kindle-fir...

Time will tell, I suppose, but if the new KF lives up to the hype, it can only be good for authors publishing to Kindle (us!)...

[Patricia]

I think I corrected this elsewhere, but here goes (maybe again): the new Fire models do have text-to-speech.

My reading is mostly at bedtime, too, Sharon. When starting to read again the next night, I've often forgotten much of what I read the night before. I just plow ahead anyway and eventually find enough memory cues in the new pages to know what's going on. I used to go back and re-read, but decided that was keeping me from ever getting through a whole book.

[Patricia]

Sharon, I just read the gizmodo link. They sound very excited, like the Messiah has arrived. I noticed someone asked about Bluetooth. Bezos said it has it, but I have no idea what that means in terms of a tablet. I'm probably the only person in the world who doesn't know.

I ordered the $299 version. Last night, watching the movie Being Flynn on my 7" Fire, I was wishing Amazon would hurry up and ship that bigger, better screen. And there was absolutely nothing wrong with the 7" screen.

By the way, Being Flynn is a good film for writers to watch.

[Andre Jute]

There's something about a bigger, sharper screen. An iPad 2 grew dusty on my side table. Then Dakota sent me one of the New iPads with the retina display, and I use it so much every day that yesterday I was wondering if I should buy a clamp on battery extension pack, a silly thought really, as the thing is good for a minimum of ten hours, and I keep mine inside a Griffin Survivor case, which is more important to me, as it gets banged about on my bike, where I use it as a satellite map (GPS in the jargon (1)).

My Kindle stands on the shelf, and I charged it the other day, but nobody in my family uses it anymore. It is worthless for editing.

(1) This morning I rode out to see the sun rise. It was universally overcast, so I saw a dawn, but no ray of sun. So instead I went downhill on a lane I never went on before, because I didn't know if I would get back up before my heart gave out. On the iPad I was able to measure and determine I could just make it if I took a break at the bottom, where the lane runs into a highway to dangerous to go on with bicycle. And so it proved. I'd never been able to measure so precisely on the screen of my smartphone, I never tried it on the iPad 2 but don't think it would have the resolution, and of course I'm far too much of the electronic age to carry a printed map...

[Patricia]

I vaguely remember the days when people used those paper maps.

[Sharon]

Patricia wrote: "Sharon, I just read the gizmodo link. They sound very excited, like the Messiah has arrived. I noticed someone asked about Bluetooth. Bezos said it has it, but I have no idea what that means in ter..."

Bluetooth is okay, but must be tethered pretty closely to its parent device and is iffy.

Kench, Patricia, I am not surprised you bought the new Kindle, we can always rely upon you to be our guinea pig.

I haven't watched Being Flynn, but there is a new movie just out, getting tepid reviews, called 'The Words', with a theme of plagiariam. The trailers look pretty good. I was going to post to ask if any of y'all had seen it...

[Sharon]

Patricia wrote: "I vaguely remember the days when people used those paper maps."

I'm very good with printed maps, have been with a few peeps while they were using a GPS. In every single case, they got lost or at least waylaid. In which case a voice (female, male, often Aussie) wants to take the vehicle down another path that usually involves U-turns kms (miles) down the road, when the driver (or at least the navigator, who is now me) can see for themselves that if we just take that road there we can get to the right one toute de suite.

But then again I was born on the prairies, I speak compass directionese very well and almost never get lost.

[Andre Jute]

Sure and all, I used to win air rallies against the best navigators of the USAF, the RAF, the Israeli, French etc airforces, and the airlines tried to get me banned for winning too often. But my secret had nothing to do with map reading, it had to do with choosing a pilot who if I said "Turn right", and he could see only solid granite on his right hand, would've turned right. After he fell overboard in the Southern Ocean in midwinter (this is racing big yachts across dangerous waters now, not flying; I've changed the subject temporarily) and was expected to die of hypothermia in eight minutes, I sailed figures of eight for twenty-four hours because I knew that if I didn't bring his body home his sisters would never speak to me again, and at 2358 found him, still alive. His only words before he lost consciousness (and not from gaffing him in my hurry to get him inboard before we lost him again in the 40ft waves -- he felt no pain anywhere) were, "What the fuck took you so long?" He had perfect faith in me. Once, when all the several hundred planes in the race were lost (now we're back to the air rally), and several crews came to grief, I won by telling him to fly down to rooftop level above a city that I found by flying along a beach until we almost crashed into a cruise the ship and then following a road up a mountain, and flew over the observation post on the mountain almost three hours before the other leaders came in, so low when we shot over the ridge that everyone in the observation post hit the deck' they thought we were coming for them. They tried to get me disqualified for being dangerous, but my girlfiend had taken the precaution of having a lawyer on standby, and I explained to the disciplinary committee, at my most silky, that only I could protect them against this nut cutter who was looking for someone to ruin to make his day.

[K.A.]

I like having GPS for cities - but I want a map for driving around the countryside. I usually have one of each in my car - and my smartphone has a map-ap, in case of emergency.

[Patricia]

I don't know east from west and maps make me itch. Once for kicks I asked one of those online driving directions sites how to get from my house to the one directly across the street. The directions took me all the way around the block.

Sharon, I didn't know The Words was getting tepid reviews. From the moment I saw the trailer, I was hooked. Hope it's not disappointing.

[Andre Jute]

Bluetooth is like wifi but very short range, three meters or about ten feet. I have some super bluetooth headphones which I use with my smartphone to listen to music, carry on conversatons without having to shout, and so on. They also work with my iPad, Mac, etc.

You can transfer files directly between your computer and mobile devices via Bluetooth, a bit more easily than you can use wifi. I don't know what the point is but the IT engineers go all misty-eyed over it. Car radios now come with Bluetooth to save people plugging in their iPods.

[Sharon]

Yep, and in my experience the car audio systems have a mind of their own, often cutting out, but I am certain Bluetooth has saved many an accident.

Kat, your system of using maps sounds like a sound one to me. Still, the GPS will take you the same kind of route MapQuest or other map apps do, to the major roads. Who wants to travel those when the secondary ones will probably cause you less grief and get you there faster to boot. Or have GPS apps become smarter and give one that option?

Patricia, I hope so too. Either way, I will be sure to watch the movie.

Andre, you really should be a writer...

[Sharon]

I posted that last to see if for likely the first time in my life, someone wanted to get me banned or disqualified. I'd love to add that to my CV.

Off to walk a labyrinth...

[Andre Jute]

Sharon wrote: "Andre, you really should be a writer... "

I used to be. Then I got comfortable.

My fave line when I was a young rowdy was:
"I've been thrown out of much better hotels than this one!"

[Katie]

We call our GPS Siobhan because my husband has it set on a lovely Irish female voice and my kids delight in copying how she says,'Go aroynd the royndaboyt'.

[Patricia]

I don't feel so silly now for having named my red Roomba Ruby.

[Andre Jute]

Katie wrote: "We call our GPS Siobhan because my husband has it set on a lovely Irish female voice and my kids delight in copying how she says,'Go aroynd the royndaboyt'."

Yes, but can they spell Shivaughn?

[Dakota]

Kench! The GPS in my work car speaks German with a Prussian Junker accent. We say, "Jawohl, Herr Oberst."

[Andre Jute]

When our son was born, I gave Roz a Volvo estate to keep her and the baby safe. It had a voice telling us to do up our safety belts that sounded just like a governess I used to hate. I got a wiring diagram and RIPPED HER THROAT.