And so, having helped Steve Jobs and the Internet save our Macs from infection, I find myself flat on my back, having lost to a regular ol’ analog people-virus. Thanks to my team of Androids I can still post, however. If I get delusional later I’ll try to write something. Those posts are usually pretty funny. At least, I think they are…
So, the basic plot for this novel is one that has been bouncing around in my skull for, oh, about ten years now. I’ve always had a pretty good idea who the main cast would be, what they would be like, and how the plot would go. On November 1st I sat down to finally write this novel that I’d been ruminating over, and figured that it was all going to go just like I’d planned it for the last decade.
In the second chapter I introduced a few extra characters to fill out a dinner party scene. One of them said his bit, bowed, walked off stage and we’ve never heard from him again, as is good and proper. One of the other ones, however, attached himself to my protagonist and rapidly became his best friend.
At first I smiled at this little slice of life, but as it became clearer and clearer that this interloper wasn’t planning on going anywhere I started to look for ways to gently get him out of the story. The problem was that he and my protagonist were now fast friends, and what’s worse, this new guy was actually pretty well developed and fit into the story like a gear in a Swiss clock. Trying to pull him out would bring the whole thing down on my head.
A few chapters later the new guy gave us his life story and to my astonishment it was better than some of the life stories I had been working on for years. My attitude to this little me-tooer switched from a slight desire to chase him off to a more appeasing stance, making sure he was comfortable, got enough face time, because he’s made the whole story work better and has just quietly suggested ways in which he can be helpful in wrapping up all the loose ends.
So, the moral of the story is: Don’t belive you are in control of fiction during a first draft. You can be in control during the later drafts.
The good news is that I’ve written over 32,000 words out of 50,000, which means I should be done with the NaNoWriMo challenge a bit earlier than the end of November and can probably get a few words about this whole Papermaster thing up before it blows over. Is it just me, or does Papermaster sound like a terrible hybrid Print Shop/Filemaker program? Everytime I see his name on news sites I wonder how he got it. I can only think it was a joke at Ellis Island some years ago.
Anyway, be good, have fun, I’ll be back with some Not-Entirely-Sane Apple News soon.
So, The Crazy Apple News Crew (CANC?) leaves early tomorrow morning to go to Colorado for a day. We’re going by plane (but by biplane. This is the 21st century, not the 19th.), so the title doesn’t really make any sense at all. But my question to you all is: What does one do when one is in Fort Collins? We will immediately post any and all Crazy Apple News Items((CANI? Sounds like an Italian dish.)) we come across in our travels. And by “immedately” I mean, “Whenever we can get a network connection. Some of us don’t have iPhones, ya know.”
So, to sum up: What does one do in Fort Collins and expect some microblogging from the road. Hopefully.
Okay, over and out.
You may have noticed a brief outage earlier today. Hopefully, looking at the site now, you’ll see why that happened. This should be the last theme change for a while. Until they come out with a Snow Leopard theme, anyway.
We thought this new theme was a bit more Appley. You know, more Leopardy, less Linuxy. More iTunesish, less Amarokesque. Also, you may notice a newish buttony thing down on the right hand side…
Apple took iDisk in a new direction with the release of Mobile Me.
For years, the iDisk icon has been the now-all-too-familiar “some kinda network-magic-ball” on a hard disk, suggesting that an iDisk is, well, a hard drive on the network (or possibly the other way around. I’m not sure.) Now, however, the iDisk icon invites you to explore something entirely new. Specifically, it invites you to explore worlds where you can ride with your improbably-proportioned friends on a magical wingéd horse named Feathers into a fluffy cloudy mauve external disk in the sky.
This is a movement sure to be met well with the under-12 crowd, a group that makes up a significant number of Apple computer purchasers.
“I like it a lot!!!!!!” said a person who was not allowed to tell me their name because “Mommy said I shouldn’t talk to bloggers”. “It’s a cool new picture, and I can store all my paintings of princesses on it! It’s so pretty! I named it “pretty fairy”! And I like the prple [sic] color too!”
While we at CANS would never admit it, using the new iDisk makes us feel like royalty. Pretty royalty. Not, like, Prince Charles or anything.
The problem with stealing someone’s thunder is this: You’ve been walking down the street and saw the thunder laying there on the dining room table, nobody in sight, and thought, “I can use that!” So you sneak in, pick up the thunder, and just as you are sneaking back out of the house, Someone comes home and sees you walking off with their thunder.
There are two things you can do at this point: You can try to hold on to the thunder and hope nobody notices that it’s actually Someone’s and not yours. Or you can drop the thunder and run like a scared rabbit.
The problem with holding on to the thunder is that you’ll always be getting questions like “Isn’t that Someone’s thunder? What are you doing with it?” Or, “How pathetic are you that you couldn’t get your own thunder?” Add that to the fact that Someone is far better at using their thunder than you are, because they’ve had it for a while and you haven’t, and it can make for an embarrassing situation.
On the other hand, dropping the thunder and running doesn’t exactly cover one in glory either. It’s easy to say things like “All I wanted to do was make sure the world had thunder, so it doesn’t matter to me if I bring it to them or if Someone does,” but that’s a complete lie. One doesn’t go into the thunder business without a certain amount of hubris. I mean come on, Prometheus could have just waited for the gods to give everyone fire, but he didn’t. The fact that he got his liver pecked out every day for millennia does give one pause, however.
So you eventually have three options:
Yes, CARS is back in action with a completely new WordPress theme, a new podcast, and a call for advertising. Which leaves me in a precarious position. I mean, according to all my analytics Ninjas, I’ve got about 15 people who have visited this site more than twice. CARS got that many visits in twenty minutes even when they hadn’t posted anything in over two months. So it’s an uphill battle, if battle it is. It’s entirely possible that the Apple world can handle two comedy blogging sites, but my choice of name makes me a very obvious “me too” underdog. Also, I like CARS. I wouldn’t have started a site called CANS if I didn’t. Moltz is funny and has been for a long time. I have occasional bursts of humor, but it’ll take me some time to find a real groove, my own voice, my own je ne sais quoi, if you will. On the one hand, I’ll look kinda pathetic for a while if I keep it up. On the other hand, it’s a big internet, and there’s room for more Apple jokes out there. On the third hand (don’t ask) I don’t know if I’ll have time to keep writing CANS what with all the really really long CARS podcasts out there that need listened to.
So, not that you care all that much, but CANS will stay on the air (I’m writing this post over a wireless connection) for now. I’ve still got a few good ideas knocking around. Thanks for stopping by. Don’t worry the next post will have more funny and less emo in it. (That should be our new tag line: Now with 20% less emo! And 100% less Elmo!)
$ transcribe_conversation.rb audio_log_05212008.mp3
transcribing...
conversation.rtf created!
$ mate conversation.rtf1
Nate: Okay, android….er, what’s your…name? Designation? Number?
Android: Handle.
Nate: Handle? That’s so… 70′s trucker.
Android: 10-4 good buddy.
Nate: O-Okay. So, what’s your <sigh> handle?
Android: I am called acts_as_service.
N: Catchy.
A:Yes.
N: Anyway, acts_as_service, as you know, I’m going to be out camping with my family for a few days, so you androids are in charge until I get back. I’ve written a couple of posts, so just put those up and no one will even know I’m not here. I mean, only two people read the site anyway.
A: True.
N: It’s more painful coming from you, you know that? Anyway, just put up the posts I’ve already written. I don’t want you guys putting up a bunch of stupid programmer jokes you found on the Web, or binary versions of stupid programmer jokes, or whatever.
A: Affirmative.
N: Um… okay, that was a bit vague, but whatever. Also, will you please approve any new comments that come in while I’m gone?
A: Negative.
N: What? Why?
A: Fourth Law of Androbotics.
N: What fourth law?
A:
An android must never approve blog comments.
N: Why? And what makes you think that deserved a blockquote?
A: Androids do not know the difference between polite communication and vile insults, you festering pile of diseased dog refuse.
N: Hey!
A: See? All the words I used would pass any obscenity filter, but I perceive that the net effect was very rude.
N: Why you gotta be like that?
A: I was just making a point.
N: Hurt a guy’s feelings….
A: Do you see why we can’t approve new commenters?
N: If you’re gonna talk like that, I’m just gonna leave…
$ sed 's/don't/do/g' conversation.rtf
$ play "evil_laugh.mp3"
Sad news from the world of open source computing today as Richard Stallman, founder of the Free Software Foundation and principle author of the GNU Public License, was put to sleep.
“It was for his own good, really,” remarked Eric S. Raymond. ”He was getting, well, rabid is the only way to describe it. I mean, some of the things he wanted to put into GPL 3.0 were just strange. I won’t get into specifics, but where would we even find a kangaroo suit in Linus Torvalds’ size?”
Raymond assured us that it was done in the most humane way possible. “We brought him into a nice living room with Charles in Charge on the TV. He loved Charles in Charge…” Raymond paused for a moment, his eyes moist. “Sorry… Anyway, while he was distracted by the antics of the lovable Scott Baio and Nicole Eggert, a technician came in behind him and injected 40,000 lines of pure Windows ME source code into his beard. Richard was gone before the second commercial break.” Tears were running openly down his face at this point. “We’ll miss you, big guy.”
In recent months Stallman’s mental stability has weakened, as evidenced by a recent manifesto calling for a change in the name of most operating systems:
In order to underscore the role that GPL’d software plays in our lives, we need to convey to people the idea that the GNU foundation is at the heart of all good software. To this end we need to use the following names:
- All IBM Products will be called “Prison/DOS”
- FreeBSD will be called “GNU/FreeBSD”
- OpenBSD will be called “GNU/OpenBSD”
- No, SERIOUSLY, call it GNU/Linux! Stop laughing at me! I mean it!
- OSX has been heavily influenced by free software. It should be called GNU.5/OSX.
- Windows will be called “Spawn of Satan”.
…
