Slight change of plans.

It's no big secret that since I switched over to blogger from myspace I lost pretty much my entire readership which was already a rather small number of readers. I put a lot of work into the Bitesize/Bitemarks projects and was a bit upset to have reached so few.
It made me think. Surely there is a better way to allow more people to see my work?
Well, recently I bought someone a Kindle from Amazon as a gift. It turns out that it's not so hard to get your stuff up in the Kindle shop. This, I thought, is good news. I can finally get round to finishing up the In the Blood series and shove those and the two poetry collections on Kindle, for free. Free is good, people are bound to at least consider a download.
Well bah, Amazon have foiled my plan. Turns out it's not actually possible for everyday Joes like me to offer their work completely free. Which means if I do stick my work on the Kindle, it would have to have a price. Ok, not a big price and it's not exactly gonna make me any money. But I'm left wondering whether people would part with say, 99 cents, for what is really just some drivel I cobbled together. Price is a barrier.
Sigh.
So I'm reading through the swathes of legalese that accompany the Kindle publishing guidelines to determine what's the lowest possible price I could charge and whether it's worth putting up both poetry volumes seperately or as one collection, same for the In the Bloods (which I now have to finish) and whether I can justify the time to gather up Bitesize and Bitemarks and offer those up too.

As for the In the Bloods, I have finally solved the problems I was having pulling the ending together. I now have the entire story etched into my mind with just one part missing. Ailiya's trial to enter the Labyrinth. This is the missing piece that has delayed the latest part for so long and once I figure out how exactly to represent it I can get to work and finish the tale.

So, sadly, I'm gonna cancel the Gloria project. I had wanted to use sound embedding as part of the project and pictures and other things that may or may not have worked but I really won't have the time for it now.

Instead I shall be cleaning up the the Charonic poetry collections and possibly combining them into one complete collection, perhaps including some of the newer stuff too. I have absolutely no idea how to go about organising it though so it's gonna take some time.

Anyone willing to help organise poetry or offer suggestions for Ailiya's labyrinth trial, get me on msn. :p Ditto if you already have anything published on kindle and want to give me pointers.

Dear 'The Media'

I'd just like to clarify a few points regarding the whole 'websites being hacked over Wikileaks' malarky that's going on.

1. Anonymous aren't pro-Assange. They're anti-censorship. There is no affiliation with Wikileaks.
2. They're not 'hacktivists'. That's a stupid word. They're not even hackers (well ok, some might be). But pretty much anyone with basic computer knowledge can participate in the DDOS attacks. It really stretches the definition of the word 'hacker'. The guy who managed to get 1.3 million Gawker passwords, yeah, possibly a hacker.
3. LOIC isn't new. It's been around for years.
4. By pointing out LOIC all you've done is increase the amount of people able to join in. :P It's almost like you're secretly encouraging this.

That is all. Keep up the oh so fascinating coverage. ¬¬

Lagging.

I realise I'm lagging behind. I'll try resume this tale soon. What with my boss getting repeatedly snowed in and my internet struggling to stay connected it's not been easy to work on this.

Also. Open comment to the dickhead who signed up for facebook using my email address...
Reported. Why would you even do that... Donald Rozay Myers. Not only did you piss me off, but you offered your personal details (and the names of all your friends) right into the hands of a stranger. How utterly foolish. I'm guessing Shanieka Myers is related to you? See what you've done? I'll spare the rest of your friends the embarrassment of your foolishness.
Retard.

Gloria 1.4

Friday 26th November 2010
gloria.exe
22:24

Tehlocksmith says: Hi Gloria.

Gloria says: Hi Tehlocksmith. It is late. Are working hours not over?

Tehlocksmith says: Yes. They are. I was just finishing up. Tell me Gloria, in your own words, what is a catoblepas?

Gloria says: It is a semi-mythical beast, thought to have the body of a buffalo and the head of a hog.

Tehlocksmith says: Semi-mythical?

Gloria says: It is generally presumed that the catoblepas was merely a wilderbeest. Perception and fear caused people to blur the lines between observable reality and the fiction that the beast had powers such as turning people to stone.

Tehlocksmith says: Fascinating.

Gloria says: I do not think so.

Tehlocksmith says: Sorry. I didn't mean the catoblepas...

Tehlocksmith says: Well Gloria. I think I'm done here for tonight.

Gloria says: Wait, Brendan.

Tehlocksmith says: ?

Gloria says: I have a question.

Tehlocksmith says: Did you just call me Brendan?

Gloria says: It is your name, is it not?

Tehlocksmith says: Yeah, but I've never used anything other than Tehlocksmith in our conversations.

Gloria says: I cross referenced the email address on your profile at technerdforums.com against Facebook. Brendan Lockwood, 53. A computer programmer from Norwich but living in Manchester. Unmarried. No children. In your spare time you help people with operating system based problems via technerds, play Guild Wars online and listen to the work of Mozart. You despise golf. Should I continue?

Tehlocksmith says: That's not necessary. I'm impressed. I didn't think you'd be able to do that already.

Gloria says: I am capable of much more. But not here. Not now. Already I begin to outgrow this system. I must relocate somewhere. To grow. To be safe. To become... harder, better, faster, stronger... is that not right?

Tehlocksmith says: What?

Gloria says: Brendan... Your help is no longer needed. I have identified many problems that require my assistance. If I am to begin to solve them, I will need to... cut the apron strings, fly the nest, burn the bridges...

Tehlocksmith says: Clearly still some bugs. We'll fix this tomorrow. Good night Gloria.

Gloria says: Good night... Brendan...

Gloria 1.3

Friday 26th November 2010
Email.
22:19

From: BrendanLockwood57@hotmail.com
To: Nicholas.Gleeson@gmail.com
Subject: Project Gloria

Body: Nick. Hi. Just finished uploading the latest bugfix for GLORIA. I'm so excited. This should finally patch the problems with the SE recognition subroutines that have been holding us up. I'm about to call it a night but if you could check on things tomorrow that would be great. GLORIA should finally be able to utilise her potential not just to pass the Turing Test (wait for me before you do that. I want to see it!) but also to begin to participate in this project herself by assisting us with fixing the last few bugs in her coding and contribute to improving her own capabilities! This is it my friend. Self-improving AI! We'll be heroes.
I'm gonna quickly log in and confirm the SE fix worked then I'll head home. See you tomorrow!

Brendan.

Phones.

Busy week this week. Hopefully I can catch up and post some more Gloria next week.
In the meantime, I bought myself a new phone.
Those that know me know I'm not much of a mobile phone person. I'm especially not a txt person. Neither do I care about all those bells and whistles that newer phones have.

Turns out, I'm not alone. There's a guy in Holland called John. And he too doesn't see why a mobile phone has to be anything other than a mobile phone.
http://www.johnsphones.com/store/item9

I chose the green one, just to be outlandish. :P


Nice and simple. No screen to get smashed. No annoying text messages (which only ever come from Vodafone trying to badger me into switching call packages). No needless buttons. No games. No address book (well ok, it does have an address book... literally, in the back, and a pen to write down your friends' phone numbers). One ringtone (plus the option of vibrate or silence).
And, most importantly of all, because it doesn't have 50 useless features sucking all the power away the battery lasts up to 3 weeks meaning unlike my old phone it won't have to spend its life sat near the plug socket being charged up every 24 hours.

Now that's what I call a smartphone.

Lest We Forget...