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Squeak Group Buys Ship Naming Rights in Gaiman Novel
nadyne writes "Recently, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund ran an auction for the naming rights for a cruise ship in Neil Gaiman's upcoming novel Anansi Boys. Today, Neil Gaiman reported in a post to his blog that Markus Gaelli won this auction. According to Neil, Markus will use his hard-won auction to promote Squeak. He didn't tell us what the name of the cruise ship will be, but promised to do so in the future. Neil linked to Squeakland, although it's not clear whether Markus is associated with that site or Neil was just using it as a convenient starting point for his readers who might not know anything about Squeak."
At least you know that there isn't some subtle meaning behind the ship name that you think you don't quite get as you read ;)
It doesn't help much, but this is what the site says it's about:
WHAT IS SQUEAK? Squeak is a "media authoring tool"-- software that you can download to your computer and then use to create your own media or share and play with others. It is free and downloadable here. If you'd like to get a feel for what Squeak looks like without downloading, view a typical early project for kids in HTML (no download needed). Once you download Squeak you can use the Squeak Tutorials and download the handy Etoys Quickstart Guide.Further information can be found in the Squeak FAQ.
Nexsan Technologies SATA RAID
Smalltalk dead? Riiight.
Seriously, people don't know what they're missing. Quick example: one of the most advanced web application development framework around is coded under Squeak in Smalltalk: Seaside.
And people right now are wetting themselves over "Ruby on Rails", while this isn't even comparable in term of flexibility and power.
Pity the masses who ignore advanced programming languages technology.
A message from the system administrator: 'I've upped my priority. Now up yours.'
If you read Neil's blog, you could have found this:
A question on the Anansi Boys cruise ship auction - are you going to be keeping veto power over the name? As in, if someone wins and goes for the "USS Fucko Bazoo" will it be that way forevermore? Not that I'll be doing so, it's already past my meager means. Just curious since the eBay description offered no such restrictions and I thought you might want to spell that out for the benefit of potential bidders before it's over. C. A. Bridges
(Hmm. The auction's only been up for 5 hours and it's already over $1,000. Good lord.)
I think we can burn that bridge when we come to it. I suppose it's remotely possible that there may be some millionaire with Tourette's Syndrome who reads my books and supports the first amendment and desperately wants to call the ship the er, Fucko Bazoo (a phrase that currently has 215 google listings, I was just surprised to learn) enough to outbid all comers, just as it's remotely possible that someone at Miramax or Lamy Pens or TeaDirect Tea may decide that this is a heaven-sent opportunity for cheap product placement, and it'll suddenly become the USS Latest Lindsay Lohan Movie or the SS TIVO RULES. But I sort of doubt it'll happen like that.
We have a week to go until we'll all know, anyway.
Likewise, do we want our books to be used to promote products? It would make an unlevel playing field. If book "A" is sponsored by Pepsi because it talks about how good and refreshing a Pepsi is, and Pepsi helps promote it AND pays some fee to the author, how many of the good writiers will want that kind of security. John Girsham must have mentioned Coors beer in A Time to Kill at least 100 times. Whenever it got too stressful, he would have a refreshing Coors and he could solve problems with such clearity. It happened with movies too, when companies started paying money for their products to be used in films.
I dunno, what kind of society will we have? What can I do if my neighbor decides to paint his house like a big Coca~Cola can?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."