I second Pratchett. For some reason, this is the only one of two posts that recommends Pratchett and/or Neil Gaimen(sp?).
Keep in mind that fictional literature offers a story-teller many avenues not available to movies or plays. For example, I've written a few short stories (see here for a list and IIRC, only one of them can be done as a movie. If you are looking for a good read, the author needs to employ skills in story-telling, in plot construction, in character-development, in eloquence, etc. All the skills needed, in fact, for a good movie. In addition he/she also needs to employ those skills that are superfluous for movies/plays, but can add greatly to literature.
As a concrete example, read this novella for a story that simply cannot be filmed, acted, etc.
1. I wouldn't be too hard on your book - I'm sure it isn't crap:-) What I've read thus far of it doesn't seem like crap:-)
2. The Harry Potter books didn't get successful via self-publishing (they were never self-published, were they?)
3. I write too, but have committed myself to only a single short story per week. I've got about seven completed now (science-fiction and humour, downloadable for free from smashwords (see my sig). The great thing about short stories is that you get to make your point, entertain your reader and have a sense of completion relatively quickly. For example, one of my short stories is only half a page long! Another is almost a novella at 19 pages (8500 words). Each one took at least a week (and, I do the cover art myself). My hope is that, instead of writing a full-length novel, I can put together a collection of short stories and sell those. For now, each of the stories are free. When I've got enough to make a collection (say... 10 or more), I'll package it into a single eBook and sell it for money.
Try a few more >a href="https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lelanthran">impulse buys - the price is $0.00. I try to write mostly science fiction or humour.
Perhaps I can interest you in trying another new author (ME!!!). It's a short story (3 pages), but good enough to determine if you want to read a longer story by the same author.
Weird, it's showing the Kindle edition for me as $12.77, which is cheaper than any used paper copy. Is Amazon pricing differently by customer profile and/or location?
Yes.
(Well, they've been doing it with my android app, so I see no reason why they would stop at doing the same thing for eBooks)
I committed myself to producing one short story per week (and I'm thus far on course) until I start my MEng in January. Unfortunately, after a few experimentations with Amazon, I decided that the best course of action was to give my books away until I had enough for a collection of short stories.
So, how does one go about getting fame and fortune (well, enough to live on, at least) just by writing? On Amazon only those established authors tend to get enough purchasers off of their books to continue writing (I, for example, have to stop in January), so where can I, and people like myself, go?
Well, there is still the option of having a "report bug" button that grabs a screenshot, everything in the users "undo/redo" stack and all the information it can grab from the client system. Pop up a dialogue that lets the user enter even more information, and you're done.
A society that doesn't need to work. Maybe a bunch of capitalists run everything and everywhere else is a slum, or maybe there is a Star Trek like society, or maybe everyone owns a robot that works for them.
The big problem here is probably that sci-fi writers aren't economists, and haven't really figured out how to make a system like that work, and without figuring that out, they can't write a realistic story that does any more that merely present such a society while keeping its economic workings a mystery. After all, if someone did figure this out, they'd be the next Karl Marx, writing a book on how we should move to such a system, and maybe this one would actually work for a change.
I've done this (the economics point of view is touched on), but not explored it fully (there is only so much that can be done in a short story, after all).
Here are some issues I see as a problem in the future, and may be good sci-fi issues:
A society that doesn't need to work. Maybe a bunch of capitalists run everything and everywhere else is a slum, or maybe there is a Star Trek like society, or maybe everyone owns a robot that works for them.
You ask, I provide (Shameless plug, but I don't care - I make no money off of this)
Interesting, has an ending that really makes you think...
Well, then I consider it to be a success - science-fiction is supposed to be about the effect of fictional science, not so much about the workings of it. Hope you posted a review;-)
Given that sex is down to whether the sperm carries an X or a Y chromosome, how does conceiving on a particular day affect the sex of the child? Ovulation is clearly periodical, sperm production not so.
Am I missing something?
Well, I have good reason for believing that each fertile day has a different probability for conception (if it occurrs at all) of a male/female foetus. My reasons and logic are well documented over here, and read section 3.2 of this document.
In short, XX and XY cells have different sizes, lifespans, motility and volume. These differences result in one living longer than the other, but moving faster.
Perhaps I could put together a team to trial this, but I have neither the funding nor the inclination to do so. I put this idea out there (along with a possible method for falsification) in the hope that someone who does have the time and inclination would do the study.
Thanks for the tip about smashwords.
No problem;-) I've got books listed there so it pays to advertise the site:-)
They probably did that because the hospital was wickedly expensive for their incomes and could drive them and their families into horrible poverty and debt.
This is South Africa, son. You don't pay[1] to get treated at a state hospital[2].
[1] Unless you have a job, in which case your payment is proportional to your income. A burger flipper acquaintance, for example, recently paid a total of around R125 for a full caeser childbirth (including filling in all the prescriptions!). Thats about $15. You break your leg? You'll get treated for about the same fee.
[2] Of course, while the majority of people use the State Hospitals, a fair number use private hospitals, and have a medical aid to help pay for the luxuries of a private hospital. I, myself, have never been treated in a state hospital, but if I have no money, I'll gladly use the state hospitals rather than the local witchdoctor.
Try smashwords for eBooks (disclaimer: I've got books published there). I'd be grateful if people reply to this thread with other sites like smashwords.
It's bad because Liberty is an unalienable right, and the government has no business deciding what you should study.
We are tool-builders, and we created money as a tool to help us. Instead we find economists treating money as a God to which we must sacrifice humans (not them, but other, poorer, humans).
Unemployment is a good thing, a sign of economic progress, the result of higher productivity. What we should do is provide a basic income to everyone who wants one, and hold challenges to stimulate innovation and the advance of knowledge. Because it is knowledge that confers the greatest survival benefit by enabling us to better predict and adapt to sudden catastrophic change.
I'm constantly amazed that hardline feminists never have a clue about what normal women find attractive. Much to my displeasure, I've found out that impressing girls with smooth talk actually works, and phrases like that are much more likely to get a larger number of women interested in a man.
I understand totally that hardcore feminists wish that the world worked differently, but it doesn't - women prefer guys who are well-travelled and attractive to other women. Droping hints like the above is almost gauranteed to get women interested in GP.
Since you asked, see my sig for a link to an application[1] that:
1. Is of high quality, and
2. Has a strict "respect privacy" policy that is enforced, and
3. Does something that no other app in its category does, and
4. Theme-able (and customisable).
Yeah, I sold a record 7 copies in 2 months. The crappy competitors to this app all, without exception, require you to give up the possibility of enforcing privacy, are not theme-able, and leave out the main functionality of my application. They are standing at +50k downloads.
At this point, I'm considering selling out, and simply stealing the users data like all the other applications are doing - it's more profitable that way it seems.
[1] Well, it is Android, but the principle of 99% purchases going to 1% of devs still applies.
Too bad you never took any economics courses. You'd almost be spot-on if not for a few tiny oversights.
Too bad you never took any economics courses.
Speaking as part of the 1%, just FYI.
Sigh.
I am part of the 1%. I also did complete economics (Money, Banking and Financial Markets). I also know that because money is used a measure of value in barter, the market sets the value for any form of money. The bitcoinites seem to miss a very important point - there is no value in electricity already spent unless value has been added. The only value of a currency is to represent the value added by the next link in the chain of production.
Farmer grows sunflower crop (adds value by expending work to make something that the next person wants)
Vegetable oil refinery uses sunflower seeds to make vegetable oil (added value is something that people can cook with)
Supermarket makes oil available to shoppers (added value is to the shopper that purchases all groceries at the same place)
All that is value being added!
How about normal currency?
State takes worthless paper and, using electricity and effort and time, makes legal tender (the value added to the paper is the promise that all vendors within that jurisdiction will accept that paper as payment, and they can always redeem it for actual value with the state)
The secondary value added by dealing with the paper (or any other similar state-backed currency) is the secure knowledge that it can be used to measure value in any amount of arbitrary products - it's the base of reference for value.
Now, bitcoins?
Miner takes electricity and produces unique combination of numbers (No added value, as those numbers have no legal status as a measure of value in any nation)
Those numbers can be exchanged for items of value, but said items value is not measured in those numbers, it is measured in the currency described above
Those numbers are accepted by an insignificant minority of vendors, rendering them even more worthless.
At this point, bitcoins aren't a currency because a currency has to be universally recognised as a measure of wealth in that jurisdiction. Bitcoins are simply an item of value to barter with, much like swapping a pocket of potatoes for a crate of tomatoes. Unfortunately, the value bitcoins possess differs from person to person in the same jurisdiction (some value it close to nothing, others hoard it in anticipation of future payoff) so the bartering is unpredictable and thus it even fails as an item of barter. Even worse, the only way to measure it's value (from zero to infinite) is by using the existing ruler - namely the actual currency of that jurisdiction.
Bitcoins are a lovely idea, but the idea has no grounding in reality. Posts below mine explain all this very well for non-economics people; I'll just add that a real currency has a measure of worth that is independent of other currencies. For example, a single ZAR is backed by the South African Government. The country as a whole has value that is expressed by the GDP (irrespective of actual units of measure, the GDP is still a statement of value!). That single ZAR is a slice of that value. A bitcoin, OTOH, has no value that can be expressed as the product of a jurisdiction. This is because it does not represent any sort of value.
Slashdot Mirror
I second Pratchett. For some reason, this is the only one of two posts that recommends Pratchett and/or Neil Gaimen(sp?).
Keep in mind that fictional literature offers a story-teller many avenues not available to movies or plays. For example, I've written a few short stories (see here for a list and IIRC, only one of them can be done as a movie. If you are looking for a good read, the author needs to employ skills in story-telling, in plot construction, in character-development, in eloquence, etc. All the skills needed, in fact, for a good movie. In addition he/she also needs to employ those skills that are superfluous for movies/plays, but can add greatly to literature.
As a concrete example, read this novella for a story that simply cannot be filmed, acted, etc.
1. I wouldn't be too hard on your book - I'm sure it isn't crap :-) What I've read thus far of it doesn't seem like crap :-)
... 10 or more), I'll package it into a single eBook and sell it for money.
2. The Harry Potter books didn't get successful via self-publishing (they were never self-published, were they?)
3. I write too, but have committed myself to only a single short story per week. I've got about seven completed now (science-fiction and humour, downloadable for free from smashwords (see my sig). The great thing about short stories is that you get to make your point, entertain your reader and have a sense of completion relatively quickly. For example, one of my short stories is only half a page long! Another is almost a novella at 19 pages (8500 words). Each one took at least a week (and, I do the cover art myself). My hope is that, instead of writing a full-length novel, I can put together a collection of short stories and sell those. For now, each of the stories are free. When I've got enough to make a collection (say
Damn - it should be this
Try a few more >a href="https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/lelanthran">impulse buys - the price is $0.00. I try to write mostly science fiction or humour.
Perhaps I can interest you in trying another new author (ME!!!). It's a short story (3 pages), but good enough to determine if you want to read a longer story by the same author.
Weird, it's showing the Kindle edition for me as $12.77, which is cheaper than any used paper copy. Is Amazon pricing differently by customer profile and/or location?
Yes.
(Well, they've been doing it with my android app, so I see no reason why they would stop at doing the same thing for eBooks)
I committed myself to producing one short story per week (and I'm thus far on course) until I start my MEng in January. Unfortunately, after a few experimentations with Amazon, I decided that the best course of action was to give my books away until I had enough for a collection of short stories.
(Warning - yet another shameless plug up ahead!)
Here's a short Zombie novella that has many downloads but only two reviews.
So, how does one go about getting fame and fortune (well, enough to live on, at least) just by writing? On Amazon only those established authors tend to get enough purchasers off of their books to continue writing (I, for example, have to stop in January), so where can I, and people like myself, go?
Well, there is still the option of having a "report bug" button that grabs a screenshot, everything in the users "undo/redo" stack and all the information it can grab from the client system. Pop up a dialogue that lets the user enter even more information, and you're done.
Looks good to me. What do you see as wrong?
A society that doesn't need to work. Maybe a bunch of capitalists run everything and everywhere else is a slum, or maybe there is a Star Trek like society, or maybe everyone owns a robot that works for them.
The big problem here is probably that sci-fi writers aren't economists, and haven't really figured out how to make a system like that work, and without figuring that out, they can't write a realistic story that does any more that merely present such a society while keeping its economic workings a mystery. After all, if someone did figure this out, they'd be the next Karl Marx, writing a book on how we should move to such a system, and maybe this one would actually work for a change.
I've done this (the economics point of view is touched on), but not explored it fully (there is only so much that can be done in a short story, after all).
Here are some issues I see as a problem in the future, and may be good sci-fi issues:
A society that doesn't need to work. Maybe a bunch of capitalists run everything and everywhere else is a slum, or maybe there is a Star Trek like society, or maybe everyone owns a robot that works for them.
You ask, I provide (Shameless plug, but I don't care - I make no money off of this)
Interesting, has an ending that really makes you think...
Well, then I consider it to be a success - science-fiction is supposed to be about the effect of fictional science, not so much about the workings of it. Hope you posted a review ;-)
And alzheimer disease.
Damn! I forgot about that.
I read that too, I also wrote one.
That was the maximum length - was for a competition, work of fiction under 1000 chars. Didn't win, though, this is what won :-)
See where it all ends :-)
(Yes yes, it's only tangentially related, but a work of fiction half a page long isn't all that much effort to read)
I've answered this as well as I could
Android Sex-Selection Fertility Calendar [amazon.com]
Given that sex is down to whether the sperm carries an X or a Y chromosome, how does conceiving on a particular day affect the sex of the child? Ovulation is clearly periodical, sperm production not so.
Am I missing something?
Well, I have good reason for believing that each fertile day has a different probability for conception (if it occurrs at all) of a male/female foetus. My reasons and logic are well documented over here, and read section 3.2 of this document.
In short, XX and XY cells have different sizes, lifespans, motility and volume. These differences result in one living longer than the other, but moving faster.
Perhaps I could put together a team to trial this, but I have neither the funding nor the inclination to do so. I put this idea out there (along with a possible method for falsification) in the hope that someone who does have the time and inclination would do the study.
Thanks for the tip about smashwords.
No problem ;-) I've got books listed there so it pays to advertise the site :-)
They probably did that because the hospital was wickedly expensive for their incomes and could drive them and their families into horrible poverty and debt.
This is South Africa, son. You don't pay[1] to get treated at a state hospital[2].
[1] Unless you have a job, in which case your payment is proportional to your income. A burger flipper acquaintance, for example, recently paid a total of around R125 for a full caeser childbirth (including filling in all the prescriptions!). Thats about $15. You break your leg? You'll get treated for about the same fee.
[2] Of course, while the majority of people use the State Hospitals, a fair number use private hospitals, and have a medical aid to help pay for the luxuries of a private hospital. I, myself, have never been treated in a state hospital, but if I have no money, I'll gladly use the state hospitals rather than the local witchdoctor.
Try smashwords for eBooks (disclaimer: I've got books published there). I'd be grateful if people reply to this thread with other sites like smashwords.
It's bad because Liberty is an unalienable right, and the government has no business deciding what you should study.
We are tool-builders, and we created money as a tool to help us. Instead we find economists treating money as a God to which we must sacrifice humans (not them, but other, poorer, humans).
Unemployment is a good thing, a sign of economic progress, the result of higher productivity. What we should do is provide a basic income to everyone who wants one, and hold challenges to stimulate innovation and the advance of knowledge. Because it is knowledge that confers the greatest survival benefit by enabling us to better predict and adapt to sudden catastrophic change.
Shameless plug (somewhat on topic)
I forget
I'm constantly amazed that hardline feminists never have a clue about what normal women find attractive. Much to my displeasure, I've found out that impressing girls with smooth talk actually works, and phrases like that are much more likely to get a larger number of women interested in a man.
I understand totally that hardcore feminists wish that the world worked differently, but it doesn't - women prefer guys who are well-travelled and attractive to other women. Droping hints like the above is almost gauranteed to get women interested in GP.
Since you asked, see my sig for a link to an application[1] that:
1. Is of high quality, and
2. Has a strict "respect privacy" policy that is enforced, and
3. Does something that no other app in its category does, and
4. Theme-able (and customisable).
Yeah, I sold a record 7 copies in 2 months. The crappy competitors to this app all, without exception, require you to give up the possibility of enforcing privacy, are not theme-able, and leave out the main functionality of my application. They are standing at +50k downloads.
At this point, I'm considering selling out, and simply stealing the users data like all the other applications are doing - it's more profitable that way it seems.
[1] Well, it is Android, but the principle of 99% purchases going to 1% of devs still applies.
Too bad you never took any economics courses. You'd almost be spot-on if not for a few tiny oversights.
Too bad you never took any economics courses.
Speaking as part of the 1%, just FYI.
Sigh.
I am part of the 1%. I also did complete economics (Money, Banking and Financial Markets). I also know that because money is used a measure of value in barter, the market sets the value for any form of money. The bitcoinites seem to miss a very important point - there is no value in electricity already spent unless value has been added. The only value of a currency is to represent the value added by the next link in the chain of production.
Farmer grows sunflower crop (adds value by expending work to make something that the next person wants)
Vegetable oil refinery uses sunflower seeds to make vegetable oil (added value is something that people can cook with)
Supermarket makes oil available to shoppers (added value is to the shopper that purchases all groceries at the same place)
All that is value being added!
How about normal currency?
State takes worthless paper and, using electricity and effort and time, makes legal tender (the value added to the paper is the promise that all vendors within that jurisdiction will accept that paper as payment, and they can always redeem it for actual value with the state)
The secondary value added by dealing with the paper (or any other similar state-backed currency) is the secure knowledge that it can be used to measure value in any amount of arbitrary products - it's the base of reference for value.
Now, bitcoins?
Miner takes electricity and produces unique combination of numbers (No added value, as those numbers have no legal status as a measure of value in any nation)
Those numbers can be exchanged for items of value, but said items value is not measured in those numbers, it is measured in the currency described above
Those numbers are accepted by an insignificant minority of vendors, rendering them even more worthless.
At this point, bitcoins aren't a currency because a currency has to be universally recognised as a measure of wealth in that jurisdiction. Bitcoins are simply an item of value to barter with, much like swapping a pocket of potatoes for a crate of tomatoes. Unfortunately, the value bitcoins possess differs from person to person in the same jurisdiction (some value it close to nothing, others hoard it in anticipation of future payoff) so the bartering is unpredictable and thus it even fails as an item of barter. Even worse, the only way to measure it's value (from zero to infinite) is by using the existing ruler - namely the actual currency of that jurisdiction.
Bitcoins are a lovely idea, but the idea has no grounding in reality. Posts below mine explain all this very well for non-economics people; I'll just add that a real currency has a measure of worth that is independent of other currencies. For example, a single ZAR is backed by the South African Government. The country as a whole has value that is expressed by the GDP (irrespective of actual units of measure, the GDP is still a statement of value!). That single ZAR is a slice of that value. A bitcoin, OTOH, has no value that can be expressed as the product of a jurisdiction. This is because it does not represent any sort of value.