I've found that those laser-cut Avery print-your-own business card sheets work nicely for prototype cards. Templates already exist for most major word processors and layout packages, if you don't want to just hand-scrawl 'em.
Give your customers a place to say anything they want--even if it's Bad--and you will find yourself supporting them the way they want to be supported.
Put that community up and leave it up, rain or shine. Politely answer everybody, even the lamers and flamers, and do it quickly. To hide the off-topic crap, allow your customers to gently moderate the discussion--link to hidden messages, never delete--and don't touch that button yourself.
You will also reap fanatical user loyalty, repeat business, and priceless word-of-mouth advertising, not to mention thousands of free hits from Google searches.
I swore off using my powers for personal amusement sometime in 1986, when I wrote a small program in QuickBasic that mimicked a DOS prompt, captured every keystroke the user entered, and substituted the follwing string, a character at a time:
DEL C:\*.*
Tiny little program would pop back with this:
Are you sure (Y/N)?
The victim would VERY CAREFULLY hit the N key--
--and of course it would show up as Y-plus-carriage-return, and the victim's hard drive would light up and start grinding. Quite a lot of shouting and swearing and unplugging things and similar merriment would ensue... but the third or fourth time I did it, the poor guy had an irretrievable hard disk crash because he hit the Off button hard enough to knock his PC off his desk.
Online communities tend to run off in unforseen directions. The Rumor Mill--the tiny little discussion area I put up for Speculations in 1996--quickly turned from a place to promote the magazine to a major clearinghouse for information about literary scams: book doctors, fee-charging agents, vanity presses, and other fellow travelers. I've had Dances with Lawyers over several Speculations articles and corresponding Rumor Mill threads, and have had to be very careful about appearing to exert editorial control over what's posted. (Short answer: don't, or it may appear that you're in agreement with what's being said, and not just a carrier for the message.)
Oh, and yes, we've been Slashdotted once... gosh, that was fun.:)
I must confess I'm intrigued by Option Three, whether or not you actually do own those LCD panels. How close together could you put them? Would I be looking at your wallscreen-thingie through a grid of fat black frame-lines, or would it be less noticeable than that? Monochrome would be okay with me, if it was uber-high-resolution.
Re:WTF? Do your own research! And protect yourself
on
Antimatter and Antistars?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
Point One is excellent; if you're serious about writing hard science fiction, please be sure to confirm any advice you receive here.
As for Point Two... unless 1) somebody posts detailed plot, story, or character information here, 2) you are dumb enough to include it in your book, and 3) your book is lucky enough to make it into print after you include unsolicited fan fiction in it, you should be fine. The SF writing community trades research all the time; you can see it in action over on the SFF.net or Speculations research topics.
This took some doing to integrate with office life, but: reasonably strict adherance to Bill Phillips' Body For Life program put me in my very best shape ever. Dropped 24 pounds of fat and gained six of muscle in 12 weeks, as verified by my doctor, who I consulted--you do the same, please--before starting.
Six days out of seven, you eat six meals a day, 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat. You drink ten cups of water a day, and piss like a race horse throughout. You alternate weights with aerobics, an average of about a half an hour a day. And you take that seventh lovely day off and sit on your butt and eat like a hog. It sounded just horrible when I started--eating right and exercising? Nooooo! I want a quick fix, dammit!--but it worked.
Fitting the workouts in was the hardest part; I eventually settled on aerobics--treadmill, mostly--in the morning, and weight training at lunch. Find yourself a Gold's Gym; they're well-equipped, are not thinly-disguised pick-up joints, cost a lousy $30 a month, and are totally reasonable about letting you quit if it doesn't work out.
We've got a mixed bag of stuff: WinXP, OSX, and a Palm Tungsten C. The Airport--Snow version--has been bullet-proof for twenty months and counting. I'd love to extend its range a bit; the only thing it's missing is an external antenna jack.
I like the advice about looking at the agents who handle books like yours. You may also find the following Web sites of use:
Speculations has a ton of good advice, and don't miss The Rumor Mill, especially the Caveat Scrivener sections.
SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. If you know anybody in SFWA, ask to look in the back of the directory at the list of agents representing members.
SFF.net, which hosts most of SFWA's online conversation in newsgroups.
Preditors & Editors is another outstanding resource; if you have any doubts about whether your agent, editor, or publisher is on the level or not, go poke around there.
I still love my CVT Avant Stellar keyboard. 116 keys, all programmable, and the macros go with the keyboard when I move it from machine to machine. I've been banging on one at work for close to four years now without a hitch.
Have you ever taken a look at something called NeoPets? It's chock-full of cute little wheel-o-fortune applets. And each of your cute little no-that's-not-really-a-Pokemon critters only gets to play them once or twice a day, so it's guaranteed appointment TV for the little addicts.
"Dad! Nooo! I can't go to bed yet! Blinkyboo423 didn't get to shake the Money Tree yet!"
Where do you see the future of written science fiction going, given the decline of readership in the top markets such as Analog, Asimov's, and F&SF, and the rise of franchised universes like Star Trek and Star Wars? Online? Still in print? Or somewhere else?
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of- wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there, I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air. Up, up, up the long, delirious burning blue I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace Where never Lark, or even Eagle flew - And while with silent lifting mind, I've trod The high untrespassed sanctity of space, Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
Remember the Northgate OmniKey 802? If so, you want to take a look at the Avant Stellar, from Creative Vision Technologies, which bought Northgate's plans when they went belly-up. No fancy ergo-shapes here, just six pounds of steel, an unbelievably solid feel, infinite reprogrammability, and function keys across the top and down the left side, as God intended them to be.
See Friday, 1982. Heinlein's view of the Web wasn't fully-immersive cyberspace; it was just the simple--and brutally addictive--joy of clicking from one subject to another and going wherever you wanted.
... are going like hotcakes. I checked Network Solutions this morning an hour or so after the first reports and you cannot get anything associated with 9112001, 9-11-2001, sep112001, 11sep2001, september11, sep11, 11sep, 20019091, or 2001-9-11.
One hopes these domains are going to people who have something to say about the event, and not just squatters or CNN.
Slashdot Mirror
I've found that those laser-cut Avery print-your-own business card sheets work nicely for prototype cards. Templates already exist for most major word processors and layout packages, if you don't want to just hand-scrawl 'em.
Give your customers a place to say anything they want--even if it's Bad--and you will find yourself supporting them the way they want to be supported.
Put that community up and leave it up, rain or shine. Politely answer everybody, even the lamers and flamers, and do it quickly. To hide the off-topic crap, allow your customers to gently moderate the discussion--link to hidden messages, never delete--and don't touch that button yourself.
You will also reap fanatical user loyalty, repeat business, and priceless word-of-mouth advertising, not to mention thousands of free hits from Google searches.
Wow. I've been watching the messages roll in for the last couple of days ... thank you, all of you, for your thoughtful responses.
- you own up to what you did immediately
- apologize
- fix whatever you broke
- swear to never do it again, and finally
- help your victim find somebody else to do it to.
I swore off using my powers for personal amusement sometime in 1986, when I wrote a small program in QuickBasic that mimicked a DOS prompt, captured every keystroke the user entered, and substituted the follwing string, a character at a time: DEL C:\*.* Tiny little program would pop back with this: Are you sure (Y/N)? The victim would VERY CAREFULLY hit the N key-- --and of course it would show up as Y-plus-carriage-return, and the victim's hard drive would light up and start grinding. Quite a lot of shouting and swearing and unplugging things and similar merriment would ensueOh, and yes, we've been Slashdotted once
I must confess I'm intrigued by Option Three, whether or not you actually do own those LCD panels. How close together could you put them? Would I be looking at your wallscreen-thingie through a grid of fat black frame-lines, or would it be less noticeable than that? Monochrome would be okay with me, if it was uber-high-resolution.
As for Point Two ... unless 1) somebody posts detailed plot, story, or character information here, 2) you are dumb enough to include it in your book, and 3) your book is lucky enough to make it into print after you include unsolicited fan fiction in it, you should be fine. The SF writing community trades research all the time; you can see it in action over on the SFF.net or Speculations research topics.
Six days out of seven, you eat six meals a day, 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat. You drink ten cups of water a day, and piss like a race horse throughout. You alternate weights with aerobics, an average of about a half an hour a day. And you take that seventh lovely day off and sit on your butt and eat like a hog. It sounded just horrible when I started--eating right and exercising? Nooooo! I want a quick fix, dammit!--but it worked.
Fitting the workouts in was the hardest part; I eventually settled on aerobics--treadmill, mostly--in the morning, and weight training at lunch. Find yourself a Gold's Gym; they're well-equipped, are not thinly-disguised pick-up joints, cost a lousy $30 a month, and are totally reasonable about letting you quit if it doesn't work out.
We've got a mixed bag of stuff: WinXP, OSX, and a Palm Tungsten C. The Airport--Snow version--has been bullet-proof for twenty months and counting. I'd love to extend its range a bit; the only thing it's missing is an external antenna jack.
Speculations has a ton of good advice, and don't miss The Rumor Mill, especially the Caveat Scrivener sections.
SFWA, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. If you know anybody in SFWA, ask to look in the back of the directory at the list of agents representing members.
SFF.net, which hosts most of SFWA's online conversation in newsgroups.
Preditors & Editors is another outstanding resource; if you have any doubts about whether your agent, editor, or publisher is on the level or not, go poke around there.
"Dad! Nooo! I can't go to bed yet! Blinkyboo423 didn't get to shake the Money Tree yet!"
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never Lark, or even Eagle flew -
And while with silent lifting mind, I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
- John Gillespie Magee, Jr, 1922-1944
Yeah, don't drop it on your foot. :)
Remember the Northgate OmniKey 802? If so, you want to take a look at the Avant Stellar, from Creative Vision Technologies, which bought Northgate's plans when they went belly-up. No fancy ergo-shapes here, just six pounds of steel, an unbelievably solid feel, infinite reprogrammability, and function keys across the top and down the left side, as God intended them to be.
See Friday, 1982. Heinlein's view of the Web wasn't fully-immersive cyberspace; it was just the simple--and brutally addictive--joy of clicking from one subject to another and going wherever you wanted.
... are going like hotcakes. I checked Network Solutions this morning an hour or so after the first reports and you cannot get anything associated with 9112001, 9-11-2001, sep112001, 11sep2001, september11, sep11, 11sep, 20019091, or 2001-9-11.
One hopes these domains are going to people who have something to say about the event, and not just squatters or CNN.
Nope, sorry. This message was posted exactly the way Harlan sent it ... you think I'd dare to monkey with his copy?