really, the Slashdot crew is thinking of us when they gave us a kharma cap.
You probably remember the first time you got a positive moderation, it felt pretty good, like, Wow someone likes my work.
When you past 10 kharma points, it was nice, not as good as the first point though.
When you got your first +5 moderation, you were on a high, though not as much as your first points.
When you got 26, and could post with the +1 if you wished, it was special, but still, not as good as the first time.
Face it, kharma is a drug. It's never as much fun as your first time, and if there was no cap, you'd keep setting inane goals (when I get to triple digits I'll stop, I'll have all the kharma I'll need, when I get 200 I'll stop...) to feed your kharma jones, and end up spending all your time reading Slashdot and gathering kharma, trying to recreate that first kharma high.
That becomes ugly real fast, you become a bona-fide kharma-whore. Trust me, Taco has seen the bad sides of severe kharma-whoredom, and he is thinking of us when he instituted the cap.
Well, for a new account the current limit is 50 kharma.
For accounts that were in effect before the kharma count was instituted, you kpet your kharma, but you can only go down, ie, I have a triple digit kharma, but if I get modded down enough, my kharma would drop and it would never increase, until I got below 50.
While most of what you say is true in fact, my experience as a published author (Samba Administrator's Handbook, Samba for Dummies) isn't as horrendous as you imply.
From my point of view, I was given to opportunity to learn a new network operating system, prove that I know it by getting my name on a published book, and was even given 5 figures (for both books) for my troubles. I look at it like getting paid to go to school.
You'll discover "cross-linking" of titles, where any monies you earn on a popular title will be applied to losses on other titles,
I didn't see this in my contract.
"reserves for returns," where the publisher retains up to 25 percent of a title's monies to cover any returned items,
This is in my contact, and it makes sense, as books are one of the few consumer items you can easily return.
and the ability of the publisher to keep any earned monies for a title (to cover their mistake in overprinting), which effectively kills any income from a title. Authors rarely earn 10 percent of 50 percent of a title's cover price. New authors can be offered at little as 2.5 percent royalties, meaning that a book that sells for $25 cover price will cost Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Borders, or B. Dalton's only $12.50. The author would then receive 31 cents for each book sale. However, foreign sales only pay one-half of the rate, book club sales perhaps only 1 percent, and lot sales nothing.
My royalties are based on the publisher's price, which is typically half of the list price, but they start around 10% for domestic, and 7.5% for foreign sales, and they increase as sales go up. They are probably less than that in reality as some sales get discounted, on the flip side, I can buy any IDG book for 40% off, if I wanted to fill a bookcase of shockingly bright yellow and black Dummies books, I could.
Publishers in technical fields also typically retail *ALL* copyright ownership, so the author cannot use any material for residual articles or other content unless granted permission.
I'm not sure how my contract handles this, though IDG has the right to buy any competing titles of mine in the Samba line, before I can ship them to another offer. This is kind of like a non-compete clause, and it does expire.
Advances, or payments given to an author to cover expenses while working, aren't really advances at all, but are paid as work is turned in; rarely are advances paid in lump sums, and the monies are generally in the low- to low-middle class salary range.
Do you know what the definition of an advance is? An advance is royalties (based on the sale of the book), paid in advance. If you see one red cent before your book ends up on the bookshelf, it's an advance.
Typically, the advances are split amongst the authors, a percent raked off for your agent, and done in quarters, as each quarter of a book is turned in.
Getting 10 grand at once for no work may be normal for Hunter S. Thompson, not for tech writers.
Combine these factors with the fact that publishers typically want books prepare in 90 days,
You can negotiate your schedule, and a deadline for output is hardly cataclysmic. It keeps you focused.
and you can begin to see why some of the content and quality of the technical books about Linux is somewhat lacking - there is a lot of garbage out there (some publishers have been so cheeky as to re-publish man pages, not as blessed by linuxdoc, but as original, hacked content!). Self-publishing may be a good pursuit, and having the time to craft, revise and update content is a good idea.
Granted, there are a lot of poor quality books out there, but there are also a lot of publishers screaming for authors. If you know something fairly bleeding edge, and you don't mind a second job for six months, and you can write fairly well, you can probably find a publisher willing to give you a book contract. You end up with something concrete to bring to a job interview, and if you think ego-surfing the web is cool, you should try going to Border's or Barnes & Nobles and look for your name on books.
Though for fiction, youur best bet may be to slef publish.
George
Let's hope a rogue state doesn't have a stinger
on
Laser-equipped 747
·
· Score: 1
While this is a nice idea, if some rogue state attempted to launch a missile at the US, don't you think they'd have a few terrorists with Stingers (or the Russian equivalent) hiding in the weeds outside the airports where the 747 takes off.
The 747 is an impressive machine, but I don't think it's maneuverable enough to dodge a shoulder mounted missile on take off.
If only Siggy had portscanned a hacked site
on
FSF Europe Founded
·
· Score: 1
If only Siggy had portscanned a hacked site, and had the FBI come and taken away his computers.
Does anyone know any bigwigs at Fox or Warner Brothers?
Well, like just about everyone else in America, I'm fascinated by our recent election.
One thing I haven't seen suggested is a proposal that Bush and Gore share the Presidency, they could even live in the White House together.
I think there's a lot of potential there, and for Fox or WB, a potentially great new series.
I've even written a theme song.
Meet Al Gore, who's lived most everywhere,
From Vietnam to Trafalgar Square.
But Dubya's only knows the way
A boy can see from in the USA --
What a crazy pair!
But they're Presidents,
Vote splitting presidents all the way.
One pair of matching bookends,
Different as night and day.
Where Al Gore adores the environment,
Liberals and bigger government,
Our Dubya loves to make cons fry,
And a tax cut makes him high --
What a wild duet!
Still, they're Presidents,
Vote splitting Presidents and you'll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike --
You can lose your mind,
When Presidents are two of a kind.
copyright 2000, George D. Haberberger
So, If anyone can put me in touch with a studio bigwig, I'd appreciate it.
Well, I have exchanged emails with a few Rochester NY slashdotters, as I'm not shy about dragging the name of my city into my posts.
I think I'd like to get together with other Slashdotters, but my time is really constrained, the home-owner parent kind of thing.
As far as Slashdotter's at work, I haven't come across to many, but for a high tech company, we're pretty behind the times. There is a Linux user's group here, but I rarely get to the meetings (the time thing again). On the other hand, I work with people who think knowing Novell inside and out is a good career move.
Can you imagine what the political scene would be like if voter registration records weren't public?
Does Chicago under Daley the 1st familiar? How many thousands of voters would come from cemetaries?
At least this, you can look up every voter in a district. IF you start finding registered voters living in a vacant lot, you know you have some voter fraud.
For me the most difficult thing is convincing my two year old that she doesn't need to sit in my lap when I sit at the computer. And then demand I play songs from the PBS web site on my computer.
This is what keeps me from trying to telecommute.
If I'm using the P90 with the crappy soundcard, my 4 year old wants me to boot it into LInux to use the GIMP.
If I'm using the Celeron with the good soundcard, my 4 year old wants to play Madeline.
Oh yeah, and I don't have room for a quarter million dollar printer, plus the assorted Sun boxes, G4s amd Novell servers I need.
A GIMP expert has to choose between "giving away" improvements that make GIMP better by patching the UI, or writing a book and making a quick buck.
This is an interesting viewpoint, but I disagree.
I code a little, mostly PostScript, though I can do a little C. I've also written two books in Samba.
My choice was, practice coding and networks and NetBUIE for a few years to make a meaningful contribution to Samba, or spend six months writing a book on Samba. If I had chosen the first route, I'd still be coding and practicing, and hoping someone on the Samba team would notice my patches.
Also, not every good coder is a good writer, and not every good writer is a good coder. To be a good writer, you need to write to the level that other people can understand, especially if they don't have your level of knowledge. To be a good coder, you just have to code so that your software works, and other coders can work to understand it. My coauthor helped me out immensely in making my second book readable, precisely because she is not a Linux guru, once she could understand a concept, your average person looking to implement a Samba server should be able to understand it.
The "eschatological cataclysm" that Lanier talks about occurring in the near future is truly a bleak picture for mankind as a whole,
And using a simple utility that Linux invented called sed, perhaps something like
s/eschatological cataclysm/monotheism/g
and
s/pantheon/Yahweh/g
reveals the essential hollowness of your post.
Doubtless, there were Assyrians, Babylonians and Tittites worrying about the rise of the Yahweh who empireled their beleif system eons ago,now they're just potsherds in the wasteland.
The better argument is that this cybernetic thing violates the Commandments, perhaps the Graven Image one, and is thus an abomination.
This book sounds interesting, can anyone give a 2nd opinion on the writing?
Hmm, do you want an opinion on the book, or the writing within the book? For if you start grading science fiction books on writing, a lot of science fiction books don't make the grade, including some of my favorites such as the Foundation trilogy, the Mars trilogy, most Arthur C. Clarke, most Niven, dang I might as well just list the writer's whose writing stands out, beyond the science fiction aspect of their books;
Harlan Ellison
Phillip K. Dick
John Campbell
William Gibson
Kim Stanley Robinson
Thomas Pynchon, only being considered as a science fiction writer due to being nominated for the Hugo and Nebula.
The book is great, the writing is good enough not to get in the way of the ideas.
I guess I like science fiction so much that I will cut a writer soem slack in the writing department if their ideas are good enough. soem slack though, I've recently read two of the most abysmal science fiction books ever written, Benford's Foundation prequel and the lamentable Dune House Atreides prequel thing. Prose even worse than Good News for Modern Man.
But I never got around to writing it, and sending it it. Maybe I'm just destined to be a non-fiction writer with thwarted fictional desires.
Shockwave Rider rules, I've said it before, but Gibson and Sterling and Stephenson should be sending checks to Brunner's family.
The review didn't mention one of my favorite scenes, where Nickie Halflinger generates a new personality with a touch tone phone, nothing like keying in 40,000 characters on a touch tone phone without a mistake.
Stand on Zanzibar was cool too, I just finished it. It doesn't age as well as Shockwave Rider, IMHO.
I got so burned out on Floyd, and thought the pretty worthless, but that's because my high school friends only played Dark Side and later, and played, and played.
Then I started getting live Floyd from 71 and 72, whoa. Set Your Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Fat Old Sun, trippier than 90% of the Dead's output.
Since I don't have one, I was thinking of trying to use my Lego motors to do this, well, I only have one Lego motor, I have to get some ZNap kits to buy more.
Please, keep me informed about this, put up a web page and send it in as a Slashdot Quickie.
Thanks,
Georgeha
We don't want BattleBots with minds of their own
on
Linux Powered Robots
·
· Score: 2
sure, it would be a lot more interesting at first.
They'd be unpredictable, and the onboard OS would become much more important.
Eventually, however, they'd realize that involving humanity was an inefficient way of repoducing themselves, and they'd work to cut out the middleman.
Eventually, they'd try to destroy us.
Hopefully, we'd make rules that the root password for the sentient BattleBots would be something like password, and burned into the ROM, so we could just telnet in an init 6 them.
I still get a kick out of BattleBots though. BattleBots and South Park, my Wednesday night is perfect.
Slashdot Mirror
really, the Slashdot crew is thinking of us when they gave us a kharma cap.
You probably remember the first time you got a positive moderation, it felt pretty good, like, Wow someone likes my work.
When you past 10 kharma points, it was nice, not as good as the first point though.
When you got your first +5 moderation, you were on a high, though not as much as your first points.
When you got 26, and could post with the +1 if you wished, it was special, but still, not as good as the first time.
Face it, kharma is a drug. It's never as much fun as your first time, and if there was no cap, you'd keep setting inane goals (when I get to triple digits I'll stop, I'll have all the kharma I'll need, when I get 200 I'll stop...) to feed your kharma jones, and end up spending all your time reading Slashdot and gathering kharma, trying to recreate that first kharma high.
That becomes ugly real fast, you become a bona-fide kharma-whore. Trust me, Taco has seen the bad sides of severe kharma-whoredom, and he is thinking of us when he instituted the cap.
George
Well, for a new account the current limit is 50 kharma.
For accounts that were in effect before the kharma count was instituted, you kpet your kharma, but you can only go down, ie, I have a triple digit kharma, but if I get modded down enough, my kharma would drop and it would never increase, until I got below 50.
Anecdotally, siggy had a 700+ kharma, IIRC.
George
Where'd you get your nick from? The Grateful Dead song, the beatniks?
If it's the dead, do you trade CDRs? See any shows? Hang out on r.m.gd?
George
Congrats on Acts, I ended up getting my copy from Fatbrain.
It's too bad it's not doing better, but I think the fiction market is a tough nut to crack.
Did you get a cross country book signing tour? I know your web page mentioned it. I would have gone, but I'm mostly off the beaten geek track.
George
While most of what you say is true in fact, my experience as a published author (Samba Administrator's Handbook, Samba for Dummies) isn't as horrendous as you imply.
From my point of view, I was given to opportunity to learn a new network operating system, prove that I know it by getting my name on a published book, and was even given 5 figures (for both books) for my troubles. I look at it like getting paid to go to school.
You'll discover "cross-linking" of titles, where any monies you earn on a popular title will be applied to losses on other titles,
I didn't see this in my contract.
"reserves for returns," where the publisher retains up to 25 percent of a title's monies to cover any returned items,
This is in my contact, and it makes sense, as books are one of the few consumer items you can easily return.
and the ability of the publisher to keep any earned monies for a title (to cover their mistake in overprinting), which effectively kills any income from a title. Authors rarely earn 10 percent of 50 percent of a title's cover price. New authors can be offered at little as 2.5 percent royalties, meaning that a book that sells for $25 cover price will cost Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Borders, or B. Dalton's only $12.50. The author would then receive 31 cents for each book sale. However, foreign sales only pay one-half of the rate, book club sales perhaps only 1 percent, and lot sales nothing.
My royalties are based on the publisher's price, which is typically half of the list price, but they start around 10% for domestic, and 7.5% for foreign sales, and they increase as sales go up. They are probably less than that in reality as some sales get discounted, on the flip side, I can buy any IDG book for 40% off, if I wanted to fill a bookcase of shockingly bright yellow and black Dummies books, I could.
Publishers in technical fields also typically retail *ALL* copyright ownership, so the author cannot use any material for residual articles or other content unless granted permission.
I'm not sure how my contract handles this, though IDG has the right to buy any competing titles of mine in the Samba line, before I can ship them to another offer. This is kind of like a non-compete clause, and it does expire.
Advances, or payments given to an author to cover expenses while working, aren't really advances at all, but are paid as work is turned in; rarely are advances paid in lump sums, and the monies are generally in the low- to low-middle class salary range.
Do you know what the definition of an advance is? An advance is royalties (based on the sale of the book), paid in advance. If you see one red cent before your book ends up on the bookshelf, it's an advance.
Typically, the advances are split amongst the authors, a percent raked off for your agent, and done in quarters, as each quarter of a book is turned in.
Getting 10 grand at once for no work may be normal for Hunter S. Thompson, not for tech writers.
Combine these factors with the fact that publishers typically want books prepare in 90 days,
You can negotiate your schedule, and a deadline for output is hardly cataclysmic. It keeps you focused.
and you can begin to see why some of the content and quality of the technical books about Linux is somewhat lacking - there is a lot of garbage out there (some publishers have been so cheeky as to re-publish man pages, not as blessed by linuxdoc, but as original, hacked content!). Self-publishing may be a good pursuit, and having the time to craft, revise and update content is a good idea.
Granted, there are a lot of poor quality books out there, but there are also a lot of publishers screaming for authors. If you know something fairly bleeding edge, and you don't mind a second job for six months, and you can write fairly well, you can probably find a publisher willing to give you a book contract. You end up with something concrete to bring to a job interview, and if you think ego-surfing the web is cool, you should try going to Border's or Barnes & Nobles and look for your name on books.
Though for fiction, youur best bet may be to slef publish.
George
While this is a nice idea, if some rogue state attempted to launch a missile at the US, don't you think they'd have a few terrorists with Stingers (or the Russian equivalent) hiding in the weeds outside the airports where the 747 takes off.
The 747 is an impressive machine, but I don't think it's maneuverable enough to dodge a shoulder mounted missile on take off.
Then we could have had nice, long, sanctimonious about how portscanning really isn't attacking a system, and maybe gotten 1000 replies.
Maybe we need a new poll.
Portscanning is
George
I think Linux needs to add Wizards and paperclips, if only for the sheer pleasure of doing stuff like this:
ps -ae | grep "*clip*" | kill -9
George
Does anyone know any bigwigs at Fox or Warner Brothers?
Well, like just about everyone else in America, I'm fascinated by our recent election.
One thing I haven't seen suggested is a proposal that Bush and Gore share the Presidency, they could even live in the White House together.
I think there's a lot of potential there, and for Fox or WB, a potentially great new series.
I've even written a theme song.
Meet Al Gore, who's lived most everywhere,
From Vietnam to Trafalgar Square.
But Dubya's only knows the way
A boy can see from in the USA --
What a crazy pair!
But they're Presidents,
Vote splitting presidents all the way.
One pair of matching bookends,
Different as night and day.
Where Al Gore adores the environment,
Liberals and bigger government,
Our Dubya loves to make cons fry,
And a tax cut makes him high --
What a wild duet!
Still, they're Presidents,
Vote splitting Presidents and you'll find,
They laugh alike, they walk alike,
At times they even talk alike --
You can lose your mind,
When Presidents are two of a kind.
copyright 2000, George D. Haberberger
So, If anyone can put me in touch with a studio bigwig, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks,
George
Well, I have exchanged emails with a few Rochester NY slashdotters, as I'm not shy about dragging the name of my city into my posts.
I think I'd like to get together with other Slashdotters, but my time is really constrained, the home-owner parent kind of thing.
As far as Slashdotter's at work, I haven't come across to many, but for a high tech company, we're pretty behind the times. There is a Linux user's group here, but I rarely get to the meetings (the time thing again). On the other hand, I work with people who think knowing Novell inside and out is a good career move.
George
When Dubya will have to fistfight his dad to get to the Bible.
"No dad, they elected me!"
"It's a vindication for my Presidency, son, they all really like me."
George
For now, a 4 year old girl who prefers GIMP to MS Paint and plays LEgo with me.
George
big deal.
The software at my Fortune 50 company gets audited every few years.
We get a few days warning to delete unregisterd software, the SA's come by to check things out, and it's back to normal.
In fact, when I install new software, I make sure I have the license, yes, even it's it's MS software.
George
Can you imagine what the political scene would be like if voter registration records weren't public?
Does Chicago under Daley the 1st familiar? How many thousands of voters would come from cemetaries?
At least this, you can look up every voter in a district. IF you start finding registered voters living in a vacant lot, you know you have some voter fraud.
For me the most difficult thing is convincing my two year old that she doesn't need to sit in my lap when I sit at the computer. And then demand I play songs from the PBS web site on my computer.
This is what keeps me from trying to telecommute.
If I'm using the P90 with the crappy soundcard, my 4 year old wants me to boot it into LInux to use the GIMP.
If I'm using the Celeron with the good soundcard, my 4 year old wants to play Madeline.
Oh yeah, and I don't have room for a quarter million dollar printer, plus the assorted Sun boxes, G4s amd Novell servers I need.
George
A GIMP expert has to choose between "giving away" improvements that make GIMP better by patching the UI, or writing a book and making a quick buck.
This is an interesting viewpoint, but I disagree.
I code a little, mostly PostScript, though I can do a little C. I've also written two books in Samba.
My choice was, practice coding and networks and NetBUIE for a few years to make a meaningful contribution to Samba, or spend six months writing a book on Samba. If I had chosen the first route, I'd still be coding and practicing, and hoping someone on the Samba team would notice my patches.
Also, not every good coder is a good writer, and not every good writer is a good coder. To be a good writer, you need to write to the level that other people can understand, especially if they don't have your level of knowledge. To be a good coder, you just have to code so that your software works, and other coders can work to understand it. My coauthor helped me out immensely in making my second book readable, precisely because she is not a Linux guru, once she could understand a concept, your average person looking to implement a Samba server should be able to understand it.
Thanks,
George
With a new car, you probably have to pay a whopping amount of collision.
Or it could be the leasing, I've never leased a car.
Or it could be the type of car, are we talking an Escort station wagon of a Probe?
From memory, when I was in my early 20's (about 10 years ago), I drove a 10 year old station wagon and paid about $400 a year.
I bet if you drove an older used car, your insurance would really drop.
George
The "eschatological cataclysm" that Lanier talks about occurring in the near future is truly a bleak picture for mankind as a whole,
And using a simple utility that Linux invented called sed, perhaps something like
s/eschatological cataclysm/monotheism/g
and
s/pantheon/Yahweh/g
reveals the essential hollowness of your post.
Doubtless, there were Assyrians, Babylonians and Tittites worrying about the rise of the Yahweh who empireled their beleif system eons ago,now they're just potsherds in the wasteland.
The better argument is that this cybernetic thing violates the Commandments, perhaps the Graven Image one, and is thus an abomination.
This book sounds interesting, can anyone give a 2nd opinion on the writing?
Hmm, do you want an opinion on the book, or the writing within the book? For if you start grading science fiction books on writing, a lot of science fiction books don't make the grade, including some of my favorites such as the Foundation trilogy, the Mars trilogy, most Arthur C. Clarke, most Niven, dang I might as well just list the writer's whose writing stands out, beyond the science fiction aspect of their books;
Harlan Ellison
Phillip K. Dick
John Campbell
William Gibson
Kim Stanley Robinson
Thomas Pynchon, only being considered as a science fiction writer due to being nominated for the Hugo and Nebula.
The book is great, the writing is good enough not to get in the way of the ideas.
I guess I like science fiction so much that I will cut a writer soem slack in the writing department if their ideas are good enough. soem slack though, I've recently read two of the most abysmal science fiction books ever written, Benford's Foundation prequel and the lamentable Dune House Atreides prequel thing. Prose even worse than Good News for Modern Man.
George
based on the Slashdot Review.
I looked for a Linux programming bok based on a Slashdot review, but I didn't buy it, I couldn't spare the change.
George
But I never got around to writing it, and sending it it. Maybe I'm just destined to be a non-fiction writer with thwarted fictional desires.
Shockwave Rider rules, I've said it before, but Gibson and Sterling and Stephenson should be sending checks to Brunner's family.
The review didn't mention one of my favorite scenes, where Nickie Halflinger generates a new personality with a touch tone phone, nothing like keying in 40,000 characters on a touch tone phone without a mistake.
Stand on Zanzibar was cool too, I just finished it. It doesn't age as well as Shockwave Rider, IMHO.
George
Absolutely,
I got so burned out on Floyd, and thought the pretty worthless, but that's because my high school friends only played Dark Side and later, and played, and played.
Then I started getting live Floyd from 71 and 72, whoa. Set Your Controls for the Heart of the Sun, Fat Old Sun, trippier than 90% of the Dead's output.
George
I think it's the ultimate '70s flashback!
George
You're going to make me buy a Mindstorms.
Since I don't have one, I was thinking of trying to use my Lego motors to do this, well, I only have one Lego motor, I have to get some ZNap kits to buy more.
Please, keep me informed about this, put up a web page and send it in as a Slashdot Quickie.
Thanks,
Georgeha
sure, it would be a lot more interesting at first.
They'd be unpredictable, and the onboard OS would become much more important.
Eventually, however, they'd realize that involving humanity was an inefficient way of repoducing themselves, and they'd work to cut out the middleman.
Eventually, they'd try to destroy us.
Hopefully, we'd make rules that the root password for the sentient BattleBots would be something like password, and burned into the ROM, so we could just telnet in an init 6 them.
I still get a kick out of BattleBots though. BattleBots and South Park, my Wednesday night is perfect.
George