David Weber's 'Uncompromising Honor' (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1481483501/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) is coming out in October and am looking forward to that.
Otherwise (shameless self-promotion) am working on Book 2 in my science fiction series 'Accipiter War' (http://a.co/e9WT4t6)
- Patrick Seaman
I grew up (weekends and summers) on family land in North East Texas. We had a land feature that resembled a worn-down cinder-cone. While the top layers of rock were mostly forms of iron-rich sandstone-ish rock and clay (red dirt), there were many rocks that appeared to be igneous -- black, heavy and with rounded edges that looked melted -- including rocks that resembled your photos. As a kid I spent a lot of time digging around and we dug a somewhat large pond in the center of the area -- opening up lots of bulldozed rock and dirt for a young boy to dig around in. I found what looked like a textbook volcanic bomb and on many occasions I found colored veins of dirt that bubbled and reacted with water. Much of Texas was once a seabed. Many of the rocks looked like parts of plants. I youthfully theorized that the structure was a worn-down volcanic cinder cone that had subsequently been buried. I very nearly went the geology path in college - but I suspect it wouldn't have been as 'fun' as the times I had growing up.:-)
This is something that really irritated me. My '99 car had GPS and you could enter the coords while driving. It's a pain to do this, however, on long trips, it was awesome to have my companion enter and manage it while we drove.
In 2004 I got a new car (Jeep GC). To my never-ending consternation, you MUST come to a COMPLETE STOP before you can enter new coords. I very nearly returned the car when I found out.
Many people are easily distracted and many will find ways to be distracted, no matter what. From seeing people driving with a book balanced on the steering wheel, to make-up artists, kids in the back seat, talking to other people in the car or even yelling at the radio. There are lots and lots of ways to be a distracted driver.
Now, when I'm in a strange city confronted by an accident and I need to find a way around it, even if I have a "co-pilot" or "navigator" to help, the new cars make this harder and harder. We're going backwards.
Maybe you could make the display movable -- and have it operable only if turned away from the driver?
-pfs
I've got a 13-year-old who has some physical disabilities. We've worked hard to keep him involved in physical activties as much as possible, but he loves his Empire Earth and other strategy/world-building games. I'd like to introduce him to a good programming environment. Apologies to SD'rs but he's got a WinXP machine. Any recommendations? It would be great if he could get his feet wet building some simple games as he learns the fundamentals.
As for my own history -- I first learned to program on a teletype machine with a paper tape to record the program back in the late 70's.....;-)
We had this problem at a company I used to work at. Very big company, very big IT dept. Nothing gets done. I was fortunate that I worked for the same VP that ran the purchasing dept. I basically created a satellite IT dept. for our dept. and for the purchasing dept. I maintained all our network and PC's and servers and accepted no support from the official IT dept. except for bandwidth, etc. I had to start out slow and work around the edges at first, but I was ultimately only able to do what I did because I had the support of my VP -- since he was resp. for all purchasing, including for IT, and since I kept *his* toast buttered, I was able to 'get away with it.' However, I had to keep a fairly low profile and not rub it in, if you know what I mean. We still bumped heads quite a bit, and I didn't win every battle, but at least I was able to keep my dept. going and vastly more productive than it otherwise would have been.
Radio stations, TV stations, sure. The subject was Internet or 'online' in a more general sense.
There were lots of websites that were hijacking our streams and building their model around them. This audio interstitial ad didn't stop the hijacking, but since it identified the source as coming from AudioNet -- which was the biggest name in audio content, people started coming to us directly. Later, we started doing more traditional "radio style" audio bumper ads as the market for the advertising increased....
Not only on Prodigy, but what about all the BBS's? I recall there were some higher-end BBS's that had ads -- I just don't remember if any were 'clickable.'
I believe that the following is the first audio ad. In the early days of AudioNet (Broadcast.com), we began to have problems with other sites deep linking and hijacking our content, passing it off as their own. So, I decided to create an ad that would identify the source "Thank you for listening to AudioNet!" -- which would preceed all our content. I recorded the clip on my perlcorder in my car, in back of AudioNet's home on Elm Street, in the Deep Ellum part of Downtown Dallas.
First audio ad
The first audiobook on the Internet was Jim Cline's Science Fiction epic "A Small Percentage," originally broadcast abridged on AudioNet back in the 1995-1996 timeframe. This was a serialized dramatic audiobook, broadcast in RealAudio. The audio was later re-recorded and released unabridged in 42 thirty minute episodes on Broadcast.com in 1999, at the time, it was the "most listened to" audiobook on the Internet and had a huge cult following. In 2000 it was released on MP3 and Windows Media for download and on MP3 CD by Timberwolf Press (http://www.timberwolfpress.com/ and available direct or on Amazon.com.
At Timberwolf we produced full-cast unabridged mystery, fantasy, science fiction, techno-thriller and military adventure audiobooks. These were/are complete with music and sound effects and were/are available on CD & MP3 CD as well as via download.
- Patrick Seaman
Publisher Emeritus
Timberwolf Press
http://www.patrickseaman.com/
This is a wonderful book. I only wish my company had been the one to publish it! FYI, on the subject of this book, Ron Miller has been nominated for a Hugo at this year's WorldCon. Good luck Ron!!!
Plug: Earlier this year he was awarded a Book of the Year award for his fantasy novel (which my company does publish) BRONWYN: PALACES & PRISONS.
Slashdot Mirror
David Weber's 'Uncompromising Honor' (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1481483501/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1) is coming out in October and am looking forward to that. Otherwise (shameless self-promotion) am working on Book 2 in my science fiction series 'Accipiter War' (http://a.co/e9WT4t6) - Patrick Seaman
I grew up (weekends and summers) on family land in North East Texas. We had a land feature that resembled a worn-down cinder-cone. While the top layers of rock were mostly forms of iron-rich sandstone-ish rock and clay (red dirt), there were many rocks that appeared to be igneous -- black, heavy and with rounded edges that looked melted -- including rocks that resembled your photos. As a kid I spent a lot of time digging around and we dug a somewhat large pond in the center of the area -- opening up lots of bulldozed rock and dirt for a young boy to dig around in. I found what looked like a textbook volcanic bomb and on many occasions I found colored veins of dirt that bubbled and reacted with water. Much of Texas was once a seabed. Many of the rocks looked like parts of plants. I youthfully theorized that the structure was a worn-down volcanic cinder cone that had subsequently been buried. I very nearly went the geology path in college - but I suspect it wouldn't have been as 'fun' as the times I had growing up. :-)
This is something that really irritated me. My '99 car had GPS and you could enter the coords while driving. It's a pain to do this, however, on long trips, it was awesome to have my companion enter and manage it while we drove. In 2004 I got a new car (Jeep GC). To my never-ending consternation, you MUST come to a COMPLETE STOP before you can enter new coords. I very nearly returned the car when I found out. Many people are easily distracted and many will find ways to be distracted, no matter what. From seeing people driving with a book balanced on the steering wheel, to make-up artists, kids in the back seat, talking to other people in the car or even yelling at the radio. There are lots and lots of ways to be a distracted driver. Now, when I'm in a strange city confronted by an accident and I need to find a way around it, even if I have a "co-pilot" or "navigator" to help, the new cars make this harder and harder. We're going backwards. Maybe you could make the display movable -- and have it operable only if turned away from the driver? -pfs
I've got a 13-year-old who has some physical disabilities. We've worked hard to keep him involved in physical activties as much as possible, but he loves his Empire Earth and other strategy/world-building games. I'd like to introduce him to a good programming environment. Apologies to SD'rs but he's got a WinXP machine. Any recommendations? It would be great if he could get his feet wet building some simple games as he learns the fundamentals.
;-)
As for my own history -- I first learned to program on a teletype machine with a paper tape to record the program back in the late 70's.....
-pfs
We had this problem at a company I used to work at. Very big company, very big IT dept. Nothing gets done. I was fortunate that I worked for the same VP that ran the purchasing dept. I basically created a satellite IT dept. for our dept. and for the purchasing dept. I maintained all our network and PC's and servers and accepted no support from the official IT dept. except for bandwidth, etc. I had to start out slow and work around the edges at first, but I was ultimately only able to do what I did because I had the support of my VP -- since he was resp. for all purchasing, including for IT, and since I kept *his* toast buttered, I was able to 'get away with it.' However, I had to keep a fairly low profile and not rub it in, if you know what I mean. We still bumped heads quite a bit, and I didn't win every battle, but at least I was able to keep my dept. going and vastly more productive than it otherwise would have been.
-pfs
Radio stations, TV stations, sure. The subject was Internet or 'online' in a more general sense.
There were lots of websites that were hijacking our streams and building their model around them. This audio interstitial ad didn't stop the hijacking, but since it identified the source as coming from AudioNet -- which was the biggest name in audio content, people started coming to us directly. Later, we started doing more traditional "radio style" audio bumper ads as the market for the advertising increased....
-pfs
Not only on Prodigy, but what about all the BBS's? I recall there were some higher-end BBS's that had ads -- I just don't remember if any were 'clickable.'
-pfs
I believe that the following is the first audio ad. In the early days of AudioNet (Broadcast.com), we began to have problems with other sites deep linking and hijacking our content, passing it off as their own. So, I decided to create an ad that would identify the source "Thank you for listening to AudioNet!" -- which would preceed all our content. I recorded the clip on my perlcorder in my car, in back of AudioNet's home on Elm Street, in the Deep Ellum part of Downtown Dallas. First audio ad
The first audiobook on the Internet was Jim Cline's Science Fiction epic "A Small Percentage," originally broadcast abridged on AudioNet back in the 1995-1996 timeframe. This was a serialized dramatic audiobook, broadcast in RealAudio. The audio was later re-recorded and released unabridged in 42 thirty minute episodes on Broadcast.com in 1999, at the time, it was the "most listened to" audiobook on the Internet and had a huge cult following. In 2000 it was released on MP3 and Windows Media for download and on MP3 CD by Timberwolf Press (http://www.timberwolfpress.com/ and available direct or on Amazon.com. At Timberwolf we produced full-cast unabridged mystery, fantasy, science fiction, techno-thriller and military adventure audiobooks. These were/are complete with music and sound effects and were/are available on CD & MP3 CD as well as via download. - Patrick Seaman Publisher Emeritus Timberwolf Press http://www.patrickseaman.com/
This is a wonderful book. I only wish my company had been the one to publish it! FYI, on the subject of this book, Ron Miller has been nominated for a Hugo at this year's WorldCon. Good luck Ron!!!
Plug: Earlier this year he was awarded a Book of the Year award for his fantasy novel (which my company does publish) BRONWYN: PALACES & PRISONS.
- Patrick Seaman
Timberwolf Press