It strikes me as appropriate that the people who live in a country below sea level would have mobile homes and roof boxes.
On the subject of distance, I recall how every Irish person I spoke to was flabbergasted that I was going to drive for 5 hours (about 200 miles on what Americans would consider back roads) in one day. I'll be driving longer than that just to get to Readercon this week.
Stephen @22:
I'm a few days slow, but in case no one else answered your question:
1. Footnotes really are harder to set. MS Word doesn't typeset pages. It takes nothing to put notes at the bottom of the page, but it does take attention to make them (a) appear on the same page as their call-out while not (b) taking up more than 1/3 of the page, and (c) keeping facing pages the same depth and alignment. Also, (d) avoiding widows on plain-text pages is bad enough.
In short: footnotes are hard to typeset, for values of "typesetting" that pay attention to the layout of facing pages. My comps charge a premium to set them. It's okay to use them on something like Terry Pratchett's books, because at least those sell enough to amortize the unit cost to nothing.
2. Now that I work at an academic publisher, I have learned another reason to avoid footnotes: footnotes make it easier for someone to chop chapters out of a book and include in a photocopied course packet. Endnotes make the theft a little more difficult.
Unexpected beneficial side effect of this program: it can find a stolen laptop.
True story: a friend of mine had her laptop stolen. The thief used it as it was, not wiping the hard drive. A couple of days later, it called in to SETI@Home, and the police were able to locate it by the IP address.
That's why writers are supposed to think of these things, particularly SF writers.
Not that anyone ever listens to us. Buncha Cassandras, we are.
Maybe when he gets out he'll be Solzhenitsyn.
I think he should start Cell Block Storytime, and gather all the little criminals around him right before lights-out, and tell them a chapter a night.
Some portions have gotten smaller. Your standard chocolate bar, for instance (though some have managed to hold their size by using ever-cheaper devolutions of "chocolate"). Boxes of cookies now hold fewer cookies. Even the Girl Scouts are putting fewer cookies in the boxes. (Of course, that only saves the bingers from binging on quite so many cookies; it doesn't reduce what people consider a normal portion.)
I cry shenanigans on the claim that dinner plates have gotten larger. I have a collection of random dinner plates ranging from the 1930s (thanks, Grandma!) through the 21st century, and they all stack very nicely with each other.
Perhaps the White Tree of Gondor with branches spread to cradle the Ring? Trees in general play a large role in the book, from the Ents to the tree Sam plants in Hobbiton at the end.
Just as a point, if it calls for shortening, use shortening. You can substitute butter or margarine, but baked goods get noticably heavier and chewier when you do that, and it throws off the baking time, so some experimentation becomes necessary.
Heavy and chewy is good for chocolate chip cookies (for which I always use butter). Sugar cookies are better when they're light and crispy. IMO, of course.
Whoops, took another look, spotted a couple of decorative books on surfaces. But still--no bookshelves. That would never do.
The RV is lovely, but there is nary a bookshelf in sight (nary a book, either). Therefore, it is an uninhabitable hovel.
Totally OT...
I just wanted to castigate TNH for being a rose-pusher. I ordered a zillion miniature roses in some (doubtless misguided) attempt to enhance the green-plant jungle in my office with flowering plants.
I am probably denying their beauty to someone who could do a better job of keeping them alive. Muah ha ha! Come to me, my pretties!
Totally OT...
I just wanted to castigate TNH for being a rose-pusher. I ordered a zillion miniature roses in some (doubtless misguided) attempt to enhance the green-plant jungle in my office with flowering plants.
I am probably denying their beauty to someone who could do a better job of keeping them alive. Muah ha ha! Come to me, my pretties!
Steve Buchheit @ #50:
I see nothing wrong with the publishers having to pay all over again to get rights to a book published ten years ago that went OOP eight years ago. Lucky Fergus for pulling the publishing brass ring!
For every "Doris" that Shyster and Swindle have to buy back, there will be a thousand books by authors who don't hit it big further down the road. Somebody has to play the odds up front, and it shouldn't be the author. Authors odds are already poorly stacked.
For all of you hating Godiva: about ten years ago, they started manufacturing it in America, instead of flying it over from Belgium. That would be right around when the quality went down.
I switched over to Leonidas, still made in Belgium, still flown in to JFK every week.
When I go to Canada, I buy up their consumer brand chocolate. It's not as good as the high-end stuff, but it kicks the ass of Hershey's. On my way home from Ad Astra this year, I got serious questioning by the guy at customs for my "Chocolate--$100" item on the form.
Tracie @ #124: Looks as if they fixed the typo.
Am I the only person who was irked by the PW article's characterization of Mr. Fabiano as a "budding author"? There's a world of positive connotation in that adjective. The neutral "author" (or even more neutral "writer") would be more appropriate in a journal article.
I feel a little bad getting all Darwinian at kids and their parents, but geez, when I was a kid, my mom taught me things like "think before you act" and "all those chemicals under the sink can hurt you, so don't be stupid with them."
We did all kinds of crazy science experiments in school, but the teachers always stressed the importance of things like, say, goggles. Sure, they looked dorky and we hated them, but deep in our hearts we knew they made sense. If kid hasn't learned that lesson by the age of 15, his education has been suck-ass.
And it now occurs to me that the very fact that we as a culture consider a 15-year-old a "kid" may be part of the problem. I realize we all want to protect our offspring, but once the pupa matures, a cocoon is hindrance, not protection. Maybe if more children were allowed to scrape their knees, they would learn to recognize and avoid serious idiocy.
Jim@5
Why would the Democrats want to undo all that? They can make use of it just as easily as the Republicans, and they don't have to take the blame for putting it in place. What part of "politician" and all the potential for corruption, misuse of power, and self-serving wankery are the Democrats immune to?
I know, I know...I am too young to be this cynical.
I'm hoping that the petty desire for payback ("You impeached our guy over what bullshit, again?") will outweigh selfishness. But I ain't betting on it.
It's not a bad concept...the main problem is the fakey semi-guarantees and the offer to "publish" the best.
The OWW is a peer-review operation, but makes no promises, and has a solid track record of people going on to publish real novels with major publishers.
My eyes can take abuse, but my ears will never forgive you. I suppose this should have made me remember that Vikings may yowl like cats.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 4 |
| 2008 | 4 |
| 2007 | 10 |
| 2006 | 2 |
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