Technology: Making Life More . . .

Technology has its uses, but there are times the old fashioned way is easier -- and better.

I've been preparing a package for mailing that needs to be out by June 15. Unfortunately, my laptop did not recognize my printer and every time I deleted a job it hung the computer up for about 24-48 hours. I had to delete the printer and re-install, something I've had to do three times with regard to this particular package. I won't even go into printing the proper postage so I can send the package. It would have been easier to type out a label and take the package to the post office to be mailed, except that since I pay for being able to print my own postage and labels with my laptop it seemed such a waste of money. It was also a waste of time.

So much is made easier by technology and so much has been made more complicated by relying on technology. Heaven forbid we should have to go back to the old days when manuscripts were handwritten and posted to publishers in brown paper tied up in string. There are far too many wannabe and actual authors to have to go through each handwritten manuscript one at a time. The luck of the leprechauns was with you if you received a typewritten manuscript since so few people owned typewriters and knew how to use them. Reminds me of the dark days when the average person couldn't read, and then the printing press made printed books available and then everyone had a better chance to learn to read and decide things for themselves.

Now that I have that last task completed, I think I can move on, but technology may get in the way again. This time the technology is my job, which I do from home and which requires the bulk of my time, leaving little time for reading books to review, or for entertainment, and writing, not if I plan to bathe, do laundry, cook meals, wash dishes, clean house, run errands, buy food, vacuum and garden. No wonder people feel they need servants. There aren't enough hours in the day.

Technology helps with the usual household tasks, like washing dishes and clothing, vacuuming, etc., but the tasks still take time. Machines have to be set up, primed with the right kinds of liquids and powders, loaded and unloaded only to load and unload another machine. Then there's the folding, putting away and hanging up of clothing, and the putting away of dishes to take up more time. And then it's time for shopping for food to prepare for cooking, actually cooking and then eating, creating more dirty dishes, and often dirty clothes when food is spilled, and we're back to the laundry and dish washing again. There are some items that have to be hand washed (dishes and clothing) and that requires more time. I need a housekeeper, and I'll hire one as soon as I can afford it, which I cannot do on the salary I earn with my day job, and there's not enough time to write so I can get another book published and begin earning money on it. It is a vicious circle.

Virginia Woolf was half right. A woman needs a room of her own and sufficient monies to support the writing, but she also needs servants and money to pay for them and technology that doesn't require too much time and energy to work and keep working. I don't want much, just a cabin high up in the Rocky Mountains with a good bit of land, no neighbors, a town that is not too far away nor too close, a guest house and a sturdy lock on the door to keep people out when I'm creating. I also need a housekeeper. Now all I need to do is write more books, publish them and begin to build a recognizable name so people will buy lots of my books and help me afford my decadent lifestyle. I won't even go into the social and business online networking time that needs to come out of the writing, chore, and day job time because it's the reason I am deep into sleep deficit already.

The Mythos of Frank Herbert

When my cousin by marriage, Michael Vanderboegh, told me I should read Dune by Frank Herbert, I wasn't interested. There was nothing wrong with what he told me, but I could not get interested. There were too many other things going on in my life, like adjusting to being divorced with three small boys, only one of whom was in school (first grade) and working two jobs to make ends meet. I didn't have time for books, even for the science fiction I enjoyed so much.

Books had not been a part of my life for a few years, at least since getting pregnant and having children. Babies tend to suck up all available time and energy until there is nothing left for the good stuff, like reading. Dune was off the list of available things to do. There were not enough hours in the day for reading. The only time I had to myself was in the shower, if I got it before the boys were up or after they went to sleep, and falling into a dead faint at the end of the day.

I had much more time a few years later and picked up the book at a secondhand store while trying to add to my Andre Norton collection. I happened across the book and took a glance at the back cover and first few pages. I got lucky. The book was available in hard cover, and so I bought it, took it home and found a few minutes to begin reading. I was reluctant to put the book down to cook dinner, do laundry or go to bed. I was mesmerized -- and hooked but good.

The sweep of plot, characters and worlds took my breath away and the story was a real page turner, despite its deceptive size. I recognized many of the so-called ancient words drawn from Greek, Italian and Muslim origins, but that wasn't the real draw for me. It was the scope of the plots and stories that intertwined, leaving me hungry for more without ever feeling lost. That was artistry. That was good writing and I couldn't wait for the next book and the ones after that.

I did read some of Herbert's short story collections, and they were good, but it was with Dune that he reached his true calling as a storyteller. I go back and read Dune and the rest of the books from time to time, and I have read several of Herbert's son Brian's additions to the mythology and history of the worlds and people, answering questions about their origins and the beginnings of feuds, how the navigators evolved and where the whole thing was going in terms of religion and history. One thing I learned from Herbert, even though I knew it already, was that everything dies. Every religion, every system and every civilization reaches a pinnacle and is replaced by something new, something born from seeds planted long ago. About the only thing that lasted in Herbert's vision was Judaism.

Catholocism had evolved and become a breeding and martial arts program that, in concert with melange, the spice that extends and enhances life, created super beings, like Paul Muadib Atreides, Leto III the God Emperor and eventually an entire race of Atreides spawned humans who were no longer visible in the minds of those that could track every being in the universe. Islam became an entrenched society of people devoted to the violence of war and the protection of every drop of water on Arrakis (Dune) so that the planet would one day be carved up between rivers, lakes and seas between which ran grassy plains where cities and towns careless of water would spring up. Leto III made that possible with his breeding program and his reign of over three thousand years.

In one small part of the universe there were hidden pockets of Jews still practicing the ancient rites of their religion waiting for God as the chosen people. That did not change, and there is still the question of what Frank Herbert believed and saw for the future of mankind.

The stories and layers that came after Dune were the icing on a very rich cake that lingers still on the mind and in the heart. Few stories like that come along. It's no wonder the book has been made into a movie and a mini-series, each done by different directors that add more pieces to the puzzle. From the elegant and regal Dune of David Lynch's vision to the Sci-Fi TV mini-series directed by John Harrison, which is closer to what Herbert envisioned, except with the navigators, Frank Herbert's dreams live and continue to evolve. The scope is awe inspiring and the story a small tale of what happens when religion and ambition take precedence in government and commerce.

Some books remain long after the last page is read and call to the reader to return and look a little deeper, find a little more. It is all there between the pages, waiting for a new perspective and new eyes fresh from the cauldron of time and experience. Dune is still one of my favorite books and doubtless always will be.

Beyond the stars into the minds of the gods

What subject you like to become more knowledgeable about, and why?

Astronomy.

The Greeks had a very intricate and complex mythology that I think we have mistaken for religion. It is religion in a sense, but it was so much more. The story of Zeus defeating his father with the Titans, the birth of his children, especially Athena who sprang from his head and Bacchus who was born from his thigh, sound less like religion than astronomy. It sounds like the birth of the universe and the various galaxies.

By learning more about astronomy I would be able to get a better idea of how Greek mythology fits into the cosmos and where the various galaxies, planets and stars that coincide with the events in mythology would likely be and maybe change the way we view, not only the Greeks, but all ancient mythologies. To see these advanced civilizations of the ancient world as somehow less than we are now with our technology is to ignore the proof of what they were and what they still have to teach us about the cosmos and about our own world and its place in the universe. They knew so much more than we do with our atom smashers and colliders and fiberoptic connections as has been amply shown in some of the devices that have come to light that we cannot equal or master.

Astronomy for me is the first step toward understanding so much more, a leap into the vastness of the universe and revision of all we think we know.

That is all. Disperse.

To e-book or not to e-book

Taunting my mother has its perks, like being able to taunt her at all. She has so much already that it's hard to find something that gets to her. Yes, it's a silly game, but it's a game all the same. Taunting her about gifts is easy, and I do that with everyone when I have their gift far ahead of time. Makes the waiting easier. I found, however, a new way to taunt Mom, a short term perk: baked goods. Not just any baked goods, but homemade, ooey, gooey cinnamon rolls with rich vanilla-laden icing, also homemade.

When Mom called Saturday afternoon, I was waiting for the dough to rise. She asked me what I was doing and I told her, "Making cinnamon rolls." She wouldn't do anything like that unless it came in a tube from the dairy section at the grocery store, or better yet from the bakery already to eat. She doesn't understand why I like to bake bread and rolls and cook at all. "Nobody here but me eats," she complains, and then tells me her chihuahua Dink is getting fat from eating the same things that Mom eats. Mom has so many preservatives and GMO foods in her that she'd probably die if she didn't eat all that junk, but the dog doesn't have nearly 80 years of junk food in her. Dink's not even three years old yet, and that's barely 21 in dog years.

When the cinnamon rolls were finished and sending their sweet spicy aroma throughout the house, I called Mom just as I sat down with one still hot from the pan. "Guess what I'm eating?" She guessed, called me a few names best not repeated. "You'll eat the whole thing," she complained.

"Uh, no, I won't. I'm having one and the rest are for the coming days."

"How can you eat just one?"

"Easily. By stopping when I'm finished and leaving the rest for tomorrow and the other days." Mom has no control, as evidenced by her recent binge on circus peanuts when she ate three bags a day for weeks.

Here it is Monday morning and there are still cinnamon rolls in the pan. I already had one when I got up this morning. Mom always said I had no will power. I guess I still don't.

But it's Monday and the three day weekend is over and I must go back to work for four more days before I get another break. As much as I love the holidays, I have to say that the planning is off. There should be at least one three day weekend in every month, paid for of course by my employer. At least there will be an extra week of vacation this year as I celebrate my fifth year of employment with my employer in February. Three whole weeks of vacation and four extra days (two personal days and two floating holidays). I think I can do something with that.

One thing I'll be doing this week is deciding if I want to break down and get an e-reader. I really don't see the need since I don't go out that much and have plenty of books here, but the idea of having a lot of books and not having to wait for them or pay shipping and handling does have it's up side. Beanie got a Sony Pocket eReader for Xmas and we spent a good part of the weekend trying to figure it out. I found the customer service number and had her call them to get her started and then we spent yesterday looking at books and figuring out why an e-book costs so much money when there's no paper and no cover. It's a subject that has consumed several writers and readers over the past year or so.

It makes no sense to price an e-book at the same or slightly discounted price as a hardback book. It doesn't even make sense to price it the same as a paperback. There is no huge cost of production or formatting since that is all part of the package when the book is initially published and the book should be priced accordingly. Yes, a small price would net smaller profits, at least on the surface, but in the long run it's a question of selling a book for a thousand dollars or a thousand books for one dollar. The outcome is the same, but the numbers reached are significantly more. Keep pricing books in that range and there will be a path beaten to the e-bookstore to buy even more books. In a strapped economy with technology like makes books portable and fairly easy to read, it makes more sense to price the books lower and therefore sell more books. It would also make more sense to get the old back list out and bundle them to revitalize sales and keep readers coming back. If the price makes it possible to buy one hundred books as opposed to buy three or four, what would the bottom line look like then? Common sense and good fiscal sense. One day publishers will figure that out.

I don't need a lot of bells and whistles or Internet capabilities. I have a laptop and a desktop PC for that. I do need a reader that is efficient, easy to read and use and doesn't cost a lot. I can't afford to spend two hundred dollars or more for what is basically a small library. I'd rather spend the money on books, which is why I looked at the 1150 offered by Barnes & Noble. The reviews are good and, even though the 1150 is the Cybook remastered and retooled, the price is right at $89.95. I might be able to swing that and a few books. The only hangup I see is in the book pricing.

Beanie and I looked at some James Patterson books, specifically his science fiction trilogy. The Lake House was priced at the hardback price and it's seven years old. Come on B&N, even though you offer an instant discount that takes the book down into the five dollar range, it's still over priced, and your scheme of leaving the rebate on the books to buy other books, is too much like accounting and bait & switch for my taste. Read the above and consider a different sales tactic, like pricing the book at two or three dollars and bundling it with the rest of the series for under ten dollars. That would make more sense and you'd find more readers with e-book technology coming back for more until Amazon would be worried about their sales and follow suit. Someone has to lead the pack, so why not Barnes & Noble for a change?

Oh, well, technology is a big part of my life these days and on that note I will sign off, shower, change and begin another day while I decide whether this whole e-book technology is for me or not. I have plenty of paperback and hardback books to keep me company after the holiday haul, so I'm not hurting for reading material.

That is all. Disperse.

Tech wars and terminators

It's actually nippy here today. Before anyone asks, yes, really nippy. I was forced to put on clothing before venturing into the cool confines of my living room. I turned off the fan and donned real clothing, instead of my usual morning uniform of over sized t-shirt or white cotton nightgown now wearing great splotches of black ink. I had an accident with the ink bottle when I filled my fountain pen last night while sitting on the bed. The great spill, as it will now be called, cost me half a bottle of Levenger's finest black ink and another shower, not to mention the damage to the sheet and my nightgown. I only have two nightgowns and that is why I am dressed before dawn instead of lounging around under the faux mink throw with my feet up. The other one is in the laundry that I didn't do over the weekend, along with my over sized t-shirts.

It's also frustrating here this morning. I have no Internet.

I called the phone company because the DSL was wonky yesterday and after a long menu of pushing buttons to respond to a menu-driven idiot system asking me to check the things I'd checked before I called, I finally spoke to a human being. After a few minutes and a couple of tests on the other end (I think they just put you on hold and go for coffee or a restroom break), the result was that I need a technician to come out today to check the wiring. I had this problem before and the guy told me he replaced the crumbling and aged wiring with all brand new, high tech wiring, but maybe he didn't. I suffered through four hours of no Internet access before calling my ISP and asking for a local dial-up number, configured the program, plugged in the phone wire and listened to the tinny sound of the modem dialing, rushing static and then voila! connection at 54 kbps. That's a far cry from the usual light speed. Nothing like crawling along at sub-light speeds. But I was connected and checked my email.

The real reason for going the dial-up route instead of waiting for a technician to show up between the hours of 8 and 12 today was because I needed to get my weekly reviews written and sent so I would get paid this week. With no guarantee my access would be fixed by 10 a.m., I needed to take care of things ahead of schedule, and I'm glad I did. Books read. Check. Reviews written. Check. Email written and reviews attached (I forget the attachment once in a while). Check. Email sent. Check. Done and done. Deadline met.

While I was online checking on some other necessary information, like funds available for paying bills and rent and buying food, I did a little research and reading and engaged in a little Live Journal badinage between one of my favorite LJ friends. He usually has something interesting to say and it often involves food and laughter. Last night was no exception. We talked of callused gun boats, the efficacy of large pink grapefruit to soften and remove said calluses and the farming of maggots for digesting dead flesh. You had to be there. Then I disconnected the dial-up and went to bed early with a book.

This morning, dressed and ready for a quick trip to the grocery store for breakfast foods, I decided to turn on the computer and check email, just to get it out of the way. As the modem began to do its little tonal dance, the line stutter-beeped. I had a voice mail message. Someone called when I was online last night. I unhooked the line, plugged it into the phone and dialed my voice mail. Two messages. The first was from the phone company. They canceled the technician this morning because the problem is an outage in the area. Well, duh! A computer generated phone call will let me know when the outage has been resolved. Oh, goody! It was their problem all along. I figured that out before I answered the 50 stupid questions about whether the modem was plugged in and the cables connected.

One thing I have noticed about technical support is they don't know much about technology and with their kind of support in my bra my boobs would be on the floor. The people usually speak English and reside within the confines of the continental United States, but their expertise is limited to their memorized spiel. Get them off track by asking a pertinent question and explaining that you did the things they're asking you to do before you called and they are completely lost and must go back to the beginning. I often wonder if they're not computer generated menus that just sound like real human beings because they sure don't act like rational, intelligent, tech-savvy people. If that's the current generation of artificial intelligence, I don't think Skynet is going to happen in our lifetime and no terminators will be striding across the landscape over our decomposing flesh and stripped skeletons any time soon.

Long story short: I still have no Internet without dial-up which ties up my phone so I won't know when the outage is fixed. At least I have access and I'm dressed and ready to go outside, get in my car and start driving until I find some quiet, secluded mountain valley to stop, get out and scream until my throat is bloody and my voice fails me. Life is good.

That is all. Disperse.

Thank you, technology

Despite some of the drawbacks of communicating on the Internet and in emails, I am so grateful for them both. You don't really understand what kind of paperwork is involved in moving until you consider all the magazines, books and publishing checks that could be rerouted and maybe not arrive at all. It used to be such a chore, and filling out the form from the post office helped a little, but it doesn't help with changing information on subscriptions, or what to do with all the labels stored up for future use from charitable organizations wanting money. I have a drawer full, a big drawer full. But the post office now exacts a charge, although it is only one dollar, to change the address on line.

That's a lot of money when you figure in how many people move on a daily basis nationwide who have computers and want to simplify things by making changes online -- and yet they are raising the price of stamps again, as if the two cents last year wasn't enough, now they want another penny. This is getting ridiculous. They should learn to spend less money and save more instead of dinging the consumer again and again and again. No wonder more people use email than snail mail. If Scotty could beam my online purchases directly to me and save having to deal with delivery companies and the post office. Talk about reducing the carbon footprint, although I'm sure someone will figure out how that is depleting the ozone or adding more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere so Al Gore can pick up another Nobel prize for wagging the dog. I digress.

People are talking about minimizing the individual carbon footprint and I do my part. I get most of my bills by email and pay online so there is no paperwork, and yet the phone and utility company continue to send me notices by mail. At least I could change my address by phone or online with both of those. I did my share. Of course they will send me a confirmation by snail mail even though they also sent one by email. Government mentality.

I also changed all of my subscriptions, at least the ones I could remember, online and that saved a lot of time and effort. I'm good to go and go I shall very soon now. The only paperwork I expect from those changes are the magazines going to the new address without being routed through the post office to be forwarded and risk ending up in a plastic bag with an "I'm sorry we ruined destroyed damaged your [fill in the blank]" message printed right on the bag.

Not to fret too much. There was good news last night, and again this morning, but it was followed, as always, by bad news. The picture I sent the magazine to go along with the detailed and very personal questionnaire I filled out is insufficient for publication. It's not 300 dpi (dots per inch) and it's too small and resizing it is not possible. I can size it down but not make it bigger without losing even more resolution. There are two options left for me now. I can either find someone to take a picture of me with my digital camera and end up as I usually do looking more hideous than I truly am or I can spring for a professional digital photo that I can send out whenever another picture is needed, and I've been asked several times today for pictures to go with upcoming books. What happened to the words being sufficient?

I called around and found several local photographers who will do the job but not for less than $250 if I want to have the pictures on a CD or by email. I don't understand why it costs so much. There's a little touching up to do, but that is a minimal charge of $9-17.50, depending on which photographer I choose, but why does photograph that exists in binary code and can be saved to a CD that costs less than a dollar cost more than a package of photos that have been printed and sized and come in different sizes? Technology should reduce the cost not increase it, especially since there is no darkroom time and no chemicals to buy and use and no paper and hardly any time at all to develop the film since it isn't developed. At least I can take it off my taxes as a business expense and this writing business is getting expensive indeed.

I'm not complaining about the writing just the circus maximus that now attends the creation of stories and articles, etc. and the need for the public to see a face with the words. I doubt that Shakespeare or Plato or Aristotle or Guy de Maupassant or even Poe would have lasted in this image crazy time in which we live. On the other hand, Washington Irving would have loved it, especially since he sat for so many portraits, although fewer in his later years.

I told Beanie about my situation and she said, "I know. I don't like having my picture taken either." Beanie is a petite little thing of 43 years who still looks like a 12-year-old boy when her hair is up and she's wearing ball cap. Not everyone, no matter who they are, likes to have their likeness preserved for eternity -- or at least as long as someone remembers how to use the fragile technology we've created. I'd offer to let them use my skull to create a likeness when I'm gone, but the skull will be ash, along with the rest of me, when I depart this particular physical form. Oh, well, I have about a month to save or earn enough money to pay for the digital rendering of my head and shoulders and I hope someone knows how to use Photoshop. If I'm going to pay that much I want my skin tone like blush on a peach, my eyes luminous, my mouth like a ripe plum and my cheekbones sharp enough to cut marble.

That is all. Disperse.

Dearth and death

I just received Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past in anticipation of nine days of peace, quiet and books, both read and written. For me, reading and writing go together and having no demands on my time and no technological intrusions, other than my laptop, is a long awaited mental retreat.

Proust arrived in a battered and retaped box from Amazon that UPS hadn't managed to destroy. The book was sealed in plastic on cardboard and rested safely within the bulging and opened box about to burst from its hastily applied cellophane tape reinforcement. I fondled the weighty book while reading about much lighter book technology, namely Kindle, also from Amazon (I do hope they protect it if it's going by UPS, especially since it costs $400). The debate from technogeeks, literary Luddites, and everyone in between has been interesting. The geeks decry it's price tag and antique (if anything from 1980 could be considered antique) functionality while the Luddites scream about the death of books and the sensory experience of knowing the heft, tactile sensation and intoxicating scent of dust and cloth and leather bindings embedded between pages that rustle when turned and are marked in the margins with notable quotes and passages. You can't have that with the Kindle. I haven't seen or held one but I do admire the concept of having hundreds of books available anywhere, any time just by touching a few buttons. I'm in the wait and see camp although I do understand and admire the Luddites' position on books while I cringe at the thought of tens of thousands of trees razed and made into books, although no one ever mentions how many trees it takes to made matches or toothpicks or toilet paper.

I want to go back to a time when rag pickers pulled discarded clothing from the streets and alleys and sold them to bookmakers to make the pages on which the classics (and not so classics) were written and survive intact and white as the day they were created instead of the crumbling, yellowed pages of paperbacks that eventually will succumb to the destructive power of the light and the noxious vapors from avid readers whose sticky and salty fingers eagerly turn the pages from chapter to chapter and so to the end. Even the printed word, depending on the quality of paper used, is temporary at best while the impact of the words remain in the mind long after the book is dust or landfill or wrapped around the detritus of life. Kindle may be onto something if it, as some believe, makes reading more accessible to those who prefer the cyberworld to the real world. Reading comprehension test scores, we are told, are declining in the schools and businesses are rife with ignorance. Good thing we have all these tests and measurements of literary ability nowadays so that we can decry the death of literacy publicly and flash the news around the world. Was it so different in the not so distant past?

While it seems the golden age of literature is behind us, I doubt there is that much difference. Children in rural communities went to one-room schoolhouses with the same children from their earliest days until they were released from winter imprisonment to work their families' fields. They could read the Bible and do sums but very few had the literary comprehension of a fifth grader in today's world of standardized tests and variable curricula. Yes, more people go to college today than in the past, but there are also more people in the world now than then. Businesses employed clerks (clarks in Olde England) who could add prodigious lines of sums and get them right every time, poring over crabbed lines of numbers while shivering at their elevated desks perched on tall stools reading by candlelight, but few of them wasted their precious light to read at home and lunch hours were unknown at the time. Some of the people went to lectures and symposiums, but they were either hungry for knowledge or wanted to seem fashionable in a world obsessed with class, caste and fashion. The centuries before the nineteenth were even more ignorant. Most people had a rudimentary education at best and only the middle classes could afford tutors for their children. More people read, but probably with average or below comprehension. And yet, the book did not die.

For the first time in known history, there are more literate people in the world. Being literate doesn't mean always comprehending what is read, but for the first time in millennia the written word is available to more people. No longer is literature the sole province of religion and money; anyone can learn and everyone can own a book or pick one up at a library. Kindle is, at this point, not the printing press that freed the written word from painstaking copyists in monasteries nor is it the first working and affordable home computer, but it is the first reading machine that is easy on the eyes if not on the pocketbook. It is doubtful Kindle is saving the written word and books from death or the world from a dearth of literary comprehension, but it is at least a stab in the right direction.

People who want to read will find a way, whether that means saving money to cruise the local second-hand bookstore or buying leather bound books with gilt edges from a company that sells the classics, new and old. It isn't technology that has degraded literary comprehension or hastened the death of books, but it may be technology that makes books more accessible to those who prefer technology to lugging around their own hefty copy of Proust to read at bus stops, restaurants and breaks at work, or just in bed or on the sofa. Granted, the Kindle's hefty price is a strike against it, but the iPod and MP3 players that made it possible to download and create personal musical mixes once cost quite a bit and they're more affordable now. Give Amazon time to build up its literary database, clean up the clunky look, add color and bring down the price and Kindles may start popping up at restaurants and bus stops more and more, but whatever happens the book and reading will never die.

We may end up in an Outer Limits world where books are data easily accessed by a world-wide networked brain implant but there remain a few hardy souls visiting ghostly libraries to run their fingers lovingly along the edge of pages as they turn them and lose themselves in worlds and realms of fantasy and time among the printed word. When you get right down to it, knowledge comes in many forms and books are just one more form, a form I heartily endorse and enjoy. As long as there are people to tell the stories, they will find a way to pass them along because ultimately it's not the book that matters but the story.

That is all. Disperse.