Writer on wheels

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I just put new wheels on my writing chair. That may not seem like a big thing to you but to be able to push back in my chair and not have a wheel lock up and jar me to a stop or not have the chair shoot off at 45 degrees from where I want it to go is great.

This chair is so old that the ball bearing had fallen out of the swivel part of two of the wheels. That and some rust made for wheels that had a mind of their own.

I can’t afford a new chair but with a little work using an electric drill motor and drill bit I got the new wheels to fit. One of these days I will replace the chair with one that has the mesh-breathable-fabric seat. I had a HermanMiller Aeron chair at the day job once but I may never be able to afford the $700.00 to $1500.00 for one of those. I will take a open mesh seat over a leather upholstered chair any day.

It’s a little thing but little things like cleaning up the writing area can improve your mood and help get writing done.

 

Write on, draw on.  Professor Hyram Voltage

Spam fighting on a WordPress blog site

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I recently installed Akismet plugin on this BLOG page to combat the spam.

Akismet moves what it thinks is spam to a spam folder. It may also may move things that are not spam to the spam folder. I checked many of the comments in the spam folder and did not find any normal comment in the ones that I checked but there were tens of thousands of spam comments in the folder. The spammer are very smart and they won’t stop. They make their comments sound like they are interested in what you have written then it’s followed by the request to email back. If you didn’t know about the URL or email addresses being linked to spammers you would think you were emailing an ordinary person not get caught in a baited trap. I have never emailed back yet the spam keeps coming stronger than ever.

There was so much stuff in the spam folder that I erased it all (that’s a handy feature of Akismet) without checking all the comments. There were ten of thousands of comments in the folder.

If you commented and I deleted your comment I am sorry.

I do not know if Akismet is the best program. I am not a BLOG or WordPress programmer but the Akismet program has helped.

The spammers have won.

 

Write on, draw on.    Professor Hyram Voltage

The Artist Space Time Continuum

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Artist and writers work on different time scales, continuums, universes. That was brought home to me the other day when I asked my artist when the next set of drawings will be ready. I asked nicely, non-aggressively. His reply was “We only have 30 pages to go, what’s your hurry.”

30 pages to go we’re almost done. OK, it’s more like 70 pages to go (I’m having problems with the length of the story) but we have 130 pages penciled, the end is in sight. The artist still has to ink and color the drawings, but inking is straight forward and with tight pencils does not require a lot of creativity. Coloring may take as long as the penciling but I’m excited we are getting close to a major milestone in making this graphic novel.

Is the disconnect that artists spend hours on getting the line that represents the character’s eyebrow right while he believes the writer just has to spend a couple of hours to dash off a complete 100 page story. I spent years working on this story and in the time it’s taken the artist to pencils the pages I have almost completed a novel and the second volume of the graphic novel.

 

Write on, draw on.  Professor Hyram Voltage

A modest proposal to save water

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California is short of water. Since water doesn’t grow on trees we need to stop wasting water and stop now.

Early the other morning I was driving a friend to breakfast. We stopped two blocks from my house to turn onto a major street through town. The sprinklers system was on watering the vegetation in the center median of the major street. It was also watering the street from one side to the other. Cars were zipping through the wet street sending water every where. This was during daylight not some midnight accident.

Several blocks later we drove past the Department of Motor Vehicles offices. Their sprinklers were on full blast. Those sprinklers did not have near as much over spray but one sprinkler head had broken off and a fountain of water was shooting straight up four or more feet.

My recommendation to remediate this type of problem is to put someone in charge. Both these instances were before normal working hours and it would be expensive and inefficient to have someone watch the sprinklers. But during working hours a person at the city or state office could be charged with making sure water is not wasted. Offices for the state and many city offices are not owned by the state or city, still the office water Czar could work with the owner of the building and the ground keeping contractor to insure there is no over spray, no broken sprinklers, that the timers for the sprinklers are set to come on only twice a week and only come on after dark. All these measures would show the tax payer that the state is trying to save water (even when it is the building owner who is wasting water).

Additional action could be for state owned building to put in artificial turf or rock gardens. A visit to Tuscon Arizona could show how well that can be done.

The state could help fund cities so that they can put in drip irrigation systems to replace spray type sprinklers.

These simple measures would make the state and cities look like they are not wasting water.

Write on, draw on.    Professor Hyram Voltage

 

They don’t make them like they uses to, or at least not as well

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I just rebuilt a storage shed in my back yard. It replaces a twenty year old shed that the termites got into.

Instead of reusing the door latch from the old shed I bought a new door latch. The old door latch was rusted up bad. Same brand, same size but the metal was thinner on the new one. And of course the new one cost a lot more.

Maybe there is something to this the government and manufacturers things don’t change for the better. Now let’s see if the new latch last as long as the old latch did.

 

Write on, draw on.  Professor Hyram Voltage

Your Hard Drive is Going to Die

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It’s not if but soon. Hard drives fail, all the time, so back up your data. I’ve said it before, now go back up your data. Even new SSD (Solid State Drives) fail. If you know how SSDs work then you know they are constantly failing and that they have excellent error correcting electronics but one day they will get so bad that the error correcting can’t correct the errors.

I’ve lost data in hard drive failures. I now back up my data at least once a month. I back it up on two different USB connected hard drives. I keep the USB Hard Drives locked up and stored well away form the computer. And I keep old copies of the data. If the data on your hard drive get corrupted and you copy it onto the back up USB hard drive over the data that was there then you’ve lost the data anyway.

I also backup working files on thumb drives. It makes the files handy and if I write over a file with to many changes I can always pull an old copy off the thumb drive and start over.

At the last writers meeting we had a new guy. He’s making a graphic novel using a image program. He’s stuck, his hard drive died and he lost a lot of the old images so he has to make do with the images he has. The graphics program he uses has changed so it would be a major undertaking to make new images in the style of the old images.

I’m having trouble finding sympathy for the guy. I’ve lost data and I could not afford at the time to pay someone to get it back. Sometimes when a hard drives fail and even the best techs can’t get the data back. It’s also very expensive to recover data from a damaged hard drive.

USB thumb drives are cheap and have plenty of room for the files that you generate (you don’t need to backup everything). Even if it is a bunch of pictures there are 128 Gbyte thumb drives out there. Get two thumb drives and store them in different places. One glitch in the hard drive and you could lose all your children’s baby pictures.

There are four terabyte USB portable hard drives for sell. Stick with the two terabyte drives, I have heard that the three and four terabyte hard drives have problems. These drives are fast and hold a lot. Again get two to protect against fires and floods and store them in separate places. Think about getting a water proof and fire proof container to store them in.

On line or cloud storage is not the answer. If your files on your computer get corrupted and the computer syncs the files on the computer to the files on the cloud then the cloud stored files are damaged and no good. If a hacker gets mad at One Note or Google and develops a virus that start destroying cloud files you’re out of luck because all your files were in one place and that place got hacked.

It’s your data and it’s your responsiblity. Back it up.

 

Write on, draw on.  Professor Hyram Voltage

Find time to write

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The question that a writer dreads; How do I find time to write?

Everyone has 24 hours in a day. Writers and non-writer included.

One way to find time to write is to squeeze every second out of the day you can. You carry a note book and pen or pencil with you every where, and use it. Your standing in line waiting. This is a great place to think up ideas for your story. You’re out of your comfort zone, you’re surrounded by unhappy people, your senses are in over drive, jot down your impressions, ideas, observations. Think hard on your story. Think about incorporating this experience into the story. How would the character handle waiting in line, jot it down.

A minute here and there adds up especially if it’s quality time thinking. But jot it down. The second someone asks you a question the idea or thought is gone with “you want paper or plastic” or “did you bring a bag”. I find walking through a doorway a great idea eraser. Now if walking through a doorway would get rid of the song that keeps running through my head. Write it down before the idea slips away.

Another way to find time to write is to work at it. I know, you didn’t want to hear that but this is the best way to find time to write.

Step 1. List the things you do during the day. It can start as a vague or broad list. The list can be as simple as eat, sleep, work and play (or family time).

a. How can you squeeze time to write out of eating? If you eat in front of the computer or TV then stop it. You are eating for the length of a show or web cast and not tasting your food. This is a good way to gain weight. Eat at a table and talk to the people at the table. They are a great source of ideas and character information.

b. How can you squeeze time to write out of sleeping. Do you watch TV in bed? Then stop. Go exercise, or write. Do you get 8 hours of sleep a night? If not try it. When I am well rested I think better and am more productive. I am on the boarder about reading in bed. Will you remember a book that you read while half asleep? If you write, you have to read but you got to read in something other than the zombie mode.

c. How can I squeeze time out of work? Don’t do it. Work at work, but do you need to take home work form work? Will it get you more pay, is everyone else doing it? You can gather stories form coworkers. These stories can end up in you writing. A coworkers daughter’s outrageous antics at school, work, or at a party, could be perfect for your next book. You can gather character traits and actions for your writing from coworkers and bosses. The second most person that is killed off in a first time murder mystery writer book is her boss. The most often character to get killed off in a first time murder mystery is based on the writer’s husband (or ex). This is from an unofficial list I made from attending a bunch of writer’s signing.

d. How can I squeeze time out of family time? Sitting on the couch watching TV with a family member is not spending time with them, it’s entertaining yourself. If you want to spend time with them talk to them, listen to them. Life is short, when you spend time with someone then spend time with them not with the TV set. Have you ever watched a show because you thought the other person wanted to watch it? Did you ask the other person if they wanted to watch the show? You could waste a whole hour and neither one of you are going to be satisfied.

If you find yourself flipping through the channels then turn off the TV and pick up your pen, pencil, or sharpy and write. You have a half hour of writing time until the next show starts maybe even an hour. If you miss a show it will be back in reruns or syndication. Then there is always binge watching of a show if you really like it. Write now, watch later. If you in a writer’s slump and you think your writing is bad, awful, or worse it is still better to write than to watch bad TV shows.

Above are some things to think about when trying to find more time to write. Still need more time then rethink your day. Does reading an email make you more money at work, make you happy, really necessary to read, then get rid of it. Unsubscribe to email newsletters that don’t improve you or your day. Blow off the emails that want you to buy something. Cut down on trips, do you need to stop at the grocery store every day after work. Make a list and shop once a week.

Everyone has the same amount of time in a day. Some write and some don’t. Use your time wisely.

 

Write on, draw on. Professor Hyram Voltage

Growing Tomatoes with Alfalfa Mulch

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Last year I read an expounding on using alfalfa for mulch and then at the end of the year turning the soil to mix in the alfalfa so the alfalfa would act as fertilizer.

So last year a bought a bail of alfalfa hay. Had trouble getting the bail into the back of the car. A California bale of hay is much bigger than an Arizona hay bale and heavier too. I have a small test garden that is only two and half feet by six feet. I planted two tomato plants in the garden. Then I took the bale and broke it up. Baled hay will come apart in sheets a couple of inches thick. I laid the sheets of hay out to act as mulch around the tomato plants. The hay is porous enough to allow water through but I kept the area around (about eight inches around the base) the tomato plants clear.  The alfalfa mulch did seem to keep the weeds down. The lack of weeds could have been due to the drought. I only watered the base of the tomato plants and watered carefully so I didn’t get water on the leaves of the tomato plants. No water and no sun light could have stopped the weeds.

After the growing season I pulled the tomato plants and trashed them. I do not want any disease from the plants getting into the ground. I then turned the alfalfa into the soil with a shovel.

This year I had plenty of weeds in the test garden. After pulling them out I turned the soil with a shovel. I found clumps of alfalfa in the soil. It had not decomposed. With the drought I had not been growing anything in the garden and had not been watering the garden.

Alfalfa hay does work as a mulch. It’s full of nitrogen and should make a good organic fertilizer. It takes a lot of work to spread it around, it’s messy looking, and it’s a lot of work to till it into the ground. It also take a lot of alfalfa to cover a garden.

Write on, draw on. Professor Hyram Voltage

ConDor convention and the Play in Sandbox panel

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“Play in Sandbox” is a Fan Fic (Fan Fiction) term that means writing in someone else’s story world (their World is your Sand Box). Fan Fic is writing about or in stuff you don’t have a license for (characters, settings, background, story ideas).

A librarian on the panel got into Fan Fiction because the children using her library were into it.

Pro Fan Fic, (making money off other people stories?)

Kindle has a list of stuff that can be licensed. It’s a small list. If you buy a license is it Fan Fic, there are commercial authors writing in other peoples worlds (the 1632 series or in story worlds where the founding author has passed away and the current author is allowed to write in that story world).

It’s Cosplay if it’s not for pay.

AO3 is a site where you can download Fan Fic. Carries better written Fan Fic.

Mary Sue. The term came up again along with her left cousins Gary Stu and Marty Stu. You can have other characters in Fan Fiction without it being a Mary Sue.

The panel recommended taking a look at the story “How to Wreck a Mary Sue Character”.

Write on, draw on.  Professor Hyram Voltage.

 

ConDor convention and the Arduino and the Computer Security panel

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If you have been reading this blog long you know I don’t like software or programers. I do use the stuff so I went to the panel on using the Audrino computer.

It’s a cute little computer but quite powerful.

I won’t bore you with the details but I fascinated my lab partner my typing in the code from the booklet and having the complier screw up. I copied it right out of the book.

The panel on computer security was one of the best of the convention.

One of the panelist relates an old science fiction story where a man comes to an abandoned town. The town is very nice and run by a computer. The man goes into a house and it’s nice. The house cook the man a meal but the man wants to go outside. The computer says OK but after I worked so hard to make the meal. The man runs away from the passive aggressive computer that has driven everyone else out of the town.

Panelist stated that countries around the world will not use U.S. security programs if they think there are back doors in the programs, even if it’s a government required back door.

He feels that the only way to go is an open security organization with no secret black box. Other countries could go with that and they would know that everyone would be trying to crack or break into the security program.

Someone mentioned watching the program ‘The Good Wife’ for a more realistic computer security view.

The Internet of Things (IOT) means a hacker can do suicide bombers without the risk of blowing himself up.

Panelist recommended Last Pass or One Pass as password programs.

Life Hacker was mentioned as a good VPN (virtual private network) provider. Many people in the room raised their hands when asked if they use a VPN.

 

Write on, draw on. Professor Hyram Voltage