Tag Archives: fiction editor

Editing/writing life

If you’re such a great editor, why don’t you write your own books?

August 18, 2020 jkkblog 2 Comments

We get this one a lot. There are many possible answers, and for some, multiple answers might apply.

The editor doesn’t want to. It can be as simple as that.
The editor realizes that there is more money in editing than in writing.
The editor knows that marketing is the difference between success and failure, and doesn’t like marketing. Or doesn’t mind it, but can’t or won’t do it well.
The editor has done so, either under a pen name or perhaps an unpublished work.
The editor takes more satisfaction in helping and guiding and teaching other people than in creating his or her own projects.
The editor doesn’t want the public engagement that could come with a reasonably successful book, at least not for the pittance s/he would likely earn from it.
The editor never got comfortable with the traditional publishing model (writer begs and begs, house condescends to accept the bulk of the revenue).
The editor isn’t neurotic enough to be a writer. (Okay, I’m sort of kidding. Sort of.)
Editing and writing require different skill sets and not everyone has both.
The editor hasn’t got anything original to share.
The editor is too busy helping others to focus on his/her own book.
A similar situation exists in many disciplines. Not everyone who can refinish furniture can build it. Not everyone who can repair a car can design and build a car.

Some of those apply to me to varying degrees. I’d bet some apply to most editors.

Adventures, Editing/writing life

field trip

May 30, 2020 jkkblog Leave a comment

In school, did you like field trips? I always did. I’d do anything to get the hell out of the classroom.

Today the blog is going on a field trip to Kit ‘N Kabookle, the online home of fellow traveler/colleague Mary DeSantis. She has been posting visiting editorial tips for some months now, one per week, and I’m up to bat.

For my topic, I decided to talk about choosing an editing mode beginning from the writer’s viewpoint: in plain English, what exactly is a given writer seeking from an editing professional? “I need an edit” is very inspecific. It’s like saying “I need a car repair” without talking about what’s wrong.

I always think it’s nice to know the name of what one wants, myself.

Mary’s site has plentiful information resources. She was pleasant and professional in arranging and scheduling this, and I thank her for her kind e-hospitality.

Privacy, Technology

Deceiving Facebook advertising by urinating in the data pool

December 7, 2016 jkkblog 2 Comments

Ever since the Ad Preferences thing became general knowledge, Facebook users have known a good way to feel creeped out. Yeah, we knew they would do this, and we can’t stop them.

However, I have figured out a way to ruin it, at least a little.

First off: why do that? “What part of ‘free service’ do you not understand? If you impair their ability to make money, you will no longer have a free service! You use this voluntarily! No one forces you!” Answer: because we aren’t getting paid enough. We, the users, are the product. Our compensation is not tied to the revenue we generate for a publicly traded company. Our views are the deliverable.

If Facebook were to pay us, that would be one thing, but it never will. Because it never will, it’s moral to mess up their income stream. And I laugh my head off at using Faceplant to publicize this notion.

How would one do that? At first, I though that deleting all the ad preference indicators would make sense. I then learned an odd thing: if you delete them all, they are soon repopulated with many more even if your FB usage is way down. I’ve been very busy the past couple of weeks and have spent far less time on the site. I checked last night and my “Ad Preferences” were as big a stew as I had previously accumulated (before the first Big Deletion) in years. If you delete them all, it seems, they are repopulated. Quickly. Like an ant colony.

All right. If you insist on keeping a dossier on me, I will ruin it. I will turn it into the hottest garbage I can.

Next time, don’t just delete all your ad preferences. Next time, go through them all and delete all those relevant to you: your leisure, your work, your beliefs, your hobbies, your passions. Leave only those that are complete whiffs. You like quilting? Delete any having to do with fabric. Oregon Ducks fan? There’s help for that condition, but in the meantime, keep any displayed ad preference that indicates you might like the Beavs or the Huskies. You voted for Jill Stein? Leave Joe Biden on there and remove Jill. Make sure that all the remaining preferences represent lies.

There is nothing Facebook can do about this. It amounts to urinating in the data pool. It also takes less time than deleting them all, and is much more amusing. You’re a millennial? AARP is on there? That one gets to stay! You’re a stay-at-home mom? Facebook thinks you like diaper pails? Hell, no, you do not!

Another method entails your page ‘likes.’ If you have not by now caught onto the reality that those are used to paint your advertising profile in order to sell your views to people who use words like ‘branding’ and don’t own ranches, you’re never going to. But if you have, great. Every so often, do this:

Pick a random term in which you have zero interest, and which is even whimsically stupid. A perfectly healthy 20something? “Colonoscopy.” A non-drinker? “Scotch.” An atheist? “Baptist Church.” It can be something like “boot soles,” “glassware,” or “potassium chloride,” even “nickelback.” The only rule is that it have nothing to do with the person you truly are.

Search on that term, winnow it down to Pages, and Like the first twenty or so that you come across. Every so often, pick a new term and do this some more. If one turns out to be a fountain of crap, you can unfollow it without unLiking it. All of this feeds into the profile they create about you. If they are going to market you, this will damage their marketing.

I still see feed items related to “durian,” but I’d rather see those than know I did nothing to strike back.

Have fun. We may not win the privacy war, but some of us will fight it just for enjoyment and pride.

Social comment

Reaching my caturation point

February 24, 2013 jkkblog 2 Comments

I’m caturated.

On a fundamental level, I like cats. That is not to say I find their depredations cute, want to pamper them, feel like carrying on conversations with them, or need to bomb your Facebook wall with cat pictures. No, it’s more basic. If the cat comes over to me, I’ll try to pet it, unless it tries to hurt me. If the cat ignores me, I’ll ignore it. If the cat accepts petting, I’ll keep it up. If it tries to harm me, I’ll brush it away. If it wants to play a game of entice-and-ignore, I’ll ignore the whole thing. But if the cat wants a normal relationship, in which it comes over for attention and leaves when it’s tired of attention, we’re harmonic.

It’s the cat people who are caturating me. I’m not talking about people who simply have cats. Like I said, I like cats. I’m talking about worlds where the cats occupy the top of the pyramid of priority, fascination and goodness, with human beings ranking as serfs lacking the right to object. Ever. We rank somewhere below field mice on this pyramid, since a field mouse is at least a fun cat toy.

Specifically: I don’t get the masochism. Cat threw up on your pizza? So cuuuuuuuuuute! Cat destroyed your mom’s wedding dress? Look at the kitty! Cat just hanging around doing nothing? Carry on a conversation with it, preferably using baby talk! Cat just walked through the litter box and across your kitchen counter? Isn’t this just the cutest thing, she’s ready for her hourly caviar treat! Cat just found a way to slash your femoral artery as punishment for a slight delay in giving attention, and you’re bleeding out? Ohhhh, woookada wittwe snwookums! Cat laid down on your couch? Post to Facebook immediately–the world must see this cat, for it is laying on a couch, which no cat has ever done in this exact posture, and which is utterly fascinating! Cat walks across dinner table while eating? Well, what are you waiting for? Duh! Give Precious access to your plate! Cat shed fine white hairs all over the $500 navy blue business suit you just bought? Isn’t this wonderful! Just got up at 1 AM to pee, and stepped right in a slimy hairball, falling and breaking your femur? Naughty kitty–while I am in rehab, I will adopt three more to keep me company!

Now, I do not dislike anyone for this. Truly. I try just to look past it, or tune it out, and mostly to shut up about it. If people think all this is fun and fascinating, then they do, and I don’t have to understand. I just have to accept it, but in turn, I need to sidestep as much of it as I gracefully can.

The job of authors is to give voice to that which other people are feeling, but have not yet themselves found the words to express. With that, I propose some additions to the English lexicon, which is already more bloated than a ten-day-dead herd of water buffalo in a tropical summer:

To caturate: to saturate with cat details. “Cousin Winifred hates cats. She is evil, and we want her to go stay in a motel. Let us caturate her until she leaves.”

Caturation: variant of above, an overload of cat details. “I just hid two more people from my news feed due to reaching my caturation point.”

Caturbation: reveling in cat information, pics, hair, hair balls, litter clumps, videos, destruction, whims, genital self-licking, piles of puke, fickleness, and all matters catastic: otherwise unbearable or boring–but because they are associated with a cat, more wonderful than a bases-clearing double, a grilled salmon filet or the sudden news that a terminally ill child has somehow recovered and is now cancer-free.

Catastrophe: any slight thwarting or denial of a cat’s every whim. Considered animal abuse, and grounds for reporting to the authorities. Also can apply to a situation where no cat pictures or worship have been posted for two hours or more.

Catankerity: feline fickleness. “Fluffy is catankerous today. I wanted to pet her, and she tried to rip out my corneas. Isn’t she wonderful?”

Catotage: feline sabotage of everything you love. “Snwookums just bit through my DSL patch cable! Naughty Snwookums–I will rush out and get a wireless router, so that nothing will impede my posting of fifty new cat pictures!”

Catchet: the fundamental awesomeness, cachet if you will, of Permanent Cat Serfdom. “Aunt Edna has great catchet. She prepares a special grilled chicken chunk to her cat’s exact tastes every two hours, night and day. I’ll never equal her.”

Cateteria: dining area in which cats are pampered with special treats. No kibbles allowed, unless of course the cat demands them.

Catculation: the feline’s careful analysis of what he or she can get away with. Which, of course, is all actions, since all actions by cats are fundamentally acceptable, moral, cute and delightful. However, the cat does not always realize this, or it would not waste time catculating.

Catlendar: the pampering schedule. Rigorously enforced. Failure to pamper on schedule is borderline animal abuse, and can make you an outcatst from the Cat Worship Club.

Catvary: the metaphorical hill with the crosses, where cat owners suffer and bleed for the greater cause of catpture. (cat rapture). Normally, the living room.

Cateo: a cat’s cameo appearance to be photographed and posted on as many social networks as possible. Keep a camera in your pocket at all times, and your iDoodad handy–the moment is fleeting, and the world must know.

Catera: the photography device dedicated to the cat, and to him/her alone. Must never be used for any other, lesser purpose, lest it lose its holiness and become a measly, mundane camera.

Catdidate: potential cat for adoption into your Cat Worship Congregation (family). All cats not owned by anyone else fall into this category, since one can never have too many cats. Duh.

Catonese: type of Chinese food prepared specially for the cat. Naturally, each cat requires a different dish. (Cat owner eats Top Ramen.)

Caticle: liturgical hymn sung in praise of cat behavior. Twice daily is the norm.

Catharsis: the process when one has not shared cat details with the world for such a time (fifteen minutes is normal) that they simply explode forth unbidden onto social media, kind of like in that alien movie where the thing emerges from her abdomen, or like Pat Buchanan ‘joining’ the Reform Party.

Catillary: small blood vessel broken several times daily when the cat responds to the owner’s love and care by making him or her bleed a little.

Catressing: the compulsive petting of a cat at all times. Even while asleep, if you’re really good.

Catilage: the tissue in your knee which you tore trying to avoid a cat which suddenly appeared right under your feet. Expendable; small price to pay for Total Cat Adoration.

Catanova: a horny tomcat. Not allowed, since all cats must be spayed or neutered, even though you would think that Complete Cat Worship would mean letting them keep their organs. Yet another contradiction.

Catechism: list of rules for humans sharing space with (i.e. fawning upon and serving with humility) one or more cats. Recite at least daily.

Cathedral: house of Cat Worship. All spaces in the house are sacred this way, just as the yard is consecrated ground.

Never let it be said I was ungenerous to cat lovers! (A special thank you to Ms. Diane Anderson, who inadvertently inspired me to write this all down, having no idea at the time that such might occur. But who, being a literary professional of the first water, will completely understand how that went.)

Editing/writing life, Married life

History lessons with my wife

February 7, 2013 jkkblog Leave a comment

So, I was mostly minding my business tonight while Deb watched Grey’s Anatomy. During a commercial, I looked up from my read of a book on the decline of the Ottoman Empire to read her a passage which I thought said a lot about Napoleon’s ability to influence peoples (though I was in fact a bit wrong about that). She said, in her outside voice as is traditional, “You don’t know history at all!”

“I don’t?”

“No. If you did, you would know that his last name was not really Bonaparte…”–I grew kind of excited–“…but Bone Together. ‘Bonaparte’ was an attempt by him to draw people away from him so he could have sex with the enemy’s women. That’s why he won the war!”

“Seriously?”

“Come at me, big daddy. Ask me anything. Bring it.”

“Okay, very well. What is the significance of Çatalhöyük?”

She fixed me with a gaze of shock and dismay. “You don’t know what Saddle Who You was? Listen and learn. When they wanted to build the Trojan Horse, they needed a saddle that could hold a lot of people. So they made one, and named it Saddle Who You, which is derived from Saddle Hookah. This enabled them to deliver rubbers.”

I looked at her and just laughed. “Rubbers?”

“Duh. Why do you think it was called the Trojan Horse?” I sat silent, like any good husband slow in the uptake. “See? You don’t know your history. Ask me anything else.”

“Fine. Who did Charles “The Hammer” Martel defeat at Poitiers?”

She looked aghast that I could be so clueless. “Charles Martel defeated Le Peu Nailé, which of course means ‘the nail.'” I cracked up again, couldn’t help it. “Keep it coming. Ask me anything.”

“Okay, dear. What was the significance of Charlotte Corday?”

A sigh. “Charlotte Corduroy, you mean. She invented pants, but they were corduroy pants. They were also called ‘whisper pants,’ and the idea was to give them to the enemy so they would whisper when they walked.”

“Really.”

“Absolutely. I’m really sad for anyone like you, with a degree in history, to be so un-knowledgeable.”

“I think you meant ‘ignorant,’ dear.”

“NO! I said ‘un-knowledgeable’ and I meant ‘un-knowledgeable!’ Now come on. Ask me another. I can see I have a lot to teach you.”

“Fine. Please name one of the Spanish explorers of North America.”

She thought for a minute, consulting her stores of learning. “Well, his name was Julio El De Massmainebostainia. There are some states named after him. He came with his wife Maria, their daughter Nina, and some pinto beans.”

At that point, there was nothing for it but to come put it on the blog.

Married life

The costs of marital compromise

December 11, 2012 jkkblog 6 Comments

This holiday season I find myself in a frame of mind to tell funny stories.

Deb and I got Fabius, a black Labrador retriever puppy, within a few months of buying the house. Most of you know that I wouldn’t willingly share my house with dogs if it were up to me. However, it’s not just up to me. Marriage means compromise or it means divorce. You can die on any hill you wish, but the problem with choosing a hill to die on is that you die there. One of life’s lessons is to learn which hills to live on rather than die.

I chose not to die on Doggy Hill. We got Fabius, who eventually grew into an 85-pound freight train of a dog with a tail like a police nightstick. If you wonder why the name, it is for Q. Fabius Maximus Verrocosus Cunctator (“Delayer”), Dictator of Rome. When we first got Fabius, he would not come on his leash at all, and I had to drag him until he got the idea: he delayed us a lot. Also, Fabius Maximus was a noble and brave Roman general who gave his all for his country, and would have given his life had it been needed. If we had to have a dog, I wanted him to see himself as Deb’s protector unto the grave.

Fabius has given us that, but he’s also given us a few other gifts he can have back. This story covers one such gift.

For whatever reason, in his middle years, Fabius was a puker. You’d find a large decoration of dog vomitus somewhere in the house, which was real bad for the carpet when his food contained kibbles colored red. Most of the time, this was Deb’s problem (that was our agreement: it’s her dog, she will handle the bulk of the care and cleanup). One night, it became my problem.

I tend to go to bed later than Deb, who insists that the dog must be permitted to sleep in our bedroom. She doesn’t mind the smell, which to me is worse than the Sunnyside feedlots. This means that when I come to bed, I’m making my way in the dark, my sense of smell overwhelmed by dog smell. I focus mostly on trying not to stick the square corner of a bedpost top into my thigh, which is very painful when you just want to lie down and go to sleep. I also react badly to sudden pains out of nowhere, simply because of a bad startle that’s been with me since my teens. Friends know not to come up behind me, for example.

So one night, I was groggy and ready to go to sleep. At that time, I did not happen to wear clothing to bed. I came into the bedroom, disrobed, and strode toward my side of the bed in the pitch darkness. All I cared about was avoiding a thigh injury. My bare foot splooshed into something cold, mushy and wet alongside the foot of the bed.

Before I could register my shock and disgust, I slipped in what felt like a square yard of dog vomit. I can’t even figure out where Fabius stored all that. The WHAM of my backside hitting the puddle coincided with the beginning of a yelled curse. I felt vomit splatter as I landed right in the middle of the stuff. Poor me, but poor Deb: awakened from deep sleep by bellowed husbandly profanity and a house-shaking impact, for I’m not a welterweight.

Of course, if she did not insist on having a dog, and did not insist that it be allowed to sleep in our bedroom, this would not have occurred. And in other fantasy worlds, if people would use their turn signals before changing lanes, a lot of accidents would not occur. We do not inhabit a fantasy world.

Deb jumped out of bed to assess the damage. There wasn’t any, except for painful bruising of my tranquility, buttocks and ego, and of course the need to get up and cleanse the carpet and surroundings of splattered dog ralph. I was not at my best husbandly composure and civility. In between vulgarities, I ordered her to clean up the offending substance and exile the dog to the kennel while I took a shower. I credit her for realizing that this was not the time for her to snarl “Don’t talk that way to me!” She kenneled Fabius and proceeded to deal with the present he had left.

I get a heavy adrenaline surge when startled, so I didn’t get to sleep easily. I didn’t laugh about it for several days. But I did learn that marital compromise does come with costs. The more important lesson was to step carefully going into the bedroom in the future.

Gods, but that was disgusting. Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

======

Postscript: just last night, marital compromise came full circle after all these years. I was indisposed, to put it delicately, atop the starship USS Sanitize. I heard a feminine yell of great, sudden dismay from the living room, penetrating walls and door. This is not a good moment, because while one will get up and rush to assistance if one must, one devoutly hopes the situation can safely wait for one to finish in an orderly manner.

“Are you all right, dear?” I yelled. No answer. Oh, damn. Louder: “Dear! Are you all right?”

From the vicinity of the hallway: “Yes. Leo just threw up all over me! He was just sitting there, and then he puked!”

That’s even worse than about three years ago, when she was on the floor sorting Christmas ornaments, and the insufferable little creature defaecated on the carpet–right next to her.

Now I’m worried it’ll be my turn soon.

Editing/writing life, Social comment

Why no politics

November 8, 2012 jkkblog 4 Comments

Those of you who visit here regularly may have noticed that we managed to get through a whole US election season without any partisan politics. I thank you all for not starting any such irritations in the comments; my affection for the readership grew in this time. But it may be useful for me to explain the many reasons behind my studious avoidance, since many of them relate to the views that fuel the writing:

I am not aligned with a major party, and am fairly bereft of faith in the process, so my rooting interest is limited to begin with. I feel that elections are something for other people to get worked up about.
This is my professional public presence. I make my living with my writing. I don’t check my readers’ political cards, and I find the notion abhorrent. If I share writing, it is for all, and whether we might agree or disagree on any issue is beside the point.
The above relates to a view I do hold strongly: one of our great problems today is political incontinence. I define this as the inability to set politics aside and work/play/eat/laugh/boff/live together in amity, caused by the inability to shut the hell up about one’s politics. Politics are like bowel movements: they’re fine in the proper places, even necessary, but the world doesn’t need a report on every last instance, nor does it need a constant flow of other people’s on display. I have determined that this must be a bastion of political continence. I know too many deeply intelligent people all over the spectrum of politics to think less of any person based purely on a political stance. It is important to me that no one walk away from here feeling litmus-tested, and to fulfill that mission requires strict political continence, which must begin with me.
If I started the discussion, it would become a fight, because I am a fierce and passionate man. I have seen how many people have behaved over politics in the past year, and many of the types of things people have said would be things they couldn’t take back–it would not be my way to let them. I also might respond with words I couldn’t take back, and being me, I probably would not want to back down. Know thyself, especially thine weaknesses. Whatever gain could be had from allowing that, well, it eludes me. Who could I blame but myself, were I to open that door? It would all be beside the point, which is that I am here to represent my writing to the world, not bicker. There are other places I could bicker, if so minded.
People need oases from politics at the best of times. These are not the best of times, and in these, they need oases that much more. People need good places, and I’ve striven to craft one.
I have never made a pronouncement/demand that commenters avoid politics, because I didn’t need to. The blog seems to have drawn people of good political continence. If I had to, I suppose I would, though the reflex of just deleting the political comments might be enough to send the message. It is fatuous to come out all bombastic against a problem that does not and likely will not exist. “Okay, thanks for that. What’s next, a proscription outlawing all living velociraptors? No mammoths allowed to post on the blog?”
The blog has taught me that social comment is possible without overt political commentary. At the outset, I wondered if this would be the case, and how to handle it.
Politics tends to bring on the sin of bloviation. Blogging should not be bloviatory.
Confession: I’m not really that knowledgeable about politics, nor do I think most people are. It’s my view that most people who take to political pulpits really don’t and can’t know the facts, because most people would not invest the time. They would take the word of news articles, or their favorite websites, even simply take the headlines and not read the articles. If I find myself having to guard against that, I must assume I’m not the only one. Therefore, my default assumption is that most of what I see is baloney based upon baloney: unsubstantiated conclusions based on unchecked, taken-for-granted suppositions. It is impossible for everyone to check everyone’s references, or even all of one’s own; there simply isn’t enough time. We do have substantial reason to believe one thing: that a lot of what we read and hear and watch is misleading, either by journalistic sloth or by design. I once heard a co-worker, a pretty bright guy, take issue with my questioning of some version of events. His argument: “But it was on the network news! Of course it’s true!” With that statement, it became evident that our world views were parallel. There’s a word that gets misused. What does it mean? Two lines are parallel only if they can never touch. ‘Parallel thinking’ doesn’t mean agreement, despite how people throw it around. His thinking and mine emanated from such different fundamental assumptions that common ground was elusive.

So, from deep inside me, thank you for keeping us free of partisan crap here at the ‘Lancer. Thank you for reading, commenting, liking, visiting, and for motivating me to write. When I begin to conceive a blog post, I am asking myself: “How will this inform, uplift, entertain?” I have aborted quite a few posts because they didn’t supply good answers to that question. Thanks for being the reasons for the question.

Privacy, Technology

My current privacy array

October 31, 2012 jkkblog Leave a comment

I’m fairly sure I’m at the right asymptote of ‘willingness to go through headaches and try new things in order to thwart people’s data gathering just because.’ The tools for this are in a state of constant change, so this might be a time for an update.

My basic browser is Firefox 16.0.2, not because I want to be on that version, but because I was forced by sunsetting to upgrade from a previous version. FF has heavy memory leaks, and has become clunky, but a) it has the most add-ins, b) I hated Safari, c) there is no way I’m going to let Chrome have its way with me, and d) these days, if you use Internet Explorer to do anything but download a real browser, your friends will stage an intervention. “Jonathan, we’ve all come here because we care about you. Your use of IE has affected my life negatively in the following ways…” For all FF’s flaws, it has the most dynamic privacy tool authoring community, and that’s what matters most to me.

It begins with Adblock Plus, which hides just about all the advertising, everywhere. There is a certain irony in all the efforts I exert in order to ruin Facebook’s data mining, when I don’t in fact see their consequent advertising. ABP is low maintenance. It has the added benefit of allowing me spot removal of any image I happen to find offensive and just don’t need to see again.

NoScript is a very helpful package that doesn’t let JavaScripts run unless I say so. It probably also accounts for most of the headaches and tweaks I go through, because it goes by site, and some pages have scripts from fourteen different sources (some of which you only learn of after unblocking this other one). Which one is the one needed in order to do what I came to the page to do? At times I have to turn it off temporarily, but I usually just enable scripts one at a time for the session.

FlashBlock is easier than NoScript because it shows a ‘play’ button on the screen where the Flash content is. Usually it’s a video. Do videos automatically play when you go to a page? Not for me, they don’t, and that’s how I want it.

TACO is wonderful, because it does the best job on cookies. For example, I can accept Facebook cookies on Facebook and on the one game that I play, while blocking them everywhere else. I have to do that one page at a time, but once you do it for the pages you visit most, it’s less necessary every day. That also lets me blow away Google’s ubiquitous cookie-mongering. There is no reason either of those sites needs to set a cookie on my browser just because I visited, say, CNN. That visit, and what I did there, is neither Google’s nor Facebook’s business. While TACO also blocks most web trackers, it doesn’t do it as well as…

Ghostery. In addition to cookies, many sites use beacons/web trackers to keep tabs on what you do. Ghostery blocks nearly all of them by default. If it finds one unblocked, you can choose to add it to the list. Very easy to use, and very satisfying.

GoogleSharing partly convinces Google that I’m somewhere else. Currently, Google News thinks I’m in Austin, TX. Once in a while, I believe when GS resets to a new ‘location,’ my GN shows up in a foreign edition and I have to change it. Although if it’s a language I understand, sometimes I’ll do a bit of reading first. GS says that it anonymizes my search results in some way; sounds good to me.

TrackMeNot spams Google with spurious searches on mundane things. The effect of this is to bury my actual Google searches in a sea of irrelevant crap. Slight downside is that sometimes it gets a little zealous, and Google makes me do Captcha in order to search, announcing that it has detected a lot of traffic from my IP address. This is rare.

WebOfTrust assigns reliability/safety icons to links, especially in Google searches. This mainly keeps one from blundering into sites that attempt to emplace spyware or viruses on your machine. Foolproof it’s not; helpful it is. Part of the problem is that the color of the icon could mean anything from ‘naughty pictures’ to ‘unsafe due to spyware,’ and you have to hover the mouse in order to find out. Part of the problem is that the safety rating of a page comes mainly from user input, so it’s possible that a given page was given adverse ratings simply because a bunch of people wanted to hurt the page’s owner. Use it with some discernment, and it’s helpful.

What are the downsides?

The biggest one is the need to selectively enable JavaScripts until a page works. I admit that sometimes I just punt and use another, unshielded browser. Since I don’t go from place to place with other browsers much, the dossier they compile from them is a tiny fraction of my web surfing. It’s also pretty much impossible to know which script unlocked what I wanted, unless I do it one at a time, which is often more futzing that I desire.

Second biggest is needing to go into TACO each time I go to a new page and block/delete all its cookies. You’d be amazed how many sites stick you with Firefox or Google cookies; WordPress and Yahoo are also frequent offenders.

Third would be the inability to save Google search settings because I won’t take Google cookies on their search page. At times, the non-evil folks at Google break Google search for people who do this–I’m convinced it’s to teach us a lesson.

Fourth would be that you have to use Firefox, which isn’t a very efficient or robust browser compared to others. For games, I use Sleipnir, Opera and/or Maxthon. Sleipnir and Maxthon are very robust. Opera is lousy, but it’s good to have some backup without resorting to IE. Maxthon’s update nags are very annoying; haven’t found out how to get them out of the system tray. At least I can ignore Opera and FF’s update nags.

Anyway, if you want to try browsing my way, there are all the links. Enjoy.

Human relations, Technology

Memories of my days as a computer shaman

October 19, 2012 jkkblog Leave a comment

Back before I became a ~~hired pen~~ literary professional, I used to be a computer shaman. My business was moderately successful, and it was good social therapy. I got to thinking about this after watching a video on Cracked, which I suggest you take a gander at as well:

Five Reasons the Guy Fixing Your Computer Hates You

Mostly I didn’t hate my clients. I liked most of them. I liked helping elderly ladies on Social Security get connected so that they could see pictures of their grandbabies, research their osteoporosis and keep in touch with their friend Adna in Wisconsin. I liked being able to reach into the middle of their mess and get rid of the thing they’d installed (very unwisely) that was causing their Windows installation to throw up. Most of them were polite and courteous to me. It was evident that most of them were philosophically pretty different from me, in terms of socio-political-spiritual outlook, and none of them seemed to care.

I went to houses of guys I was pretty sure were retired underworld figures. I went to sheds in east Pasco where huge dogs threw themselves to the ends of heavy chains in forlorn hope of attacking me. I went to mansions. I went to two-bedroom apartments containing three families. I went to farms and I went to garages. I went to the homes of old mercenaries (the real kind), old doctors, and old just about everyone. In the end, the business was a casualty of the $500 PC. It just no longer made sense for anyone to pay me $50/hr to fix a problem that if it took much time, it was easier to upgrade their abacus to something modern.

Here’s the stuff I didn’t like…

Directions.

Everyone adores giving directions, but I couldn’t tell people that I was using map software and would just print myself a map. The minute I asked for the street address, everyone launched into lengthy, arcane directions, full of information I did not need and landmarks that did not matter. I learned to just shut up and let the storm blow past. One way I knew I was about done in the business was when I became candid about it. After five minutes of meaningless directions, someone would ask (because I hadn’t responded), “Are you writing all this down?” I’d answer, “no, because none of it will help me find you. I have your address, the color of the house, whether the numbers are on it, and a printed map. But everyone loves giving directions and there’s nothing I can do to stop them, so I’m not interrupting you. But no, sir, I’m not actually absorbing any of it, to be honest.”

Dogs.

Now, I’m not a fan of dogs. All I want is for them not to come near me. That means they will not put salivas on me, leap on me, startle me by bumping my leg under the desk, or anything else that increases my tension. Chief use of my briefcase? As a shield when dogs would charge at me. And almost without fail, the syrupy, whiny explanation: “Oh, he just wants to loooooooove you!” Maybe he does, ma’am, but I already have a lover. How I wish you’d just control your animal. Of course, most clients with dogs could not process the concept of someone who could not do his best work with a dog in his face. And it’s the dog’s house, so it’s not like I have any standing to object. I just had to endure.

Great-nephews.

Oh, how often I saw it. I’d come in to a PC with a relatively fresh Windows installation. Mrs. Miller: “Well, my hard drive wasn’t downloading to my e-mail, and I couldn’t get my disk working, and my Windows web browser wouldn’t connect to my Microsoft Works, and my printer wouldn’t print the blue ink anymore. Now, I am a total computer dufus. My great-nephew is a computer god, he works at Hanford, he programs Excel, he knows everything about computers. He told me I needed to just wipe everything off, reformat and start again, so he did some stuff. Now I can’t find my e-mail at all and the Internet is broken. All my book chapters are gone and there is no Works at all. How much do you charge to put it back the way it was?” I was thinking: ma’am, if your great-nephew were here I’d take out the VGA card and cram it into his posterior. Why do these little hotshots do this, and then not help Auntie preserve or reinstall her data? It was hopeless and I could do little to change it.

Political types.

I provided services to two quite prominent local politicians, plus some other folks many people had heard of. Some were great. One political activist was about the biggest jerk I ever did service for. First time at his door: “So, are you a [party name]?” I looked at him with calm, suppressed indignation. “Sir, right now I’m a businessperson, and my priority is to resolve your printer problem.” On another visit, he started the “I’m not sure if you know who I am…”, clearly jonesing for free services–assumption being that I owed him for his political activism. I always believed that business was business and politics was politics, and that I should not introduce mine and they should not introduce theirs. Some simply couldn’t refrain, sitting next to me, dropping hints designed to suss out my political perspective.

The perception that a generalist could easily fix all things.

Hardware, software, connectivity. To them it was all ‘the computer.’ “Can you just fix it or not?” Some people would not grasp that, in order to see on a single visit if their problem was a flaky stick of RAM, I’d have to either carry every kind of RAM with me at all times, or run and get it and swap it in, then wait a few days to see if the problem repeated. How many hours of time was all that? Was I not to charge for that fetchin’ and gettin’? Was I to cart around a van full of stuff (constantly changing with the times) just waiting for this or that to be someone’s problem? If it were that simple, and that easy, sir, I would “just fix it.”

M-CAFee.

Not McAfee, as in MAC a fee, but mc CAFF ee. So many times. “I think I have a virus, my friend says I sent her one, but I don’t see how. This came with McCAFFee.” Did she ever note that it was a three-month trial version? No. Did she ever pay them to keep the virus definitions current at least, even if it was the worst virus protection software out there? She had no idea she needed to. “But I should be safe. I do a full scan every Sunday night!” You scan your computer with an obsolete virus detector. And you don’t understand why something newer than that just sent itself to everyone in your Outhouse Express e-mail directory. It was horrible. All could have been solved with a free one online.

People unwilling to learn.

I was a generous computer shaman, with my time and energy. Most people were doing some very stupid things that caused most of their problems. And when I’d tell them what the problem was, they’d smile that stupid little smile that says, Oh, you’re so cute, with your ideas of good computer use. Do you really think, young man, that I am going to abandon my habit of shutting off my computer by shutting off my surge protector? Well, the answer was frankly no, I didn’t think they would. But I had to try to at least tell them the problems it caused. They never learned. “But I like my WeatherBug!” It was spyware. They didn’t care.

Some of it, I admit, kept me in business. I told myself over and over: Shut up, idiot, and be glad they don’t do it right. That means they have to pay you. Fair enough. But not all the situations were solvable, and if things don’t go right, people tend to think the computer shaman didn’t do a good job. In other words, if they can still break their Internet connection, that must be my fault because I didn’t make it strong enough.

In the end, the frustration became too much, and I was making more money writing and editing. So I just focused on that.

The Editorial Maverick