Reptile Eye #2

I just finished my second reptile eye. I truly don't know what type of reptile this is. It doesn't matter, really, does it? No, these are not supposed to be aliens from another book I'm planning. It's just below the first one on the right hand side of the blog...down a little. The comments section is there for you to comment, good or bad. Thanks.

Happy New Year!!!

I just posted my most recent painting. You can view it down and to the right on this blog. I call it 'Spooky Forest Scene'. I painted it will all blue, black and white paint. The blue was ultramarine, but I did mix it with the black and white at various stages.

Newest Apple Book Store Reviews (Continue to) Show 4-Ratings

Using iTunes on your computer or the iBook app on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, you'll see that 'Flatline Virus: When Zombies Evolved' is rated 4 out of 5 stars, including (8) #1 ratings and (6) #2 ratings.

I Painted a Cartoon of Mine from 20+ Years Ago (see down and to the right)

OK,I admit, the humor is a little dark. I just wanted to see how it looked in color. The original was pen and ink in shades of black and grey. No captions. Doesn't need any. I think you'll agree.

A New Painting - Check Out the Reptile Eye

I'm finishing up a painting of a reptile's eye which you can see on the right side of the blog under 'Check Out One of My Paintings'. It's not my usual landscape style. I found the color and subject interesting, so this is my first painting of the winter 2011-2012. I'm going to try painting one of my old cartoons next. If I write another book, I think I should paint the book cover. That should be fun.

A Repost - Some Unusual Words (and what they mean) You'll See in 'Homo Optimus'

These are some words you'll see in the book that are designed to describe something in the future, say 124 years from now. Some are words that currently exist, just not in everyone's everyday vocabulary.

the Hype-a slang word for (all the data on) the network of networks, formerly called the internet. It's short for Hyperfinite, meaning a very, very large number, approaching an infinite number, like the amount of data on it.

Aqualiens - extraterrestrial beings that live in water.

Data skins - the augmented reality related to a specific person, place or thing.

Astrobiologist - A scientist who makes use of physics, chemistry, astronomy, biology, molecular biology, ecology, planetary science, geography, and geology to investigate the possibility of life on other worlds.

Benthic - relating to the collection of organisms that live at the bottom of the sea

Cryophilic - relating to organisms that thrive in the cold

Augmented Reality - a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input. Thus, the technology is supposed to enhance the current perception of reality. Ever watch a football game where the scrimmage line is in blue and the first down line is in orange...and there's an arrow on the field denoting that it's first down and 10? That's augmented reality today.

the Legacy - kind of like a super-Facebook where everyone captures (video, audio, images, text, etc.) almost everything of significance in their lives on the web from birth to death.

Cephalopods - a member of the family of mollusks, e.g. squid, octopus.

2000 Pages Views

My little blog has had 2000 page views. Wow. Never thought it could happen.

Oh, and as an aside....My book sales have come from Canada, Australia, UK, France, Germany and the United States, that is, that I know of. Not all the retail channels report country of purchase, so there may be more.

Price Reduced to $0.99 - Both Books!!

A pre-holiday discount sale is on now for each of the books. They will or are available for 99 cents each, a reduction from the ridiculously low price of $2.99. This make take a few days to be effective.

Oh, I just looked and the Origin of Homo Optimus is now available on Barnes & Noble. Thus, the new book is now selling on my biggest three distribution channels, i.e. Apple, Amazon and Barnes & Noble ('though at $2.99 for the next few days).

Update - Apple Store's 19 Reviews Can't Be Wrong - 4-Rated !!!

But see for yourself.

Flatline Virus: When Zombies Evolved has 19 ratings in the Apple Bookstore averaging 4 stars out of 5.

The Origin of Homo Optimus: Humans, Aliens & Superbrains is now available in Amazon and Apple.

An Excerpt from 'The Origin of Homo Optimus: Humans, Aliens and Superbrains'

Introduction

It is 124 years in the future.  

Chapter 1 - The Court Scene
 
Kenneth Douglas was brought into the courtroom from the side door. He was clasped in handcuffs. He had never even seen the inside of a courtroom before this and he found the experience a little unnerving. "Geez," he thought, "I can't understand how they found out I did it. No way the police knew how to catch me. Who could possibly have tracked me? I should have stopped at 20, maybe. Where the hell is my lawyer?"

Ken's father, Bill, was in court to see his son likely go to jail. Like the rest of the Douglas family, Ken didn't like where humanity was headed. The difference was he wanted to do something about it. Bill knew his son would make a public statement, a publicly-viewed act, somehow and somewhere with his incredible cyber skills. He did. Unknown to less than three or four of his closest friends, Ken was indeed the Boston Hackmaster, whose lavish pro-retro pranks hit the news on a regular basis. He was a hero to some and hated by others. Bios loved him; Cybers didn't. All agreed the Hackmaster had a good deal of skill to do what he did while evading the police and security forces everywhere. Bill knew that a guilty plea or verdict could mean not only several years of jail, but also that his son's bio-enhancement privileges could be denied forever, effectively shortening his life significantly. If you chose a life of crime, you would not be allowed a long life. The judge could not help seeing the creativity and humor in it all. "No one has been able hack into anyone's data skins until you did this, young man," said the judge. "It's too bad to waste your talent. Unfortunately for you, the sentencing guidelines call for too harsh a term. You're a talented, misguided kid, but my hands are tied on this."

"If only there were another option I had," thought the judge, "but I'm just not aware of anything else I can do."

"Mr. Douglas, you are accused of twenty-one counts of breaking into the personal, governmental, or company data notes and modifying them to suit your humor", said the judge.

The judge had read over the police report. Douglas had hacked into the augmented realities of persons, buildings, landmarks, a retail store, a couple restaurants, a sports team, a city greeting post, and a church. The kid didn't just scrawl filthy words onto data notes which described these persons, places or things as they viewed them in reality. No, thought the judge, he wanted to tarnish the use of data skins in general.

"I'm choosing not to read these out loud, but they are part of your criminal record," said the judge.

The judge read the file to himself and found it amusing, despite its criminality. The young man wrote about Wanda Sykes that "…her closest friends believed she held a patent for weaponized halitosis and also farts in her sleep."

His notes on the Boston Museum of Natural History said, "It is currently occupied by 28 employees and 254 visitors, no fewer than six of whom have erections. Please take special note of the crowd forming around a sex act taking place on the second floor."

The judge was pretty sure he knew the restaurant whose augmented reality had been modified to read, "The chef of this lowest-rated establishment broke up with his boyfriend and suffers from depression for which he is overly self-medicated. The restaurant treats its customers like its own family, four members of whom are currently incarcerated for various crimes in Walpole State Prison. The state Health Inspector vomited profusely here yesterday after swallowing something he later described only as 'squishy' and is under treatment at a local hospital for terminal diarrhea."

The judge read another to himself which caused him to smirk. The data skin hacked into was 'America's Most Beloved Ball Park' (where Beloved was crossed out to read Oldest) which read "Faithful fans are taking turns this season holding up the walls of 223 year old Fenway Park while the $2 billion Red Sox pitching staff drank themselves out of the playoffs for the 124th consecutive year."

"How do you plead, Mr. Douglas?"

'Homo Optimus' is Now Selling in the Apple Bookstore!!

Wow...about two weeks ahead of schedule! Apple is my biggest retail channel at 42% of sales vs. 35% for Amazon. It will be a few more days before it's up on Barnes and Noble (18% of sales per the latest reporting). It's also just shown up at the Kobo Bookstore. Koby, Sony and Smashwords represent about 5% of my sales in aggregate.

Regarding the book....It's a little coincidental that there's been some news which relates to the story line(s) in the book. For one, there was news that an ocean of water under an ice cap had been confirmed for Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter. (Frankly, the news was a little stale; it's been really believed for at least five years). Secondly, we had news of another asteroid missing the earth. I know I used a comet in the book. Comets present a much higher risk to the earth, albeit despite a much lower potential for occurrence.

2011 Word of the Year is 'Tergiversate'

A panel of editors, lexicographers and others at Dictionary.com have chosen the Word of the Year for 2011. The word is...Tergiversate

Pronounced "ter-JIV-er-sate", it means “to change repeatedly one's attitude or opinions with respect to a cause, subject, etc.; equivocate.”

'Homo Optimus' Has Been Approved for Premium Distribution!

...which means it will be on sale in the Apple Bookstore, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel, etc. about two weeks from the end of this week (so, around December 17th, approximately). I sent Mark Coker, the founder and CEO of Smashwords, my distributor, an email asking him to look into why the approval might be taking so long. It has been 'pending approval' since 11/2. I did the same thing for the last book. It seemed to get hung up for more than the usual week to ten days. Anyway, I looked this morning and it is approved for what Smashwords calls Premium Distribution. The standards for publication are more stringent. Of course, the sales potential is also much higher, something I wanted to be in place for the holidays when all those new iPads, Nooks and Kindles will be given as gifts.

Lazy Language?

A Word About Our Language
My books and paintings...that’s what this blog was created for. Books are a way we use language. Today I’d like to take a little time to write about our language, more specifically spoken language, not written language...and English.

Language changes all the time. It evolves just like we do. The rapid pace of our lives has had an effect, I believe. Some of these changes have resulted in the use of lazy, ambiguous, even rude (whether intended or not) language. I have two examples today.

Are you all set?
Here’s a pretty common restaurant scene. You’re sitting across the table from someone, engaged in conversation, sometime during the meal. The waitress/waiter stops by and asks, “Are you all set?” For the life of me, I have no idea what she just asked. Is she asking...

“Are you finished?”
“Do you want your check?”
“Do you need anything or anything else or anything more?”
“Is the meal OK?”
“May I clear the dishes?”

Which is it? Am I the only one who thinks this is a lazy, ambiguous use of our language? Here’s another example.

You’ve just gassed up at the pump, walk into the convenience store/gas station, grab a snack from the little store they have, and line up behind a couple other customers, waiting to pay. Finally, it’s your turn. The clerk asks, “Are you all set?”

What the hell does that mean? Does it look like I’m all set? All set for what? All set meaning I don’t need any help? Or all set meaning I look like I need help?

Hey buddy, I’m holding a couple candy bars. I’ve just pumped $40 of gas from your pumps outside. I have a couple twenty dollar bills in one hand and two candy bars in the other. I’m all set to pay, but I’m not all set because I haven’t paid. So, am I all set? I don’t really know.

From what I’ve read, ‘all set’ may be an idiom which is used mostly in the northeast and eastern U.S. I do know I hear it all the time. I feel it’s lazy language, ambiguous at best. Say what you mean. How about ‘May I help you?’ or something similar?

Next Topic - ‘No Problem’

Let’s use the same restaurant scene as above, although it could apply to just about any retail scenario. Your meal is being served, but you notice that one of the silverware sets is missing. You ask your waitress for another set. You thank her when she brings it. “Sure,” she says, “No problem.”

What? No problem? Someone says it’s no problem for her/he to be doing his/her job? It implies it might have been an inconvenience for them, but we should be so thankful it wasn’t a problem for them. If it were a problem, they wouldn’t have done it?

Wouldn't it be better to say, “It’s a pleasure to serve you” or “You’re welcome” or something similar?

FEEL FREE TO COMMENT...

Homo Optimus Passes Meatgrinder Process

What? Well, I re-submitted the book after making the changes I referred to in the previous blog entry, i.e. making sure those two paragraphs were in the same 'Normal' style as the rest of the book. I later received an email from Smashwords that the book passed the 'autovetter' process. It still has to be manually examined and that may take a week or two, depending on the volume at the distributor.