Bus Fare Stupidness (by sarah)

I decided to go to Cheltenham on the bus becuase we thought it would be cheaper and more environmentally friendly than the van - it may be more environmentally friendly but it certianly is not budget friendly.

It is in fact twice as expensive for me to get the bus in than to travel in by the van - if Al is dropiing me off and going straight home then it costs the same.

THIS IS STUPID!!!!

So this places public transport into the catagory of the thing you only do if you can drive or get someone to drive you, rather than the more sensible - this is the cheaper slightly scuzier option.

To be fare they do have a weekly £9 ticket which I shall look into as there and back is over a fiver! It is ludicrous - and it appears to be in a viscous cycle - no one uses the buses so the costs have to be met by the few who have to use it but becuase it is so expensive fewer and fewer and fewer people will use it.

Grrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

STUPIDNESS - again.

Internet Fear (by sarah)

I keep finding myself in the strange position of having to explain internet publishing, blogs and author popularity.

This is what I get for trying to get the lituary world to get their heads out of Edwardian Britian and into the real world with real market pressures and heaven forbid real people and concepts (though weather a concept is real is something that I am not going to tackle).

Last night I found myself definding the exictance of blogs, some of the people hadn't even known there were such things as blogs before I started and then onto stupidly innane comments about - but people could just copy it!

Well yes and they could just copy things from books too! I explained I would make all the copy write stuff obvious on the site etc... and therefore it would exactly like if the people were copying it from a book - 'but we wouldn't know if they copied it would we if its on the internet?' I pointed out that you wouldn't know if they copied it from a book and that they would still be breaching it.

Then to the fact some don't want to have their work on the internet as their collegues and family could find it - in which case as someone else pointed out it should go under a psudonim (I personally think if thats the case it probably shouldn't be published in a book!).

The I find myself arguing about things I know very little about really - I suppose that becuase of my science back ground I'm used to the concept that you write a paper to get academic aclaim or for people to notice you, your project or the institution in the hope that a) what ever it is you are doing will be furthured by this, b) new collaborations will be formed and c) you will at some unspecified date (being hopeful here) get funding to continue.

For me writing is about sharing information so that ideas perculate and grow and form new ideas, or purelly as self expression and craftmanship which I want people to read - I want views and feed back - I need that to keep writing the creative stuff other wise it stagnates and without an audience I think whats the point - now obviouslly I mix all the things up but I'm trying to make things simple here - maybe so that I can understand what I've just been arguing about.

For people who want to get their writing careers off the ground I found these attitudes peculiar - why should I put something up for people to read without getting anything for it - erm.... to get yourself known and read and maybe just maybe then people will want to read more of your stuff?

Now I did a bit of research into this for myself - being as I am also trying to launch a writing career (hence I've ended up making websites and starting blogs for writers) and all the reports say that peoples sales went up when they put free stuff, sometime the entire book they were selling, on their website.

We ourselves have copies of such books becuase we like reading books (and I get headaches trying to read bulk txt on screen), we have Tom Reynolds book and look how well thats done and you can just down load for free!

If people know your name they are far more likely to actually buy a book by you. Even in the 'paper' publishing world you are advised to get your name out there even if some of the early stuff is for peanuts or for free (ok thats not entirely true as there appears to be two schools of thought on this but from my personal noising, getting yourself noticed seems far more important than being anal about pennies).

The poor lady who wanted the site - it was such a good idea - but the negativity about the internet in general from the group was horrendous. I live immersed in a world of information sharing and computers so it was a bit sobering to see what middle aged, middle class britian actually thinks!

Sigh - rocks were so much more straight forward :/

Badge (by sarah)

I made a badge for Alaric at the centenary camp - I've finally got around to blogging about it over on Salaric!

He is now wearing this badge continuously on his coat of many pockets 🙂

Broken Camera (by sarah)

Great - just great - just what we need. The cameras broken - in the same way as before but now its out of warrentee and we dont have enough money to fix it and I can't earn some of the money we were releying on now without it.

So once again we are in the hot water etc... etc... man i think this one has to go under the curse again. :'(

Not even sure if I can up the load the photos that are still on the cards without it. And its probably all my fualt as I think I must have left it in reach of Jean or something for the lense to get jammed :'( :'( :'(

The Programmers Lamment (by sarah)

I want feed back on this poem - I'm not sure how to set it out for a start - I was supposed to be writing in two line stanzers - free verse but I dont really under stand what that means so I gave up with the formal structure and wrote what came into my head - warning it does sort of contain a swear - not my fult blame the programmers.

Would lovew feed back - be harsh

Tap, tap, tapping away, Fingers flying, strange graceful dance

Notice not as light fades, consume all energies, forking demons, spawned zombi child

Dance logic, time

Tap tap tapping away, polish finger tips over letters worn

Hunger burns, Sandwitch forgotten, cat licked, stale,

Animalistic, persuing prey, Python here, Chicken there

tap tap tapping, wrist support frayed, mundane treasures, Ruby, Perl

Water sits, bubble strewn, littering your domain

Intently stare, bugs annialated, or so you prey

tap tap tapping, spinning ball, shift to corner, back again

3 am, time for sleep, red eye raw

cup of coffee, jar of beans

headaching, back stooped, so much to sort, so much to do

tap tap tapping. between the sheets, misty bruised dawn, comes and creeps

Power low, reserves giving out, drowsy talk, lisp, dialected, scheme

thought process hard, more tests more

Leached knowledge, sleep, dream, Brainfuck, But still keen