andrewducker | Interesting Links for 02-12-2011

Hanko Dobringer wrote (in 1389): People who are afraid of swords should stay away from swordfighting.

In the same way, people who need a digital kitten to motivate them to write, should probably stick to WoW. If it's not more fun than other activities, then it is honestly not worth it.

I think you might be taking it a bit more seriously than it was intended...

I agree though - writing is something you do because you love it, or because you have to do it for work. If you don't enjoy it then don't do it unless you have to!

I'm pretty sure the Suri thing is just a result of the anti-abortion people coming up with better ways to skew iPhone search results than abortion providers have. Quite honestly, the anti-abortion people are much more well funded than a typical local abortion provider so it would only make sense that they would be able to hire better people for Siri SEO. Hell, it's quite possible that in many cities abortion providers haven't even considered hiring someone to optimize their search results for Siri.

Siri apparently gets its results from Google, which shows results for abortion providers in some of the areas that they're searching.

Getting them from google doesn't mean that they provide the same results as Google does. Remember, Google results are easily skewed by many factors including, but not limited to previous searches by the person doing the search. For example, if you and I searched the exact same search term we'd get different results.

Beyond that, it's possible to use code in your site to skew results so that they come up very differently on mobile devices than they do from laptops and desktops. Simply optimizing your site for mobile devices will skew it higher (something that well funded pro life people might think of, but that a local Planned Parenthood might not.) Cookies also skew results.

If they've managed to make it so that when someone accidently clicks on a pro-life place other than an actual abortion provider even once that it installs a cookie that redirects future searches to pro-life places that would explain it as well.

I'll give you an example from my own personal experience. A few years ago I did copy for a gay bareback dating site. As such I had to look at tons of other gay bareback sites. One of them must have put a search cookie on my machine because after that whenever I searched anything sex related gay results came up first. That is, until I had to do a bunch of stuff for female escort services. Again, one of them must have stuck a cookie on my computer because after two or three days of looking at female escort sites my sex related results were putting girls in the top results again.

I can't image a well funded pro-life organization couldn't use the same cookie approach to skew results their way.

I love your resume!

Thanks!

Bareback.com actually got written up by Rolling Stone Magazine after the launch as one of the most "immoral" websites in the world (which, of course, got tons of people to sign up for it and made my client a lot of money.) I was so proud.

What pissed them off, of all things, were our slogans which included "Who's afraid of the big bad bug?", "Condoms are for pussies" and "No matter what you promise, don't pull out of Dodge."

They also didn't like that we made the "I am 18 I want to enter" and "I am not 18 get me out of here" buttons read "Cum Inside" and "Pull Out" instead of the standard "Enter" and "Exit."

Given how multicultural the UK is I'm surprised that "hero" does not mean "sandwich" there as well.

It's essentially a European word. It comes from the common greek term "Gyro" (which I see on signs at greek sandwich shops all the time.

"Gyro" when pronounced in a New York accent sounds like "Hero."

People have been worrying about Katla for over a year now.

Less so than they did about Eyjafjallajökull. It's a lot easier to pronounce. Sounds almost like a big, playful kitten. Awww.

my biggest block to writing is my conviction that I'm a terrible writer.

by contrast, people who've read my work have near universally loved it. Figure.

nothing would motivate me less than a digital cat. and I love cats
Gods I'm a miserable bugger

Nope.

Siri primarily gets results from Yelp and Wolfram Alpha.
anything that isn't easily found there get a quick Google.

the problem is parsing. Siri has to be able to figure out what you're asking for - and if that's not easily found via the first two, it gets a bit stuck.
asking for Planned Parenthood, which is there in the Yelp directory, gets an instant accurate answer.

Just do it.

*writewritewriteKITTEN!*
I write for the love of writing, but I don't mind a kitten now and again. :)

I knew I forgot something!

"Gyro," when heard by a Londoner, would mean something like "state issued welfare cheque."

Really?

Why?

And I think the kittens are designed for people who have to do it. If you need to write an X sized essay for work, or for university or for school, then the kittens can help.

And I note that Warren Ellis has been using, whilst not a kitten, a ticker for counting up his progress towards projected completion on his current novel. Of course, he's reached 100% (80,000 words) and not yet reached the end of the book, so he's carrying on.

Because it ~~sounds~~ reads a bit like "girocheque"

Edited 2011-12-02 14:31 (UTC)

Would you agree, then, that people who need/want money to motivate them to write should probably stick to something else?

You might take a look at what's driving the conviction you're a terrible writer.

Possibly useful: 7 Secrets of the Prolific by Hillary Rettig (a book about writing while being happy and not wrecking your life) has a fair amount about the effects of traumatic rejection on writers, and how to get past it.

probably lack of consistency, or similar.

I can write a scene. I can make that scene very, very good, with convincing characters doing convincing things. Once that scene is done, I have *no idea* how to connect it to the next scene.

so what I end up with is a load of relatively well written shorts with nothing filling the space.

I thought a while ago that the ideal solution to this is to write a lot of connected short stories, but then what I write isn't short stories, it's just snapshots of something happening.

further to that, I have dirt-poor understanding of the technicalities of English. I still can't, e.g. tell you the difference between a noun and a verb. I also *absolutely don't care*.

to inject a little positivity, the thing I tend to be good at is making something convincing.
A location I write will look, sound, smell real. You'll probably picture it exactly as I intend. Conversations will feel right, as if it's something a few people really would say to each other
[dialogue in the vast majority of novels I've read is fucking dire. I read it and I think, dude, have you ever actually *listened* to a conversation? People just don't talk like that]

I just can't keep it going for more than a few hundred words.

not necessarily.

I know an awful lot of people who love doing stuff, but get to the point where it's just not feasible anymore.
In fact, I'm painfully close to dropping a lot of activity that's been a major thing in my life because I just can't afford to do it free.

there's a world of difference between not having ideas [and needing a digital cat for 'inspiration'] and just being beaten down by the need to eat.

unless I'm missing your point?

yup.

unemployment benefits are known as giro's, as linked by innerbrat.

LOL.
Time is money. So most writers aren't motivated by money, but want the money in order to have the time to write.
For example, I have one (1) clear day a week for writing. I expect to be able to manage 1.5 novels a year once underway on the two series I have built. I am 43, so have a mere [don't want to think about it] writing years ahead of me. I have more tales to tell than time to write them - unless I can get a living wage out of my writing, then I can write more.

If somebody - because I feel that's where this question is leading - pirates a writer's work, then they are eating into that time. No matter how clever the argument about IP, that's what it comes down to.

It's great that they're keeping the mobility part of DLA for people in care homes. What's not so great is that the money needed for that will come out of the rest of the DLA coffers so everyone else, those of us on DLA who campaigned for this, will be losing out. You've no idea how pissed off this makes me. Not enough to change my mind and say take the mobility component away from people in care homes but still pissed off.

I can't remember where I read that. It's not in the Beeb article.

Doing careful study of how other writers get from one scene to another might help.

Are your short scenes sometimes from what might be a single story, or are they completely separate?

That ability of yours to do convincing writing sounds really valuable.

The overwhelming majority of my writing is for a single project, a fictionalised history of Edinburgh. I have various snapshots ranging from c1600 to c1850, all seen via one family through generations of only-sons.

the fictional aspect is in assuming that the superstitions and supernatural beliefs were completely real, and genuinely happened.

this is where being able to write as though it's actually happening is fairly valuable. I'm assuming it's a direct effect of having spent my entire adult life in or around the city, and apparently knowing it better than the local historical society [who have made some truly bizarre errors and assumptions, such as getting the route of the Flodden Wall wrong]

Interesting Links for 02-12-2011

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