Thought Patterns

Just saw this in an email from ZDNet News:

Stardust virus lands on OpenOffice

Researchers at Kaspersky Lab have spotted what they believe is the first virus for OpenOffice, the open-source rival to Microsoft's Office productivity suite.

The virus, dubbed Stardust, is capable of infecting OpenOffice and StarOffice, which is sold by Sun Microsystems, a Kaspersky Lab researcher wrote on the Russian company's Viruslist Web site on Tuesday.

"Stardust is a macro virus written for StarOffice, the first one I've seen," the researcher wrote. "Macro viruses usually infect MS Office applications."

full article

I use OpenOffice.org and love it. It is a wonderful program. I can save and open MSWord documents, PDF files, Excel and Powerpoint documents. I think it is a good thing that someone wrote a virus for it. Kinda like when Mac had their first.

I started a new project yesterday: The Mother Tree. Kinda cool so far. I wrote 1740 words just straight out. I have no clue where it is going. But that's what I like about most of my writing.

The word count on BG3 is high due to some cut and pasteing. It is also responsible for why it is so frustrating and taking forever.

From Writertopia

I also updated the Progress Report page.

Sing along with me:

I can't get no motivation
I can't get no plot reaction
So I try
and I try
and I try
and I try
I get get no (du duh duh du du) motivation

Okay, so, well, apologies to the Stones.

I do write a little every day. On average only about 300 words. The other day I word warred with Sophia and managed to get just under 700. I think what I need is a totally new idea. Not related at all to one of my other projects. Maybe I should get serious about my perpetually researched SF. Or think of another Fantasy I could do.

I'm considering getting a tattoo (shhh! don't tell Mom!). I have been running ideas about it through my head. The image I will get, not the process, I mean.

Two versions of Yggdrasil, the Tree of Life. It is also known as The World Tree. The Maori say it is guarded by Tane. The version on the right is popular with jewelry and is considered Celtic. Trees have played an important part in human history and folklore.

I'll most likely get the one on the right since it is simpler. I would love the one on the left but with out the colored parts between the trees. At any rate, I've got some things running through my head about it.

In my fantasy project, the chestnut tree is an important part of the story. Yggdrasil is an ash tree and we have three ash in our front yard, one of which we call The Old Man. Piers Anthony wrote a book called The Shade of the Tree and is well worth reading. Allen Dean Foster wrote an excellent scene in one of the Catalyst (?) books about a tree.

Okay, the brain is kicking into the right gear. Later!

I got an email today asking me to link to a writer's resource. I checked it out and liked it so I will.

Online Utility is, in their words, "a collection of various web tools".

On this site you can find some extraordinary good tools and utilities for :

* Analyze words, sentences and structure of any texts
* Understand English texts
* Write easily readable English texts
* Perform mathematic calculation (even very powerful!)
* Convert various measurement units
* Webmasters can get keyword suggestions for English language sites
* Convert images from one format to another
* And much more!

It is their text tools that are writer related. There's the Analyzer (finds the most frequent phrases and frequency of words from text page), Frequent Words (finds words by frequency from text or web site.), and the Misspellizer (Autoamticyl create spellnig mistakes). Have fun and let me know what you think.

Okay, here goes. (some of this I mentioned yesterday)

Barbara Bauer promotes herself as an agent. She is also listed on the 20 Worst Agents List. Writer Beware (part of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association) compiled the list based on the number of complaints received but is presented in alphabetical order. Absolute Write (a writer resource/forum) posted the list as well. So did Miss Snark, so did I, so did countless other writers/bloggers.

I receive an email from Barbara Bauer, telling me I must take down the list.

Making Light hears of other Barbara Bauer moves, including my post of her email, and a discussion begins there (if one did not already exist).

Barbara Bauer allegedly called Absolute Write's site host and manages to get the host to shut down their site. This shut down has resulted in an internet explosion of the 20 Worst Agent List as well as Barbara Bauer's actions. Making Light has posted about the site's shut down and is mentally (and perhaps other ways) supporting Absolute Write until they can get their site back up.

Okay, there. I think that is it. There is a crap load more but I wanted to keep this to a nutshell.

Absolute Write believes it has everything, including the database, and will re-open the site soon. Meanwhile, lawyers have gotten involved which, in this case, is a good thing. For more details including a kind of soap opera like series of events, go to the Making Light post: Absolute Write is gone

Links:

Miss Snark:

20worstagents.com
Hey Barbara Bauer! Put up or shut up!
Miss Snark is Damn Mad
and several others

Sophia's post
Rambling Prose's post

Writer Beware
20 Worst Agents List

Okay. As Rambling Prose said, Barbara Bauer could have just sat back and let folks forget about the list. Newbie writers are a dime a dozen and many of them don't know bad agents are out there. But no, she just keeps opening her mouth and proving them right.

For a background, I have two prior posts about this:
Bad Agent, No Cookie
Silly Agent

Basically the first post was about the Top 20 Worst Agents. The second post is about Barbara Bauer sending me an email, demanding I delete the other post. Ha.

I've just learned that Bauer somehow managed to kinda sorta shut down Absolute Write, a writer resource site with a huge forum.

I surfed over to Miss Snark's blog where of course she has posted about Bauer. I did what Miss Snark did. I even followed a few links. I found some folk who actually lists Bauer as her agent, but, you guessed it, nothing sold.

If Bauer's goal was to get some attention, she's got it. Will it get her any business? In a word? Hell no.