Bears No More

Today, the 10 and 6 Chicago Bears fired their head coach Lovie Smith.

Today, I fired the Chicago Bears as the icon of my warship.

I will never have anything to do with the disgusting and reprehensible Chicago Bears. Did they tire of evicting children and old people?

Time for New Software

Once again it is time to install new software.

A new version of my favorite Linux distribution, Linux Mint 14. I bit-torrented the iso disk image. When downloaded, I burnt a disk and pooped it into my Lenovo Ideapad y510.

As always, the instillation went beautifully. I booted into the new desktop, and oops. In my arrogant rush, I downloaded the Cinnamon desktop instead of Mate. (hangs head in shame, will read links before clicking, will read links before clicking, will read links before clicking)


Linux distributions include most of the software anyone might need. Some is excellent, some less so and I must change it. The open source office suite LibreOffice is one of my favorites. I do all of my writing in LibreOffice.

Recently, a new version of LibreOffice 3.6.4. came out and I quickly upgraded. It has some interesting features, most prominent are two which an author is interested. Writer now allows a user to set different header styles on different pages. Writer has a new word count feature in which the count is displayed at the bottom of the window. Now, I am not forced to click several layers through the menu every time I want to see a word count. When the user selects several words, their number is shown beside the total count.

LibreOffice offers many extensions, but I only use three regularly; writer2epub 1.1.20 converts your document to an epub. ReadText 0.7.28 reads documents and selected text, I have found this most useful in editing. I can select and hear the text repeatedly until I am convinced. MultiDif saves in multiple formats. I can save to PDF, rtf, and the LibreOffice odt.

I am constantly evaluating new software, in hopes of finding the perfect solution. I have found that nothing is perfect, and to pretend otherwise is to beg disaster.

All Your Hugo Are Belong to Me

It is Hugo time once again, and once again I am not on the list. Forshame, Hugo people. Do you not know how sterling and upstanding a guy I am? Do you not know how long and how hard I work?

I know, I ave not YET published anything but a single scifiku. In the future I will publish much. It will all be of such value to our media. I will win many awards, from many institutions. You should begin giving me awards now and avoid the rush.

Either that or I and my battle-armor will have to come over and scrag your disrespectful ass.



Congratulations, to this year's winners, damn you all.

NeverSeconds

VEG comments far better than I ever could, "I'm a growing kid and I need to concentrate all afternoon and I cant do it on 1 croquette. Do any of you think you could?"

Veritas ex gustu, indeed! 
In a web filled with lies, damned lies, and trolls, a young woman named VEG dares to bring us all a bit of TRUTH on her blog, NeverSeconds.

Just a little girl, who dared to tell the world her school was abusing its students. Not with corpal punishment or hazing, but in the lunch line. She took pics of the 'lunches' served. The government was NOT amused. They got together and banned her work.

VEG was not undone or undaunted. She found support among fellow townsfolk, the famous, the worlds press. Her blog and its banishment from the internet became one of the world's most reported stories.

In their embarrassment, the freedom hating government goons lost. VEG was allowed to report. The school, somewhat, improved its horrid service.

NeverSeconds now serves as the front for VEG's charity work and as a space for other students around the world to share their lunch experiences. Be they good or bad.

Pulchrōs habeo diēs fēsta

I have sat around reading long enough. It is time to get myself back into gear, and get my novels written. I read Elizabeth Moon and David Weber.

Vacation

After a year and a half, I decided to take a few days off. I was about to do unmentionable things to people.

Scifiku and a Record

I have a haiku accepted to Scifaikuest for their May edition.

Last night, I received a responce on one of the stories I submitted yesterday. It is a new record, my story was denied in 12hours.

Some Progress

I began this new career in writing 1.5 years ago. I now write better that 500 words per day. I have four short stories under review. This is just a beginning.

Software and the OS

Those who are non-techs often ask me about computer software and hardware. They wish to know what to buy and what is crap. This post is a list and discussion of what I have at this time. I will update in the future.

Software:

I use two free programs to read books and articles. STDU Viewer and FBReader between them they cover almost anything I might want to read. Formats include: (fb2, cbr, cbz, tcr, pdb, mobi, azw, dcx, bmp, pcx, jpeg, gif, PNemfG, wmf, psd, tiff, pdf, DjVu, xps, JBIG2, wwf, epub, rtf).

GIMP

office software
I use the free and open source LibreOffice.



For the price of Adobe Acrobat and depending on which version I purchased, I could buy two or three 1 terabyte harddrives.

I almost exclusively use the Linux operating system. I currently have a version of Linux called LinuxMint installed.I use It


Security:
. Last year, the American Air Force had a virus infect the UAV flight system computers at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. The Air Force was lucky the virus was fairly harmless and was delt with presently.

Blog Moved

Over the weekend, I moved this blog from Wordpress to Blogger. My few past posts have been moved as well. Wordpress makes yo life difficult if you are not a paying member. Blogger is free. Wordpress may have more do-dads, but I do not have any need for all. Blogger does what I want and need, not some programmers acronym filled wet dream.

R.I.P. Anne McCaffrey (was 22 November 2011)

"Anne McCaffrey died aged 85 on 21 November 2011 at her home in Ireland after suffering a stroke."

Her work helped to add a broader more nuanced and varied to my developing morality.

New Story at Quantum Muse (was 1 November 2011)

My First published story, a flash fiction piece entitled A Fear of Shadows. It was published to the Quantum Muse site on 31 October 2011. At only 296 words, ‘Shadows’ is super short.

It is brutal; and, my attempt at addressing the horror genre. I see and hear about horror from nearly everyone I know, all two of them. It makes no sense to me. I do not understand how one would enjoy being frightened. I do not get how the horror films/books can even BE frightening. How is a dufus running around in a hockey mask scarey?

What I Like and Don't (was 15 October 2011)

Likes: archaeology, square holes, washing dirt, Truman Capote, Harper Lee, Elizabeth Moon, John R. R. Tolkien, David Weber, Sarah Vowll, the Bears, Charles Darwin, the Blues, Joss Stone, Nerdcore, Firefly, Civilization, Anne Rice, Diana Krall, Rory Block, White Stripes, The Commitments, stout, Imelda May, Superheavy, Astrud Gilberto, cooking

Dislikes: Star Wars, the packers, horror movies (except vampire), zombies, sitcoms, Harry Potter, Twilight, anise,

Who am I and Why am I Writing? (was 22 September 2011)

My name is Christopher Geoffries. I am an archaeologist/anthropologist, among other things. My primary area’s of interest are in the Harappan Civilization and South Asian military purchasing policy. I have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome.

The Harappan Civilization  was a bronze age literate civilization is South Asia. The existed from about 3300 to 1300 B.C.E. It was larger by far than Egypt or Mesopotamia.


South Asian military purchasing policy. My interest is in why groups make decision. I study South Asia primarily in that India is so large and diverse; geographically, economically, and population. The must make choices but it can in the end afford anything it wants. So what does it want and why?

I have recently been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome. I am currently reassessing my entire life. The world has been conquered by strange and unintelligible aliens. There be humans here.