I’m tempted to cite this as proof that SOMETHING about WordPress or (more likely) it’s community is VERY broken…
SO, what am I talking about? The fact that when I logged back into my “adult” blog, which I hadn’t done in over a year and a half, I consistently had HIGHER totals for views and likes than this blog, FOR THE PAST 15 MONTHS STRAIGHT.
THAT despite the fact my erotica blog has 54 followers and this one has 779 followers.
Anybody see some inconsistencies here?
Now it COULD be that I’m just that good a story teller, BUT somebody here recently told me I wasn’t a good enough writer to migrate to Medium.com. Regardless of that, I’d say it does prove what I’ve been saying for a long time now: The vast majority of WordPress members don’t give a damned about any content beyond their own. Similarly, Likes and Follows aren’t genuine, just something to trade to give the illusion of popularity. Complete social media mentality.
I can’t remember the last time I asked a question or provided a writing prompt here and got a single reply without bitching later.
A simple question, but one I’ve been pondering the last few weeks. In the case of any sort of work of fiction, I think the answer is pretty straight forward: If it crosses into the realm of a “spoiler”, thus ruining the ability to enjoy the story, it’s revealed too much.
But what about non-fiction, more specifically “how-to” works?
I’ve been pondering this because I’ve spent a fair amount of time the last month or so going over various media on how to improve one’s writing and storytelling. I thought it would be nice to share what I’ve learned, but at the same time, I wonder how much might be too much… Where is the line between a good, truly in-depth review and making it so the reader never wants or needs to go get the book or whatever for themself?
For example, one of the sources I looked at was from MasterClass.com. “Dan Brown teaches Writing Thrillers” was loaded with amazing information on general story structure, character creation, and several ways to build suspense and tension in a story.
I think I have 10 to 12 handwritten pages of notes in rough outline form, which would probably result in 3 or 4 pages of outline in a program like Word. For those not familiar with MasterClass, that’s from about 3 hours worth of lecture time (broken down into roughly 15 minute video segments). MasterClass.com has courses that are more like a TED Talk. Somebody like Dan Brown or James Patterson gets up and gives you a few hours of everything they believe has made them successful. “The Great Courses”, by comparison are taught by University academics and anywhere from 20 to 40 hours long. More akin to a college class.
Is there more that could be gotten out of that Dan Brown video “series”? Most likely, but I think my notes are a solid representation of the overall course. But how much is overshare though… where I’m morally, if not factually, cutting into Dan Brown’s income from the course?
Dan’s a good test case for this whole concept I’m struggling with. He has a very factual, academic approach to his teaching in the class. Neil Gaiman, on the other hand, would be much more difficult for me to do anything resembling an “infodump” on. Like his actual storytelling, HIS MasterClass contains a good deal of info wrapped up in allegory to help solidify the lessons.
While I worry about inadvertently cutting into others’ sales, I want to do these reviews because there is enough “how to write” garbage out there to completely fill the interior of the Death Star. Most of it is written by people who have had the smallest level of success as writers, yet feel that somehow makes them expert enough to put 40 books on Amazon or several videos on Udemy about how to write. The good stuff deserves to be recognized as such in my opinion.
The time has come for the reveal of my crown jewel in my lightsaber collection.
Yesterday, I went back to the Vault and picked up the first lightsaber I ever ordered from them. Confused? 😀 Good.
It’s pretty simple actually. The first two I got from Vader’s Vault(external store link) were “Ready to Ship” sabers offered on May the 4th and Black Friday. They were already finished, what you see is what you get, models. The “Battle Wrap Havoc” was (is) customized with an engraved shroud on the emitter, and my “Protector Elite” (from Christmas 2021) is all standard options, but fully maxed out in that regard.
The Reveal and Some Background!
My beautiful Sovereign Elite was custom ordered 2 years ago and finally finished at the beginning of this week.
She sports a black chrome finish, custom lit power switch, and “Order of the Grey” in Aurebesh acid-etched on the emitter bell. Beyond that, it’s every bit as decked out as my Protector saber.
For those who forgot, “The Order of the Grey” was a creation of mine within the Star Wars: The Old Republic video game. Follow the link for the full story. The short version is that my character Adoxia and I both got tired of the overly evil-spirited Sith players in the game AND the emotionally dead Jedi reinterpretation that Lucas tried to foist on the fans as part of the prequels. I made the game’s first “Grey” force users guild, and at least one of the first instances the concept in the franchise. Unlike the weird interpretations running through fandom nowadays, my concept was based on the Eastern ideas that shaped the early Jedi concept. Emotions are accepted as a part of life, but are meant to be controlled and learned from instead of letting them dominate you.
Like the other sabers, the Sovereign is capable of changing blade colors, even to the point of oscillating colors. It comes with 16 pre-installed sound configurations and blade colors, and software to custom configure the blade to a vast array of colors.
I talked to the owner at Vader’s Vault about getting a truer “Mace Windu” style purple out of the blade via that software. Long technical answer summed up, it’s really a question of blade brightness. If you want a deep purple that’s not all the bright in normal daylight, you can do like Hasbro did with their ‘Black Series’ Mace Windu saber:
It looks great in the dark. Not so much in the daylight. If you want a bright blade in the daylight though, you’re going to get the purple white washed out a bit till it looks a little magenta or blue-ish.
For what it’s worth, a stock “Sovereign Elite” saber looks like this:
So, mine isn’t as fancy as some of the truly expensive custom sabers that Vader’s Vault has made.
Maybe when I hit the lottery, I can afford something like those. For now, I’m happy with the detailing and finish on mine
A Little Trivia:
The Vader’s Vault ‘Sovereign and Sovereign Elite’ models are NOT, as you might think, inspired by Luke’s “Return of the Jedi” saber:
It’s actually taken from the “Star Wars: The Old Republic” video game, and is one of the lightsaber models available for use by player characters:
In the game, it’s called the “Tempted Apprentice” model. Ironically, my character even uses the same color blade as the new saber comes with as it’s default selection. Given the financial developments over the last year or so, it’s likely this will be my last lightsaber for some time to come. I finished with a bang though, and I’m all set for the lightsaber dueling competitions.
Let Mortal Kombat begin!
OR I could just get into garage studio special effects and become one of the people that has Hollywood scared to death:
A Special Note:
Keep an eye on Vader’s Vault towards the end of next month or a bit beyond. Remember I mentioned way back in my post about taking a tour of the Vault that they had something special in the works? Well, much like completion of my saber, that project was delayed majorly by COVID. I was able to see the status of it however, and it’s close to completion. I’ve been sworn to secrecy in exchange for that peek however, so that’s all I can say.
I’ve had alot going on the last few days… Reading up and otherwise trying to see what I can do to improve my writing ability when I’m not chipping away at real life tasks. More there tomorrow perhaps.
Today I leave you with a meme that reveals the horrible truth! 😮
Last post for today. 🙂 It’s already Christmas on the other side of the international date line though, so it seems appropriate to send general well wishes now.
Merry Christmas to all, and wishes for a fabulous time if you celebrate some other holiday. 🙂
Deja vu all over again. Those of you with some life experience will recall that back in the late 1990s Ford had a bunch of lawsuits and a federal investigation over it’s SUVs, primarily the Explorer, being prone to rollover crashes.
Image via CedarCityUtah.com
The ultimate outcome of that circus was that Firestone Tires was ultimately found guilty of causing / contributing to the crashes. In short, it was alleged that tire failure was primarily responsible for the crashes, and that the tire failures were the result of poor manufacturing. Ford feigned being ignorant of it’s supplier’s actions and escaped with minimal liability in the grand scheme of things.
The Truth:
Those who were a part of or familiar with the automotive industry at the time (such as the mechanic in my family) told a different story. The problem started with Ford trying to deal with ride quality complaints by reducing tire pressure on the SUVs. Most news sites (using a broad definition of the term) that still have information on the events say that Ford was putting 26 PSI on their tire placards.
That picture above is an example of the “placard” that lists the manufacturer’s recommended tire pressure. It raises an interesting point as well. You can see that the recommended pressure is 44 PSI (pounds per square inch). For a normal car, the typical tire pressure is 30 to 35 psi recommended. For sports cars and trucks and SUVs, the pressure recommendations usually start at 40 PSI and do up from there. Why?
For sports cars, higher pressure results in a firmer tire helps give the vehicle the type of handling and performance associated with a sports car. It will take turns better, and there’s minor improvement in acceleration and braking as well. Those last two are more influenced by tread pattern than pressure however. In the case of SUVs and Trucks, the higher pressure helps support the heavier weight of the vehicle and whatever cargo it may be carrying. The firmer tire, combined with a hopefully well designed suspension is what helps prevent these vehicles from rolling over due to a higher center of gravity than a car has. In the case of a heavy duty pickup like the Ford F350 or a Chevrolet/GMC 3500 series, the recommended tire pressure could be as high as 65 PSI.
The point being that 26 PSI was by NO means appropriate for a vehicle like the Ford Explorer. Depending upon who you talk to from that time period, some Ford placards OR technical service bulletins may have said tire pressures should be 18 to 21 PSI.
A Technical Service Bulletin, or TSB in the lingo of the industry, is a bulletin put out by an automotive manufacturer on how to deal with an recurring issue related to one of their products. An example would be what the most common repair to fix the inoperative dome (interior roof) light on a vehicle.
Back in the 90s when SUVs first got popular… and even still to this day, there are frequent complaints by consumers about them not riding like cars. Most commonly, a rougher ride, tire noise, wind noise from side mirrors (yes really) and handling complaints like braking and turning. Allegedly, Ford’s option for handling complaints that their SUVs didn’t ride like cars was to soften the tire pressure… down to anywhere from 18 to 26 PSI depending upon who you believe. This does make for a smoother ride; the mushy tires insulate the driver and passengers from pot holes and other poor road conditions.
It creates another huge problem however, especially when turning: side wall flex.
As the picture above shows, side wall flex is when the weight of the vehicle shifts sideways, most often with the centrifugal force created by a turn. The tire’s treads grip the road, but low tire pressure, thin or dry-rotting (weakened) tires, or a combination of those factors allow the entire vehicle to shift with the force of the turn. If the turn is sharp enough, and the air pressure in the tire is low enough, the tire(s) can actually loose their seal to the rim / wheel. More often than not, you’re looking at a rollover crash in that instance. The higher the center of gravity, the more likely the vehicle will roll over in that situation.
Ford had another problem. The Explorer had one of the worst fuel economy ratings of the era. One of their solutions to deal with it? They told Firestone to lighten the weight of their tires in order to help the overall weight of the vehicle. There’s two main ways to lighten the weight of an object:
You come up with some super high tech new material that’s even stronger, yet lighter than the original material. The reality check here is that super high tech means super expensive, AND waiting for government safety tests and approval.
You keep using the original material, but use less of it. Net result, thinner tires.
THIS is apparently where Firestone got in trouble. Rather than lose a major contract from one of the big three domestic auto makers, they allegedly complied with Ford’s demands for lighter weight, cheaper tires. While Firestone got raked over the coals though, Ford walked away with comparatively minimal fines.
Several people have suggested or outright accused Ford of using it’s size and and profits as a company to influence the government to shield them from the fallout. In short, a precursor to the “Too big to fail” philosophy that we all saw during the housing bubble and banking bailout.
Back To The Present:
As the article headline said, it looks like we’re right back in the same situation all over again. As this Wall Street Journal article points out, Ford has been involved in several rollover lawsuits in recent years, including a recent 1.7 billion dollar Georgia verdict against the company this summer
Inadequate roof strength and numerous other issues causing the rollovers have all been alleged by complainants. Just as before, Ford is blaming reckless driving and bad tires for all the rollovers.
If you really want to see how serious the “joke” about Deja Vu is, check out this YouTube video showing a 1994 Explorer in a rollover crash test:
Even the weak roof is a decades old issue. While you’re at it Google “Ford Rollover Lawsuits” and see how many firms there are out there now, dedicated to suing Ford over this situation.
Conclusion:
Can I believe that some of the crashes were caused by reckless drivers? Absolutely. I’d bet if I did a survey of everyone on WordPress that lives in a reasonably populated area, all of those surveyed would say they encounter dangerous and distracted drivers every day.
This has been an ongoing problem focused largely on one single manufacturer specifically however. We as a people need to decide if we’re going to continue the kleptocracy that allows giant corporations to kill or endanger people, OR if we’re going to stand up and tell our elected officials that we’ve had enough of dirty money being more important than the people those officials are elected to represent.
I’ve been getting pulled 10 different directions the last couple of days. That, in turn, hasn’t left me a great deal of time to write here or develop topics. So, I thought I’d share the best trick I recently learned to help keep me focused on the here and now.
This one is about as simple as they come, but the way it can force your conscious and subconscious back to reality is amazing. Ready? Just ask yourself:
Let me explain here and you’ll soon see the genius of it.
As we all have experienced, our minds like to wander all over the place. What needs to be done at work later, how likely are those 13 new doomsday scenarios that I saw online today while surfing, etc… Multiple studies show that digital life has led to shorter attention spans as well.
Typically, the problem with getting past all of that is your subconscious mind will fight you on efforts to stay focused. Anybody who has ever tried to meditate knows exactly what I’m talking about. You try to forget that doomscrolling story and the subconscious only hears doomscrolling scenario, etc…
Long story short, if you ask yourself “Where am I?” and really focus on it as a legitimate question, your conscious and subconscious will be forced to answer that you’re where and likely when you’re physically at.
Suddenly, you’re in the present and not focused on the doomsday scenario that’s supposed to occur a couple years in the future, or mentally visualizing that meeting at work in three days, etc… and those future or past situations suddenly lose all their hold on you. It can be amazingly effective with just a little practice, largely because if you expect an answer from your subconscious as well, it shuts down the usual games your subconscious plays. And boy does it love to play games. Try NOT thinking of something and notice how your subconscious instantly becomes fixated upon what you’re supposed to NOT think about.
“Where Am I?” gets it focused on the here and now instead.
Personal advice: keep calm and keep firing the question even if you have to ask it 5 times a minute at first. You’ll get focused faster than you think, no matter the initial difficulty. For me it’s helped me keep focus and my emotions better under control since it focuses me on what’s happening, not what may happen or what something MAY have meant.
Give it a try, and post in the comments section how well it worked for you.
As the Evening Standard put it, Robocop becomes Reality as the San Francisco police and city council approve weaponizing drones for use of lethal force against suspects.
I wish this was a BAD joke… some poor attempt to pull an Onion.com spoof. This is absolutely real however.
Wednesday last week, the San Francisco board of supervisors voted to approve a SFPD request to allow weaponizing of police drones, including the use of lethal force by drones.
That second article, from the Associated Press, covers a bit more background. For example, apparently the first instance of a police drone employing lethal force was in Dallas TX in 2016:
“…Dallas police officials sent a bomb disposal robot packed with explosives into an alcove of El Centro College to end an hours-long standoff with sniper Micah Xavier Johnson, who had opened fire on officers as a protest against police brutality was ending.
Police detonated the explosives, becoming the first department to use a robot to kill a suspect. A grand jury declined charges against the officers, and then-Dallas Police Chief David O. Brown was widely praised for his handling of the shooting and the standoff.”
Like many modern “debaters”, the article takes the most extreme situation and uses it as justification, in this case for the growing normalization of weaponized drones.
Normally I’m pro-police. My dad was a cop, and so were 4 of my martial arts instructors. Ergo, I have a better idea than the average person on the street what a cop deals with, as well as the unrealistic expectation from some that a cop should never have to use any kind of force, or at least be able to perform like Captain America or Spider-Man.
I’m also not afraid to call out bad policing when I see it. Bad policing taints the image of all law enforcement, and erodes the trust of the public. Along those lines, THIS scares me.
Keeping it Real:
OK, so let’s be honest: This does NOT mean SF or Dallas is going to have ED-209s walking the street. My best research says even the military is years out from that, and they’d be dealing with human controlled bots for a good while.
The real problem is the slippery slope here. Police are increasingly using military gear and vehicles intended to battle large gangs for things like low threat serving of warrants. It’s Lord Acton’s old adage of “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” There’s also the factor of having to justify the equipment or drones being in the budget. If you’re not using your toys, we’re going to take them away from you.
Long story short; the problem isn’t that this IS Robocop, it’s that it will likely lead to an escalation that reaches something like Robocop’s ED-209 getting deployed in the future.
What also bothers me is that the articles, and APPARENTLY the SF city Board of Supervisors barely touched on the idea of alternatives. Tear gas dispensers, flash-bang grenade launchers, rubber bullets, and other non-lethal options would seem to be equally viable options in all but the most extreme situations. If they can equip a drone with a bomb or gun, why not those?
Getting into “Conspiracy” Territory:
Why not those? MAYBE that’s the trick. What If law enforcement wants the whole 9 yards, so they can more regularly deploy less lethal drones against the public and then loudly proclaim “Look how wonderful we are! We showed restraint, broke up that out of control protest and no officers were harmed either! It’s a huge win!” Needless to say, that also reduces the likelihood that serious questions will be asked when they do resort to drones using lethal force. They show such restraint the rest of the time after all.
Reasonably plausible, right? So where does the “conspiracy” start?
It starts with the idea that the government wants a true “police state” with the ability to keep the public pacified. They’ve known for decades that the military won’t turn on the public. Robots and drones are one of a few options there for the government. Robots always do exactly what they’re told.
If you think this sounds far fetched, all you have to do is turn on the TV to any science or military based cable channel. There are plenty of stories and documentaries about the government developing weaponized robots. One interview I saw with a DARPA official was truly scary. Not so much for what was revealed, but because of the realization that if DARPA of all agencies was revealing anything, it was only because they’re already well beyond what they’re showing the interviewer.
Likewise it’s EASY to find stories about how government officials and the ultra-rich distrust the public. The easiest way is to start digging into stories about the bunkers the ultra-rich are building for themselves. Bill Gates has a huge one on each of his properties.
I genuinely believe that the elites of far left and far right want a civil war (here in the US and elsewhere) to thin the population and give themselves the ability to clamp down on the remaining populace with draconian authority. They’ve used tactics like that before. Business tycoons all over Europe pushed for World War 1, hoping to break the early labor movement. 20 million dead and 21 million wounded due to royal infighting and egos, and the greed of industrialists in Europe and America.
Technology has only enabled them to potentially take their schemes further. Think it won’t happen “here”, or that my theory is wrong? Consider how cities as (supposedly) completely ideologically different as San Francisco and Dallas can be adapting the exact same policing tactics.
This one is largely going to be a personal update, but I am going to solicit some opinions from readers on one matter. For what it’s worth, this will also be much more calm than my COVID rant, LOL.
Where I’ve Been:
The last 8 months or so have involved ALOT of introspection, as well as all the drama I’ve mentioned in the last few posts. It’s been brutal emotionally. It’s not just dealing with everything that’s happened the last few years, it’s realizing that the system is completely screwed and people don’t care in the slightest.
Every time we had a problem like the movers who defrauded us and broke half our belongings all the way up to the drama with the house and lawyer, it was always the same thing: Nobody wanted to get involved, the law said it was OK, etc… It didn’t matter how much evidence I dug up and documented, everything that happened was OK. Contractors and engineers didn’t want to get involved even though they feigned outrage to varying degrees over what was clearly happening.
Suffice it to say that it’s all been a major reality check regarding how far civilization has fallen, the impact that disintegrating morals has had on society, and just how corrupt the system is on both sides of the fence.
That last point is something I’ve been saying for a while. I lived in California and I saw the corruption, greed, graft and exploitation of the hopes and fears of the public. I lived in Georgia as well back in the 90s, and saw plenty of pro-wealth, pro-corporation, screw the little guys stuff there. How deep it ALL runs never truly hit me until the last couple of years though.
The experience DID bring me some clarity about my blogging burnout. The frustration here was simply the manifestation and smaller piece of a bigger issue. Society is tearing itself apart in mindless “Us vs Them” divisions that have been played upon and built up by the media. Yes, the political and social issues are real. We’re at the point of tearing ourselves apart all across the West however.
Why? Simply because people have had their fears and ego played upon to the point where they won’t even consider dialog with “the enemy”. They’d prefer to delude themselves that they’re “right”, and wish utter destruction on whole other segments of society instead.
Even here at the blog, I couldn’t seem to get through to anybody. People would pretend to understand and go right back to hating some other group in their own blogs. I never had delusions of becoming some sort of Gandhi-like figure with my pleas for people to wake up and stop the hate. I’d hoped to at least start a conversation though, and perhaps if we were all lucky, have somebody far more capable than me pick up the ball and run with it.
It got to the point that with all the negativity regarding our situation and attempts to get help with it, along with the CONSTANT parade of hate by the media on all sides… I just didn’t want to get online anymore, for any reason.
I also didn’t like the way the whole prolonged ordeal was changing me. I needed time to re-group, center myself and let go of the hate I was soaking up (the joys of being a real Empath). I feel like I’m in a better place than I’ve been in many years. Better… Not perfect, but better.
So, that brings us to the giant jackpot question of the day:
To Fight or Not To Fight?
The few of my followers who actually read my posts know from recent posts that I felt beat down and bitter over everything that’s happened. For the last few weeks I’ve been debating if it’s worth it to continue. Normal legal options are exhausted thanks to the useless lawyer we hired that ran out the statute of limitations AND our cash.
That pretty much leaves a social media, regulatory agency and possible mainstream media blitz to make life hell for everyone involved in the transaction. It would be a TON of work, with no guarantee of anything positive coming out of it. Just for starters, I’d have to set up a separate blog with all the pertinent facts, documents and pictures, as well as telling the story there. I’d have to delete any posts here directly connected to the house also, since my former idea of being a romance/erotica writer would destroy any credibility I had. THEN we get to all the efforts of writing to and printing copies of documents for various media people and government officials (none of whom I really trust any farther than I can throw that decaying husk of a house).
Believe it or not, the biggest worry for me at first was keeping my own emotions in check if I did this. I’ve joked in the past about wanting to do this:
That’s not the person (or monster) I want to be though. Once I got centered, I figured out that the way to keep centered would be to focus on doing it for the greater good and not letting it become personal. Maintaining that 100% would doubtless require a Zen master, LOL. I’m pretty sure I can do it well enough to keep the fight from consuming me however.
Either way, if I don’t at least make an effort to stop them, there’s nothing keeping them and those like them from destroying the finances and lives of others.
Do I have the drive? This mess wasn’t the first time I’ve been knocked down. I always eventually get back up also. Being Scots, Irish and German… Well let’s just say I love a good donnybrook, LOL.
So, for me, the real question is, is it worth the fight OR are we better off just focusing on trying to rebuild our lives? Best that happens is we may recover some money. Worst is we get threatened with lawsuits. To THAT I’d reply: “We’ve got nothing left, so we’re judgment proof and I’d LOVE to get into all your files as part of discovery.”
Silk Chatters 