Cole Parker
-
Posts
9,059 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
15
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Blogs
Posts posted by Cole Parker
-
-
Actually, I don't wnat to take undeserved credit. I think it was Des that recommended Terry's blog. I wasn't responsible for that comment. I could have been. The comment has my approval seal<g>. I probably should have endorsed it. He does have an excellent blog.
Cole
-
In response to James, let me say:
I agree entirely. It's so difficult to try to come up with "Best" when looking at something as varied as writing. Even if we were to narrow the field by using modifiers such as best erotic writing, best teen writing, best psychologically-based writing, best whatever, we'd still stumble over whether a writer was best because of one illuminating story, or whether it was a body of work that was being adjudicated, or whether he excelled in the short story or the full-length novel. I just don't think it's possible to call anyone the "best" author.
There are a lot of extremely good writers working, and who have been working. Certainly Driver and Freethinker belong in that category. They have skill and craftsmanship and neither disappoint at all. I can add several others to the list. But by doing so, I'd be leaving others out that I simply didn't think of, and why should I even attempt to go there?
In any event, I read for enjoyment and education, not to judge whether one writer is better than another. Any story I stick with to the end, I will find things in that are great, things I can say, "I wish I could have written that," and others that I think could probably have been done better. That's the nature of the beast.
Cole
-
I think anyone who has read that story has to agree it's incredibly powerful and ties your emotions into knots. Anyone who hasn't read it is missing a wonderful example of truly moving writing.
Cole
-
Well said, Jakob.
Cole
-
Hilarious, and it's exactly how I feel most of the time on computers.
Oh that my tech support was so kind and patient.
Cole
-
I'm trying to visiualize how this happened. The fact is, most people, engaged in this activity, even ardently engaged, don't do a lot of pulling out and putting back in. One tends to stay home throughout the act as that seems to work better. So I've been told.
Then one starts to think of the vigor involved in trying to return home and doing it hard enough so as to break up a good thing. It's difficult for me to imagine how this worked. Let's say this guy somehow slipped out; let's make believe he was so incompetent, such a novice at the deed, that somehow he left the field of endeavor inappropriately. Now, how far out do you think he would come? The physics of the situation would suggest not very far, unless he was doing somethihg else wrong beside misplacing his efforts. So, to be generous, should we say, perhaps, he left the pitch (we're speaking English here, so we want to use the correct terminology) by, uh, one inch? So he's now out and about, one inch from home. It couldn't have been more than that, could it? Really, could it? I don't see how, unless he physically got up and moved about at that point, and somehow that seems unlikely. Why for goodness sakes should he?
So he's an inch away from heaven, and he decides, as the Brits say, to get on with it. Now it simply seems to me, logically thinking and all that, that from an inch away, he'd have to be awfully, awfully vigorous in trying to reestablish his position to actually break himself. I'm getting the idea, trying to visualize this, that the guy had absolutely no idea what he was doing, and his approach to the entire affair was much closer to driving piles than making love.
But that's just my opinion.
Cole
-
I appreciate the kind words, and the one hand clapping!
Cole
-
I love the quibbling!
I told you it was a difficult quiz!
Cole
-
A lot of people now live their lives on-line and treat reality as an annoying intrusion.
Oh, is there something wrong with that?
Cole
-
Okay, I clicked on the underlined 'here' and took the quiz. I'm a sucker for a quiz. This one was HARD! And I thought I knew something of the English language! Humbling, that's what it was!
All right, I admit I got an A. But if I say that, I also have to admit I guessed at a few. Evidently, I'm a better guesser than abecedarian.
Cole
-
What a wonderful clip! Those writers should get an Emmy for that. Great, great stuff.
Cole
-
I've noticed it before, and it follows here, too. People tend to be loyal, sometimes fanatically so (are you listinging, Wibby?) to whatever computer they have and have learned.
As for what you said, Graeme, it's a load of crap--and I mean that in the nicest possible way! Bill Gates has more money than God. He can afford to hire someone to make the programs easier to use, more logical, more intuitive. He doesn't need to pinch pennies, for crying out loud. What would it cost him to have a department whose function is to clean up the programs before they hit the streets? Maybe $10 a sold unit, when all is said and done? That culd easily be passed on to you and me, but they should foot the bill themselves.
You're right, of course. They're not going to waste their money on making the consumer happy. What's the point in having a monopoly if they're going to act that way?
Cole
-
Swearing certainly helps. At least helps relieve the stress using a computer generates.
What I'll never understand is, why do these things have to be so infernally counter-intuitive? Why can't the software engineers make their programs respond the way humans would expect them to? Everything has to be learned, and nothing works as one might expect it to.
Are they all out there laughing at us?
Cole
-
From the Heart is an exceptional story. It's difficult to read when your eyes are full of tears, but this story makes it all worthwhile.
Cole
-
Thanks, Blue. That was beautiful.
Cole
-
Thanks. I'm blushing!
Cole
-
Just as long as it needed to be<g>
C
-
Trab:
I absolutely wasn't getting on your case about this. You have nothing to apologize for. You were trying to help! We need more people like you. And it did sound plausible, till I started to ask myself, why in the world would they do that?
I must get ten cautionary pseudo-info-craps a day with this kind of shit in them, and so I am automatically suspicious. That's the only reason I responded like I did.
Thanks for passing on what seemed a good warning to us, Trab.
Cole
-
Trab:
This has the feel and taste of an urban legend to me. I don't see any reason a hotel would program all that information onto a key card. What would be the point? They already have the info in their computer where it's needed. They'd never have the need to recover that info from a card. It seems to be something there would be no rational reason to do, and would also seem to put the hotel into a position where they could at the very least share liability if someone used one of their cards fraudulently.
Thinking this, I asked a friend of mine who works for a major hotel chain if indeed they coded all that info into their cards. He told me absolutely not. And he said he never heard of any other chain doing it either.
I think your idea of running a magnet over the card is fine. I personally don't carry a magent with me, and if I did, I'd worry it might accidently invalidate all my other credit cards.
I wonder if anyone else here knows anything about this.
Cole
-
I read it. Good final chapter. I recommend the story to anyone who hasn't read it. Eliot Moore has some talent.
Cole
-
Thanks, Ubik. That must mean there's another, although final, chapter up. I'll go read it. And hope it's less confusing this time around.
Cole
-
Or it could easily be put into passive voice with: "The grieveance should be presented by the tennant or the owner, or both."
I often rewrite tricky sentences to imporve clarity and get myself off the hook.
Cole
-
I don't think "declaring" things to be so works with English. I'm not sure just how the language evolves, but it certainly does. It grows constantly; words also fall out of usage. The mechanism that make this work doesn't seem to be declaration as just a popular shift in mood.
I was taught in school that "all right" was two words. Back then, it was not listed in the dictionary as one word. "Already" was one work, "all right" was two. Now, many dictionaries list "alright" as an alternative and acceptable spelling. It's only a matter of time before it becomes entirely legitimate.
The purists among up of course rue the changes. I applaud them and think they keep the language vital.
So you have my encouragement to declare what you will. It's rather like Don Quixote tlliting at windmills and seems a picaresque venture, but is an amusing and fanciful one. Good luck.
Cole
-
Right on WBMS. I agree.
C
Scan to donate
Points of View: 1st vs. 3rd
in Writers' Workshop
Posted
Des:
Thank you so much for making me remember Somerset Maugham. It was so many years ago I read him, I'd forgotten. Both The Razor's Edge and Of Human Bondage were remarkable books. I hope kids today put down their video game controllers and TV romotes once in a while and look into books like that. They and so many other wonderful books were an integral part of my growing up years. Sounds like they were for you, too.
Cole