Gee Whillickers

Seriously if Microsoft was an author on AD, we'd all kick him out. Their hilariously useless error messages are not only almost always inaccurate, but also cryptic beyond belief. However, when you work with computers long enough, you get to kind of learn how to read the error messages like an old sage reads wind and clouds and can magically predict the coming storm. (Yeah, I read Marathon Gold. Awesome story!) Everyone above me pretty much answered this already. That message is saying A) Your browser (well, your OS, since your browser asks your OS the answer to this question) doesn't know what email client you want to use or B) you don't have any email program installed, or C) both. Like EJ, Hoskins, and Camy said, you need to open your email program (or install it, and then open it) and then find the preferences for it and make sure, somewhere in the preferences, that it's checked as the default mail program for windows. Then when you click an email link it should pop up with that address already in the To: field.

I think these days I'd be more surprised to come across an anti-gay social conservative who, at his retirement party, is found to be completely upstanding, always behaved in line with his stated beliefs, and is utterly innocent of money laundering, illegal procurement of funds, picking up rent-bois from craigslist, use of hard drugs, clandestine financial support of violence and torture, and behaving as if they were utterly above the law. Sadly, I don't mean any of those. I mean all of them. What was that article I read a few days ago? Something about powerful and rich people actually being confirmed to be less empathetic that most people? Ah, here it is. Food for thought. Of course, correlation does not imply causation, in either direction, so assuming power causes lack of empathy, or that lack of empathy makes it more likely to come into wealth and power, it tenuous at best. But still, there it is.

That's either the scariest thing I've ever read or the funniest. Or maybe both. Well done.

BTW, I got dibs on the story idea contained in all of this. So there! (Just kidding of course. Have at it, all of you talented people out there.)

What's particularly enlightening is reading some of the interviews they've now done with some of the kids (many now adults) that this judge put away, often for such things as the horrific crime of being an unknowing lookout while a buddy shoplifted a candy bar from a 7-11. Many of these kids, pretty much regular kids beforehand, after being released dropped out of school, started being involved in other criminal activity, and the whole usual road to destruction. Amazingly, some of them have pulled out of this since then. A couple in particular stand out because the person interviewed talked about how difficult it was to put their life back together and become a functioning adult. Yet they didn't express anger at, or really even blame, the judge himself. They somehow came to some acceptance of what happened. I suppose that's part of the process though of putting their lives back together.

Yes, this is usually the crux of the debate here in Canada whenever our government decides to privatize or contract out to a private business any service that has, in the past, been done directly by a gov't agency. The people who like the idea typically talk of "efficiency" and how allowing capitalism and the market to run these things will lower costs and waste. The people against the idea talk about how focusing on profit inevitably completely removes all impetus for the company to actually provide the service contracted. And how it de-humanizes these services. Since these are, inevitably, public services for the good of humanity, this becomes a problem very quickly. The issue is this: Free market and capitalism works quite well in many areas, especially where a company markets and sells a product directly to its customers. Unfortunately, this is not the case in these types of situations, since the user of the public service is not the customer. The money goes from the gov't to the company. So the seller is the company, and the buyer (customer) is the gov't. Thus, the product (what the gov't is buying, and what the company is selling for its money) becomes all of us. The public. The average person using these services. Thus, these people, not being part of the direct business relationship, have little to no say or influence on the service being provided, but rather become pawns as the two sides attempt to further commoditize their "product" (us) to make it easier to sell, package, and work with.

Ok, take a look at this video. Rachel Maddow On Rick Perry's Fundamentalist Religious Power Grab Ok, I don't even know where to start with this one. As many of you know, I'm not an American, so looking south from my Canadian perch and watching this kind of back and forth on one hand makes me laugh hysterically and on the other hand makes me want to break out in a cold sweat and vomit. I don't even know how much of this to believe. I mean, these people seem to honestly believe that a gay pride parade caused Katrina. That Don't Ask Don't Tell caused birds to literally fall dead from the sky. That your Statue of Liberty is some kind of demonic idol. That the Japanese stock market crashed because of some weird emperor sex goddess thing. Is this for real? I mean, c'mon?! Really?! For the love of all human kind, please tell me I've got something wrong here. (EDIT: Sorry about the Richard Perry thing in the topic title, it's supposed to be Rick Perry.)

I agree, awesome little collection, and I couldn't be happier that we were able to benefit from your backup plan. But, you had a backup story!? Some of us mere mortals felt lucky to just squeak a story in under the deadline for the project. And you had a back-up story. Harumph.

Frank Stewart stood up with a sigh and brushed the dirt off of his hands. "It's just like all the others, Jim." Dr. Jim Carmichael set down the artifact he was examining and turned to his partner, "Yes, I know. I didn't expect anything different. I never do anymore." Frank looked around at the ruins before looking back at Dr. Carmichael. "How many does that make for you now?" Jim had picked up the object and was examining it once again. He looked up and furrowed his brow, "I think forty-eight....no...forty-nine now. Forty-nine failed civilizations on forty-two different planets. This will be the last dig for me. I'm done. It's time to go home and start figuring out why we're different. Why we survived when nobody else did." "So what happened here," asked Frank, sweeping his hand around to indicate the ruins surrounding them. "Same as always. From examining the records we've found there was close to seven billion people here before it collapsed. Like the others, they couldn't escape their own instincts, their own drive to accumulate wealth, power, control, even at the expense of...well...of everything. Even their own planet's ability to sustain them. "This one, like several others, had a worldwide economy. One species. It seems that an inordinate amount of the resources of this economy were being funneled into specific geographic areas. Something happened, we haven't quite figured it out yet, but it seems they somehow couldn't afford it." Frank frowned. "Couldn't afford it? I don't understand. If they couldn't afford it, then how did all those resources get funneled to those areas?" Jim smiled ruefully, "You'll never believe it. They purchased it on promises." "Promises? I don't understand...." Frank gasped audibly, "You can't mean....Are you saying they used credit?!? Debt?!? They based their worldwide economy on that?!?" Jim nodded, "It appears that way, strange as it may seem. Apparently they couldn't keep their promises. They defaulted." His hand indicated the broken ruins, "Then resources became scarce, war broke out, like it always does, and they all killed each other." "This one was slightly different though." Dr. Carmichael reached into his bag and pulled out an artifact. "Unlike the others, and like ourselves, these people had art. They even seem to have had empathy, a drive to understand others. We're pretty sure they're interrelated." "But according to our experts, that's what makes us different. If they had it too, well, then what happened?" Jim shook his head, "I wish I could answer that, Frank. Maybe they didn't have enough of it? It's sad really, the worst I've seen. From what I've been able to conclude so far, they were close, so very, very close, to moving beyond their instinctive drives. Probably closer than they realized. Maybe another twenty or thirty years, and they would have reached the next level of understanding." Frank kicked at an unidentified metal object. "Jim, I think I've had enough. Honestly, this place is giving me the creeps. Let's get out of here." Jim began putting away his tools, "Yes, I think you're right. Maybe it's because of all the places we've examined, this one was the most recent. Many of the others were hundreds, or even thousands of years ago. This one, well, believe it or not, it may be as short as a dozen years ago when it all went sour." Frank began walking back to their vehicle with Dr. Carmichael. "So it's true then. As far as we can tell, we're still completely alone in the universe. There's no hope of ever finding more, of finding other people we can learn from." Jim sighed. "There's always hope, Frank. Remember that." A noise startled them. They stopped walking and turned towards it. A group of a half dozen people, dressed in rags and with hands full of scavenged objects, came around the ruins of a building and stopped. The two groups of people stared at each other in wonder. And hope.

Welcome, and thank you! To hear a compliment like that from a physicist is humbling to say the least. I'm well aware of the ridiculous simplificiation and gratuitous stretching of reality in that story, so thank you for your kind words. As for the accolades to the other writers here, well, all I can say is that I agree wholeheartedly!

I haven't used XP for a while but I believe this is a browser specific thing and not an XP thing. Check the privacy settings on your web browser (Firefox, Chrome, or ugh - Internet Explorer) and see if it's set to not remember passwords and cookies.

Umm. And your point is? Actually, I think you forgot a nice little activity in there that helps keep us warm.

So, uh, when do we get to discuss the only real sport that matters? I'm speaking, of course, about hockey. Yeah!

I too had to check the address bar up top as I was certain I had stumbled into a murder mystery version of AD. Well done. A fun read and an excellent ending. It never ceases to amaze me how much story can be crammed into 500 or a thousand words.

I waited ever so impatiently for the final chapter of this story to be posted so I could read it straight through. I love Doug's writing and knew this would be good. I was wrong. It wasn't just good. It was incredible. I stayed up way too late last night trying to finish the story. I didn't manage that and finished the last two chapters today. It was so very well done. The characters just ooze realism. The scene setting is incredible. The plot, the build of Trevor's and Noah's relationship, the sub-plot with Trevor's dad, it was all so very well done, so engaging. Trevor's character, outlined so well in previous stories, became one of the most complex and subtle characters I've read about in a story in a very long time. Well done Doug, and congratulations on another, well, "Awesome" story!

You know, you read about teen suicides in the news or hear about them on the radio or TV, and the vast majority of time there is no information about the 'why' or even if a note was left. That's probably just as it should be, nobody's business but their own, but you have to wonder. Given the percentages of the teen suicides that we do know about, through survivors and other information, that are due to sexuality issues, I have to wonder just how high that number might be. Chilling thought. Now you have to wonder how Peter will cope with knowing his friend jumped right after that call. Indeed, how he'd feel not catching the multiple double-entendres that gave possible hints about James' predicament. Thanks Spac-Tic.

Oh boy, a new Nexus! I'm pumped. Now to see if I have the patience to wait until the whole thing is posted before reading. Who am I kidding? I suspect I already know the answer to that one. Looking forward to it David.

Everyone's welcome to move here! It's been storming literally since Friday evening and still isn't letting up. Not a lot of snowfall but very windy so lots of blowing snow and temperatures around minus 18 Celcius right now. The roads are horrendous, cars in the ditch everywhere. Come one, come all. So should I put another frozen dinner in the microwave or what?

Thanks guys. I was trying to get the setting right. If you want to put on your jacket while reading it then it worked. And though I'm not so far north now, there are some positives. The long hot summer days help make up for it. I remember throwing a football around a few years ago one early summer evening, in daylight, at 11:30 PM.

I came here to post some accolades on this story to see that Bruin beat me to it. I loved this story. I just loved the way the character of Chris was written. The story was fun, interesting, and well written. Like Bruin said, it was fun and heart warming and had some great lessons to teach. Very well done dabeagle!

Holy sh*t! Now that's a flash fiction. Perfect. A few words used to tell a much bigger story. It sums it up perfectly. It leaves you wanting more. Nice job Merkin.

Yeah, you gotta be careful with that kind of thing. I learned the hard way. Where do you think I got the story idea from?

If my head was inflated before now it's reached epidemic proportions. I'm not sure it'll fit through any doorways now. Thank you so much Des for your kind words and, of course, for the award. I am more than pleased and proud to receive it. Well, Richard Bachman seemed to have already been taken...

Thanks for all of your kind comments everybody. You're gonna give me an inflated head. I'm glad that you liked it. It was a fun story to write, a bit out there, a bit over the top (doomed!), and a bit of a challenge to try and make all the quantum physics stuff work out right with my layman's knowledge of it. As for a sequel, well, I'm not too sure about that yet. I've had quite a few emails suggesting as much already, but I have one or two other things I'd like to finish up, so we'll see. If I were to write a sequel though, Craig tells me it would start something like this: Craig wiped the sweat off of his brow with his forearm and bounced the basketball once, twice. He looked at his grinning teammates and then found his parents' faces in the small crowd in the school gymnasium. His mom waved, which Craig pretended not to notice. His dad just smiled and rolled his eyes at his wife's antics. He knew what Craig must be thinking about that. It hadn't been a great season, but it hadn't been that bad either. The final game now had two minutes left and they were down by a half dozen. Craig stepped up to the free throw line and again wiped his brow. He lifted the ball over his head and took aim. Trying to remember everything his coach and Joel had taught him he launched the ball and tried for a smooth follow through. Swish. Nothing but net. Craig grinned and looked down from the basketball net to see his friends' reactions. The only problem was, they weren't there. He looked around the gym. The ball was still bouncing after his shot, sending up small puffs of dust each time it hit the dirty gym floor. It echoed hollowly in the empty gymnasium. Craig stood at the free throw line, almost obscured by dust, and looked around. He plopped down to the floor, suddenly bereft of energy. "Oh fuck! Not again!"

Yup, me too. Just read this last night, and it had the same effect. Touching and wonderfully written. Thanks for the great story.