If the Water Company Acted Like Comcast

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I tried to come up with an understandable analogy of why Comcast, and the other ISP’s think it’s okay to put data caps on everyone. (You do know they are trying to do that, right?)

This is how I understand it…

Say a water company puts in a two inch line running down a specific street. It’s okay because there are only a couple of small houses, no pools, and no businesses down that street. Everyone can use as much water as they like. Not a problem.

Time moves on and a few apartment buildings spring up on that street. And a business with a huge water fountain. A few people put in pools, which takes away from the business of the water companies indoor swimming pool, too.

Same small two inch pipe serving all those houses, but now there are days when the water runs at a trickle. Other days when some of the houses at the end of the street can’t even take a shower.

The water company knows it could just come in and put in bigger lines. More water available, everyone is happy, and their water bill doesn’t change much because it’s still the same water.

Or, they can ration it. Rare items are worth more, right? Plus putting in bigger lines would cost money and drop their profit for the year. Bigger lines would also open up opportunities for bottling companies to come in and put out bottles of water, taking some of their profit. It would encourage more houses to add pools taking away from their indoor pool revenue. What if an ice factory moved in down there?

“I know,” says an exec at the water company, “lets just give our customers a choice. They can pay for the lines to their house to be upgraded, giving them extra water if they like, or they can deal with what they already have. Lets also put a cap on how much they can use so we can try and limit the growth of fountains and swimming pools in that part of town. We’ll also get a revenue boost from those going over the limit. Win win.”

So the company with the big fountain, and lots of money, pays for construction workers, plumbers, and contractors to get an upgrade on their building, but the little houses at the end of the road can’t afford it. All of that work costs too much. So they deal with the low pressure water, and days without showers even though they really want the upgrade. They give up their plans of getting that pool because the overage on water would just be too much. Besides, they can just go swimming at the club down the street, right? It costs $20 a day, but it’s the only swimming in town.

The exec’s at the water company look at their spread sheets, see very few customers upgrading, and reason that it really isn’t as desirable as the people keep wining about. Some of them are still going over the cap, which means more profit for them, but that’s all for the better.

So… it’s a combination of greed, unwillingness to update lines, and customers inability to force the companies to do it. It results in a scarcity (or false scarcity) of product, high prices, caps, and little to no competition. And since they also own the cable companies… well why the heck would they want you to watch netflix if you can just turn on cable TV?

I know this example doesn’t translate exactly, but it does show it’s not just one thing causing caps. It’s a bunch of things. Specifically an engineer told me bandwidth behaves less like water (which is pressurized) and more like traffic. The more traffic on the road the harder it is to get cars (packets) through.

However you look at it, the fact remains: ISPs could choose to upgrade their infrastructure. They were even given money from the federal government, or tax money, to upgrade and they didn’t.

Draw your own conclusions.

Around the web

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Just a little update before I get to the interesting articles I’ve found this week.

My computer is out being repaired, so hopefully that means things return to “normal” in my writing life.

I am at 62,000 in my “Mermaids Curse” manuscript. That’s not even close to where I wanted to be right now. That’s partly because of the computer, partly because some stressful things popped up in my personal life that had to be dealt with before writing, and a little bit because I’d look at the chapters and go “what the hell do I do now?” Thankfully most of these issues have been dealt with and I’m back to the (mostly) regularly writing schedule.

Lastly, I recorded an “Indie News Bites” but I didn’t have a way to edit it, and it sucks without at least a little editing, so that won’t get out till the day I get my PC back.

I will have a news letter that you can sign up for starting next week. The “Around the Web” will probably be one thing added to the news letter.

Now for you’re dose of Around the Web

Facebook buys Oculus Rift for $2billion

11 Strange Books (all traditionally published).

The unwinnable Choose-Your-Own-Adventure

The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure in Skyrim

Harvard has at least three rare books bound in human skin.

Amazons “most wished for” section.

Reddit discusses some future tech that may actually become reality

What is ‘Evil’?

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Last night on “The Story Telling Podcast” we were talking about what makes a good villain, and making them less cliche. So I started to think; What does ‘evil’ really mean?

The idea of something being inherently evil isn’t new. Man started walking upright and venturing out of their caves and into open land where more food was available, but so was more danger. I am sure the various monsters of the time trying to eat them seemed ‘evil’.  As they developed into societies they also had to worry about rival bands of early hominids. Wolves, bears, and lone people out in the deep forests. That is why most of the villains in old fairy tales are woodland creatures and witches in the woods.

But society has changed. We now have scientific understanding of how ecologies work, and how to avoid danger in the deep dark woods. We know how to light up the night so they aren’t as dark anymore. Those old fairy tales that use to scare our children into avoiding “the evil places” aren’t relevant to our modern age. The idea of ‘evil’ has changed, just as we have.

Now our biggest fears are natural disasters that we can not anticipate or stop, and other people.

If you watch the news it is clear that the world is polarized as to who they think is really ‘evil’. Extremist religious groups blame other religious groups. One country blames another nation. Politicians blame social media and ban twitter or Youtube. Corporations blame taxes. Poor blame corporations.

So who, or what, is really evil? Who is capable of really deciding?

Religious folks will point at god, and say god decides. But which god? There are so many to choose from, many of which teach similar things, but none of which are in full agreement. Then you add in the fact that interpretations of religious text has shifted over the centuries as culture has shifted. That is as evident as the multiple branches of EVERY religion now seen. It doesn’t matter which religion you look at, Christian, Islam, Buddhism, pagan… they all have sub sects that have differences in their belief structure.

The scientific minded among us might look to culture, but culture shifts and turns. Culture depends on so many facets of human development. Just ten years ago we still taught our children “being gay is wrong”, now several states have gay marriage, and the number is growing. And while I admit that it seems like the spread of some religions is part of the reason being gay was deemed  “wrong”, it isn’t the entirety of it, and it will take a lot of work to fix the damage done.

What is evil? I think the simplest answer is “that which threatens a persons livelihood.” Be that a wolf trying to eat you in the dark forest, a rabid st bernard named Cujo, a wall street tycoon sucking up every last dime he can at the expense of real jobs, or someone taking over a plane and flying it into a building.

Evil is in the moment. It is dependent on a myriad of circumstances in our lives, and while one finds it evil another will hail them a hero. The tycoon doesn’t think he’s evil, he thinks he’s doing a fantastic job and won at life. The man in the plane thought he was striking a vicious blow at the capitalist pigs. Cujo was only doing what the virus told him to do.

Or ideas of evil change as we change. So do the creatures in the dark. Of all the creatures that haunted our dreams (vampires, werewolves, and witches) only zombies seemed untouched. Movies sprang up and they were just as scary as before. No zombie with sexy eyes, or illicit love affairs. No zombies trying to make peace with the humans. Just masses of rabid creatures that once looked human.

Until “Warm Bodies”.

So many of our dark creatures have been changed into something that was just misunderstood, and now we can be friends. Or if not friends, grudging allies. Now all we have left to fear is each other, and maybe the technology we create.

If evil is “that which threatens a persons livelihood” then the only thing more evil then humanity is time itself.

The Circle of Creativity

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There is a wonderful book called “Steal Like an Artist”, and I read it once, a while back.

It seems like such a simple thing. As an artist working in paint and pencil our art teachers started us off by having us replicate other artists work. Musicians start by learning scales and move up to covering some of their favorite musicians, or some of those considered the best in their industry.

In fact if you go back to classic Renascence paintings you will see many with the same theme, or pose. A few are quite clear that the copied another. Van Gogh copied Millet. A large percentage of music all use the same four cords, all the way back to Pachelbel. We won’t even get into all of the movies influenced by other or outright remake them. Then there is Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and the thousands of adaptations.

Art, all art no matter the medium, is a flow of thought and action. It is the combined totality of all that we’ve known an experienced. All that we’ve watched, tried, emulated, and retold.

But to learn to produce your own art it usually stars by imitating old art. Writers will try writing fan fic, or write in similar styles to authors they enjoyed reading. Artist will try reproducing techniques, images, and variants that they see in other artists. Musicians will practice their favorite songs before they start writing their own. Even game designers will start by programming simple games before striking out on new adventures.

Yes, there are the occasional creators that come up with their content very shortly out of the gate. But I would say that is more rare then creators who mimic before creating.

Think of it like a child. When you are a baby you don’t blurt out whole sentences. You say sounds, then words, ten mimic people around you. Finally, after months of practice, you start saying whole sentences, then paragraphs and stories of your own. The creative process is much the same.

And then it circles around. The things you create inspire the next generation of artist. The things you create will inspire new creations. Then you’ll consume new art and experiences from new areas and that will influence your continued growth. As long as you are living you are gathering new pieces to add into your canvas of creation.

So don’t be afraid to mimic now and then. I happen to know some great movies that started by making fun of some existing movies. I know a couple of books that came about by mashing up ideas from other books.

And if you’d like some more inspiration, I really suggest reading “Steal Like and Artist“.

Computers make our lives easy, right?

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Computers have given us the ability to automate so many things. They allow us to type, edit, and retype at the touch of a few buttons. We can edit entire novels in days instead of painstakingly copying them letter by letter for months or years at a time.

So when your computer decides it doesn’t want to work anymore…. ARG!

My computer has been having issues for a while. The USB plug has been acting up, deciding not to work now and then for no reason that I can tell. Usually I can trouble shoot through it, repair, clean the dust out, and get the thing limping along again for a while.

What’s worse is I am not sure what is failing. Is it a software or a hardware issue? Do i have a virus that is eating away at some components? Do I just need to reformat and boot again? Or do I need to start replacing parts. USB’s are attached to the mother board so that would be a lot of parts.

I’ve known for a while that my computer needed to be upgraded, at least, and that it probably needed a good cleaning. I even bought a new terabyte hard drive so I could save all my data. I just hadn’t gotten around to installing it. So… I have a blank terabyte drive, and a half full 300 gig drive, neither of which I can easily access at the moment. I mean they turn on, but my mouse is USB, so moving files around without a mouse is difficult at best since I don’t know all the short cuts.

On the plus side, I have a drop pox with all my writing on it. I can access that through my lap top (and old lap top that has a little touch screen mouse, and shouldn’t be used for games, so it’s less distracting when I write.) but all my family photos, video, and art work is still trapped on the old drive till I get it out.

At least I know that the hard drive isn’t corrupted. The data is still there, just hard to get to.

Lessons… Back up your files, and not just one a computer. Burn them on a disk, drop them in your email, use DROPBOX! Seriously, Dropbox is invaluable. In fact, if you don’t yet have a Dropbox, go here and set one up. they give you free space. It’s not a lot, but it is enough to save the most important data in case something happens.

As for me… I’m off to work on my novel some more with the little lap top. So glad I have that otherwise I’d be scrambling to get the PC fixed right now.

Science and Art

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I just got done watching Adam Savage’s SXSW Address and I needed to talk about it. Adam Savage is a fantastic speaker, and usually has something very thought provoking to say. In this speech he is talking about Science and Art. That they are connected because they are both ways to discuss the same thing. Human Culture.

I am a writer, and I also do art. This makes me an artist, right? Yes, I would say it does. But I also am a scientist. I enjoy performing thought experiments about scientific advancements. I use these thoughts in some of my writing. How can a space ship save it’s passengers from cosmic radiation? If electromagnetic fields on earth do this how can we create an artificial electromagnetic field on a space ship? How can we encompass an entire colony ship?

I’m not the first writer to think about how things could work, and use those things in there writing. The writers of Star Trek did this every week, and create some interesting technology that no one ever thought would be realistic. Then we got communicators, and touch pads, and reusable shuttle crafts. They, Star Trek, inspired so many scientists. And yet “Star Trek” is still often seen as low brow cinema. Even though Star Trek was one of the first TV shows to comment on the cold war, the inequality of African Americans, and sexism. Not directly, of course, but it was often written into the show in such a way that people could accept it, and discuss it, when they could never have done so before.

Art opens doors for communication. It doesn’t matter if it is “high brow” or “low brow” art, it doesn’t matter if you initially understand the piece, but it get some people talking. And that is what art is for.

In my novella, “Osiren’s Tears“, there are several themes. The extremist view point leading a society astray, the difference in two cultures clashing and causing war, the idea that women are less then men just for the fact of their sex. I did not write the story with the idea of these things being talked about, but they probably made their way into the story because they are effecting me more now then they ever did before. Crimea, Iraq, Afghanistan. Extremists on every continent are trying to drive entire societies like leading a bull with a ring in it’s nose. The bull doesn’t want to go there, but the pain from the ring in their nose makes them move. Sometimes the bull will break free and go it’s own way, but other times it can’t stand the pain and just goes along with it.

Writing is a way of sharing thoughts and ideas, and exploring both sides of a story, without consequence. I can write from the view point of someone who thinks and does atrocious things without anyone actually getting hurt. I can explore why they would do such a thing, and what drives them, and maybe understand them a little more while doing it (though never condoning).

Cultural Anthropology, the study of cultures and people, is a science, and I think every artist would benefit drastically from that science. Statistics are math, and statistics show some invaluable information. How things are better, how things are worse, how things effect you or societies. Then there are environmental sciences, biology, and basic geometry. How does your world fit together? How do the creatures evolve? What are the dementions of a temple, and how do people access each floor?

Science and art work hand in hand. Science explains how the world works, and art is a communication tool to explain it to the layman. Art is a way of exploring facets of the world we have yet to experiment with scientifically. And science is the way to explore those same ideas even further.

There is a movement to add art to the STEM programs. It’s called STEM to STEAM. They want to add art to the middle of STEM where I think it belongs. And I completely support this. Schools don’t just need scientific exploration, they need understanding of the culture around them, and they need to know how to communicate in different ways which is taught by music, painting, writing, and sculpture. All things that use math and science to get their points across.

But the bigger question: how do we get our children to engage in science and math?

MAKE IT PERSONAL! If it isn’t personal to them then they won’t care. I did not care about history in school because the history class was so boring, and did not link the past with the future so I kept thinking “this doesn’t matter to me.” But when I got to college I took some awesome college classes in history that made the world come alive.

But if you teach a child through mediums that they enjoy, and show them how science, math, and history link to those things, then they are likely to take a closer look at them as well. Some students will stop thinking of themselves as just creative, or just scientific, and realize that they are both.

Another Day, Another Paragraph

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I’ve been working on “Mermaids Curse” a lot lately, trying to get it finished. The plan is for the end of the month, and I think it might be close. It is currently 56,000 words long, and I’m trying for a little over 80,000.

I always have this trouble when I get the majority of a large word done. The bones are there, the pieces laid out, and all the easy sections are written. Now I just have to fill in the little sections in between. I suppose if I wrote more linearly this wouldn’t be a problem, but I’ve never had a very linear mind to begin with.

“Zombie Swarm” is on hold right now as I push forward with “Mermaids Curse”. After getting “Forgotten Ones: Eternal Tapestry” edited, and seeing how well it turned out, I am really excited to have a finished full length novel, and getting that edited. Even a pro cover.

Once I have “Mermaids Curse” finished I will probably go back to the “Eternal Tapestry” trilogy and finish the other two books before going back to “Eversword Saga” and digging into the rest of the ten book series. (I have the bones of at least 4 more books finished, I just need to go in and build up the rest of it, so hopefully I have more published by the end of the year.)

So much to write, so little time.

Look for another exciting episode of “Story Telling Podcast” monday at 8pm PST.

I also did another Indie News Bites, this time with four news stories. I am going to try to make a new one each week now that I know what I’m doing, and have got it down to about two hours of production. It will go even faster once I’m more comfortable in front of the camera.

 

That’s What He Said

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I use to use google reviews as ways to check out new businesses. They aren’t scammy like yelp. But right now my company is trying to get google reviews. And boy are they pushing it.

“Look at this as an opportunity to practice promoting yourself” said my boss. He knows that I’ve published books, and that I’m struggling with getting noticed, reviews, and basically anything that says ‘hey look at me, I wrote this, you should read it’.

And he isn’t wrong.

It’s incredibly difficult to draw attention to myself, or anything I do. It goes against everything I was trained… stay unseen. Stay unheard. Your opinion isn’t valuable. No one cares. You’re not worth it. No one likes you. No one will ever love you.

So I find myself confronting all these things I heard for all of those years. And some days I make little breakthroughs and I can say ‘see, I did this and I think it’s good.’ (Well, mostly I say I think it’s ‘okay’ because I don’t want to disappoint anyone.)

And other days I freeze. The words get stuck on my tongue. I want to run, hide, cry, and just get everyones attention off of me somehow, anyway possible.

I recognize that this was caused by years of abuse. I recognize that the whispering in my head telling me that no one cares, and no one wants to hear what I have to say isn’t right. DEPRESSION IS A LYING BASTARD!

Half the struggle is recognizing this. Before I knew why this was happening I let my fight or flight system kick in and I would retreat. Get quite. Go unnoticed. After 30+ years of practice I’m really good at it.

But I don’t want to be that person anymore. I want to write, and I want to share my stories with people. I want to know that my words will live on even when I’m gone. I want to inspire others to follow their passions, and their loves.

And really… I don’t want to be broken anymore. I don’t want what he did to me to be what dictates my life from here on out. This is my life, and I am worthwhile, and I have something amazing to say. People do want to listen to me. They do want to talk to me.

So… I wrote a book. And I’m really proud of it. I hope you read it some day.

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How do YOU find new books to read?

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I stopped by the library today to drop off old books, and pick up a couple of new ones. Because I just watched this Neil Gaiman video yesterday about how we find our books, and what piracy really means, it got me thinking…. How do I really find new books and authors?

First, the three books I picked out:

harrisKim Harrison’s, “Into the Woods”. This is a collection of short stories from the Hallows series, and I absolutely LOVE the Hallows series. I’ve read every single book I’ve found, tracked down the graphic novels, and even own a couple. While I describe it as “A female Harry Dresden” that only scratches the surface. But, like Jim Butcher, Harrison is a FANTASTIC author who adds lots of sub plots, lots of emotion, and great twists that keep you coming back for more. So of course I got it.

briggsPatricia Briggs’, “Frost Burns”. This is another series that I’ve read all of. At least I’ve read all of the Mercy Thompson novels. I haven’t gotten into the Omega or Alpha series because really I just love Mercy Thompson. While not my favorite, Briggs is a great writer, and I really enjoy her books.

The third book is by a new author. New to me, anyway. Diana Rowland writes the “White Trash Zombie” novels. I happened upon her by browsing the “new” section at the library, and the cover looked really interesting so I picked it up. From the title I really didn’t expect anything but fluff, but I was nicely surprised. Angel, the zombie, struggles with everything a normal girl struggles with, plus her natural desire to eat brains as well.

rowlandThey didn’t have another zombie book at the library, so this time I picked up “Sins of the Demon“. The cover looked interesting, and I like her style of writing, so I thought I’d try it out.

So, the question… how did I find these writers?

I found Kim Harrison when a friend of mine suggested her book. She owned ALL of them, so I borrowed the first in the series and I was hooked. I even went to facebook and followed Harrison. She’s a really awesome person, likable, witty, and smart. She loves getting direct feedback from her readers on cover art, and other things. Win-win all over the place.

A Patricia Briggs happened to be on a shelf one day when I was sitting in a library between classes at the college. I was bored, and it was there, just sitting on a “suggested reading” shelf. It talked about werewolves, and the girl on the cover had a very no nonsense look about her… so I picked it up and started reading. I ended up checking it out and taking it home for the week. Came back for more, too.

The third one I found while browsing the “new arrivals”. I do this a lot, looking for new books with interesting covers and descriptions, and seeing if I can find anything to strike my fancy. This is one of my favorite ways to find new books since the new arrivals shelf is a miss match of every genre, including non fic, and I love all of it.

I do buy books, often ebooks, but I usually only buy new books from authors I already like. I only by print books from authors I LOVE, or from used book stores where I can find little known, or forgotten books for less then a dollar.

I have to agree with Gaiman. Free books are POWERFUL. Pirated versions are just more opportunities for people to find your books. I know the majority of new authors that I’ve taken a chance on were because of free, or really cheep books.

I’d love to be able to buy, or even read, all of the books by all of the authors I love, but that would take a LOT of money. So when I publish my own books I keep this in mind. I want more people to read my books, and maybe they will buy a few. Maybe they’ll get print copies and then give them away. Every new set of eyes on my books, every person who tells someone else how great this particular book is, that’s one more potential person who might look into my books.

So, in that spirit, if you haven’t read one of my books and you’d like to just send me a message and I will be happy to send you a PDF, or mobi file of one of them for free. Just look at my book shelf here, and send a message to crissymoss AT gmail DOT com, and I’ll get it to you shortly.

There’s nothing on tv

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Let me just start out by saying that I count myself as a “cord cutter”. Technically I still have cable. There is a cable box under my TV, unplugged, and I could technically plug it in any time and watch something on it. Not much, but something.

I’d take it back if I could. In fact I was going to before the representative on the other end of the line asked me if I’d like to pay less for my internet for an entire year. Pay less, you say? Why of course I’d like to pay less. At the time Comcast had a deal to sign a contract and pay $50 a month for internet and very basic cable. Or, I could pay $70 if I wanted internet only.

Let’s see, $20 less and I just have to store a stupid cable box for a while, and keep it safe so I can return it at the end of the year. Ya, I can do that. No one here watches sports. I’d have to pay extra for sports anyway. I don’t want HBO, Showtime, or Skin-a-max (except when Game of Thrones is playing), so basically it saves me $20 to hold onto this equipment.

Now, when Game of Thrones is on I wait until the season is mostly over, then I will rent HBO for one month for $5-10 and binge on ALL of it at once. Saves me so much money, and I get to watch it all instead of living in suspense from week to week. If it wasn’t so expensive to rent each episode I’d do that, but I don’t mind waiting.

The problem I have with the cable box, besides the fact that there is nothing on there I want to watch, is that I’m now one of their statistics. Just another number they can add to make it look good to investors. We have “this many” subscribers, and they can view “this many” tv shows. Doesn’t matter much that I don’t watch any of it. It just matters that I subscribe, and pay them money for the privilege of having access to their crappy product.

It pisses me off even more now that Verizon and Comcast are having Netflix pay blackmail money for the privilege of using their service.

What do I watch? There are some awesome science shows on youtube. I also like to listen to music while I write, or I might watch some game play of a game I don’t have time to play. But mostly I just create my own content instead of consuming someone else’s.

Maybe that’s why there are so many cord cutters now. It isn’t that we don’t consume things, it’s just that our generation places more value one creating something, be it memories or items, then they do on sitting in front of a TV passively watching things. That and we know most everything we want is online already and we don’t need the cable companies anymore. Too bad we need the internet and it isn’t a public utility yet.