Chrystalline

I’ve forgotten which book it was, but I remember one character exclaiming over all that had happened and not knowing where to start, and the other said, “Don’t be stuffy, start in the middle and work outwards!” So I will. Sort of.

Short version:

After being busy all month trying to fix my computer, and then trying to reinstall stuff, I went to DragonCon and came back to start a new job and work my notice at my old job at the same time and, oh look, I got sick again because that tends to happen when I work from 9 am to 11:15 pm on seven hours of sleep. Good thing that was only one day, or I’d've lost my voice again, most likely. Slept all weekend and am now mostly (but not all) better.

More details:

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

Oh, LJ, why you gotta be so stupid?

If you’re involved in fandom to any great extent (and probably even if you aren’t), you probably were aware of the huge controversy when LiveJournal suspended 500 journals without warning on Memorial Day. Not only did Fandom_Wank and several individual fan journals keep a running commentary on new developments, but other sites like Slashdot and CNet picked up the story as well. (Also BoingBoing, Digg, AnimeNewsNetwork, MetaFilter, Wired) Even more interesting to me was the fact that this is not the first time SixApart has offended its userbase (*more links below*), and I found it intriguing that they have apparently continued in this fashion for some time, despite the negative backlash every time they demonstrate their clear lack of understanding of their primary market. LiveJournal users were vocal in their distrust and doubts about SixApart at the time of the LiveJournal buyout, and this is firm evidence that these unhappy netizens were right about them. At the time, I was one of the “wait and see” crowd, not knowing anything about SixApart prior to that. Of course, while SixApart is within its rights to administer the company as they see fit, it threw into sharp relief just how vulnerable the internet community is to corporate entities who simply do not understand fandom and how it operates, and inspired several calls for alternate options for fandom to call home.

Now, I’d been thinking about that idea for a while, actually, as I have very real ideas on how fandom and IP holders could come together in profitable harmony (unlike the Fanlib debacle, which apparently had the idea that fandom wouldn’t mind donating all its effort to make money for Fanlib and the IP holders) but the Strikethrough made me think that perhaps I should get to work on this sooner rather than taking my time about it, because fandom is furious with the high-handed and condescending attitudes from first Fanlib, and then LJ/6A.

I wasn’t ready yet, though, and still haven’t actually put any of the infrastructure together yet, but 6A’s done it again, and their timing is incredible. Fandom was starting to relax a little and cut back on the Strikethrough icons. Now they’re coming down on fandom again, and I can’t help but wonder if they’re really this foolish, or if they’re deliberately driving off their userbase.

I’ll be blunt; I don’t support porn, either text or images, but child-proofing the cabinets in a forum for adults is idiotic. Internet fandom is for fans of all ages, not just kids, and while the adults should lock the adult material, that doesn’t mean they should be prevented from having it. It’s a little like saying married couples can’t sleep together because there are children in the house. So, given that 6A is making such a concerted effort to rid themselves of the very userblock that made LJ such an attractive purchase, I believe I shall download the code and build a fork. For fandom, since we don’t seem to be truly welcome anywhere else.

*Moveable Type, Vox, and Typepad:
http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2004/05/movable_type_30_and_eating.html
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/05/14/freedom-0
http://padawan.info/weblog/movable_type_30_developer_edition_much_ado_about_nothing.html
http://underscorebleach.net/jotsheet/2006/09/goodbye-movable-type
http://www.wiw.org/~jess/archives/2004/05/27/changes-to-movable-type-license/
http://www.scriptygoddess.com/archives/2004/05/14/not-that-i-assume-my-opinion-will-be-readheard-or-counts/
http://scobleizer.com/2005/12/18/im-a-six-apart-customer-and-i-think-they-are-getting-a-raw-deal/
http://www.makeyougohmm.com/?p=2746
http://businesslogs.com/technology/six_aparts_new_focus_from_pro_dev_to_high_school.php

Wikipedia Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:LiveJournal#Censorship_controversy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiveJournal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Apart
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Movable_Type

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

Okay. As I said before, I was looking into new plugins, and as long as I was trying new antispam plugins, I figured I’d try the new, improved Crosspost to LJ plugin. See, I have an RSS feed on LJ, but if people comment over there, I never see it. This way, assuming it works as desired, I can get comments there or here, without any trouble, though anon commenting is still off at my LJ. (Email notifications are love…not to mention easily sortable ) Also, I decided to try one of those social bookmarking plugins, to see if that improves my traffic at all.

If you’ve been unable to comment because of the antispam measures before, I’ve relaxed the restrictions (Akismet tells me it’s deleted 4 messages as spam without letting me see what they were - I set it to let me look at them now) and removed Bad Behavior (which was what was causing Seamus so much trouble, and might be the reason I’ve had crickets chirping over here for the last several months). I’m cautiously relaxing the restrictions on pingback/trackback, too, but moderating all of those, because my previous WP installations got absolutely hammered with pingback/trackback spam. I’ve never understood the mindset behind spam. Seamus sums it up perfectly: Such a mamoth [sic] waste of everyone’s time and energy for just a tiny bit of money for a miniscule number of people.

I mean really. Does anyone actually buy any of that stuff? I’d refuse to buy from a spammer just on principle.

The new user registration with no comments is weird, and probably just spam registrations anyway, but the silence is a little unnerving. I know that I have some readers, though Certain People prefer to let me know in person or by phone what they think of my posts (Arian & DFL, I’m looking at both of you ) rather than commenting on the page.

I know I need to start posting a little more regularly, and I will, but RL does get in the way. I still haven’t fixed my theme yet, because my *&^#*$%*&%^ cable connection went out while I was trying to sort out what files were still on my host where they belonged, and I worked a lot later tonight than originally planned. And yes, I’m aware that it’s last night, now, but as I haven’t gone to sleep yet, it still counts for me. Ah, the joys of being practically nocturnal. Actually, it’s pretty nice, because everyone else goes to bed and leaves me alone with my computer. Anyway, I’ve decided that this is as good a time as any to do a complete theme overhaul, since the glitch forced the issue, so it could be a few days before I’ve got it polished up nice, but it’ll probably be very different when I’ve finished.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

Interesting. I’ve been thinking of using Google Checkout for my shop, because I’m getting to the point that CafePress isn’t enough all by itself. I like it, sure, but there are other POD suppliers that I can use for additional product flexibility, especially considering I’ve had an account with a dropshipper in Missouri for over a year and haven’t actually publicized any of their items because I haven’t had a payment gateway. Clickbank insists on a per-product checkout, which is fine if you only have one item to sell, but if you want to offer multiple items that people may want to combine, well, that’s going to be a mess.

I stormed away from Paypal for customer service reasons, and when Google announced their payment system, I had high hopes for a viable alternative. Unfortunately, it seems that Google has similar problems, as evidenced by the not-really-in-the-right-forum message posted on OSCommerce’s Google Checkout Module page (for some reason, WordPress is determined to remove all empty lines, so formatting is slightly different here from the original post):

Be Warned!
vdezine
10 Jul 2007

I am not endorsing or recommending any other method of checkout.

But I am advising against using google checkout!

I’m assuming that professionalism is important to you.

With this in mind, the problem lies here:

1. No live customer support.

2. Very lengthy waits for support.

3. Very obsure answers that don’t answer your questions.

What seems to happen is this:

You have your client make payment via google checkout.

Everyone assumes all went well.

You then get a notice that Google has “Cancelled” the order due to “Possible Fraud”.

What then? Do you tell your client this?

How can it be the clients fault if 1 invoice was just processed for $1000 but the one for $5000 was labeled “Fraudulent”?

Bottom line, it seems that Google wants to be in the business of processing money, but if there is any risk at all, they simply say that the transaction seems “Fraudulent”.

Note: I’ve been using Google checkout since its introduction. I’ve processed thousands and thousands of dollars with them previously.

The sad part is that it only takes one bad experience to affect your business.

This last experience involved a very successful doctor, who had an invoice for an amount that Google must not of been comfortable with.

Instead of just letting me know this, they put me and my client in a very embarrassing position.

My clients must and will always come first!

Take from this what you will, and use at your own risk!

Now, I’m sure there will be any number of “I’m using Google and having no trouble” responses, if anyone bothers to look for them in more appropriate venues, but I was one of the “I’m not having any trouble with Paypal” people up until the namechange fiasco. This bothers me, because the other options are not looking much better, and I’m wondering if I’ll have to give Paypal another chance, if only because it is still the 800 pound gorilla in the ecommerce world and I don’t want to sell my liver for a traditional commercial account.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

Well, when I got home from work tonight (technically last night, as it’s after 5 am now) I had an email invitation from a friend: Join Tagged!  My first thought was, ‘What is this? Another one of those address book sites?’  Of course, they phrase the invitation email so that it sounds like you’re going to horribly disappoint whoever invited you if you don’t confirm, so I clicked Yes, she’s my friend.

Immediately, I was at a registration page.  I didn’t fill it out right away.  Instead, I pulled up the root domain page and had a look around.  Wow.  It’s MySpace, with more obnoxious ads.  Then I read the TOS.  They collect personal info in the registration process which they use to target the ads to you, which would be more appropriate, I suppose, if it worked.  I went ahead and created an account, because hey, another network means another chance to be found, which means more chances at traffic, which is usually a good thing for blogs and smart-alecky shops like mine.  I filled in the name/email/password section, then stopped cold, because it wanted my Gmail password so it could rifle through my Gmail addressbook for more people to invite.

Um, NO.  I closed the tab and went straight back to the root domain, which meant I bypassed the whole “answer questions about your interests so we can target ads at you” section.  So, just like with MySpace and Facebook, it’s another place to collect friends/acquaintences and redirect them here, because there is just no point in trying to repost everything at every single networking site out there.

(Is it just me, or is the formatting being a real pain here? There’s no reason I can see for the odd line breaks.)

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

This is just to satisfy my need to be a smart-aleck, since the internet is pretty much the only good place to do that.

Now, I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m looking for more than just what I’ve got at work. There’s the possibility of a promotion (which currently involves little more than a title change and a fancy pin - no raise or anything) with the future possibility of going into management, but things seem to go so slowly. Maybe that’s because I learn so fast; downside to learning more quickly than others is that you then get bored quicker than the others!

Anyway, I’ve been looking and occasionally sending out resumes. What really gets me, though, are the online application forms. I hate those with a passion. “Let’s reduce you to what fits in this little box here, and if you don’t fit our mold exactly, the computer will dump you before we even have to look at your resume.” OTOH, the one I filled out tonight had several odd questions. Who really asks for the make/model/tag of your car and how many days you’ve missed work in the last five years? I don’t exactly mark them on the calendar.

Again, anyway, it prompted me to think of some really smart-alecky answers to common (and not-so-common) questions found on these types of things, some of which wouldn’t have been a good idea to include in an actual application (they take themselves so seriously sometimes), and hey, maybe in the future I can point people here and say, “These help?” Okay maybe not, but it’s fun to share; is there anyone who doesn’t hate filling out these seemingly endless forms?

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

So, things have been pretty hectic lately, what with all the phone calls and trips to body shops and working 35-40 hours a week and helping friends who ALSO have car trouble. (At least Pearl is ready now, but I can’t go get her until Thursday, because of scheduling) I didn’t get the accident form filled out until this week, and with the accident having been on March 19, I had to get that off today. I had questions about it, so I had to call the insurance company, but the representative wasn’t available when I called. I ended up asking someone else there, just so I could get the form finished. Because my car is in my dad’s name, I had to have his signature on it, so I didn’t have the form finished until last night. Today, I went to the post office to overnight it to Montgomery. The guy in front of me went slow enough coming up to the light that I didn’t get to the turn before the oncoming light turned green, so I had to wait. I saw a hole in traffic that might work, so I started forward, reconsidered, and stopped to wait for the rest of the traffic to clear.

BAM!

I got rear-ended by a girl who apparently thought I’d gone ahead and gone, so she’d been looking at the oncoming traffic instead of looking where she was going. I was shaking again, and thoroughly frustrated. The irony of being hit again while on the way to mail the form from the last time…! Fortunately, she hadn’t had time to get up to any great speed, so there wasn’t any noticeable new damage. There’s a lot of minor damage on the back of that van already anyway, and I couldn’t tell if she’d added anything new or not. I was already on my cell phone talking to my mom (I’d called to find out if she wanted stamps while I was at the post office) so I was a bit distracted when it came to dealing with the other driver. She was profusely apologetic, but I don’t think I really looked at her much. I checked the back of the van and determined that there wasn’t any new damage that I could tell, nodded at her when she asked if I was all right, got back in the van and started back toward the post office.

At least the post office was not slammed busy; I was able to get my form mailed off (overnight is $14.50 - ouch!) and picked up a book of stamps. If I’d remembered the new Forever stamps were available, I probably would have picked up a roll of 100 - they’re pretty cool. Buy now, use forever. I like that, especially considering we don’t go through a lot of stamps anymore.

Anyway, I’m closing at work again tonight - and there’s another long story. Work has been crazy; I’m starting to wonder if it will ever settle down, or if I just need to find something a little less stressful. We’ll have to see.

Originally published at Chrystalline. You can comment here or there.

"I was sorting through some old things when I came across my last report from school and some college brochures. I sat for a few moments just pondering this stuff. Then the first of a string of thoughts arrived; thoughts that eventually brought me to understanding "trusting thy self."

The first thought was how "indecisive" I'd been whilst growing up. How there was always someone to fall back on. Someone there to catch me every time.

I was forever losing things since I couldn't decide where the "right" place for them could be. I didn't take responsibility for my life and therefore did not decide what places were appropriate for my things. Nor could I decide what ideas, decision, responses were appropriate for me... Which ideas, decisions, and responses actions resulted in my favour in the progress of my life.

Instead of researching and finding out about possible work possibilities, I put my trust in another - since I thought they knew better what was right for me. Thus, I ended up doing not quite what I expected, or had in mind.

This trend continued on one level or another until two days ago.

What changed? Well for once the person I running to - to find out what action I should take to sort out my latest problem - was out for the day! Yikes! (Giggle!) So I thought, "Well now what?" Now what indeed! Was I going to wait and continue to suffer consequences I didn't agree with or want?

"Ummmm good question," I thought. Or, was I going to listen to the feeling inside of me that was telling me the consequences were not okay, and that I could do something about changing the consequences by acting instead of sitting wishing someone would come and save me.

I never liked to "rock the boat." What if it tipped over? Who would help me to get it back up straight? How would I handle other's reactions? Especially those in the boats around me, since I'd have made ripples in the water we shared. Oh my goodness - others might get angry at me! Gasp! Or act in ways that might cause either of us pain. Yes...

So, is it good to never make the water ripple? Good for whom? It certainly isn't good for me when I am feeling unhappy and controlled by external forces beyond myself.

I was out of control of my own craft. I never knew quite where I was going...

I didn't steer my boat of life without checking with other boaters in my waters to make sure I didn't cause a ripple effect. Though inevitably this is most impossible. Sometimes I hit a rock (I am tired, or am not seeing the results I want), sometimes I collided with another boat. My boat rocked - yet, I tried hard to first steady the other boat - at any cost. My cost.

It is very expensive to maintain such smooth waters. Much of my energy is used up. It is hard work trying never to ripple the waters or the other boaters. Yesssss.... Much harder work than paddling along and simply deciding how I'm going to steer my course when I do hit one of life's inevitable rocks. Maybe I could let my boat run over the rocks and see what happens. If what happens is destructive to me, I could steer my boat away from the rocks (remove myself). My choice. Same thing if I collide with another boater.

I have the option of expending my energy to right the other boater's craft, or I might firmly tell the other boater, "This is not okay, this way is not working for me." Then I could listen to the boater's response. The boater may resist, or may listen.

Maybe it is time to sit for a while and enjoy the sun. I don't have to allow my boat to capsize. Nor do I have to adjust my course because the other boater is not happy with my boat - unless, of course, I truly want to adjust my course. I certainly no longer adjust my course because the other boater is not happy with my course when I know my course is right for me!

The other boater may eventually be ready to discuss how we may both float around the river in harmony. Maybe the boater could decide on a neutral place that can work for both of us.

Or maybe the other boater will decide that the best option is for us to have minimal contact at present. Or that our contact will limit itself just enough to keep the waters flowing around other boats we may have in common.

This boater and my boat may never totally agree with each other. But perhaps they can decide that while they both are paddling in different directions, they are aiming towards the same destination. Therefore at times it is better for each to stay on its own path and only meet when absolutely necessary. Or not. For now. Or forever, as time will tell.

Though one thing is for sure, each boater needs to "Trust in Thy Self", and know they can handle whatever decision they make to follow their own navigation system and the consequences associated with their path.

If my boat is going where I want it to, then its likely the right path for me. If I don't like where I'm going, then maybe I need to adjust my course. If I cross paths with another boat, each of us individually must decide how to steer our respective courses. What ever direction I choose to steer my boat towards is the pathway I create. I may never know where the pathway may lead, but I will know I am in control of my own rudder. I am responsible. I am in control of the only thing I have any control over: me!

And that is all I need to work on.

Each boater is responsible for his own craft's course. Neither knows the outcome, so why trust those outside of the Self for answers? Only time will tell if the chosen path produces the desired results. Oh, it's OK to hear the other boater's opinion and weigh it, but...

No boater can tell another what steps will be the "right" ones. It is all just predicting, and predictions are never guaranteed. I think I'd rather trust my own hunches than someone else's.

So each boater can do no better than to trust it's own rudder. There are no guarantees...

Knowing there are no guarantees, why put your boat in some other captain's hands? Who knows where you want to go better than you do?

TRUST THY SELF! And look at where you can go!"