(no subject)

HEY WAY NOT TO FALL DOWN THE ESCALATOR SAM!

So the down escalator was moving, and I got onto it, and as you do I started walking down the escalator. And about four steps from the bottom the escalator stopped. It didn't slow down, it didn't screech to a halt, it just stopped. And all this would be a fascinating story about physics if I could do math, but instead what happened is that it stopped as my balance was shifting to the next step and I LEAPT FORWARD as if shot from a cannon. But I landed on my feet! On the lower floor! Swearing!

TADAA!

*jazz hands*

I can't help but think this story would have been more interesting to retell if I'd fallen in a heap at the base of the stairs, but being forcibly ejected from an escalatorpult and recovering for a ten-point landing was still cooler in the moment.

(no subject)

Okay, it looks like the "hackers" who got me are up to old tricks again. So.

NOTE ADDED 3/12: The hackers are now posting to comms they've hacked warning against hackers and linking to "me", as many other comm mods have done. Except the link goes to their creepy spampage instead, and they've hilariously mis-spelled my name. Note sarcasm.

I fucking hate how paranoid this sounds but: if you see a warning post, or a suspicious post of any nature, for god's sake hover your mouse over the link and check the URL that shows up in the lower left corner of your browser to make sure it's actually directing you where it says it is. If you don't recognise any part of the URL, don't click.

And onwards.

HOW TO PROTECT YOURSELF FROM LOW TECH FAIRLY INGENIOUS HACKERS
By Sam Starbuck, Age 29 1/2

( How to defend yourself against this particular hack, report it, and protect yourself against their spyware. )

I am leaving comments open but please be aware that I am not LJ Tech Support nor am I in contact with anyone else who has been hacked. If you ask a question that is answered in this post or that you could get the answer to from Google or the LJ FAQ, I will probably not reply, though someone else might. Mac users, I have minimal Mac experience; if you post here someone else might help you, but I can't.

If you would like to use this post as a messageboard to contact people who have been hacked or to let people know you have been hacked, please feel free.

(no subject)

Ahh, domesticity. I've done two cycles of dishes (drying rack = small, dishes = many, one more to go) and there's bread rising for baking tomorrow.

I sat down and wrote that about four hours ago as the start of a journal entry. Then I decided to revamp the author's postscript on Nameless as yet one more way of avoiding rewriting chapter thirteen. I've only just come up for air in any real sense, and I think I just wrote a fucking manifesto of the digital literati.

I'm not qualified for this kind of shit! I bailed on my English major eight years ago! I write pornography about television shows!

But all the same, I kind of think I'm on to something here.

I have come to learn that control is the most basic tool in a writer's skill set. It seems to me that, as the gap between writer and readership widens, sensible self-control becomes more and more uncommon. Anne Rice has become infamous for refusing to accept commentary from her readers. Some writers have rejected the internet, as a whole, because it is so uncontrolled. I theorise that they do not have the patience or understanding to accept that the burden of responsibility is on them now; I theorise that they fear losing the illusion of control they have had because they are insulated from the wild, organic humanity of the digital community. But who knows? What I know is that I have accomplished more by exerting ironclad control over my shallower impulses, both towards my readers and towards my writing, than I ever accomplished under the assumption that because I was a Writer I knew everything.

Regardless of the quality of the narrative, regardless of whether you like me or like this book, [Nameless is] an extribulum. Twenty-five years ago there was no possibility for it to exist. It is a symbol of a new thing, the incunabula of the internet age.

I highly doubt Nameless will set the world on fire, but it is one small part of the future: someday an extribulum will change our entire human experience purely because it will be available on a scale "dead-tree" publishers only dream of. I'm not afraid; I hope I'm there to see it happen.

And then, you know, I read back a few entries on the journal and there's me almost falling off an escalator.

It's good not to take oneself too seriously.

God, sleep now. *conks*