I started writing an earlier entry this evening about how I'd broken my cable box by glitching its power supply, but after several minutes of muttering and counting to itself in hexadecimal it recovered. I persist in thinking that American power outlets and most plugs are badly designed; the British ones may be oversized and clumsy, but the plugs don't fall out of the sockets if you look at them wrong. (The particular problem in this instance involves stiff cords that stick straight out from the wall, exerting undue leverage even on the fairly solid plugs, and rather old, loose outlets inconveniently placed with respect to a table, in combination with a cable box that really doesn't like to lose power even for half a second.)
I continue to have fun with the Palm, having now loaded it with a variety of reading material, mostly by way of Plucker and the Baen free library. Using the stylus to write extended fiction keeps bringing to mind, inappropriately, that Jane Austen quote about working on a small slip of ivory. For stream-of-consciousness first draft, it actually works quite nicely, but it's odd to have such a small window on the text, and to have to think about the input letter by letter. (Yes, I know I'm a few years late to the party on this one. Non-phone-enabled handhelds are probably an endangered species, but I'll enjoy this one while it lasts.)
Ambassador is past 25,000 words, with most of today's input done in the old-fashioned way. Tense negotiations are going on, but I have no clue what the enemy is doing in the meantime. Hovering? Boarding and fighting hand-to-hand towards the conference room? Sending observers? Also, in spite of Harry's best efforts, Louise has just been presented with a choice that looks a lot like an ultimatum.
I continue to have fun with the Palm, having now loaded it with a variety of reading material, mostly by way of Plucker and the Baen free library. Using the stylus to write extended fiction keeps bringing to mind, inappropriately, that Jane Austen quote about working on a small slip of ivory. For stream-of-consciousness first draft, it actually works quite nicely, but it's odd to have such a small window on the text, and to have to think about the input letter by letter. (Yes, I know I'm a few years late to the party on this one. Non-phone-enabled handhelds are probably an endangered species, but I'll enjoy this one while it lasts.)
Ambassador is past 25,000 words, with most of today's input done in the old-fashioned way. Tense negotiations are going on, but I have no clue what the enemy is doing in the meantime. Hovering? Boarding and fighting hand-to-hand towards the conference room? Sending observers? Also, in spite of Harry's best efforts, Louise has just been presented with a choice that looks a lot like an ultimatum.