Cussedness

One of the things that has come home to me today is just how swiftly an infection can spread across the internet. If I were ever going to write about the spread of a disease in a novel I think I've found a metaphor in this one.

It hasn't, that I'm aware of, gotten any play in the news. But I don't purchase newspapers. I just read yahoo and cnn online. But I talk to people on irc and I got a few New Zealand phone calls. It lit up bright and spread swiftly across a board and through a networked community, mostly writers and those connected to them. I talked to some techie types in CA, NC and MA who reported clogged lines and one grinned with a bit of sarcasm and said "email is dying in a ditch as I watch." Considering the nature of the dark stuff I write and have sold I found that interesting.

My machine is clean, I installed the patch which I downloaded from the microsoft patch, I checked my machine out frontwards and backwards, etc. Then I changed my email address. Then I emailed my change of address to four people. One of them in running 98 on a beat up old mac, two of them I knew were clean as we'd been discussing the problem. One of them runs the suspect system altogether, and I posted to this board which is connected to the suspect system. Within moments of making the change I had notifications of virus sending from my isp. We changed the email again and now I've been free for over an hour. My isp checked me out again. Since they check both incoming and outgoing. I have a good bill of health.

Now, you writers who are reading this, just imagine what if that had been small pox or bubonic plague? My little city in a box would have been averaging around 2000 new cases every 24 hours. Frightening? Hammmmnnnn?

After awhile people would have been walking right by them like in some photos I have of pakistan taken last year that I have in copy of Time Asia International Edition. Except in those cases they were just old people no one wanted and starving children. But the look would be the same. Only the cause would be different. I'm a collector of morbid images because it makes my writing more realistic.

Happy Writing,

Janrae

Cussedness Godwar Central Station LEVEL 20 ARCH-CURMUDGEON ALL HATE MAIL WILL BE POSTED I am an out of the closet, bi-sexual gender queer and have long believed that the personal is political. Perhaps that is simply a bit of 1960s idealism that most people have outgrown; but it remains near and dear to me. I am the best-selling dark fantasy ebook author of the Dark Brothers of the Light series. I made my first short story sale at 23. it appeared in Amazons! which took the World Fantasy Award for best anthology in 1980 February 2004: In The Darkness Hunting: Tales of Chimquar the Lionhawk (wildside press) Dark Brothers of the Light Series. Renaissance Ebooks.
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Previous Entry :: Next Entry Mood: Tired Read/Post Comments (0) Share on Facebook		2003-09-22 11:27 AM Dirty sites One of the things that has come home to me today is just how swiftly an infection can spread across the internet. If I were ever going to write about the spread of a disease in a novel I think I've found a metaphor in this one. It hasn't, that I'm aware of, gotten any play in the news. But I don't purchase newspapers. I just read yahoo and cnn online. But I talk to people on irc and I got a few New Zealand phone calls. It lit up bright and spread swiftly across a board and through a networked community, mostly writers and those connected to them. I talked to some techie types in CA, NC and MA who reported clogged lines and one grinned with a bit of sarcasm and said "email is dying in a ditch as I watch." Considering the nature of the dark stuff I write and have sold I found that interesting. My machine is clean, I installed the patch which I downloaded from the microsoft patch, I checked my machine out frontwards and backwards, etc. Then I changed my email address. Then I emailed my change of address to four people. One of them in running 98 on a beat up old mac, two of them I knew were clean as we'd been discussing the problem. One of them runs the suspect system altogether, and I posted to this board which is connected to the suspect system. Within moments of making the change I had notifications of virus sending from my isp. We changed the email again and now I've been free for over an hour. My isp checked me out again. Since they check both incoming and outgoing. I have a good bill of health. Now, you writers who are reading this, just imagine what if that had been small pox or bubonic plague? My little city in a box would have been averaging around 2000 new cases every 24 hours. Frightening? Hammmmnnnn? After awhile people would have been walking right by them like in some photos I have of pakistan taken last year that I have in copy of Time Asia International Edition. Except in those cases they were just old people no one wanted and starving children. But the look would be the same. Only the cause would be different. I'm a collector of morbid images because it makes my writing more realistic. Happy Writing, Janrae Read/Post Comments (0) Previous Entry :: Next Entry Back to Top