Service Society

Lazlo Zalezac wrote this great story on SOL called Service Society. Generally, I don't read SoL stories like this because they just don't interest me. But I like Lazlo's writing and decided to give it a try.
I wasn't disappointed. I was horrified, but not by the story or poor writing. I was horrified by how spot on the story is.
In short, it's about where our society is moving to when it comes to corporations in America. It shows how workers are losing more and more of their lives every day to corporations that use and abuse us.
We're not quite where the story is, but it wouldn't take us much to get there. And if the current crop of idiotic, screaming, whining children we call congressmen (and women) don't begin to think of the country rather than their corporate masters, we WILL be there in fewer years than I care to think.
Lazlo's story has nothing to do with politics though. It's about one man who finally has had enough and leaves the company that's destroyed his life. In the story, he doesn't view himself as a hero, and he's certainly nowhere near perfect. But he has a vision of what a real service society should look like and tries to bring it about.
So many of the concepts in this story stand out to me as common sense: Making products that work. Letting engineers, not morons from marketing -- and certainly not idiotic managers -- design and build products. Like building products that are designed to last longer than the GE mandated 3 months
I wonder what it would be like to live in a world like that? Because I have the feeling I'm never going to see it. OUR 'service society' will mean getting on our knees and sucking off our corporate masters.

Online Identity, Clouds and Google

I was totally into the whole Google Plus thing. I really was! I thought, hey, here's a place for adults. Where we could, you know, have Adult conversations and content. Unlike Facebook, who deletes you without warning for random reasons.
The concept of Circles was awesome (even though they clearly stole it from my Avatar story)! I could have other writers in my Circles. I could have fans in some Circles. I could follow people in yet more Circles. It was going to ROCK.
Then... Reality set in.
Now, I'll admit that, at the time of this writing, Google plus is in beta. But fuck, Gmail was in beta FOR YEARS, so I'm not putting too much stock into when G+ will be OUT of beta.
So, about that Reality thing. It appears, that G+ was designed for families and children only. Adult content is not welcome. And, if you post it, they could, and did, bounce your ass. Said bounce could suspend your G+ account -- and every-fucking-other account you had with Google! Your email, calendars and whatever else they felt like taking away from you.
Worse, G+ DEMANDS in the TOS that you use your real name. Oh, artists are allowed to use an alias, but I'm pretty sure it's still supposed to be linked to your real name.
That is total bullshit.
Since there were TONS of discussions dealing with this topic, and several articles written on it, I'm not going to go into great depth here, other than to say that these two ... problems ... make G+ even less suitable for my needs than Facebook.
And here's where the inline identity thing comes in. Dark Pen is my online identity -- or one of them, anyway. But it's the name I write under, the name that writing is known by and I had damned good reasons for not writing under my real name. I'm not going to tie the Dark Pen name to my real name because Google doesn't understand people's reasons for privacy.
Since Dark Pen is an alias, I'm going to remove myself from G+ before they come along and discover I've broken their terms of 'service' and delete all my stuff. Or lock it out and force me to reveal to them who I really am to get it back. 
Yes, I know they could pretty easily track me down. But currently, they have no reason to, and I'd like to keep it that way.
I was trying to get a following on Blogger (which was failing miserably), but then I realized that THAT was a Google product. So. I'll leave that blog alone. I'll put in something saying that I've moved to Wordpress (although I'm still maintaining my LJ account -- where people actually comment and respond to me) and plan to continue here. I will set up pop to download my Gmail, and I've already pulled all my Gmail contacts into Hotmail.
I don't plan to boycott Google -- something that would be almost impossible anyway. And, if they get their shit together and acknowledge the rights of adults, I'll return to G+. But for now? I think it's better not to trust the 'Cloud' with my data (not that I ever did, really) and not to keep all my online eggs in one basket.
Links to Violet Blue's excellent articles on the current state of Google +:
google-plus-fast-cheap-and-out-of-control
google-plus-deleting-accounts-en-masse-no-clear-answers

Avatar Book 2 Chapter 50!

Well, I've just posted the 50th chapter of Avatar, book 2. Fifty chapters. That's gotta be a milestone, right? Some kind of, I dunno... something.

It's not finished though. But unlike last time when I got to 50 chapters, I'm not starting a new Establishment book. Two's more than enough.

Honestly, I thought I'd be finished by now, but I didn't realize just how many plotlines I have running. It's not as if I don't have an ending for them, but it's more work than I expected to weave everything together and make it fun to read.

Lately, I've run up against something that I hadn't expected: What to do about a character. See, there is a set number of people who will be part of the Founding Circle, and I thought I had all of them. In fact, I was so certain of it, that I have six chapter (that's thirty THOUSAND words) written about the character already. And now I don't know if I'll be able to use it, because I don't know if that character is going to be part of the First Circle. I'm sure I'll finish out that char's story at some point, but now I'm no longer sure when that'll be.

There's another character that I introduced a while ago, who's been showing up a fair amount, and I don't know what to do about that one either. At least as far as adding said character to the Founding Circle.

I've had a number of people ask if I'm going to finish Avatar. The answer is 'Yes'. Establishment is going to be finished. After all these years of writing it, it would annoy me if I didn't finish it. I used to be able to post a chapter a week. Now I'm down to one a month, which is up from the number of times I posted in the last two years. For that you have my apologies -- but as you've read in my posts, life ain't been all the great. Still isn't, but I'm trying not to let it interfere with my writing.

Speaking of which, I sent off something to Totally eBound a while ago. I haven't heard back from them yet , but when I do, I'll let you know. I think it's a good piece -- although they might not agree. I don't seem to have much luck with the more main stream publishers. However, even if they don't like it, I'm going to post it for sale on Amazon. That should be interesting, at the very least.