WMBP - HWE

Wednesday Morning Bullet Post - Holy Week Edition...

• Lots of people say that they are worried about online identity theft. Do you know what can be done to protect yourself? For one thing, you can use strong passwords.



• A strong password is one that is difficult for a hacker to crack.



• Short passwords are easy to crack. Any word found in a dictionary is easy to crack. Common people, place, and pet names are easy to crack. So, what does this leave? Combinations of all characters: use uppercase as well as lowercase and toss in special characters.



• You can test example passwords at Password Meter.



• lollipop gets a 0% rating. (Found in all English dictionaries.)



• L@liePahp is better at 48%.



• But, *L0!!iePahP# wins with a whopping 100% rating.



• And it is still easy to remember.



• Why do I bring this up? John P posted a good blog article entitled How I'd Hack Your Weak Passwords in which he presents solid statistics for the techniques mentioned.



• Happy Birthday, Mommy Sheep!



• I haven't knit in over a week. This hasn't happened to me since I started knitting seriously in 2005. My mojo is definitely MIA. If you should happen to trip over it in your local coffee shop, bookstore, or library, could you please nourish it with some tea and a cookie or two, pat it on the head, point it towards home, and give it a gentle push?



• Thanks. Socks and sweaters do not knit themselves, after all.



• They haven't got opposable thumbs, you see.



• Hmm, by that logic, a singular hand-knit pair of gloves should be able to spawn an entire race of knitwear.



• Opops, I think I just channelled The Matrix.



• It's raining here.



• Still.



• People are making ark jokes.



• Getting a bit stale, in my humble opinion.



• Forecast is for clearing skies later today; that's a good thing.



• Another (potentially) good thing is that one of the other computer science adjuncts over at the college is moving on to an exciting new position somewhere else. This is good for him because he's got a new full-time job. It is good for me because I am going to take over the last month of his programming class.



• Number Guy is sacrificing band practice for those classes. He volunteered to do it, commenting that this is a good opportunity to move forward to the more challenging classes and maybe a foot in the door should a permanent position open up in the department.



• There will be a lot of brushing-up and preparation to do in the next couple of weeks.



• Note to self: get current instructor's grades.



• Wish me luck.



• Neatnik has 50 new books under her belt so far this year. Time to take her out for ice cream again.



• And back to the library.



• Speaking of books and Neantik, only two authors have returned my emails regarding Neatnik's school's fund raiser, :: sigh ::, but both of them are donating, so that's good.



• Speaking of Neatnik and Neatnik's school, we are having another Box Tops for Education contest. Anyone who wants to mail me some for the second grade, leave me a comment or drop me a line, 'kay? We have to turn them in to school by April 12th.

I guess it is about time to get some work done so I wish everyone a happy middle of Holy Week as a prelude to wishing you a Happy Easter come Sunday.

In which trek reviews Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters

Ben H Winters describes his contribution to Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monstersas a kind of literary microsurgery. Taking Jane Austen's original Regency-era work, he added new text and (graphic) new scenes replete with frightening and formidable water creatures, of both supernatural and mundane descriptions. Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters is only about 60% of original Austen and about 40% surgical additions by Winters.

As a concrete example of this "microsurgery" on words, let us first take a look at the beginning of chapter one of Sense and Sensibility:

"The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance. The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. But her death, which happened ten years before his own, produced a great alteration in his home."

Next, let us examine the beginning of chapter one of Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters:

"The family of Dashwood had been settled in Sussex since before the Alteration, when the waters of the world grew cold and hateful to the sons of man, and darkness moved on the face of the deep.

The Dashwood estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the dead centre of their property, set back from the shoreline several hundred yards and ringed by torches.

The late owner of this estate was a single man, who lived to a very advanced age, and who for many years of his life, had a constant companion and housekeeper in his sister. Her death came as a surprise, ten years before his own; she was beating laundry upon a rock that revealed itself to be the camouflaged exoskeleton of an overgrown crustacean, a striated hermit crab the size of a German shepherd. The enraged creature affixed itself to her face with a predictably unfortunate effect. As she rolled helplessly in the mud and sand, the crab mauled her most thoroughly, suffocating her mouth and nasal passages with its mucocutaneous undercarriage. Her death caused a great change in the elderly Mr Dashwood's home."

All of that action before the end of the first page! (Yes, I am rapidly becoming ensnared by the new literary genre of monster mashups.)

The very strict manners and somewhat stilted language patterns common to Regency-era literature are both retained, lending a certain weightiness and formality to the action. Winters' adherence to Austen's style makes the insertion of the sea monsters nearly seamless; there is no awkward transition between his "voice" and hers. The melding of the two authors is so smooth that in a few scenes, the main characters deliberately ignore the proximity of impending sea monster attack because acknowledging their peril could be construed as bad form if not outright cowardly rudeness!

I kept waiting for the dark, scary, minor-key music to start playing.

Quirk Classics reports that while Mr Winters is available for media, Ms Austen is not.

Autographed copies?

Things have been tremendously busy around here the past week or two. Thanks for the suggestions for donation possibilities for the Neatnik's school's fundraiser. I put together and donated a knitter's delight basket.

Today was a gift wrapping session at the school, so I brought in my donation and while I was there working on baskets, I noticed that someone had contacted Dean Koontz and he sent us an autographed copy of one of his books!

Can someone please explain why/how this did not occur to me? Me, the incessantly reading blogger??

Just shot off emails to a few of the authors who have commented on my blog.

Yes, we are still way behind and the event takes place in just a few weeks from now...

PS - If you are a published author who would be willing to donate, please leave me a comment so I can provide contact details, including snail mail address. I promise to shout about your coolness to all and sundry! Thanks.

In which the PTA emails

When I opened my personal email this morning, I was rather surprised to see one with the subject line GIFT AUCTION SOS. I deleted it straightaway because I did not recognize the sender and, let's face it, that's a fishy phishy sounding subject line. About three seconds later it occurred to me that maybe I shouldn't have deleted it out of hand: Neatnik's school sponsors an annual gift auction. It will take place next month. I quickly opened my Deleted Items folder and restored the message to my Inbox. Am I ever glad that I did. It was from one of Neatnik's school's PTA officers.

· · ·   - - -   · · ·

Many of our eighth grade graduates decide to attend either one of the several local Catholic high schools or their local public high school. A sizeable number of students, however, opt to take the entrance examination for one of our county's five career high schools. Over twenty percent of our eighth graders are accepted and attend these magnet-type schools.

Yes, our students are well-prepared for secondary education and we manage to do it while at the same time (a) being the only parochial school in the area which still offers discounted tuition for second and third children in the same family; and (b) having some of the highest standardized test scores.

How do we accomplish this?

Besides having some great teachers and very dedicated parents, the PTA has hosted a gift auction for almost thirty years. Approximately 500 women attend each year and the proceeds have always been significant. The profits are used to fill the gap between tuition revenue and actual operating costs.

· · ·   - - -   · · ·

After the obligatory salutation, the email I received included a very detailed description of the current crisis. We, as a PTA, have secured less than half of the projected donations which we will need for this event. Coupled with that statistic was the footnote that, in light of current economic conditions, the PTA officers reduced the donation target number from last year's gift auction. Parents were strongly encouraged to attempt to solicit additional donations.

Today, the local movie theater gave me four passes good for any showing; a liquor store across town supplied me with a bottle of red wine; my chiropractor tossed me a cervical pillow; and our dentist will be coming through tomorrow morning with a coupon for free teeth whitening. A couple of jewelers and restaurants and snack eateries all promised to call me back as did the cell phone store where I plan to obtain coverage as soon as our current contract expires.

Where else should I ask for donations?

In which Neatnik is clingy

Just a quick little Saturday Morning Bullet Post to note that

• The weather is supposed to be truly beautiful today. Perfect parading weather.



• Which is good since Number Guy has a parade today, so I am on Day 4 of caring for the clingy sick child solo.



• Number Guy had bagpipe gigs on Tuesday and Thursday evenings this week, so I went to visit some friends solo last night.



• I got home close to midnight.



• Yes, it was quite nice actually, thanks for asking.



• I got to meet our friends' new dog.



• They adopted a full-grown shepard/rottie mix.



• What a lap sluh-t!



• I took three different antihistamines before leaving the house so as to prevent any sort of allergic reaction.



• Yes, I needed to get out of the house that badly.



• See previous statements regarding clingy sick child.



• Speaking of the sick child, Neatnik is still running a fever but is now on antibiotics and should start feeling better very soon.



• She really needs to go back to school on Monday. Three missed days is plenty enough, isn't it?



• The minivan is (finally) officially paid off.



• We had never before had a five year auto loan but the manufacturer was offering 0% interest with the five year term when we made our purchase.



• Kind of difficult to pass up five years of OPM.



• Financing a major purchase via OPM is very thrifty!



• Spring break was this past week.



• How convenient that Neatnik was sick the week that I did not have to report to the classroom.



• Classes resume Monday monring.



• No, most of my students did not upload their homework.



• :: le sigh ::



• Number Guy has just appeared in the living room in his piping regalia.

Solo parenting resumes in three... two... one...

Céad mile fáilte!

Fáilte, or welcome, to Wednesday Morning Bullet Posting, St Patrick's Day style.

• I considered changing the font color to green for today.



• Then I realized how annoying it would be for my blog peeps.



• So, I didn't.



• Beannachtaí na Féile Páraic oraibh!



• We, having the Irish in our genes, are planning to wear our green today.



• Did you know that the color originally associated with Naomh Pádraig was blue?



• I like blue better than green.



• I'll wear blue jeans with my green shirt.



• Sr Principal granted Neatnik and her schoolmates a uniform dispensation today: all students are wearing their gym pants and green shirts.



• Except for Neatnik, who is "celebrating" today with a 101.4°F fever.



• Gliondar.



• Dr PreciousMetal will enjoy seeing her dressed in green this afternoon.



• And I'm sure that he will enjoy receiving some of the other kind of green.



• Saw an epic win over on the Failblog yesterday.



• Don't be embarrassed: I kept clicking to replay from the 11 second mark, too.

That's pretty much all I've got today. In honor of the patron of me ancestors, allow me to sign off with a hymn excerpted from Saint Patrick's Breastplate:

Christ be beside me
Christ be before me
Christ be behind me
King of my heart

Christ be within me
Christ be below me
Christ be above me
Never to part

Christ on my right hand
Christ on my left hand
Christ all around me
Shield in my strife

Christ in my sleeping
Christ in my sitting
Christ in my rising
Light of my life

and a traditional Irish blessing:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.

In which trek reviews Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

The beginning of Chapter One of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls,by Steve Hockensmith...

"Walking out in the middle of a funeral would be, of course, bad form. So attempting to walk out on one's own was beyond the pale."

Yeah, that's when I knew, right then, that I was going to enjoy this book.

Hockensmith provides a prequel set four years prior to the events Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, in which the juxtaposition of proper English manners and zombies, er, sorry, unmentionables is not just entertaining but engaging and, above all, well-written.

Elizabeth Bennett was sixteen years old and on the cusp of her coming out. Then recently deceased Mr Ford sat up in his coffin during his funeral. Now, Elizabeth and her sisters are training in the deadly arts, preparing to defend themselves and all of Hertfordshire against the walking dead, oops, there I went again, the sorry stricken.

Though the transformation of the Bennett girls from demure young ladies to zombie hunters, ack, sorry once more, dreadful exterminators, is instigated by and embarked upon by their dear father, not everyone approves.

Overly class conscious Mrs Bennett is aghast. Her gently-raised daughters should be doing all they can to climb the social ladder and to secure well-to-do husbands from the upper crust of society not running about the countryside waving weapons and bellowing battle cries. The poor woman just doesn't seem to comprehend that if someone doesn't step forward to stem the tide of animated corpses swimming up from their graves, good manners (or lack thereof) will be a moot point.

Mrs Bennett, however, is not alone in her delusion. Genteel Mrs Gostwick is so shocked and appalled that she retracts Jane and Elizabeth's invitations to her grand ball. After all, well-bred, cultured young ladies should be wielding paintbrushes, goose feather quills, and embroidery needles not katanas, quarterstaffs, and throwing stars; they should be studying Latin conjugations and the pianoforte not war tactics and strategy.

This book certainly lives up to Quirk Classic's self-described genre of irreference. Drawing room manners are described side-by-side with disinterrments and decapitations. Girlish giggles and adoescent speculation about who is attracted to whom contrast sharply with graphic discussions on the relative "freshness" of the zombies and their fewmets. Oh, and let us not forget the recurrent refrain of "brrrrrrrrrraaaaaaiiiiinnnnsss!"

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls will be released in trade paperback (Amazon, Barnes and Noble) and e-book formats (Kindle, Nook, Sony Reader) on March 23rd. Audio book devotees will have to wait one additional day for their zombie fix.

In which trek says,

"Have a happy Pi Day!"

In which it's the network

You've heard of road rage, well this is a story of phone rage...

Once upon a time, trek worked for a big, international, trading house. While there, trek worked on a lot of different pieces of software all designed to provide investors with the opportunity to buy and sell investments through the Internet. It was a golden time for these here Interwebs!

Shortly after starting, trek was assigned the task of developing trading software for cell phones. Yes, cell phones! Think back to late 1999/early 2000. Most cell phones which were available then had a (very) limited display. The project requirements included using no more than 18 characters per line. Cell phone displays were so tiny that most phones could show only three lines of text.

Did trek have a cell phone to usher in Y2K? Nope, just programming for them.

Along about the middle of the summer, Number Guy and trek decided to invest in cell phones. Working during the day and going to graduate school at night increased trek's need to be able to reach out and touch someone. They selected a carrier and a plan and they were just a phone call away no matter the miles which lay between them.

Fast forward to 2004...

Number Guy and trek became dissatisfied with their carrier's pricing policies and shopped for a new carrier. The new plan was both cheaper and better and they were pleased.

Fast forward to 2010...

The current carrier is going to be fired - as soon as the current contract expires. Why?

Reason One: Poor quality phones. Had to replace the current phone one month after the warranty expired - halfway through a two-year contract. While there are some cool bells and whistles on these phones, the battery life is pathetic. Plug in the phone and leave it overnight. Unplug the phone in the morning. Check the battery icon - full charge, good! Carry the phone all day. Decide to make a call sometime in the afternoon and notice that the battery icon is only 1/3 green. Make a five minute call and then listen to the phone beginning to bleat in exhaustion because the battery is about to cough up and die.

Reason Two: Spotty coverage. Seriously. There is never any coverage inside Neatnik's school. Some days, there is coverage in the parking lot of Neatnik's school though never in the school. Other days, it is a dead zone and you have to drive two miles away before coverage is restored. How do I know this? That's about where the car is when "you have a message" alert starts to chime.

Reason Three: Inconsistent coverage. Not to be confused with the "spotty coverage" in Reason Two. Picture this: two identical cell phones, one belonging to Number Guy and one belonging to trek, both sporting full charge and sitting side by side on the kitchen counter. Pick up the trek phone and attempt to make a call. "No network coverage". WTF? Check display. Sure enough, signal strength is zero. Zero. Check Number Guy's phone. Full signal strength. Reboot the offending phone. Check the display again. Still no signal strength. What, this phone is nearsighted or something?

Reason Four: Most clan trek contacts are on the same network. They all have good coverage everywhere. Everywhere. Inside the church basement. At the beach. In mountainous regions. Calls within their network are included. Talk as long as they want. Not so much on the Number Guy/trek network.

Counting down to cell phone freedom... it's the network.

Of dishcloths and zombies

Well, good afternoon!

I am Mrs Heucking.

Last summer, I gave birth to a litter of Ladder (Ravelry link) dishcloths. It wasn't a long labor for a crochet hook, though I am fairly certain that none of my human acquaintances would have been happy with its protracted length.

Would you like to meet my children?

Jane

Jane and Elizabeth

Jane, Elizabeth, and Mary

Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, and Kitty

Jane, Elizabeth, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia*

It took some doing to convince the girls that the hot tub would be fun...

O noes!

Get in, you'll love it!

Come on, move along, now...

That means you two as well

Once they were all in,

the lot of them enjoyed the warm, sudsy water immensely, so much so that they were all quite

wrung out

by the end of the day.

A minor squabble between Lydia and Kitty required me to separate the two of them but once each girl had her own "room", all was well

and quiet.

While my girls napped, I indulged in a cuppa English Breakfast.

:: sigh ::

* trek just started an ARC of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls

In which trek follows

Following in the footsteps of my favorite Sheepie for tonight's Wednesday Night Bullet Post...

• Something very strange has been happening at work lately.



• Two things, really.



• Thing the first: attendance is up. Way up. I have no idea why so many students are coming to class on a regular basis but I was talking with the department chair on Monday afternoon and he said that he'd noticed the same thing this semester.



• It is truly a mystery.



• Thing the second: I have fewer funny student emails to share. I have a theory on this, though.



• Last semester was the first semester I used a class blog. I made a grand total of 41 posts over the fifteen weeks of the fall semester.



• Yeah, I know, that was more than I made here. This blog doesn't pay the bills and that one does.



• We are halfway through the spring semester and I have already made 50 posts. I am going to go out on a limb here and posit that I am answering their questions sufficiently in those blog posts so that they do not need to email me individual queries.



• Perhaps I typed too soon. I just checked my college email account. I had an email from a Monday student the other asking what time my Friday class meets. I answered that class begins at 8 o'clock in the morning. This student sent me a reply to that email, asking what time my Friday class meets. The answer was in the email she sent me. I had provided the time and she replied to that email.



• This student also whined that I had not yet graded their most recent blog post.



• Next week is spring break.



• Is anyone surprised that I am looking forward to it? Even though we are not going anywhere?



• No, I didn't suppose so.



• I am looking forward to break.



• Even though we are not going anywhere.



• I knit some on the sweater yesterday. I now have a body up to the arms and one cuff.



• The Girl Scout cookie order arrived.



• I packed up the ones for Number Guy's co-workers and the neighbors and friends and family and then I looked for ours.



• It wasn't there.



• It wasn't there because I forgot to write it on the order form.



• Oops.

"Alice" is here and the clicking of Number Guy's mouse is causing my head to throb most painfully so this is a good place to end. Too bad I don't have any Girl Scout cookies with which to medicate my head.

Happy Wednesday.

Signs of spring

I needed a little extra incentive to take a walk this morning. I decided to take my camera and to look for signs of spring. I found several...

Formamen asphaltus americanus
Or the common domestic pothole

Narcissus

Turdidae migratorius

Arborus ignotus
Meaning "I don't know what kind of tree this is"

This week in pollen...

Fluticasone propionate for nasal inhalation
Also known as totally necessary

(Just) desserts

Taking advantage of the short break between teaching and the arrival of the big, yellow student conveyance to present to the blogosphere a Friday Afternoon Bullet Post...

• First, I have to say that there have been some issues at work that have required quite a bit of my time and attention this week - things of a not-bloggable nature.



• This should explain my somewhat less than interesting Wednesday post and my totally absent Thursday post.



• I have every reason to believe that the issues are now resolved and I should be able to return to my normal blog posting and blog reading routines.



• Last Friday was a snow day. I spent hours working on an excruciatingly detailed tutorial for the class blog so that my Friday students would not end up behind my Monday students.



• The college may have been closed, but Internet access was not impaired. They turn in their homework assignments by uploading their files to their testing accounts so there was no reason not to assign the scheduled homework.



• Seven out of 38 students submitted their spreadsheet assignments on time.



• Yes, I was rather put out. I spent more hours working on the tutorial for the blog than if I'd gone to the school in person to lecture.



• Our department policy includes the requirement to penalize assignments for lateness. I usually go with a 10% deduction.



• Instead of dinging the late students on this assignment, I decided to grant a bonus to the ones who were on time and to reassign the due date for the rest of the class.



• Those who were responsible enough to check the class blog as directed were awarded a 50% bonus.



• I am so ready for spring break.



• Just checked Neatnik's school calendar. Today is report card day and next week is standardized testing week.



• Did I mention that I am looking forward to spring break? Said break runs the length and breadth of the week of March 14th this year.



• I haven't had much opportunity to knit this week. I added one square to the mitered squares sock blanket yesterday.



• Spring break is a good time for knitting, isn't it?



• The sweater in progress makes whimpering noises at me every time I walk by the project bag in the living room.



• It is trying to make me feel guilty.



• I finished the first book of a series yesterday on my walk. I am debating whether or not to read book two of the set. The author used the same plot contrivance in this book as she did in the first book of her other series.



• I am curious how she is going to resolve a major loose end, though. I have my suspicions. Perhaps this is just a walk and read series...



• How many more days until Changes?



• Trying to decide what to make for dinner tonight. I need something meatless for a carnivorous clan.



• I'd go with a coin toss but tomorrow is the school's sports association's annual pasta dinner so we'll be well and truly "carb-ed" then.



• Perhaps eggs? We like breakfast for dinner every so often.



• The PTA asks parents to volunteer to make desserts for the pasta dinner.



• Pay for dinner and BYOD.



• I don't think it is BYOB, though: we will be dining in the school cafeteria and it is a fund-raiser for the sports teams.



• I made a tres leche cake on Wednesday. It needs a couple of days to "age" in the refrigerator as the cake soaks up the milk glaze.



• Before the dinner, I'll section the cake part out into jumbo muffin foil cups and adorn with the frosting.



• Then I shall have to hold Neatnik and Number Guy off the dessert tray with a wooden spoon - just long enough to get them to the dinner.

Tomorrow's dinner is being catered by a local Italian restaurant, so we have high hopes that the food will be better than either Chef Boyardee or that unidentifiable mess often served in public school lunchrooms. Even if it isn't, I know there will be at least on dessert available which I shall enjoy!

Linky

Just a quick "word" reminder: I list my new books read each year on my book blog, trek's book blog. Yeah, really witty title, I know.

This year, I've color-coded the book titles by genre and this morning, I included a gadget in the sidebar with links to the author's web sites. Currently, this linked list has only this year's authors. I would like to expand the list to include past year's authors as well. Most likely, I'll be adding authors a few at a time.

Some authors do not have web sites per se but have brief bios or profiles on their publisher's web site. For a deceased author, I linked to a Wikipedia entry, where possible.

If you are looking for a new author or a new series, I hope you drop in for a visit. Please feel free to leave comments over there, too.

In which there are Changes

I recently gave my students an ethics assignment. What with all of the DRM concerns and lack of interoperability, e-books/e-readers seemed like an interesting topic to have them research.

Of the students who indicated an interest in e-books, none of them currently own such a device - of any brand, make, or model. A few students reported that while they are intrigued by e-books, they are waiting until the dust of the format war settles and the upfront cost of a reader declines.

Most of my students reported that e-books did not appeal to them. Some of these students cited their lack of interest in books at all as the reason. Some stated that they use a computer a lot already and that they didn't want to strain their eyes reading from a screen when they could read from the printed page. Other students claimed that they like to relax with their books, that holding a book and physically turning the pages is almost therapeutic or zen. Still another student subset was doubtful that they could recoup the high cost of investing in an e-reader.

Aside: here are links to free and legal Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook apps:

• Kindle for PC


• Kindle for MAC


• Kindle for iPhone


• Kindle for Blackberry



• Nook for PC


• Nook for MAC


• Nook for iPhone or iTouch


• Nook for Blackberry

Sorry about the linky detour, I was going to place it at the bottom of the post but then, well, you'll see...

Interestingly, only one or two students mentioned that they use the local library and any reader would increase their costs. Just one student observed that Americans are way too lazy and a person should be willing to get off their seats, drive to the bookstore, and spend some time in the stacks.

One of my current crop of college kids dreams of someday becoming a published author. Student With Writing Aspirations was vehemently against electronic books of any kind, with or without DRM applied. SWWA feels that electronic books without DRM are too easily copied and that e-books carrying DRM are too easily hacked. This student's post was very interesting to read. It was clear to me that SWWA has pondered the problem of protecting intellecutal property rights and, though I disagreed with the conclusions, the argument was carefully presented and deserving of full credit on the assignment.

I am left wondering how successful authors view this controversy. Let me use as an example Jim Butcher* (trek waves to Jim, if he's reading). Why did I pick on Jim? Well, besides the fact that he's an all-around great guy, I have thoroughly enjoyed The Dresden Files, book 12 of which (Changes) will be released into the wild on April 6th. Changes will be released in both hardcover and in Kindle editions simultaneously.

Obviously, Jim and many other authors are delivering their work in electronic format. Why not all writers? Why is it that some authors are behind e-formats and others run from the whole notion like Toot-toot fleeing the Gruff? What makes one e-book outlet more attractive to authors than another content provider? Does the author have input into this decision or is it strictly a publishing house perogative?

* If you just can't wait until April for your Dresden fix, Jim, the master of the cliff-hanger chapter endings, is releasing the first four chapters, one chapter a week, from now until the release. Chapter 1 was posted (early) this morning.