Birth of a Boat
 

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:10:35 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:01:57 GMT, Tom Francis
wrote:

I swear to you, we've discussed her articles ad nauseam - she cannot
deliver a 1000 word article in under 2500 words. :) Almost
everything she does has to be broken into two parts.

One time she sent me an article she did about some strange type of
skin cancer and asked me what I thought of it. I replied with my
usual "you've got to gut this and get to the point" so she challenged
me to gut it and still make it meaningful. She would submit both
pieces and see which one was accepted.

I did, I won and she didn't speak to me for two weeks. :)

Being paid by the word just might have an impact on your writing style
I suspect.

You probably cost her some serious $$$s.

Well, in her case, it's a question of being very, extremely and
incredibly smart and a deep researcher. When she gets on a roll, she
just doesn't know when to quit - everything is fair game.

I've often told her that what she really needs to do is return to
school and this time, take up medicine. :)

Birth of a Boat
 

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:22:32 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:35:03 GMT, Tom Francis
wrote:

Wayne Green was a cheap...um...never mind.

He was an interesting character though. I believe he was married to
the publisher of BYTE (maybe Virginia Green ?), and she claimed he had
nothing to fo with the magazine. Who knows, the truth about some
things with NSD was elusive.

He was a character - very much like Larry who occasionally visits here
in fact. I met him once when I was writing and editing QEX (the
experimental magazine) for the ARRL. He seemed fairly normal, but he
was always at odds with TPTB at the League. Of course, in Wayne's
World, he invented or instigated everything in the world of amateur
radio

I really enjoyed 73 until he lost Byte in his divorce. He started
Byte, made a ton of money, lost it in some other ventures and
eventually lost Byte. He went right off the deep end when that
happened.

I always enjoyed Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar articles although I
don't think I ever built any of his projects. Apparently he's still
around:

http://www.circuitcellar.com/

I never did either, but they seemed like solid designs.

When I was at the ARRL, I had the misfortune to edit one of Doug
DeMaw's (W1FB) DIY articles for a CW QRP rig. Looking at the design,
there was no way in hell the thing was going to work so I made some
changes, made revisions to the article and returned it to him for
review.

A couple of days later, I was called into Dick Sumner's office and
read the riot act - THOU SHALT NOT CRITIQUE, TEST OR OTHERWISE ALTER
ARTICLES BY W1FB....

Turns out the joke around the ARRL lab was you spent as much time
debugging the design as you did building it. :)

Anyone remember Volkswriter? Neat word processor written by a Chilean
named "Camille...something or other" out in Monterey, California, guy
who did it as a moonlight project while an employee of the Navy language
school.

Yep.

My all time favorite was Wordstar for CPM.

I still say that was the best word processor ever.

I agree. What you saw is what you got, no surprises. Wish I had a
dollar for every time I've cursed out MS Word. Unfortunately it has
become a standard.

I resisted the change for a long time. I used the last version of
Wordstar for DOS until it just wouldn't work anymore and I don't
think they ever made a GUI version.

Birth of a Boat
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:10:35 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Fri, 09 Mar 2007 17:01:57 GMT, Tom Francis
wrote:

I swear to you, we've discussed her articles ad nauseam - she cannot
deliver a 1000 word article in under 2500 words. :) Almost
everything she does has to be broken into two parts.

One time she sent me an article she did about some strange type of
skin cancer and asked me what I thought of it. I replied with my
usual "you've got to gut this and get to the point" so she challenged
me to gut it and still make it meaningful. She would submit both
pieces and see which one was accepted.

I did, I won and she didn't speak to me for two weeks. :)
Being paid by the word just might have an impact on your writing style
I suspect.

You probably cost her some serious $$$s.

Well, in her case, it's a question of being very, extremely and
incredibly smart and a deep researcher. When she gets on a roll, she
just doesn't know when to quit - everything is fair game.

I've often told her that what she really needs to do is return to
school and this time, take up medicine. :)

Charles Dickens was "paid by the word", in that all of his stories were
serialized and the longer he dragged out the story, the more he was
paid. It was very similar to the old Saturday movie serials where each
installment had a cliff hanger. What I find even more interesting is
since Dickens rarely was a few chapters ahead of the publications, he
would be able to see the public response to his story, and alter it
based upon their reaction. Todays equivalent of the movie "preview",
where the studios show different cuts and different endings to the same
movie.

Birth of a Boat
 

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:22:32 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 00:35:03 GMT, Tom Francis
wrote:

Wayne Green was a cheap...um...never mind.
He was an interesting character though. I believe he was married to
the publisher of BYTE (maybe Virginia Green ?), and she claimed he had
nothing to fo with the magazine. Who knows, the truth about some
things with NSD was elusive.

He was a character - very much like Larry who occasionally visits here
in fact. I met him once when I was writing and editing QEX (the
experimental magazine) for the ARRL. He seemed fairly normal, but he
was always at odds with TPTB at the League. Of course, in Wayne's
World, he invented or instigated everything in the world of amateur
radio

I really enjoyed 73 until he lost Byte in his divorce. He started
Byte, made a ton of money, lost it in some other ventures and
eventually lost Byte. He went right off the deep end when that
happened.

I always enjoyed Steve Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar articles although I
don't think I ever built any of his projects. Apparently he's still
around:

http://www.circuitcellar.com/

I never did either, but they seemed like solid designs.

When I was at the ARRL, I had the misfortune to edit one of Doug
DeMaw's (W1FB) DIY articles for a CW QRP rig. Looking at the design,
there was no way in hell the thing was going to work so I made some
changes, made revisions to the article and returned it to him for
review.

A couple of days later, I was called into Dick Sumner's office and
read the riot act - THOU SHALT NOT CRITIQUE, TEST OR OTHERWISE ALTER
ARTICLES BY W1FB....

Turns out the joke around the ARRL lab was you spent as much time
debugging the design as you did building it. :)

Anyone remember Volkswriter? Neat word processor written by a Chilean
named "Camille...something or other" out in Monterey, California, guy
who did it as a moonlight project while an employee of the Navy language
school.
Yep.

My all time favorite was Wordstar for CPM.

I still say that was the best word processor ever.
I agree. What you saw is what you got, no surprises. Wish I had a
dollar for every time I've cursed out MS Word. Unfortunately it has
become a standard.

I resisted the change for a long time. I used the last version of
Wordstar for DOS until it just wouldn't work anymore and I don't
think they ever made a GUI version.


Gawd. I never liked Wordstar with all the weird control key crapola. In
fact, when I bought my first IBM PC ('82 or '83, I think), the dealer
tossed in a copy of Wordstar on a floppy (no hard drives then), and it
drove me so nuts that I brought the whole kit and kaboodle back two days
later, demanding a refund. He had a trial copy of Volkswriter there, so
I tried that and liked it a lot.

Later, I got used to all manner of key sequences when I adopted XyWrite,
which was and is my favorite of all time DOS word processor.

My favorite BYTE writer was always Jerry Pournelle.

Birth of a Boat
 

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 07:47:48 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:


Gawd. I never liked Wordstar with all the weird control key crapola.

And you call youself a writer/editor.

HAH!! :)

Birth of a Boat
 

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 07:47:48 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:


Gawd. I never liked Wordstar with all the weird control key crapola.

And you call youself a writer/editor.

HAH!! :)

Still had the best spell checker dictionary. Have an aquaintance who was
high up at Wordstar and he said he told the CEO that they need to look at
this Windows thing, that Gates was handing out preliminary copies of. CEO
said, did not need to change. Bad decision.

Birth of a Boat
 

"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 07:47:48 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:


Gawd. I never liked Wordstar with all the weird control key crapola.


And you call youself a writer/editor.

HAH!! :)


Silliness. At least 90% of what I have written professionally my entire
life has been turned in as straight text. Once it is approved, it is
given to a graphics artist for design, if necessary, outside
typesetting, if necessary, and paste-up. What the hell need would I have
of all the idiotic key functions beyond the occasional bold, ital, et
cetera?

I've never been an amateur or semi-pro desktop publisher type. At the
professional level, DTP is for graphics designers. It's their rice bowl.

Birth of a Boat
 

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:08:40 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

Silliness. At least 90% of what I have written professionally my entire
life has been turned in as straight text. Once it is approved, it is
given to a graphics artist for design, if necessary, outside
typesetting, if necessary, and paste-up. What the hell need would I have
of all the idiotic key functions beyond the occasional bold, ital, et
cetera?

I've never been an amateur or semi-pro desktop publisher type. At the
professional level, DTP is for graphics designers. It's their rice bowl.

I still used notepad for most of what I wrote in the business
environment, but when the cutsies objected I just pasted it
to Word to get the pretty fonts/title centering/paging they so like.
Word or equivalent *is* better for the finished product.

--Vic

Birth of a Boat
 

Vic Smith wrote:
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:08:40 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:
Silliness. At least 90% of what I have written professionally my entire
life has been turned in as straight text. Once it is approved, it is
given to a graphics artist for design, if necessary, outside
typesetting, if necessary, and paste-up. What the hell need would I have
of all the idiotic key functions beyond the occasional bold, ital, et
cetera?

I've never been an amateur or semi-pro desktop publisher type. At the
professional level, DTP is for graphics designers. It's their rice bowl.

I still used notepad for most of what I wrote in the business
environment, but when the cutsies objected I just pasted it
to Word to get the pretty fonts/title centering/paging they so like.
Word or equivalent *is* better for the finished product.

All that is needed is vi.

Birth of a Boat
 

On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:08:40 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:


"Short Wave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 10 Mar 2007 07:47:48 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:


Gawd. I never liked Wordstar with all the weird control key crapola.


And you call youself a writer/editor.

HAH!! :)

Silliness. At least 90% of what I have written professionally my entire
life has been turned in as straight text.

Amateur.

HAH!! :)