No, really.
Some days ago the thought occurred to me that the original story got very viral very quickly. Well, maybe there was a reason for that. Gawker puts forward their theory here…
Myself, I’ve been chuckling over the whole business since it started, as I have my own referent for monsters off Montauk. …For certain values of “monster”, that is. I like Ed.
(As it happens, Robert Heinlein liked him too. He said to me on the phone once, “You know, I’m a Navy man. We don’t like sharks. You made me like that shark. That was a dirty trick.”)
Meanwhile I find myself wondering when we’re going to get a more open / transparent clarification of the present Monster than the somewhat veiled one that Gawker describes….
(Non-technically inclined people, look away now. Or skip down to the bottom of this where it gets less technical.)
I have a lot more screenplay stuff to do today, but I had to take an hour or so off from that after having a quick look at the “Out of Ambit” log files on arising, and noticing that someone had been trying repeatedly to access pages on my site that didn’t exist. The URLs they were trying to reach had all the telltale signs of attempted SQL injection attacks, which I hate as they mess up my tidy logs. So I spent a relatively pleasurable short time watching the Doctor Who episode “The Girl in the Fireplace” on UK Gold while getting things fixed. (There was a certain enjoyable resonance to watching the Doctor blowing up robots while I dealt with other people’s bots to their detriment.)
I am not going to reproduce the actual string in question, but info about it and a detailed analysis of the string and the attack are here. If you’re a webmastery-type person, or you run a blog or website and are technically capable of dealing with problems of this kind, you should have a look at your logs and see if you’ve been having this sort of attack. Then decide how you want to deal with it — redirects, blocking via your .htaccess file, whatever. (IP blocking is of no use because the attacks are coming from all over the place.)
Since I didn’t feel like spending all day futzing around with writing redirects, I downloaded a copy of the Redirection plugin for WordPress, activated it, and created a custom redirect to deal with this problem. Works fine. The naughty people (or the poor bot-infested machines that have been dragooned into this) who come to OOA and attempt to inject this string are now being sent to a place of appropriate punishment.
That’s all the techie bit for today.
The only other thing of interest that’s happened is that (after finding myself thinking how long I’ve liked the Doctor, and liked him a whole lot) I got vaguely curious about the whereabouts of an article I wrote for a Balticon program book many years ago: a discussion of the uses of imagination (among other things). It was called “Meetings on the Stair”. I dug it out, updated and cleaned it up a little, and posted it so I can find it later if I want it for something: it’s here, if anybody’s interested. I suppose I’ll also stick it up as a pre-dated blog posting, so it won’t screw up the present blog entry sequence.
Now then… back to that script.
And how not, when he writes stuff like this?
Moviegoers who knowingly buy a ticket for “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” are going to get exactly what they expect: There is a mummy, a tomb, a dragon and an emperor. And the movie about them is all that it could be. If you think “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” sounds like a waste of time, don’t waste yours.
I, as it happens, have time to waste and cannot do better than to quote from my review of “The Mummy” (1999): “There is hardly a thing I can say in its favor, except that I was cheered by nearly every minute of it. I cannot argue for the script, the direction, the acting or even the mummy, but I can say that I was not bored and sometimes I was unreasonably pleased. There is a little immaturity stuck away in the crannies of even the most judicious of us, and we should treasure it.”
Go Roger! Go Roger! Go Roger! Go Roger! (etc)
Turns out I have one more hardcover copy of Spock’s World available. These are hard to find now in decent condition. The book’s dustjacket is in good condition — slight bumps to top and bottom of spine and corners: otherwise perfect. The book inside I would rate as good / very good quality — tight, clean, page edges clean, no wear. So: $60.00. Email me and it’s yours. (Signed and personalized, of course.) Goodness, gone already! Thanks to the buyer.
Also available: a spare hardcover copy of Dark Mirror. It has very slight bumping/cracking to the bottom of the dustcover’s spine, otherwise in the same shape on the inside as the book above. Slightly more available out there, so $50.00. As above, email me: first email wins.
Postage on each of these (via registered mail: I don’t ship books of any value any other way these days, as transatlantic parcels seem to be showing an unnerving tendency to go missing in transit) will be about USD $25.00. A little more for Asia / Australia.
As the rest of the books offered for sale a while back get their final fates and destinations worked out, here’s one that is now free again to be sold. Gone now: thanks to the buyer!
…I have a spare first edition hardcover copy of Spock’s World. These are hard to find now in decent condition. The book has its dustjacket, but this is a little beat up — top and bottom wear, an incompletely torn-off (price?) sticker: otherwise OK. The book inside I would rate as good / very good quality — tight, clean, page edges clean, no wear. $60.00.
If anyone’s interested in this one, email me and it’s yours. (Signed and personalized, of course.)
For those of you who’re not subscribers: the latest chapter has just gone online for the general readership over at the TBM site. Here’s the URL —
All the chapters presently online are linked to from this page.
We also have new versions of the Mobipocket-format files available. The marvelous Linnette Stoney (who’s been converting the chapters to Palm– and Mobipocket-friendly format for us as they come out) has converted the files to add an image that will display in e-ink readers such as Kindle, Cybook and Sony Reader. You can find a .ZIP file containing chapters 1 through 7, as well as the cover image, here.
Chapter 8 will be posted to the subscribers’ file area on August 20th. If you’re interested in having access to it before the general readership does, you’re most welcome to subscribe!
Some of you constant readers may remember this message of last spring when I was in the process of getting rid of / cleaning out some old books.
The process got badly messed up by the numerous health problems of the later spring and the family losses of the summer and fall. As a result I still seem to have a lot of these books around, particularly copies of Rihannsu: Bloodwing Chronicles, The Empty Chair, Wizards at War, and some proofs and so forth which I think were put aside for people, but the sales were never finalized.
Can I ask those of you who who queried me about the availability of books (and/or I told that books had been set aside for them) but the sale was never completed, to get in touch with me here? And we’ll get it all sorted out over the next couple of weeks.
Thanks!
Just stumbled across a reference to this at Lou Romano’s weblog —
Totoro Forest Project is an international charity effort to save Sayama Forest, also known as Totoro Forest. This endangered sanctuary on the outskirts of Tokyo is where director Hayao Miyazaki got the inspiration for his much-loved character “Totoro”.
Over 200 top international artists from animation, illustration and comics are donating artwork especially created for this cause. Find out more about the auction event, preview the incredible art collection, and please consider supporting the Totoro Forest Project with your generous contribution.
Friends,
It’s up at last.
There are a lot of places where this notification needs to be posted, and a lot of explanations and profound apologies to be made… but for the moment it just seems best to get the news out.
Chapter Seven is now available online for subscribers: it’s linked to from the normal TBM subscriber gateway page. The same old username and password that worked for previous chapters will get you in. (If you can’t find your login info, email me and I’ll send it out to you pronto.) HTML and PDF versions are there right now — the mobile .prc versions will go up in due course, as soon as we receive the conversions.
If you’re not a subscriber, the chapter will go public on the 28th of the month. Look for the link to its gateway page in the left-hand menu at the project page at http://www.the-big-meow.com. (And for those of you who might feel inclined to subscribe, the subscription button is at the top of the left-hand column, along with info about what you get.)
Once again, I’m deeply sorry for the immense delay. I’m going back on the old one-chapter-per-three-weeks schedule: Chapter Eight will be going up in mid-August. Additionally, the book has become a couple of chapters longer in the course of being restructured — check the project schedule for the anticipated posting dates.
Thanks again, everybody, so very much, for your patience during this past crazed and difficult year. More info shortly.
Best — DD