It's always been that way. Fewer than 1% of Americans are illiterate, but something like 97% are aliterate. When I was in school, very few kids wore glasses; no computers or cell phones and the TV was across the room. Reading (or any other close up work) at a young age makes you nearsighted.

We had FoxPro 6 and Windows 98, when XP hit our desks, FoxPro no longer worked. They made me use (ugh!) MS Access.

So I have a few dozen Access apps when they "upgraded" to Office '03, and not a single one would run. Access had become a completely different program with completely different code and was completely incompatible with Access '98. I had to rewrite every God damned program!

OTOH the NOMAD mainframe databases seldom had glitches. I'd been a PC kind of guy, but NOMAD on the mainframe and Microsoft's stupid, anti-user bullshit started changing my mind.

Since when has slashdot ever been news? Its masthead may be "news for nerds" but its news is seldom very new. It's about seeing one's fellow nerds' views on that topic.

since tobacco causes less harm than weed

Tobacco kills most of its addicts.

Indeed, smoking anything is bad for your lungs. I haven't seen anything about gastric problems from eating it, although I've read you shouldn't eat it raw. I've eaten it without problems, but I have a cast iron stomach, most people who down as many aspirins as I did in Delaware for my arthritis would have had terrible health effects from all those aspirins.

Well, any controversy is going to have a vi-emacs fight between the extremists. Pot is certainly not for everyone. If mental illness runs in your family you might want to be wary, because someone on the edge of madness is in a dangerous place.

And yes, there are lies on both sides, but the pro-pot lies are usually ignorance, while the Partnership for a Drug Free America has nothing but bald faced liars.

The lies started with Harry Anslinger, who ran the federal narcotics bureau and wanted more money to funnel to the fight against heroin. Also Randolph Hearst, who was against not pot but hemp, which threatened his timber holdings.

The anti-pot camp has historically been corrupt. Have a look at this 1930s propaganda.

Pot that smells bad usually won't get you very high. The good stuff smells green.

That said, it isn't for everyone. It is good for inspiration for writing, it's a lot easier for me to get in my "writing trance" after a couple of tokes. It was the same with programming at first, also (I was never high at work, that is certainly drug abuse, just like going to work drunk is).

I wouldn't know, I've never been normal. Actually, I'm not sure "normal" actually exists.

Almost every tech site on the planet has that story and you pick the National Enquirer styled tech site?

Tsk, tsk. The submitter should be ashamed. The Register has shown itself to be completely untrustworthy.

Plants don't need sunlight, they just need light. Scientists and engineers (Michael Massimino, the engineer who fixed the Hubble, praised it) who have been in space say they see nothing unrealistic about Andy Wier's The Martian. Michael Massimino, the engineer who fixed the Hubble, praised it. You can light your plants with electric lighting. The problem would be how to generate the electricity.

It appears to be completely different up there. Do Canadians have to pay to register a copyright? It seems that down here we have to pay for everything.

I should move to Canada! Bowker doesn't need a gun to rob you, a single ISBN is $125, 10 are $250. IIRC if you buy a thousand they're a buck apiece. It's a racket. I wonder if a US citizen living in the US can register an ISBN in Canada? Hmm, I'll have to look into that although I'm holding eight unused ISBNs.

You are correct about me, I friend my fans and read all the journals. That's about all I do at /. any more, post and read journals. I've found Soylent News to be a better slashdot than slashdot, the non-nerds haven't discovered it yet.

Check your other journal, I think I pretty much covered it there.

You mentioned my favorite author. In one of his books he noted that he didn't make a dime on Foundation for ten years; his publisher couldn't afford to market it properly. When Doubleday bought the rights from the previous publisher (I don't remember who it was) it was a hit.

My advice is, write as a hobby. Yes, it will take longer; Nobots took me five years to write. Now that I'm retired I'm doing it full-time, I started writing Mars, Ho! this time last year and am just putting the finishing touches on it.

I took a page from Cory Doctorow's playbook and put e-book versions of the first two on the internet. It didn't work; I've yet to make a profit. As you've found out, Bowker (if you're in the US) is damned expensive. I bought a block of ten ISBNs, so they were $25 each. Registering a copyright is $35, and although your work is automatically "protected" it really isn't; if someone infringes your copyright, you can't sue unless you've registered it (of course this will vary by country).

This time I'm trying to follow Andy Wier's lead, at least partly. According to wikipedia, The Martian was rejected by all the publishers, so he put it on Amazon as a 99 cent e-book, where it shot to #1 and stayed there, and a publisher bought the rights "for a six figure" payday. I'm skipping the "submit to publishers" part. Hell, Harry Potter was rejected by over a dozen publishers. The e-book for Mars, Ho! will be a $2 e-book, and I'm not assigning any of my ISBNs to the hardcover or paperback. Those will be available only to fans.

Like you, I got into programming for the fun of it and enjoyed it immensely. When it became a job, it stopped being enjoyable.

Writing hasn't been financially rewarding for me, but it has been one of the most emotionally rewarding things I've ever done. I couldn't imagine what it would feel like to see someone chuckling while reading a humorous passage, or overhear someone raving about one of my books, or getting fan mail.

Writing is like playing music. I know an awful lot of incredibly talented musicians, none are making much money at it; musical instruments and equipment are expensive and bar owners are cheap.

Thousands of books are published daily, and some not great writing makes best seller lists. I don't agree with Stephen King that James Patterson is "a terrible writer" but the book of his I read didn't impress me a bit. But he makes money hand over fist, selling a LOT more books than King, who is incredibly talented.

But don't take something you love and turn it into drudgery. You'll stop loving it, just like programming.

(Huh? how come ¢ doesn't work here?)