I'm reading a lot of comments above where people are saying that the average consumer's opinion isn't worth shit. I beg to differ. When I wrote my book, I didn't write it for the critics, the reviewers, the professionals--I wrote it for people to read and enjoy the story I made up. When someone has read my book and liked it enough that they wanted to say to the world, "Hey! I really enjoyed reading this book!" That means a lot to me! It tells me that the effort I put into writing that story was worth it.

The occasional negative review is going to happen. Often these are self-important people that feel the need to let everyone else know how important they are, and they are going to snipe at any flaw they can find: "The author used 'palatable' instead of 'palpable' in the fourth chapter. Clearly he doesn't know how to write! Don't buy this book!" Such comments are so ridiculously petty, they can be ignored. Now, if someone made the comment, "I felt that Character-A wasn't very well thought through and his development was kind of weak," and then went on to explain their position, you can be sure that I will pay attention to something like that and look into it. Good constructive criticism is good to act upon. It might be too late for one book, but you can be assured I'll try not to make a similar mistake on the next book. There are also going to be those who don't like a book because it just isn't to their taste. To that, I can only say, "Thank you for your patronage. You'll probably not want to buy the next book, but thanks for at least giving me a try." As an author, I do consider what a negative reviewer has to say. It doesn't feel as nice as when I get a great review, but it may help me improve what I'm doing.

As far as peer reviews are concerned, if Walter Hunt, Spider Robinson, Neal Stephenson or Ursula LeGuin read my story and said they liked it, I would be absolutely thrilled to receive such an endorsement from such established authors! On another level, If Oprah Winfrey piped up and said she liked my book, I would probably be doing handsprings in my front yard. What? You think Winfrey's opinion is worthless? Consider this: When Oprah says she likes a particular book, she has over 30 million fans that will immediately go out and buy that book to read it for themselves. To an author, that is the equivalent of getting a $1 million dollar check in the mail--because that is exactly what happens! You wake up the next morning to discover that you went from 2,000 copies sold to 750,000 copies sold. With my book at $4.99 and me getting 70%, that means in 60 days Amazon would be dropping a cool $2.6 million into my bank account.

What is at issue with Amazon is that people were gaming the system. Of note, the author R.J. Ellory admitted to writing false reviews over the past several years. He's not the only one. There have been many others over the past several years. The opinion of a peer author in a given genre carries huge weight with readers. And that opinion can make or break another author, especially if that author is new and struggling to gain readership. To have someone purposefully sabotaging another author for their own gain is reprehensible. Sadly, there are unscrupulous people and they are going to pull every dirty trick they can to get ahead.

Things like this do weigh heavily on me. I told family and friends not to post a review because they know me, but because they read my story and actually liked it. If they want to blog, tweet, or post about my story, go ahead and tell people that they know me and want to promote my book to help me. I also told my friends not to buy my book because they are my friend; buy it because they want to read the story. I realize that my story will not be to everyone's taste, and I don't want them buying it because they feel obligated to do so out of loyalty.

Is Amazon correct in their move? Time will tell. I understand why they restricted authors from posting comments on their competitors pages. As I said above, I would be thrilled to death if I was able to win the endorsement of an established writer in my genre. It sucks that such a thing will now not happen. But, what other option does Amazon have available? There is a lot of criticism above about how broken Amazon's "Star Ranking" system is, but I didn't see any suggestions how to make a better ranking system. Is a book selling like crazy over an extended period of time? That would be a pretty good indication that people are enjoying the story and therefore it is probably a good read. A book might not have the most sophisticated writing, but if the story is good, the reader won't care. If sales drop off quickly, then that might be an indicator that the story has flopped.

My favorite comment so far? Told to my face, "It's not really a genre I like to read, but the story really drew me in." Such a comment told me that I nailed the story. In the end, that's what matters.

I once worked for a small manufacturing company with some big clients. Flu shots for employees were mandatory, unless their doctor said otherwise, and were provided FREE by the company. It was the first time I ever saw a company with this policy. It has since become a regular policy in other companies where I have worked.

The year before I worked there, the attitude of management was very antagonistic towards employees who called in sick. Management had the stance that employees were using sick time to avoid work and were lazy, unproductive workers. One employee called in sick with the flu over several days and his manager didn't believe him. So the manager made him report to work the next day. So, the employee, still sick, reported for work.

As can be expected, a few days later, workers in the company began dropping like flies as the flu spread through the ranks. By the end of the week, every employee except three became ill and could not report to work. Including the CEO. The company's production, management, and business was completely shut down for three weeks. The three who were still on were low-level employees who had neither the authority or skill to do anything in the company to keep production going or even send out what product was ready to be packaged and shipped.

The three employees who did not become ill were the only three in the company who had gotten flu shots.

The damage didn't end there. This small company produced a key component for a seasonal product sold by a major company in the US. Without this component, the client could not produce their own product. This mini-epidemic occurred just as the small company needed to ramp up their production in order for their client to ramp up their production to meet the coming seasonal demand. (This is an event that shows the serious flaw in Just-In-Time manufacturing.) So, not only could this small company not produce the item their client needed, it seriously jeopardized their client's critical production period. Their client, in a panic, had to turn to another company to produce this part.

Not only did this company have production shutdown for all their clients for three weeks, they lost a huge account with a very important client. They had to fight to get this client to give them another chance the next year and had to accept unfavorable terms in the new contract. There was similar damage to some contracts with their smaller clients. All this resulted in extended business losses for the company, not just three weeks of production! This damage continied on in a few rounds of layoffs over the next couple of years, one of which got me cut from the company.

The new policy at the company when I started was all employees will have flu shots, provided for free by the company, and anyone who even thought they were sick was to call in and stay away until they were over whatever bug hit them. They were still trying to regain lost business and repair damage to their reputation when I came into the company. When I learned the story behind the company's "progressive" sick policy, it was estimated that the company had permanently lost a third of its clientele and they were fighting to retain another third.

Fifteen years after all this happened, this company is still around, but I estimate they are less than half the size what they were when I worked for them. A combination of the flu shutdown and the flow of manufacturing jobs being sent to China was nearly the death-blow for this company. They sold off buildings and facilities in order to stay afloat. A lot of very hard lessons are all wrapped up in this story.

All this damage because of just one manager ordering one sick employee to report to work.

The same system is being installed around Boston, MA and other localities. I love seeing the sign and knowing how long it is going to take me to reach a certain point. It takes a lot of stress out of being stuck in traffic. Less stressed drivers means traffic loosens up and moves more freely, instead of people bunching up on each other's cars and causing a traffic jam.

Additionally, the data will be publicly available, so mapping applications on GPS devices and smart phones can show traffic congestion in realtime, giving people the opportunity to plan alternate routes more easily to avoid congestion, and thereby reducing congestion.

One VP for whom I used to work referred to employees that left right at closing time as "Fred Flintstones." He made sure his derisive attitude towards these employees was well displayed in front of the CEO of the company at the end of the day as the line of cars left the parking lot. Most of the employees who stayed after the 5PM quitting time were there because they started their shifts later than the other employees.

This VP's attitude blinded him to the fact that those be labeled "Fred Flintstones" were on the job first thing in the morning, well before he arrived to sit in his office for the day doing nothing engaged with production of product in the company. Never mind that these very employees were the engineers that developed and made the technology of the company's primary product. Ironically, the one engineer he praised for staying late each day was staying late for a very special reason: it was the only time he could switch out the sabotaged firmware he created into shipping machines and put non-sabotaged firmware into machines that were being returned for "repairs". He was sabotaging the firmware in order to ensure that his job of hunting down bugs in the programming would be too important to get laid off.

This sabotage was discovered when the engineer was out of vacation and forgot to remove his secret code from his computer. The senior engineer on the project needed to double check the programming, logged into the saboteur's computer and discovered the two sets of code. Sadly, it was long too late for the many employees that had to be laid off because the company was struggling due to the problems the device was having. Most of the employees let go were the ones the VP had labeled Fred Flintstones. With the truly productive employees gone, it was pretty much game over for the company. They were able to float a little longer, but the lack of improvement and productivity stopped any possibility of growth in the company. When the sabotage was discovered, the laid off employees were no longer available. Eventually, the company pretty much closed their doors, being bought out by a competitor.

The attitude that the people who left at the end of the day and didn't put in extra hours were substandard employees was dead wrong. They were the people who made things happen in the company. Once let go, no longer were there any doers in the company and everything ground to a halt

I was wondering if perhaps you were misinterpreting or if the hearing test was not as exhaustive as it could be, but I concede my assumption was incorrect.

Perhaps instead of having your hearing tested, perhaps you should consult a neurologist. Apparently, within the Autism Spectrum of disorders, there are people who have difficulty with auditory input. This link discusses a variation called Sensory Processing Disorder, and seems to echo your description above dealing with your issues with sound.

It is not as uncommon as one would think for adults to be diagnosed late in life with conditions we often associate with children, such as ADHD or Asperger's Syndrome. Could be relevant to your situation?

This is "nerve deafness". Basically, different frequencies in your ear's cochlea are picked up by different hair cells. If these hair cells die off, then you can't hear in particular frequencies that were received via different hair cells that died off.

It may be that you have lost enough hair cells to lose certain parts of the frequency spectrum, but still have enough to hear the sounds. As a result, your hearing is slightly "muddied" so when there is a lot of sound, you can't pick up on finer frequencies that would allow you to filter out the background noise. You might not show hearing loss, but you now can't filter because you aren't getting fine enough frequency data to pick out finer details.

Think of dead pixels on an LCD screen. You can see a big image, but there are tiny black spots all over it, but you can still see the image fine. In fact, often you can completely ignore or might not even notice that there are dead pixels. But if enough pixels die off and you fill the screen with dozens of images and you have to shrink the images to fill the screen, those black spots become more significant to each image and makes it harder to pick out what the subject is in each image.

This is a natural process of growing old. I basically avoid holding detailed conversations in rooms that are very echoey or have a lot of background noise. This is why hearing aids will always be good business: we are all going to grow old and lose hair cells. Researchers are looking into ways of restoring the damaged hair cells, and the results look promising. It might even become doable within our lifetimes. Just be thankful you don't (I hope) have tinnitus with it!

I'm inclined to agree with Tridus and Darkness404: buy an Otterbox or similar hardened case to protect the phone and put the saved cash into your own savings account for just in case. I've owned several Otterbox products over the years, and I've been very happy with their performance, so I feel you can have some confidence that the case will protect your iPhone 5 in all but the most extreme incidents. Plus, the money you save by putting the cash into your own savings account (and earning interest) can go towards replacing the iPhone 5 should the unmentionable occur, or buying the next best thing when it comes out in a few years.

I've had an iPhone 3Gs for years, and it managed to survive all this time. The iPhones are beautifully designed, but they are so smooth that they are downright slippery. My 3Gs has slipped out of my shirt pockets on a regular basis, it's been dropped when my hands were dry during the winter. It finally took a near-fatal blow several months ago when I was trying to answer a call too quickly and it slipped out of my hand and shattered the screen when it landed on the edge of a granite curb. I had the screen replaced ($120), but the 3Gs has been somewhat wonky ever since. With that history in mind, I've purchased an Otterbox to go with the iPhone 5 I have on order.

If an insurance plan was offered for just pennies, yeah I'd consider it. But for $10 a month? My iPhone 3Gs would easily have lasted a few years longer, had I been a bit more careful with it. In the expected lifespan of five years (expected by me), $10 a month would be better than the replacement cost of a new iPhone. Accidents are going to happen. But if you mitigate the potential damage that could happen in the event of an accident, then you can save a great deal of money with a protective case instead of insurance. If I was regularly in environments such as highly active sports or work environments where potentially catastrophic damage could occur to my iPhone 5, insurance would be a good idea. Regular everyday use, probably not.

RealityImpairedat the opening of this thread made an excellent point about saving some money and getting the previous year's model of a smart phone. For those who have not yet purchased, but are considering purchasing an iPhone, this is a valid point. The 4S can utilize all the new capabilities that the 5 can in iOS 6 and one can save up to $300 depending on what versions your are comparing.

Best of luck with your new toy! I can't wait until mine arrives, too!

The Frogpad is no longer made.

A British company, Maltron, does make single-handed keyboards. They can be purchased in the U.S. here at Enablemart. But these keyboards are pretty pricey, so it might not be worth the investment to get one, unless you expect your injured hand is going to be out of commission much longer than a few weeks.

About thirteen years ago, I had sustained a horrific injury to my left arm that resulted in my arm being put into an immobilization cast for the better part of fourteen weeks and a brace for months after. My fingers, however, were still functional. The immobilization cast kept me from positioning my hand over a keyboard. I rigged a dowel using some duct tape so I could at least press the shift, option and command keys with on my left while I typed with my right hand. I definitely couldn't type as fast, but I was able to get the job done.

If you have an Apple Macintosh computer, it already has the Dvorak one-handed keyboards built into it. Just go to the Language and Text pane in the System Preferences application to switch to one or the other. Look up the keyboard layout and download the image so you have something to look at while you learn to type the layout. This will be a LOT cheaper than buying a specialized keyboard for a condition that you say will only last a few weeks.

If your hand is immobilized for just a few weeks, it probably is not worth the effort to learn a new layout like that. It takes a couple of weeks at least to become proficient using a new layout to make it productive, and a couple of months to really develop the reflexes needed to touch type using the new layout without having to glance at the keyboard to find the key you want. If your hand is out of commission for a couple of months or longer, then it is certainly worth the effort to learn a new keyboard layout to maintain productivity. If your hand is out of commission for longer than a year or perhaps permanently, then a one-handed keyboard would be worth the expense.

Above all, don't panic and think through what you really need. And DON'T skimp on your physical therapy! P.T. is what will bring the usability of your hand back to you. Shirk your P.T., and your hand could heal permanently out of order.

I stand Korrekted! Dern them pescy spel kurrekturs lett'n them thar mispelin's git thru! Serves me right for not double-checking before I sent that out!

:-D

Try Pair.com in Pittsburg, PA. I've been with them for over 16 years now and I've been very happy with their service and support.

For a most awesome lair! THIS HOUSE is available for sale! It even comes with its own runway!

Spider Robinson was given the honor of completing Robert Heinlein's last known novel, Variable Star. An excellent read created from a manuscript that publishers rejected, so Heinlein packed it away with the intent of completing it at a later date. The story was originally written during Heinlein's adventure story phase, before he got into experimental social fiction. Robinson did an excellent job capturing Heinlein's style, and mixing in a bit of Heinlein's later style.

Robinson is currently working on a sequel to Variable Star called Orphan Stars.

Another one of my favorite series! Courtesy of Baen Books, you can download Berserker Throne for free.

If you are a fan of hard science fiction, your collection is not complete without this series!

I always enjoyed Schmitz's The Witches of Karres. Courtesy of Baen Books, you can read the first few chapters for free here

Baen Books also maintains a library of free book, Baen Free Library. I say this is worth a look.

There used to be an old yarn about being an engineer at Apple. If you were on the elevator and happened to be lucky/unlucky enough that Steve Jobs stepped onto the elevator with you, by the time the elevator reached your floor you would either have been promoted or fired. Whether true or not, it was very well known that Steve Jobs was very tough and demanding on engineers. He would routinely prowl through the engineering departments to surprise people with spot checks.

For creative people, this kind of intrusion can be very disruptive -- even the possibility can keep someone from entering "flow state", the scientific term for a mental state creative people enter when they are at their most creative and productive. This in turn, creates a great deal of stress on an individual.

So, a few years ago, not long after Apple added Bluetooth to their computers, another story began to circulate. Jobs started noticing that his surprise spot checks didn't seem to be as much as a surprise as he thought. Engineers would be conveniently on a coffee break, stepping out to go to the bathroom, etc. For some odd reason or another, they just wouldn't be at their desks when he thought they would be. It wasn't just engineering. The effect began to spread to other departments in the company. Jobs began to suspect something after a while, but couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Eventually, the "something" became so widespread, that it was due that someone would slip up, and Jobs discovered what was going on. One of the engineers wrote a program that would listen for the bluetooth transponder in a cellphone and query its serial number. Then, by propagating the program onto computers throughout the company, the system would track Jobs by the serial number of his cellphone via bluetooth. Every time Jobs walked past a computer with the software on it, the computer would send out a signal showing Jobs' position within the company, and that was displayed on a window on any computer listening for the signal. This way, engineers knew when Jobs was on the prowl, where he was, where he was going, and they would know when to clear out to avoid getting blistered by the boss!

The legend ends with Jobs ordering that the software be removed and the engineer who came up with it was given a raise for creative thinking outside the box.

Are there any Apple engineers out there that can prove or disprove the validity of this tale? I did a quick search on Google, but came up bupkis.