-- 001030 01:47 -- Here it is: Blog! -- 001031 02:18 -- Here's my second blog. -- 001031 02:44 -- This is my third blog. -- 001031 02:49 -- Okay, I think I've got it working smoothly now. This is my fourth blog, and I'm uploading it automatically. I begin my communications program, COMit, select "blog" in the dialing directory, and COMit's "blog" script takes it from there. All I have to do is strike once or twice when the connection to SEFLIN is first made. Then, COMit logs me in, brings up one of my Lynx bookmarks pages, searches for and activates the "telnet" link, logs me into the Alachua Freenet, goes to my homefiles, searches for and activates the "public_html" directory link, searches for the "blog" file link, emits an "e" (for "edit"), strikes Ctl-V five times (to make sure the cursor is at the bottom -- but I'll have to make that more than five), uploads "blog" from my computer's C:\COMIT\SEND directory via filtered ASCII upload, emits Ctl-X to exit Alachua's PICO editor, emits a "y" to confirm that I want to save the modified file, emits an to select the original "blog" file name, emits a "Q" to escape from the telnet session, emits another "Q" to exit SEFLIN's Lynx, emits a lower-case "q" to leave the SEFLIN menu, emits a "y" to indicate I'm sure, emits a "7" to select "Exit system," and finally hangs up. I suspect all should run flawlessly this time. -- 001031 03:15 -- Here's my fifth blog. The last one didn't work right because COMit waited for an ANSI code which depended on the position of a line on the screen, which changes from session to session. I think I've got it licked now. Incidentally, I'm setting the margins for this in PEDIT, at 0 and 70. -- 001031 03:28 -- Yeppers; works great. I'm running COMit from within DOSSHELL, so I can switch tasks, especially to Vernon Buerg's LIST.COM, which does most everything, including invoking PEDIT. I suppose if I really wanted to automate my blogger to the max, I should create BLOG.BAT, having it rename C:\COMIT\SEND\BLOG to a name representing the date and time of the last upload, move it to C:\COMIT\SEND\SENT, invoke the editor for C:\COMIT\SEND\BLOG, and send it, using COMit's command line syntax to go online to "blog" and exit automatically. But it works well enough as it is, so I guess I'll save that for a future project. Laterz! -- 001031 03:49 -- This time, I just want to make sure I've got COMit's configuration file formatted properly. I don't quite understand the format of the codes it uses to separate the various fields, so I'm just guessing. -- 001031 03:59 -- Boy, is this easy! Too easy! I can see I'm going to be tempted to overdo it, and already I'm facing another problem: what to do when my website's blog file starts getting unwieldy. Hmmm. -- 001031 04:11 -- Now I've added a small improvement. My COMit script, once PICO is running, searches for and end tag, deletes that line, uploads C:\COMIT\SEND\BLOG, adds a blank line, and types in the end tag again. That avoids having to issue many "page downs" to get to the end-of-file. -- 00/11/02 10:35 -- Golly. At 05:53 this morning, and every hour thereafter, I heard a report on NPR's "Morning Edition" about BountyQuest.com, which is offering bounties posted by various companies and people looking to invalidate bad patents. So I went to the website and offered some comments, and not only did a lady named "Chantelle Marshall" (What a beautiful name-- and a cousin, no doubt!) respond, actually _thanking me_ for my input, but the CEO himself (Why don't they ever tell us how to spell names on the radio?), a fellah named Cella (to wit, Charles), wrote back asking if I were interested in actually doing what I asked him how he'd react to: setting up a website for hunters of the non-bounty kind! Jeff Bezos (of amazon.com fame; I've seen him on TV several times: smart!) is into this Quest, and so's Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly & Associates, the big computer-oriented publishing company. It promises to go a long way towards improving the whole patent industry. But I wrote up my own impressions -- grandiose, but quite in order, to my way of thinking -- just an hour or so ago in alt.inventors . I'd provide a URL, but www.deja.com isn't as Lynx-friendly as dejanews used to be. Just look for ~a "Marshall Price" ~g alt.inventors , I guess. I could hardly contain my enthusiasm! -- 00/11/02 11:16 -- I just reread Mr Cella's message and realized that he said there was a lot of interest in seeking "prior art" in the *public* interest, not just for fun, as I imagined. This, too, is of great interest to me (and was probably what I said in my original message!), and a loftier goal, of course, than the pursuit of glee. But I've been reading too many ill-founded grudges. I'm losing my fervor. It's time I started hunting, if not for technology, for reality -- the "primary metaphors" mentioned on "The Connection" yesterday. What is intellectual property all about, and what are the assumptions on which the ethos is founded? Perhaps that's the subject I ought to challenge a.i. to address. (Wouldn't you know it? Seflin's name server is down. I can't telnet, Lynx hangs on "Looking for afn.org," and I wouldn't be surprised if Bounty Quest's email can't get through, either. What a revolting development this is!) -- 010112 17:49 -- The most incredible thing just happened, and I'm too stunned to know quite how to react. I went to the mailbox, and there was a package from The Vitaphone Project. Inside were two tapes, an audio cassette labeled "Complete Georgie Price 78's," and a videocassette labeled "Georgie Price Vitaphone Shorts." It's only the second time I've heard Daddy's voice since the devasting moment when he told me I wasn't getting any more therapy and I turned down his offer of a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. The next time I saw him after that, he was lying in his coffin. A few months ago, a friend played an audio file of "Barney Google" he'd found on the Internet, but the quality was poor enough to limit my enthusiasm. This is different. This is an incredible revelation, and the most wonderful and unexpected thing ever to happen to me. Of the many song recordings, I've only heard a few before, and that was when I lived in Long Island, in fact, long before I left in 1962. For some reason, I've never wanted my picture taken (I'm convinced I'm unphotogenic), nor my voice recorded (It's ennervating just recording an outgoing message on my answering machine), but now I regret having ever taken that attitude. I don't know of any photographs of me other than a few recent ones. And I wonder why Daddy never played any of his records for us, though I think I know why I never saw the movies. I realized that he had his ears "taken in," but I didn't realize I'd never seen any pictures of him before the operation, except from his childhood. I also didn't realize he'd had a nose job! I thought his nose was small all his life, but in these movies, it looks normal. I can't say the same for his ears -- they're huge! I suspect he didn't just have them taken in. But now it's evident how much he owed to Maxwell Maltz, his plastic surgeon and friend, and why he recommended him to many other people. The initial thrill of receiving these treasures is wearing off, but their influence on my life has just begun. I'm so sorry I never appreciated Daddy in the way his audiences did; now I can. Better late than never! --end--