I think if this Wired author had been more flexible we’d have been spared this article as he would have been too occupied sucking his own dick.

“So the next time a bum tries to cadge a buck out of you, at least have the courtesy to pull the earbuds out and engage him as a fellow human being. Don’t give him any money if you don’t want to. But acknowledge him. He’s not a blot on your aesthetic little world.”

I am willing to treat people like humans if they do so in kind. Most beggars have no interest “engag[ing you] as a fellow human being.” Passers-by are objectified as walking sources of money, and I see no reason to extend any human gesture at such times.

Of course, there are times to be good and nice and human, but not all the time.

There. Are you happy now, Leigh? Mine is on the left… it doesn’t translate so well with flash photography.

NaNo, I regret, has fallen a bit by the wayside in favor math. Sorry, NaNo, we met at the wrong time.

yesterday I wrote the algorithm which may change my life.

And had a great dinner with Meredith at Tyler’s. And I saw MC Chris (MC Pee Pants).

Here’s my idea and this idea will sound boring and stale if you’ve spoken with me at all in the past few months: A wiki. Now, hear me out. Last NaNo I thought that making the story into a wiki would be interesting, but I had the idea a little late and had no experience with wiki software or syntax at all. This year, I’ve already installed the wiki and using wikis is no longer a mystery to me. In fact, there are many cool features of MediaWiki (the software I’m using; the same as Wikipedia) that will make writing a novel more awesome. It’s not just about letting anyone edit the story. It’s about adding categories to pages for automatically generated indexes. Or the discussion pages so that I can have kind of a virtual scrap sheet of paper for each unit I’m working on. Or, and get this ’cause this is really cool: I don’t have to finalize things like character names. I could put something like this into my wiki:

Then, {{:Main character}} jumped out of the bushes.

Then, whatever I put on the “Main character” page will be inserted wherever I put {{:Main character}}. I could start writing with the name “Hubert Fartington” but then change it to “Rosalie Lovegood” by just editing one spot.

Wikis, though, are only half the story. The other is Firefox 2. Specifically, the spell checker in Firefox 2. Now I don’t have write entries in word then paste them into the browser if I want nice, clean spelling. There’s a spell checker built right into this motherfucker! And it recognizes the word “motherfucker!”

Visit: My NaNoWriMo 2006 Wiki