Nethermore

In a bold move today, Google Inc. of Mountain View, California acquired the Internet for 10.2 trillion dollars.

“It was the logical next step,” says Google co-founder Sergey Brin. “Our analysts began noticing the trend a few years back. We were buying all the companies that had anything to do with online interactions. At this rate, they said we’d have the whole Internet bought up by 2015. We decided to preempt the trend and save money in the long run.”

The Associated Press said:

Google Acquires The Internet
AP - 2 Hours Ago

In a move that stunned two nations, four blind mice, and a greased up deaf guy, Google has made a successful bid for The Internet. This monstrous deal for an undisclosed sum was inked at the estate of former Vice President Al Gore, where Mr. Gore formally handed it over.

When asked what Mr. Gore will do with the earnings, he said, “I’ve been wanting my own modest website for sometime now. Now I think it’s time to make a bid on whitehouse.gov.”

With a small portion of the money, he is backing a bill that would limit the amount of words politicians can speak in a day. “I’m concerned with Global Warming,” he said, “and I’d tell you why, but I’ve already reached my word quota.”

For more information on the Internet, its creation, and its creator, check out http://www.algorerules.com/internet/index.htm.

Picture by Kojiro.

I’ve got to have the coolest brothers in the world. One of them actually has a blog. If you’re familiar with Stinky Hobo and the humor employed in those posts, then I think you’re really going to dig the new blog.

Probably my favorite post so far is called Power Supply in a Popcan where Phil takes a computer’s power supply, tears it apart, and fits it in a popcan. Check it out. This is a great blog and has had me smiling all day.

That’s it. I’ve had it with quick-to-cook Asian meals. Last week I blogged about “A Taste of Thai,” whose Red Curry Noodles I couldn’t even recommend to starving Boy Scouts.

This week it’s something different . . . yet the same. You think I would’ve learned by now. This crappy cuisine is called “Simply Asian: Szechuan Noodles Something-or-other” and while it’s better than “A Taste of Thai,” I’d still prefer ten-cent ramen over either of them.

Looks like I’ll be going back to frozen dinners here soon. Luckily, my stash of experimental asian quick-to-cook food is all used up.

Stinky Hobo Stories by Phillip Stewart is now available on the Nethermore.com store!

My copy came in the mail on Friday, and I can vouch that this is one quality book. The design, the binding, and of course, the stories are all beautiful. Lulu.com has done a great job with the printing. We did the design ourselves, so I can’t tell you if Lulu’s design services are as good as their printing.

As always, Stinky Hobo Stories are available online in blog format.

I will post pictures of the final product as soon as I can get someone to let me borrow their digitial camera. Click the link above or in this sentence to go to Lulu.com’s Stink Hobo page.

Stay tuned! On Thursday, the 30th and final Stinky Hobo Story will appear, compliments of the Hobo himself.

Here’s another look into history, 99 years ago.

It is likely that the French have sealed their own fates in their slow negotiations with the Wrights, for the brothers have withdrawn their proposal and taken their aeroplane to Berlin. Discussions have begun with a military arm of that government. I cannot imagine that this is a very good thing if ever Europe should find itself at war again, which is likely, considering their dispositions.

I am increasingly worried over the deaths our new modes of transportation are causing. In August, the Times reported over 40 deaths involving cars (those of the railroad and the Subway in our four counties of the city). More than 50 deaths occurred in September! In addition to this, over ten people suffered cracked skulls, and almost ten enduredtions (I am not positve whether these amputations transpired before, during, or after the accidents). The numbers are increasing since the opening in 1904. Too many people, I think, are expiring in the name of progress. If only the convenience of the Subway could be mimicked by the horse and buggy! For me, I prefer my feet to either.

I’m doing a little research into a bygone era and thought it might be interesting to blog about antique events as if I were someone of that era. It may take a little time to get into the voice, but hopefully it will be somewhat entertaining. The “antique blog” will run in a brown color to offset it from my usual blogging.

I have discovered a recent phenomenon for which Edison would give his teeth. In coming years I suspect this phenomenon will sweep the nation, if not the entire earth. The new feature of which I speak is blogging.

Like an editorial that runs in the Times, a blog is a journal or an editorial that has new editions daily or even bi-daily. It is a product of this modern age that I can take a pen and spew forth my opinions that will immediately be typeset, printed, and distributed upon my immediate retracting of pen from paper. I would have preferred to call this new fancy something more descriptive—immeditorial, for example—for blog sounds as if it were something one might do with his nose.

Monday I will begin with events just days old; events that will hound my mind until peradventure I can strike words to paper. Farewell until Monday.

Occassionally I go with Brandon to booksignings in order to sign the Mistborn maps and just generally help out by cornering readers and asking them if they like fantasy books. I have a great time each time I go. I used to work in a book store, and I loved recommending books to people, so the signings both feed my desire to share cool books with people and also motivate me in my own writing. After all, someday I’d like to be signing Nethermore for people.

Brandon posted this picture to his blog yesterday, so I thought I’d pass it on by posting it here. This was the Mistborn booksigning in Idaho Falls, Idaho. Three television stations dropped by to interview us, and we just had a lot of fun in general, especially when people I knew from home dropped by to say hi and get their books signed.

I just have to say, Brandon’s a stellar guy to let me tag along at these things.

We’ve seen the arrival of virtual worlds. The number of users in Second Life and World of Warcraft have exploded. Hundreds of thousands of dollars exchange hands on these services every day. And now the IRS wants their cut of it.

It’s not enough that, were one to cash out virtual dollars into real dollars, that the IRS will take a cut of that money. Now they may want to tax the virtual transactions themselves. So, for example, if you sell a bit of virtual property and make a profit in virtual dollars, then you would have to pay virtual taxes on that virtual profit.

Doesn’t sound fair to me. It’s a game! It’s played for fun! When did virtual reality become reality? When did taxing virtual assets become part of the game?

If virtual taxation comes into play, it appears that those assets will be taxed twice: once when the transaction takes place in the virtual world, and the second time when the player transfers virtual assets into real world assets.

I recently read an article about this over at Scientific American that addresses the issue of taxing in-game assets. Here are some of the things said by those they interviewed:

Game designer Sam Lewis said, “There’s just too much money floating around.” He did say, however, that he didn’t want the IRS knocking on anyone’s virtual door.

Dan Miller said, “I found that talking about this issue with some of the other economists on the committee, they are not really familiar with what a virtual economy is.” Did I mention that Dan Miller is the U.S. Congress’s senior economist for the Joint Economic Committee?

According to my brother, the interpretation of the quote above is this: “The sooner we can figure out what it is, the sooner we can tax it.”

Now, if there are that many people unaware of how these second worlds work, I’ll wager there are few people in the nation’s law-making bodies who know what they are talking about. This will inevitably lead to laws made by those who don’t understand what they’re doing.

I think it’s time that the virtual community send a virtual Smith to Washington. A virtual community should not be taxed without having had someone represent their case before lawmakers. Virtopia needs Senators and Congressmen.

And if they don’t get them? Well, I think they should form their own country and secede from the union; form their own constitution, elect their own president, and decide whether they want to be taxed or not.

Virtual nations. That’s a strange idea. Now that I mention it, it really scares me. What if a group of pedophiles or murderers decides to create their own virtual nation where they aren’t subject to the laws in which their computer resides. (This must be covered in a law somewhere–how else does the law convict these kind of people using the harddrives from their computers?)

So, on second thought, there really needs to be regulations on these things. But really, the taxation shouldn’t be inserted into a game, or else there will be people who form their own nations to avoid taxation. And forming online nations with their own laws just opens up a whole new can of worms.

But I think I’ll be fine with the virtual nations formed to avoid ridiculous taxes . . . so long as they don’t start enriching uranium.

I want to save you all the trauma of buying “A Taste of Thai” Red Curry Noodles in the easy-to-cook, microwaveable variety.

Last night, after writing group, I was extremely hungry–as I normally am after writing group. Stopped by my house to pick up something to eat before traveling on to movie night at a friend’s house. Picked up “A Taste of Thai,” cooked it up, and started to devour it.

All I can say is that I really didn’t like this stuff. I don’t know if the “Taste of Thai” flavors other than Red Curry Noodles are any good, but this one is to be avoided. Save your money for ramen noodles!

In other news, I received my quarterfinalist notification from the Writers of the Future Contest on my story “Sky Father.” This is the best I’ve gotten in the contest so far. The way it works is that there are normal rejections, followed by quarterfinalists (top ten percent), semifinalists (who get critiques on their work), and finalists (from which 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place recipients are picked).

So, “Sky Father” will soon be on it’s way to another market. In the meantime, I’m brushing up “Robes of the Gods” to send to WotF this quarter.

My brother noted that I hadn’t posted anything about yurts for quite a while. So I went digging through the archives to find one of the more-historic moments of yurtdom.

Yurts are so awesome that the astronauts of the moon missions lived in them for days during their stuff. I hear that the circular design helps conserve oxygen. (Notice the circular design of the space helmet, modeled after the yurt.)