Forum: Author Hangout

I've been doing that all along with Lulu for the print books, and have an extra PDF of selected pages I upload for the e-pub version. So it seems Amazon is playing catch-up.

Yes, but in your case, you need to create a separate pdf version of the story just for someone else to reference. In this case, Amazon automatically creates a 'preview' content (typically the first couple chapters), and including the link automates the entire process (readers can navigate from page to page, depending on which device they're reading on). It's actually quite clever, and eliminates trying to read a full 6"x9" print display on a cell phone.

Yes, but in your case, you need to create a separate pdf version of the story just for someone else to reference.

That's because I choose to use the options for a specialised preview instead of the automated one they have.

edit to add: it's good to see Amazon is finally getting around to including a preview, but I still won't use them for anything I don't mind going out free. - I'm still waiting for them to forward the income for a few sales they made three years ago when I let them have Rough Diamond as a trial.

Is that how it's supposed to work? Or is it just that way for me.

The link was supposed to work (there are separate lines for html code (to include in emails) and another to include into webpages. But the preview is the entire thing I was discussing. Instead of creating several pages of html code to list sample chapters in any given book, I can simply include the link and readers get an instant preview, along with the ability to 'click to buy'.

All in all, it's much neater and cleaner than doing it yourself (which is why I'm trimming on websites coding).

Note: The inserted code (on the website) shows the cover with a button to "buy" or "View the Preview". The link, however, should take you directly into the preview (it doesn't display the cover first). It works on Firefox. Let me know which browser you're using and I'll see whether there are incompatibility issues with it.

When I click on your posted link, I get this:

The link works for me, but it takes a long while for the almost 100 java scripts Amazon shoves at me to go through before anything is displayed - damned if I know why they need so many scripts to run what i can provide with a single line of html code.

damned if I know why they need so many scripts to run what i can provide with a single line of html code.

Does it have to do with all the ads they are going to impose on you when the link does open? :(

Does it have to do with all the ads they are going to impose on you when the link does open? :(

No. Based on the servers and folders they're calling the scripts from the first 11 seem to relate to their Kindle Player, while the last half dozen relate to their way of trying to track down who you are and where you're from, while the rest appear to relate to book being provided - don't understand why they need so many of them for any of the activities. But that seems to be the case now with so many idiots creating web pages using software to drag and drop miniature routines instead of taking the time to write any actual code.

Well that accounts for 22 of the 100.

I don't expect you to know or provide an explanation, but I wonder what the remaining 78 are doing.

I don't expect you to know or provide an explanation, but I wonder what the remaining 78 are doing.

that's what the bit where I said - while the rest appear to relate to book being provided - don't understand why they need so many of them for any of the activities. - is about. They are all scripts from a server to do with books and calling things from the same folder - maybe a different script per line of text, I don't know.

Based on the servers and folders they're calling the scripts from the first 11 seem to relate to their Kindle Player, while the last half dozen relate to their way of trying to track down who you are and where you're from, while the rest appear to relate to book being provided - don't understand why they need so many of them for any of the activities.

That makes sense (the ones you identified) since the preview depends on the Kindle reader functionality, and the identifying who you are is directly tied into the "buy this book" functionality (when you finish the preview). I'm sure much of the rest is tied to these same functions, but as always with Amazon, much of it will be to track you. (Hint: I've also got a tie in there where, if you buy anything else on Amazon while there, I get a pittance of the sale.)

Another new feature from Amazon is the incredible increase in postage. We were looking at something fairly cheap and they came up with a postage charge for ordinary basic mail of about £35 which was a multiple of the item price. We no longer buy from them. Period

I haven't encountered this as a 'Prime' customer, but I have had four of my shipments in the last three weeks go awry in some way, such that they didn't keep the '2 day' promise of Amazon Prime. The reliability of their deliveries is slipping badly. The three additional months of 'Prime' service they used to compensate me don't make up for things not showing up when they are needed...

I haven't encountered this as a 'Prime' customer, but I have had four of my shipments in the last three weeks go awry in some way, such that they didn't keep the '2 day' promise of Amazon Prime. The reliability of their deliveries is slipping badly. The three additional months of 'Prime' service they used to compensate me don't make up for things not showing up when they are needed...

I've never been able to use the 1-day shipping, not only from Amazon, but from UPS and everyone else. That's not because of them, but because they all use the tiny regional airport, which restricts flights to the late evening, meaning any deliveries are delayed until the following day.

Every time my sister visits, and invariably orders something, she calls to complain, and gets the delivery fees waved, while those of us who live here are terrified of doing the same out of fear UPS will simply abandon us if their costs grow too large.

One-day shipping is nice, but it only works when you live in certain areas (even within the Continental U.S.).

I live in a small section of beach on the eastern shore of N.C. (think a 200 mile long island, only 1 mile wide at its widest). It's very popular (our small population expands by 10 times during the summer), but we only have a single, limited airport (technically, we have two, but UPS is restricted to one).

To this day, I've yet to see a single "same day" delivery make good on its pledge.

You'd think they would ship goods out to you by boat instead of bothering with a small airport.

All the things I bought which they "absolutely" promised would arrive today ... you guessed it, didn't. Hopefully I'll get them tomorrow. But when they make such extravagant claims, it really makes you want to sue them for broken claims, just to get them to stop hyping it when they can't deliver on time.

The reliability of their deliveries is slipping badly.

I've noticed that also. I suspect their Christmas sales volume has overwhelmed their delivery capacity. Perhaps it will improve after the holidays.

Presumably, having reached the critical mass required by their business model, they're now turning the business into a cash-cow. Yay for eBay.

AJ

Yay for eBay.

eBay isn't any better, as the majority of each item's profit margin rests on their own exorbitant shipping costs (quoted, not by UPS or some other reliable service, but by the person shipping the item to deposit in their account).

When you consider the huge array of $.01 items, which charge several dollars to ship (mostly for books ripped-off from the rightful authors), you'll understand why it's such a scam.

My Unchristmas Prezzie arrived yesterday, a piece of cheap tat from China bought on eBay, postage free. A similar item would cost 2-3 the net price in the shops, and if I bought it from America, it would cost three times as much again for the postage.

It's a strange world.

AJ

Yay for eBay.

I had a problem with eBay several years ago. I needed an immediate answer to a question. Nowhere on any of their websites to they provide a phone number that you can call to get assistance.

The typically scenario is you have to send them an email. Then you get a form letter telling you your email was received and that they value you as a customer. BS! If they really valued my business they would provide a customer service phone number. A couple of days later, you get an answer. Unfortunately, their answers often fail to answer my question. So the whole process repeats.

Yes, I do know the other big internet companies are much the same way, but my problem occurred with eBay. That is why they are not my first or second choice for purchasing merchandise on line.

I had a problem with eBay several years ago. I needed an immediate answer to a question. Nowhere on any of their websites to they provide a phone number that you can call to get assistance.

That's always going to be a problem when the business model is based on automation. It's the tiny few percent of situations their programmers haven't thought about that fall through the cracks. And for the same reason, I think it will be a very, very long time before driverless cars can be trusted with complete autonomy.

AJ

That's always going to be a problem when the business model is based on automation. It's the tiny few percent of situations their programmers haven't thought about that fall through the cracks. And for the same reason, I think it will be a very, very long time before driverless cars can be trusted with complete autonomy.

I'll trust driverless cars the day after they can provide me with a working GPS unit. Years ago, both Google and Apple Maps got me to my location, now roughly a third of the time they won't, often leaving me in the middle of the street, roughly 6 blocks from my eventual destination.

If they can't handle basic GPS, what makes you think they'll avoid the car ahead of you driving the one way on a one-way road?

Google and Apple maps on a smart phone aren't actually using GPS, Most smart phone's don't have actual GPS receivers, so they are using cell tower signal strength data to triangulate your position. It's drastically less precise than GPS.

Whichever technique they use, they used to do a decent job, but their quality has fallen tremendously in only a few years, which doesn't reflect a fall in cell towers during the same period. In short, I don't trust the major international companies of issues of quality, and definitely not enough to bet my life on!

So if you had a phone with real GPS and then latter "upgraded" to a phone that didn't, that will reduce the precision of the phone's location data.

I suspect that's the case. iPhones used to have a GPS/Compass feature which has gone away a few upgrades ago, so I'm guessing they stopped using actual GPS signals. I'm in the same area, and we recently replaced a downed cell phone with a massive new tower, plus several towns have put up their own cell-phone towers on their water towers (ringed with electronics to get the best signal with the fewest resources possible). So I doubt the cell phone towers are 'exhausted' as of yet.

they used to do a decent job, but their quality has fallen

The maps on my iPhone 7+ is better than the GPS on my Lexus. It's outstanding.

The maps on my iPhone 7+ is better than the GPS on my Lexus. It's outstanding.

I don't live in or near any major cities, but the local information isn't up to the same level as it is in more populous areas.

Both maps used to be reliable (although it could never find my house, confusing East street with West street), but it could find most destinations. But for the past couple years, it misses local locations and also locations in Norfolk and Virginia Beach (a smaller city in Virginia).

I think it will be a very, very long time before driverless cars can be trusted

They can never be trusted!

The manufacturers focus your attention on how good the software performs. Electronic equipment fails. When the computer operating the system suffers a fatal hardware failure, the car instantly becomes a 4,500 pound (about 2,000 KG) projectile.

In a properly designed system, IF the failure is detected, the car's brakes should automatically be applied for a Panic Stop. Human drivers typically follow too close and they are not expecting the car in front of them to come to a panic stop for no apparent reason. Something that is against the law in many states. The inevitable result will be a collision.

If that failure happens to occur while the car in, going into, or coming out of a curve, any vehicle beside the driverless car will be at risk of a collision, especially those operated by human drivers. Another computer controlled car may be able to avoid a collision, but its sudden braking and swerving may cause a collision.

Now if the road is icy when the failure occurs and the default is a panic stop, only God knows where the car will end up. That is especially true if the car's brakes pull to the left or right.

Yet they will still probably be safer than present human drivers. Only because so many of them aren't anywhere near as good as they think they are.

The fact they're currently forbidden from traveling any faster than the posted speed limit means they'll (ultimately) end up being banned from most interstate highways, where the 'average' speeds are all at least 10+ mph above the posted limits, often much more.

If everyone slowed down to the posted limit, it would again result in increased traffic congestion, whether the cops want to admit it or not. Thus they'll only target the fastest drives on the road.

I am a computer programmer. Software is only ever as good as the programmer who wrote it. Large complex applications are never/will never be bug free.

My antiquated Volkswagen has a control panel with buttons marked '+' and '-' to increase or decrease the fan speed. Sometimes the software gets confused (probably object-oriented) and pressing the '-' button increases the fan speed.

A friend recently bought a brand new Toyota for his wife. The fan controls are on a touch screen and it has exactly the same fault, the software sometimes gets confused and accelerates the fan rather than slowing it.

I shudder to think what would happen if more vital systems suffer from the same sort of problem and there's no driver to override them.

AJ

If I tapped the brake it would usually disengage

Every cruise control I've ever used has worked by disengaging when the brake is touched. It's a fail safe system so the motor won't run away in an emergency if your foot comes off the brake. Mind you, they do the reverse with the accelerator in that you can accelerate and they drop back to the control setting when you let off it.

Of course, we can't forget the great 'fly-by-wire' (is computer controlled) commercial planes that have crashed because the computers wouldn't let the pilots override their safety settings.

Almost all automotive systems are controlled or 'assisted' by the on-board computer these days. You can't even turn on your headlights or wipers unless the computer allows it. I hate them.

The biggest trouble with most automated engine systems, is they use the exact same controllers that runs the entertainment system (i.e. it's accessible to hacking). Thus once they start driverless cars (or even worse, trucks), it's only a limited time until someone decides to 'take over and teach them a lesson).

Since the software techniques to access the car engine's system is generally dispersed across the internet, and idiot can figure out how to accomplish it (just like most idiots can figure out how to have you car open the doors and start the engine without a key now).

A friend recently bought a brand new Toyota for his wife. The fan controls are on a touch screen and it has exactly the same fault, the software sometimes gets confused and accelerates the fan rather than slowing it.

Some of those types of systems are a circuit control, and when you reach one end it wraps around to the other, and all the buttons do is to move the location along once spot on the circuit to the next rheostat setting. Thus when you reach the bottom or the top there's a major change when it switches to the other end of the circuit.

I shudder to think what would happen if more vital systems suffer from the same sort of problem and there's no driver to override them.

All the driverless cars, at the moment at least, require someone to sit in the driver's seat, so they can (at least in theory) take over in case something goes wrong (as if someone sexting their gf can react to a multicar pile-up during a sudden downpour).

Large complex applications are never/will never be bug free.

I managed a technical writing/training department for a large R&D Defense Contractor. I worked with computer programmers, so I am very much aware that what you say is true.

My company was having problems with one of its Army customers. Lots of bugs in the system software. They took about 6-8 months to focus of fixing all the bugs. Had a party with the customer to celebrate the software being "Hard As Nails". Then further bugs made themselves known.

Top Down-Bottoms Up is a good way to develop a software program. To bad, there isn't a similar approach used to evaluate Bug Fixes.

In a properly designed system, IF the failure is detected, the car's brakes should automatically be applied for a Panic Stop.

There are already emergency fail safe braking systems in place with trains that have worked well for many decades. Similar systems work well with the tractor-trailer rigs. They can be designed for a slam on the brakes panic stop or a less drastic, but still very fast, emergency stop. The issue is in how to program the computer software as to what constitutes an emergency stop.

In the USA and Europe there are already some tractor-trailer rigs with a computer controlled radar unit mounted on the front so when they get too close to a car in front the brakes are applied to stop the truck. Great, you say, reduces the risk of them running up the back of someone. This is true, but the risk of an unneeded emergency stop causing an accident and the truck getting hit goes up by a factor several times higher. The reason for this is idiots see the safe stopping gap the truck driver keeps, and decide they can switch lanes to be in front of the truck. Often they switch lanes and accelerate away - that's good, except the radar suddenly sees a car in front that's way too close and slams on the brakes. The result is the truck has a major decrease in speed for no real reason due to the safety software, thus you get increased wear on the vehicle, more fuel used, more gas emissions, and there's already been many cases of trucks being struck from behind by cars following too close when this happens.

If the system loses pressure, or the engineer lets go of the break lever, the breaks close and the train stops.

That's the way they designed it to work - fail safe brakes, and it works perfectly in the big trucks in the exact same way. There's no reason why the same design of system can't be put into a normal car. The reason they don't is the cost.

Brakes break.

So do people when they do.

Here in Australia you are required to keep a safe distance between vehicles. If someone suddenly stops, and you hit them from behind then you are the driver at fault for not driving safely.

The same is true in the States, except, on my highways, where the traffic is going 70+mph, if everyone kept the 'safe distance', travel times would take another couple hours. Thus everyone on the highway (with the exception of those endangering others) typically trails the car ahead of them by only a single car length (Note: this is not a semi/truck/or SUV-length, but simply a single passenger car length). What's more, NO ONE gets a ticket to traveling to close behind the other drivers unless they're riding their bumper.

On local roads, though, it's another story entirely!

In five years of driving Class A license long-haul 18-wheel rigs (over 600,000 miles in 47 states (missed Maine) and three Canadian provinces, I found the ONLY effective defensive driving measure was to allow several vehicle lengths between my rig and the vehicle ahead. And to focus on the vehicles ahead of that one... to track whatever would cause that followed vehicle to react.

Driving a rig (or a semi) is a different ballgame than driving cars or 'simple' trucks. That's because of the multiple gears they have to go through, they can't slow and speed up as easily as most automatic cars, meaning if they slow, it'll take a long time to get back to cruising speed. If you cut off a rig, you're likely to hear their air-horn, as it pisses 'em off somethin' fierce!

However, for most other vehicles, those restrictions are a thing of the past, as their engines accelerate quickly.

In the US we don't use the term road train. A semi tractor hauling two trailers would be called a double bottom. Three trailers would be a triple bottom.

We have both here. A B-Double is a trailer about 50 to 60% of a normal trailer and set up especially to sit between the tractor and the main trailer. While a Road Train is a single tractor pulling between three to six normal length full sized trailers - three and four are the most common sizes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_train

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iFkKRh5kcM

2. Also called truck tractor. a short truck with a driver's cab but no body, designed for hauling a trailer or semitrailer.

It wouldn't hurt to use that term "truck tractor" the first time you use the term (tractor) in a story, for all the non-Americans out there. After that, it's fine to keep repeating it.

2. I would probably go with semi-tractor for the first use in a story.

I agree. "Truck Tractor" is an unknown term in the U.S. "Semi-tractor" is a common term, which is also more detailed and easy to look up.

we in the U.S. generally refer to as a 'semi' or 'tractor-trailer'

This twist in the thread drift is an oddity, to me. Here in New South Wales, Australia we call the semitrailers for the combined rig, and semi for the truck by itself (some people in the industry call running the truck by itself as 'running a bob-tail'). I first came across the reference of the truck as a tractor in some US based stories by US authors where they tended to call them tractor-trailers and just a truck when no trailer - - which I found confusing at first.

This twist in the thread drift is an oddity, to me. Here in New South Wales, Australia we call the semitrailers for the combined rig, and semi for the truck by itself (some people in the industry call running the truck by itself as 'running a bob-tail'). I first came across the reference of the truck as a tractor in some US based stories by US authors where they tended to call them tractor-trailers and just a truck when no trailer - - which I found confusing at first.

That usage is found in the States too ("semi" in reference to the cab), though it seems restricted to the truckers themselves, as it's never caught on with the general public. For them, the entire assembly is the semi (in which case, they need to ask "semi-what?").

I've also heard truckers (back in my CB days) use the term "bob-tail" too.

By the way, tramway seems to be more often used (at least in America) to refer to 'cable cars' that run across the sky (like ski lifts, or to cross wide distances in the mountains (there's one on Roosevelt Island in Manhattan, as well as the famous one in Argentina).

Tandem and triple 'trains' using 48-foot trailers (or sometimes shorter) is more common.

The actual name that our DOT uses for them is tridem. They're all over the roads here. (And I mean that in both ways - lots of them on the roads, and like you said, that third trailer 'wiggles' all over the place.)

Higher speeds actually result in less vehicles per hour being able travel on a road, due to the impact of merging & exiting vehicles & their effects on the flow of traffic as well as slower moving vehicles within the traffic flow.

Yep, all the highways I'm thinking of (mainly those into and out of the major cities) have huge backups every time it changes from a 8-line highway down to a 7 or 6 lane highway. People just can't cope. However, all the research suggests it's best for everyone if you give up on being nice, and just drive to the very end of the lane and THEN merge, rather than merging immediately.

In short, it's all the 'nice' fuckers who screw us over. ;D

Seriously?
It's illegal to make an emergency stop if the idiot behind you doesn't know why you're doing it?

The process he's referring to is what they call brake checking in the US, and it's against the law here in Australia as well. In brake checking someone moves in front of you by changing lanes when you're so close they shouldn't, and standing on the brakes - it's also used by crash for cash scammers. In the Australian Road Rules it's also against the law to suddenly brake hard when there's no real need to. So the practice some people have of braking hard to piss off the person behind them can be charged with 'Driving in a manner dangerous.'

But actually having someone convicted of that is another thing entirely. And even if they are, the person behind that hit them is still responsible for the accident for not allowing enough room to avoid contact.

In most of the few cases where I've seen it happen both have been charged. But I did see one case where the one in front was charged because they'd cut the other off first.

How long before driverless cars can interpret a temporary 'road closed sign' and the accompanying yellow (in the UK) signs with arrows indicating the route of a diversion to avoid the blockage?

There are so many unusual situations which have to be programmed into a driverless car in order to achieve full autonomy that a meatware driver can understand relatively easily.

AJ

How long before driverless cars can interpret a temporary 'road closed sign' and the accompanying yellow (in the UK) signs with arrows indicating the route of a diversion to avoid the blockage?

In most cases, 'driverless cars' require a substantial upgrade in highways to support automated flagging of traffic patterns, construction included. Until that happens, at substantial taxpayer expense, it'll never happen. Thus expect it to only be implemented in a few 'well-off' cities that can afford it. However, the driverless phenomenon is mostly finances by the Uber crowd, who want the service of an Uber cab without the fear of an unregulated driver who might harass or assault you (or be drunk or stoned). Thus it's more likely to be regulated to cities and larger towns.

Another new feature from Amazon is the incredible increase in postage. We were looking at something fairly cheap and they came up with a postage charge for ordinary basic mail of about £35 which was a multiple of the item price. We no longer buy from them. Period

Believe it or not, that's their 'encouragement' to purchase an Amazon Prime account. By making their own postage exorbitant, they somehow think you'll purchase an expensive account whose main benefit is ... free shipping for everything else you buy on Amazon!

Our road safety people and police suggest the 2 second concept - the minimum distance to the vehicle in front.

The better driving schools in Australia have been teaching the 3 second gap rule for nearly 50 years, to my knowledge. It works on the basis of the vehicles needing close to the same space to stop, so you need only allow for the reaction time between when they start to slow down or stop and when you notice it and start to stop. Research said 2 seconds, so they teach 3 seconds just to be safe.

The better driving schools in Australia have been teaching the 3 second gap rule for nearly 50 years, to my knowledge. It works on the basis of the vehicles needing close to the same space to stop, so you need only allow for the reaction time between when they start to slow down or stop and when you notice it and start to stop.

Driving defensively is fine, just remember to stay out of the passing lane, or else you'll piss off everyone who's in a hurry to get somewhere, and cause more problems than you solve by being overly cautious. Modern driving isn't centered around safety, but in getting the most people to their destinations in the shortest amount of time. Occasional multi-vehicle crashes are simply seen as the 'cost of doing business', both by the drivers and by the cops. :(

Driving defensively is fine, just remember to stay out of the passing lane,

It works in the passing lane too. Just sit the 3 seconds behind the car in front, and when he pulls over you sped up a bit to pass him or pull back in front of the last car you passed. The beauty of the three second rule is it works at any speed, so it works when speeding as well.

The beauty of the three second rule is it works at any speed, so it works when speeding as well.

I'm assuming you've never driven into Manhattan, Houston or D.C. during the week (off-peak hours, when the speeds slow to a basic crawl). If there's not much congestion, then the 3-second rule makes the most sense, but when the entire highway is filled with overly aggressive corporate types, in a hurry to get nowhere, things get out of hand quickly.

Our road safety people and police suggest the 2 second concept - the minimum distance to the vehicle in front. You can now actually be arrested for being too close though lorry drivers continue to ignore that

Again, it's against the law in the States too, but it's almost never enforced. Instead, they'll ticket you if you ride someone's bumper (get closer than a single passenger car length). The 2 or 3 second rule is, at this point, simply an amusing historical detail for most locations.

A circular drift? Aren't Amazon developing driverless cars?

AJ