It's a miracle
After more than a year of messing with it (though not, I admit, very diligently) I have succeeded in making the scroll wheel of the mouse work in Wolvix. Comparing the xorg.conf files on two different machines (neither of which worked, but for different reasons) I conclude that I just failed to follow directions very carefully. Duh-mb pony me. Not that I ever use the scroll wheel on any machine, but it irritated me that it didn't seem to work when everyone said it works fine in Linux. And they were right, it does. On both machines.
The bigger news, for those who didn't see it on facebook, is that I submitted a 2+ year old manuscript for a YA novel to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. They sent a confirmation that my submission was received and accepted. Although the deadline is midnight next Sunday, they limit entries in each of the two categories to 5000 and I was afraid I'd be shut out before I was ready to submit. The first round of selection is apparently based only on a 300 word "pitch" or summary of the storyline, which is kind of difficult for book manuscripts of 50 to 150K words, but OK, I'll play that game. Get past that and there are people actually reading your work so chances of succeeding on merit improve greatly.
Centuries ago, human society collapsed as a result of warfare, ecological catastrophes, and climate change. Communication between isolated areas broke down, and in many parts of the world, humans simply died out. North America was one such area. Here the larger non-human species evolved and changed rapidly under the pressure of radioactive fallout and climate change until several of them emerged in a new form. The wolf, cougar, coyote, fox, and large herbivores such as the horse, became the new dominant groups, speaking and walking upright as humans had once done. They studied and learned from remaining human libraries and artifacts, seeking to avoid a repeat of the errors of the Old Time.
Into this pioneer world Jake was born. Son of a donkey father and a horse mother, he was a mule. The other adolescent twofers, as they called themselves after their walking posture, treated him as an outcast. Nonetheless, Jake’s teachers recognized his brilliant and creative mind and worked to develop it. In his last year of regular schooling, he must decide whether to go on to become a teacher or choose a different course for himself.
Reading about human flying machines, Jake wants to duplicate their technology once more. He has a yearning to soar with the birds and see the earth from the air. While working on his dream, he also must deal with the pressures and pains of growing up, including jealous peers, friendship, enmity, and the unexpected. His mother, his equally bright friend Scarlett, and his dog companion Daisy, will all stand by him, but is it enough?
Coming of age in a different world has all the same issues that confront today’s young people, but with some additional challenges to spur the imagination and thought.
Those who followed my NaNoWriMo posts back in 2007 may recognize this story. Yes, that's the one, now fully polished and matured. My first NaNo success (I've had two since then) and I'm still quite satisfied with it. Should it ever make it to print, sequels are entirely possible.
The rest of the news: We got a bunch of snow today. The original prediction was for an inch overnight last night. At dawn this morning, we already had an inch and it was still coming down. They revised the prediction to "up to two inches." In the end, I think we had three before the temperature rose enough to start melting it. There are still a couple of inches sitting around on the ground and roofs. Up at work, 12 miles north of here, we got closer to four inches. It's pretty, and though the driving was slow and nasty, I don't mind it so much because it is not cold. We are hovering in the 25F range at night and going up near freezing during the day for the next few days. Clouds and snow mean that the dopy ground hogs didn't see their shadow this morning, at least, not around here. Winter is supposed to end soon in that case. We shall see.
The bigger news, for those who didn't see it on facebook, is that I submitted a 2+ year old manuscript for a YA novel to the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award competition. They sent a confirmation that my submission was received and accepted. Although the deadline is midnight next Sunday, they limit entries in each of the two categories to 5000 and I was afraid I'd be shut out before I was ready to submit. The first round of selection is apparently based only on a 300 word "pitch" or summary of the storyline, which is kind of difficult for book manuscripts of 50 to 150K words, but OK, I'll play that game. Get past that and there are people actually reading your work so chances of succeeding on merit improve greatly.
Centuries ago, human society collapsed as a result of warfare, ecological catastrophes, and climate change. Communication between isolated areas broke down, and in many parts of the world, humans simply died out. North America was one such area. Here the larger non-human species evolved and changed rapidly under the pressure of radioactive fallout and climate change until several of them emerged in a new form. The wolf, cougar, coyote, fox, and large herbivores such as the horse, became the new dominant groups, speaking and walking upright as humans had once done. They studied and learned from remaining human libraries and artifacts, seeking to avoid a repeat of the errors of the Old Time.
Into this pioneer world Jake was born. Son of a donkey father and a horse mother, he was a mule. The other adolescent twofers, as they called themselves after their walking posture, treated him as an outcast. Nonetheless, Jake’s teachers recognized his brilliant and creative mind and worked to develop it. In his last year of regular schooling, he must decide whether to go on to become a teacher or choose a different course for himself.
Reading about human flying machines, Jake wants to duplicate their technology once more. He has a yearning to soar with the birds and see the earth from the air. While working on his dream, he also must deal with the pressures and pains of growing up, including jealous peers, friendship, enmity, and the unexpected. His mother, his equally bright friend Scarlett, and his dog companion Daisy, will all stand by him, but is it enough?
Coming of age in a different world has all the same issues that confront today’s young people, but with some additional challenges to spur the imagination and thought.
Those who followed my NaNoWriMo posts back in 2007 may recognize this story. Yes, that's the one, now fully polished and matured. My first NaNo success (I've had two since then) and I'm still quite satisfied with it. Should it ever make it to print, sequels are entirely possible.
The rest of the news: We got a bunch of snow today. The original prediction was for an inch overnight last night. At dawn this morning, we already had an inch and it was still coming down. They revised the prediction to "up to two inches." In the end, I think we had three before the temperature rose enough to start melting it. There are still a couple of inches sitting around on the ground and roofs. Up at work, 12 miles north of here, we got closer to four inches. It's pretty, and though the driving was slow and nasty, I don't mind it so much because it is not cold. We are hovering in the 25F range at night and going up near freezing during the day for the next few days. Clouds and snow mean that the dopy ground hogs didn't see their shadow this morning, at least, not around here. Winter is supposed to end soon in that case. We shall see.