Yearly Archives: 2007

book

Year End

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I finished proofing PDFs for my Vista book at 5:47pm on New Year’s Eve. In one of the final chapters, a figure had been dropped and I hadn’t noticed until someone put it back with this caption, “Add caption and location.” I spent 20 minutes figuring out where the original citation was, the caption and whether I really wanted the figure back. It was not an important figure, but leaving it out would have required renumbering all the rest.

In the last chapter, a table had been “corrupted” (jargon for screwed up); hopefully, we’ll get that squared away. The whole book is off to the printer this week.

At the New Year’s Eve party, our hostess expressed surprise that I was content with a beer to celebrate the end of the task. It’s still sinking in and I won’t really celebrate until I have the book in my hands.

I’ll leave you with the last samples of my encounter with the most diligent proofreader. I don’t think he is wrong in all of these but may have exceeded his assignment with some. mjh

I wrote:
The blue text under the major headings in Figure 7-1 ….

Proofer wrote:
will text be printed blue in book?

[mjh: How about: “The text under the major headings in Figure 7-1, which will be blue on your screen though black on this page…”?]

I wrote:
The problem will be separating the wheat from the chaff.

Proofer wrote:
to separate

I titled a chapter:
Setup Programs

Proofer wrote:
title OK? sounds like it deals with programs named Setup … “Setting Up Programs” better?

[mjh: maybe so. Of course, setting up programs — setting programs up? — often involves a program named Setup. Moreover, the DE, TE, PE and CE didn’t suggest changing the title — or, as far as the proofer knows, each one of them did and that was rejected 4 times already.]

I wrote:
RSS support may bring millions of new users to that method of digesting Web content.

Proofer wrote:
correct word? “consuming” better?

[mjh: see Reader’s Consumption for more fun with words.]

I wrote:
Many of the Security settings offer a choice among Enable (less safe?), Disable (more strict) and Prompt.

Proofer wrote:
between

I wrote:
Click the red circular button.

Proofer wrote:
better: circular red

[mjh: what, no comma?]

I wrote:
The Now Playing screen can be used to display the album cover for the current tune, or various visualizations (this is your CPU on acid.).

Proofer wrote:
drug ref OK?

I wrote:
presently … prior

Proofer wrote:
currently … previous

The next morning, Mer awoke to say the proofer’s choice of “circular red” was more poetic. Maybe so, but is that really the reason for that suggestion — poetry?

We had an interesting time researching the subtleties of between/among. Even though between may actually have application with more than two, I think among is the right choice in this context.

Mind you, I had no quarrel with the majority of the proofer’s suggested changes, though he is an obsessive comma-inserter. I would work with this proofer again — he was relentless. As for the copy editor, her name is no longer in the credits; perhaps she washed her hands of me. mjh

NADA

NRA Sounds Alarm of Not-So-Imminent Threat

Jeffrey H. Birnbaum – NRA Sounds Alarm of Not-So-Imminent Threat By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum

In lobbying, a threat is good for business, whether it’s genuine or not.

This might help to explain the dire warnings being issued by the National Rifle Association as the Democrats prepare to take control of Congress this week.

“The new leadership could be one of the most unfriendly to the National Rifle Association,” declared Andrew Arulanandam, spokesman for the NRA. “If there’s an effort to pursue gun control, we will mount an active defense.”

The famously combative lobby, with 4 million members, is displeased with the voting histories of Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and other top Democrats in the House and is putting them on notice that it won’t tolerate passage of anti-gun measures.

The only problem: No one expects gun legislation this year. …

The NRA is on high alert, and its latest weapon is a pamphlet designed to send its members into fits of paranoid rage and to inspire them to open their wallets.

A draft of the 27-page document, which was provided to The Washington Post by a source outside the NRA, lashes out at such icons of the left as investor George Soros, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Pelosi. They are depicted as part of “a marching axis of adversaries far darker and more dangerous than gun owners have ever known.”

Few places are less likely to be burgled than the Fairfax County headquarters of the NRA. But Arulanandam alleged that someone recently stole a “working draft” of the pamphlet, called “Freedom in Peril.”

The document is filled with sinister-looking caricatures of supposed anti-gun figures such as filmmaker Michael Moore, comedian Rosie O’Donnell, New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg (R) and CBS News anchor Katie Couric. One chapter attacks Democratic lawmakers such as Sens. John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and derides them as a “Gang of Opportunists.” Other NRA enemies are “One-World Extremists,” “Animal Rights Terrorists” (such as People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and “Illegal Alien Gangs.” …

“It’s inevitable that terrorists will infest America for generations to come. It’s also inevitable that an anti-gun president will occupy the White House, and anti-gun forces will control the U.S. House and Senate,” they write. “Unless we are well-financed to face that moment, the final disarmament of law-abiding Americans will occur beneath the shroud of anti-terrorism legislation.”