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Dear Pagestreamers (Deron, especially),
I downloaded Pagestream OS X and it (largely) works. There are a few
things that work differently to how I would expect them to, but on the
whole it's a pretty fine effort. A little late in the delivery, but
there you are.
Ironically, although I appreciate all the work that's gone into it, I
now have little need for it. For nine years up until May 2004 I used
Pagestream on my Amiga and then two PPC Macs to produce a monthly club
newsletter. It worked out at something like 104 issues. Along the way
with different updates, it could get a little dodgy and I'd have to go
back a sub-version or two, but other than that, Pagestream made my job
very easy. I didn't use more than a small subset of its functionality,
but that which I did use did the job very well indeed.
What I can now do at last, on my Intel iMac (under 10.5.2), is re-read
some of the dross that I wrote, and uncover some rather good writing
that my regular contributors gave me. If you will indulge me for a
minute or two, here's my editorial from January 2004:
I cant say that I never intended for this to happen. That would have
been absurd. What I can say is that I never, ever, considered that it
would. To suggest that I would ever get to this point would have been,
so many years ago, preposterous. Looking back at how I started, the
first time I tried, I cringe. It was really bad. But everyone has to
start somewhere, and that was where I lost my virginity. It took a
while before it became satisfying rather than terrifying.
But looking at what has come since, knowing that I can regularly do it
with a reasonable amount of skill, I am proud of what I have done, and
what my little band of helpers has done to prop me up.
Knowing that this was coming up, I started writing this in my head
over the last few months. But nothing reasonable has stuck its head
out and said, Write me!. So I had a couple of glasses of wine and
let it dribble out the end of my fingers, like I normally did in the
past: sometimes it was good, often it was just rubbish, but thats all
part of putting it together. Its not my contribution that everyone
recognises the newsletter for, its the whole package.
Anniversaries are often such artificial things. It was supposedly such
a big thing when we moved from 1999 to 2000, but that is such a bogus
measure. It is based, in our calendar, on when somebody is supposed to
have been born 2,000 years ago. But all the evidence is that he wasnt
born in that year (four years previously is commonly taken as being
more accurate), and not even on the day that many observe.
So moving from an undistinguished number (1999) to one that is
supposed to have more cachet (2000) gave everyone in our culture a
good excuse to have a big party. We geeky pedants smirked, drank the
champagne and started planning for another big party in twelve months
when the new millennium really was really to be observed.
But whats with 2,000 years? Why is it that round numbers have such
significance? When we move from being one age to another by just a
day, nothing else in the rest of the world changes. According to my
Pears Cyclopædia, nothing of significance happened anywhere in the
world on the day I was born, and only rarely on the anniversary. That
day was only significant to me, my parents, Woody Allen, Richard Pryor
and Bette Midler (and 1/365th of the rest of humanity).
In John Herseys The Child Buyer (1947), he has a character attempt to
buy a boy by offering the people involved figures like $7,547, instead
of $5,000 or $10,000, because $7,547 sounded much more realistic;
round figures are contrived and finger-in-wind guesses.
The millennialists who thought that the world would end in 1,000 or
2,000 were just innumerate. If there is a god, it wouldnt consider
that a year ending in two or three zeroes as having any particular
significance (unless it had a mischievous sense of umm humour).
When Margaret Thatcher suggested that Buckingham Palace should consult
her in future after she and Elizabeth Windsor wore matching outfits to
a function, a Palace spokeswoman said, imperiously (for she is
entitled so to speak), The Queen doesnt notice what others are
wearing. Quite. You can do that when you are a god, human or otherwise.
Any such acknowledgement is thus meaningless, of no import whatsoever,
but nevertheless I can say not at all disingenuously: its extremely
satisfying because this is my 100th newsletter. And Im very, very
proud.
Thank you very much. And my thanks are extended to Deron Kazmaier
youre a champion, mate.
I meant it then and I mean it now - well done, Deron.
Laurie Fleming laurie.fleming@syswaregroup.com
Crofton Downs laurief@paradise.net.nz
Wellington (+64 21) 688-140
Aibohphobia - fear of palindromes
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I do have issues with pre 10.4 still so it will 