THE CIRCULAR OF JANUS

*Presidential Ponderings*

     The Birthday/Christmas/Solstice party is this Saturday
(12/9/95) at Rebecca & Keith's house.  There is a map in the
print version of The Circular of Janus.  If you
don't have access to that for some reason and need to know where
to go, give me a call or e-mail me here.  (I'll be VERY HAPPY to
tell you where to go.)

     The food will be typical for these sorts of things(i.e. dead
plants, dead animals.  Some cooked, some raw, some mixed together
in differing ways.)  The Club is handling the cost of the turkey,
and I'll be bringing my usual noodles & turkey concoction.

     I was real happy to see all of the new faces "volunteering"
for a turn at club office for next year.  The only position we
didn't get at least one volunteer for was 1998's
Conchairbeing.

     Remember, you only have a couple of days to buy a present
for your favorite C of J prez!

                             -=*Andy*=-

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JANUARY MEETING

     
Our next meeting will be the FIRST SATURDAY OF
JANUARY @ The Children's Museum.
  Doors will
open at 6 p.m. and the meeting proper will start about 7:30
p.m.
     Rebecca will prolly have a ConCom meeting before the Club
meeting.   At the Club meeting we will be electing club officers
for calendar 1996, and a ConChairbeing for 1998.  Be sure and
show (with your $10 membership in tow) or you may get elected to
something you don't want to do!


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**Shareware Works!**

     I thought that since the COJ is a club that panders to the
interests of would be authors, and those among us that have
become professionals as well, I thought I would relate my
experiences as a shareware author.

     For those of you that don't understand the concept of
shareware (well,there might be one or two of you out there)
here's how it works.  An author of computer software, who has no
access to a publishing resource, will bundle up his creation and
cast it forth into the vast ocean that is the Internet. As his
fragile work jostles about with the rest of the shareware flotsam
and jetsam in this cold frothing sea, our poor beleaguered author
sits at home, writhing his hands, hoping that someday this small
seed of a software application may come to rest against a stretch
of fertile land and sprout into fruitful life.

     When it comes to shareware, the above mentioned stretch of
fertile land is the generous software user who chooses to give
the shareware concept life by actually PAYING for the software
he's found, downloaded, installed and is already using!  What
a concept! I think I'll call it, The Honor
System. Can you imagine a Science Fiction or Fantasy
author handing out free copies of his work on the street corner
and telling the potential readers: "Read it, and if you like it
send me $2.50 and you can keep reading it. Oh, and by the way,
feel free to make copies of the book and give it to your
friends!"

  AKK! Us shareware authors are certainly cut from a different
and, some would say, much more gullible cloth.

     But wait, before you judge me a complete masochist, I want
you to know, it actually works. I recently sent a little
shareware product of my own out into that cold dark night and
I've gotten very favorable response.  Two CD authors, RatLoaf
Inc. of California and SimTel, wish to include it in their CD-ROM
collections. I've even gotten a request to  "register" (i.e. pay
for) the software by a system manager for a corporation with
over 300 systems. GEE WHIZ!

     What is this amazing piece of technology that has so changed
peoples lives that they just can't live without it?  It's a
screen saver. That's right, one of those applications that sits
at the back of you computer waiting for you to goof off, so it
can spring to life and decorate you computer's monitor with
worthless little animations.

     The screen saver in question is called
CYBERWORMS.  It runs under Windows (Mac and
After Dark versions to come) and creates, as the name implies
little cybernetic worms. They consist of multi-colored segments
that writhe across the screen in seemingly random fashion.  They
bounce off the sides of your monitor and cavort all over your
screen.  You can alter the length, shape, color, "wiggleiness"
and mirroring effects of the worms via the program's setup
screen. You can even choose to "rotate" the worms' segment
colors, an effect, when combined with mirroring, looks lot like a
kaleidoscope viewed while under the influence.

     I've had multiple people at work stop, in the middle of a
conversation, just to stare at my screen when my screen saver
comes up. It's hypnotic, it's colorful, and it's a complete waste
of time.  IT'S GREAT.  I guess it just goes to show that
people don't, for the most part, buy useful utilitarian tools.
They buy toys!

     And as long as people keep buying toys, I'll keep making
them better, more colorful, more creative and wasting even more
time.

     By the way, if you'd like to download it from
the Internet, CYBERWORMS is available at the
WEB address   http://www.sirius.com/~ratloaf. (Be patient. It's a
very busy site!)

                            Jeff Thompson