TANSTAAFL Day 8 – Midway! And A Free SF picture released under Creative Commons License.

Posted on by accordingtohoyt

Here we are, halfway through the fundraiser, and thank heavens, because I couldn’t take much more of the stress.

You see, as DGM pointed out — clever boy! (Hey, is he a dinosaur? Someone check.) — I feel guilty writing for free, and guilty if I ask for money, so it’s a lose/lose proposition. But asking for money is new, and therefore slightly scarier.

However, I’ve survived eight days of it! And you guys have been remarkably patient. YAY. 😉

Thank you to everyone who donated! I always say I have the best fans in all the known universes, and you guys are proving it.

THE GOAL IS $50,000

the counter stands at: $22,797.11 USD*(Updated at least every 8 hours, more often if i happen to be here.)

IT ENDS JULY 16TH.

Whyfore, Oh, Sarah are you asking for money for the blog if it makes you uncomfortable?

Well, when we got into terrible straights during the move, it was brought home to me forcefully that my refusal to fund the blog also affected my family, who not only had to put up with strained finances, but with me being neurotic about that strain.

On top of that I was holding back my whole business, by not having the money needed to pay someone to do my website say, or keep me on track with shorts that are due, or take some of the auxiliary tasks off my back, so I can write.

All because I refused to do what most bloggers have done for decades, and rattle the cup, as one would.

I had severe doubts about doing it so close to asking for a legitimate and much needed rescue, but to be fair, July is the best time of the year for me to do this for various reasons, symbolic and real. (I didn’t count on the air conditioning being… sporadic, which means that even keeping up with updates is difficult, much less doing any work. Yes, we have scheduled to get fixed. It’s just part of moving and adaptions to new to us place.)

And anyway, it seems to be working. So…. very grateful to everyone who donated and everyone who puts up with the cup-rattling!

THE INCENTIVES AND TIERS:

Tier 1– $10 or more – A shout out on my blog, all with all other the supporters, by name, in one massive “Thank you” post. [Jokey or offensive names will not be included at author’s discretion.]

Tier 2– $25 or more – Email jpg of certificate with funny fish saying “I Was Carped at according to hoyt.com” and a Certificate of being a member of Hoyt’s Huns, cultural wars sapper battalion, in good standing.

Tier 3– $60 or more – Exclusive ebook collection of USAian stories. (Including a new, original, never published story.) Estimated delivery August 2023

Tier 4– $100 or more – Your name will appear in a mass death/other mass event/list in one of Sarah’s books. [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.]

Tier 5– $150 or more – A sound file of Sarah saying “Moose and Squirrel.”

Tier 6 – $250 or more – Will send a signed copy of trade paperback Gentleman takes a chance and one large postcard with book covers, also signed. (USPS- continental US only. All others, let’s talk.) [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Tier 7 – $350 or more – Three signed books (of our choice), plus two extra items from “Sarah’s Garage”, (also of our choice) which might very well be a small rubber fish. (You’ve been warned.) USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Tier 8 – $500 or more – Personalized tuckerization. You will become your very own zany character, with at least a line or two of dialogue, and physical description. Physical safety and life of character not guaranteed. If you perish, it will NOT (repeat not) be in a mass death event or a list of other kinds.  [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion.]

Tier 9 – $1000 or more – A CHOICE OF:

Option 1 -Will read the first 10 pages and outline of your novel and provide timely critique, with the understanding that I am not infallible. (A skype, zoom or other video call to discuss the work for an hour or so.) [estimated delivery Winter 2022 – Spring 2023]

Option 2 – Large box of ten signed books, plus items ranging from a con badge, to a mini dinosaur skeleton or a print of Sarah’s original art, or other items from Sarah’s garage. USPS only. Continental U.S. only [estimated delivery Sept 2022]

Option 3 – Signed copy of Sarah’s old copyedited or page-proof manuscripts. [estimated delivery Fall 2022] (5 limit.)

Tier 10 – $5000 or more – You will become a major character on one of my books, and I’ll try to reflect your appearance, and chosen personality.  [estimated delivery up through July 2023. All indie books, as no others are guaranteed.] [Jokey or offensive names, descriptions and personalities will not be included at author’s discretion. You don’t get to have someone else be an offensive character. (Sorry!) Your actions will be altered to serve the plot if needed.] – Limit 5. (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)

Tier Insane – $25000 or more – My husband and I will travel to a city in the continental US and have dinner with you and your plus one.  (Continental US only.) – Limit ONE. [Delivery up to July 2023.] (You’ll be informed if this has been claimed, and given a chance for a refund or of a comparable reward.)

ALL TIERS INCLUDE ALL PREVIOUS TIERS EXCEPT FOR THOSE THAT ARE NUMBER LIMITED.

If you want to be thanked/mentioned by a name different from your regular one, please email to: bookpimping at outlook dot com.

TO DONATE:

DONATE TO ACCORDING TO HOYT TAANSTAFL DAYS (The previous words are a link!)

FOR CHECK DONATIONS:

Sarah A. Hoyt

Goldport Press

304 S Jones Blvd #6771

Las Vegas, NV  89107

THIS IS PINNED TO THE TOP OF THE BLOG. THE DAILY POST WILL APPEAR BELOW THIS.

Regrets, or perhaps “Ancient Astronauts were players” This Picture was created by Sarah A. Hoyt and is released under CC BY

CC BY-active link to explain rights.

51 thoughts on “TANSTAAFL Day 8 – Midway! And A Free SF picture released under Creative Commons License.”

  1. Most volunteer organizations have to ask for money, I volunteer with two, which have to do so, the third does work on the side with the court system, as its an ADR, which stands for Alternative Dispute Resolution, so it doesn’t. So, don’t worry, people do it. I should also point out that Branden Sanderson and Martin L. Shoemaker are also doing/ done fund raisers for projects, so you are in fantastic company.
    Oh, the blind have a long history of telling stories for food or coin, so stand on the mountain of history and raddle the cup with pride. Write on, write on.

  3. And this young lady doesn’t have the uncanny valley vibe. Maybe I’m opposed to scarlet catsuits? In any case one thing does strike me, the draping of the dress. Cloth and clothing and getting it to look real was hard. First time it was done well was Pixar’s Geri’s Game (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geri's_Game) although that involved movement and made changes in how you animated. For example you didn’t used to have to animate limbs or body parts that were out of view, but now you had to or the clothing didn’t move right. In 1997 Geri’s Game used a pile of high end SGI hardware (onyx?) and took several months of a team of animators to create. Although this synthespian is around only for a single frame its likely you did it on mid range home pc here 15 years later. Having spent 20 years of my career doing Computer Graphics this stuff always fascinates me.

    1. It still doesn’t look quite right. Her foot is there, I assure you, but not where you’d expect it from the draping. But yeah, better than it was.

      1. OK now that you point it out I see it. Still impressive given that 15 years ago this kind of stuff to some serious physics as you kind of have to treat cloth as a mesh of attached springs and that leads to the solution of hordes of differential equations. I think they showed some out takes of the making of Geri’s Game at one of the SIGGRAPH conventions I went to (1997? 1998?). The failure modes were really quite spectacular and hilarious.

        1. To be fair, my computer is a very expensive gaming computer. (Sighs theatrically) See, Other Rhodes made us more money than we expected. This means that we had to spend it the week between Christmas and New Year, as per usual, or mail most of it to the IRS. So Dan looked at my computer which kept hanging up with TINY Daz renders and said “Uh, You know? A gaming computer like blah blah that’s on sale, will allow you to do those without rebooting constantly.”

          1. Fair enough :-). Still probably at least an order of magnitude (and probably 2) cheaper than a single SGI Onyx ($150K -200K depending on features) and Geri’s Game took like 2 dozen Onyx boxes and some heavy back room iron from my memory of the talks. To some degree this falls into the realm of a dancing bear, its not how well the bear dances but that it dances at all 🙂 .

          3. > “To be fair, my computer is a very expensive gaming computer. (Sighs theatrically)”

            From what I’ve heard the crypto-mining bubble has popped, so GPU prices should be coming back down to sane levels. That should make decent computers more affordable again.

            But on the other hand we’ve got the semiconductor shortage now, so who knows. [rolls eyes]

            1. I heard Micron is having some trouble, so yeah. Mainstream tech-ish media is claiming that Da Russkies are holding back neon and other gasses–not surprising, throw sanctions at them and one might expect retaliation. I fell long behind the curve for semiconductor processing, but I guess the exotic gasses are used in plasma and/or ion implant processes.

              FWIW, my first job as a semiconductor process engineer (circa 1974) would have justified Spock’s “Stone knives and bearskins” comment. Let’s just say that some processes worked, but with techniques closer to Julia Child than one would like. Or was that Julie Andrews? “Just a spoonful of antimony trioxide makes the buried layer go down…”

    2. > “And this young lady doesn’t have the uncanny valley vibe. Maybe I’m opposed to scarlet catsuits?”

      It’s not just you. When a woman dresses too provocatively I start thinking “Not knowing where she’s been could be hazardous to your health.” The fact that the earlier girls were in places that seemingly had no atmosphere and didn’t need spacesuits didn’t help either.

      This is the first of the pin-up girls I actually kind of like.

  5. Is the spaceship escaping, or is it incoming and shooting lasers at her butt? Expiring minds want to know. ~:D

    Also, is her butt laser-proof?

      1. Ooooookaaay.
        I don’t necessarily see any reason to escape from her.. Unless you’re the type that runs from responsibility.

    3. > “Is the spaceship escaping, or is it incoming and shooting lasers at her butt?”

      Maybe that’s why she almost seems annoyed/exasperated. “Oh, so THIS is how I get to die. Wonderful. Shoulda just stayed in bed.”

  7. this is quite literally the slowest week of the year in my biz. Sorry i have to wait.

  8. Honestly, this picture might explain a lot of the ancient stories about demigods in Greek and Roman culture…

    It also makes me think of the Celtic Woman song “A Spaceman Came Traveling.”

  11. At they rate you’re going it doesn’t look like you’ll quite make it to $50,000, but you won’t be too far off either. I’ll be very surprised if you don’t at least break 40k.

    I’ll also be surprised if someone doesn’t bust out the Warhammer memes when you do, but that’s another story.

  12. > “as DGM pointed out — clever boy! (Hey, is he a dinosaur? Someone check.)”

    Sorry, I don’t get the reference. Why would anyone think I’m a dinosaur?

    1. Oh, wait, it’s a Jurassic Park reference isn’t it? “Clever boy” instead of “Clever girl.”

      Sorry, I thought it had something to do with my ‘nym so I was thinking along the wrong lines.

      1. P.S. – The irony of having a dunce moment like that in response to being called clever is not lost on me. 😛

        1. On the plus side, at least you remember I’m a boy these days. So, progress. 😛

  13. You should not feel guilty for writing, even for free–for me, writing is a mental health thing, even when I only have one or two comments telling me that my blog posts are actually read. It’s communication, a pressure release valve for the brain and stress levels.

    Not everyone needs to write, but for those of us who do, we suffer when we don’t write. Even if it’s a private journal written pencil or pen, it helps keep things on an even keel.

  14. Just made a small donation under my real name, which, as it turns out, is not actually “Almuric” after all.

    2. Well, if you don’t want it mentioned, please (PLEASE) email me at the bookpimping address and tell me to credit to Almuric. (With your real name.)

      1. Eh, go ahead and mention it. As long as it’s not (John Smith, alias Almuric) it’s no biggie. My name is tied to yours through other sites anyhow.

      2. I can’t email you, but this is a reminder to not bother giving me any rewards. With our email troubles I don’t want you driving yourself crazy trying to get anything to me.

  16. That is the prettiest picture of a young lady I’ve seen for a VERY long time.

    If I were young and single I’d want an introduction.

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