From the start of The Dorley Cycle web-serial, Cindy Vaskova’s writing flows like a dream into a horror drenched in madness. A touch of the surreal at times, and quick jabs of horror in others, the web-serial dishes out single shots for Friday Flash stitching together a journey. The series is great for those looking to take a quick trip during lunch break, or enjoy several pages at a time.

Jackson Dee (unnamed in the first episode) returns to the fishing town of Dorley finding a mermaid caught in a fishing net on the beach. The strange sight is a reminder of the stories from childhood about the monsters in the sea. The second episode continues with a brief argument between Jackson and the mermaid about those old stories of the siren’s call. Jackson promises to let the mermaid go, insisting that he is not bad, but watches himself bash the mermaid with a rock. And so begins Jackson’s descent into horror uncovering the town’s dark secrets.

At Chapter XI, Jackson faces a monster and gets sucked inside a reality-twisted Chapter XII where he must distinguish the truth to fight his way out. And Jackson does only to find himself in a prison cell. Even weekly visitors thrown off by the warping are swept back in by the end of the episode, and a smooth follow-through for those with good memories or reading in the same sitting. I love stories that distort reality so the reader experiences the character’s struggle within the mind and the strangeness of the environment. Vaskova does a nice job. For this reason, Chapter XII episode is my favorite so far.

The question of disabling comments on a blog has been bouncing around for at least three years to my knowledge, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the debate started much earlier. My first reaction was that comments go with a blog post forming a discussion in one place for the community to keep up with, and closing comments would discourage discussion. Upon further thought, I realized this isn’t necessarily true. The biggest concern I have is noticing that in general comments tend to be quick responses lacking thoughtful discourse.

Weeks after reading the post by author, and regular blogger, Icy Sedgwick, “Should you close your comments on your blog?” (posted in April), I gave it more thought. Sedgwick pointed out the benefit of forming a cohesive discussion without breaking it up all over social media, which is tougher to follow. I agree, especially for blogs that are more community oriented. My comment on her post was a quick response, as comments usually are, and could have benefited from more thought. I pointed out the need for a product to bridge social media services together to help form a more cohesive discussion without the reader having to do more work. At the time, I hadn’t truly yet considered the benefits of turning comments off.

Conversations are going to continue on other services or blogs anyway. They should. That’s what happens to interesting conversations. Discussions spill over into other communities and other homes.

A post linked within Sedgwick’s post, “The Argument for Keeping Those Blog Comments Open” by Deb Ng, makes the strong case of interacting with other blog readers. A few blogs have conversations. Mine do not. Bloggers engage with each other through their blogs, email, and social media. Comments aren’t necessary for engagement.

On Sedgwick’s post, validation comes up as a benefit of having comments. The commenter acknowledges reading the post, and the blogger knows someone read it and cared enough to respond. I agree, and I like comments. However, my sites get far more visitors than comments. Kandy Fangs sees regular traffic from several reader sites including Friday Flash and Webfiction Guide, and occasionally the stats will show a visitor reading every single episode over several hours without commenting. That stat encourages me to write more, and it’s validation that an anonymous reader truly enjoyed my stories.

Two of the best responses to my stories I have ever received were on Twitter, and provided the same validation, but more openly. A recent tweet by Miss Alister linking to my story is an example. Very much appreciated.

Forming the possessive of nouns can be one of the more confusing rules in writing when it comes to words ending with s. Besides differences with plural and a few exceptions, the answer depends on who you ask.

To form possessive singular of noun, add ‘s

• Augustus’s favorite book is Code Complete by McConnell.
• The vampire’s fangs sank into the duchess’s neck.
• Read Aaron Hillegass’s book on iOS programming.
• The debris’s cloud smothered the ship.

This is the first rule appearing in The Elements of Style by Strunk and White, and according to the text there are exceptions for ancient proper names ending in -es and -is such as Moses’ laws, and “such forms as for conscience’ sake, for righteousness’ sake.“

One could avoid uncertainty by removing the need for an apostrophe as in laws of Moses.

To form possessive plural of noun, if noun ends in s then add apostrophe only, else add ‘s

• The students’ questions were about GPU performance.
• The women’s room is closed.
• The Obamas’ reside in the White House.

I’ve seen writers leaving off the extra s such as, Dickens’ novel or Kansas’ laws. Are they right?

Notice that Strunk and White’s rule fits speech. It’s (nearly) common to pronounce an extra s when saying, Dickens’s novel, but not when saying, for righteousness’ sake, which becomes a tongue-twister when adding an extra s. However, pronunciation of Kansas’s laws may cause some stumbling, but not as bad as Kansas’s schools. Style guides try to take pronunciation into account resulting in exceptions and different approaches. For instance, Pocket Fowler’s Modern English Usage suggests for proper names to defer to common pronunciation such as Dickens’s book, Bridges’ film, or Mars’ moons. Mars follows the ancient name rule, and Bridges follows the ends in iz-sound rule.

According to “[Apostrophe Catastrophe (Part 2)]” by Mignon Forgarty aka Grammar Girl, the rule on forming possessive singular of nouns comes down to a style issue. The Associated Press Stylebook recommends leaving off the extra s for proper nouns. The Chicago Manual of Style allows for either way, but prefers adding ‘s.

The different style guides disagree on the exceptions, too. Take a glance at this post on AP vs Chicago (find the contradiction in the examples for bonus points) showing the differences between The Associated Press Stylebook and The Chicago Manual of Style on using apostrophes such as for appearance’ sake vs for appearance’s sake. My flowchart at the bottom covers this and more.

Some symbols and characters aren’t easily found on the iPad or iPhone on-screen keyboard, but more are right there at your fingertips. The tap-and-hold (hold-press) is a common function on the iPad, but not always apparent to everyone to try. By the way, double-tap the shift key for caps lock.

The iPad/iPhone on-screen keyboard supports the tap-and-hold revealing extended character set. Just tap-and-hold a key and slide up to select an extended character. Most of the extended symbols and characters are found where they make sense such as á is above a.

Some examples on the US keyboard style:

• degree sign ° such as 62°F, tap-and-hold the zero key
• mid-dot · is above the hyphen (tap “123″ key, above “#+=” key)
• back-slash \ is naturally above the fraction slash
• ellipses … is above the period
• ¿ is above ?
• ‰ is above %

Sadly, many common math symbols are missing, including ≤ ≥, which seems peculiar, for a math-guy I suppose.

Naturally, keyboard settings for other languages may get you to commonly used characters for that language easier. I sometimes temporarily switch to the Spanish or German keyboards to get at some characters I need often.

To include other languages on your iPad, go to Settings and select “General” then “International” and “Keyboards.” Tap “Add New Keyboard…” and select the one you want to include. On your on-screen keyboard, switch languages by tapping the international key found beside the spacebar.

Dee Count for iPad update for v1.67 includes the following changes:

• +/- button toggles addition and subtraction modes with option to hide in Settings
• fixed import inventory details error
• improvements for 64-bit devices

Subtraction

To fix an error, or if someone purchases a product during counting, you may subtract the count from the location. The old way to change a value was to delete the item from the location and add back to difference. Subtraction mode makes it a bit easier.

To subtract, or decrement an existing item count, tap the +/- button. The button will turn red, and the count-by buttons will show negative numbers. After a subtraction, Dee Count will revert back to addition mode automatically. The button filled-in with red is a reminder that you are subtracting counts.

In subtraction mode, the increment button (++) on the item menu becomes a decrement button (+-). After subtracting a count, the button automatically reverts back for normal counting.

Settings

For extra safety while counting, you may wish to avoid risk of accidentally subtracting. Hide the +/- button in the Settings App by switching the toggle. You may unhide the button later.

You may also set your preference to display items with zero counts in the totals list. Deleting an item will remove it from the list unless there is an inventory count comparison. Subtracting to zero will not remove it from the list.

Import Inventory Details

After the latest fix, be aware of a limitation to importing text files from your computer on encoding. Best results are with Unicode UTF-8 and Windows 1252 encodings. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it. The default on the majority of PCs or Macs in Western Europe and US should be fine. See example for more details.

Improvements for 64-bit

Minor internal changes for better compatibility with 64-bit devices (iPad Air) only. No support for super-extra large count numbers added. Sorry, you’ll still want to keep your counts under 2 billion or so.