Contour At The Movies

I got this a few minutes ago from Amazon:

Now, it’s not in my nature to tell people how to run their business, but I think Amazon might want to check their algorithms.

–Jeffrey Alan Schechter

For those keeping score, I haven’t been posting much lately.  There is a good reason; I’m going back into production on my series OVERRULED.

We wrapped season one last year and I’ve been chained to my desk in the production office as we gear up to shoot season two starting on March 9.  I’ll try to keep things moving along here, with the help of the lovely and talented (well, talented) Dan Pilditch.

So rest assured…I’m still around.  Just a little more sleep deprived than usual.

Not the movie, I’m talking about gender neutrality.  Contour, having been developed by a sexist pig (me) always referred to the protagonist in the masculine.  Actually, I’m kidding about the sexist pig thing.  I hope.

In actuality there is a debate in academic circles about gender neutrality and I had relied on the school of thought, as well as the guidelines in Strunk & White’s Elements of Style, that permitted the use of the masculine to refer to any non-specific person regardless of sex.  

After much consideration (and one refund to an irate user with a female protagonist) we’ve decided to embrace gender neutrality.  As updates start rolling out to Contour 1.0 we’ll be chipping away at all examples of inappropriate gender specific language in the user’s guide, manual, examples, help tips, this blog, etc. As you can imagine, this is a bit of an undertaking, so please be patient with us.  We’re trying to do the right thing.  Honest!   Rewriting it all will take some time.  

In the meantime, if I’ve offended anyone I would like to apologize to him or her, ask for his or her forgiveness, and assure him or her that he or she is welcome to contact me to discuss this or that.

Did you know you could have an RSS feed of this blog?  I didn’t, until about 46 seconds ago.  CLICK HERE to go to our RSS FEED page and then bookmark it.  You’ll be happy you did.

In the spirit of sharing the wealth (all right…sharing the work) I’m welcoming two new reviewers to this blog: Dan Pilditch and André van Haren.

Dan is my protege, sometimes writing partner, and all around good guy.  He’s also a working writer and a Contour-head…having been around since the TotallyWrite days.  Be forewarned, Dan’s from England so everything he says IMMEDIATELY sounds very legitimate.   Still, don’t be afraid to give him a hard time if you disagree with his analysis of any film.

André is from the Nederlands and he’s not only a talented writer but one of the most amazing classical composers you’ve never heard of.  Seriously.  Check out his music on his website.  I’m partial to his Piano Sonata No. 1.

Please note that the views expressed by an independent reviewer are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of management.   Unless you agree with the independent reviewer.  Then I told him to say it.

If only this would somehow get me a discount at the Apple Store…

http://www.macworld.com/article/137698/2008/12/contour.html

After successfully selling and marketing TotallyWrite products for the past seven years I am THRILLED to announce that TotallyWrite has been acquired by Mariner Software. I will no longer be selling or supporting the TotallyWrite Development Suite. Instead it has been rebranded, reprogramed and released as CONTOUR. 

To those of you who have purchased, used, and benefited from TotallyWrite over the years please accept my hearfelt thanks. My friends…the journey continues!