Yet Another Modest Proposal

The subject of using 'zero-eth' as the ordinal for zero came up today. While amusing, it's really an ugly construction. 1, 2 and 3 get a special ordinal (first, second, third) so it only seems right that 0 should as well. Something that flows slightly better than 'zero-eth' would also be nice.

In the spirit of the -bi binary unit prefixes, I am going to arbitrarily introduce one and hope it catches on. Ahem.

My proposal for the first ordinal when indexing from zero is 'nauth'.
Usage example: The nauth element of the buffer had better be '\0' or else strcat is going to overflow like the Johnstown Dam.

An Unexpected Story

I was looking up a random fact about a certain show when I was struck with an intriguing mental image. In fact I thought it would make a pretty good story. I've always been awful at writing quickly, so I set myself the goal of finishing it tonight. It was only after a few paragraphs that I realized I was writing, for all intents and purposes, fanfic.

It doesn't actually have to be in the same universe as that show. There are no details that specifically tie it to any universe. The point of the story is a character study that could apply to any number of fictional settings. But it isn't like I went out of my way to distance myself from it either, and in fact I was thinking about the show the entire time I was writing it.

So here it is, the first story I've written in three years (screenplays don't count) and my first fanfic of any flavor. Like most of my stories, the character ended up going in a slightly different direction than I had planned, but I'm still pretty happy with it. For 3 hours of effort on a Sunday night.

( The Night, 1300 words )