03/10/26 Links, novel progress #25
03/10/18 Links, novel progress #24
03/10/12 Not the royal wedding, links, novel progress #23
03/10/05 Links, novel progress #22
03/10/26 Links, novel progress #25
03/10/18 Links, novel progress #24
03/10/12 Not the royal wedding, links, novel progress #23
03/10/05 Links, novel progress #22
Not much going on this week. Why don't we just move on to the links?
If Hollywood studios have their way, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will force all future televisions to include Hollywood-approved content protection technology called the "broadcast flag". Fair use, innovation and competition will suffer. What’s more, the broadcast flag technology that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has proposed is so weak that it will do nothing to stem Internet redistribution of television programs. In fact, the only people hurt will be innovators, researchers, and law-abiding consumers.
Digital consumer: stop the broadcast flag
EFF: stop the MPAA's broadcast flag
Public knowledge: FCC to place restrictions on how Americans watch television
Writing advice from scifi author C.J. Cherryh.
C.J. Cherryh: writerisms and other sins
Like Hobbes and Swift, Orwell saw writing not only as a powerful tool for conveying ideas, but also as a demanding and enthralling art with a moral imperative to search for truth.
New Criterion: Orwell on writing
Hello and welcome to Show and Tell, a site that serves as sort of an orphanage for thrift store music and album cover art.
Show and tell
Your one-stop shop for office supplies, lingerie, network auditing and much more. The mirror sites and the text soup are fun as well.
Sytes
One new episode in the past week, 711 new words, 48,023 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (72)
This week's biggest news: negotiations between the employers' organisations, the unions and the government have been successful, meaning that in return for the wages staying at the same level for at least a year, the government will refrain from a number of social security cuts that they were planning. The union members still have to vote about the proposal, though.
More Dutch politics and current events:
Dutch politics in 2003
Discussion of online payment for content tends to be techno-centric: "If we only had micropayments, everyone could get paid for their art." The process of getting people to pay for art, however, has just as much to do with creating a social expectation of payment as with creating efficient technology to conduct it.
Kuro5hin: gettin paid for content
Free content is here to stay, file-sharing is here to stay, and any attempt to completely wipe out either is doomed to failure (as it should be). But that in no way precludes the co-existence of markets based on the desires of willing sellers and willing buyers. To proclaim without a hint of doubt that such a market will never exist for low cost digital content contradicts everything we know about the Web’s inexhaustible capacity for variety and adaptation.
Scott McCloud: misunderstanding micropayments
Micropayment systems have not failed because of poor implementation; they have failed because they are a bad idea. Furthermore, since their weakness is systemic, they will continue to fail in the future.
Clay Shirky: the case against micropayments
This site is intended to raise an interesting question: Why the hell should an author make his work available for free to the public?
Cory Doctorow: a place so foreign and eight more
The End of Free (TEoF) is a collaborative weblog about the transition of online business models from "100% free" to a mix of free and fee. As we're interested in tracking how industry players are evolving their paid offerings, we are on the lookout for best practices.
The end of free
Two new episodes in the past week, 1,475 new words, 47,312 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (70)
After the war (71)
Lessons learned while writing a novel.
03/10/17 Momentum and other things that help
I've been messing with the website layout for a bit: the graphics you're seeing here used to be in the "stories" section, and the "stories" section now has new graphics. Just so you know.
Stories
Dutch Prince Johan Friso has effectively renounced his right of succession to the throne, after the government refused to support his forthcoming marriage. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he would not seek parliament's permission for the marriage because the couple had given misleading information about the bride's relationship with a dead gangster.
BBC: Dutch prince renounces throne
The Dutch Constitution requires Parliament approval for royal marriages, possibly a remnant from the days when marriages were used to forge alliances between countries or political factions. Even in our modern times, marrying a royal is not a private affair. It means acquiring a life-long, high-profile position with an ample income paid from public funds. It also means that the government bears the responsibility for everything that you do.
Painful as it may be to have strangers digging up the darkest secrets from your past, this is more or less standard procedure with anyone aspiring to public office. One such inquiry led to Junior Minister Philomena Bijlhout's resignation, after it became clear that her (rather minor) involvement with the Surinamese Bouterse regime continued after the "December murders" on several of the regime's opponents.
The relationship between Mabel Wisse Smit and the now-deceased crime baron Klaas Bruinsma in itself may, or may not have been sufficient reason to withold permission for the marriage - the real problem was the couple's attempt at a cover-up. If the truth (or, what we know of it now, which might not be the the truth and might not be the whole truth) hadn't come out and the marriage had gone through as planned with the Parliament's approval, the couple would have been vulnerable to blackmail by Bruinsma's former friends and associates. This, though not exactly a national disaster waiting to happen, would not have been a good thing.
This whole sorry affair does raise the question whether the monarchy, even in the watered-down constitutional form that we have, is sustainable. We must be one of the few nations in the world that have gone from a republic to a monarchy. Maybe the time has come to correct the mistake.
More Dutch politics and current events:
Dutch politics in 2003
Science-fiction writers on Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as governor of California.
Infinite matrix: the cyborgs are in charge
Metafilter discussion
Perseus Development Corp. randomly surveyed 3,634 blogs on eight leading blog-hosting services to develop a model of blog populations. Based on this research, Perseus estimates that 4.12 million blogs have been created on these services: Blog-City, BlogSpot, Diaryland, LiveJournal, Pitas, TypePad, Weblogger and Xanga.
Perseus: the blogging iceberg
Hoodoo, Crowley and Freemasonry for women: one of those humungous personal website that can keep you reading for hours.
Lucky Mojo
3-D animation and visual effects. Interesting site, but large pages that may take a while to download on a modem connection.
VFXWorld
EOD's Greg Knaus is back...
EOD: The devil's dictionary 2.0
And Sedition's variation on the same theme...
Two new episodes in the past week, 1,457 new words, 45,837 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (68)
After the war (69)
Not much news since last week. Reasonable progress in the thesis, though not as much as I'd hoped. Another 1,000+ words added to the novel which is good, since when I'm writing less I tend to lose momentum and the going gets more difficult.
Another tempest in the Dutch royal teacup. Prince Johan Friso, third in line to the throne after Queen Beatrix and Crownprince Willem-Alexander, is engaged to be married to someone called Mabel Wisse Smit. So far, so good. (In some quarters the news must have been greeted with relief, as there were rumours that the Prince was gay.) It now appears that in her student days Wisse Smit was a close friend of the now-deceased crime baron Klaas Bruinsma, and even spent several nights on his boat. Because of Johan Friso's close proximity to the throne Parliament has to approve of the marriage, and the Prime Minister has stated that he will be looking into the matter and will report back in three weeks.
More Dutch politics and current events:
Dutch politics in 2003
Verisign has seen the error of its ways. With a little help from ICANN.
ICANN: Advisory concerning demand to remove VeriSign's wildcard
Metafilter discussion
Police in the City of London have re-opened inquiries into the death of an Italian banker more than 20 years ago. Roberto Calvi, chairman of a private bank which collapsed with spectacular losses, was found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge across the Thames River. At first he was thought to have commited suicide, but Italian police believe he was murdered by the Mafia as punishment for pocketing money they had asked him to launder.
BBC: New inquiry in Italian banker's death
The purpose of KosherTorah.com is to provide teachings about in-depth spiritual Judaism from 100% kosher and legitimate Torah sources.
Kosher Torah
Writing advice from Ursula K. Le Guin.
Excerpt from 'Steering the Craft'
A few words to a young writer
Interesting stuff on Metafilter.
Disneyland obsessives
Bawdy ballads
Two new episodes in the past week, 1,300 new words, 44,380 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (66)
After the war (67)
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