Idiotprogrammer Blog

Month: December 2006

  • Hey, what ever happened to copyright?

    (first appeared on teleread today)
    Wow, did anyone notice that Lessig went to court last month? He argued in Kahle vs. Gonzales before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals that the change “from an ‘opt-in’ to an ‘opt-out’ system of copyright alters a ‘traditional contour[] of copyright,’ requiring ‘further First Amendment scrutiny’ under the standard established in Eldred v. Ashcroft, 537 U.S. 186, 123 S. Ct. 769 (2003).”

    The plaintiff’s brief is here , and here are Lessig’s thoughts afterwards (sort of confusing to read, because he’s responding to lots of commenters). Here’s an mp3 audio of the oral arguments (27 minutes long). Generally, Lessig sounds better prepared than the government’s attorney, and the questioning judges pressed both sides on how this case differed from Eldred. One judge asked the government’s attorney (at the 17 minute mark):

    Question (Judge Schroeder): Is there anything in the legislative history to indicate that Congress was aware that in changing the system there might be some copyrights where there’s nobody there anymore who really enjoys the copyright right?
    Answer (government attorney): I’m not aware of any discussion that specifically focuses on that point.

    (more…)

  • Al Gore Speaking Tonight at Walmart!

    After requesting a book from my city library on Adorno, I discover to my satisfaction that one website has generous excerpts of Adorno’s theories–enough for me not to need the library book after all. Swell. Have you ever thought about how much human labor and fuel can be saved simply by having web access to certain kinds of text and information? This by itself should be a reason for publicly-funded libraries to stay on the cutting edge of technology and to point patrons towards freely available options.

    In an almost surreal juxtaposition, last night I was shopping at Walmart (long story) and while walking through the audio/video section I was treated to a 1 minute monologue by Al Gore promoting “An Inconvenient Truth.” I also heard this same promo a few weeks ago while renting videos at my local Blockbuster store. The store’s motives may simply have been commercial in nature, but isn’t it interesting how an issue like Global Warming can suddenly pass into the mainstream to the point where it is used to sell things?

    Occasionally bona fide intellectuals are tossed into the river of pop culture with often hilarious but salubrious results. (Susan Sontag on the Simpsons, George Soros on Republican campaign commercials, Stephen Hawking on Star Trek New Generation). Highbrow people love it because it provides the comforting illusion that intellectuals have influence; middlebrow people love it because it provides a lovable face for a package of complex and often subversive ideas.

  • Simpsons College Course: Television and the Culture Industry

    While perusing an essay about wiki and authorship, I came across a wild-looking college syllabus about an honors literature class devoted to the Simpsons TV show. And who said being a humanities scholar was tough?

    This includes a fascinating breakdown of themes and conflicts: struggles between individuals, Blind Faith, Consumerism and Marriage (plus many others).

    The Commodification Of Culture And Its Implications For The Television Industry: An Examination Of The Culture Industry Thesis by Brian Grant discusses mass media/pop culture in terms of the Frankfurt School (a weak spot in my intellectual background, btw). Curiously, much of the ideas from the Frankfurt school seemed to have an influence on Benkler’s book (especially Chapter 5 and Chapter 8). Benkler asserts that in the 20th century, cultural products (DVDs, books, CD’s) are produced and distributed by the “industrial model” whereas in the 21th century, the “folk art” model will prevail. (Here’s a generous excerpt about culture industries by Adorno) Enough of Benkler; now for the Brian Grant excerpt:

    This sets up a contradiction. Television is a cheap and readily available means of dissemination and propagation, at least in the Western World, and one characterized as necessary by most of its users. The range of channels and programmes and the wealth of information that is transmissible should guarantee a broad-based output, and such an output should cater, in some degree, for an audience as various as the population itself.

    Homogeneity in broadcasting is quite understandable where commercial television is concerned. Commercial television is largely supported by advertising, and therefore requires popularity; consistently the most popular shows are those aimed at a passive and uncritical audience. This state of affairs tallies with the pervasiveness of the capitalist ideology. Those aspects of the society’s culture here represented are familiar interpretations either of reality or of real issues. The programmes are soap operas, chat shows, gameshows, most sports events, sitcoms, certain films, TV films or dramas, and most children’s television. It is reasonable that representations of pop culture will be popular with audiences and advertisers alike.

    …

    In many senses the television, more so than other media, has the viewer as a cultural tourist. Technology has made possible the penetration of many varieties of culture into the mainstream, in concert with financial and cultural demands necessitating the importation of much of a channel’s schedule; there is undeniable closeness of cultures available at any time. We supplement our imports with evidence we obtain ourselves. In keeping with the broadcaster’s rationale, such information will be transmitted as pre-interpreted (or, for some, “pre-digested”), which is fundamental for popular acceptance. This induces preconceptions. Primarily, we are encouraged to judge other cultures on the terms of our interpreters, who must balance the expectations of the mini-capitalisms who support them with their own experience, and, more importantly, the evidence captured on camera. In effect we exalt ourselves. It is a triumph for our society to be able to report from outside itself and to comment on what it sees. Politically, such reportage represents the logical progression of broadcasting’s origins in militarism: television is a tool of the society used in pursuit of its own ideals. It is difficult to imagine it otherwise.

    Apparently Brian Grant has gathered a series of essays related to pop culture here. Here’s a fascinating essay by Louise Wood of how the concept of female beauty has evolved over the century:

    For the first two decades of the 20th century, many of the attitudes towards beauty associated with the 19th century remained. In Victorian society, it was considered a woman’s duty to make herself beautiful. In the early 20th century, this was coupled with the idea of “self-presentation” as enjoyable, expressive and creative. However, some of the more bizarre and painful “beauty aids” of the Victorian age continued to be marketed well into the 1920s. A particularly unpleasant example is “M.Trielty’s Nose Shaper”, described as a “metal object … held over the nose by straps buckled round the head and adjusted with screws.”

    One of the main elements of this century’s perception of beauty that sets it apart from the 19th century is the polarity of cosmetics. In the last century, cosmetics were frowned upon in society as the mark of a prostitute. The cosmetics industry grew from the roots of the manufacturing of theatre make-up by Helena Rubenstein and Max Factor, who adapted their products for everyday use.

    …

    The cosmetics and fashion industries are interdependent with the medium of advertising. Cynthia White points out that the turnabout in opinions on cosmetics is women’s magazines in the 1920s coincided with the increase of cosmetics advertising in the same publications. Advertising is often presumed to have little cultural value, but is a powerful way in which attitudes towards women and beauty are reinforced. The 20th century fascination with celebrities is a tool expertly used in the advertising industry. If a beautiful model, or more effectively a beautiful celebrity is used in an advertisement, the qualities associated with that person are transferred onto the product.

    Another major influence on this century’s attitudes towards beauty was the growth of the film industry. For the first half of the century, all the major beauty icons were film actresses. It was a medium that allowed women who would have previously been overlooked to shine. For instance, the 19th century aversion to redheads was still in place as late as the 20s. It was that black-and-white medium that allowed Clara Bow to be the exception. However, stars such as Bette Davis and Katherine Turner who could not be described as “conventionally beautiful” invariably came from middle or upper class backgrounds. Beauty was an essential attribute for a working class woman to become successful in Hollywood. This period was also the beginning of the ties between the film and fashion industries, which would continue for decades to come.

  • Bloggers who Receive Gifts

    Joel Spolsky rails against bloggers who accept gifts. Spolsky is a CEO, while bloggers are…just bloggers..sometimes penniless bloggers. Robert Scoble has thoughts.

    While I generally agree with Spolsky’s sentiments, wouldn’t a person who takes a salary and a person who blogs for a living (i.e., for pennies) have a different perspective? Practically speaking, it’s unrealistic for hardware companies to send freebies to every interested blogger, but if they want to buy my attention, be my guest.

    That said, I go out of my way to review things by smaller artists/software makers/writers. And I prefer things that have Creative Commons licenses on them. I generally refuse freebies because I can’t predict which things I will be motivated enough to review. Several years ago, when I was reviewing things for slashdot, I used my position to extract freebies from Oreilly, Wiley, Wrox. And I think I wrote some good/fair reviews, even though I ended up not reviewing a lot of books–simply for time reasons. Reviewing takes time, and I sometimes take a lot longer to write these things. In fact, I got to the point where I hated requesting books–because I felt very guilty for never reviewing things–including several books I actually wanted to review. If you can dash off a review quickly, then asking for copies is a good idea, but after a while, you may starting to regret it.

    I generally disapprove of selling off review copies off half.com, but over time I’ve realized that they have a trivial effect on market price. (How many review copies could they send out–500?). On the other hand, I am generally bothered when speakers at a conference like SXSW give away 100 copies of their book at a session. That simply means that the person is signed on with a publisher with a substantial marketing budget; why reward that? On the positive side, if there are that many review copies floating around, chances are, the number of copies in circulation will be large, causing the book to fall.

    (See also my essay, Literary Disclaimers 101).

  • From Houston to UK to Houston

    It’s very odd, but today I paid for a year’s hosting at a zope/python hosting company called webfaction.com. I was particularly impressed by their hosting management software (as seen in their online demo).

    I’ve been emailing the main programmer/owner for a few days. The company resides in England, but…get this…I just found out the location of their servers…is at EV1 in Houston, Texas.

  • Benkler and Artistic Worthlessness

    I’ve been reading the fascinating analyis of the digital economy by Yochai Benkler. I’m reading it in preparation for a longish essay I’ve writing for teleread about literary collaboration in a digital age. There are lots of insights here and political analysis, but one thing curiously missing: how do artistically-minded individuals get food on the table and pay their rent? He has sidestepped the microeconomic questions in favor of describing why the peer production model is efficient on a macroeconomic level. All fine and dandy, but does he imply that artistic endeavors will never be monetized?

    Finally, the way networks establish value often fails when considering artistic output. Often it takes decades for the worth (or worthlessness) of an artwork to be apparent. He doesn’t really offer an explanation for this phenomenon, except to extol the openness of the folk art model. Yet artists are groomed to disregard economic signals and social expectations for the sake of preserving their artistic vision. Niche-based Long Tail artists may flout conventions in their effort to say what only they can say.

    Still it’s a fascinating analysis (and I expect to talk about it substantially in my essay). Here’s a nice Internet seminar on crookedtimber about the book. In another delightful coincidence, the deadline for submitting a paper to an MIT conference on digital collaboration is Jan 5. I may actually submit one.

  • My Favorite Jamendo Musical Albums

    I’ve been listening to Jamendo like crazy. I’ve found some very good stuff, and I’ll probably blog about it, but for now, here’s a list of my Jamendo music bookmarks. I’m pretty liberal about what I bookmark.

    In the past I used to use dmusic, webjay and irate radio. But this site not only allows you to download ALBUMS at a time via bit torrent, they have proper licenses, ajaxy magic and tipjars. And they have lots of Euro-music. What more could a person ask?

  • Too Many Enemies & The Death Pool

    From a charming NYT obituary on Gerald Ford by JAMES M. NAUGHTON and ADAM CLYMER:

    He invited to the White House individuals who had been excluded as political “enemies” in the lists kept by the Nixon administration. When Mr. Ford heard, as a Republican in Congress, that Mr. Nixon kept such a list, he said to an aide, “Anybody who can’t keep his enemies in his head has too many enemies.”

    Apparently Ford went to sleep early on the day of Nixon’s resignation:

    Mr. Ford and his wife watched the Nixon statement on the television set in the family room of their home in Alexandria. Then, despite the looming accumulation of pressures, Mr. Ford went to sleep.

    That he could do so, with no particular difficulty, on the eve of the nation’s most unusual presidential transition, was illustrative. “My feeling is you might as well get to sleep” whatever the circumstances, Mr. Ford had said. “You’ll feel better the next day. If you’ve got a problem, you are better prepared to deal with it tomorrow. You sure can’t do much about it that night. It’s a blessing, really.”

    Update: I guess the New York Times wished it hadn’t turned commenting on. Look at this crackpot remark. (Oops: It looks like the NYT did delete the comment which acccused Ford of having knowledge of the JFK assassination beforehand). This comment seemed apropos:

    To all that are critical of Gerald Ford, if you want to remember him in a favorable light, just compare him to the current occupant of the White House. Next to GW Bush, Ford was a giant of a man.

    Houston blogger Laurence Simon has a deadpool game
     where people pick the names of 15 people they predict will die in the next year. The number of points you receive depends on how many other people predicted the same thing. Here’s the 2006 list. At first, I thought it was tasteless, but eventually after every death, I end up wondering how many people predicted it.

  • Dear Mr. Will (a defense of weblogs)

    (written in response to George Will’s post criticizing the importance of Youtube and blogging).

    Dear Mr. Will,

    First, I’ve been a fan of your writing for some time now (and recently picked up your book Statecraft as Soulcraft–it looks great!). I’ll concede the point about Youtube, but you don’t know anything about blogging. I know your columns try to be provocative, but have you really thought this through?

    A blog is simply a format, a piece of software, and nothing more. Individuals, organizations and even companies use it for various purposes to solve a web publishing problem–how to notify people about the latest things they’ve written. Criticizing blogs is akin to criticizing things written in Microsoft Word or criticizing the Post Office.

    I use my weblog (s) mainly for collecting/gathering information, although I’ve written for newspapers before (and consider my main occupation to be writer). Also, when I write more substantial things, I usually link to it on my blog so regular readers know where to find it. My RSS feed reader (which keeps tabs on weblogs) lets me stay on top of hundreds of blogs, including several dozen political/economic blogs. Reading blogs (and blogging about what you read) is simply another way to process information–for me, a more efficient way. It also is a way for me to go directly to the source–to find out about original academic papers more quickly before I wait for the results to trickle into mainstream media.

    If I were a budding journalist, the only way I’d start my career would be to write a weblog (or write for a group weblog with a shared vision). People split the advertising revenue, so returns are small, but that’s how you get started nowadays. Here in Houston, there’s a lot of interesting collaboration going on between the city paper and local bloggers. Instead of trying to compete with bloggers for news, the Houston Chronicle has simply coopted a lot of them–offering them free blogs at chron.com. (The paid writers blog here , while the (unpaid) community bloggers blog here . The Chronicle is making a killing too; bloggers provide more content, which (for the Chronicle) means more ad space. I’m sure a number of the community bloggers will gain enough traffic to justify being promoted to paid staff.

    I still trust paid journalists for first hand accounts of events, and I still prefer reading columnists from the bigger dailies (in general). But if suddenly all newspapers were to put their best articles behind a password-protected wall, I’d have no problem finding other interesting/provocative content. Lately, in fact, I’ve noticed that journalists are simply reporting/fact-checking what they hear from the blogosphere. That’s still an important function, but it’s also a sign that journalists don’t need to be relied upon for this information to surface.

    Sometimes paid journalists use the “amateurish” nature of some blogs to impugn an entire community of writers. But blogging is simply a different/less formal way of writing. Often blogging is simply the “public face” of a writer/reporter/critic, so naturally it is not far-fetched to expect some to fill a weblog with personal details/anecdotes. Many young writers use blogs as personal notebooks–what’s wrong with that? You imply there is something wrong or lacking about the effort (“because there is nothing singular about it, and each is the judge of his or her own success.”). But keeping a notebook is a useful step in a writer’s development; the only difference is that previously these notebooks were kept private; now they are public.

    In the literary world (where I mainly reside), paid writers and unpaid writers exist pretty much on the same footing..because we pretty much know that commercial success can’t be equated with quality of writing. The same phenomenon exists (to a limited degree) in the technology field (where I sometimes reside). Sometimes unpaid programmers do far better work than programmers who work for software companies. Perhaps it’s different in the journalism world; perhaps in journalism a paid position indicates seniority, a proven track record, a certain amount of discipline and training.

    (Paid journalists/writers have the burden of deadlines, while bloggers have the luxury of being able to publish a piece at their own pace–no matter how long it takes).

    In the field of literary criticism, blogging is now front-and-center. Newspapers and even highbrow magazines have totally dropped that ball. Blogging is the natural place to allow longer reviews (newspapers were never so accommodating) and opportunities for discussion. It’s gotten to the point where Sunday book review sections for newspapers are viewed as irrelevant/dealing with the already-famous rather than the up-and-coming (with WP’s Michael Dirda being the obvious exception–though I don’t think he’s been writing anything recently).

    But let’s not beat around the bush. Blogging requires resources and (more importantly) time. Just to give a trivial example: bloggers don’t have copy editors, so we have to be doubly scrupulous about typos and grammar (and yes, we drop the ball on that sometimes). Although I’ve never made any effort to prettify my own blogs, some bloggers spend enormous amounts of time doing that. Your writing career has allowed you to specialize on one or two kinds of writing–without needing to worry about backend issues. But bloggers often have to be jack-of-all-trades; we are expected to do everything..and still be interesting. Once, my blogging software went bonkers; another time, a software hacker destroyed my weblog (putting my blog offline for several weeks). How many times has that happened to you?

    Finally, you compare bloggers unfavorably to Ben Franklin and Tom Paine, implying that lack of a public purpose make blogs seem trivial by comparison. I am happy to report that America is (currently) a stable & mature democracy, so rabble-rousing rhetoric probably isn’t the best way to increase readership. Actually, from what I hear, many bloggers in China are using their blogs as a platform to do what Ben Franklin and Thomas Paine used to do–exposing injustices and advocating reform.

  • Jamendo: p2p + tipjars…finally!

    Well, it finally happened. Someone finally took my idea for p2p mp3 sharing + tipjars and ran with it. Jamendo lets you listen to songs and then download via emule or bittorrent the entire album. Suddenly, it’s become a lot easier to listen and download music without fear of consequences.

    (I’ll try it out and report back soon). It’s been almost a year since I’ve seriously sought new music. I downloaded a buttload in 2002, and then a buttload in 2003-4 (when I wrote the aforelinked essay). I downloaded a little bit in 2005 (mostly archive.org stuff), but mostly I’ve been catching up. In 2006 I started checking out lots of cd’s from the library and making personal copies for myself. Somewhat cumbersome, but at least I can say I did it without using the infernal p2p networks. Now it’s time to vary my musical tastes again.

    One commenter compared it to magnatunes (which is good, but not terrific). Another compared to icompositions.com

    On a related note, I’ve been listening to windows media player 11 and have found it versatile for organizing music and videos. I haven’t liked previous versions, but this is the first one that seems easy to use and customize.

  • God and Amputees

    I don’t claim to be an atheist, but I found this logical dissection of God from the site Why Does God Heal Amputees? to be razor sharp:

    Assume that God is imaginary. The beauty of this explanation is that it fits the facts perfectly. In the case of amputees, it is a valid way to explain the reality that we see in our world. The logic goes like this:

    If God is imaginary, then he does not answer any prayers. Therefore, the prayers of amputees would go unanswered too.

    The thing that is so appealing about this explanation is that there is no hand waving. There are no contradictions. It is completely fair. There is no paradox. This explanation makes complete sense in light of the evidence we see in our world.

    Interestingly, this explanation also happens to cover the case of Neva Rogers in Chapter 1. And Steve Homel’s subdivision in Chapter 2. And Ranika in Chapter 4. If you assume that God is imaginary, then the paradox of God evaporates in all of these cases. Why did Ranika die? Because there was no all-powerful, prayer-answering God to save her. Why did Neva die? Because there was no all-powerful, prayer-answering God to save her. Why did Steve’s house remain standing while 39 others burned to the ground? Because there was no all-powerful, prayer-answering God to save any of the houses (and Steve’s house was a fluke). Why did 200,000 people die in the tsunami? Because there was no all-powerful, prayer-answering God to save them. And so on. It explains amputees too. The paradox of God vanishes completely.

    In response to this proposal, a thoughtful person might say, “Just because God never answers the prayers of amputees, it does not mean that he does not answer other prayers. I agree with you that it is unfair to amputees, and I agree with you that it contradicts what Jesus teaches in the Bible, but God has his reasons. For some reason, it is not part of God’s plan to help amputees by regenerating their lost limbs. There is no way to understand the mysteries of our Lord, but he does have his reasons and they will become clear to us when we die and go to heaven.” That is one possible explanation, but words like “unfair” and “contradicts” feel, somehow, uncomfortable. They do not fit with our mental image of an all-loving and perfect God, nor with the words of Jesus in the Bible. Why would God have such a problem with amputees that he completely ignores their prayers to regenerate lost limbs, while at the same time he is answering all of these other prayers millions of times a day? When it comes to amputees, why would Jesus renege on his promises to answer prayers in the Bible?

    In other news, Sam Harris writes a defense of atheism:

    There is nothing that prevents an atheist from experiencing love, ecstasy, rapture and awe; atheists can value these experiences and seek them regularly. What atheists don’t tend to do is make unjustified (and unjustifiable) claims about the nature of reality on the basis of such experiences. There is no question that some Christians have transformed their lives for the better by reading the Bible and praying to Jesus. What does this prove? It proves that certain disciplines of attention and codes of conduct can have a profound effect upon the human mind. Do the positive experiences of Christians suggest that Jesus is the sole savior of humanity? Not even remotely — because Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and even atheists regularly have similar experiences.

    There is, in fact, not a Christian on this Earth who can be certain that Jesus even wore a beard, much less that he was born of a virgin or rose from the dead. These are just not the sort of claims that spiritual experience can authenticate.

    (Nick Kristof accuses the God-bashers of being uncivil).

    So Merry Christmas, Suckers!

  • Wikipedia & It’s a Wonderful Life

    Rereading the wikipedia article on It’s A Wonderful Life, I found some great tidbits:

    A popular fallacy began that it entered the public domain and many television stations began airing the film without paying royalties. The film was still protected by virtue of it being a derivative work of all the other copyrighted material used to produce the film such as the script, music, etc. whose copyrights were renewed.

    Click here for a more detailed discussion of the issues.

    Finally, the article lists some pop culture references to the movie:

    The characters in Mystery Science Theater 3000 frequently use lines from It’s a Wonderful Life while riffing the films they watch, such as “Why don’t you kiss her instead of talking her to death!” and “This is a very interesting situation!” Perhaps their most frequent reference is the use of “Out you two pixies go, through the door or out the window!” (or variations thereof) whenever characters in a film are being forcibly evicted. Also, in dogging a short entitled “A Case of Spring Fever,” a man awakens, sprawled on his broken couch, from an alternate reality where springs never existed, and the characters cry out “Merry Christmas, you wonderful old couch!”

    (See also my essay on the film)

  • Flickering Eye for Beauty


    at the beach

    Originally uploaded by lightpainter.

    Flickr Photographers I like: Agnieszka and Lightpainter. Actually, there’s another Vanita who lives in Houston, Texas. I’m sure there are many others.

    Agnieszka is a beautiful Polish woman who takes hundreds of self-portraits as well as scenes of her homeland in Kracow. She made a comment on one of my photos of Kracow, and from that point on, I’ve followed her photos in a lazy sort of way. It’s funny to think that a photographer should choose herself as a subject; but young woman always make good subjects, and it’s nice to have a record of this woman’s various transformations. Also, she likes to do closeups of lots of things: Polish pastries, gates, flowers. See her homage to Christmas which is just terrific.

    Lightpainter is this Boston photographer who does mainly portraits of models–I’m not sure how he makes his money, but I actually bought one of his photos for an ebook I am producing. Of course, his models are gorgeous, but he has this rare ability to find symmetries and interesting shapes in almost everything.

    Vanita is a photographer dear to my heart because she comes in contact with many of the same urban settings that I do. Look at her colors and you will be convinced that Houston is a place of picturesque beauty–and it is–in a way, if you have the right eye. Here’s a photo of Miller Theatre hill , Bookstop , and the Galleria . Here’s some photos of signs (which are distinctive in their own way).

    The great thing about flickr and photographers is that photographers keep on taking photos; it’s an addiction; every week there’s a few more photos added to the pile.

  • Pearl: Victorian Erotica Online

    (2013 Update): I don’t know whether I’ll actually read all of it, but the famous Victorian erotica magazine, Pearl is now completely online. Horray! Here’s a poem called, the Novice:

    A pretty little novice in her convent woke at dawn,
    And looking from her lattice she spied upon the lawn,
    A handsome shepherd quite intent
    On playing with his instrument, his instrument so long!

    She raised the window softly and watched him for a while,
    Delighted with his movements, then asked him with a smile:
    “Oh shepherd, pray, my wish consent,
    And say what is that instrument, that instrument so long?

    You play with it so nicely, it gives me joy to see,
    So dear, I implore you, to teach the same to me;
    Oh, kind young shepherd, pray consent,
    I’ll finger well your instrument, your instrument so long!”

    He looked up to her lattice with pleasure in his eye,
    And cried: “Come down, fair maiden, for there you are too high,
    Far, far too high for the extent,
    That I can stretch my instrument, my instrument so long.”

    She tarried not a moment, but swiftly rushed below,
    And with the handsome shepherd she learned her lesson so
    That soon she played most excellent
    Fantasies on his instrument, his instrument so long!

    The first sweet lesson over for her too fast, she then
    In winning tones addressed him: “I’d like to play again.
    Once more her fingers to work went,
    Which made him use his instrument, his instrument so long!

    But strangers seemed approaching, the fair girl bid him fly,
    And cried: “Oh, don’t forget me, whene’er you travel by,
    Oft, oft, come back, and we’ll invent
    Fresh tunes for that dear instrument, that instrument so long!”

    June 16, 2013.  Looks like the complete issues of the Peal erotica magazine are found at horntip.com . You can find them here.

    Jan 5, 2010  Update. Here is a current link to PDFs (sorry, as of 2013, the domain is down!)  of the Pearl. Quite by accident, this random post has turned out to be the most popular post out of all 2000+ posts on this blog, so I guess I should elaborate a little on it  (Welcome fickle visitors — feel free to surf the rest of my site! ).  I would hardly call myself an expert on written erotica, but here are some other Internet gems in the erotica genre  which are worth looking at:

    Obviously, all the links here have explicit language, so they are not safe for work. But except for Erosblog, none of them have hardcore photographs — just text or maybe classic paintings or illustrations.

    July 2008: Update. Looks like the original link has been taken down. Here’s a link to archive.org’s version.

  • DVD Rewinder & Is it Real or is Memorex?

    Perfect Holiday gift: DVD Rewinder.

    Digg story about a high school kid who had his computers confiscated for making a minor change on a school website.

    This is actually an interesting anecdote, but more interesting is the digg discussion about whether this story is actually true. Apparently, this is a one blogpost blog, and the blogger also digged it; the story seems far-fetched, but not so far-fetched as to seem ridiculous. A few of the commenters provided factual validation, but that could be easily faked as well. The majority of digg posters couldn’t take it seriously until they knew for sure that it had been covered in mainstream media. (Maybe that is the main service provided by mainstream media these days: to factcheck blog articles).

    It’s likely this event was true, but it’s equally likely that it could have been faked; there’s simply no way to have independent verification. (I thought the post was unusually articulate for a high schooler; then again, when you write with outrage, words come easily). The best you can do is debate the details and look for internal inconsistencies. When examining the material for authenticity, you get sucked into pretending it’s true; it’s what Jill Walker calls “ontological fusion;” you become a part of the story. All the responses are framed in hypotheticals (i.e., “if this event did actually happen”), to the point where it is no longer necessary to attach the conditional to it. Modern web surfers are becoming savvier. They no longer take things at face value. At the same time, they are more willing to accept the uncertainty of net narratives. That is progress.

  • Libel, Big Pockets and Blogs

    A fascinating discussion by Dana Hull of newspapers and blogging. Here are the potential libel issues:

    One of the biggest questions facing newsrooms is how libel law applies to blogs. Libel suits are relatively rare — and blogging is so new that little case law exists. Still, many media attorneys stress that if a blog is written by a newspaper staff writer, it is likely to be held to the same standard of liability or malice as if it appeared in newsprint.

    “It’s a developing landscape,” says Leatherbury, a partner in the Dallas office of Vinson & Elkins who has practiced media law for 25 years. “In dealing with mainstream publications that launch blogs, my assumption is that they’ll be treated more like mainstream media for good and for bad if a legal issue arises about a blog posting.”

    Leatherbury also warns that mainstream media blogs are likely to be more visible targets of libel lawsuits. While an independent blogger may exert just as much influence, a newspaper blogger has the potential to reach a wide audience — and works for a large media company that clearly has assets.