in a whole bunch of different things in the past couple of years, but when I first came across the guy a couple of years ago (FOAF) he was mostly a budding science fiction writer. Add to that entrepreneur, activist, blogger extraordinaire, and it seems a dozen other things, but in the end it still comes back to his fiction I guess. This week Cory published his first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and it seems to be a tremendous success. He’s testing a model I think is very smart too – offering a free version to download on the principal that it doesn’t reduce sales but increases sales. I know I’m buying it; you should too.
Archives for 2003
William Gibson
How good are the
Be Good Tanyas? I’ll tell you. They’re Very Very good. Blue Horse is an almost perfect first record, in that style, and Chinatown is due out in a month or so. The worst part is, though, that I’m just figuring this out now. I’ve missed at least three of their shows (that I remember), they shacked up at a friend’s apartment last time they were in Montreal, and I (and friends) drank a LOT with the guy who played drums on their last tour after the show. Never quite managed to listen to ’em before now, at least not straight through. Damn.
A Norwegian Court acquitted
teenager Jon Johansen over the creation of DeCSS, the software he made so that he could watch DVDs on his Linux box rather than an industry-vetted player. The judge stated very strongly that as long as a DVD is legally obtained, no one could dictate which machine could be used to use it. Looks like a showdown will be coming on these issues between Europe and the US.
Still catching up:
Daegan has posted a lovely and moving memory of a Joe Strummer moment she had when she was 15. “And I remember finding myself directly behind Joe Strummer, and reaching out and touching his back before the song ended. What a strange, strange emptiness it is when heroes die.”
