I'm in the market for a new MP3 player -- my second-gen iPod Nano is finally dead, and I don't want to buy another iPod, or any other player with DRM built in. I figure that any company that wants to devote its engineers to figuring out how to frustrate my desires doesn't really want my business.

Who'd got a suggestion? I'm looking for something:

• * small (Nano-sized or smaller),

• * low-capacity (8GB is fine, all I use it for is podcasts),

• * chargeable and connectable with a standard USB cable,

• * reasonably rugged,

• * with an LCD,

• * capable of marking some files as podcasts or audiobooks and remembering where you stopped playing them, and,

• * most importantly, I'm looking for something that can be connected to a set of lanyard headphones like these

I don't care if it has WiFi or Bluetooth, or if it plays games, or if it has a "store" on the net that lets me get music for it directly. I just want a chunk of solid-state storage with a headphone jack and a decent menuing system and headphones I can wear around my neck so that they don't get tangled in things.

Suggestions? Feed the comments, below (don't send email, I'm taking a break from it for the weekend).

Oscar sez, "I just finished a 48-minute radio documentary for the Australian public broadcaster, the ABC, about remix culture, piracy and copyright. It's got brain-melting copyright education programs aimed at kids, commentary from Lessig, and tomfoolery from the Australian film industry about losses from internet piracy. There's also a history of the Statute of Anne, and the Australian music industry agreeing that amateur remixing at home should be allowed. It includes a cut-up of Johann Strauss' Blue Danube which will hurt your ears and make you laugh, and tracks from Girl Talk, Steinski, Strictly Kev and many others."

I've just gotten as far as the woman from the Australian film industry explaining that even though sales of DVD and box-office tickets are up, copyright infringement is still a deadly threat to the movie industry, demanding that the Internet be totally remade to prevent it, just in case. Nice stuff.

Adrianne Pecotic: The fact that there is a level of illegitimate consumption of film and television is something that detracts from the revenue that could go back into the industry and could go back into supporting local video stores, local cinemas and online distribution. Theft is not justified because someone is being successful, and that's a really important point in this debate.

Oscar McLaren: But it does seem strange that I mean, we're told in quite apocalyptic terms often that the video industry and the film industry is really starting to hurt. I don't imagine many people would actually be aware that the revenues are in fact going up quite steadily and have been for the past decade or so.

Adrianne Pecotic: I think the important thing about the losses that are being suffered by the film industry through piracy, is that individual investors in individual films rely on that investment in that particular film, for that film maker, or that investor as their entire revenue. If you're looking at the analysis across the board of the whole industry and whether it is going up or whether more people are consuming films or less people are consuming films, you're not asking the question of whether a particular film has had the opportunity to recoup its proper revenue.

Oscar McLaren: For the record, box office sales were also at all-time high levels last year, reaching nearly $1-billion.

Internet piracy

MP3 link

(Thanks, Oscar!)

Last week's story on Escape Pod, the excellent weekly science fiction short story podcast was "Infestation" by Garth Nix. It's a vampire story with a twist (in a genre where not many twists are left) and it kept me guessing right up to the end. A delightful piece of speculative and wicked science fiction.

They were the usual motley collection of freelance vampire hunters. Two men, wearing combinations of jungle camouflage and leather. Two women, one almost indistinguishable from the men though with a little more style in her leather armour accessories, and the other looking like she was about to assault the south covered by balaclava, mirror shades, climbing helmet and hood. face of a serious mountain. Only her mouth was visible, a small oval of flesh not

They had the usual weapons: four or five short wooden stakes in belt loops; snap-holstered handguns of various calibers, all doubtless chambered with Wood-N-Death® low-velocity timber-tipped rounds; big silver-edged bowie or other hunting knife, worn on the hip or strapped to a boot; and crystal vials of holy water hung like small grenades on pocket loops.

Protection, likewise, tick the usual boxes. Leather neck and wrist guards; leather and woven-wire reinforced chaps and shoulder pauldrons over the camo; leather gloves with metal knuckle plates; Army or climbing helmets.

EP222: Infestation

MP3 link

Subscribe to Escape Pod podast feed

Viktor from the Tank Riot podcast (one of my favorite podcasts!) sez, "Tank Riot just released a new podcast about the the life, works, controversies and urban legends of the animator everyone thinks they know. From Mickey Mouse in Plane Crazy to Donald Duck and Pluto, we discuss the animators like Ubbe Iwerks and the voice actors like Clarence 'Ducky' Nash and Pinto Colvig that made all of the myths possible."

Haven't listened to this yet, but I'm really looking forward to it!

Walt Disney

Tony sez, "The Sofanauts hosted a fascinating discussion, centered on the SF magazine, Asimov's. Guests included both Editor and Managing Editor, Sheila Williams and Brian Bieniowski. Writers, Jeff VanderMeer and Jeremy Tolbert also joined host Tony C Smith. Contrary to growing opinion in the SF community, things are not all doom and gloom for the magazine. Digital sales are up and new methods of delivery are being explored. Yet some things, like website and digital submissions continue to be touchy subjects. Don't miss this frank and engaging roundtable focusing on one of the most established magazines in SF!"

The Sofanauts No 30 The State of Asimov's Special (Thanks, Tony!)

My friend Dr Alan Banack is a former GP and emergency room doctor who now practices in Toronto as a clinical hypnotherapist, mostly working with performance athletes. I've written before about him -- he's the guy who helped me get over a five-year bout of writers' block in my early twenties, and helped me quit smoking for good in 2003. Now he's making some of his relaxation/focus audio available online -- given that he's stopped taking on new patients (he's getting close to retirement), this is about the only way you'll get to benefit from his talents!

Dr. Alan Banack's Anti-Stress Program (Thanks, Alan!)

Boing Boing guestblogger Connie Choe is a health and culture writer by day and a professional kimchimonger by night.

Having lived in suburbia for the past 20 years, I often hear desperation-tinged fantasies (my own, mostly)of wanting to flee this neatly manicured existence to someplace that is rather different and very beautiful, but that's not too expensive and preferably not mucked up by other travelers.

For anyone else who seconds this emotion, I believe the answer to our yearnings is WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). Here's how it works: You choose a host organic farm in whichever country you like and arrange a temporary stay (ranging from a few days up to several months) during which you will work without pay in exchange for food and shelter. It's all the fun of being an indentured servant or migrant laborer without all the obligations!

The mission of the Read-Along Adventures site is to assemble the audio and scanned pages from every Read-Along book ever created -- these were the short picture books that came with a 45RPM record that narrated them, with cues to turn the page as necessary. Where possible, the curator has recreated the Read-Alongs as Flash apps. There's even audio for the Haunted Mansion record. How lovely!

Read-Along Adventures (Thanks, TimK!)

Access Copyright, the Canadian organisation that collects library royalties for writers, filed a jaw-droppingly dumb set of comments in the Canadian Copyright consultation. Access Copyright came out as opposing the right to record TV shows at home, and the right to "format shift" your media (e.g., load a CD on your MP3 player, or put an old ebook on a new reader or phone). They also say that almost all commercial use, no matter how trivial, should require a license and not fall under fair dealing. They come out against the interlibrary loan system, because it is digital.

Man, if these yahoos set out to destroy the public's faith in copyright, they could not do a better job than they're doing now. Yeesh.

The so-called format and time shifting exceptions, also known as personal use exceptions, were apparently included in Bill C-61 to address a practice that has become common among the public. Access Copyright submits that good public policy should not be dictated by legalizing common public practices.

It is worth mentioning here that Article 5(2)(b) of the EU Directive 2001/29/EC allows member states to introduce exceptions and limitations to the reproduction right for private use (which includes format and time shifting) "on the condition that rightsholders receive fair compensation". The requirement for fair compensation is to ensure that the private use exception complies with the three-step test.

Access Copyright believes that copyright owners should be given the opportunity to address these "common practices" through market-based solutions. We caution against the assumption that uses made by individuals for their personal use are inconsequential on the existing or potential market for a work. Format shifting for example is relatively new to printed works. Copyright owners should be given time to develop and test new services and business models for the delivery of content in the digital environment. The introduction of a format shifting exception for books could undermine the development of emerging business models. At the very least, the government should ensure that any restriction of the copyright owner's reproduction right be accompanied by fair compensation.

Access Copyright: Reduce Fair Dealing, No Taping TV Shows or Format Shifting

This week's story on the Escape Pod sf podcast is Marc Laidlaw's "Sleepy Joe," a grimly comic, apocalyptic story about paralegals with a secret cable-access show who find themselves caring for (and kidnapping) a brainwashed war-veteran who's been turned into a human weapon. It's a marvellous story and a great reading (the story was originally published on The Infinite Matrix). Astute readers will remember Marc as a former guestblogger, a wildly imaginative sf writer, and the games-writer behind such Valve titles as Half-Life.

The plan must have come to Rog fully formed that first morning, as he stepped off the elevator into the lobby of Szilliken Sharpenwright and saw the old soldier newly stationed there in his omnichair between the potted silk ferns and the coffee tables.

"Oh. My. God. I am in love."

Megan, her arms loaded with Rog-House props and paraphernalia she hadn't had time to ditch yet, said, "You say that an awful lot for someone who styles himself completely asexual. Not to mention atheistic."

"There's no conflict! He's completely post-human!"

"Hm. You two even look a bit alike."

EP219: Sleepy Joe

Direct MP3 link

Sleepy Joe text on Infinite Matrix

When I was asked to join on with BoingBoing as a contributing editor, my first thought was, "OMG, I'm a Boinger!"

And that immediately triggered a flashback to my childhood, specifically the part I spent rifling through my father's comic collection. If you're familiar with old, classic Bloom County, then you may recall Billy and the Boingers (née Deathtongue), a heavy metal band made up of Bill the Cat, Opus the Penguin, Hodgepodge the Rabbit and Steve Dallas the Formerly Sensitive Male. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then run, don't walk, to your nearest bookstore and purchase yourself a copy of Billy and the Boingers Bootleg, which contains all the associated strips, as well as an LP of the ostensibly hit songs "You Stink, But I Love You" and (yes) "I'm a Boinger." Perhaps, with luck, your 8-year-old will get a hold of it and the circle of dorky life will continue.

With that, ladies and gentlemen, may I present "I'm a Boinger" as performed by the Harry Pitts Band.

Alex sez, "In a first for Orbit, we're serializing the abridged audio edition of Transition by Iain M. Banks as a podcast., starting today. For free. New chapters launched Tuesday and Friday. This is the abridged edition -- the full book is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook editions today. The Independent says: 'TRANSITION is a book that makes you think, one that makes you look at the world around you in a different light, and it's also a properly thrilling read. If only more contemporary fiction was like it.'"

I'm a huge fan of Banks's thrillers; I like them even better than his science fiction.

Podcast feed

Transition hardcover (US)

Transition hardcover (UK)

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, is an online marketplace connecting radio producers with radio programmers. But it's also a massive library of searchable content- some of it very good- that you can get lost in for hours.

You'll need an account to listen, but sign-up is free. Go nuts! (link)

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast

This week on my podcast, Beijing journalist Jennifer Pak delivers a chilling report on China's Internet addiction "rehab" centers, where one youth was recently beaten to death. I also look at last week's 9/11 hoax in Germany and compare it to a media/web hoax I pulled 11 years ago, in which I convinced the local news that I had 6-month old babies around the world surfing the web. The question: is the press actually dumber about the Internet today then than it was back then?

MP3 link

Subscribe to Search Engine:

via XML (link)

on iTunes (link)

I'm doing a live audio- and text-chat today at 3PM EDT with Internet Evolution's new IE Radio program. Hope to chat with you!

Cory Doctorow, blogger, Boing Boing

Required weekend listening. Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America shares word that a special TSOYA feature episode on The Kasper Hauser Comedy Group is now up.

[The] San Francisco-based sketch comedy group [have] been mainstays of The Sound of Young America, and have appeared on Comedy Central and on This American Life. They're the authors of three hilarious books: "SkyMaul: Happy Crap You Can Buy From A Plane," "Obama's Blackberry," and "Weddings of the Times." They also wrote the website Wonderglen for former Onion editor and Daily Show executive producer Ben Karlin.

On this special hour-long Sound of Young America special, they talk about their careers, and we hear their comedy -- both sketches produced for The Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast and all-new pieces.

Go have a listen here, or click the embed below.

This week's Escape Pod podcast story is Madeline Ashby's βoyfriend, a marvellous, sweetly romantic science fiction story about teenagers who use clever artificial intelligences as "training wheels" on the way to their first real love, but who quickly find themselves substituting the warm companionship of their imaginary friends for the confusing and fraught people around them. It's got Ashby's sly humor, heart and it's got clever to spare. I bought Madeline's first published story for Tesseracts 11 and it's wonderful to see where she's gone since.

EP216: βoyfriend

I've just finished listening to the fantastic unabridged audiobook adaptation of Ariel, Stephen Boyett's classic post-apocalyptic swords-and-sorcery adventure novel that was just reissued. The recording was produced by Deyan Audio, and read by Ramon De Ocampo who really nailed it. The incidental music came from Boyett's wife, Maureen Halderson, who clearly has a handle on how to produce the accompaniment to the much-loved tale.

Ariel is a natural for adaptation to audiobook -- a nonstop, tightly plotted adventure novel with lots of exciting, well-told combat sequences that De Ocampo just nails. And, of course, the book is available as a DRM-free download (Boyett's something of a copyfighter, which makes it great all around.

Incidentally, Boyett's holding a competition in which he's asking for readers to send in photos of their "ganked out" original copies of Ariel (mine's much-loved and has been read literally dozens of times), with the owners of the most beat-up copies winning signed new editions. Sweet deal!

Ariel audiobook

Free Sample Chapters

See also: Ariel: post-apocalyptic sword-and-sorcery adventure that rocked my world

Dominic from CBC Radio sez, "Darren Atkinson is a husband, a father, a musician... and a dumpster diver. If he's not playing drums for a living, he's diving into industrial waste bins, looking for treasure. This is work. This is his 'job'. He sells what he can, or trades thrown-away goods for services and favours. But can a self-confessed - and possibly obsessed - 'dumpsterologist' make a living from the cast-offs of our consumer society?"

Darren is an old pal of mine, and I've written about his amazing life and ethic for Wired and Forbes. This is fantastic radio documentary on him!

The Hunter Documentary

Direct link to MP3

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest-blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap is the greatest radio show you may have never heard of. That's because, despite being on CBC Radio for five years, building a dedicated cult audience, and just being generally wonderful, it's never been offered as a podcast.

Until now! Subscribe with RSS here or via iTunes here.

And check out the "unofficial" Wiretap archives here.

If you've never heard Wiretap before (or heard Goldstein on This American Life, or read his books) then you're in for a treat- he's a humble weirdo semi-genius. Whether he's imagining a hostile correspondence between Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble or rewriting the Bible, or absorbing abuse from his supporting cast of equally funny Montreal cronies, Goldstein is always dry as a bone and completely original. Check it out.

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest-blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

My podcast Search Engine launches a new season this week with a discussion between me and (my radio hero) Ira Glass, host of This American Life.

Ira is a pleasure to talk to, nimble and playful in his conversation, even when he's insisting that he has nothing to say! Ira Glass on Search Engine (mp3)

Subscribe to Search Engine: on iTunes

with XML

36 weeks ago -- give or take -- I set out to read my 2005 novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town aloud, in installments, in my podcast. And now I am done.

Someone Comes to Town is my weirdest book by far, a fantasy novel about a man whose father is a mountain and whose mother is a washing machine, who moves from small-town Ontario to Toronto to help build a citywide meshing wireless network with a crustypunk dumpster-diver.

Reading the book aloud was enormously satisfying. I hadn't read it through since I finished the final draft in 2004, and in many ways it was like coming back to it for the first time.

But even more satisfying was the participation from my readers. First there was John Taylor Williams, of DC's Wryneck Studios, who volunteered to master the audio for me, adding bed-music, editing out the gonks, and making it sound really good -- he started this around week 27, and it seriously improved the final 9 episodes.

Then Glenn Jones, a reader in the UK, decided to create a dedicated podcast feed for the book, with all 36 episodes, to make it easy to fetch and play in one gulp.

Im not sure what I'll podcast next -- I have a little more than a week to think about it -- but I'm really looking forward to it.

Podcast feed for Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

My podcast feed

Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town

This week's story on the Escape Pod science fiction podcast is a remarkable tale called "Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store" written by Robin Sloan and billed as a "short story about recession, attraction and data-visualization" and it is fabulous. It's a fantastic, magical realist tale about Google Book Search, magick with a K, an olde curiousity shoppe, and the power of data-visualization. The story was initially self-published on Sloan's blog and was recommended to the Escape Pod editors by a friend, who read it, loved it and bought it. If you enjoyed Ben Rosenbaum's The Ant King: A California Fairy Tale, you'll love this.

IT'S 2:02 A.M. ON A COLD SUMMER NIGHT.

I'm sitting in a book store next to a strip club.

Not that kind of book store. The inventory here is incredibly old and impossibly rare. And it has a secret--a secret that I might have just discovered.

I am alone in the store. And then, tap-tap, suddenly I'm not.

And now I'm pretty sure I'm about to snap my laptop shut, run screaming out the front door, and never return.

* * *

I SHOULD START AT THE BEGINNING.

I lost my job in the slumped-over spring of 2009. I applied for dozens of replacement gigs but was rebuffed, again and again. And I took only the coldest comfort when the companies doing the rebuffing were, themselves, forced out of business months later. I probably couldn't have turned them around single-handedly. Probably.

The job I lost was at the corporate headquarters of the New Amsterdam Bagel Bakery. I designed bagel marketing materials. Menus, coupons, posters for store windows, and, once, an entire booth "experience" for the bagel industry trade show.

I also ran the website.

Now, months into my unemployment, I'd started watching for "help wanted" signs in windows, which is not something you really do, right? I was taught to be suspicious of those. Legitimate employers use Craigslist.

EP215: Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store (podcast)

Mr. Penumbra's Twenty-Four-Hour Book Store (text)

AUDIO EMBED ABOVE: Two trolls on ham radio, one identified as "G-K," the other as "Robert" or "R-J" overheard accidentally on August 29, 2009, while surfing first responder frequencies during the August 2009 Los Angeles wildfires. The two men argued with each other about various technical subjects of interest to radio ops, then discussed drugs and past jail time, then notes on an Andy Griffith show marathon, then torture they'd like to perform on each other in great detail because they hate each other so much. Stay with it.

Technical note: sorry about the audible LOLs -- a friend held the scanner in their lap, and I held my iPhone 3Gs above the scanner, using "voice memo" app to record the audio. None of us could contain ourselves.

Archive.org: Random Ham Radio Trollfight: August 29, 2009, Los Angeles CA (thanks, Chief Fulfiller of Needs + fam!)

Last month I blogged about Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim, a glorious, gritty revenge novel from hell, tinged with Aleister Crowley, Tom Waits and Raymond Chandler. Sandman Slim, AKA Stark, is one of Los Angeles's magicians, and 11 years ago, his fellow magicians sent him to hell because they were jealous of his power. He's spent the past 11 years fighting in Hell's gladiator pits and working as an assassin for one of Hell's Dukes, but now he has escaped to Earth and is on a quest to hunt down and execute his betrayers.

I've just finished listening to the unabridged, 10-hour audiobook of Sandman Slim, which is available on a single MP3 CD without DRM from Brilliance Audio. The reading is performed by Macleod Andrews, who does the narration in a perfect whiskey voice that's 80 percent Tom Waits, 20 percent Clint Eastwood. The performance and production are marvellous, a great interpretive reading that really brought the novel to life for me. I also love that I could get it without having to suffer through either DRM through one of the audiobook download stores or through ripping ten CDs' worth of material, which is how I normally get my audiobooks onto my computer.

Sandman Slim Audiobook MP3 CD

YA author Scott Westerfeld's next novel is Leviathan, a remarkable YA steampunk adventure story that pits Darwinists (the English side, with their evolved war-machines created by splicing and dicing various animals' genomes to make zeppelins) against the Machinists (the German side, who use enormous, precision-made, steam-driven mecha and the like) in an alternate WWI.

The book is fantastic -- I read an early galley some months ago, and my full review is going up on Oct 6 when the book comes out -- but even better is the unabridged audiobook, read aloud by Alan Cumming. Simon and Shuster audio have just released the first chapter as a free stream, and I'm enjoying it immensely.

Chapter 1 of Leviathan, Read Aloud!

NPR's Morning Edition did a great segment on the privacy concerns raised by Google's deal with publishers and authors to make books available as search-results. I love the idea in principle, but I'm really worried that Google won't put a decent privacy policy in writing -- for example, they won't promise to keep your reading history (which potentially includes the search terms you used, the pages you viewed, etc) secret from warrantless police requests.

EFF legal director Cindy Cohn and author Johnathan Lethem do a fine job of explaining why this matters and what we'd like from Google in order to withdraw our legal objection to the settlement.

Lethem is one of several authors -- including Michael Chabon and Cory Doctorow -- who have signed on to a campaign to pressure Google Books to offer greater privacy guarantees for its readers. The effort was organized by the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"They know which books you search for," says Cindy Cohn, legal director for the foundation. "They know which books you browse through; they know how long you spend on each page."

It's the same kind of information that's produced by someone surfing the Web. But Cohn believes books should enjoy greater privacy.

The EFF and the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California want Google to keep reader data for less time than normal Web searches. Ideally, they say, the data should be deleted after a month.

Google Deal With Publishers Raises Privacy Concerns (Thanks, Hugh!)

Here's a video of Neil Gaiman reading my short story "The Right Book" at the World Science Fiction Convention last week; Neil did the reading for an ambitious short story collection publishing experiment I'm working on; we recorded audio too. The story was written for the 150th anniversary of Britain's The Bookseller magazine -- the brief was to imagine the next 150 years of bookselling. Neil did a wicked reading.

Neil Gaiman Reads Cory Doctorow's "The Right Book"

Snip from an essay by artist Michaela Melián on Hedy Lemarr, the Austrian-born American scientist and actress who was once described as the most beautiful woman in the world by MGM's Louis B. Mayer. Art Fag City Editor Paddy Johnson says, "Not only was she the first actress to simulate an orgasm onscreen in 1933, but her frequency-switching device (now known as frequency hopping) developed with partner George Antheil, is the technology upon with cell phones are built."

Melián assembled this online essay for Art Fag City's annual IMG MGMT which, in which artists are invited to curate image essays on the blog. She also wrote a score to accompany the old school style slide show, which is embedded in the post.

Image above: Michaela Melián, Frequency Hopping, 2008, C-print, watercolor, thread, 35 x 28 cm.

Snip:

In her ex-husband's Salzburg villa, the immigrant had seen plans for remote controlled torpedoes, which were never built because the radio controls proved to be too unreliable. After the outbreak of the Second World War, she worked on practical ideas to effectively fight the Hitler regime. At a party in Hollywood, Lamarr met George Antheil, an avant-garde composer who also wrote film scores. While playing the piano with the composer, the actress suddenly has an important idea for her torpedo control system. Antheil sets up the system on 88 frequencies, as this number corresponds to the number of keys on a piano. To construct it, he employs something similar to the player piano sheet music that he used in his Ballet Mécanique.

In December 1940, the frequency-switching device developed by Lamarr and Antheil was sent to the National Inventors' Council. A patent was awarded on August 11, 1942. The two inventors leave it to the American military to figure out how to use the device. Lamarr's and Antheil's Secret Communication System disappears into the U.S. Army's filing cabinets.

Finally, in 1962, as the Cuba crisis brews the technology now known as frequency hopping is put to use. Its purpose is not to control torpedoes, but to allow for safe communications among blockading ships - whereupon the principles behind the patent become part of fundamental U.S. military communications technology. Today, this technology is not only the foundation for the U.S. military's satellite defense system, but also used widely in the private sector, particularly for cordless and mobile telephones.

IMG MGMT: Life As A Woman, Hedy Lamarr (Art Fag City)

One of the highlights of this year's World Science Fiction Convention in Montreal was sf writer Charlie Stross chatting with sf fan and Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman. Charlie's work touches on many economic themes, and Krugman's reputation for finding economic lessons in everyday life is well deserved; the combination was dynamite.

Krugman: Let me show my age here. What you came out believing if you went to the New York's World Fair in 1964 was that we were going to have this enormously enhanced mastery of the physical universe. That we were going to have undersea cities and supersonic transports everywhere. And there hasn't been that kind of dramatic change. It's not just that airplanes are no faster. My favorite test, which shows something about me, is the kitchen. If you walked into a kitchen from the 1950's it would look a little pokey, but you'd know what to do. It wouldn't be that difficult. If someone from the 1950's walked into a kitchen from 1909 they'd be pretty unhappy - they might just be able to manage. If someone from 1909 went to one from 1859, you would actually be hopeless. The big change was really between 1840 and the 1920's, in terms of what the physical nature of modern life is like. There's been nothing like that since. So we can do fancy information searches in a way that no one envisioned 30 years ago - as one of my colleagues at the Times, Gail Collins, likes to say all the time where are the flying cars?

A fireside chat

Transcript

MP3

The Smoking Gun today published the results of a seven-week investigative probe into Pranknet, an anonymous, web-organized group of meanies who pulled a bunch of particularly sadistic phone pranks on businesses and residents throughout the US.

A number of American television news networks have been breathlessly covering Pranknet's hijinks of late. These are the jerks who thought it was funny to call low-budget hotel rooms and convince occupants that they had to break open windows to escape imminent deadly gas leaks, or smash televisions to evade impending doom. As one Fark commenter put it, "I'm not sure who sucks more, the prank callers or the idiots that listen to them and destroy their hotel rooms."

Photo inset at left: 25-year old Tariq Malik, Pranknet's founding bully, pictured in a webcam still taken in his Windsor, Ontario bedroom. I think it's fair to debate whether or not calling Malik a "telephone terrorist" (as TSG does in the headline) is inflammatory and over the top, but I will say this: what he and his anonymous coward buds did was cruel, lame, and could have caused physical injury or loss of life, in addition to the substantial property damage reported.

You can hear a female victim panicking and crying on the recording below.

Malik and his fellow Pranknet anons refer to her as a "crazy bitch," then they whine about how many idle logins are in the chat room with only a few participating in the prank. Other recordings reflect the stronger sort of racist and homophobic language one might find in the dregs of chan. I hope Malik and the perps who helped him get the absolute maximum possible sentences, to be accompanied in prison by cellmates who lack a sense of humor.

But guess what? Like so many anonymous internet bullies, tough-guy Tariq "Dex" Malik lives with his mommy. Snip from TSG:

On July 22, a pair of TSG reporters approached "Dex"'s building at 1637 Assumption Street in Windsor, where he lives in the ground-floor 'B' apartment. Calling to his mother, who was standing near an open living room window, a reporter asked her to summon her son. The woman disappeared into "Dex"'s adjoining bedroom, where the pair could be heard whispering. Despite repeated requests to come out and speak with TSG, "Dex" hid with his mother in his bedroom, the windows of which were covered with plastic shopping bags, a towel, and one black trash bag.

As the sun set and his room darkened, "Dex" did not reach to turn on a light. The notorious Internet Tough Guy, who has gleefully used the telephone to cause all kinds of havoc, was now himself panicking. He had been found. And, as a result, was barricaded in Pranknet World Headquarters with his mom, while two reporters loitered outside his window and curious neighbors wondered what was up. That's when the online outlaw came up with a plan. Tariq Malik, the 25-year-old founder and leader of Pranknet, decided to call the police.

Telephone Terrorist: Outing An Online Outlaw (smokinggun.com)

Tony from the StarShipSofa podcast sez, "The Sofanauts is a weekly SF news related show. Joining me each week are a variety of guests from science fiction literature, SF blogs and publishing to bring you the latest news and gossip from the world of SF. Guests have ranged from science fiction writers, including Jeff VanderMeer, Mary Robinette Kowal, Jeremiah Tolbert and Gord Sellar (nominated for this year''s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer) to editors and publishers, like the anthologist John Joseph Adams and Pablo Defendini (mover and shaker over at Tor.com). And one day I hope to snag young Mr Doctorow!

"We are now in the 14th week of the show's conception and it seems to be going from strength to strength. You can always tell how popular a show becomes as guests now ask to be on the show. This week will see the Sofanauts blast full throttle into Worldcon 2009, bringing you all the daily gossip and titbits of what is going on at this year's convention."

StarShipSofa, The Audio Science Fiction magazine has just given birth to... (Thanks, Tony!)

Glyn sez, "Buying DRMed content, then having that content stop working later is fair writes Steven Metalitz, the lawyer who represents the MPAA, RIAA in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office."

"We reject the view," he writes in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office, "that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so."

This is, of course, true, but that doesn't make it any less weird. The only reason that such tracks are crippled after authentication servers go down is because of a system that was demanded by content owners and imposed on companies like Wal-Mart and Apple; buyers who grudgingly bought tracks online because it was easy accepted, but never desired the DRM. To simply say that they are "out of luck" because they used a system that the rightsholders demanded is the height of callousness to one's customers. While computers and electronics devices do break down over time, these music tracks were crippled by design.

I've got 78RPM records from my grandparents' basement that play just fine today -- and I've got Logo programs I wrote in 1979 that I can run today. I own a piano roll from 1903 that I can play back if I can clear the space for a player piano. I've got books printed in the 17th century that can still be read -- and if they can't be read, they can be scanned and the scans can be read. This is what an open format means.

It's hilarious that the same yahoos who argue for perpetual copyright (implying that copyrighted works have value forever) also argue for time-limited ownership (implying that people who buy copyrighted works should be content to enjoy them for a few weeks or years until the DRM stops working).

Remember: when you buy DRM, you really rent, until such time as the DRM company goes bust or changes its mind. When you buy DRM-free, you get something your great-grandkids can enjoy.

Big Content: ludicrous to expect DRMed music to work forever (Thanks, Glyn!)

Last week's review of Top Shelf Jazz's new CD "Fast and Louche" sparked a suggestion in the comments from AnoniMouse to check out The Zydepunks, a band that bills itself as "New Orleans' Favorite Cajun Irish Jewish Punk band." The band were kind enough to send along the MP3s of their latest CD, the 2008 release "Finisterre" and it is some deeply kick-ass stuff.

Combining sweet, old-fashioned zydeco with Flogging-Molly-esque Celt-punk and upbeat klezmer is an improbable idea, but goddamn it works. Especially on uptempo tracks like "One More Chance," "Long Story Short" and "Papirossen In Gan Eden," (the last performed in Yiddish with some major Celtic and zydeco flavor) the Zydepunks make me want to get up on my chair and shout and wave my arms in the air. Thanks for the tip, AnoniMouse!

Finisterre (Amazon)

Zydepunks.com

Last week, I reviewed the Full Cast Audio adaptation of Kathe Koja's wonderful YA novel "Kissing the Bee", and Full Cast were good enough to send me another of Kathe's books in audio form, the 2003 Buddha Boy. Buddha Boy is the story of Justin, a kid at a pricey, clique-riddled high-school who just goes along to get along -- until he meets Jinsen. Jinsen, a transfer student, is an otherworldly, shaven-headed, maddeningly calm and artistically gifted student whose bizarre behavior (trolling the lunch-room with a begging bowl) and strange appearance make him into a magnet for the school bullies.

As the story goes on, Justin has to come to grips with his complicity in the savage and cruel bullying that Jinsen is faced with, the complicity of the bystander who does nothing, even as his friend Jinsen shows him an entirely new way to deal with bullies: to simply refuse to join the narrative they're recruiting you for. This strategy is not without its consequences, but it is also so shocking and new that it forces Justin to reexamine his life from top to bottom, from his academic passions to his spirituality.

As with Kissing the Bee, the Full Cast Audio adaptation of Buddha Boy is skillfully acted and edited, bringing out nuances in the story with a cast of talented actors, including some very gifted young people in the principle roles. The story twists and turns, and never quite goes where you think it will -- and like all of Koja's YA novels, it contains an elegant and simple emotional truth at its core that will have you vowing to be a better person by the time it's done.

Buddha Boy (CD)

Buddha Boy (paperback)

Sage Tyrtle and the QN Podcast team created a full-cast radio drama based on my apocalyptic, award-winning, Creative Commons licensed short story When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth. I had no idea they were working on it until they told me they'd completed it -- it blew me out of the water. What a fantastic piece of work -- and what a great surprise!

When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth

MP3 Link

The audiobook of Kissing the Bee combines two of my favorite things: Kathe Koja's young adult fiction and Full Cast Audio's use of skilled actors to bring fiction to life.

Kathe Koja's young adult novels are masterpieces of subtlety, understatement, and the sneaky, skillful use of everyday situations to illustrate large, difficult emotional truths about growing up. Full Cast Audio -- you may know them from their great adaptation of Heinlein's Have Space Suit, Will Travel -- have brought in as talented a team of voice actors as I've heard, and their narration does great things for an already strong narrative.

Kissing the Bee tells the story of Dana and Avra, two small-town high school seniors about to graduate. They're best friends, but brainy, shy Dana is always in egocentric, beautiful Avra's shadow. Dana is incredibly smart about people and her natural empathy lets her love her best friend, despite all her failings, and despite the fact that Dana is secretly in love with Avra's long-suffering boyfriend, Emil.

That's the setup, your basic adolescent love-triangle. But oh, does Koja ever do amazing things with it. Koja's special gift is empathizing with the wrenching drama of adolescent emotions, the looming, all-eclipsing feelings that suffuse every tissue, raising the stakes of your problems to infinity. Dana is smart and reflexive enough to know this, but she can't avoid or explain away her feelings. She is a genuinely good person trapped in a situation in which there is no genuinely good course of action that avoids one kind of betrayal or another. Her dilemma -- whom to betray, and how -- plays out with the crushing inevitability of an avalanche, but her reflexivity and thoughtfulness means that the reader never descends into helplessness, no matter how bad things get for Dana.

The three primary actors -- voices of Dana, Avra and Emil -- play it just perfect, with the nuance that conveys smart young people who are in two minds: the dramatic emotional whirlwind and the rational knowledge of its true scale as measured against the whole wide world.

Koja's admirable people-smarts have guided her through two different careers, first as a writer of lush, lavish horror and now as a writer of spare, whittled-down, understated young adult novels. She is proof that there are no tired or unoriginal situations, only tired or unoriginal writers. Thankfully, she is neither.

Kissing the Bee (CD)

Kissing the Bee (Hardcover)

John sez, "At Balticon this past May, Charlie Stross was the guest of honor. As a special treat, the first ever live full cast recording of the excellent Escape Pod podcast was performed of Stross's story Rogue Farm - his tale of future tech, biological hacking, and human nature is well-presented."

I've been listening to this all morning while brushing my teeth, cooking breakfast, etc. Convulsively funny, in a way that does justice to Charlie's wonderful story!

"Buggerit, I don't have time for this," Joe muttered. The stable waiting for the small herd of cloned spidercows cluttering up the north paddock was still knee-deep in manure, and the tractor seat wasn't getting any warmer while he shivered out here waiting for Maddie to come and sort this thing out. It wasn't a big herd, but it was as big as his land and his labour could manage - the big biofabricator in the shed could assemble mammalian livestock faster than he could feed them up and sell them with an honest HAND-RAISED NOT VAT-GROWN label.

"What do you want with us?" he yelled up at the gently buzzing farm.

"Brains, fresh brains for baby Jesus," crooned the farm in a warm contralto, startling Joe half out of his skin. "Buy my brains!" Half a dozen disturbing cauliflower shapes poked suggestively out of the farms' back then retracted again, coyly.

"Don't want no brains around here," Joe said stubbornly, his fingers whitening on the stock of the shotgun. "Don't want your kind round here, neither. Go away."

EP206: Rogue Farm (Thanks, John!)

Rick Kleffel sez, "I've recently posted an interview with China Miéville about his new book, The City & The City -- certainly one of the most unusual books you could read this year. He talks about the challenges of working in two genres -- the fantastic and the hard-boiled mystery genre -- in one novel."

A 2009 Interview with China Miéville

MP3 Link

(Thanks, Rick!)

Mitch writes in with news of his latest Copper Robot podcast, "Robert Charles Wilson discusses his latest novel, Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America, which is the most fun novel you'll ever read about the collapse of Western civilization and the end of religious freedom and democracy in America. It's an adventure story about the son of pious snake-handling parents in a small town, who leaves home in the company of the nephew of the President of the United States, and goes off to war and New York. The novel has adventure and romance and comedy and sea voyages and rooftop foot-chases and leaping from building to building. It's great fun. I also talked to Wilson about his 24-year career, past books including Darwinia and Spin, his writing process and favorite tools, and how working for a Canadian civil rights education was great education for a writer."

Science fiction writer Robert Charles Wilson (Thanks, Mitch!)

Podcast author-legend JC Hutchins sez,

My book, "Personal Effects: Dark Art," came out earlier this month. To introduce readers to that world, I'm rolling out a podcast-exclusive prequel novella called "Personal Effects: Sword of Blood" -- the story features a lost sword mystically possessed by the blood of a dangerous, supernatural creature.

The premise of "Personal Effects" is to blur the line between fiction and reality (it features a cool Alternate Reality Game component), and that's what I'm doing with this promo. I'm actually giving away a real, battle-ready 40"-long sword, a replica of the iconic weapon used by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V of Spain, back in the 1500s. It was crafted by the same dudes who made swords for the "Highlander" TV show.

Giving away a sword wasn't enough: Written on its blade will be a "Personal Effects" flash fiction story written by myself and fellow CC-rockin' new media thriller novelist Matt Wallace, who donated the sword to the cause. And we're signing our collaboration, on the blade, *in our own blood* -- making this a "real" Sword of Blood.

Yes, we were inspired by the KISS comic book. :)

Participating in the giveaway is easy-peasy; folks simply need to evangelize the release of "Personal Effects: Dark Art" to friends or co-workers.

Personal Effects: Sword of Blood

Personal Effects

Audio embed, below: Merlin Mann, who participated in the recent MaxFunCon gathering, talks about "the process of doing creative work, and particularly how to abandon the quest for perfection, get off your butt and get started." more at maximumfun.org (thanks, Jesse Thorn).

The Sound of Young America

Amazon has released (some of?) the source-code for the Kindle -- presumably, this contains the modifications to the GPLed code they incorporated into its firmware, and possibly more material (there's no accompanying documentation in the tarballs or on the webpage).

I really want to like the Kindle, but I'm having a hard time feeling good about the device for so long as Amazon refuses to answer these three basic questions:

1. Is there anything in the Kindle EULA that prohibits moving your purchased DRM-free Kindle files to a competing device?

2. Is there anything in the Kindle file-format (such as a patent or trade-secret) that would make it illegal to produce a Kindle format-reader or converter for a competing device?

3. What flags are in the DRM-free Kindle format, and can a DRM-free Kindle file have its features revoked after you purchase it?

No one at Amazon will answer these questions. I've asked them of my contact there, a manager who wrote me to tell me about the existence of Amazon's DRM-free option for Kindles, and he hasn't replied to my questions over a period of several months and several re-asks. Then, an O'Reilly exec asked Amazon to clarify this, as O'Reilly is releasing all its books as DRM-free editions for the Kindle, and he, too, has been stonewalled. Then I wrote to their press office, on behalf of the Guardian newspaper, and they didn't even deign to reply with a simple "no comment." Just radio silence.

Just as with Audible, Amazon's DRM-locked audiobook division (which has the monopoly on providing audiobooks through iTunes as well), I want to like this stuff. Audible's got a great catalog and reasonable prices. The Kindle, too, seems like a perfectly pleasant little device. But Audible requires mandatory DRM on all its files (my Amazon contact said that this has changed, but refused to answer any followup questions on the subject), and Amazon won't tell you what the rules of the road are for your "DRM-free" Kindle books. Given how crummy the license terms are on the "DRM-free" MP3s Amazon sells, I'm very cautious about this.

Please, Amazon, open up. Tell your customers what they're buying.

Amazon is pleased to make available to you for download an archive file of the machine readable source code ("Source Code") corresponding to modified software packages used in the Kindle device. By downloading the Source Code, you agree to the following:

AMAZON AND ITS AFFILIATES PROVIDE THE SOURCE CODE TO YOU ON AN "AS IS" BASIS WITHOUT REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SOURCE CODE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. TO THE FULL EXTENT PERMISSIBLE BY APPLICABLE LAW, AMAZON AND ITS AFFILIATES DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. AMAZON AND ITS AFFILIATES WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING FROM THE USE OF THE SOURCE CODE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, AND CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES.

Source Code Notice (via Engadget)

Fitzrovia Radio Hour is a radio-drama performance troupe in the UK who do over-the-top, steampunky stories that pay homage to the golden age of British radio plays. I saw them perform live at one of the White Mischief steampunk nights at the Scala near King's Cross, and they were superb -- full costume, great period-appropriate foley gadgets, and wonderful performances. They've got a podcast, too!

Your favourite gang from Radioland present three thrilling tales of imperial endeavour on frontiers near, far and final!

'Leinigen and the Monkey Men of Vijayanagar' An urgent telegram leads our hero to the jungles of British India and the lost city of Vijayanagar, which has been overrun by monkeys. Local legend has it that deep in the city's ruins, something sinister lurks...

'Survival of the Fittest' The leading financiers and businessmen of 1912 gather for a weekend of hunting at the Dartmoor estate of Colonel Charlie De Wynn. But it soon becomes apparent that their prey will not be pheasants or foxes...

'The Madman in the Moon' In the futuristic world of 1996, the good ship Jeremy Bentham is bravely pushing forward Britain's understanding of space science! But does the presence of a madman on Moon Station 1 mean the whole earth is in jeopardy?

Sponsored by Rathbone's Pick-Me-Up Tablets - remedies for the tired, the anxious and the busy!

Fitzrovia Radio Hour (Thanks, Toby!)

Happy Bloomsday! Here's a rare reading of James Joyce performing his own work; as John Naughton notes, "When I first heard it I was astonished to find that he had a broad Irish-country accent. I had always imagined him speaking as a 'Dub' -- i.e. with the accent of most of the street characters in Ulysses."

James Joyce MP3

James Joyce MP3 (mirror)

(via Memex 1.1)

(Image: Revolutionary Joyce Better Contrast.jpg, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)

A reader writes, "Catherynne M. Valente (Tiptree winner, Clarion Alumna and all-around-awesome speculative fiction writer) is putting up a wonderful piece of YA fantasy, one chapter a week, on her website for free: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making."

Lovely title, and that first chapter's a doozy! There's free audio of the author reading the book, too.

Once upon a time, a girl named September grew very tired indeed of her father's house, where she washed the same pink and yellow teacups and matching gravy boats every day, slept on the same embroidered pillow, and played with the same small and amiable dog. Because she had been born in May, and because she had a mole on her left cheek, and because her feet were very large and ungainly, the Green Wind took pity on her, and flew to her window one evening just after her eleventh birthday. He was dressed in a green smoking jacket, and a green carriage-driver's cloak, and green jodhpurs, and green snowshoes. It is very cold above the clouds, in the shanty-towns where the Six Winds live.

"You seem an ill-tempered and irascible enough child," said the Green Wind. "How would you like to come away with me and ride upon the Leopard of Little Breezes, and be delivered to the great sea which borders Fairyland? I am afraid I cannot go in, as Harsh Airs are not allowed, but I should be happy to deposit you upon the Perverse and Perilous Sea."

The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making

Salim sez, "A treat for all copyfighters from U-Channel... a lecture by copyright lawyer Julie E. Cohen on how the law is evolving ten years after the DMCA. From the site"

In recent years, the law has been asked to respond to a variety of disputes involving accessibility of information and related technical standards and practices. These disputes cover the waterfront from the design of proprietary media players to network neutrality to privacy protection for search queries. So far, the law has been unable to generate compelling discourses and principles for evaluating them.

Prof. Cohen offers another way of thinking about issues of accessibility and unauthorized access. The reference point for this exercise is not be innovation, competition or expressive freedom, but rather the concept of "everyday practice," a term intended to encompass all of the ways in which situated users experience and interact with networked information technologies and the purposes for which they do so.

The Changing Meaning of `Unauthorized Access` MP3 Link

(Thanks, Salim!)

Viktor from the excellent Tank Riot podcast sez, "The Happy mutants at Tank Riot dedicated a show to the one and only Emma Goldman. The team discusses the intriguing life of the controversial 'Red Emma', an anarchist, free-speech advocate, social activist, and spokesperson for women's freedom and birth control rights. We look at her connections to the Haymarket Affair, the Russian and Spanish Revolutions, Alexander Berkman and the publication of 'Mother Earth', Johann Most and her involvement in fighting for worker's rights. We suggest it because we want people to hear a little about someone who vanished from history books for demanding change in the world."

I just saw this in my podcatcher and can't wait to listen to it -- these guys always do a great job on their subjects, and this is a fine subject indeed.

Emma Goldman: Tank Riot (Thanks, Viktor!)

(Image: Emma Goldman on a street car, 1917, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from bobster855's Flickr stream)

Wanna hear primates laugh? It's infection, I guarantee it! Audio samples within.

Primatologist and psychologist Marina Davila Ross of the U.K.'s University of Portsmouth led a team that tickled the necks, feet, palms, and armpits of infant and juvenile apes as well as human babies. The team recorded more than 800 of the resulting giggles and guffaws.

Apes Laugh, Tickle Study Finds (Thanks, Marilyn!)

This week on the most excellent Pseudopod horror podcast, David Nickle's fantastic story "The Inevitability of Earth," a tale about the ignobility of those who would fly:

When Michael was just a kid, Uncle Evan made a movie of Grandfather. He used an old eight-millimeter camera that wound up with a key and had three narrow lenses that rotated on a plate. Michael remembered holding the camera. It was supposedly light-weight for its time, but in his six-year-old hands, it seemed like it weighed a ton. Uncle Evan had told him to be careful with it; the camera was a precision instrument, and it needed to be in good working order if the movie was going to be of any scientific value.

The movie was of Grandfather doing his flying thing -- flapping his arms with a slow grace as he shut his eyes and turned his long, beak-ish nose to the sky. Most of the movie was only that: a thin, middle-aged man, flapping his arms, shutting his eyes, craning his neck. Grandfather's apparent foolishness was compounded by the face of young Michael flashing in front of the lens; blocking the scene, and waving like an idiot himself. Then the camera moved, and Michael was gone -

And so was Grandfather.

Dave's got a new short story collection coming soon, available for pre-order: Monstrous Affections.

Pseudopod 144: The Inevitability of Earth

MP3 Link

Pseudopod podcast feed