blogs

Big Blog – No Cash

In discussions on the role of blogs (with journalists, freelance writers, lawyers etc) I tend to argue that the biggest change is that there is all of a sudden a large group of people who are prepared to write for free. Many of these writers are really bad and not worth reading. But it is easy enough to find a group of blogs/writers, which suit your interests and tastes. Therefore a great deal of the sources of literature and analysis of affairs comes from passionate amateurs â?? as opposed to the ranks of paid experts.

In attempts to prove my point I often enjoy pointing out that I blog for free to an unknown audience. Sometimes that audience engages me in discussion, comments my writing or questions my intelligence. This feedback is always nice (even the latter).

Recently I was questioned (not online) about my statement that I blog for free since I have in the left column of this blog a list of books and if you were to click on them and then buy the books from Amazon chances are that I will get a kickback.

Have I therefore lost my amateur status?

The books are there because these are the books that I at present find most interesting they are randomly chosen from my collection at Librarything. The idea is to give the visitor and list of additional reading and provide readers with some random colour.

Since I said kickbacks you naturally ask: â??Tell us about the money!â?? To which I reply here is a copy of my earnings under 2005 (the duration of this experiment thus far).

The -7 refers to books which have been returned. So my connection with capitalism has brought me less than a penny a day. This amount is too small to be paid by Amazon â?? so I do write for free after allâ?¦

Or maybe it’s just because I don’t have a big enough blog?

Posted on by mklang

Fashion rules the blogs

Checking some statistics on Swedish blogs only to find that right now seven out of the top ten blogs are fashion blogs (according to this counter). Now even if we discount the methodology used it is still a scary statistic.

Yes â??scaryâ??.

Even if we try to explain the fact by claiming technological arrogance and superiority. That maybe fashion oriented people visit blogs while many others use rss readers it still does not begin to match the statistic â?? seven out of the ten top blogs are focused on fashion.

Therefore the clothes we wear are more important to the population at large than any other subject or topic. Forget social issues, forget politics, forget technology, forget war, and forget sex. Fashion rules the blogosphere.

We have come a long way from Naomi Klein “No Logo” and the like…

In an attempt to capitalise on this information cartoonist Mattias Adolfsson has turned his blog into a fashion blog for one week only. But be warned â?? fashion isnâ??t what it used to be when Mattias looks at it!

Check out his “Showroom” series of sketches.

Posted on by mklang

Art of War (free audiobook)

Sun Tzu’s classic the Art of War is this month’s free audiobook download from Learn Out Loud.

The Art of War is one of the oldest and most famous studies of strategy and has had a huge influence on military planning, business tactics, and beyond. First translated into a European language in 1782 by French Jesuit Jean Joseph Marie Amiot, it had been credited with influencing Napoleon, the German General Staff, and even the planning of Operation Desert Storm. Leaders as diverse as Mao Zedong, Vo Nguyen Giap, and General Douglas MacArthur have claimed to have drawn inspiration from the work. (Wikipedia)

The narrator is Christy Lynn.

This is only free to download during the month of November so do it now or miss the opportunity…

(via The Stingy Scholar)

Posted on by mklang

Toaster Filling

As mentioned earlier we are going to build a Freedom Toaster for the Technical Museum in Stockholm. Naturally itâ??s on a short deadline â?? life would be boring otherwise!

As part of the Toaster we also want to include more stuff than simply an operating system. We want to have texts, images, music and film. We also want the material to be Creative Commons licensed (or similar) so that people can do more than simply be passive consumers (if they choose to be more).

In an instance of synchronicity Рtoday I aimlessly browsed into the blog of an excellent artist & cartoonist and was blown away (who says procrastination is all bad?). Not only this but he happens to live in G̦teborg (same city as me).

Naturally I emailed him about the project and he is interested in helping to provide some of his artwork for the project. What can I say? Sometimes Fortuna plays along. Check out the artwork on Mattias Adolssonâ??s blog.

This is his Beatnick Dragon
Posted on by mklang

Walls of Ceuta & Melilla

Continuing (earlier here and here) on the topic of walls of segregation. Here is more on Ceuta and Melilla.
Unfortunately only available in French and Italian the Migreurop have published The Black Book of Ceuta and Melilla online. The work documents the atrocities being committed under the guise of controlling illegal immigration to the EU via the Spanish north-African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla. The introduction to the publication is available in English here.

Statewatch writes that the book contains… “…analysis, photographs and extensive testimonies from migrants themselves, who are thus given the opportunity to describe their experiences of what EU institutions euphemistically refer to as an ‘integrated system to fight illegal immigration’, which is repeatedly, and annoyingly, considering that migrants have been shot, abandoned to die in the desert, hunted down and detained in inhumane conditions, followed by the phrase while respecting human rights.”

Read also Peio Aierbe’s The “assault” by “sub-Saharan migrants” in the media.
(via Subtopia)

Posted on by mklang

Darwinian Evolution Online

The Complete Works of Charles Darwin are to be found online â?? for free. So OK you are hard to please and you have seen books online before. But wait! This site offers more. You can even download Charles Darwin audio books â?? for free.

An amazing collection of Darwinâ??s works are available in MP3 hits like the â??Fertilisation of Orchidsâ?? (1862) to the â??On the Origin of Speciesâ?? (1859) all iPod ready.

This site contains every Darwin publication as well as many of his handwritten manuscripts. All told there are more than 50,000 searchable text pages and 40,000 images. There is also the most comprehensive Darwin bibliography ever published and the largest manuscript catalogue ever assembled. More than 150 ancillary texts are also included, ranging from reference works to contemporary reviews, obituaries, descriptions of Darwin’s Beagle specimens and important works for understanding Darwin’s context. Free audio mp3 versions of his works are also available.

The site was launched on 19 October this year and is amazing. It is a testimony to the victory of content over web-design.

(via Markmedia)

Posted on by mklang

Danish Courts Discover Internet Censorship

Denmark has taken up the fight against the freedom of Internet traffic. In a recent court decision (in Danish here) the court has decided that the Internet Service Provider must prevent users carrying out illegal activities.

The background is the controversial Russian site AllOfMp3.com (more info about background controversies on wikipedia). The Russian company claims to follow Russian law while the IFPI claim that they have not paid for any western labels. In addition to this the music is not protected by DRM and can be freely transferred to others.

The Danish court has found that since the music is downloaded is actually copied onto the ISPâ??s equipment then they are guilty of copyright violation. The court has not seen this as aiding someone elseâ??s copyright violation but find that the ISP is directly responsible for carrying out the actions.

ISP liability for the actions of their customers has a long background and basically takes three positions. The ISP is totally innocent in the same way as the post-office is innocent of a blackmail letter it delivers. The ISP is guilty since without their equipment the crime could never have taken place. And thirdly the more complex: it depends. This last case must answer questions such as:

Did the ISP have knowledge of the actions?
Did the ISP take actions to prevent it?
Would it be possible (technically, economically, politically) to take action?

The result of this is that the ISP has been protected by its own strategic ignorance.

But now the Danish court argues that the ISP is not contributing or aiding crime (which in itself is a questionable stance as the questions above indicate) but is guilty of the crime itself.

The court writes

â??Retten finder … at ogsÃ¥ den flyktige og tilfældige fiksering af musikværket i form av elektroniske signaler, som foretages i de forskellige routers under datapakkernes transmission via internettet, er omfattet af ophovsretslovens § 2.â??

Basically: that the consequences of millisecond that it takes for the music to zoom through the companies routers is, in fact, the creation of a copy of digital music. This is done without the permission of the copyright holder.

Wow! The Danes have really begun something here. First of all you can hardly read, listen or see coherent information while it flies through the router. Since information online is mixed up in many packets and mixed together with other packets and all the little packets can take different routes to their final destination.

IF the Danes were right then I should be able to sue the Danish ISP for copying all my emails which happen to go through Denmark without permission.

Another problem is that the Danish court has ordered this whole problem to be resolved by blocking all traffic from the Russian site. This implementation is both unpoductive and dangerous. It is unproductive since those who want can still download – site blocking is a minor impediment. It is dangerous since it shows a lack of understanding of how the Internet works. Faith in blocking only leads to the false impression that something is being done.

(via Oscar Swartz, Copyriot)

Posted on by mklang

Rereading Rilke

Very rarely do I reread books. I return to academic literature to confirm or to find. But I donâ??t reread. Fiction is even more seldom. Occasionally I search for something I remember. But I donâ??t reread.

One of the factors is time. But thatâ??s a sell out. We find the time to do things that are important. Things we want to do we solve, but for things we donâ??t want to do we find excuses. So it boils done to interest. With an endless sea of things to read yet undiscovered and piles of books around me that are yet to be consumed â?? returning is less appealing. In this manner I am fickle. I return to authors but not to books. I return to blogs but not to posts.

There are some rare exceptions to this behaviour (it is hardly a rule). Reading for comic relief brings me to return to favourites like Asterix, Tintin, and Calvin & Hobbes. But then there is the real exception. Since I discovered the collection, many years ago, I return every half-decade to Rilkeâ??s â??Letters to a Young Poetâ??.

The letters are from Rilke to a young struggling poet. In the first letter Rilke replies to the struggling poets request for advice on writing poetry:

No one can advise or help you – no one. There is only one thing you should do. Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write. This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple â??I must,â?? then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your while life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse.

The book I have is a slim cream coloured hardback volume with an exclusive feel. You can read the texts online but then you will lose some of their value.

Posted on by mklang

Jewellrey Music Lyrics

Claire B has started a blog called The Mummy’s Bracelet. It based on her research in the area of death and jewellrey so we can look forward to some odd and interesting posts over there. In here premier post she asks her readers to help her come up with music with jewellrey lyrics to “…to create a musical soundtrack for my ongoing PhD project…”

Too right – I think more PhD’s should come with soundtracks.

I cannot think of any music with jewellrey lyrics – my mind goes blank and all I have is Diamonds are for ever (Must read Björn Hallberg’s critique of De Beer’s Blood Diamonds over at Battleangel) and Wagners Ring (which isn’t even about Jewellrey).

Posted on by mklang