Excuse me while I engage in full on Sci-fi nerd rage a moment.

From http://craphound.com/?p=2253 I have learned that the same guy who produced From Hell and Natural Born Killers has purchased movie options on the Cory Doctorow novel Little Brother.

You might recall that I ranted about this book a while back here, here and here. I don't like the book. I think that should be readily apparently. It's a watered down, for-kids version of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Same general themes, but the details changed because the audience is different.

I'm honestly glad that Doctorow is having a novels of his optioned. I hope it gets made into a film. As sleary said, "a movie might be a much better format for that book. They wouldn't be able to stop every five minutes for an infodump." And she's got a good point. One of my major complaints with the book is the way that Doctorow stops the narrative every 15 or 20 pages to explain computer and networking terminology, techniques and philosophies. It completely shatters the flow of the story and makes reading the novel feel more like a textbook than a novel.

That said, why couldn't they have picked one of Doctorow's other novels that were more well-written? While Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom would be awesome to see as a movie, I don't think it could be done terribly well. I'd really like a movie of Eastern Standard Tribe, because it's so very topical these days. Little Brother is also extremely topical, but it's more topical in a personal rights way while Eastern Standard Tribe is topical in a societal shift way. EST is also significantly less preachy, and it doesn't stop every few pages to try and educate the reader. It sticks with telling a story.

To change the topic, here's a question for you reference librarians out there (you know who you are): How does one properly attribute quotes taken from Twitter when quoting someone? And because individual tweets are so short, would they still be quotes or, since you're almost certainly going to be quoting the full 140 characters, would it be a reprint?

Tags: books, movie

Apple had their yearly WWDC Keynote speech this past Monday, and they made a bunch of announcements: New iPhone hardware, new iPhone software, new laptops, new OS X version, new Quicktime version, etc. There's a lot that's new and updated and shiny. Over the last couple days, while I've been napping and web surfing, I've been thinking about things, and there were two announcements at the WWDC that sadden me in regard to Apple and their overall philosophy.

My understanding of Apple is that they are (were) different. They are a different OS on different hardware appealing to different people. That began to change a few years ago with the move away from IBM's PowerPC chips to Intel's chip line, but that was seen as just a way to open the door for more cross-platform software compatibility. Indeed, it brought about things like VMware Fusion, Parallels, Virtual Box, Bootcamp and even WINE on OS X which allow you to run Windows software on your Apple hardware. This has been great for Apple in terms of market share and development.

During the WWDC a few days ago, two announcements were made which on the surface, are nowhere near as ground-breaking as a shift in processors and have been mostly ignored by the media or been praised as good things, but they are significantly more damaging to the idea that Apple is different. The two announcements concern the change in the laptop branding and in the OS X software price.

First is the change in laptop branding. Among the plethora of announcements, it was stated that Apple is doing away with the differentiation between the "MacBook" and "MacBook Pro" lines, and that all laptops would be considered "MacBook Pros" from here out. This sounds great, given the fact that the last few years have seen the differences between MacBooks and MacBook Pros steadily decreasing. However, it homogenizes their laptop lineup significantly, making computer purchase decisions for switchers more confusing. In the past, it was easy to recommend someone a Macbook or MacBook Pro based on their needs. The difference ere marked. MacBooks had integrated video processors and lower RAM capabilities, so they weren't recommended for gaming or D graphics work. The Pro line had discrete graphics cards, more RAM capacity and faster processors. Much better for higher end computing, and pricier as well.

Now that all laptops are MacBook Pros, the lines are significantly blurred between models. Some MacBook Pros now have discrete graphics adapters, others don't. Some have both and you can switch between them. Some have faster processors, others don't. Etc. Purchasing a MacBook Pro now is akin to buying a Dell Latitude. You really need to have a chart with all of the features available and find the one that fits you best, and what you need might not be near the price point it would have been previously.

The second change concerns the OS X 10.6 software. Everyone is crowing about the $29 price for a Snow Leopard upgrade while the full version price is $169. This baffles me. It's like the entire Apple community became befuddled by pixie dust. When OS X 10.5 came out, it cost $129. Period. [All prices for OS X here are for single-license client, not server, not family packs.] That's the full version, and you could upgrade from 10.4 with it, do a full wipe and install with it, whatever. It was $129. Apple has raised the price of the software $40 *and* they've started offering multiple types of purchases of the software, upgrade or regular. Just like Microsoft Windows. Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade is $159 on Amazon.com right now. A full version is $239.

People, especially Apple users, absolutely blast Microsoft about this pricing policy. They used to crow about the fact that Windows users had to choose between 4 (or more) different versions of Windows and then had to choose between upgrade versions or full versions. They would say, "Sure, you can get Windows Vista Home for $99, but it's only an *upgrade* version. I spend $130 and get the *whole version*! ha-ha!" Now that Apple is doing exactly what Microsoft has been doing for years (albeit to a lesser extent, since there is still just one version of OS X client as opposed to basic, home, professional and ultimate versions of Vista), the Apple community is cheering.

Apple is using the safe hardware as Microsoft.
Apple is branding their laptops just like Windows-PC companies.
Apple is pricing their OS in a similar manner to Microsoft, and *raised* the price of the full version.

This is not something to cheer about. This is no longer Apple being different.

"Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss." - The Who
"He who does battle with monsters needs to watch out lest he in the process become a monster himself. And if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss will stare right back at you." - Friedrich Nietzsche

Tags: apple

You're probably familiar with the term "torture porn" related to movie. Especially movies like the Saw series and Hostel and other "horror" movies that focus mostly on more and more deviate ways to maim, kill and torture people. I don't like, and have no desire to watch, those types of movies.

However, I just realized that there's an entire class of movie out there that is similar in structure and content to torture porn, but without the gore: Action Porn!

Seriously! There are action movies like Bad Boys, Transformers, etc. which have plots, character development, etc (or at least actively try to have these things) which would not be considered Action Porn. But then there are the movies like The Fast and The Furious, The Transporter, Torque and Crank. These movies are all about the car chases, the explosions, the fight scenes, and they just want to get from one to the next as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

In much the same way that the stereotypical porn has the pizza delivery person greeted at the door by a skimpily-dressed member of the opposite sex (or same sex if that's the type of movie it is) who doesn't have the money to pay for the pizza and quickly offers sexual favors in exchange, Action Porn movies do the same thing. They give you just enough plot to understand *why* they are blowing things up, shooting people, chasing them down in cars, but not enough plot to make you more interested in the why than in the how.

The Transporter is a good example. It starts off with a bank robbery (here's your pizza), immediately has one of the robbers shot by another robber to make the car lighter (I don't have any money. Can I pay you with sex instead?), and then we're off on a 5-minute car chase (oh baby! oh baby! yes! yes!). That's the first five and a half minutes of the movie!

So there's my argument for a new sub-genre of movie: Action Porn!

Tags: movie

From Mousekinn, I find these links:
http://dearauthor.com/wordpress/2009/04/12/amazon-censors-its-rankings-search-results-to-protect-us-against-glbt-books/#more-11455
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/index.php/weblog/comments/amazon-rank/

I scan the articles, and the short story is that Amazon is .... Actually, here's an email which is quoted in the first article I've linked:

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D

Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

This is brought up because you can't search for GLBT books from the front page, apparently. This is, as far as I have been educated to understand, censorship.

sleary </a>further comments</a> with a couple empirical searches:

...I can’t search for Heather Has Two Mommies, Brokeback Mountain, Jacqueline Carey’s second Kushiel trilogy, Sarah Waters, E. Lynn Harris, Patricia Highsmith, or books on challenging homophobia or Harvey Milk. ... And if I search for “homosexuality” in books, A Parent’s Guide to Preventing Homosexuality comes right up, but suicide prevention manuals for gay teens have been removed from the search results.

Sleary goes on to provide other links, such as:
http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23amazonfail
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/04/amazon-deranks-gayfriendly-books-the-twitterverse-notices.html
http://www.smartbitchestrashybooks.com/amazonrank/

I honestly am gobsmacked by this. Seriously? I can't search for Brokeback Mountain? You know, I've never read the book. I hear it's pretty good. I can't search for Jacqueline Carey's second trilogy? She was a guest at a sci-fi con I was at a few years ago. I'd like to support her, perhaps. Two of the novels I most like to recommend to people are Maureen F. McHugh's China Mountain Zhang and Nicola Griffeth's Slow River. I might not be able to much longer, because both books deal with homosexual main characters.


Sadly, Amazon is cockblocking me.

Yes. I intended that pun.

Tags: rant

This article discusses bills S.436 in the Senate and H.1076 in the House. These two bills describe a proposed act called the Internet Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act or the "Internet SAFETY" act. Specifically, the act would require all ISPs and owners of wireless access points to keep access logs for two years in order to aid police investigations.

The bills cover mainly amendments to existing laws, such as increasing jail time for offenders, however each contains nearly identical text in Section 5 stating:

SEC. 5. RETENTION OF RECORDS BY ELECTRONIC COMMUNICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS.

Section 2703 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

`(h) Retention of Certain Records and Information- A provider of an electronic communication service or remote computing service shall retain for a period of at least two years all records or other information pertaining to the identity of a user of a temporarily assigned network address the service assigns to that user.'.

On the surface, that sounds like it might be a good idea. However, how many of you know how to turn on or access logging on your personal WAP? Ok, loaded question, since much of my friends list is technically savvy. How many of your *parents* can turn on or access logging on their WAPs? I'm not even sure if current or older WAPs can *store* two years' worth of access and identification logs.

I know that my WAP, which uses DHCP to give IP addresses to trusted devices, records only the MAC address of the connected device and the IP address assigned to it. It doesn't retain any other identification information to my knowledge.

Depending on how the language in these two bills is interpreted, my WAP may not have sufficient logging to satisfy their requirements. Also, how much storage will these logs take up? Does that amount of storage exist in my WAP? How will access to those logs be facilitated? These are questions that need to be decided before this language is inserted into law.

If you have an option, write your congressman. Ask them if they know how to log access on their home WAP. Maybe it will make them think about this language a little more. The House bill is being sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, and the Senate bill is being sponsored by Senator John Cornyn of Texas.

Tags: law

From one of my other LJ friends, I give you this:


Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

I have become dead with laughter, and I am amazed I didn't wake up my roommate.

Tags: funny

I went to the movies last night and watched Forrest Gump The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. It was pretty good. The Gump reference hit me about halfway through the movie, and I couldn't figure out why. I mean, it's not about a mentally handicap individual running into all these famous people and situations. But then I started thinking...

( Here be spoilers, matey.... yar.... )

All that said, I really did enjoy the movie. :)

Tags: movie

ebony14 pointed this out to me.



I can't agree more.

( A transcript of his speech. )

A long time ago, I was a Neal Gaiman fanboy. Everything he touched was golden and he could write nothing that sucked. Then I read American Gods. It was different enough from what he'd written previously that I hated the book and haven't read a Gaiman work since. This is not about American Gods.

This is about Little Brother, the new Cory Doctorow novel. I'm only 1/3 through the book thus far, but it's struck enough of a nerve, I feel I should mention it.

Doctorow writes fascinating, whimsical stories. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town deals with a family where the father is a mountain and the mother is a washing machine. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom talks about anarchist rule in an old amusement park. The stories are solid, entertaining and have a strong message. The thing is that his novels are driven by their characters and the characters' decisions.

Little Brother is different. LB reads.... It doesn't feel like a Doctorow novel at all. I was tring to explain this to sleary this morning and realized why. It's not a Doctorow novel. It's a Neal Stephenson novel. The writing patterns of Doctorow are present, but the story itself is solid Stephenson. Specifically, it's reading like a more paranoid, watered down version of Cryptonomicon. Fifteen minutes of plot followed by twenty minutes of explaining cryptography. Fifteen more minutes of plot followed by twenty minutes of explaining RFID tags. Fifteen minutes of plot followed by twenty minutes of explaining distributed computing.

Is it a bad novel? So far, no. It's just not a Doctorow novel. It's a Stephenson novel that has Doctorow's name on it. Once I get my brain shifted from Doctorow to Stephenson, it will go much better, I think.

Tags: books

"That's the beauty of college these days, Tommy! You can major in Game Boy if you know how to bullshit."

He wasn't even kidding.



Four Texas A&M undergraduate, for their electrical engineering project, build a robot that can play Guitar Hero.

http://slashbot.wordpress.com/