A quick update on the Canadian DMCA. You can read the text of the bill now. Reuters has an early write-up that you can read. Geist also has one, but good luck getting to his site right now. I’ll include one of his five “high level points”: The digital lock provisions are worse than the DMCA. Yes – worse. The… Read more →
Month: June 2008
Tomorrow is “Conservatives sell us to US companies” day
I know you’re tired of it, but I’m going to mention the Canadian DMCA again, since it’s been announced various places that Prentice will be tabling it tomorrow. There’s some coverage at the National Post, which while using neutral language manages to present the legislation as something harmful to consumers: The new Copyright Act has been updated to reflect the… Read more →
Special Effects courtesy of “physics”.
..and here, ladies and gentlemen, you see the sky over Sayre‘s “lightning farm” as Orannis the Destroyer is freed from his bindings. OK, maybe not, although that’s pretty much exactly how I pictured that in my head. What you’re actually looking at there is the sky over the Chaiten Volcano in Chile. No photoshoppery, the image is directly from the… Read more →
Disappointed
Sigh. I finally got around to reading the Edge of Reason last night. Despite the fact that lots of people on the Internets seem to think this was the wonderful book I was expecting, it just didn’t work for me. The plot was kind of interesting, but the rest of the craft just wasn’t there. The only review I could… Read more →
I don’t know about ‘blessed’, but it sure makes you happier
I knew it all along, but it’s nice to have some science to back it up Spending on Happiness — HBS Working Knowledge Can money buy you happiness? Yes—so long as you spend the money on someone else. According to new research, giving other people even as little as $5 can lead to increased well-being for the giver. That’s the… Read more →
Sunday night quick book links
As I write this I am watching the Australian movies made from Shane Maloney’s books about Murray Whelan. You may remember that those books were some of the big successes from my first Australian trip, and that I even mentioned the movies when I wrote that stuff up. Well, my usual online sources didn’t make the movies available, but just… Read more →
Infernal Nuclear Sphere: 1, Chris : 0
Seven days into June, and I have my first sunburn of the year. Since there is a problem with the A/C in my car at the moment, I spent part of the day driving around with the windows down, and one arm hanging out. This arm has now developed the startling boiled lobster colour so familiar to people of my… Read more →
Friday Night Book Links
I love “give us an obscure favourite” pieces. From this recent one at the Village Voice I can see myself looking for Harold Q. Masur, Dorothy Dunbar, and Don Carpenter. The only guys there I was already familiar with are Harry Stephen Keeler (much touted by a certain popular genre author), Amis (who I am generally less impressed with than… Read more →
I am shocked! Shocked I tell you.
And in is-anyone-surprised-by-this news, the Senate intel committee’s Phase II report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq is just out. You can read the details and the reports themselves over at TPM. I’ll just list some of the choice points from Sen. Rockafeller’s press release, and if any of them surprise you, raise your hand and give yourself a firm smack… Read more →
Oh CBC, no.
I have often said that I hate hockey. That’s a product of being a kid in a family where my dad played in two leagues, and my brother played, and did hockey school all summer. That meant that I was pretty much always at the rink. At least three nights a week one of them had a game, and most… Read more →
Just Read, To Read
The last book I read: Lye Street by Alan Campbell. I read Scar Night earlier this year during my Australian sojurn, and thought it was quite good, especially for a first novel. This is a prequel that focuses primarily on two storylines: one that highlights the madness of the angel Carnival, the other of which deals with the reconstruction of… Read more →
Explainers
That’s a sample page from a book I’m really enjoying reading at the moment: The Explainers by Jules Feiffer. (You can see some other sample pages at The Comics Reporter, or even cooler check out the slideshow on Flickr.) Here’s how the publisher describes the book: In 1956, a relatively unknown cartoonist by the name of Jules Feiffer started contributing… Read more →
And she’s still not conceding
Well, it’s about damn time. Now, let’s see if she will actually concede tomorrow, or if the DNC has to send someone over with a stake, a bag of garlic, and a shovel to put this thing in the ground. Now we’re going to see an interesting race though: if Obama doesn’t completely obliterate McCain, that’s going to tell us… Read more →
Robyn Tuesday
This post is in honour of my old pal Roach, a real fegManiac, and my pal EBOC“of the Shire” who is about to have his first Robyn Hitchcock experience. I’ve got about a half-dozen Hitchcock albums, mostly from the 80s and 90s. I think I might have had one or two before Roach started campaigning heavily in favour of Hitchcock,… Read more →
I’ve Got The Box
Did you catch the snippet from (retired) General Sanchez’s new book that was in the WaPo earlier this week? As I was reading this bit: During a videoconference with his national security team and generals, Sanchez writes, Bush launched into what he described as a “confused” pep talk: “Kick ass!” he quotes the president as saying. “If somebody tries to… Read more →
