03/08/31 links, novel progress #18
03/08/24 links, novel progress #17
03/08/17 links, novel progress #16
03/08/09 links, novel progress #15
03/08/02 links, novel progress #14
03/08/31 links, novel progress #18
03/08/24 links, novel progress #17
03/08/17 links, novel progress #16
03/08/09 links, novel progress #15
03/08/02 links, novel progress #14
Progress on the thesis, though not as much as I would have liked. I rewrote the first chapter and restructured the rest. The whole chapter and paragraph structure of the thing is now solid, flowing logically from the central question that I'm trying to answer. Progress on the rest is frustratingly slow but, hey, it's progress.
This petition is directed to the European Parliament. Its goal is to warn European Authorities against the dangers of software patents. This petition is supported by the EuroLinux Alliance 
Petition for a software patent free Europe
Obsolete computers. No big iron, but geeky fun anyway.
Metafilter: ahhh... memory lane
We can all be fair and balanced if we want to.
Metafilter: fair and balanced is fair to use
Rosebud, and all that. Interesting discussion, made me want to see the movie again.
Kuro5hin: understanding Kane
Money, but not as we know it. Another interesting discussion.
Kuro5hin: the future of money - private complementary currencies
One new episode this week, 759 new words, 40,055 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (60)
The thesis is coming along nicely. I've written the first chapter (which describes the questions I want to answer in the thesis - I've also figured out the approach I want to use in answering them) and part of the second chapter (which contains an over-all description of the way social security in the Netherlands is organised). The bad news is that, since the subject of my thesis is so closely related to what I do for a living, working on it in the weekends makes me feel like I'm working all the bloody time. (Then again, I did get to see Pirates of the Caribbean on Friday. Terrific fun.)
Iraq Today is a weekly newspaper printed in Iraq, created to give ordinary Iraqis, rather than vested political interests, an influential voice in the governance of their country.
Iraq today
The latest from Europe, brought to you in cooperation with the Group for a Europe of Democracies and Diversities in the European Parliament.
EU observer
ResearchBuzz is designed to cover the world of Internet research. To that end this site provides almost daily updates on search engines, new data managing software, browser technology, large compendiums of information, Web directories -- whatever. If in doubt, the final question is, "Would a reference librarian find it useful?" If the answer's yes, in it goes!
Researchbuzz
Weblog reviews and ratings. What I've seen of the reviews was well-written and informative.
Weblog review
As someone who works in and writes about our popular culture, I think it's important and necessary to look at the images that are out there not only because it's a good gauge of how people are really feeling about certain things but it's also a good gauge of what people are willing to consider in the future. For all of our efforts towards integration, the vast majority of the people in this country live in communities of people that look like them, think like them, act like them. So, how do we know how "The Others" live? Through our shared pop culture. This weblog looks pretty interesting. In Opera 5 the front page behaves somewhat weirdly (only the links in the side-bar are clickable). To get around this, scroll down to the "memory banks". In the archives the links work fine.
Negro, please...
One new episode this week, 831 new words, 39,296 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (59)
For the time being the heat-wave is over. I've started researching and writing my thesis, which means that the novel is somewhat on the back-burner right now.
On good days I'm fair and balanced. Usually I'm biased and unhinged, though.
You decide - trademark vs. free speech
Metafilter: new Mefi tagline?
I loved Blake's 7 as a teenager, and with Avon as my role model I decided I wanted to program computers for a living (which, by an odd quirk of fate, I did end up doing).
BBC: Blake's 7 set for hi-tech return
The official Blake's 7 website
Samuel Pepys has a weblog. This is a rather nice idea, with each diary entry published on the appropriate date and lots of annotation.
The diary of Samuel Pepys
More Lord of the Rings. Tony Wolf is one of the legion of behind the scenes workers blessed with a unique and exacting challenge - rather than accomplish the fight and battle scenes with generic fight choreography, director Jackson decided to have him design movement styles for the different cultures and species of combatants: Orcs, Uruk-hai and others. Drawing on his expertise in martial arts, combat choreography and a wide variety of indigenous fighting styles from around the world, Tony created unique styles and taught them to teams of stunt people. This method then allowed those in charge of the actual fight scenes to work within a certain framework of tactics and body mechanics with trained personnel.
JTC: "True to Middle Earth cultures": creating fighting styles - an interview with Tony Wolf
(via Apothecary's Drawer)
Maybe it's the kind of autobiography one writes at midlife, when the combat is still joined, rather than at the end of life, when the account must be settled. This is really an autodocumentary, not an autobiography. Just the facts, Ma'am.
Documented life
Metafilter discussion
One new episode this week, 748 new words, 38,465 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (58)
It's official, we're having a heat-wave. Nights and mornings are still nice and cool, though.
What is new, though, is the lethal combination of an arrogant look on security issues from an ignorant majority of UN*X/BSD/Linux users and the emerging new near monoculture of Linux/x86. The Open Source marketing has made it a point that Open Source software offers better security than proprietary products.The point can certainly be made, but it is not always valid one. [...] As the industry and its products mature, people are more inclined to treat computing devices as black boxes. The whole appliance market capitalizes on this urge. The problem here is that most 'black boxes' are not quite as black as people hope. They do need software updates. GNU/Linux does have security problems that need updates. The sheer magnitude of this problem is generally overlooked. There is a clone army of never updated Red Hat 5.2 machines out there in the big world, and you can trust the fact that 98% of them have since been cracked into by one or several script kiddies merrily using them for their IRC bots or DDoS drones. You can also be assured that these machines will remain to be 'owned' like that for averagely one year. These parasites are a problem that is currently hardly accounted for.
Kuro5hin: Security risks - a look into the future
The US and EU constitutions - compare and contrast.
Metafilter: the EU constitution
All you ever wanted to know about Kevin Smith and View Askew. And cool artwork too.
View askew
News askew
A Gateway to the Wisdom of Kabbalah and Chassidut offering a contemporary presentation of classical topics in Jewish Mystical Thought as taken from the teachings of Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburgh, a renowned master of Jewish esoteric tradition. I haven't browsed around much but the site looks interesting. The site design is not its strongest point - it is a fast download, though.
The inner dimension
In 1912, Wilfrid M. Voynich (a book collector) bought a medieval or early modern manuscript (234 pages) written in an unknown script and what appears to be an
unknown language or cipher from the Jesuit College at the Villa Mondragone, Frascati, in Italy (near Rome). Apparently, Voynich wanted to have the mysterious manuscript deciphered and provided photographic copies to a number of experts. However, despite the efforts of many well known cryptologists and scholars, the book remains unread. [...] There is no solid evidence to locate the manuscript in any particular region or date. Most experts believe that it is European (based on the drawings and a few depicted clothing styles), some point to northern Italy, written sometime between 13th century AD (Roger Bacon's times) and 1608 (when the manuscript was in possession of J. de Tepenecz).
The European Voynich manuscript translation project
The Voynich manuscript
Two new episodes this week, 1,308 new words, 37,717 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (56)
After the war (57)
Lessons learned while writing a novel.
03/08/08 And now for Plan B
Life happened this week, with weird dreams and small joys.
It is possible that John Loftus may know more intelligence secrets than anyone alive. As a Justice Department prosecutor, Loftus once held some of the highest security clearances in the world, with special access to NATO Cosmic, CIA codeword, and Top Secret Nuclear files. As a private attorney, he works without charge to help hundreds of intelligence agents obtain lawful permission to declassify and publish the hidden secrets of our times.
John Loftus
This web site is dedicated to giving information (what little there is) on the weirdest book in the world, the CODEX SERAPHINIANUS. The Codex is a collection of original artwork by Italian artist Luigi Serafini, presented as a travalogue or scientific study of an alien world. Unlike such alien worlds as Darwin IV in Barlowe's Expedition, which one might find in a science fiction novel, the world in the Codex is obviously some kind of perverse reflection of our own.
Codex Seraphinus
(Via Plep)
Join us as Vancouver tattoo artist Thomas Lockhart and writer / adventurer Vince Hemingson capture on film, their epic quest around the world in search of the last authentic tribal tattoos. Starting in Borneo this adventure heads for the exotic locales of Samoa, Tahiti, New Zealand, Japan, Hawaii, Thailand, Russia, San Francisco, Canada's Queen Charlotte Islands and other ports as yet unknown.
Vanishing tattoo
(Via Plep)
A fantasy story based on the Maori equivalent to elves, etc.
Kura
(Via Plep)
The year's worst romance covers.
All about romance: cover contest 2002
(Via Quiddity)
Two new episodes this week, 1,437 new words, 36,409 words total.
Introduction
Introduction and start of part 2
After the war (54)
After the war (55)
Lessons learned while writing a novel.
03/07/29 Pulling fish from my nose
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