Links for Thursday August 4th 2011

  • Simon Spurrier: A Serpent Uncoiled: LAUNCH DAY
    I tweeted about this earlier, but tough. Simon Spurrier's "Contact" was one of the best novels I read last year. "A Serpent Uncoiled", his new weird crime novel shows signs of being the best novel I'm going to read this year – I haven't finished it yet, having only bought it this morning, and the year isn't done yet, but so far, I'm fucking riveted. It is out now and both dead-tree and electronic editions for Kindle, and on the iBooks store, so you really don't have an excuse for now buying it at once. Get to it. You won't regret it.
  • Open the Future: Sword of Taxation, +5
    You may or may not have heard/give too hoots about Diablo 3, but if you have, you might also have heard about their plan for an in-game auction house, where players will be able so sell the in-game items they acquire for real world cash. Leaving aside the fact that is going to take gold-farming to a whole new level of third world sweatshop labour, Jamais Cascio makes an excellent point, here: because these items will have a directly-measurable real world value, they will be be taxable in the US, the UK, and other places. Not taxable-when-you-sell-them, you understand. Taxable when the game randomly gives them to you. This could get very interesting, and I'm certainly going to think twice about playing – I just don't need the paperwork.
  • The Robot-Readable World – Blog – BERG
    Absolutely 100|% mandatory reading for anyone interested in the future-present. If this doesn't spark at least six exciting ideas in you, then I fear you do not understand when you are living. Also of interest: the Louis Vutton QR code. Suddenly, there's space for design in a barcode.

Links for Friday July 29th 2011

  • Don’t Be Evil
    As a general rule, I'm fairly cynical about Evgeny Morozov, the writer of this piece, and I think it's certainly worth bearing his general anti-internet outlook in mind, as one reads this. Still, even with a more optimistic slant, this peice give a good picture of the ethical challenges that Google face, and makes a good case for the fact that, with a business of Google's complexity, using an idea as simple as "Don't Be Evil" as your guiding moral point is probably asking for trouble. (Which I would be reasonably certain Google know, hence my suggestion to bear Morozov's bias in mind while reading.)

Links for Tuesday July 26th 2011

  • Google Plus – Is Google Taking Over the World?
    If I were Facebook, I would be bricking it right now, based on these numbers. Google+ is just getting warmed up, and there are some very obvious features to come, just in terms of catching up to Facebook's functionality. They're already signing people up at a frightening rate, and honestly, once they role out events, tied in to Google Calendar, what's the point of Facebook any more?

Links for Monday July 25th 2011

  • Atos case study: Larry Newman | Society | The Guardian
    A man who *was dying* of a degenerative condition was refused incapacity benefit. His last words: "It's a good thing I'm fit to work". I don't mind the idea that we assess people to determine if they're fit to work when working out who to give benefit to – it is not, in itself, an unconscionable idea, that a neutral 3rd party make some kind of informed judgement, before we start giving people free money, however well deserved and much need that money may be. I mind that that we do in in such a a shockingly inhumane and incompetent manner, without apparent reference to people's actual medical conditions.

The Howling Wasteland Of Russian Spam Ghosts

Or, to use its given name, Livejournal.

So, in the last few weeks, several of my friends have actively served notice that they’re fucking off from LJ – not just spending less time there, but actively saying “bye bye, not updating, not reading here any more”.

Now, it costs me nothing to stay – all of the stuff I post on my actual proper blog is simply auto-reflected there, and as of this post, I’m also punting a notification to twitter, just in the hopes of occasionally generating conversation. Because this is what I miss about Livejournal. The actual conversation with honest to god humans. Now, I know that 90% of what I post is links, because I don’t really devote time to actual write-about-a-topic type posts these days, so I’m not exactly surprised, but still – even if people aren’t commenting on what I write, I used to be moved to comment on what other people wrote, and, generally speaking, I no longer am, because most people aren’t writing very much.

So here is what I’m wondering: how many of my former LJ chums are blogging elsewhere now, and I’m simply not reading? Basically: if you’re reading this, and blogging somewhere that isn’t LJ, this is your excuse to plug said blog in the comments, so’s I can find it and add it to my RSS reader.

And, of less importance, but by no means unimportant: if I stopped cross-posting, would anyone care? If they did, would they start following my blog via RSS, and/or commenting on said blog? Because yes, I do like to get my ego fed, and I like it when people make with the comments.

(NB: anyone who is thinking of saying they’d just use LJ to syndicate an RSS feed from my blog to LJ can, with respect, shit right off. Get a proper RSS reader, that actually directs conversation to a place where people can listen, rather than LJ’s outright content-thieving tools.)

Opinions sought, please. Comment wherever you’d like, I’m sure I’ll find you.

My Nautical Romance

My Nautical Romance, by Miranda Brennan

“Yes, I use all eight of them in my solos. No, I have no ‘adventurous hentai past’. I have a law degree. And I want it on the contract that you guys are aware that I can throttle eight of you simultaneously.”

Atlantic Records did not question Sandy further. It was a shoo-in.

If this was Tumblr, this would be one of those them there re-blogs.

Some context: the image up there is part of a series of illustrations by my inordinately awesome girlfriend, Miranda. If you click on it, you will be taken through to her tumblr, where you will see more of her work.

And now the really important bit:

These illustrations, together with others will be available for sale at New Cross Turn Left this Sunday, the 24th of July, from 1pm to 11pm. You are therefore commanded to show up, and part with your hard-earned cash in exchange for this art, and indeed, the work of many other talented people.

Failure to show up will not be tolerated. The name of the event is also directions for getting there, so you have no excuse. Go to New Cross, Turn Left.

Also, for bonus points, if you could generally link, reblog and otherwise circulate this information, so that people show up to New Cross Turn Left and buy said art, that would be lovely, thank you.

Links for Thursday July 14th 2011

  • Sleevelessness: Papercraft horse posters
    More bloody lovely work from Mr Clandillon and FOAM.
  • The World Warrior | insert credit
    Despite not being the kind of good at them this article talks about, I have a fondness for beat-em-up games. And despite being basically lazy, and certainly not up for having people try to hurt me on a regular basis, this article also makes we want to take up a martial art. If you like either computer games or martial arts, or even if you like neither, you should read this damn fine bit of writing.