There are two phases in the life span of a creative work, namely when the author has an interest in the work, and when he has lost interest in the work. There is more to it than that: there are different types of interest, interest may be rekindled, and one interest may be worth more … Read More
There is, now and again, and I must admit this, a certain stuffiness to the public domain texts I help save at Project Gutenberg. Luckily, we have started making illustrated HTML versions since recently, which helps alleviate the stuffiness. And sometimes, the pictures alone are worth it. If you look past the fact that the … Read More
With all the talk about suborbital space ships, it’s easy to forget that the Russians were thinking of building a Soyuz replacement, but lacked the money. Projected costs were around 300 million US$, IIRC, which is still said to be cheaper than a single space shuttle launch. (A Soyuz launch is rumoured to cost around … Read More
(Link now dead) (Now alive again) The http://www.starz.com/se/features/hareraising/texaschainsaw.htmlTexas Chainsaw Massacre in 30 Seconds, Re-enacted by Bunnies.
Cool clocks made of found objects. Via BoingBoing. (Or perhaps I have understood this VBDK thing; should it only be NSFW?)
Apparently, this has been around for awhile, but I liked it, so will repeat it: after hearing that the White House cancelled a tea for poets, because some of them were going to (gasp! shock! horror!) protest the war in Iraq, Julia Alvarez wrote “The White House Has Disinvited the Poets”. The White House has … Read More
OK, go to http://www.livejournal.com/users/skiv/330081.html and look at the pretty pictures without looking at the text (which shouldn’t be hard if you cannot read Cyrillic). Cyrillic rhymes with idyllic, so what do think these nice pictures are about? It is a book for children about the ecessity-nay of axes-tay!
Neil Barron’s bibliography Horror Literature describes it as follows: “Mystery story about a man who must continually renew his health and vitality by draining the vital energy of others. Often compared to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but it is more closely related to stories of psychic vampirism, and in allowing the psychic vampire to … Read More
Want to change copyright? Here’s your chance! The European Commission has, er, pardon the pun, commissioned a report on how the different copyright directives in the E.U. can be aligned so that the rules can be further harmonized. Harmonization, that is: true harmonization, would be good news for Project Gutenberg, of which I am a … Read More
He seems to be one of the few who think that copyright as it is, is quite all right and need not be changed: Minister of Justice Piet Hein Donner (christian conservatives) recently wrote a letter to Dutch parliament (Dutch PDF) saying as much. However, he did note a favourable change in the copyright landscape. … Read More