Boing Boing: A Directory of Wonderful Things

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Remember San Francisco's gay marriages? Forget it

Remember last winter's rush of gay marriages at San Francisco's city hall, following on from the mayoral decree that gays may marry? Remember the rock-concert campouts, the nationwide outpouring of support, the endless parade of joyous images of happily married couples?

Forget it.

The California Supreme Court has annulled every one of those marriages. From ephermal.org:

"Molly McKay is the Executive Director of Marriage Equality California. This is a photo I took of her at the release party for We Do. She's on page 23, wearing that same dress, getting married. "For years - years - she and her partner, Dr. Davina Kotulski, came to City Hall on Valentine's Day to apply for a marriage license. It was their own quiet protest. And every year they were turned away. Until this year.

"This year, six short months ago, she was finally allowed to marry Davina. And today, thanks to the fantastically stupid ruling of the California Supreme Court, that marriage is null and void." Link
posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:54:20 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Dunhill's iPod case

The Dunhill cigarette company has made a cigarette-case-style case for the iPod, which, in classinc Dunhill hyperbole, they describe as "ergonomic and luxurious." One thing I've learned since moving to the UK: anytime something is described as "luxurious" (i.e. "Luxury hot cocoa") it is anything but. Nevertheless, the Dunhill cases look pretty rad. Link (via Ben Hammersley)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:43:57 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Cory's WorldCon schedule

Well, I'm off for a week-and-chage-worth of holidays in a couple hours -- I really need it! I'll see you again in ten days or so.

Meanwhile, here's my schedule for the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston this Labor Day -- hope to see you:

* THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2:

4PM: Unlimited Access: Issues involving unlicensed access to spectrum. With Harold Feld from the the Media Access Project.

* FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3:

10AM: Group reading from The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases

11AM: Locus Award ceremony

5PM: Drunk on Technology: With Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Charlie Stross

* SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4:

12PM: The End of Copyright: Can the Arts Survive the Digital Age? With Charlie Petit, Daniel Grotta, Steve Miller, and James M. Turner

1PM: Tradeoffs between Freedom, Security, and Privacy. With Joseph Lazzaro, Teresa Nielsen Hayden and Don Sakers

2-2:30PM: Charlie Stross and I will be signing our new short novel, Rapture of the Nerds, just published in the new issue of Argosy Magazine, at the Borderlands Books table in the Dealers' Room

5PM: Postcapitalist Social Mechanisms. With M. M. Buckner, David Friedman, Benjamin Rosenbaum and Charlie Stross

* SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5:

10:30AM Ebooks: Neither E Nor Books. A recapitulation of my talk at the O'Reilly Emerging Tech Conference

4PM: Reading

5PM: Sign at the Asimov's Magazine table in the Dealer's Room

* MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6:

11AM: Kaffeeklatsch

12-12:30: International Copyright Issues

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:48:08 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Cory's DRM talk in Danish

Kim Pedersen has translated my Microsoft DRM talk into Danish. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:47:33 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Downhill Battle is raising cash

Downhill Battle -- the net-activist group that created Grey Tuesday, WhatACrappyPresent.com, Save the iPod and others -- are raising funds for the first time. They want to use the money to fund more ambitious campaigns, including creating PSAs that advocate increased media diversity and sending them on CD to independent radio stations and flyering concerts. I just gave 'em fifty bucks. Link (Thanks, Nicholas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:44:56 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Cussin'-est winnebago promo film, ever

This is a (not-worksafe) video of a guy shooting an industrial film promoting a winnebago. He can't remember his lines, and every time he blows a line, he curses like a sailor. I'v enever heard the eff-word used so much in the course of describing a wholesome family vehicle. Link (Thanks Joshua!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:41:04 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Unbelievably obscure island has net-based newspaper

Ken sez,

Tristan da Cuhna is an island in the South Atlantic. It is a British dependency. At 37 degrees south by 12 west, with about 250 permanent residents who literally live on the side of a volcano, it is considered by many sailors to be the remotest town in the world.
The residents, about 100 households which may have any of seven surnames and who are all apparently related by blood, make a living from issuing exotic postage stamps which have a following in the collector market, and by lobster fishing. There is no access to the island by air, and only a few boats per year put into the notoriously dangerous harbor.
Tristan has an online newspaper now though!

Link (Thanks, Ken!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:38:43 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Frosted Flakes sugar dialed back to a mere 1/4

Kellogg's UK has responded to concerns about childhood obesity by reducing the sugar content in Frosted Flakes from 38% to 25%. So, like, a 500g box of frosted flakes is one-quarter sugar? And that's the new, improved flakes?

Aubrey Sheiham, professor of dental and public health at University College London said that products high in very refined starch were often just as bad on the index as those high in sugar.
Reducing the sugar from 38% to 25% was unlikely to help in terms of tooth decay either. "When you have very finely milled starch and sugar together the effect on teeth can be worse than sugar, perhaps because of the stickiness," he said.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:37:11 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Boing Boing Needs Help!

Ever dreamed of working with the Happy Mutants at Boing Boing? Now's your chance. We are looking for two people to help us as we figure out the next step in our sponsorship model. First off, we're looking for a bookeeper, ideally one who works they way we do - online and at odd hours.

Also, we're looking for a sharp office manager type who has a few hours a week to work with us keeping track of things, in particular the administrative needs of our wonderful sponsors. This is not a full time position, but a chance to freelance with us and help build out an even better Directory of Wonderful Things. If you're interested, email John at jbat at boingboing.net.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:08:03 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

A Boing Boing reader survey!

As you've probably noticed, we started taking sponsorships at Boing Boing to cover the costs of hosting and help us grow and support the site. One of the things they really want to know is who our readers are, and while we think we have a pretty good idea, it's always good to go to the source. We also wanted to know what you think of our sponsor approach to date, and what we might do next. We created this little survey for those of you who want to help us and our sponsors out, by taking the time answer a few questions, you can help us ensure that the sponsors we select match your preferences. (We have a policy of only taking "wonderful" advertisers in any case!).

The final results of the survey will be published for all to see at the conclusion of the survey. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:01:28 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Reason interviews John Perry Barlow

Reason has published the best interview with John Perry Barlow I've read. He talks about becoming a reality TV star, a Democrat, and getting busted for marijuana possession at an airport.

I have grave misgivings about John Kerry, but I certainly don’t have misgivings about Kerry that equal the terror I have about another four years of Bush. What he’s done to aspects of the Constitution that are there to assure individual rights is breathtakingly bad.
...
I had a conversation with Kerry. It was pretty disheartening. I asked how he felt about civil liberties. He said, "I’m for ’em!" That’s great, but how do you feel about Section 215 of the Patriot Act? He said, "What’s that?" I said, it basically says any privately generated database is available for public scrutiny with an administrative subpoena. He says, "It says that?" I say, "You voted for it!"

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:46:30 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

TiVo fortified by Strangeberry

Damon Darlin of Business 2.0 sez: "Silicon Valley programming legend Arthur Van Hoff was a prolific coder at Sun (with almost as many patents as Bill Joy). His "Strangeberry" software will give the TiVo new powers, and it will be given away to anyone who wants to develop content on the Web. Residing on the next generation of TiVo machines, it will recognize incoming programming (JPEG images, video, MP3s, or whatever) and route it to the appropriate device in your living room." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:01:40 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Nuclear Elephant shows how P2P = sales

BB pal Todd Lappin sez: Here's a website for folks to register purchases they made after downloading free stuff online, to track the extent to which free downloads translate into later sales:

To wit:

"It has always been my belief that various industries have actually earned more revenue as a direct result of file sharing, and that file sharing works FOR the industry. Recent figures such as the music industry's latest earnings report have shown results contrary to what the RIAA has consistently complained about in that file sharing hurts the industry. So if you would like to contribute, click submit above. Post your merchandise, how much you paid, and why you wouldn't have bought it if you first hadn't downloaded something. No IP addresses or personal information is logged - so there's nothing to subpoena. The complete (growing) catalog is available for review by clicking here. The totals shown below are only temporary, and may be reduced later once the logs are crunched through a filter (to detect bogus entries or flooding), or as users help identify suspect or bogus entries."

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:00:21 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Woman dies after being "fused" to couch for six years

Thirty-nine year old Gayle Laverne Grinds of Florida died after rescue workers attempted to remove her from a couch she had become attached to. They couldn't get her skin to separate from the couch, so they put the couch in a trailer and hauled her behind a truck to the hospital.

"I tried to take care of her the best I could," said 54-year-old Herman Thomas, who lived with Grinds in the duplex apartment in Golden Gate, south of Stuart. "I tried to get her to get up, but it wouldn't do no good."

He said the woman that he called his wife hadn't been off the couch for six years. No record of their marriage could be found.

"I wish I could have pulled her off the couch, but she wouldn't let me," he said, covering his face and sobbing.

Inside the home, the floor and walls were matted with feces, and trash was strewn across the floors, some which were bare concrete. Furniture was toppled, and pictures were knocked off walls.

Atlas said sheriff's detectives will look for potential "negligence issues" related to her care and death.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:53:45 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

European copyright extension: protecting Elvis to the detriment of everyone else

The Index for Free Expression has a great article on the proposal to extend the European copyright on performaces for another 20 years, and the disaster this presents for the freedom of expression:

Faced for the first time with losing significant back catalogue profits, the industry is lobbying to change the law. The industry describes the law as a "loophole". In fact it is anything but.
For every one recording that has the power to reach number three in the commercial charts fifty years after its original release, there are hundreds if not thousands of tracks that do not.
Although these recordings no longer have any commercial value to their rights holders, they are of tremendous value in terms of our cultural heritage. But the mechanisms of copyright law mean that, should the European Parliament choose to heed the music industry, keeping Elvis out of the public domain for a further 45 years or even more, the King will drag down with him this huge body of commercially worthless but culturally significant work.

Link (Thanks, Becky!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:45:28 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

USENIX liveblog

Mitch Wagner sez, "I've been blogging the Usenix security conference here in San Diego, including a talk by EFF counsel Cindy Cohn:"

- EFF is deeply involved in projects to ensure honesty in e-voting. In California, she said, voters have the option to choose a paper ballot. "I'd like to see a significant percentage of people choose the paper in California. this will make the case to the rest of the country that this matters."
Many voting-rights advocates are urging people to sign up for absentee ballots--problem with that is that people order absentee ballots all the time, and legislators will assume the ordering is going on for normal reasons. Only people requesting paper ballots will make a case to legislators that people don't trust e-voting machines.
- EFF is also involved in a project called TechWatch, looking for technical people who want to be involved on election day, serving as, essentially, poll watchers, to document technical snafus on Election Day. More info and sign up on VerifiedVoting.org.
"I am concerned we will have some train wrecks involving the technology. We may not be able to prevent it but we can mitigate it and, more importantly, make sure it doesn't happen again."

Link (Thanks, Mitch!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:41:26 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Molecules of memory improvement

An MIT neuroscientist's latest research on how our brains build and eliminate synapses could someday enable us to tweak the the process and overclock our minds. Professor Morgan Sheng and postdoc Sang Hyoung Lee identified the "traffic cop" molecule that controls the number of receptors on the surface of neurons.

"Because more receptors mean stronger connections between brain cells, manipulating this process may one day provide a means of boosting brainpower in the hippocampus, where long-term memories are stored."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:53:41 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Yes!!! I CAN HEAR YOU NOW!

My latest article for TheFeature is about an audio algorithm that battles cell phone background noise:

My friends seem to spend an inordinate amount of time inside wind tunnels, aboard locomotives, and underwater. At least, that's what it sounds like when they call me from their cell phones. Blame it on the background noise. Unlike calling from home or a telephone booth, we have little control over the noise pollution that surrounds us out there. It's sort of like extra baggage that our voice is forced to carry when it travels across the wireless ether. Now though, researchers at the University of Toronto have developed a novel bit of technology that may someday alleviate us of the audio aggravation.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:34:50 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Big backpacks are bad news

For my birthday last week, my sweet wife bought me a really sharp Ant shoulder-bag for my gear. She said she was tired of seeing me drag around a big nerdy backpack, a habit I developed in elementary school that stuck with me. Hopefully, she wasn't too late to break me of the backpack addiction. A Northeastern University professor confirms anecdotal evidence that big backpacks cause bad backs. She also provides some helpful guidelines:

* As a rule, kids should never carry a bag that weighs more than 10% of their body weight. This rule applies to all students, no matter what age. “If your child is unable to stand up straight with the pack on, the load is too heavy,” explains Hickey.

* Remind your kids about the value of lockers. Reducing backpack poundage will prevent any serious back pain in the future.

* The bigger the bag, the more stuff kids will cram into it. Purchase a smaller backpack that will only fit the bare necessities. This will prevent kids from lugging around those leftovers from lunch, notes passed in math class, or half-melted chapsticks.

* Periodically remind your child to clean out trash and remove old papers and homework to lighten his or her load.

Good advice for even the, well, bigger kids. Link

UPDATE:BB reader Jamie Bakum says, "Be aware that despite a heavy backpack's problems, they're generally balanced, and a really heavy load on one shoulder can be worse than a load spread across two. I have two friends who were told by doctors to switch from shoulder bags TO backpacks to alleviate back pain that had cropped up from compensating for a load on one side."

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:26:27 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Friends With Benefits

In the current issue of Wired magazine, a piece I wrote on social swap nets:

Think of them as eBay crossed with Napster, then injected with Friendster DNA. The newest social networking services merge three powerful Web functions - auctioning, file-sharing, and friend-of-a-friend socializing - to build digital barter economies. Unlike first-gen social networks, these communities are about more than getting laid and getting paid. These "social swap nets" help like-minded members pool digital resources - music, movies, games, even hardcover books.
Mediachest and SongBuddy are two early examples. They're still small (and size matters when it comes to a well-stocked "sharing pool"), but their very existence points to a new era in networked transactions, one in which online exchanges become more useful.
Here's how they work: Members browse one another's collections online using filters such as friend groups, geographic location, or other affinities. This isn't file-swapping in the old outlaw Napster sense. They can access one another's stuff, but the original copy literally traded with others, rather than downloaded and duplicated via P2P. Getting hold of the goods is mostly a low tech affair. Members often mail or hand-deliver items.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:08:30 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Community WiFi summit in Denmark, 3-10 September

The Wireless4Development confernece (3-10 September 2004, Djursland, Denmark) is an activist summit wherein WiFi hackers of all description can plot the downfall of the Man and the rise of the unthethered network.

The wireless4development seminar & workshop brings together many of the people who are doing exactly that. Using low-cost wireless technologies to bring Internet connectivity to parts of the world, and to parts of society, where there are no real alternatives. For one week in September, wireless and free networking activists from around the world, will meet up to share skills and experiences gained in some of the most remote regions of the world. Participants have experience from some of the most innovative uses of Open Spectrum (license-exempt) wireless technologies, ranging from wireless connectivity at the Mt. Everest Base camp, over pedal-powered connectivity in rural Laos, to connecting local radio stations across Mali. These projects illustrate the true power of low-cost, locally run wireless networks.
wireless4development will present workshops on a variety of subjects related to wireless community networking, and brings experts from around the world to discuss these subjects. Presentation subjects include Voice-over-wireless, Solar- and Bicycle-powered wireless networking and Mesh Network.

Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:03:35 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Super-correcting DVD players make pirated discs watchable

Jiangsu Shinco Electronic Group is a Chinese company that manufactures "super-correcting" DVD players that automatically correct for the low quality of pirated DVD discs (though the article doesn't say whether this corrects for bad pressing or bad recordings, I suspect it's the former). They get some of their parts from Sony!

Enter the caoqiang jiuchuo or "super-correcting" Chinese model of DVD player. Developed by the Jiangsu Shinco Electronic Group and selling for about half the cost of brands such as Philips and Sony, it is designed to cope with the poor quality of pirated video discs.
Along with half a dozen domestic brands that have followed its lead, the company's Shinco brand has grabbed about 80 per cent of the Chinese market. Its factories produce 5 million DVD players a year, and, says Zeng Ming, a management expert who has studied the company, its annual sales are about $US1 billion ($1.35 billion).

Reg Req'd Link, use "reader12345678910/read1t" (Thanks, Sys Admn!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:00:47 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

XP Service Pack torrent shut down by Microsoft

Remember SP2Torrent.com? This was the BitTorrent site that was helping distribute copies of the Windows XP Service Pack 2 (which is so unweildy and yet so critical and sought-after that MSFT is having a hard time distributing it effectively) via BitTorrent, a system that enlists everyone who tries to download a file into distributing it as well, so that the more popular a file becomes, the easier it is to download.

Anyway, the site is no longer providing this free service to Windows users, because the company threatened to sue them if they kept it up. Lucky MSFT customers, huh?

Microsoft sent DMCA takedown notices to our two webhosts, one of which was just linking to a torrent file on another server. We've stood up to these kinds of legal threats before (see the Grey Tuesday protests), but we decided not to bother this time, because we started this site primarily as a demonstration and to that end it's already been a huge success. SP2torrent.com showed how filesharing technlogy gives people without budgets or huge servers the power to solve problems themselves, without waiting for the government or some corporation to do it for them. For another demonstration that's still in action, check out p2pcongress.org. If you need Windows XP SP2, you can download it from Microsoft's inscrutable webpage:

Link (Thanks, Matt!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:55:22 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

How Dotster cost me days and days of downtime: stay away from this registrar

A year ago, the DNS for craphound.com disappeared. Which was weird, because I was paying for DNS with Dotster, my registrar.

I called them up and spoke to their tech support people. "Oh yeah," they said, "your paid service ended a month ago but our billing system was broken so we didn't send out a notice. So we terminated you for nonpayment. But dude, you're lucky! We gave you a free month's DNS!"

Lucky lucky me. I got a free month's DNS and to pay for it, I was bouncing mail all over the Internet and my Website wasn't resolving. Bastards. I bought two years' worth of DNS and vowed that when the domain came up for renewal, I'd switch away from Dotster. I sent them an email telling them as much and got an email back apologizing and saying that they would certainly never terminate my DNS wihtout notice again (you see where this is going, I trust)

Craphound.com is up for renewal at the end of August. Not wanting to leave things to the last minute, I changed over early this month, switching registrars to Domain Direct, who are now the registrar for all of my domains, and boingboing.net besides.

I didn't move over the DNS -- I figured I'd paid Dotster for another year's service, I might as well get it. Instead, I left myself a reminder in my iCal for next July to set up DNS at DomainDirect a month ahead of the service running out on Dotster.

This morning, Dotster terminated my DNS. Without warning. And when I called, they told me there was nothing they could do about it. Even though there's nothing in my DNS contract that says that DNS is provided to domains registered with Dotster and no others, that is, apparently, their policy. And they can't make exceptions. Not even for 48h while I effect a graceful change to DomainDirect (who have been fantastic throughout and now have 100 percent of my domain registration and DNS business).

Bastards.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:36:08 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

To do in LA: CaBOOM design fest

BoingBoing reader Peter Giblin says:

CaBOOM is an experiental trade fair and festival showcasing designers and resources from the contemporary architecture, landscape and interior design communities at LA's Santa Monica Civic Auditorium. Boing Boing readers are invited to tonight's opening night extravanza which benefits the LA Conservancy, and are offered a 40% discount on festival passes (Discount code: PET9976). Event opens tomorrow, continues through Sunday Aug 15th.

Cool things, good music, and should be a fun crowd. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:57:05 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Olympic brand-whoring attains new, shameful low

The Interational Olympic Committee -- whose high-horse is well and truly elevated when it comes to lecturing atheletes about doping -- is policing spectators at the games to ensure that they aren't toting brand-marks for their sponsors' rivals. Penalties for buying the wrong product range from confiscation of your goods to being forced to wear your t-shirt logo-side-in. The worst of it is the steaming craopla from the IOC official who says "We have to protect official sponsors who have paid millions to make the Olympics happen." Oh, rilly? Or what? They won't sponsor the Olympics anymore? Earth-to-official: companies sponsor your games because they're important and lots of people watch them, not because they can be assured that Olympic venues will be swept clean of rival logos.

It's well and good to tell atheletes that they compromise their integrity and shame the games when they take steroids, but what about the perceived integrity of the game when a ticket-holder is turned away for carrying the wrong brand of bottled water?

Strict regulations published by Athens 2004 last week dictate that spectators may be refused admission to events if they are carrying food or drinks made by companies that did not see fit to sponsor the games.
Sweltering sports fans who seek refuge from the soaring temperatures with a soft drink other than one made by Coca-Cola will be told to leave the banned refreshment at the gates or be shut out. High on the list of blacklisted beverages is Pepsi, but even the wrong bottle of water could land spectators in trouble.

Link (Thanks, Alfie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:20:27 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Craphound.com still down, use doctorow@well.com

If the redexes weren't enough of a tip-off, here's the confirmation. The DNS for craphound.com is down again -- screw you, Dotster. In the meantime, keep on sending your mail to doctorow@well.com. -Cory

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:33:25 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Airport Express crypto broken by DVD Jon

Jon "DVD Jon" Johansen has cracked the Apple Lossless encryption used by the Airport Express to communicate with iTunes, so that programmers can write tools that use any application and any operating system to send audio to an Airport Express.

I've released JustePort, a tool which lets you stream MPEG4 Apple Lossless files to your AirPort Express.
The stream is encrypted with AES and the AES key is encrypted with RSA.
AirPort Express RSA Public Key, Modulus: 59dE8qLieItsH1WgjrcFRKj6eUWqi+bGLOX1HL3U3GhC/j0Qg90u3sG/1CUtwC
5vOYvfDmFI6oSFXi5ELabWJmT2dKHzBJKa3k9ok+8t9ucRqMd6DZHJ2YCCLlDR
KSKv6kDqnw4UwPdpOMXziC/AMj3Z/lUVX1G7WSHCAWKf1zNS1eLvqr+boEjXuB
OitnZ/bDzPHrTOZz0Dew0uowxf/+sG+NCK3eQJVxqcaJ/vEHKIVd2M+5qL71yJ
Q+87X6oV3eaYvt3zWZYD6z5vYTcrtij2VZ9Zmni/UAaHqn9JdsBWLUEpVviYnh
imNVvYFZeCXg/IdTQ+x4IRdiXNv5hEew==
Exponent: AQAB

Link (via Waxy and Hublog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:28:15 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Lovecraft in LiveJournal form

"The LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh" is a short story in the form of a series of LiveJournal entries from an unsuspecting teen whose long-lost father is a Cthuloid spawn living near Miskatonic. The story that unspools is pure Lovecraft -- if Lovecraft's protagonists took "Which Muppet Are You?" personality quizzes and really dug the fact that the Miskatonic bar doesn't ask for ID. Link (via JWZ)

Update: Mark sez, "Just a little nit-picking... 'The LiveJournal of Zachary Marsh' is pretty much a retelling of 'The Shadow Over Innsmouth,' which means that his father is (or is a descendant of) a Deep One cross-breed, not Cthuloid. Big difference to someone overly obsessed with HPL, but probably not to anyone else... anyway, that was a damn funny link."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:47:49 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post

Waldrop: 1954 was a GREAT time to be a kid

Howard Waldrop, the guestblogger at the Infinite Matrix, is one of the all-time great short-story writers in science fiction. He's been writing long essays about the 1950s lately, and his new installment is beautiful:

1954 was a GREAT time to be a kid. I know, I was one. I was the most enthusiastic 8-year-old that ever was or ever could be.
There were a couple of hundred reasons, For one, it was the last year of glory, before things got so bad, because of congressional investigations and Reader's Digest articles by Dr. Wertham, and the adoption of the Comics Code Authority (the publishers' equivalent of the Motion Picture Production Code that had kept movies from having any ideas that would shock the vicar since 1934...) In late 1954, there were still all the great horror comic books around. ECs — filled with puns, good writing, great art, and gore! — go get some of the hardcover reprints and look at Shoe-Button Eyes or By George! or some of the adaptations of Ray Bradbury's stories from The Martian Chronicles in them, and see what I mean. Besides the ECs, there were crime and horror comics by publishers ranging from the near-EC level to that of the barely literate. There were something like 300 different comic book titles a month published, 52 or 48 pages, all in color for a dime (except Classics Illustrated, a.i.c. for 15¢) Gore! Bats! Skulls! Guys in tanks disintegrated into green goo by acid in Blackhawk! Airboy, and The Monster of Frankenstein were still running. Airboy had The Heap in it, a sort of Old Testament revenge-minded haystack golem. Dick Breifer's Frankenstein was sui generis; it had started as a horror feature in Prize Comics in the 40s, then transmogrified into a humor comic in the late 40s, and changed back to a horror comic in the early 50s. Guys feeding babies to man-eating plants! Guys pinned to town clocks by the broken-off hour hand! Fights with mummies in the tunnels beneath the pyramids! Gah! (I remembered when I'd covered my eyes to keep from seeing the Queen transform into the witch in the 1952 release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs; the next day, with a rare dime I'd gone out and bought a Frankenstein comic book. My mom had a shit-fit: "How can you not watch Snow White and then go out and buy that!?" As I said somewhere else, being a kid I didn't have time to explain the difference between the low and high mimetic modes of narrative...)

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:29:59 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post