The Daily Rumpus
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From Stephen Elliott
What do you do with a loved one’s letters, photos, and journals when they pass away?
What about their emails, online accounts, and computer files?
In an essay at Locus Online, Cory Doctorow describes his efforts to preserve the digital effects of a friend who unexpectedly died—and how that process may become standardized in the future.
...moreCory Doctorow explains a law currently proposed in the UK that would automatically censor internet user’s browsers.
This automatic censoring is proposed by several Members of Parliament, the Daily Mail, and various British religious groups. The proposed web filtering aims to protect children from stumbling upon pornographic material, however, there are concerns that the filter may inadvertently make non-pornographic sites inaccessible:
“Sites will get blocked if they casually mention sex.
...moreA new article over at Mother Jones gives us summer nonfiction picks from some of the biggest writers working today. Susan Orlean recommends The Looming Tower, Jennifer Egan selects The Image, and Michael Chabon has this to say about The Encyclopedia of Fantasy:
“A single, immense, thrilling work of literary theory disguised as a reference book.”
Hmm… Doesn’t sound exactly like beach material to us.
...moreCounterpoint asked “a lot of people” (as Cory Doctorow put it) to reflect on the world of copyright on the 300th anniversary of the passage of Queen Anne’s Law, and to look at how copyright is being used (or abused) today, as well as how it might need to evolve.
...moreThe big news this week was the iPad announcement, including the tech-world’s dismissal of it. (Fraser Speirs addresses that nicely.) But there’s a lot more happening in the world of e-books.
For example, NASA just opened an e-book section and its first offering is a history of the X-15 hypersonic test aircraft.
...moreWinter has finally come to south Florida, which means I’ll spend part of the afternoon moving our pepper plants indoors, to protect them from the bitter 40 degree weather that’s dropping by for a day or two. Don’t hate.
I tried fantasy football a couple of times and couldn’t figure it out.
...moreBoing Boing, the EFF and Michael Geist are reporting that a secret treaty that could determine the future of file sharing is being negotiated without any input from the public at an international conference in Seoul.
The treaty, called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, has, of course, leaked, and it goes way beyond counterfeiting.
...moreIt’s summertime. BookExpo is in the past. Writers have taken a little break from accosting critics. The book blogs finally have some free time.
And like most people, they are spending that time poking around the Internet and finding lots of things that are a little bit brilliant, from a homeless book club to a web site that asks gifted authors to write on slightly ridiculous objects to something called “possibilianism.” That, plus a “failed interview with Marilyn French,” giving up on vampires, and Middlesex on TV, all below the fold.
...more
Two recent anthologies bring a literary touch to stories of the macabre.