] Yeah, there are legal problems. Yeah, it's hard to figure
] out how people are gonna make money doing it. Yeah, there
] is a lot of social upheaval and a serious threat to
] innovation, freedom, business, and whatnot. It's your basic
] end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, and as a science
] fiction writer, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are
] my stock-in-trade.

Is scenaria a word? Anyway, Cory Doctorow's new novel is available today, and for FREE on the Internet. Download here.

BTW: you should all read the interview posted on this site. It sounds exactly like Memestreams (you will know what I am talking about once you read it):)

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom - Free Download

] So welcome, and special thanks to those of you who
] arrived early and started colonizing the place before it
] was even completed. That really cheered me up, a couple
] of weeks ago. I don’t have to feel I’m moving into an
] empty (and dishearteningly brand-new) structure. There
] is already some human space here, the start of that
] sense of duration and habitation, and soon there’ll be,
] I hope, more.

] In spite of (or perhaps because of) my reputation as a
] reclusive quasi-Pynchonian luddite shunning the net (or
] word-processors, depending on what you Google) I hope
] to be here on a more or less daily basis.

Its live now!

William Gibson's Blog

] "If New Orleans is "the Big Easy," then Detroit is "the
] Big Ugly."
] A convenient metaphor for all things scary and doomed,
] the city has long served as a bleak backdrop for writers
] and filmmakers who paint it as a desolate, dangerous
] melange of burned-up buildings and forgotten dreams."

I'm fairly interested in seeing this movie. Making it out of a ghetto as a rapper is a difficult road, especially for a white guy. There is a very powerful story to tell here if they do it well. The thing is that Americans put so much focus on rock stars and basketball stars, and the fact is that most people who do get out of the ghetto are much more likely to come out of it as accountants then as rock stars, and the challenges associated with that are every bit as real. Focusing on talent based activities instead of skill based activities encourages people to focus on stuff that most people will never be good at no matter how hard they try.

Of course, right now you are thinking, who would go see a movie about an accountant. I'll offer that if we can't make the right message interesting its because we're not trying.

Detroit Shows Its True Grit in '8 Mile' - 11/6/02

"This project aims to visualize the mathematical structure behind Escher's Print Gallery. "

Escher rules!

Escher and the Droste effect - Universiteit Leiden