Sci-Ence! Justice Leak!

Just a few links – have not had my brain in the right place for writing for a few days…

Lance Parkin is writing a biography of Alan Moore

Jonathan Calder on Sarah Teather’s ridiculous comments about an ‘educated liberal elite’

Dean Wesley Smith gives advice on pricing self-published books.

Anti-authoritarianism is increasingly being seen as a mental health problem

David Brin on possible upsides if the frothy mix wins the nomination

And finally, Mike Taylor has been doing wonderful work over at Sauropod Vertebrae Picture Of The Week campaigning against the Research Works Act, an egregious proposed piece of US legislation. Pop over and read everything there for the last couple of weeks to get a full idea of what’s going on – as well as some pictures of the neck-bones of dinosaurs.

I accidentally had 13 hours’ sleep and only got up an hour ago, so while I’m hoping to at least get the next chapter of Time Detective up today, I might not have anything properly blogged today (I’m also writing a short story today, but am going to try to submit that to a paying market before posting it here). So in case I have nothing else up today, here are some links:

Wondermark looks at how 19th century discussions of copyright law parallel today’s arguments about the same subject.

An interesting blog I don’t think I’ve linked to before – Bleeding Heart Libertarians. This is a group of USians who come from a Libertarian tradition of thought, but who want to combine that with concern for social justice. They appear to be slowly re-inventing Liberalism (in the European sense, rather than in the American) for themselves from Libertarian first principles.

The great Jac Rayner has revived her blog about girls’ comics of the 70s, with this post which also touches on disablism in the media and the way ATOS marks clearly ill people as fit for work.

John Leech is not letting the government’s response to his Early Day Motion on pardoning Alan Turing stop the campaign.

A petition to Marvel to properly credit Jack Kirby. Unfortunately doesn’t work well in browsers with NoScript, and I couldn’t be bothered to figure out which of the thirty different JavaScript sources it seems to want you to allow are actually necessary, but still a worthwhile petition.

Tim at The Hurting talks about the morality of Marvel and DC comics contracts

I feel odd about linking to the Mindless Ones as much now that I’m one of them, feels a bit like nepotism, but just go over there and read or listen to all the stuff on the front page – some great stuff there at the moment, everyone’s doing good work.

And TARDIS Eruditorum on Alan Moore’s Doctor Who comics work.

Sorry for the lack of proper posting – I know I’m behind again on MindlessWho, but I’m practically dead of exhaustion. Have some links instead.

Can’t believe I’d not heard of this before yesterday (via Andrew Ducker), but Daily Science Fiction is a site where each day they post a new science fiction story. The quality varies, but free stories every day can only be a good thing.

Debi continues her series on Buddhism with a post on right action.

Lib Dems led by Shirley Williams have managed to get even more concessions made in the NHS Bill.

A speech Neil Gaiman gave on C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and G.K. Chesterton.

Slacktivist on how so-called Biblical literalists have actually rewritten the Bible to remove mention of a female priest from Paul’s letters.

And while the NHS Bill is slowly being improved, the Welfare Reform Bill still needs a great deal of work to become acceptable. Here’s Caron Lindsay’s letter to Lib Dem MPs on the subject.

I’ll be mostly absent from the internet for the next few days – I’m working odd hours today (4-10PM), then normal hours tomorrow, on Saturday I’m doing Lib Dem leafletting and on Sunday I’ve got to fill out my tax return for the money I earned from writing last year (what money, he said laughing hollowly). And all this while quite seriously ill. I’m going to *try* to get the next MindlessWho post up, but otherwise don’t expect anything before Tuesday or Wednesday.

So here’s some links:

Millennium Elephant cautiously welcomes Nick Clegg’s speech, but thinks the Lib Dems need to take a different attitude towards people on benefits. I agree.

The Aporetic on Gingrich’s… interesting… choice to refer to the Lincoln/Douglas debates

Kristine Rusch on how self-publishers are ignoring readers.

Autism And Empathy on how claims that people with autism have no empathy are a human-rights issue.

Two great posts from Teatime Brutality, on Avengers vs X-Men and Mass Effect. Warning as always with this tumblr that while those posts are safe for work, others on that blog definitely aren’t.

James Graham wants to know why landlords aren’t “in this together”.

And Charles Stross continues his series on SF worldbuilding with a post on ‘unknown unknowns’

I’ve got some decent posts lined up for the next few days – How We Know What We Know and Bigger On The Outside ones, and one on the Kinks, but I’m tired today, so just links.

Apple’s new iBooks Author program has a EULA which states that you can’t use the program (essentially a jumped-up text editor) to write a book if you want to sell that book through any stores other than Apple’s! Sometimes people wonder why I only use Free (as in freedom) Software (well, other than Spotify…) and this kind of thing is why. When I write a book in LyX, I can do whatever I want, not just with the book but with the program as well.
But this is part of an incredibly stupid war that’s going on now with the major ebook stores trying desperately to get as many writers as they can to be exclusive (see also the even-more-evil Amazon KDP Select), so they can claim to sell more books than their competitors, even if those books are written by the kind of people who fall for things like that.

Andrew Rilstone has put out his latest book. This one’s on the Inklings, and I’ve been looking forward to it for a long time. Incidentally, if you buy his book from Lulu today or tomorrow, you can use the price code PRICETHAWUK to get 20% off. That applies to all Lulu books, so why not pick up some of mine, or my uncle’s, or Simon Bucher-Jones’ or Lawrence Burton’s or Chris Browning’s too? But do buy Andrew’s book – the parts of it that he’s posted on his blog are great.

Hammer are reissuing their 1958 Dracula with additional restored footage.

Bob Temuka on a rather different version of Cerebus

And Arkhonia continues his series of Smile posts with one on the great Van Dyke Parks.

I meant to get the next Who post for Mindless Ones up today, but I’ve got a blinding headache, so you just get links. The post will probably be up tomorrow.

Teatime Brutality had a great post about Doctor Who and canonicity. I only followed the parts of the discussion that showed up on his (her?) tumblr (a problem with tumblr for those who like to follow discussions is it gets fragmented over half a dozen people’s blogs), but there were some great points about Morrison’s Batman being closer to Lance Parkin than Paul Magrs as well as some shorter comments. (Warning, BTW, like all tumblrs that have ever existed, Teatime Brutality’s contains random porn images interspersed with the other stuff. The pages I’ve linked are safe for work, but the tumblr itself may not be).

The Vault Of Horror is celebrating 90 years of Nosferatu

Arkhonia continues his long series of posts about Smile with this one analysing the 1967 TV programme Inside Pop, arguing (rightly) that Smile needs to be seen in a wider context of American popular music, rather than from the narrow, list-based ‘rock’ viewpoint. (And see above about ‘canon’ again. Canons obliterate context. That’s almost their *purpose*).

Ragnell is furious at Warren Ellis for having Captain America condone torture.

And Apple, Rim and Nokia added backdoors for the Indian government to intercept communications using their mobile phones. People wonder why I won’t have a mobile phone even though they’ve now turned into mini pocket computers and you don’t even need to do the phone call bit – it’s because I want to control what code is or isn’t running on any computer I own.

Sorry for the non-appearance of the last part of Doctor Watson. I’ve been having stress-related brain freezes the last few days, and have basically been unable to get anything done either at work or at home. I’ve also been trying to recover data from a 2TB hard drive which developed, almost overnight, several thousand bad sectors (I didn’t have a backup because until last month I couldn’t afford the luxury of a spare 2TB drive. I will have a backup from now on).

Tomorrow, though, I plan to do both the last part of the Watson story and the next Mindless Ones Doctor Who post, my first on Patrick Troughton.

But for now, some links.

I haven’t yet seen the Doctor Who Christmas special (it’s sat on the aforementioned hard drive) but Millennium Elephant thinks it was an improvement on recent Moffat efforts, though still flawed. Andrew Rilstone is rather less charitable.

Meanwhile Dispositio, a blog which I haven’t linked before but you should all read if you’re interested in Elizabethan literature, goes away from its normal areas to target the sexism in last week’s episode of Sherlock

Moving not all that far from Doctor Who to theology, we have Rilstone again, writing about Christmas carols, folk song, fanfic and the paradox of the incarnation while Lance Parkin thinks the ontological proof is cobblers.

An interesting look at different ideas of aesthetics, referencing Roger Ebert’s distaste for video games and the critical reaction to Greg Egan’s latest book

Caron Lindsay on the need for Lib Dems to lobby Lords to ensure that ESA claimants don’t lose their benefits after a year

And Cory Doctorow on the coming war on general computation.

I won’t be able to do any proper updates until Boxing Day, because we’re busy doing family stuff with Holly’s family, but I’m hoping to get Doctor Watson Investigates finished next week. I’m also going to start on a book on The Kinks, because I’m going to wait until we know exactly what’s happening with the Beach Boys next year before writing volumes two and three of that book (there is talk of reissues of several albums and a new box set, as well as a new album. I may even have to do a second edition of volume 1, to cover any bonus tracks…)

But for now, some links:

Bob Temuka on The Invisibles

Lawrence Miles has a new blog, telling the stories of Sherlock Holmes as Watson originally wrote them, before Doyle insisted he take the monsters out. Here’s the first story – A Brood-Mare For Gloriana.

Brad Hicks on empathy disorders

Philip Purser-Hallard writes a Christmas-themed SF story every year for his Christmas cards, and then posts them on his blog the next year. Here’s his 2010 one, with links to the earlier ones.

An interview with Mike Love about the Beach Boys reunion. Contains details of the backing band and other info.

And a merry Christmas to all of you at home.