Isn't µTorrent still owned by Bittorrent Inc which is in bed with the MPAA? I'll be damned if I run a closed-source torrent client from a company with such ties.

Cory, is there any merit to the idea of doing a 'serial' release? That is, you release a chapter a week on your blog, and time it so the book is coming out halfway through or at some suitably suspenseful point. That way, readers can opt to buy the book right away and not have to wait, or they can wait a bit if they want to read it, but not badly enough to pay.

Guy needs to stop saying 'uh' every five seconds.

I'll note that when the Bush administration demanded that search engines hand over their logs for data mining, Google was the only one who said no, go get a warrant. MSN, AOL, and Yahoo all handed over everything the government asks for.

So I'd actually trust Google with my stuff. Of course, if they get served with a warrant, or if their campus gets invaded by black-ops guys with lots of guns, all bets are off. But what other company can say they'd act differently in those situations?

Her "different way of thinking" keeps her from being able to take a shower on her own. Sounds like a handicap to me.

"doubleTwist helps consumers"

I am not a consumer, who merely blindly eats what is given to him. I am a customer whose choices in the free market help determine what sort of DRM will be used in the future. I buy primarily from Amazon and other DRM-free sites, but on occasion I do buy from iTunes, where many songs still have DRM because the music cartels are trying to punish Apple for being successful. I buy from iTunes because I think Mr. Jobs is committed to a DRM-free world, but if there were credible signs that he is not, I'd switch my loyalties again. This is one of the virtues of a free market, and DVD Jon does us a disservice to call us mere consumers.

Argexpat@46: We know that bastinado is torture, and that placing someone in an Iron Maiden is torture; thus there is no need for a journalist to investigate this. You seem to be claiming "if we don't know if it's torture, it's not", which seems strange. The journalist was willing to undergo it because he didn't understand the terror it causes; now that he does know, he is no longer willing to undergo it. Sounds like torture to me.

Bat Guano@43: The truth or falsity of the claim 'Jesus exists' is, unfortunately, not something that can be determined by observing that many people who make that claim are hypocritical in ethical areas.

RealCatholicMen@40:

"Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' and behold, the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye." -- Jesus (Matthew 7:3-5, NASB)

We need to fix our own problems (encouraging torture, letting power-mad people run TSA without oversight, corruption in government leading to companies like Halliburton and Blackwater getting government money, and so on, the entire mess we caused in Iraq) before the world will take us seriously again. We no longer have the moral high ground as a nation, which makes it hard for us to make the case for being allowed to fix other people's problems.

I'm not terribly interested in Spike-centric Buffyfic, but thanks anyway.

So, what is this fairy tale Heroes fanfic? I'm surprised they didn't link to it.

Cpt. Tim: There's a difference between pointing out historical facts and pointing out a carefully-selected handful of historical facts cherry-picked to make your point while being an asshole about it.

This is much like the difference between saying "I told you so" and jumping up and down while pointing and loudly crying "How do you like them apples".

Simply because the opposing side has descended to less than responsible levels does not mean you should do so as well.

Andrew, why not license your works under a Creative Commons Share-Alike license and then in your will give your works to an organization that won't sell out to the corps?

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/

acipolone@22: Just because the open source community has re-implemented .Net for non-windows systems does not mean that Microsoft's Digital Restrictions Management technology and codecs automatically work there. And why would Netflix ever take on the burden of porting the DRM to other platforms? No, we won't get the movies on our machines until the studios get it that DRM doesn't work and never will.

There's a difference between boingboing and AT&T. If boingboing bans you, you can still read it. And you can discuss things on thousands of other websites.

If AT&T bans you from their high-speed internet service, you get to (a) sign up for a competitor, such as Comcast (the dominant cable provider, which deliberately degrades their customers' service by sending RST packets to block BitTorrent connections) or satellite internet (which is expensive, incredibly asymmetric, and has high latency), or (b) move. In either case, you're likely to be deprived of internet access for up to a month or more while you wait for the technicians to hook you up.

So, how do you convince your editor to let you do the Creative Commons thing? I'm sure the red cape helps, and maybe Charlie Stross would have better luck if he owned one. But if he's right that the major publishers want to buy (and sit on) ebook rights, and don't want to negotiate on this, what do you do?