@ WWEBOING: "scientific socialism" ? It was neither scientific nor socialist. It was ideology masquerading as science, and bad science being made a tool by a power-hungry clique.

As for "socialism"...

You know what's ironic? Stalin himself boasted once to have "killed more Communists than Hitler", for putting to death the majority of party members who had a part in the October revolution. He didn't want to have historic revolutionaries standing between him and absolute power.

"Genre fiction, as Terry Pratchett has pointed out, is a stew. You take stuff out of the pot, you put stuff back. The stew bubbles on."

A good metaphor, but even older than that: J. R. R. Tolkien used the same image of stuff going into a bubbling pot, and stories being the resulting stew.
IIRC, it was in 1947 in his essay "On Fairy-stories".

I'm also reminded of something a character said in Lois McMaster Bujold's novel "Cetaganda":

"He works in intelligence, not counter-intelligence. His motivation is curiosity, not paranoia."

@ Kmoser: Yes, "engineering vs security (or hacker) mindset" is probably too simply put. Engineering failure analysis probably produces the same kind of mindset.

Remember Nancy Kress' "Maximum Light"? *shivers*

@ Takuan : He's Carla Bruni's husband. Nuff said.

Cool, but the title should be "European Parliament says Non..."

The French parliament is solidly aligned with Sarkozy, alas, or we wouldn't have the 3-strikes Internet legislation in France either.

That story would have been perfect for April Fools' Day...

Ooh, here's S1m0ne. Or her Asian countepart, anyway...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0258153/

That old Mickey Mouse looks unpleasantly like classic antisemitic caricatures of the period. Creepy.

But the several "okay" uttered by the Japanese "good guys"... Wierdly hilarious.

Heh, that style may come back in fashion. Looks just like what Indiana Jones wears — and with all the stains and imperfections, you'll look just like Indy does at the end of the adventure!

You gotta love it when a group uses this for an official release:
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4059158/Nine_Inch_Nails_-_Ghosts_I_(2008)

@ Andrew (#26): Don't blame Gaiman. We don't know the details of his HarperCollins contract, but I guess they own the e-publishing rights to his books, simply because they bought them at the same time as the "dead tree edition" rights. And not only him, but a lot of authors' contracts have the same provision. It depends on what the copyright law is in your country, of course, and on wether you have an Internet savvy agent or not, but more often than not, the first stop for book authors who would like to go into e-publishing is their own "dead tree" publisher!

So, if you're frustrated by HarperCollins unhelpful and clunky "free" edition, just go to the "Short stories" section of his website, for several free e-texts:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool%20Stuff/Short%20Stories
A fair sample of his talent ;-)

@ Jeff (#26): I can't speak for Cory, but you know, the scenario you imagine is nothing far-fetched. It's called "fanfiction".

Which is all right with many authors as long as it's explicitly labelled as such. Since Down And Out in the Magic Kingdom is published under a CC license allowing derivative works, you would be within you rights if you wrote a fanfiction in which the characters were gay martian koalas.

It's definitely the JC Decaux toilet, with its fugly retro-futuristic design.

JC Decaux is huge indeed. It's the world's second largest outdoor advertising corporation, after Clear Channel, and the n°1 for street furniture. Last year, they teamed with Paris municipality to deploy a fleet of city bikes.

The blog is in French and Spanish. This story is a take on the recent smoking ban in French bars and restaurants... They talk about taking the photo:

Meeting with the pals

"Look, a smoking pistaccio!"
"Ooo, how cute!"
"This one goes on the blog, right now!"
"Ooo, it's funny!"
"Use the super-mega-macro..."
"Click"

Then, in comments, somebody makes a crack about "pistaccios being banned in French bars because of your little games"!

And that part about needing to "read up on Gibson and Sterling"... Oh so cluelessly ironic!

@ Complicity: Are you saying that Cory should work for free? Do you perhaps confuse an Internet rights activist with a monk having renounced all earthly possessions?

Magazines pay for the right to print a story, not for the ownership of the ideas or the words in the story. (That's part of the point of the above post itself, BTW.) They give a compensation for the time and work the writer put in assembling the words in the story, just as a lawyer. But writers are often paid a lot less ;-)

Jeff (#6): Happily for the SFWA members, it needn't turn into a Cory-or-Burt deathmatch, because there is another candidate: Russell Davis (SFWA’s current Western Regional Director), whose platform is here:
http://community.livejournal.com/sfwa/43956.html

Plus, John Scalzi invited him to chat with the readers of his blog, under the post quoted above, and you can read his answers to their questions.

My 2 cents: no wonder they feel relief when the nerve-wracking action suddenly stops ;-)

Don't forget the link to the "Andrew Burt for president" parodic posters page, by the_flea_king:
http://the-flea-king.livejournal.com/330373.html
It's the source of the sinking ship pic above. ;-)

#8 : I concur, it would have been nice... But since the docu is remixable, it's possible they are leaving that to the Internet community.

I love that person simulator theory. So, basically, a fanfic is a fork of the original program, er, story? ;-)

Pâté de fois gras on poutine??? Argh! Quebecois traitors! I'll go and die quietly somewhere, thanks... Preferably in a place where fois gras is served whole, cold, with rye bread and a nice white wine.

*sigh* I see the British legislators aren't brighter than French ones, then. Because this proposal is a copy (oh, the irony!) of our very own "Olivennes" bill:
http://www.boingboing.net/2007/11/25/french-law-will-forc.html

Yes, the one greenlighted recently by president Sarkozy. (Who, coincidentally, just married a pop singer. Jeez, Talk about protecting your spouse's career...)

Hmm.... Don't forget Karel Čapek's Newts!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_with_the_Newts

I'm with Takuan #42, here. So, own up, Earth governments: who annoyed the xenobaths?

I imagine baby Poesy's first thoughts: "First they mistake me for a porpoise, then it's paparazzi time! I'll keep my eyes shut, nah."

He, he ;-)

Congrat, then, happy parents!

Wow, this sounds awfully like a "Bones" episode. I think the title was "The graft in the girl". Creepy.

Meanwhile, somebody is selling nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, Iran's competitor for regional leadership:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7185660.stm

Sorry to bust your cosy French-bashing, folks, but Sarkozy already surrendered the country to, in order:

1) Corporations,

2) his pal GWB,

3) Carla Bruni.

Obviously.

@ #18 - Actually, Jerry Lewis and Sylvester Stallone are NOT favorites of the French public anymore. And haven't been for a long time! Please update your stereotypes, people ;-)

Sarkozy has a record of making unrealistic and often mutually exclusive promises. For instance, now he's talking about replacing GDP by HDI as a measure of progress in France. But his reforms of Social security are in effect making health care more expensive in France. So even if we avoid looking at the stagnant GDP figure, we are going to see a stagnant or failing "happiness index"...

It's embarrassing for all of us French citizens. I didn't vote for him, but his showbiz-y antics and endless bragging and boasting are embarrassing all the same when you share the same country. He's our own little Berlusconi, a BS-heavy president...

Thanks Nasa and the anonymous spider for reenacting a famous scene from Tintin's "the Shooting Star"!

15: Elsewhere than the Internet? ;)

He's a altar server putting on (or removing) his alb (the long white robe they wear during the mass). He and the priest are in the sacristy, a room in or near the church building where vestments, sacred vessels, altar linen, etc., are kept. You see a chalice and a cabinet which must hold the wine and Holy Host for the Eucharist. But brooms and other secular cleaning utensils are often also kept in the sacristy, of course.

#14: Just what I thought when I saw that cover... A wink to both 1984 and Good Omens, I guess ?

DFMZFR wrote
"We actually have a bunch of safeguards to ensure that citizens rights are protected."

Actually, no. We French citizens have significantly *less* constitutional safeguards than the USA. Justice isn't really an independant power, here, and the executive is more powerful than the legislative. The parliament can't block a bill introduced by the government, for instance. As for the media, well, TF1 may be less strident than Fox News, but it's the Voice of its Master nevertheless.

(It's embarrassing for us all, really. Think about it: the major French media outlets, TV, press, publishing, etc., are controlled by close personal friends of the president: Martin Bouygue, Arnaud Lagardère, Vincent Bolloré...)

Hi, this is my first Boing Boing comment too.

As en ebook enthusiast living outside the USA, I'm very, very disappointed about Amazon's decision to make the Kindle available only to US-based customers. It's ironic, because I'm a longtime Amazon customer, and bought books and CDs from Amazon.com long before they even opened their european stores! Now, not only Amazon doesn't want to send a Kindle to me, but it uses the EVDO system, which doesn't even work where I live. Thanks, but no thanks, Mr. Bezos!

Another thing: the proprietary format used by the Kindle is a lot more annoying than simple DRM-ed ebooks. The Kindle requires you to by their own .AZW books, but can't read ordinary PDF or the DRM'd Mobipocket (.prc or .mobi) ebooks sold through other retailers! I already got a few of those (my favorite authors don't always go with the no-DRM strategy, alas) and couldn't read them on the Kindle even if I would, and could, buy one.

The other ebook readers available right now to the US market (the Sony PRS, the Philips-iRex iLiad, and Bookeen's Cybook Gen3) can read the common ebook formats, including the de-facto standard Mobipocket, with or without DRMs.

Last month, the Paris-based company Bookeen released their brand new ebook reader, Cybook Gen3, with 6-inch e-ink display, USB connectivity and several very nice features, like dictionnary lookup, adding your own fonts or zooming on PDF books. It can read DRM and non-DRM books, is not locked to one ebook retailer, and American residents can order it for 350 USD through the Bookeen online store:

http://www.bookeen.com/ebook/ebook-reading-device.aspx

I hasten to say that I have nothing to do with the Bookeen company, I'm just a happy, happy customer. I've been using my Cybook Gen3 for about a week now, and I'm very pleased I bought it, because it's a very nice way of reading e-texts, especially if you're an avid reader.

Something other of interest for American residents: Baen's NAEB ("Not Another E-Book") company is going to distribute the Cybook Gen3 to US and Canada next month, and provide local customer support.

So, if Amazon "kindles" interest for ebooks, fine, but don't jump and buy one of their customer-enslaving machines! Try the competition first ;-)