...there are squirrels in my head...

Oi, Philadelphians/New Jerseyians! Don't miss this!!

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:26:56 GMT

Jeff Mach, the rather wonderful fellow who brings us the joy that is Wicked Faire, is premiering his one-man-show, "What Sharp Teeth," next Thursday!

What the heck is it?
"What Sharp Teeth" is the story of Little Red Riding Hood, with all of the familiar characters. Except without the grandmother. And the woodsman. And the wolf.

And with the addition of a crocodile...

The what with the who, now?
'What Sharp Teeth' is a twisted retelling of the 'Little Red Riding Hood' fairytale. It's a one-man musical, written and performed by Jeff Mach through story and song. Hear the story of the sweet, innocent girl, the helpful narrator, and the crocodile. What, you heard the story had a wolf? Find out the truth. A tale of dark humour, pagan gods, theoretically innocent young girls, and mead.

This show is not recommended for persons under the age of sixteen.

Go visit http://www.wickedfaire.com/wst/ for song samples!

Where the heck is it?
It's at the MMAC in Bloomfield, NJ!
Tickets are $15; show time is rom 9PM to 11PM on Thursday, April 23rd.

Come on out and see what Jeff is up to when he's NOT working on Wicked Faire!
And spread the word!

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Amazon.com update

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 17:44:15 GMT

http://rm.livejournal.com/1610605.html
Summary: Amazon.com screwed up. There's been a statement to the press saying it was a glitch. It's apparently being fixed. Fear the power of blogging and Twitter, y'all.

Could have been a prank.
Insert some analysis..
It wasn't.
And again I say, the whole 'ha ha it's all for the LULZ' crap could really truly just go the hell away. Far away.

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Censorship comes in many guises: Amazon.com and 'adult content'

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:07:19 GMT

Over the past few days, Amazon.com has been stripping the sales ranking indicators for 'adult' material.

However, many of the books in question simply contain homosexual characters and/or queer content. Which does not necessarily translate as 'adult' material. Indeed, Alan Moore's controversial "Lost Girls" is NOT affected by this filtering.

"It seems it's happening based on key words and search terms. Stuff we now know to have been hit with this includes a bunch of YA books, Jacqueline Carey's books, a number of biographies and autobiographies (including John Barrowman's), a range of self-help books, and even books from both conservative and liberal perspectives that address the topic of homosexuality in terms of the Bible." - rm

Amazon's official response to one author:

"In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude "adult" material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature."

What does this look like? Check out these links for John Barrowman's autobiography, Anything Goes.

Paperback has sales ranking:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anything-Goes-Autobiography-John-Barrowman/dp/1843173336/ref=pd_sim_m_h__3 -

Hardback does not:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Anything-Goes-John-Barrowman-Carole/dp/1843172895/ref=ed_oe_h

This is also an example of how the exclusion is not consistent.

How is this censorship?
Some books are being removed completely from the Amazon search engine. And as will be shown below, the process is not being applied uniformly. This removal causes an inaccurate record of what titles are selling, and makes it more difficult for buyers to find affected titles, which means fewer sales.

Also, rm reminds me:
"Independent bookstores also often look at Amazon rankings to help make purchasing decisions. Additionally Amazon ranking milestones are often a topic in the continuance of contracts for authors."

Additionally, according to an article in The New York Times (link below):

The better a book is selling, the more stable its rank, people who analyze the lists say; a book like “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” is selling many times more than the 10th-, 100th-, 1,000th- or 10,000th-ranked book.

“We consider ourselves to be tastemakers and a good cross-section of what America likes to read, watch and listen to,” said Sean Sundwall, a spokesman for Amazon.

...Breaking into Amazon’s top echelons and the “also bought” recommendations can have a viral effect. “If you crack the top 50, even if it’s only for an hour, you’re significantly higher in all categories,” said Mr. Kirchner of Ingram Publisher Services. “You could probably go online at 4 a.m. and make any book you wanted a best seller for an hour.”

The rankings also reflect current events that capture popular attention. When Hugo Chávez, the president of Venezuela, mentioned Noam Chomsky’s “Hegemony or Survival,” sales spiked for a few days. When Susan Patron, a little-known children’s author, won the Newbery Medal in January for “The Higher Power of Lucky” and a controversy erupted over her use of the word “scrotum,” sales also rose.
- http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/06/business/media/06rank.html

Petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/in-protest-at-amazons-new-adult-policy

Original red-flag post:
http://markprobst.livejournal.com/15293.html

Follow-up information:
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11369.html
http://queersunited.blogspot.com/2009/04/is-amazon-censoring-lgbt-books.html

An ongoing list of affected books and letter-writing information:
http://community.livejournal.com/meta_writer/11992.html

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Community pimping

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:50:39 GMT

I've started up two communities here:

http://horror-hosts.dreamwidth.org/ - this will (I think) have a post every week or so celebrating varied horror hosts

http://hauntedhouses.dreamwidth.org/ - primarily a promotion community

Feedback, pimping, and contributions are encouraged!

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Tweenbots and the human heart

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:57:01 GMT

Harkalark and shadesong, I saw this and thought of you.

http://www.tweenbots.com

In New York, we are very occupied with getting from one place to another. I wondered: could a human-like object traverse sidewalks and streets along with us, and in so doing, create a narrative about our relationship to space and our willingness to interact with what we find in it?

...Never once was a Tweenbot lost or damaged. Often, people would ignore the instructions to aim the Tweenbot in the “right” direction, if that direction meant sending the robot into a perilous situation. One man turned the robot back in the direction from which it had just come, saying out loud to the Tweenbot, "You can’t go that way, it’s toward the road.”

I love this.

Contrary74, I fully expect to hear that you and your students will be trying this soon! :)

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Obligatory first post

Sun, 12 Apr 2009 05:11:38 GMT

Hello, Dreamwidth!

Currently, my intent is to continue to use both DW and LJ for blogging, but financially and politically I will support DW.

I'm not jumping ship completely, as I truly love my LJ community.
I remain, however, pretty darn convinced that the owners of LJ will continue to make business decisions that do not respect their user base, and I am full of hope for DW.

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