Hblog

Funny but sad

Click on this to see who are the only people speaking about the people at this strange-looking gathering. It's taking place at a local casino venue early next month in the east of Johannesburg. I think I would have to gamble (and win) to attend, since its costing almost ZAR9k to go and listen to these wondrous sources of knowledge.

Chicken-head eating circus performers and so forth

Ok, so, I want to know whether its just me who would pick out the weird thing in this (funny) post of voices at our friends' London Mini-bar (notice the quip: '"the karma sutra IS open source dude").

I want to start a Mini-bar in Johannesburg but I think it will have to involve a new definition of 'geek'. Did you know that 'the word "geek" originates with side-show "circus geeks" — performers at carnivals who swallow various live animals, live insects, and so forth. Sometimes this would extend to biting the heads off of chickens or other small livestock.' (Thank you, Wikipedia)

I personally think it cruel to add  'and so forth' after such a vivid image. Perhaps they are trying to keep the image of geeks relatively clean by brushing over their more horrible pasttimes. For example, what they meant to say was: The geeks would bite the heads off small animals and then squirt the blood through their front teeth... and so forth. Or, the geeks would swallow small animals and then pull their organs through their nose... and so forth. Or, the geeks would hypnotise the small animal and make it dance a jig... and so forth.

Thank you Powerbooktrance for the pic.

My favorite godchild

Isn't she beautiful? I'm sorry, but this is the most beautiful baby in the world. She's made her mom into a skinny nervous wreck. But a SKINNY nervous wreck all the same! Milla is going to be a gorgeous gal, I can just see it.

Look out world! Here she comes :)

Stephen King and the first attempt to bypass publishing piracy

I've just been sitting chatting to Frances Pinter who is at the Creative Commons Berlin office to talk about publishers and CC. She was asking us whether CC enabled people to donate money to artists/authors who use the licence, and I said that many people used tip jars and paypal links on their sites as a way to encourage others to fund their work. Frances then mentioned a story about Stephen King writing a serial novel on the internet where he asked his readers to pay per download of each chapter (it was available free as PDFs on the site).

Turns out to be a fascinating story in the days where the WWW was seen as inappropriate and dangerous for publishers. Apparently, King published 'The Plant'  on his personal website as an online serial in 2000. This was an experiment to circumvent the piracy that saw hackers cracking the encryption on his previous book, Riding the Bullet. Initially, King asked readers to pay $1 per download. He said that he would continue to write the book as long as 75% of his readers contributed. According to Wikipedia, 'More than 200,000 customers downloaded free copies of the story in a 24-hour promotion through the Barnes and Noble website.'

It received over the desired 75 percent for its first installment, but this fell to 70 percent after installment two. King and his publisher held fast to their ideal rate of return at 75 percent, and they decided to double the cost of the fourth part of the novel to two dollars. King tried to offset this price increase by also doubling the number of pages to 54 pages for the fourth installment. He also promised to cap the total cost of the entire book at a total of 13 dollars. Paying readers dropped severely to 46 percent of downloads.

He then dropped the project and his fans - especially the ones who had paid for the first chapters - were obviously hugely angered. According to Wikipedia, 'Pricing was the main readers' grievance, but also, it was the lack of satisfaction in the quality of the work, and the natural cost-to-quality comparison by the public, was further imbalanced by the raise in cost.'

The last installment was published on December 18, 2000. The book was never completed.

(Happy) new year

I'm in Berlin for a board meeting and have to stick around until Friday when I go to Croatia to check out venues for this year's Summit. I've been complaining for about 2 months about having to be in Europe while friends and family laze about in a summer stupor back home. My determination to make new year in Berlin "worth while" was probably behind the first of what I expect will be many encounters with H's world of the stupid in 2007.

Dinner with Ronaldo, Vivien, Volker and his girlfriend was lovely enough. Expensive (at 90 EUROs - about R900!) but worth (almost) every cent to spend an evening of civilised conversation in a nice restaurant where normal, well-adjusted individuals dines with friends and family before going back home to woolen carpets and umbrellas.

Oh, but Heather couldn't just accept the lovely evening as it was and go directly back to the warm hotel. No! She had to enjoy herself and have a real party!

Off in a cab she went. To another part of the city where she met a work colleague who had invited her to a friend's party in a small, modern apartment in the South East of the city. You had to use your imagination to think of this as someone actually lived - every inch of counter space hosted bottles of alcohol - from expensive champagne to medicinal vodka with imaginative names like 'wodka' or 'snodka'. Why didn't they just label them all: 'Drugs-for-desperate-people'?

There seemed to be loads of fabulous people there. And some gay boys for added PC points. But, since none of the fabulous people seemed particularly interested in talking to me in my fabulous sparkly dress, I shrank back to the kitchen where I plied myself with a variety of champagne/wine/sparkling wine and other similar-colored alcohol (my mother told me never to mix my drinks) from the generous supply of international good will on the counters. I stood with my back to the cupboards, drinking as a way of doing something with my unoccupied mouth. I watched a few enthusiastic individuals putting on their especially thrilled and excited and life-loving faces and wondered why I couldn't just lighten up like the doll-girl with the brilliant white grin and the fabulous brown writhing body. Surely you couldn't naturally keep that smile without blinking or stopping to rest!

Somehow the rest of the evening has fallen under a strange dark mist. I remember saying something mean to someone because they weren't giving me their full attention and then stomping off into the freezing night to find better parties where people are not so bloody irritating and would bloody well shower me with affection. But I only managed to stomp as far as the bottom corridor of the building when I realised for the first time of many that evening that I was lost. Eventually, after careful navigation, I managed to find my way out of the building, and after walking determinely for an hour or so and landing back at the place I started, I began to weep. 'U-bahn! Where's the U-bahn?' I cried pitifully to anyone who would listen.

On I trudged: 'I hate this job etc. Why can't I just have a normal life? etc Why aren't I snuggled in bed with a husband and two children by now? What's wrong with me!' etc etc interspersed by attempts to call my boyfriend back home and ask him for directions. He didn't answer. Apparently his phone was on silent. Lucky for him.

By the time I reached the U-Bahn, I was almost horizontal I had sunk so far into my personal bathing spot of self pity. Studying the map oh-so-very-carefully but only seeing random scatterings of letters that refused to be comprehended, I closed my eyes and let my intuition guide me. I leapt into the train to my left and with eyes glued to the map in the train, I concentrated very hard and tried to ignore the taunting faces of the youths who at least were young enough for such antics.

Friedrichstrasse. Victory! I walked determinedly to the hotel, not pausing to celebrate until I was safe in my room. After all, the room may have vanished. Berlin may be destroyed any second, I thought. All the unhappy soccer fans may decide to decend on the city to wreak havoc and force people on the streets to kick balls around until they died screaming to be saved.   

By 4.30am (I think) I was in bed, thankful that the nightmare had ended and that my limbs hadn't succumbed to frostbite. What a way to start the new year: tears and ranting and a brand new hangover.