Walter Jon Williams's Blog, page 186
March 1, 2012
Crowdsourcing the Law
Remember that scene in Fahrenheit 451 when Montag is on the run, and the announcer on television talks to his "friends" (in Bradbury's future, television has friended the entire audience), and the announcer tells the friends to go outside and look for the fugitive?In the François Truffaut film, this scene was particularly chilling, with whole streets of zombielike couch potatoes stepping outside onto their perfectly manicured lawns to look for the man whose crime was reading Charles Dickens.N...
February 29, 2012
February 28, 2012
The Little Receipts They Raineth Down . . .
What have I been doing today? Sorting through hundreds of little receipts, many marked with indecipherable scrawls, in order to enter the results into Quicken and prepare my tax forms.
Which, after many hours and an aching back, I have achieved.
Only to find that Quicken refuses to print the results.
May I just remark that "Intuit," as a company name, is proving to be something of a misrepresentation?
Which, after many hours and an aching back, I have achieved.
Only to find that Quicken refuses to print the results.
May I just remark that "Intuit," as a company name, is proving to be something of a misrepresentation?
February 27, 2012
The Clock Ticks in Traditional Fashion
Just a reminder that Orbit has put all ebooks of This Is Not a Game on sale for $2.99, but that the sale should end on March 1. So if you want to take advantage of this generous offer, the Clock on the Clubhouse Wall is telling you that you have only a few hours left.
February 26, 2012
Owl. Pussycat.
This really isn't the go-to blog for cute animal videos, but this one is so extraordinary that once I saw it on al-Zorra's site, I had to share it with you.
PayPal Puts the Screws on Erotica
I've always thought that PayPal was a useful service, and regretted the fact that they crashed every time I tried to log onto them. (Even when I tried to logon through other people's computers, they crashed. It's not the computer, it's me. I am cursed.)Be that as it may, I'm not so sorry anymore about being unable to use Paypal. Because they're now using their financial power to censor the work of authors.Specifically, they have ordered Smashwords to remove certain kinds of erotica from t...
February 24, 2012
Amazoniana
Our friends at Amazon have been in the news.First off is the fallout from their quarrel with IPG, the country's second-largest book distributor. Amazon tried to renegotiate a better deal with IPG's ebooks, IPG declined to budge, and now all IPG's ebooks are no longer available for Kindle.Because IPG's list is long on cookbooks and textbooks, and short on super-popular fiction, this will only impact about five percent of their business. So they're not taking a huge hit. Not yet anyway.But s...
February 23, 2012
I Am Nook'd
I just noticed that ebooks of The Praxis, The Sundering, and Conventions of War have been made available via Barnes & Noble.
When did that happen?
I had been grumped that they weren't available for my loyal Nook users, and now I need grump no more.
When did that happen?
I had been grumped that they weren't available for my loyal Nook users, and now I need grump no more.
February 22, 2012
What? Me Again?
If you don't feel there's enough me on this blog, there's even more me over on SF Signal, where I've written an essay about writing, about gaming, about writing gaming, and about the kind of games writers play.
Enjoy.
Get Yer Signatures Here!
Just to let you all know, I will be signing The Fourth Wall (and any other book you care to bring) at Page One bookstore in Albuquerque, this coming Saturday, February 25, at 3pm.There will be a talk and a reading as well.
Please come, so I don't have to sit there humming to myself for two whole hours.
