The blog
Writing & notes
Essays, notes and reflections on technology, law and life.
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New York author offers struggling writers questionable work-for-hire terms
Pseudonymity, liability, no copyright, and a $250 advance. Sounds like a pretty crappy publishing deal: It’s an agreement that says, ‘You’re going to write for me. I’m going to own it. I may or may not give you credit. If there is more than one book in the series, you are on the hook to… Read more →
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pleonasm
noun The use of more words than necessary to describe something. Often tautological. “The two of them are both the same” is a pleonasm, as is “killed dead”. Read more →
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grammatolatry
noun The worship of words or letters. An avid reader, John was as prone to grammatolatry as anyone. Read more →
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parisology
noun the deliberate use of equivocal or ambiguous terms Lawyers are masters of the art of parisology. Read more →
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catachresis
noun strained or paradoxical use of words either in error (as `blatant’ to mean ‘flagrant’) or deliberately (as in a mixed metaphor: ‘blind mouths’) Alexander Pope’s Peri Bathous, Or the Art of Sinking in Poetry: “Masters of this [Catachresis] will say, Mow the beard, Shave the grass, Pin the plank, Nail my sleeve. From whence… Read more →
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Tax strategies under the microscope
Fascinating article on the strategies employed by multinational technology firms to minimise corporate income taxation by funneling income into tax havens: Google’s income shifting – involving strategies known to lawyers as the “Double Irish” and the “Dutch Sandwich” – helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 per cent, the lowest of the top five… Read more →
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French 3 strikes regime sees ISPs inundated with notices
It’s unclear whether the recent Creation and Internet Act 2010 (FR) is having much of an impact on digital piracy. However, according to copyright owners, around 25,000 notices of alleged infringement are being sent to the state-administered digital enforcement body (HADOPI) each day: French labels trade body director general David El Sayegh revealed the 25,000… Read more →
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Botnet hosts strongly clustered around safe haven providers
Interesting survey of the connection between website hosts and botnet ‘command and control’ servers, which are used to direct networks of malware-infected clients: For the first half of 2010, almost a quarter of botnet CnC servers were hosted by service providers in the US, with the top three countries (US – 23.9 per cent, Germany… Read more →
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Government department blocks open government website
Today’s irony award goes to the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service, which last week blocked access to Open Australia, a website (modelled on They Work For You) which helps people track what their MPs say in Parliament. In fairness, the blockage occurred because a third party border proxy classified the content as a ‘blog’:… Read more →
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Trespass by Light? Cricket Australia and Big Ben
For a few hours around midnight last Wednesday, Cricket Australia projected an image onto the Big Ben clock tower which contained the message “Don’t forget to pack the urn”, referring to the forthcoming Ashes series in Australia. (It was a clear allusion to the English Cricket Board’s projection in 2008 of a similar image onto… Read more →