a-cubed.info

Reading this article, I noticed the Google Ads box at the bottom of the page and while three of them seemed pretty well chosen for the article (a computer security company advertising anti-DDoS services et al; a fibre optic communications service provider; a telecoms business analysis firm) the fourth seemed really quite odd: a religious site “examining” Jesus “claims to be God”. Either Google barged on its parsing of the article, or that group is paying for completely random allocations of their web presence.

I’ve just submitted a paper to Computers and Society. The draft submission is available on OpenDepot.

If you came across the phrase “hikikomori shut-in” in a short story, would you understand what it meant or would it jar you out of the reading zone and maybe necessitate you looking it up? It’s a bit of verbiage, I know (all hikikomori are shut-ins), but I like the idea that the term hikikomori could enter English more thoroughly than it has, but as it hasn’t entered it fully yet adding the “shut-in” verbiage seems like a reasonable compromise for a near-future story. I could just use “shut-in” but that has a broader meaning anyway and doesn’t necessarily include the cutting off of physical contact with others, just an inability to leave one’s home due to physical mobility of psychological issues. Please comment on LJ or a-cubed.info as to whether you would find it distracting in a short story.

I’ve just finished Chris Wooding’s “Retribution Falls” and “The Black Lung Captain” and felt like a little light reviewing. Warning, some mild spoilers ahead. (more…)

In Japanese shibaraku (しばらく) means “a short while”. $WIFE just spotted and re-tweeted a Japanese message defining (a-la Uxbridge English Dictionary) the word mubaraku (むばらく — the Japanese pronunciation of Mubarak’s name). It is defined as “about thirty years”.

Here’s a message I sent to my MP Rob Wilson today, via writetothem. I encourage everyone else whose MP voted in December to raise tuition fees, to send a similar message to their MP.

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On The Register recently there was an interesting article about ebooks and how the book publishing industry seem to be following the music and movie industry down the same path of woe by trying to screw their customers in the move to digital distribution. Leaving aside the actual proportion of costs which the physical printing, distribution and returns of overstock entail, the idea that the digital edition costs MORE than the print edition really is utterly stupid. Modern publishing uses internal digital formats for the files which are then passed to the printer for physical printing. Getting this into the digital distribution medium is  trivial one time programming exercise. While I would be willing to accept that the digital price difference should only be small, the fact that new ebooks are selling at higher prices than the hardcover is just stupid.

Anyway, that’s all covered in the article. In the comments the author discusses the issue of the public lending library with some of the commenters. That’s what prompted this post, actually, which is thinking how it might be possible to run a public lending library with ebooks. (more…)

So last year we bought an apartment in Japan. Well, I say “we” but actually my other half bought it. I still own my apartment in Reading, and she was able to get the mortgage on her salary alone, so it made the paperwork somewhat simpler. However, there are some issues for the longer term. Japan’s family law is primarily derived from the German Bundesbuch civil law system that they imported in the late 19th century. This was derived from the Napoleonic code. Under such systems, the disposition of property after death is not really under the control of the person themselves. If there are offspring and a spouse the offspring receive half the property or its equivalent value (I’m not sure if this is just real property – land, houses and apartments or all assets) and the spouse the other half. This is the same as in, say, France and is something that couples from the UK retiring to France have been warned about in recent years. If there are no offspring, the parents if they are alive inherit half and the spouse the other half. But it gets even worse. Married couples have very limited ability to transfer assets between them and if my wife had made me automatic co-owner of our apartment (i.e. the element of it that she paid for with the deposit – the bank still owns the rest) then I would have been liable for a capital gains tax on that transfer. Crazy, but historically the upper classes in Japan would try to avoid taxes by moving things around as part of dowries and the like and marriages often ended in divorce so property was seprately held (that’s what I’m told anyway). As I’m now paying half of the mortgage for the property, we have to make sure I get receipts from my wife for the payments I make to her for the mortgage. New-build apartments typically over the last twenty years have been depreciating rather than appreciating in value so who knows what happens to things if the worst happens (I’m fervently hoping it doesn’t but there’s always risks). There’s also the question of which set of laws holds sway over my liquid and property assets in the UK while I am resident in Japan but still a UK citizen with holdings in the UK. Under UK law everything would go to my wife if I didn’t have a will and other than that it’s mine to give away (more-or-less – it can be challenged by/on behalf of next of kin).

It just seems a bit weird to need a receipt from my wife for the mortgage payments, really.

I recently ordered the new Steven Brust Vlad Taltos novel “Iorich” from Amazon.co.jp. I’ve been waiting since January 2010 for it to come out in paperback. Always annoying that long delay before a paperback, especially when they suddenly start producing hardbacks of a once a year series. I don’t like having different types in a series, particularly a long one like this and since i’ve got the rest in standard sized paperback, I’m going to continue in that vein. So, Amazon in Japan finally indicated it was due in January 2011 and I ordered it. Then they kept pushing back when it would be sent and finally they pushed it back to January 2012! WTF? Checking on Amazon.com, it turns out that Tor have now produced a trade sized paperback (8.2inches tall) which unlike my Harry Dresden books is too big even to fit on the shelf that the others are on. So, we now have the hardback appearing in January 2010, the stupid size paperback in January 2011 and the mass market sized paperback not until January 2012. A wait of two years until the ordinary paperback comes out. The book publishing industry seems to be hell bent on following the music publishing industry into screwing itself up by pissing off its regular customers. They’re insisting on DRM for ebooks, they’re not making all the older even very popular material available in ebooks (Pratchett’s Discworld isn’t all available for example) and even when they do they’ve screwed up the permissions so there isn’t a worldwide appearence (sometimes if you want it in ebook form it’s out but the only way to get it is illegitimate), and their core product is being over-squeezed in its traditional market in a way that annoys regular purchasers. Way to  destroy your own industry, guys. I don’t have an ebook reader, but if I did I’d be tempted to download one of the versions available on bittorrent. Especially since the legitimate version seems to be Nook only (that’s right, restrict your market – great way to keep your customers).

Christmas in Japan is rather odd for a Westerner. Just like in the US or Europe, images of the Coke-inspired (i.e. Red and White) Santa Claus are all over the place, as well as the evergreen symbolism of midwinter solstice. Howeever, Christmas Day isn’t a holiday. The current emperor’s birthday is the 23rd December, so that is a holiday, but Christmas Day itself is just a normal day, unless one is among the tiny number of Christians in Japan, where it’s a religious day for them. The build-up is pushed by retailers, with Christmas decorations all over the place. These are replaced on Boxing Day with the Japanese New Year decorations instead. New Year is the big holiday season here, really. (more…)