Category: Books
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Mutiny [3] – Saying What You Want to Say | ‘Total Theology’
I’ve been talking in the previous two posts about why I’ve chosen to self publish my forthcoming book on pirates – firstly as a statement about regaining control of the means of production and secondly about attempting to get some debate going about copyright and reinvigoration of the public domain. The third reason concerns the…
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Mutiny! [2] – Rethinking Copyright and Enriching the Public Domain
The second big reason I’m choosing to self-publish Mutiny! is to do with copyright issues. One of the things I explore in the book is how messed up ideas of copyright have become, moving far away from the sense in which it was originally intended. You can read the whole argument below, but, in…
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Mutiny! [1] – Controlling the means of Production
So… I’m really pleased to announce that my latest book – Mutiny! Why We Love Pirates, And How They Can Save Us – is almost ready for release. You should be able to get your eyes on it in the next month or so! As it comes to publication, I’ve wanted to blog a few…
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Taste in the Age of Universal Access
Nick Hornby’s column ‘Stuff I’ve Been Reading‘ in the McSweeney’s writing mag The Believer is always the thing I turn to first, and this month’s (well, March/April – but it has to be rowed across the Atlantic in a bath tub, it seems) is one of the best for ages. He is ostensibly writing about…
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‘We Need Books That Hit Us Like a Painful Misfortune’
Interesting article on Ceasefire looking at Zizek and de Botton, which includes this great quote from Kafka: “Altogether, I think we ought to read only books that bite and sting us. If the book we are reading doesn’t shake us awake like a blow to the skull, why bother reading it in the first place?…
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Mu… and the art of Unasking
I’ve been reading Brian Christian’s excellent book The Most Human Human over the past week or so – inspired by the very good Radiolab on ‘Talking to Machines.’ One thought from it that’s made me think a lot is the concept of the Japanese word mu. It comes in a section where Christian is describing…