Migrating the blog over to WordPress. Simple PHP Blog development seems to have stopped, and afterwards an exploit was found that allowed people to pretty much get access to modify all the files, and insert their own code. Every single php file in the blog got code added for redirects to other sites. So, I decided to move over to word press, since that isn’t going to die any time soon.
Meanwhile, till I get everything done, some of the blog entries do not have dates, and the blog theme doesn’t match the site.
As you’ve stumbled across this page, you’re probably wondering what is here. Well, really not much.
Basically, this is a place for my rants, thoughts, doodles, and meanderings. If you want to find out about any news concerning me, my computers, my art, my programming, or other related matters, you’re at the right location. I try to keep things updated, on a semi regular basis, providing I’m able to.
If you’re wondering who I am, I’m Keith “Hellmark” Brown, and I’m a bit of a jack of all trades when it comes to things technological. I’m a programmer, and also have considerable experience with 3d modeling and 2d graphics (vector and raster). I’m a big penguiniphile, as well as being a former mac fan, plus quite a bit of experience with Windows (strictly from fixing it for people). If you think I seem familiar, that is probably because you’ve seen me around places like renderosity.com, Rendervisions.com, SocialDeviancy.com, StreetRod3.com, stl-tech.org, alt.binaries.3d.poser, alt.games.mame, alt.games.starseige.tribes, etc. I get around quite a bit.
So feel free to look around, and enjoy.
This is not really just one tangent, but really a series of them that spurred on from one single stream of thought. With Amazon and Macmillan recently going at it, there has been a definite feeling that the power is now held by the publishers. Macmillan has been spearheading the charge to return to something akin to the UK's Net Book Agreement (no, not talking about small laptops). From 1900 to 1997, in the UK, book sellers were not allowed to sell books for anything below cover price, and if they attempted to, they would have all books by that publisher removed from their store. It was later thrown out due to being non-competitive. In order to get some of the publishers on the iPad bandwagon, Apple offered them the ability to more or less set their own prices. With the publishers being upset at Amazon offering eBooks at prices cheaper than what they feel the books should be marked, and this reminder of how the UK founded operated for nearly a century, Macmillan made it clear that they wished a similar agreement with Amazon. Now how firmly they made this request is up for debate, but obviously it was firm enough for Amazon to pull every Macmillan book from their site. This only lasted for a few days before Amazon saying that it infamously "capitulated" to it. (By the way, Webster's defines it as "to surrender after negotiation of terms" or "to cease resisting").
With this going on, the amount of power publishers once had and seem to be regaining reminds me of how much they already wield in the educational text arena. As you probably already know, school books are insanely expensive. I was looking at some of the books I need for this semester, and the cheapest of the lot is a collection of mostly public domain writings, for $70. They collected stories for free, printed them, and charge $70 to students who mostly are forced to buy it since they are typically unable to find out the contents of the book until after purchasing it. For my math class, the book is $170, and despite already having the previous edition which contains the same text, I am forced to buy this new one. After reviewing, the only apparently difference is that they changed up the order of the problems, so what was #21 on page 304, is now #28 on page 304. The "meat" of my old book is now useless.
As most of you would know, I am a proponent of the DRM-free movement. While I understand that content owners wish to protect their property, we as the consumers have rights too that must be respected. DRM inherently neglects the rights of the user, by limiting what the user can do, despite what is legal for the user to do. When I was looking at purchasing this semester's books, some offered an eBook option. Upon looking at the available ebooks, I noticed they were all in differing propietary DRM formats. All of these formats required use of a reader produced by the DRM company, and could not be used in any other reader. Worst of all, was that despite the ebooks costing nearly as much as the paper copies, some had time limits. After a certain date following the purchase, these books were no longer readable. Have a few classes use the same book? SOL unless you want to repurchase it each semester. If I am paying them money, why should they tell me how long I can use it? Who is looking out after my rights?
Right now, I'm working on a quick project, that combines a few of my interests; steampunk, ebooks, and classic fiction. I've started work on creating an ebook of Hartmann the Anarchist – or Doom of the Great City. It was written in 1892 by Edward Douglas Fawcett, brother of the inspiration for the Lost World. The story tells the tale of a dastardly man who attacks London from airships. I am doing the work with Sigil, which I've compiled versions for Ubuntu, and Debian.
Ok, things have been a bit crazy around here.
All this week I’ve been going through certification for Adtran routers and switches. I’m ASP, ATSA, and getting ready to take the test for ATSP certification. If you want to know about setting up adtran products, I’m your man.
Saturday, was woken up to someone beating on the door, yelling “YOUR HOUSE IS ON FIRE”. The entire garage was razed. Just rubble now. A few photos are up of the fire, from before the firefighters came, and after it was put out.
Right now, getting some money in. Finally getting the insurance settlement on my arm. Only took 4 and a half years. Also got the check from the kid’s insurance company, from when I was rear ended. Taking that to get a new car. Also, thinking of getting an ebook reader. Sony PRS-505 and the Hanlin V3 (Bebook, Ezreader, etc) are my main two choices. The PRS700’s screen looks like crap due to the touch panel added on, and some of the other choices just suck or are too expensive. I am also kinda considering a Kindle 2 and the Cool-er. Cool-er is linux based, but they’ve not released the GPL’ed portions of code they’ve used, which is very uncool. The Kindle is very linked in with Amazon, which makes me a little nervous (they’ve already gone in and deleted books from people’s machines after they were purchased for various readers), plus I really don’t need the wireless. Any thoughts?
