Nature of Man
… nothing that happens to Man is ever natural

25 July 2006, Tuesday

Steal This Genre

Filed under: Uncategorized — Mordred @ 16:40

Here is an article by Cory Doctorow that again touches (among other things) the subject of online “piracy” of books (it doesn’t usually involve steering ships, launching cannonballs and inflicting body wounds, hence the quotes in “piracy”).

I’ve discovered what many authors have also discovered: releasing electronic texts of books drives sales of the print editions. An SF writer’s biggest problem is obscurity, not piracy.

Baen Free Library operates since 2000 with legally free works of many authors, among whom we meet names like Bujold, Niven, Saberhagen.

And here’s video recordings of three lectures of Cory Doctorow, Richard Stallman and Fravia from a conference called “Copyright vs Community”.

Oh, and btw, Cory’s main point is:

Like I said, science fiction is the only literature people care enough about to steal on the Internet. It’s the only literature that regularly shows up, scanned and run through optical character recognition software and lovingly hand-edited on darknet newsgroups, Russian websites, IRC channels and elsewhere (yes, there’s also a brisk trade in comics and technical books, but I’m talking about prose fiction here — though this is clearly a sign of hope for our friends in tech publishing and funnybooks).

I like to imagine this factlet whispers about a fine feature in the nature of Man, and that future society (if there is one) may consist of a larger percent of people who care about books and humanity.

(For those that didn’t catch the reference: Steal This Book)

18 July 2006, Tuesday

The Natural Man Jumps

Filed under: Uncategorized — Mordred @ 17:11

The time to do your duty to Mother Earth has come!

20th July 2006, 13:39:13 GMT+2 - World Jump Day

Time to reverse the consequences of USA not respecting the Kyoto Protocol and do something for that climate. The power is in your hands weight, use it!

Be sure you’ve had lunch so your impact would be greater. Don’t jump from too high a place or you will also have an impact crater and scraping your remains off the pavement will cause additional atmosphere warming due to the friction between the shovel and the ground.

11 July 2006, Tuesday

Herr Mannelig

Filed under: Uncategorized — Mordred @ 15:02

A few weeks ago Galadriel sent me this translation of the Swedish medieval ballad Herr Mannelig (made popular by Garmarna, but also sung by In Extremo and Haggard), so today I finally find some time to post my own translation from several years ago.

The translated lyrics are intended to be sung, with the occasional change of stressed syllables. Since I don’t know Swedish, this was translated from the English translation by Alistair Cochrane. Special thanks to my friend Eowyn, who read the first draft and made comments and corrections based on the original lyrics.

A notable note ;) she made regarding the last verse: the she-troll was hoping to avoid burning in Hell (being a pagan creature and spawn of the devil) by marrying the christian lad. He, being a devout christian, of course resisted the elaborate bribes and apparently won immortality in both Heaven and song.

(Смяната на ударените срички е отбелязана с удебелени букви)

В едно ранно утро преди слънце да изгрей
Преди свят зората да събуди
Черна горска тролка на момък запя,
Със змийски лъжи го омайва:

Припев:
Сър Манелиг, Сър Манелиг, приставам ти аз
и за зестра всичко ти давам,
Кажи ми що желаеш, само “да” или “не”,
както сърце те зове

Давам ти жребци, дванадесет на чет,
Сал на сянка тучна трева пасли,
Никогаш седло не носили на гръб
И юзда не слагали в уста си

Припев: …

Давам воденици, дванадесет на чет,
Наредени от Тилло до Търно:
С камъни от злато червено блестят,
С колела в сребро обковани.

Припев: …

Давам ти меч със позлата и звън
от петнайсет пръстена златни.
Въртиш ли го в бран, замахнеш ли в бой,
Знай, победа няма да се бави.

Припев: …

Давам ти риза от чудно платно,
по-красива още не видяна,
Шита не с игла, не бродирана с конец,
А с коприна бяла тъкана

Припев: …

Дарове тъй знатни с готовност бих приел
Ако беше мома християнка,
Но горска мома си, баща ти е трол,
на дявола кръвен роднина

Припев: …

Горската тролка на прага стои
И със сълзи горчиви нарежда:
“Де да бях невеста на момъка красив,
от пъклото бих се спасила”

Припев: …

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