Journal entries in the "Writing" category
Law Code: a new website for a new topic
Rather than keep on posting my random thoughts about the effects of code and law, I thought it might be good to create a new website for the discussion of the effects of the adoption of code as a means of regulating behaviour.
If you have any interest in the questions of why countries filter the Internet, of why speed bumps are preferred to simple car speeding laws, of how Alex in A Clockwork Orange may be our future, I heartily recommend that you take a look at lawcode.net, a place where a few friends and myself will attempt to bring these questions into the open, with the hope that as time goes by, people from all over will contribute articles or short columns.
You don’t need to be a lawyer and you don’t need to be a technologist. All you need is an interest, however remote, in the questions that will appear there. So why not take a look and see what you think?
Law Code: choice is but a memory.
The Order of the Two Magpies
An art historian, P.C., who wishes to remain anonymous, has uncovered a plot deeper and more fascinating than any work of fiction by Dan Brown: that of the Order of the Two Magpies.
It is a tale of intrigue and mystery to which the only clues are to be found in art, in a vast collection of paintings dating back to the 15th century.
The existence of the Order of the Two Magpies was unknown to most of the world for many centuries, but on 3 June 2010, P.C. discovered an anomaly in a number of paintings exhibited at the National Gallery, London: there appeared to be a motif common to art of different eras, namely a constant depiction of two birds, generally resembling magpies. Their significance, at first deemed to be a mere coincidence, soon led to the unraveling of the greatest mystery known to man.
An opening scene
The boy looked uncomfortable, and his forehead was starting to shine. His shirt collar was hanging down inelegantly. Who wore a green shirt anyway? He was cute, obviously a romantic fool, but he wouldn’t last two more minutes.
“This is a nice place,” he said with a hesitant smile.
Look me in the eye, the girl wanted to reply as his eyes returned from examining the surroundings to staring at her lips. Instead, she nodded. Why had she accepted his invitation?
“And it’s nice that they allow you to take your pet with you.”
The girl’s thoughts went straight to Artemis, the animal nested on her lap. She felt Artemis stiffen, and she stroked her on the neck to soothe her. It was inevitable that people would mistake a firnex for an unintelligent pet, probably thinking it was a simple fennec fox, but speaking with so little tact and by repeating a bland adjective demonstrated stupidity.
Intellectual property and the world today
The more I study intellectual property (IP), and the more I see its daily uses, the more inadequate I find the prevalent IP systems.
It’s frustrating, because I hope to work in this very field (I find it fascinating), and all I seem to see are the manners in which people have been slowly destroying the system by acting in a way that they believe helps the system.
A new literary favourite
In my life so far, I have read books in too great a number for me to judge, and over the years, my tastes have evolved (as with films, music, …). I have enjoyed many books, adored some, abhorred a couple (some of which I was forced to keep on reading for school), and it seemed to be firmly established that the books that most captured my imagination were Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.
But today, something strange happened: I had tears in my eyes upon reading the ending of another book, a newly discovered gem of literature.
Tears in my eyes! When faced with writing, the only time this has happened to me was while writing certain sections of the Arpia novel.
I must conclude that this book, which I found hard to set aside, has conquered my heart.
Its title? Scaramouche, by Rafael Sabatini (an Italian gentleman who wrote in English).
Its content? The tale of a young man who goes from the robe (lawyer) to the buskin (actor) to the sword (maître d’armes) around the period of the Révolution française.
Go read it. Now.
A poem for womankind
Our world is like a garden,
Eternally in blossom
The saplings grow,
The flowers bloom,
And no plant can be forgottenThey come in all colours and sizes,
A feast upon the eyes
As I walk among them,
As if in paradise,
It is I that each one mesmerisesAt first glance all I see is beauty
Superficial and yet so true
I draw closer and see
What they shall live to be
And behold them in all their gloryIt is like being close to a phoenix
Or an angel whose heart is pure
When they shine like the sun with goodness,
With a smile any ill they will cureBetween passion and admiration,
Both in doubt and feeling too sure,
I cannot help respecting and loving them,
These beings with the power to lureWhat would the world be without them,
With no such treasure to discover?
If we live, if we die,
These words are no lie:
We exist to serve these women.
Cyberlaw – an area of law?
Short essay done for class – because it’s more opinion than anything, I thought I might share it. Warning: legal stuff.
What is cyberlaw? Cyberlaw is the law applicable in ‘cyberspace’, a seemingly ‘global-economic zone, borderless and unregulatable’ (John Perry Barlow in 1966, quoted in Reed, 2004). Yet, as Chris Reed argues, it is possible to proceed to a localisation in the ‘physical’ world of the constituent elements of any given activity in cyberspace, and national laws will therefore apply, in accordance with rules on applicable law (such as the Rome I and Rome II Regulations, at the level of the European Union).
Therefore, there are as many legal orders in cyberspace as there are national (or supranational) legal orders.
Having made these preliminary remarks, the original question, to which the introductory statement refers, remains: is cyberlaw an area of law?
Re: Enquiry A8992bc8-1114EE
Persecuted, shunned, hunted down like prey. No longer human, no longer living, just a curse to be wiped off the face of this planet, Stradio.
A monstrosity, that’s what they are. Freaks of nature.
This is their story, this is their tale. This is their suffering, this is their pain.
Filtering information on the internet
While the world discusses Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize (I’m on the “what has he done so far?” side), I wish to draw your attention to something entirely different: law and technology.
I am in the process of finding a topic for the 15,000-word dissertation that I shall write during this year, and therefore wish to lay out my current ideas, in the hope that one or two might give their opinion.
When using the internet, most of us feel free: we can type anything in Google, and find our way to a million different results. We can go to Amazon or eBay, search for anything, and probably find one or two things of interest to us. We can read a blog, click on a link, and find ourselves reading articles of diverging points of view. A seemingly infinite realm of information is available at our fingertips.
However, all is not golden in this world of apparent freedom. In many States (from China to the UK), users are limited in their use of the internet by “filters”, which are meant to block access to specific (categories of) websites. Certain items of information are blocked in a more specific manner at the level of websites, when the website owner/administrator/moderator applies censorship. All in all, these intermediaries control available information.
As such, when user tries to access content, such access may be denied. Sometimes, the user is fully unaware of the existence of the information in question, but not all the time. Does this hinder freedom of access to information? Does this hinder the information creator’s freedom of speech? Whence does the right to censor/block information come? Is the creator or intermediary liable to the user if illegal/offensive/… material isn’t blocked? Is the intermediary liable to the creator or to the user for information wrongfully blocked? Does the creator not have a right to access the information created by himself?
This is the kind of question that I believe I would ask and try to answer. Concerns of legitimacy and effectiveness must be addressed, though the focus would be the legal point of view.
Any thoughts on the matter?
Arpia – version 1, at 171,060 words
The day has finally come where I can say the following: I have finished writing Arpia.
I never imagined it would happen, but I have indeed written the last words of the full version 1 of the Arpia novel (version 1 as in “the parts that haven’t been revised three times already will be revised, and I’ll then revise the entire thing”).
As such, the Arpia novel page has been updated, and I’m in dire need of reviewers for the whole thing (I already have some reviews for part I [the first half], but you can never get enough reviews).
If you are therefore interested in reviewing the novel, letting me know what doesn’t flow, what is amazing, what is awful, do drop me a line by using the contact form.
To get some of you intrigued (hopefully), here are the very last lines of the novel:
One mind pondered a question.
“Is she ready now?”
The answer came from the second mind.
“We shall consult with the Shroud.”
If you know who the Shroud are, you’ll get easier access to the novel for review.