Journal entries in the "Writing" category
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.
Master Thesis: Use of Comparative Law in European Law
I’m very proud to present you all with my newest creation, one on which my whole year depends: my Master Thesis, or “Mémoire”.
For our Master in Laws degree in Belgium, we are required to write a 60-page paper. For me, the subject was the use of comparative law in European law. In other words, it’s all about whether the European institutions draw inspiration from the laws of Member States when creating their own law.
Clocking in at 63 pages (81 pages with the cover, table of contents and bibliography), my Mémoire analyses in a first stage whether in general, the European institutions make use of comparative law. In the second part, I analyse a number of different, recent acts, to determine whether the use of comparative law has had any influence on the act’s content.
Now, I won’t recommend reading this if the general idea isn’t remotely interesting to you.
If on the other hand the idea piques your interest, rest assured that I have tried to make the content fully accessible to people with no knowledge of law (well, at least the first part – the second uses a bunch of legal concepts).
So, if interested, you can view/download/print the PDF document: Use of Comparative Law in European Law.
Note the “Peter A. Craddock”, to avoid confusion with the other Peter Craddocks of the world.
French spelling buried by the Académie Française
Spelling is the most visual part of a language, because it is used to create visual representations of words. When at school, children learn to spell correctly, according to the language of a country or region. In Britain, children are taught British English (theoretically, anyway). In the United States, kids learn US English. In Belgium, they are taught either Dutch or Belgian French. And so on, and so forth.
However, this transmission of spelling knowledge from generation to generation does not prevent a language from evolving. As such, new words are added, and with time, certain spellings change as well. The difference between American and British English is a very good example, where history led to the creation of two different standardised (standardized in US English) spellings.
It is only when codified that spelling becomes nigh immutable. After that happens, change is met with virulent reactions.
Read the rest of this entry »
Unbidden, doubt creeps in
With 10-20.000 words to go, the Arpia novels have reached a stage I might consider “critical”: 160.000 words are set in ink, and therefore about 90% of the writing is fully done, not counting the “revision 1″ phase half of the writing still has to undergo.
It’s strange to think that I’ve been working on the Arpia novels since the summer of 2005, over 3 and a half years.
What is even stranger, however, is the fact that I never seemed to ask myself one specific question until now: is it book-material, i.e. is it any good?
Comics and bandes dessinées
Called the “9th Art”, the comic art is something everyone is bound to have encountered at least once in their lives, especially in a country like Belgium, which is considered to be the home of the comic strip.
I grew up with the Belgian “Bande Dessinée” and with a few British comic strips, so I thought I might as well compile a list of those comic strips which shaped my youth… and will probably continue to shape my adulthood.
Hope returns to Culuria
Returned to writing some of Arpia. Long day, so I deserved it.
Five days went by, and life returned to Culuria, despite growing doubts about the fate of Argoal and Fezzan’s team. Parmil took the girls out to each open exhibition or cinema she could find. Though no one was sure what to expect of the future, the present seemed bright enough not to be afraid.
Just before three in the afternoon in Yubenia, a message was spoken out in the speakers. Parmil and the girls stopped walking in front of the Bardrien Memorial Park entrance and listened carefully.
The Hogun are dead
It is done. It is over. The Hogun are dead.
It was probably Arpia’s greatest battle, and many perished, on land and in space. Yet, in the end, against all odds (approximately), Arpia prevailed.
You don’t know the Hogun?
The writing never stops
Weird thing, writing a novel. Novels, really. The more you’ve written, the further away the end seems. At least, I’m currently at that point in Arpia volume 2 (I’m starting to wonder whether the two volumes shouldn’t be offered to publishers as one, with the option to divide it in two within the book).
Volume 1, currently entitled “Arpia, Flight of Dawn” (FoD, vol. 1), is 90.000 words long (some 190 A4 pages). And while I believe “Arpia, Fight of Eve” (FoE, vol. 2) will be as long, I’m now at 110 pages completed, or 53.000 words.