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John Lemke

Our Free Society Stands Or Falls With Our Defense Of Sharing Knowledge And Culture | To... - 0 views

  • For once the censorship regime is in place, you won’t think for a second that it will stop at culture-sharing sites, would you? Once such a tool is available in the bureaucrat toolbox, it will be applied to anything and everything considered insubordinate or troublesome. There is a reason the copyright industry loves child pornography so much – the reason that industry lobbied hard to create censorship of child abuse sites, actively hiding the problem and preventing assistance. They knew politicians wouldn’t dare disagree on such a toxic subject, and once the box was open, “other illegal sites” – those that circumvent the harmful copyright monopoly – were next in line. In reality, the culture-sharing hubs had been the target all along, and mentioning “child pornography” had merely been a battering ram to get the censorship started – notwithstanding that the censorship actually creates more child abuse and protects predators, something the copyright industry doesn’t care about at all.
  • In the UK, censorship that started as “violent pornography” has crept to “all pornography”, already censoring a lot of political opinion under that definition, and crept further into “extremist views” and other clearly political material.
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    The problem with censorship is that it starts with child porn, like who would object?, moves to Pirate Bay, then opposing political view points and, eventually, your Bible. Either all speech is free and protected or we are on the slippery slope of "what next" in order to protect "the greater good".   The best form of censorship is when free thinkers choose not to buy porn through the exercise of free will.
John Lemke

Elance: Please Sign In - 0 views

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    eLance has a reputation to be a resource for online freelancers, not only copywriters and writers, but of all variants. The free package offers so many "tokens" per month with which freelancers can bid on posted jobs in certain categories, premium accounts offer you more tokens and categories. Free accounts can bid in one category only unless invited. In December of 2013, it was announced that they had merged with oDesk, similar and competing service.
John Lemke

30 Sites For Legal (and Free) Torrents - 0 views

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    I like old horoor and sci-fi movies. Fortunately for me, many of those are in the public domain. Today, I am sharing a few legal torrent lists.
John Lemke

10 Amazing Free Online Writing Courses - Freelance Folder - 0 views

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    Personally, I love the price.
John Lemke

The Write Life Presents: The 100 Best Websites for Writers in 2014 - 0 views

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    Fellow writers, here is a list to keep you busy. Feel free to leave a comment as to which ones you like.
John Lemke

What happens with digital rights management in the real world? | Technology | theguardi... - 0 views

  • In 1997's Bernstein v United States, another US appeals court found that code was protected expression. Bernstein was a turning point in the history of computers and the law: it concerned itself with a UC Berkeley mathematician named Daniel Bernstein who challenged the American prohibition on producing cryptographic tools that could scramble messages with such efficiency that the police could not unscramble them. The US National Security Agency (NSA) called such programs "munitions" and severely restricted their use and publication. Bernstein published his encryption programs on the internet, and successfully defended his right to do so by citing the First Amendment. When the appellate court agreed, the NSA's ability to control civilian use of strong cryptography was destroyed. Ever since, our computers have had the power to keep secrets that none may extract except with our permission – that's why the NSA and GCHQ's secret anti-security initiatives, Bullrun and Edgehill, targetted vulnerabilities in operating systems, programs, and hardware. They couldn't defeat the maths (they also tried to subvert the maths, getting the US National Institute for Standards in Technology to adopt a weak algorithm for producing random numbers).
    • John Lemke
       
      This is also why they have a hard on for developing a quantum computer.
  • An increase in the security of the companies you buy your media from means a decrease in your own security. When your computer is designed to treat you as an untrusted party, you are at serious risk: anyone who can put malicious software on your computer has only to take advantage of your computer's intentional capacity to disguise its operation from you in order to make it much harder for you to know when and how you've been compromised.
  • The DMCA's injunction against publishing weaknesses in DRM means that its vulnerabilities remain unpatched for longer than in comparable systems that are not covered by the DMCA. That means that any system with DRM will on average be more dangerous for its users than one without DRM.
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  • For example, in 2005, Sony-BMG music shipped a DRM called the "Sony Rootkit" on 51m audio CDs. When one of these CDs was inserted into a PC, it automatically and undetectably changed the operating system so that it could no longer see files or programs that started with "$SYS$." The rootkit infected millions of computers, including over 200,000 US military and government networks, before its existence became public. However, various large and respected security organisations say they knew about the Sony Rootkit months before the disclosure, but did not publish because they feared punishment under the DMCA. Meanwhile, virus-writers immediately began renaming their programs to begin with $SYS$, because these files would be invisible to virus-checkers if they landed on a computer that had been compromised by Sony.
    • John Lemke
       
      How the Sony DRM created serious security issues.  It should also be considered a violation of our civil rights.  Who the hell gave Sony permission to modify my OS!  Furthermore why didn't the OS companies sue Sony?  Likely because they are in bed together.
  • If I was a canny entrepreneur with a high appetite for risk -- and a reasonable war-chest for litigation – I would be thinking very seriously about how to build a technology that adds legal features to a DRM-enfeebled system (say, Itunes/Netflix/Amazon video), features that all my competitors are too cowardly to contemplate. The potential market for devices that do legal things that people want to do is titanic, and a judgment that went the right way on this would eliminate a serious existential threat to computer security, which, these days, is a synonym for security itself.And once anti-circumvention is a dead letter in America, it can't survive long in the rest of the world. For one thing, a product like a notional Itunes/Amazon/Netflix video unlocker would leak across national borders very easily, making non-US bans demonstrably pointless. For another, most countries that have anti-circumvention on the books got there due to pressure from the US Trade Representative; if the US drops anti-circumvention, the trading partners it armed-twisted into the same position won't be far behind.I've talked to some lawyers who are intimate with all the relevant cases and none of them told me it was a lost cause (on the other hand, none of them said it was a sure thing, either). It's a risky proposition, but something must be done. You see, contrary to what the judge in Reimerdes said in 2000, this has nothing to do with whether information is free or not – it's all about whether people are free.
  • The DMCA is a long and complex instrument, but what I'm talking about here is section 1201: the notorious "anti-circumvention" provisions. They make it illegal to circumvent an "effective means of access control" that restricts a copyrighted work. The companies that make DRM and the courts have interpreted this very broadly, enjoining people from publishing information about vulnerabilities in DRM, from publishing the secret keys hidden in the DRM, from publishing instructions for getting around the DRM – basically, anything that could conceivably give aid and comfort to someone who wanted to do something that the manufacturer or the copyright holder forbade.
  • Significantly, in 2000, a US appeals court found (in Universal City Studios, Inc v Reimerdes) that breaking DRM was illegal, even if you were trying to do something that would otherwise be legal. In other words, if your ebook has a restriction that stops you reading it on Wednesdays, you can't break that restriction, even if it would be otherwise legal to read the book on Wednesdays.
John Lemke

Use Hemingway's Advice to Rewrite Like a Pro - 0 views

  • Hemingway, like all experienced writers, showed a willingness to sacrifice each fresh layer of words in order to stay true to his overarching story.
  • Give yourself some distance Don’t confuse taking time away from a project with slacking off or quitting. A little distance may give you a new vantage point from which to look again. The word revise comes from the Latin revisere, “to look at again.” Tell your story aloud Share your story over coffee (or on the phone) with a friend or acquaintance. If you can, record yourself doing so, using free conference calling or pairing Skype with Audio Hijack or another program. Then listen back.
John Lemke

SEO copywriting roundup: Hottest posts week of Dec. 17, 2013 » SEO Copywriting - 0 views

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    This is a nice list of writing articles from the past year. It has a good number of sources I recognize and just as many new ones. It certainly looks worth the time to explore. Feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts on any one of them.
John Lemke

The Unlost E-Course: Review - 0 views

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    The course is not free.
John Lemke

13 Ebooks and Courses That Make Great Holiday Gifts for Writers - 0 views

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    I actually have a few of these ebooks and I am aware of the success of some of the other authors on the list. In my opinion, especially for the cost of free, these 13 should be worth checking out.
John Lemke

Most Popular Clever Uses and MacGyver Tips of 2013 - 0 views

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    It is time for all of those end of year lists. I did not get to check all of these out but lifehacker.com is a daily read for me in my feeder. Feel free to share your thoughts and tips in the comments here.
John Lemke

Is Paranoia Preventing YOU From Finding Success as a Writer? | Positive Writer - 0 views

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    A good perspective to stay motivated.  Also includes a link to a free e-book.
John Lemke

AJ Kohn talks Hummingbird, social, authority, writing and MUCH more! » SEO Co... - 0 views

  • My mantra is to do it instead of thinking about doing it. If I catch myself doing the latter I just switch to doing instead of thinking. Easier said than done for me, but I’ve gotten better at that. But there aren’t enough hours in the day. Or not if you’re also going to stay healthy and be a part of your family and not get burnt out. So things fall off the table, even more so if you’re hell bent on creating really great work. Yet, I find that quality is what wins at the end of the day and that solves a lot of other problems.
  • People scan and don’t read, so you have to format your content to meet that reality.
  • And if they share it, you gain greater readership. So I encourage writers to think of the entire canvas when creating content. Think about the headers in your piece and about the images you’ll use to enrich the story.
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  • Writers still concentrate too much on the text and not enough on formatting and presentation. Making the content you create readable, portable and memorable is what will gain success.
  • The other thing that I think was important was commenting (with links) on other content.
  • I believe in 90-9-1 participation inequality. Comments are the area on a piece of content where the 9 (contributors) and the 1 (creators) are most frequently found. Those are the people I wanted to connect with because I had a better chance of them carrying my content to other places. And they did.
  • Social media is a key factor in SEO and Internet marketing for businesses and individuals. You rock at social media, sharing across multiple platforms and gaining reach. Social media can be intimidating and time consuming. What advice do you have for managing individual as well as business social accounts? Well you hit on the big issue; it’s time consuming and most people don’t want to invest that amount of time. So that’s the first thing. You can’t half-ass it and expect to do very well. One of the things I try to do is make my content on these platforms consistent, readable and memorable. On Twitter I decided to use a convention for the vast majority of my tweets. [Activity]: [Title] [URL] [Comment] [Hashtag]
  • The last one is to not do work for free.
  • Well, I’m seeing more and more evidence of what I describe happening and believe that Knowledge Graph Optimization (KGO) is going to be more and more important moving forward.
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    Many good points about writing in this new era are brought out in this interview.
John Lemke

USB Implementers Forum Says No to Open Source - 0 views

  • Please immediately cease and desist raising funds to purchase a unique USB VID for the purpose of transferring, reselling or sublicensing PIDs and delete all references to the USB-IF, VIDs and PIDs for transfer, resale or sublicense from your website and other marketing materials.
  • Arachnid Labs had an interesting idea to solve this problem. Since other USB device vendors such as Microchip and FTDI give away USB PIDs for free, a not for profit foundation could buy a VID, give PIDs away to foundation members making open source hardware, and we would all live in a magical world of homebrew devices that are certified as USB compliant.
John Lemke

This One Tiny Habit Can Help You Become a More Productive (and Wealthier) Freelancer | ... - 0 views

  • “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Aristotle
  • Not only did his book confirm for me that the best way to create a positive change is through small acts repeated daily, but the book was exceptionally well written and researched — impressive in that the author is not a professional writer — and so applicable to the many writers I meet who struggle with getting query letters out the door or writing big projects like books and novels.
  • There are two kinds of motivation. The first type is having a reason for doing something. My motivation for exercise is to look and feel healthy. My motivation for doing this interview is that you asked me to do it and I want to spread the word about mini habits. Unlike the next definition of motivation, your reason for doing things is generally very stable and changes very little over time. There’s also emotional motivation, which is rooted in enthusiasm and determines your willingness to take action in the moment (“This year I’m going to get in shape so I’m off to the gym!”). Most goal systems rely on this type of motivation; they’ll tell you that you need to find this motivation to succeed. The problem is that emotional motivation isn’t reliable or habit friendly.
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  • There’s a quote from Sun Tzu’s Art of War which sums up the Mini Habit system: “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.” By taking one small action a day—just one small behavior change—we start with a win. After that point, you’re free to do more.
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    The article talks about taking small steps to make a big difference.
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