So, Farthing went from really, really good to holy-crap-can’t-put-it-down good about 15 pages after I stopped to post yesterday. I don’t want the book to end; I stopped at the bookstore on the way home today to pick up Ha’Penny, the sequel, but it wasn’t in stock. *grr*

So it’s wending it’s way to me on the wings of Amazon angels (at 2/3rd the price, as well); I should have it Monday. Luckily, I can switch back to the Temeraire series (book 3: Black Powder War) while I wait.

I’ll have a paperback copy of Farthing by Monday as well, for any IRL folks who want to give it a whirl. Recommended.

I felt amazingly fortunate today. During my ride to and from work, and while I had free time otherwise, I was able to listen to an great podcast and read an awesome book…both free. Vive la Chris Anderson!

The podcast was a Long Now SALT presentation by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, perhaps best known for the book The Black Swan. I’ve followed his work for a couple of years now, and this talk was vintage Taleb; uncompromising, challenging, and unabashedly controversial. Great, great stuff. I keep bumping in to authors and lecturers that help me crystallize beliefs from intuition; Nassim Taleb is one of those people.

The book is Farthing, by Jo Walton. I was lucky enough to catch it as a free ebook (for my N770), given away by Tor Books as they drum up interest in their new website/fiction portal (an ebook a week, folks…check it out!). Farthing was already on my wishlist, and I will definitely be buying it (for the author’s sake, and as an evangelizing borrow-book).

It’s an old-fashioned English murder mystery…set in a alternate history post-WWII Great Britain where Churchill was deposed and a Nazi offer for peace in 1941 accepted. Germany controls the continent, and an increasingly fascist-leaning Britian grapples with the tensions and intrigues of THIS new world order.

The background is revealed naturally, as the novel progresses. The pace is great, the characters are cast beautifully into the English class system, and the story seems to be progressing well (I’m 3/4 through). I can’t wait to finish…and this is book one of an at least three book series. Joy.

Both the podcast and the book are some of the best works I’ve come across in recent memory; to hit high points in both my primary mediums at once is a great thing. Thanks very, very much to both Nassim Taleb and Jo Walton for their great work and their generosity in making it available gratis. I predict that you’ll find it well worth it.

I love Boing Boing. It’s a great aggregator, which is a important function on the Web, but I also have a great deal of affinity for many of the topics they favor. Civil and cyber liberties, for example…

• US customs bar fashionista druggie writer for moral turpitude — Sweet Mercy…can we please find some better things to do? It’s one thing to turn someone away for convictions, illegalities, etc. (albeit still something worth arguing about; I disagree with many of the drug-based [victimless crime] indictments). But it’s entirely another to toss out phrases like moral turpitude on an entry denial. As our friend John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey says: Everybody who wants to live in the 21st Century over here. Everybody who wants to live in the 1800’s over there. Good. Thanks. Good luck with that. (By the way, pause and read the Kung Fu Monkey post. The man’s a genius. I’ll wait.)
• WWII Bomber: Trademark Infringement — *growl* I hate these bastards. Abusing legislature like the DMCA that’s already crazily overbroad is simply inexcusable. Read Cory’s comments here…he knows his stuff (used to work for the EFF, on exactly this sort of thing). These people are happily taking advantage of the common conflation of 3 different sets of law…trademark, copyright, and patent. They’re different, folks, and different rules apply. Each of them was developed with specific balances in mind, and to take the parts of each that are most advantageous to you is wrong, unethical, and deceptive. Makes me crazy, and it’s the reason I dislike the term intellectual property, which promotes the confusion.

Interesting! Amie Street provides a RSS feed of my music purchases that I can share. Sounds like a good idea! I just bought Sick of Being Stoned today, and it friggin’ rocks.

My Amie Street purchases RSS feed (link removed, see UPDATE 3 below)

And, what the hell, the player for Sick of Being Stoned…

UPDATE: I edited the RSS feed link above; trying again. It appeared to act strangely (WAY too many results) in Google Reader. If it did the same for you, try dropping it and re-add the edited one. Fingers crossed.

UPDATE 2: Thanks to their Amie Street spotlight page for this link: LOLCat video for Sick of Being Stoned. Excellent!!

UPDATE 3: After watching Google Reader wig out on this feed twice, I’m removing the link for now. Something is being constantly updated, metadata-wise, and the feed isn’t working as intended. I’m going to touch base w/ Amie Street on it…they’ve been very open to suggestions and willing to communicate on things in the past. I think a feed of my purchases would be a great idea, and I’m sure they’d like it to work as expected. Hopefully I’ll have good news soon.

Wow…I mean, I’ve always found the notion of papal infallibility cool and all (well, ok, Coke-through-the-nose funny, really…but cool sounds better), but it’s got NOTHIN’ on the President. Secrecy News links to the text of a recent Congressional floor statement where Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) described the contents of three Office of Legal Council opinions that he had been able to review. Among the gems:

• An Executive order cannot limit a President. There is no
  constitutional requirement for a President to issue a new
  Executive order whenever he wishes to depart from the terms
  of a previous Executive order. Rather than violate an
  Executive order, the President has instead modified or waived
  it.
• The President, exercising his constitutional authority
  under article II, can determine whether an action is a lawful
  exercise of the President’s authority under article II.

Awesome! It’s like superpowers!!

PS: Yes, all my Catholic compadres, I am aware of (at least generally) the nuances of papal infallibility. I was fascinated with it at one point in time, and spent some time researching the subject. Fun stuff.

Friday was hectic and the weekend was pretty sucky, so I actually missed this: House Passes Spy Bill, Rejects Telcom Amnesty Despite Veto Threat. Bravo! Of course, who knows what’ll end up coming out of conference committee, but this was a principled stance, and I’m really happy about it.

If we stick with it, the vote against telecom immunity will be a real win for transparency. I’m impressed at how well they’ve stood up…oh. Crap: House to Close Its Doors for Spying Bill — It wasn’t clear what information would be presented in the closed session…[Senator] Whitehouse said the documents assert that the president has the power to determine what his constitutional powers are, particularly in a time of war.

Queue the 24 references, and the arm-twisting…*sigh* And, of course, after a secret House session, if you vote against this, you obviously want the terrorists to win.

My prediction…after this session, the bill (including telecom immunity provisions) passes. (Boy, do I hope I’m wrong, though). We are well and truly fucked.

I ran across a link to Charlie Stross’s Scratch Monkey in ebook form on Friday…had to d/l it to my Nokia straightaway. It’s a very early novel of Charlie’s (which you can tell in certain spots) but overall, it’s brilliant. I see bits and pieces of later characters here and there; I always enjoy exploring an author’s work as it evolves over time. Exactly my type of fiction, too…I’m loving it. If you like the kind of wacky sci-fi I do, you’ll love it too. Thanks for sharing, Charlie!

Yow…Radley Balko posts a link on a great thought experiment: The Mukasey Paradox — Under Mukasey’s Paradox, lawyers cannot commit crimes when they act under the orders of a president — and a president cannot commit a crime when he acts under advice of lawyers.

Thanks, Radley…I think. My head hurts now.

Awesome: My kids don’t know what ‘radio’ is — I love ya, Cam.

I just realized I’m posting this while jamming to a song (Save Myself) from Chinese Whispers. A band I’ve never heard on the radio, and whose music I bought (yeah, I still do that) on the Internet. Telling. (Of course, the next song in my 5-star playlist was REM. *shrug*)