Random Rants 79: [Impassionating Intensifies]

[Valka D'Ur]

Could you not open the hyperlink? PG has not been blocked by order of the German authorities, PG did it themselves.

The TLDR (as I understand it) is that the PG staff are currently appealing the verdict on a civil court case brought against them by a German publisher (actually a global publishing conglomerate, which also owns e.g. MacMillan), in a German court, with respect to (alleged) copyright-infringement on the texts of 18 books, written by 3 long-dead German authors (including Thomas Mann), for which the US copyright has long-since expired, putting those works into the public domain in the USA (but apparently not in Germany, at least according to the German publisher's claim).

The court ruled against the publisher's demand that those 18 texts should be removed from PG altogether, but did rule that they be made unavailable for download by German PG-users (i.e. effectively, that German copyright law should apply to a website which is not based in Germany/Europe, nor staffed by German/European citizens, and whose content is primarily in languages other than German).

However, PG's position is that no court inside or outside the USA should be allowed to assume (by precedent) the legal power to demand that PG remove (or block) any (US) public-domain works from its shelves, at the whim of any publisher with the resources to pursue such (frivolous) cases — hence their appeal. But until that appeal has been ruled on, they have blocked Germany as a precaution, to avoid prejudicing their case.

It was very late at night/early morning when I read this, so I was likely too sleepy to understand it properly. Thanks for the explanation.

So it seems that Project Gutenberg didn't really want to do it, but felt they had to. Hopefully this will be cleared up soon. In the meantime, is there anything in particular you wanted to read there?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I talked to management and they said the company has banned pets from all upper floors on all of their buildings. They are not going to assist with relocating so not only am I being evicted over a policy change in two months, I have to foot the bill for moving as well.

 

[Cutlass]

Turn's out Mom's dog is an alcoholic. She'll have a glass of wine on the end table, get up for some reason, and when she gets back, the wine is gone.

 

[rah]

As for what conventions I've attended and the likelihood of finding fanfic there, take a look at your location and then take a look at mine. You're in a major city where the conventions are HUGE compared to the small city I live in and the cities where I attended conventions (Edmonton, Calgary, Red Deer, and Banff).

Which is why I was wondering about the condescension of your WTH comment.
And no, I have enough issues finding decent books to read without dipping into Fan Fic.
As I've said, my experience with it has been almost all bad.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Which is why I was wondering about the condescension of your WTH comment.
And no, I have enough issues finding decent books to read without dipping into Fan Fic.
As I've said, my experience with it has been almost all bad.

MY condescension? Seriously, WTH?

Okay, I have to ask: Where have you looked? Which sites? Which fandom(s) are you talking about? The reason I'm asking is because when I've had this discussion with other people, I am usually able to find them at least a place to look for stories they might like, and at times I'm able to find them a specific story they end up really liking. I'm talking about fandoms for TV shows, books, movies, games, comics... there are even fanfic stories based on the bible and Shakespeare.

There are millions of stories on the internet. Fanfiction.net itself contains something in the neighborhood of 10,000 stories for Star Trek Voyager, not counting the crossovers, and not counting the other series and movies. There are some fandoms that have many more thousands of stories. And that's just one site. There are lots of other fanfiction sites, so I have trouble believing you've checked all of them and found a total of zero things you've at least found acceptable.

 

[rah]

And another WTH

AS I stated twice already. Most of it (in my experience) is garbage written my wanna bes. (not you of course)
Why would I want to sift through 10k stories for Voyager to find the 100 that are probably any good? The series wasn't even THAT good.
I learn from my experiences, and they have been horrible. Enough said.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

And another WTH

AS I stated twice already. Most of it (in my experience) is garbage written my wanna bes. (not you of course)
Why would I want to sift through 10k stories for Voyager to find the 100 that are probably any good? The series wasn't even THAT good.
I learn from my experiences, and they have been horrible. Enough said.

What experiences? I've asked you a series of questions, which you've ignored. I'm offering you a challenge, to challenge me to find you something you might consider at least acceptable. It doesn't have to be Voyager; I just mentioned it because Voyager, Bonanza, and The Borgias are the fandoms I'm most familiar with (note they are all very different genres: science fiction, western, and historical drama). Some recent examples include The Handmaid's Tale. People are saying they can't wait for season 4, what to do in the meantime? They said they wanted specific types of stories, and I found them, posted a link, and the person can read at his/her leisure. If they enjoy them, great. If not, at least they tried.

I'm offering you some shortcuts to use to help filter out the garbage. You think I spent all that money collecting print 'zines without doing some research on them? That's what Fanlore.org is good for. It evaluates the different titles in a neutral way, neither saying "this is something you should collect" nor "this is garbage, avoid it".

Archive Of Our Own is even more exacting with filters and tags. That's where I found some really good C.J. Cherryh stories, based on her Alliance-Union series. A couple of the stories are so good that they could have been written by Cherryh herself.

Fanfiction.net is where I found the 10,000 Voyager stories. Granted, some of them are awful. Some aren't finished; the author abandoned them. But there are some I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to someone who likes certain character pairings, or certain types of stories.

Orion Press has some interesting stories, some of which do a hell of a lot better job of explaining the changes in Klingons between TOS and the movies and TNG than the shows themselves did.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I could point you to a fanfic story that has had over a hundred thousand views. That implies it is pretty good, at least in theory.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I talked to management and they said the company has banned pets from all upper floors on all of their buildings. They are not going to assist with relocating so not only am I being evicted over a policy change in two months, I have to foot the bill for moving as well.

Are there no CA tenant laws to help or slow down the eviction?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I could point you to a fanfic story that has had over a hundred thousand views. That implies it is pretty good, at least in theory.

One of yours?

 

[bernie14]

I talked to management and they said the company has banned pets from all upper floors on all of their buildings. They are not going to assist with relocating so not only am I being evicted over a policy change in two months, I have to foot the bill for moving as well.

Can you make your pet an emotional support animal?

Edit. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclop...s-service-dogs-emotional-support-animals.html

 

[Timsup2nothin]

One of yours?

Yeah. Unfortunately, I can relate to Rah's position. I really can't bring myself to wading around looking for good stuff.

 

[Zkribbler]

My internet has been slowing down for weeks now. Two weeks ago, it stopped completely. It used to be a monopoly but no more. Tuesday, I signed up with a new provider, which should be installed "within two weeks."

So...see you in September.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Yeah. Unfortunately, I can relate to Rah's position. I really can't bring myself to wading around looking for good stuff.

It's a shame. I guess I'm just persistent. There are some books I've been searching for since 1975. That's 44 YEARS. Next to that, browsing the lists of fandoms I'm in the mood to read is a picnic, especially when I'm discovering that there are certain authors whose stories I know I'm going to enjoy. What's frustrating with Doctor Who is sifting the nuWho from the Classic Who.

It takes patience. Unfortunately, there are so many people nowadays who want everything NOW.

There are fanfic sites out there that are specifically dedicated to Bonanza. I've heard of them, found one, lost the link, but plan to search for it again. And there are over a dozen Borgias stories I haven't read because they're not in English (need to brush up on my French). Ditto the Darkover stories in Portuguese. I don't read that language, so this is incentive to learn (Google translate misses the nuances).

 

[tjs282]

Hella annoying but I think I'll be reading Der Untertan if they've got it in English translation...

Pretty sure the dispute is over German-language editions of those books. But being a US-ian, you'd still be able to access the PG eBook-versions in either language anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Untertan

Hmmm... Based on the synopsis, looks like it might be a timely read for a lot of folks in the US right now...

Interesting that its English translations have been published under various titles, too — presumably more or less neutral depending on the politics of the respective editor(s)!

So it seems that Project Gutenberg didn't really want to do it, but felt they had to. Hopefully this will be cleared up soon. In the meantime, is there anything in particular you wanted to read there?

Ooh, only everything!

No, seriously, last time I could access the site, I found a whole bunch of pre-1970s (pulp) sci-fi (e.g. Barsoom, Lensman, Heinlein, Simak, Bradbury) which I might well be inclined to borrow*, or buy as secondhand paperbacks if I could find them, but would certainly be interested in reading as (free) eBooks in the meantime.

*Pretty sure that my Dad has the entire Lensman series — he certainly did at one point — but he lives in the USA, so well beyond practical borrowing-distance for me.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Pretty sure the dispute is over German-language editions of those books. But being a US-ian, you'd still be able to access the PG eBook-versions in either language anyway.

I am not a "US-ian." I'm Canadian. And yes, I hopped over there and bookmarked the link for The Count of Monte Cristo, which I've been wanting to read for ages (since I played the computer game and decided to read the novel it's based on).

No, seriously, last time I could access the site, I found a whole bunch of pre-1970s (pulp) sci-fi (e.g. Barsoom, Lensman, Heinlein, Simak, Bradbury) which I might well be inclined to borrow*, or buy as secondhand paperbacks if I could find them, but would certainly be interested in reading as (free) eBooks in the meantime.

I belong to a Yahoo group where someone mentioned links to find some of this stuff. I could look it up for you, if you're interested. There are a lot of pulp novels mentioned in those posts.

*Pretty sure that my Dad has the entire Lensman series — he certainly did at one point — but he lives in the USA, so well beyond practical borrowing-distance for me.

I have part of the Lensman series in my collection.

Actually, it might be worth trying Amazon Kindle, assuming it's available where you are. You don't actually need a Kindle, as there's an app you can download to your computer (it's free). The books still cost, but there are a lot of old science fiction that's very inexpensive, and it's amazing what you can actually find for free (short stories, mostly).

 

[tjs282]

I am not a "US-ian." I'm Canadian.

I do know that, and I would never demean you by suggesting otherwise

However, that first part of my reply was responding to @Lexicus, who is indeed a US-ian* — though given the current POTUS I could well imagine that he might prefer to be a Canadian at the moment!**

Spoiler * :

I'm pretty sure I've also seen you object to use of the word "American" to describe US-citizens specifically

Spoiler ** :

While backpacking in Europe and the Middle East, I met quite a few US-ians who would claim to be Canadians as kind of a protective camouflage — but you could always pick out the real Canadians by the maple-leaf patches they'd stitched onto their jackets and backpacks, so as not to be mistaken for US-ians!

I belong to a Yahoo group where someone mentioned links to find some of this stuff. I could look it up for you, if you're interested. There are a lot of pulp novels mentioned in those posts.

I'd really appreciate that.

I have part of the Lensman series in my collection.

Cool, you wouldn't mind typing/scanning them all into PDFs and sending them to me, would you...?

Actually, it might be worth trying Amazon Kindle, assuming it's available where you are. You don't actually need a Kindle, as there's an app you can download to your computer (it's free). The books still cost, but there are a lot of old science fiction that's very inexpensive, and it's amazing what you can actually find for free (short stories, mostly).

Thanks for the thought, but until Bezos stops treating all his millions of employees like ****, I would prefer to avoid giving my money to Amazon wherever possible. I also prefer to read eBooks on my basic (Sony) eReader, rather than sitting at my computer.

That's part of why I like(d) PG — their eBook file-formats are for the most part widely usable standard types (PDFs or similar), which I can actually DL and store (offline) on a local HDD; as opposed to some proprietary corporate file-format that ties me to a specific device/app (like the Kindle), and/or forces me to keep all 'my' files in the cloud, where my access to them can be turned off (or the T&C amended to my disadvantage) at any point, without warning or prior consultation.

 

[Lexicus]

Pretty sure the dispute is over German-language editions of those books. But being a US-ian, you'd still be able to access the PG eBook-versions in either language anyway.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Untertan

Hmmm... Based on the synopsis, looks like it might be a timely read for a lot of folks in the US right now...

Interesting that its English translations have been published under various titles, too — presumably more or less neutral depending on the politics of the respective editor(s)!

I read a few chapters of it for a university class called "Germany 1870-present" years back, but unfortunately it does not look as though Project Gutenberg has an English translation available: German and Finnish only

Are there no CA tenant laws to help or slow down the eviction?

It's unlikely. Usually the landlord just has to give sufficient notice that the lease won't be renewed. It might be different if it were in the middle of the term of the lease.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

That's part of why I like(d) PG — their eBook file-formats are for the most part widely usable standard types (PDFs or similar), which I can actually DL and store (offline) on a local HDD; as opposed to some proprietary corporate file-format that ties me to a specific device/app (like the Kindle), and/or forces me to keep all 'my' files in the cloud, where my access to them can be turned off (or the T&C amended to my disadvantage) at any point, without warning or prior consultation.

You can back up local copies of kindle books no problem. It's also pretty simple to strip the DRM from them and convert them to other file formats.

 

[rah]

What experiences? I've asked you a series of questions, which you've ignored. I'm offering you a challenge, to challenge me to find you something you might consider at least acceptable.

I didn't ignore them, I just prefer not to elaborate. I know you take fan fic seriously but I just don't. What can I say. We're all entitled to our opinions about it based on our experiences.