Images from ‘carceri d’invenzione’, by 18th-century artist Giovanni Piranesi. Eisenstein called them ‘architectural frenzies’; they’re extremes that could never exist beyond art or film.
Month: December 2007
No coherent comment, just rage
Missed this one last month in the UK: a woman was convicted for “possessing records likely to be used for terrorism”, whatever that means. As far as I can see, she had downloaded some documents on guns and bombs (like, er, just about every teenage boy in the country), and written some angry poems about killing people.
So, basically, she’s been fantasizing about being a jihadi rather than fantasizing about being James Bond.
For this she’s already been in jail for 5 months, and has a 9 month suspended sentence.
Protected: The time has come
The problem with free speech is the people listening
“In 1989, the [Chinese] government didn’t know why Tiananmen happened. Now, by reading the Internet, they know what’s going to happen. They know about movements in their infancy and they’re able to kill them when they’re still young”
…according to Chinese blogger Michael Anti. Ethan Zuckerman’s summary of a Berkman talk he gave has lots of other fascinating comments.
LJ takeover
Livejournal has just been taken over by SUP, the russian company that was already managing Russian-language livejournals. Compared to when SUP first started managing the Russian service, the reactions among Russian users seem surprisingly positive. i.e. more people are pleased to have LJ under Russian control than are frightened that they’ll be more vulnerable to government pressure.
Still, I’m not thrilled by their decision to announce this just after the Russian elections. It looks a lot like trying to bury the news while Russian lj users are distracted, even if it wasn’t intended that way.