graumoewe's cliff

Drabble: "Squeak!"

Fri, 10 Nov 2006 18:43:32 GMT

Second drabble for hp100.

Title of drabble: Squeak!
Author: graumoewe
Challenge: North and South
Word count: 100
Author's Notes: To accompany the drabble The Escape by kerrymdb.

"Ahh, there's nowhere like home," sighed his mother at their arrival at the Burrow.

Ron hadn't been too eager to return from the south. It had been great to see his brother, and all the curses and pyramides, and ...
Simply the best holiday ever.

Scabbers escaped his pocket and scurried between the waiting stacks of unread newspapers.

His father grabbed some, uncovering Scabbers, who didn't move.

"What's the matter, Scabbers?" Ron pressed the shivering rat to his chest. "Are you cold?"

"I know, we are in the north again, but it's not even autumn... It will get much colder, still."

Drabble: "Red"

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:20:30 GMT

My very first drabble, written for hp100.
Every kind of comment is welcome, especially about incorrect uses of English.

Title of drabble: Red
Author: graumoewe
Challenge: aspects of halloween
House: Hufflepuff
Word count: 100

Red

Mary ran laughing around the corner, with one hand gripping her pointy hat and with the other hand her bag of collected sweets. She almost bumped into her friend Dan, who pointed to the skirmish of costumed people down the street: "Wow, look at the cool special effects!"
One of the figures fell to the ground in a very convincing act after a green laser beam had hit him.
The tallest person turned around to the sound of their clapping. Her shouts of "Bravo" got stuck in her throat as she felt his eyes focus on her. They were red.

Copyright vs. free culture

Thu, 12 Oct 2006 16:58:31 GMT

Maybe, just maybe it is not the wisest decision for fandom to keep our heads down as long as the legal ground concerning fanworks and copyright is uncertain, as we might not be able to ever get them up again.

Disclaimer: I'm mainly a lurker, reading fanfic, looking at fanart, not commenting more often than I do, listening in on interesting discussions. And I'd love to see a discussion about this, so I guess that's why I start it. And since I'm not very good at constructing good arguments and writing well-thought-through articles, I thought I give you instead a controversial statement and then some interesting links and a book review.

I spent a lot of time in the last days reading all kinds of stuff about copyrights and trademarks and fanfiction and free culture. And I became more and more fascinated.

First I want to point you to an interesting article by Lawrence Lessig. It's already from 2002 but things have not changed much for the better since then.
One of my favorite quotes from that article: "[Now] no one can do to the Disney Corporation what Walt Disney did to the Brothers Grimm."

Lawrence Lessig is one of the creators of the Creative Commons Licences, which is the next thing I want to bring to your attention. There are not only the two extremes of "All rights reserved" which means having to ask permission for every use of the work and "No rights reserved" where everybody can just do what he wants with a creation. The Creative commons licences as an alternative to the default copyright offer creators the possibility to choose: "Some rights reserved."

Thirdly I want to recommend the latest book written by again the same guy:

author: Lawrence Lessig
title: Free culture: How big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control creativity.

The book is available online for free download in many different languages and also in printed form (e.g. at amazon) for people like me whose eyes start to hurt if they stare for a whole day at the monitor.

my opinion:
This book is very well written. Lawrence Lessig is not only an expert on copyright and on constitutional law, he also writes very entertaining. Some of the stories he tells I would not have thought possible, not even in the not-so-sane world ours is. "Common sense revolts", to quote Justice Douglas as Lessig does in the introduction of the book.
This book has kind of opened my eyes. There is much more to this whole copyright discussion than what I was at first aware of. The diversity and the development of our culture is at stake.

And last (if you are still interested) there is an interesting PhD-thesis, which was just defended in the beginning of October, by Mathias Klang from Sweden:
"Disruptive technology - Effects of Technology Regulation on Democracy".

All of this reading also gave me some understanding of the changes the internet has brought and still might bring into our societies. And the possibilities just left my head spinning. Maybe we won't have to wait too long before a much broader-based democracy will be possible.

But, you see, I'm a totally optimistic person.
That's why I'm looking forward to non-commercial fanfiction being legal again (It was before. Really!) in some years ... or decades.

Two more links more directly concerned with fan fiction:
Chilling Effects Clearinghouse: Fan Fiction: Information about the legal issues surrounding fan fiction. Very informative FAQs. Database of C&D notices.

“Fanfic”: force of nature: interesting discussion about fan fiction.

great fic (HP)

Tue, 03 Oct 2006 07:22:39 GMT

I just read a hilarious fic:

Switch
author: corvidae9
words: 1930
author's summary: The Sorting Hat has sorted thousands of students in the course of its life. If it makes a mistake or two, who's to say it's wrong? Certainly not Fred or George Weasley.

Gen. Nominated for the Sorting Hat in category "Sorting AUs".
Short. Funny. Clever. It's fascinating to see how the houses bring out qualities in Harry and his year mates one wouldn't necessarily expect.

hospitality club

Tue, 05 Sep 2006 15:35:09 GMT

In case someone should accidently stumble over this journal entry I want to draw your attention to a very cool community:

The hospitality club.

I'm a member since half a year and I like it very much. It's about free exchange of hospitality of any kind, i.e. offering accomodation or showing other people your town or inviting them for lunch or whatever.
If you like to travel for free or just having others as guests go check it out. You can get to know very interesting people from all over the world. It's totally free and absolutely noncommercial and there are no obligations whatsoever.

In June I had to go to a conference in Rome and I didn't want to stay in a boring hotel so I found someone from hospitality club who let me stay for a few days. I slept on the floor, but also I was picked up from the airport, got to know nice Italien people, and learned where you can eat real good pizza in Rome. And it was for free.
Especially if you travel to foreign countries it's a way to really get in touch with some local people and not just see the tourist things.

For some people it might seem a big risk to sleep in the house of a total stranger or invite a stranger to your own place. But I find it so very very important to trust others. That's the only way we can battle the fear that's trying to spread out in the world.

My favorite stories (HP)

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 08:52:58 GMT

I was thinking and thinking what I could write in my journal that would interest anybody else and thought then: Hej, yeah, I can also make a list of fics that I liked.

My very favourite fic:

In Good Time
author: Linelen
author's summary: Healing, like all things, comes with time.

PostWar. Gen. About Harry and Severus. And about how wands are made.
This fic is short. It will not keep you long. So you could even read it once every day if you wanted to.
The story pacing is as the title promises. The mood of the story feels quiet and a bit removed from time. It's about giving things the time they need. It still makes me cry if I reread it. Beautiful writing.

my very first entry

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 10:38:47 GMT

I just made this livejounal-account and am still trying to figure things out, like how to make entries, etc.
The main reason I made this account is to be able to join a livejournal-community. I'm not sure yet what and how frequently I'm going to post something here. So far I've been quite happy just lurking around, mainly in HP-fandom.
Let's see what the future will bring.