everything but the girl

darkrosetiger has shared a translation of a recent interview of SUP's Anton Nosik (he's the Chief Blogging Officer of SUP) regarding the content strike that's on the table for Friday. You can read another translation here at furiosity's lj.

I'll leave it to each of you as to what you make of things like his statement that nobody he knows will be boycotting on Friday (oh, whatever!) or his belief that you don't walk into a store and ask for free products (er, anyone around here hang out at Lush? What about Costco? Thought so!) and about his business acumen in general.

But I do want to showcase some links to demonstrate that he's not honest speaking accurately when he says:

Then users were told, and I quote, "Even if you pay, you will receive NOTHING extra for it. Your money is a donation. Do you like the project? Donate!" Such a model was in place from 1999 to 2005.

This is what LiveJournal looked like when I started using it back in the fall of 2001. I don't see the word "donate" on there. I don't see any language saying you'd get nothing if you paid for an account. In fact, if you click here, you'll see that you actually did get extra things with your paid account, including:

* LiveJournal.com email address --- all mail to your_username@livejournal.com will be forwarded to your personal email address. You can then choose to show none, either, or both of your email addresses, depending on what you want to expose.

* Personalized domain name --- instead of having your journal at http://www.livejournal.com/users/username/, it'll also be available at http://username.livejournal.com/, much shorter and more personal.

* Fast Server Access --- paid users automatically hit a group of really fast servers when they access any part of the site, instead of the normal servers which we try to keep moderately fast, but not as insanely fast as the paid user servers.

* Customize your journal --- in addition to just being able to pick the style of your journal and the colors, you'll also be able to create your own style using whatever HTML you like. This will also let you be able to make new styles that match your website that you can then easily embed, never revealing that you're using LiveJournal.com as your journal mechanism.

* Text Messaging --- If you have a pager or cellphone, you can get text messages (or numeric messages) right from LiveJournal. You can set it to allow all users, registered users, or only your friends to page you. This is especially useful if you don't want to expose your cell number to everybody, but want to be able to get messages on it. Combined with the "friends only" option, it's just really cool.

* Multiple user pictures --- you're able to upload up to 10 pictures of yourself, and choose which one to use on each entry, in addition to your current mood/music, etc. So, say you're feeling angry: in addition to the angry mood & icon, you can also choose to use your angry picture, which will then show up on everybody's journal that lists you as a friend for that one particular angry entry.

* Automatic Poll/Survey/Booths --- You can quickly and easily make voting polls and full surveys inside your journal entries, embedded right within your text.

Me? When I set up heidi8 a few months later because I wanted to blog personally and not just at fictionalley, I soon paid for a paid account to get more invitations for friends, and for the email account and the extra user pics. I didn't have an angry picture back then, though!

Even if you go back to 1999, there's nothing about donating on the site map about donating, and it isn't on the front page either. Same thing in March of 2000.

Sometime between August and October of 2000, though, paid accounts came onto the scene. But they weren't donations - you definitely were getting something for your money - basically, the same feature-set described above from 2001. (You could pay using a 1-900 number. Awwwwwwww!)

So, Mr Nosik, I'm not seeing where the business model from 1999 through 2005 had anything to do with donations. I really recommend looking through archive.org at LiveJournal Through the Ages, because it's a nifty way to learn about the company you own!

(As an aside, awwwwwwwwwww, look at the adorable Promote LJ banners! So woobie!)

I also highly recommend reading this interview from 2001 with Mr Nosik - don't you think he sounds a little nonplussed when he says:

"I am receiving some pressure from people who would like to manipulate our articles, who are offering money to me or to my journalists to publish something."

Really, I understand that he's frustrated. I understand that he feels under siege by a segment of LJ's users. But being inaccuate in interviews and being presumptive that the site's users are engaging in something other than constructive criticism are not the ways to get out of a siege mentality. Actually talking to your users and seeing them as people who don't like to be manipulated any more than he did back in 2001 might help.

SPN Fics:
Sam learns cross-stitching and uses it for protective reasons by embroiderama. Gen. If you like SPN and/or crafting, read this - it's very different.

musesfool posted There's Never Time to Save, You're Paying By the Hour, which reads like a casefic but feels like a character sketch. Or vice versa. In other words, it's a terrific piece of writing with many, many layers.

Harvester of Eyes is a fic that gwendolyngrace posted in the spn_boc (supernatural + blue oyster cult) ficathon. It's a crossover of SPN and Neil Gaiman's Sandman, and it's very evocative of both universes, and obviously, it features the Corinthian

Intrepid reporter

This is my first big what do I do moment in crossposting between LJ and IJ. I posted a friending meme for the new TV season on my LJ, but I don't want people who're not posting on LJ to be unable to participate, so I'm going to post it here too, but I'd prefer it if people posted their replies over there, just to keep it more organized. Comments are open here, too, though.

Wendy on LJ has a great friending meme right now, but with the new Fall 2007 tv season about to start in the US, it's probably a good time for a general-interest tv-inspired friending meme, too.

Last night, I was thinking about how a year or so ago, some people on my flist were looking forward to the first season of Studio 60 and others were squeeing about the Heroes pilot, and some were wondering what would happen on House, or SPN, or any one of a dozen other shows - and now a new fall season is just around the corner and dvds of last season are hitting stores with regularity, so please participate and pimp, regardless of where you live, or even if you own a tv set! If you're interested in any currently-airing shows, this meme is for you!

Here's the template:
Hi! My name is: (IJ username)
You can also find me at: (usernames on LJ, GJ. MySpace, JF, other websites, etc)
This season, I'm looking forward to these new shows:
This season, I'm planning on continuing to watch:
My favorite episode(s) from last season on those shows is/are:
My favorite character(s)/pairing(s) from last season on those shows is/are:
If I had to recommend two shows from last season that are coming back this year, they'd be:
If I had to recommend two shows that aren't airing anymore but which can be obtained via DVD or (ideally legal) download, they'd be:
I will absolutely never watch... (Either something that's already on, or something that's starting this fall)
I'd like to pimp the community/communities at:
I also... (read fic, write fic, rec fic, create fanart, enjoy fanart, rec fanart, create fan crafts, create vids, create fanfilms, watch vids, watch fanfilms, read meta, create meta, etc)
In my LJ, I also talk about...
My journal is: (work-safe, work-safe outside of cuts, not work-safe)
You also should know that I.... (anything else you want to say)

Crossposted from my LiveJournal; please reply there.


technosage gave me the letter "S", so here are ten things that are important to me that begin with that letter...

1. Split Enz! I discovered SPlit Enz about 25 years ago this month, when I came home from camp, turned on Mtv, and saw my first music videos. One was One Step Ahead by Split Enz, and within fifteen seconds, I was desperately, hopelessly, endlessly in love with Neil Finn. I didn't manage to get the album that the song was on, though, until 1987, which was about a year after I discovered Crowded House, which Neil went on to form after Split Enz disbanded circa 1984, but I always remembered the song, and when CH's fame inspired Chrysalis to reissue a lot of SE stuff, I started collecting it like mad - I have all the albums on LP and cassette, as well as various videos on VHS. I'm a lifetime member of Frenz of the Enz, and have been on the Tongue in the Mail email list since 1993 or 1994. (Also must mention Squeeze, whose Black Coffee in Bed I also discovered in that first week of Mtv; I adore their music but not to the degree that I love Spliz Enz or anything else Finn-ish.)

2. Strawberries! When I was pregnant with Harrison, I had to have at least a pint of strawberries each day. Midway through my pregnancy, I made my husband drive me to this Mennonite farm about an hour from our house, where they sell strawberries by the flat. I got 20 pints on that lovely Saturday, and the only reason there was still a pint left for my breakfast on Thursday morning is because I refused to let myself enjoy it the night before. (Also must mention Snozzberries, from Willy Wonka.)

3. Star Wars! We owned it on Betamax back in 1978 or maybe 1979. I'm not sure it was even really commercially available, but back then at-home video players were still unusual enough that most people got stuff to play by trading it from friends. I must've seen that film twenty times by the time Empire came out, and I saw ROTJ three times the first weekend it was in theaters. I can still tell you exactly where I saw each film, and where I sat in the theaters. When the 20th Anniversary releases hit theaters, I was living in NYC, and I saw SW the night it came out on the upper east side, then saw the next two on Saturday afternoons at the Ziegfeld. I own the originals on VHS and DVD, and when Episode 1 was about to hit theaters, I was six months pregnant and not using any vacation days because I was stockpiling for maternity leave, so I bought tickets for the 5:15 show and went with my husband and a few of our colleagues and I almost *wept* with the WTF-ness of the film. Yes, I saw the other two in theaters as well, and I actually do own them on DVD, but I can't bear to re-watch them all the way through. (Also must mention Star Tours: The Ride, at Disney:MGM in Orlando.)

4. Sirius Black! Back in 2001, JKR was asked if he was meant to be "dead sexy". She said yes. We didn't realise, at the time, that she meant both words equally truthfully. I'm not sure I ever really dealt with Sirius's death, and had copperbadge not started Stealing Harry shortly thereafter, I'm not sure I would've continued reading any fanfic at all. (Also must mention Severus Snape, who I do not actually love, but really respect and occasionally admire.)

5. Sabrina. I like the Audrey Hepburn movie - I really do. But I have this weird and bizarre love for the Greg Kinnear + Harrison Ford version, and my husband and I rewatch it regularly. It came out when we were in the throes of our wedding planning, and my husband has about 100+ first and second cousins, so we were inviting over 600 people, so when one of the characters, in talking about the wedding they were planning for David and his fiancee Elizabeth, says, "that's not a wedding, that's a town," it became our signature line for the rest of the planning process. (Also must mention Sebrina, Paste & Plato, which is a song by Jellyfish)

6. Schnoogle! It was supposed to be a site for fan "buttons" - which are now basically known as icons or avatars. Jana (aka GeorgeWeasley'sGirlfriend) made a bunch of them with fanfic-inspired ships like Ron/Pansy, Ron/Lavender (from AliciaSue's fics), Harry/Allegra, etc., and that's where we put them, and people took them and put them on their Geocities sites. Back then, domain names were "pricey" - 30-40 dollars - so when we decided to start what would become FictionAlley, we wanted to save the cash and re-use the domain name we already hance. And that's how Schnoogle.com became a place for novel-length fics. (Also must mention "squee" as one of my favorite fandom words. I just did a search for "squee" in the LJ section of my gmail to see how many times I've used the word since I got my gmail account in 2004, and it's so many times that it can't even count. It just says "hundreds".)

7. Supernatural! I'm not a fan of the horror genre. And I really didn't watch much TV between 2000 and 2006, so I wasn't really *looking* for another series to watch. But reading discussion of the series on my flist, and seeing some writers who I adored doing fic for SPN, I was intrigued enough to watch one episode. So I watched Playthings. And then I bought S! on DVD and watched all of it over about 2 weeks. And I fell completely in love with the series, and the mytharc, and the brothers and the whole damned thing. And the fanfic/fanart/vidding output in the fandom is perpetually, unrelentingly brilliant! (Also must mention Sylar, Simone and Suresh, as that's the only way I can figure to slow Heroes into this meme in any way. I <3 Heroes so, so much, and cannot wait for S2!!!!!)

8. Stephen Duffy! The original singer and guitarist for Duran Duran, but he left very early on, and was replaced by Simon. He went on to have a few major UK hits including Kiss Me (shown here acoustic-style a few years ago in Japan), then formed a band called The Lilac Time, who had terrific critical success, and not much commercial success. At various times, he's worked with Stephen Page of the Barenaked Ladies (he's the co-writer on Jane) and Robbie Williams (he's the co-writer on Radio, and produced some of Robbie's stuff), and eventually Nick Rhodes - Stephen found their original DD demos from 1979, and they rerecorded them as The Devils. (Specific mention to She Belongs to All, which always makes me think of Princess Diana, who died ten years ago today.)

9. Sidekick! I love my sidekick! It keeps me connected to the world and all of you! It gives me my email, most of the time, and lets me YM and AIM and read my flists and read fics and text people and take photos and stay in touch. I've owned Sidekicks since 2003 when the first colour one came out, and this SK3 is the first one I've had that's lasted more than a year; I've had battery and keyboard and screen issues before that with the other ones I've owned. It's like carrying a mini-laptop around, and it's perfectly suited for me, apart from the 6MB limit on the mailbox, which is frustrating beyond belief. (Also must mention Sanyo, who made my pretty pink cellphone, which I also like and use, but don't *need* in the same way that I need my sidekick.)

10. Soarin', Space: Mission, Splash Mountain and Small World. Three of my favorite rides at Walt Disney World. Soarin' is a virtual reality-esque "flight" over California, Mission: Space (which I wrote backwards here to make it S-compliant) is a centerfuge-based simulation of a flight from Earth to Mars, Splash Mountain is a water-flume ride, and you probably know that Small World (aka It's a Small World) is a boat-based ride through all the countries of the world, as depicted by little dolls. I love Disney, but these three rides are among my top ten favorite things to do at Disney. Yes, even Small World. I love watching it through the eyes of my kids, but I also just love the nostalgia trip I go on every time I take that ride. (Also must specifically mention the Swan Hotel, which holds so many terrific memories of Nimbus 2003, which was the first time that I got to meet hundreds of other fandomers at once; Nimbus 2003 changed my life, and was such a phenomenal weekend of wonderfulness!)



If you'd like a letter, leave a comment and I'll give you one!

Y HALLO THAR DEEEEEEN! No, not fleeing yet, but we're all expecting a delay in the start of the school year next week. And will it be GilmoreGirls!Dean or Supernatural!Dean in its behaviour, hmmm?

Back to Disney for us, perhaps, if we flee?

And in sad news, this tragedy happened at the camp I attended back in 1982. I hated that camp - I had a terrible problem with an evil cabin-mate that year but I really enjoyed learning how to water-ski there, and what happened last week was terrible. But it solidified my resolve not to ever ever ever let my kids go to sleepaway camp (even though Spouse and friends are trying to shake my resolve, damn them!).