brief reviews

I could spend hours at this site: the TV tropes wiki. The entry for Plot Tumor includes this gem: “Compare: Adaptation Decay, Flanderization, George Lucas Love Story, Jean Grey Escalation, and Motive Decay.” This is not a wiki about citation, but it does feature deep fanlove, though everyone tends to make fun of the fanworks that they don’t themselves consume. (Perhaps I should add an entry on My Kink Is Fine, Yours Is Bad—but the overall sense I get is that most people who contribute think Everyone’s Kinks Are Funny, so I actually didn’t feel attacked.)

( superheroes and a cyborg woman )

Google knows all, tells all

No, this isn't about YouTube. But it is about why it's a good idea to think about Google's powers, even if they're currently used for good. So I am planning to go to Naomi Novik's reading this evening, and to find the bookstore I googled "naomi" -- and as soon as I'd typed that in, Google suggested, in order, Naomi Klein, Naomi Wolf, and Naomi Novik. Which says a lot about how well Google knows me: it gets the trifecta of my interests--intellectual property/marketing; feminism; sff fandom. For more, James Grimmelmann has a new piece (pdf) written for nonlawyers that I thought covered the issues pretty well, though like everyone else he's a bit short on solutions.