• "That Show By Those Hipster Know-It-Alls Who Talk About How Fascinating Ordinary People Are" Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-10-25). “Most of those broadcasters enjoy support from the government in one form or another (though not all of them do: WFMU is subsidy-free as well as commercial-free). But they’re not a top-down project. They’re a decentralized set of shows that seek funds where they can find them, and they could survive if the CPB were fully privatized. They might even do better, if the new CPB decided to spend less of its money on actual stations (which haven’t always benefited when the corporation funds them) and more on independent producers.” (Linked Monday 2010-10-25.)

• WikiLeaks Removes the Cloak. David D’Amato, Center for a Stateless Society (2010-10-25). Late last week, major media outlets announced, to the bated breath of the world, the latest disclosures of classified materials on the war in Iraq from Wikileaks. The documents — almost 400,000 files comprised mostly of the U.S. military's daily field reports — detail a staggering civilian death toll and… (Linked Monday 2010-10-25.)

• Mantid of the week. Jill, I Blame The Patriarchy (2010-10-26). Greetings from Spinster HQ, O ye commenters and readers of comments! The "Latest Blamer Invective" sidebar function upon which you have come to dote so warmly has experienced a warp core breach. Two female characters with names are discussing it, and should have it back online before the third act…. (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-26.)

• At the bottom of the 178 countries Somalia scored 1.1, just. Captain Capitulation, eye of the storm (2010-10-26). At the bottom of the 178 countries Somalia scored 1.1, just below Afghanistan and Myanmar (1.4) and Iraq (1.5). surely someone somewhere is actually worried about the fact that the countries we invaded and 'liberated' are two of the four most corrupt in the world. we said we brought you this… (Linked Tuesday 2010-10-26.)

Bounty Markets for Open-Access eBooks. Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom (2010-10-25):

From "go to hellman" Bounty Markets for Open-Access eBooks In January 1773, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart placed advertisements asking patrons to "subscribe" to the three piano concertos he was writing. If he received enough support, the concertos would be finished by April, and subscribers would receive beautifully copied manuscripts. More importantly,…

Q: Without intellectual protectionism to sustain a massive system of corporate marketing, record companies, and advances for artists, how will creators ever be able to support their work? In a freed market with freed copying and freed exchange, how would we ever marshal the resources we need to sustain a flourishing musical culture?

A: Let’s ask a minor musician of the past few centuries — Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — how he did it.

A broken, top-heavy, capital-intensive business model in music has nothing to do with the needs of a flourishing free culture. It has everything to do with grants of monopoly privilege, by the state, to entrenched incumbent firms, and the systematic distortion and deformation of the whole network of musical commerce around the gravity-well of those coerced monopoly profits. The monopolists’ broken business model is not our problem, and should not be forced on the rest of us. Music will do fine without it — just ask Mozart.

Benoît B. Mandelbrot (20 November 1924 – 14 October 2010)

Mathematics is a thing of beauty, and Mandelbrot — best known for his development of fractal geometry; also one of the most important innovators in applied mathematics during the past half-century — should also be remembered as one of our day’s most remarkable writers, and artists.

feministhulk: HULK HAVE NEVER SHOWER WITH JUDITH BUTLER, BUT FANFIC REMIND HULK OF FOOTNOTE 44 IN CHAPTER 2 OF "BODIES THAT MATTER." Twitter / feministhulk (2010-08-12).

I could be mistaken, but I believe that the fanfic in question is at: oldspice-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/460.html?thread=7372

• Will It Optimize? John Gruber, Daring Fireball (2010-07-23). Another splendidly intricate post from Peter Ammon. Only of interest if you enjoy puzzles on GCC optimizations.  â˜…  (Linked Wednesday 2010-08-04.)

• !!!@@e2;2dc;2026; An Improved Liberal, Accurate Regex Pattern for Matching URLs. John Gruber, Daring Fireball (2010-07-27). Back in November, I posted a regex pattern for matching URLs. It seems to have proven quite useful for others, and, even better, based on feedback from those who've used it, I've since improved it in several ways. The problem the pattern attempts to solve: identify the URLs in an… (Linked Wednesday 2010-08-04.)

• On Broadway. Cat and Girl (2010-08-04). The joke only works under the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM. (Linked Wednesday 2010-08-04.)

• Speaking the Truth is for Losers and Egomaniacs. cherylcline, der Blaustrumpf (2010-08-05). In Savage Mules:  The Democrats and Endless War, Dennis Perrin writes that "Speaking the truth is for losers and egomaniacs."  Had I read that before Wikileaks gained much traction, I probably would have agreed without fully comprehending.  In light of the accusations hurled against Julian Assange, however, I see that… (Linked Thursday 2010-08-05.)