I got a new quiz posted over on How Well Do You Know. It’s a great website for taking movie, television, and other pop culture quizzes. The best part about the site is they don’t push all that bullshit on you like others do. You don’t even have to register if you don’t care about saving your scores or anything. Check it out!

So, I’ve been trying to collect a $6.15 refund from Ebay for the last 75 days. They keep saying they’ll send it to my paypal, then say they can’t, I need to attach a credit card or my bank account (which I won’t dare do). And it just goes on and on. Well I just finally said fuck it, keep the damn money, and closed my Ebay account. I would totally close my paypal account too (also owned by Ebay) but that’s how I get my lulu royalties.

Recently my mom switched us from DSL back over to cable for our internet service. I was against the idea, since to call what Charter gave us service would be a disservice to the word. Now we have them back and nothing has changed. See, the technicians that come out here say the signal is so weak that it’s prone to going out. And you can forget about splitting the coax cable to hook up something like a TV.

They claim they boosted the signal. But, of course, they really haven’t. It’s just the same revolving door of double speak.

I’m getting the same run-around with Ebay. A while back I listed something that didn’t sell. Instead of instantly refunding my 6.15 they kept it. I didn’t think too much of it at first, but as I kept getting invoices that said I had -6.15 balance, I thought, it sure would be nice to have that money back. I wrote them, they said sure, attach a PayPal account and we’ll get right on that. 30 days went by, no refund. I wrote them back saying what’s the deal yo? They said, oh so sorry, but we need a credit card number or bank account number. I said, no, you told me you need a PayPal account attached. They replied, okay sure, we’ll get right on that. 30 days went by, no refund.

Customer No Service.

A now-defunct Web site that catered to gay youth is now ensnared in a federal bankruptcy proceeding that the founder says could result in as many as 1 million profiles being sold to creditors, putting its former subscribers’ privacy at risk.

XY, which billed itself as a young gay men’s magazine and could be found at XY.com, ceased publishing in 2007. Its founder filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, which could put names, addresses, e-mail addresses, unpublished personal stories, and other information about gay minors into creditors’ hands.

The Federal Trade Commission recently expressed its concerns, saying in a letter to creditors and attorneys involved in the case that “any sale, transfer, or use” of XY’s personal information “raises serious privacy issues and could violate” federal law.

XY’s creditors have hired a lawyer to obtain the personal information held by the magazine and Web site. But because XY.com’s privacy policy said that “We never give your info to anybody,” any personal data should be “destroyed,” wrote David Vladeck, the head of the FTC’s bureau of consumer protection, in a letter this month.

The question of who owns personal data collected by a failed company–and what should be done with it–is not exactly a new question.

A decade ago, as the dot-com bubble collapsed, failed companies scrambled to sell assets to appease creditors. In 2000, Boo.com sold its customer list to Fashionmall.com. The same year, Toysmart.com, majority-owned by the Walt Disney Co., tried to follow suit, but abandoned its plans following pressure from state attorneys general.

But none of those bankruptcy proceedings included information as sensitive as the customer list for a magazine and Web site that targeted gay youth between 13 and 17 years old who were in the process of grappling with their sexual identity.

(more a cnet)

(Ed note: Man, I miss XY Magazine. I still have dozens of copies. It never was on time and it really did just crash and burn, but man was it so satisfying to have that flying the faces of all those fuckers who try to put you down as a gay kid. I highly recommend finding some via the internets.)

I don’t really know exactly what this means for you. I don’t really know what it means for me either. But I thought I’d just take the time to mention that WordPress just went up in version number which has got mean something groovy. Now if only I could figure out what.

I was honored to be asked to write a quiz for AVATAR for the very awesome site How Well Do You Know.
I took my time and really tried to make it my best. Take it (along with my other three quizzes) tonight! Tell me what you think.

For some reason Shotalicious has been dealing with a hack that has affected a LOT of blogs out there, and Pixiesticks, in spite of being both hosted on the same webhost and using the same blogging application, has not. Perhaps, it’s due to the fact that this site is SO VERY UNPOPULAR. Maybe it’s just pure dumb fucking luck.

Sadly, I have to take down shotalicious until I get a better idea of what the fuck is going on and what to do about it. I can’t allow my site to be used to infect people’s computers with malware or viruses.

While shotalcious was still pretty fresh from a recent reboot, this site has legacy behind it going back far longer than it really has any good reason to. I’ll try to keep on going, with backups or what not. But I certainly am facing the reality that because of faith I put in other companies, I could end up losing everything.

It’s been a very active weekend here in my life. It all started once I got off work Friday (though that was busy as hell too.) Courtney came over and we watched Zombieland. Yes, I know I haven’t been updating my MOVIESIGN! page like I wanted to. Just so much gets in the way. The movie is very very good though and I had a great time. A bit more sadness than usual after taking her home. I guess it’s just I feel like I need some closeness right now and am not getting as much as I’d like.

Saturday started early as I changed rooms with my sister and her kidrockboyfriend. It went smoothly enough, though it did take a lot of the day. Sadly my Windows XP machine died in the process. When you press the on button, it sounds almost like a car trying to start up, but never doing so. Another bad thing was that kidrockboyfriend felt he had to go all redneck and burned the bags of ancient stuff I was going to be throwing away. We’re talking childhood and teenage stuff that really ought to have been gone already. So that was pretty awful and bad environmentally.

That evening was DJ Tony Moran at Heretic. While I expected lots of my friends to go, not a single one did. Fortunately, like, a thousand other boys did so I was not alone. The place has changed so much in the last 6 months with all the remodeling. It almost looks classy. The music was good and I just danced my heart out until 4am. Yup, he went an extra illegal hour. Oooooh! I also gave my number to this Latin guy who asked for it. I’d seen him once before on a Wednesday a week ago. We’ll see.

Sunday started early as mom wanted to go to grandmothers and I was thinking since I’d lost my XP machine, maybe my uncle could help me partition my Windows 7 machine and have both operating systems on one computer. Sadly, that didn’t work out so well. Eventually I ended up with a new version of Windows 7 than the one I started with. THAT actually has been working out well. Rather than the 64bit Home Edition, I now have a 32bit Enterprise Edition. It seems to be running my programs that I’d been having a lot of problems with better. But that whole process to get things back to comfortability took until 3am this morning.

Of course, severe thunderstorms came down at 6am this morning, so it’s not like I got much sleep. And there was the truck I had to unload at work at 9am this morning.

So it’s really just been a non-stop kind of thing. I think now that I got most everything situated now, I can go to sleep. Zzzzzzz.

A mother has warned of the risk of children spending hundreds of pounds on “free” online games available through Facebook after her 12-year-old son ran up bills of more than £900 without her knowledge.

The woman, who prefers to remain anonymous, discovered last month that her son had spent more than £900 on FarmVille. He had emptied his own savings account of £288 and had used her credit card to the tune of £625 to pay the bills.

FarmVille, one of the most popular games on Facebook, allows members to manage a virtual farm by planting, growing and harvesting crops, trees and livestock. New users are given virtual coins to set up their farm, and the revenue from matured crops can be used to maintain it. But those who are desperate to progress more quickly can buy extra virtual coins using real cash.

The mother said: “The first use of my card was on 14 March. I discovered it on the 29th and the card was stopped at that point. Any transactions after that date were already in the system, so what I thought was a £427 spend turned into £625 over the next few days.

“The total spend is about £905, but the credits are still rolling in. Facebook and [game creator] Zynga will not refund anything as [the son] lives in my house. Facebook has disabled his account and Zynga has unhelpfully suggested I use password protection on computers in the future.”

She contacted her credit card company, HSBC, but was told she would only qualify for a refund if she reported her son to the police and obtained a crime number. “He would be cautioned and I have been told that this caution would stay with him. Obviously the idea of a stupid farm simulation jeopardising his future earnings is not something that I want to consider,” she said.

She added that her son was “very shocked” when confronted with the amount he had spent, but it was clear he knew what he was doing. “When I asked him why he did it he said that they had brought out ‘good stuff that I wanted’.”

She does not blame Facebook, Zynga or HSBC, saying that her son was the one using the card and is entirely at fault. But she added: “I do think they need to shoulder some responsibility in this business and put systems in place to stop this happening again. The fact that he was using a card in a different name should bring up some sort of security and the online secure payment filter seems to be bypassed for Facebook payments.”

A spokeswoman for HSBC said that had the credit card been used on a gambling site it would have started alarm bells ringing for “unusual usage”. But because the card had been used to buy Facebook credits HSBC did not consider the transactions to be suspicious, even though £625 was spent in just two weeks.

Michael Arrington, founder of the Techcrunch blog, criticised Zynga last year for “monetising” the game, and warned that people who didn’t have access to a credit card to buy extra virtual money could use “pay by mobile” companies instead.

The indebted 12-year-old has not used his mobile to pay for virtual money, his mother said, but only because his older brother lost all his credit buying a ringtone a couple of years ago.

“We sound terribly technologically unaware don’t we? I wouldn’t mind but I am always explaining that all of these online offers, ringtones and games are a scam designed to take money off stupid people. Kids know best though.”

Andrey Ternovskiy is at the centre of a bidding war. The 17-year-old Russian is sitting on one of the internet’s hottest properties since Facebook and wealthy investors are offering millions to buy the concept. But the teenager is not selling — not yet, anyway.

Mr Ternovskiy is the creator of Chatroulette, a site that allows users to make random connections with strangers — to see and to speak to them — anywhere in the world. When people visit the site, their webcam is automatically switched on and they are linked to another user.

After this, there are no rules. People can speak through a video link, try to entertain one another, or — as is invariably the case — click “next” to find a more interesting stranger.

Since its launch last November with 500 users, Chatroulette has grown at breakneck speed and now has ten million visitors a month. The expansion has caught the eye of investors who want to buy into the web’s next big thing.

(more at Times Online)

I dunno about you, but I love reward programs. But I only like the ones that actually reward me. Sometimes my CVS card gives me a few dollars free here and there which I spent to buy candy while fawning over this hot straight guy named Juan on Friday and Saturday nights. Oh man does his long hair and brilliant smile make me want to bitch slap his girlfriend and steal him for my very own.

But I’m getting off topic here.

Here are a few rewards programs I’ve been using online for quite sometime and how rewarding they actually are.

1. Swagbucks.com.

Recently this site changed their denominations for their Swagbucks, which is essentially a point system used to get things. There is more than a little work you have to do in order to get rewarded, but I find it fun. It takes me about a month to get enough Swagbucks to exchange for a 5 dollar gift card for Amazon.com. In the past, I’ve even traded them in for 5 dollars deposited directly into my PayPal account.

Of course, this is without me doing any of the real big ways of getting Swagbucks. I only check out their blog and facebook and use their toolbar search engine. You could find it more rewarding than I do. Still, I give Swagbucks my seal of approval for being a legitimate program that actually works.

2. Opinion Square.

Honestly, I don’t really like taking surveys like I used to. But I don’t mind the ones I get sent to my email from this rewards program. See, if you don’t qualify for what they’re looking for, instead of getting jack squat like you do at most places, you get a token for their instant win game. Even better, you cannot lose when you play that instant win game. You’ll at least get 25 points closer to whatever you’re shopping for in their rewards catalog.

This program takes kind of a long time for me to be rewarded. But when I do finally reach my goal of 2 AMC Gold Movie Tickets (allowing me to see any movie regardless of when it was released) I certainly am happy. Besides, it doesn’t take much of my time at all, unless I DO qualify for a survey. And those get me closer to the reward faster. My opinion is that Opinion Square is a legitimate program that actually works.

3. MyPoints

This is the rewards program I’ve been a part of since 2000, but sadly it’s becoming one of the slowest to cash out lately. Essentially, I allow myself
to get spam emails sent to me. I click on them. I get points. I’d get more points if I actually have a use for and buy whatever the spam email is selling, but that doesn’t happen very often. I’d also get more points if I shopped online via the MyPoints store. But that doesn’t happen very often either.

Still, even at its glacial pace, I still get rewarded and it doesn’t take that much time to work their system. I usually turn in my points for Target Gift Cards, though I’ve also got ones for Chili’s or even gas cards back when it was like a million dollars per gallon. One time, I actually won one of their jackpots that they run seasonally. That was pretty cool and got me lots of free stuff. MyPoints is a classic and is a legitimate program that actually works.

4. MyCokeRewards

What can I say. I saved the easiest and best for last. While I’ve complained that they keep changing how things work over on Coke’s website, I have to tell you this program pays out the most. Yes, it can be very annoying trying to figure out what the codes are on the tops of Coke products. And yes, it’s very annoying you can only enter 120 points worth per week now. But every month, I’m earning a free silver AMC movie ticket (allowing me to see a film for free, just not on opening weekend) and a large drink.

Of course, that’s just what I’m getting. There are lots of other things on there that I’ve snagged too. A pair of Avatar limited edition 3D glasses recently were going for 40 dollars on ebay. Even though I’m not a huge fan, I’m getting Entertainment Weekly for free for a number of months. In fact, you could bury yourself in magazines pretty quickly over there. They also have Napster MP3 downloads, POGO memberships, and lots and lots of Coke printed items.

So I absolutely recommend MyCokeRewards. Especially as many Cokes this household and my grammies household go through. Maybe if you look around, you’ll see you get your 120 allotted points per week pretty easily too at this legitimate and highly rewarding program.

As someone who is starting to feel his opinions change about super-techno conglomerate Google, I certainly was interested in reading all about their new Gmail feature called Buzz. Adding Web2.0 Social Networking to my email sounded like a really bad idea. Turns out? It probably is and you’ll want to make sure to turn it off too.

Check here for more and to turn off your gmail buzz, go to the bottom of the screen and look for the words “Turn off Buzz” (it’s right next to “turn off chat”)

So today I worked a bit more on the site. I decided to move up the tag-board as I really think it needs to be something you see right away.

I also gave each of the sections over on the right headline labels. Kind of making it more uniform and looking pretty good.

Added a way for you to go back and more easily find posts that were tagged using the Category section (which is underneath the Archives section, both of these are below the NAVI now.)

Re-added the Other Important Links section at the very bottom.

I still want to try to do something with the space at the very top of the page, both in that box that includes the search area and where it says pixiesticks.org. Changing the banner has always been something I’ve enjoyed doing, so I want to figure out how I can continue doing that.

All in all, I’m pleased with how easily this transition occurred. The fact that I was able to import 4,900 posts and half as many comments from Blogger is nothing short of amazing. The fact that for the first time in 9 years this blog has a new layout is equally so. And, I continue to reiterate that not being a part of the Google-monster is really satisfying.

I’m actually thinking now this is could be one of the best things that happened to the site. Hopefully you will too.

While I’m not completely freaking out about it just yet, I certainly am NOT looking forward to implementing any solutions I may find in keeping this website going the way it has for almost 9 years.

My webmastering skills aren’t that great, so I’m not sure exactly what I will do, but I know that I want to keep doing this.

Pixiesticks.org has survived being removed from the internets twice, so I’m sure we will survive this too. But Google sure isn’t making it easy. (They’re complaining about resources? They’re fucking Google, how many more resources do they want?)

The Chinese government has run a highly publicized campaign against what officials said were banned smutty and lewd pictures overwhelming the country’s Internet and threatening the emotional health of children.

Chinese police said late on Thursday the crackdown on Internet pornography had brought 5,394 arrests and 4,186 criminal case investigations in 2009 — a fourfold increase in the number of such cases compared with 2008.

The announcement on the Ministry of Public Security’s website said the drive would deepen in 2010.

Police would “intensify punishments for Internet operations that violate laws and regulations”, said the statement from the ministry’s Internet security section.

“Strengthen monitoring of information,” it urged, “Press Internet service providers to put in place preventive technology.”

With an estimated 360 million Internet users, China has a bigger online population than any other country. But the ruling Communist Party worries the Internet could become a dangerous conduit for threatening images and ideas.

The ministry did not say how many of the 5,394 suspects arrested were later charged, released or prosecuted.

The anti-pornography drive has also netted many sites with politically sensitive or even simply user-generated content, in what some see as an effort by the government to reassert control over new media.

China has banned a number of popular websites and Internet services, including Google’s Youtube, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook, as well as Chinese content sharing sites.

(Ed note: Good job de-evolving China. Certainly a great way to show everyone you’re a part of the new superpowers.)

Which way are you saying it? If you’re like me, you’re probably doing it different all the time. In fact, I think I heard someone the other day say O-Ten, kind of like how you can sometimes call the current year O-Nine.

Being that this is the internets, naturally someone has come up with a website surrounding the topic.

When Netflix released a trove of “anonymized” information about consumers as part of a contest for a better recommendation tool, it only took a few weeks for researchers at the University of Texas at Austin to show how easily the data could be de-anonymized.

“An adversary who knows only a little bit about an individual subscriber can easily identify this subscriber’s record in the dataset,” they wrote.

If Netflix was chagrined by this development, you’d never know it. Not only did the company continue with the contest, but proudly declared it intends to hold a second one — for which it will release even more information than last time. For the new contest, Netflix will make available customers’ gender, ages, ZIP codes and previously rented movies in hopes of gleaning insight into users’ tastes.

Stunned privacy experts wasted no time bashing the plan. University of Colorado law professor Paul Ohm implored Netflix to reverse course. “Researchers have known for more than a decade that gender plus ZIP code plus birthdate uniquely identifies a significant percentage of Americans,” Ohm wrote. Even without birthdates, he said, interested researchers will be able to figure out many people’s identities.

Attorney Jay Edelson predicted that Netflix would face a class-action lawsuit if it went through with its plans.

As it turns out, Edelson’s law firm, KamberEdelson, along with Joseph Malley of Dallas and other lawyers, decided not to wait for Netflix to start the contest. This week, they filed suit on behalf of four Netflix consumers, arguing that releasing the information would violate the federal Video Protection Privacy Act — a 21-year-old law, passed after a newspaper obtained the movie rental records of Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork — that bans movie rental stores from revealing personally identifiable information about consumers.

The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in San Jose, Calif., seeks damages on behalf of people whose information was released by Netflix in the past.

The consumers also seek an order prohibiting Netflix from making any information available about their video records. One of the four, who sued under the pseudonym Jane Doe, alleges that she is a closeted lesbian who would be harmed if people figured out that she had rented a number of “gay-themed” movies from Netflix. “Plaintiff Doe does not want her movie selection or rating transactions to be included in any public disclosure of data for purposes such as the Netflix contest, regardless of any attempts by Netflix to anonymize or perturb the data,” the lawsuit alleges.

A Netflix spokesperson declined to comment on the lawsuit.

For those of you who have already raped Hulu for all of its delicious bounty, perhaps this won’t be news to you. But for the rest of us, they now have episodes of Mystery Science Theatre 3000.

That was penultimate to pretty much crafting me to the person I am, so as far as one entertainment medium can influence a person I should say.

Watch.
Laugh.
Enjoy.

WASHINGTON — Think your kid is not “sexting”? Think again. Sexting — sharing sexually explicit photos, videos and chat by cell phone or online — is fairly commonplace among young people, despite sometimes grim consequences for those who do it.

More than a quarter of young people have been involved in sexting in some form, an Associated Press-MTV poll found.

That includes Sammy, a 16-year-old from the San Francisco Bay Area who asked that his last name not be used.

Sammy said he had shared naked pictures of himself with girlfriends. He also shared naked pictures of someone else that a friend had sent him.

What he didn’t realize at the time was that young people across the country — in Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — have faced charges, in some cases felony charges, for sending nude pictures.

“That’s why I probably wouldn’t do it again,” Sammy said.

Yet, “I just don’t see it as that big of a problem, personally.”

That was the view of nearly half of those surveyed who have been involved in sexting. The other half said it’s a serious problem — and did it anyway. Knowing there might be consequences hasn’t stopped them.

“There’s definitely the invincibility factor that young people feel,” said Kathleen Bogle, a sociology professor at La Salle University in Philadelphia and author of the book “Hooking Up: Sex, Dating and Relationships on Campus.”

“That’s part of the reason why they have a high rate of car accidents and things like that, is they think, `Oh, well, that will never happen to me,’” Bogle said.

Research shows teenage brains are not quite mature enough to make good decisions consistently. By the mid-teens, the brain’s reward centers, the parts involved in emotional arousal, are well-developed, making teens more vulnerable to peer pressure.

But it is not until the early 20s that the brain’s frontal cortex, where reasoning connects with emotion, enabling people to weigh consequences, has finished forming.

Beyond feeling invincible, young people also have a much different view of sexual photos that might be posted online, Bogle said. They don’t think about the idea that those photos might wind up in the hands of potential employers or college admissions officers, she said.

“Sometimes they think of it as a joke; they have a laugh about it,” Bogle said. “In some cases, it’s seen as flirtation. They’re thinking of it as something far less serious and aren’t thinking of it as consequences down the road or who can get hold of this information. They’re also not thinking about worst-case scenarios that parents might worry about.”

Sexting doesn’t stop with teenagers. Young adults are even more likely to have sexted; one-third of them said they had been involved in sexting, compared with about one-quarter of teenagers.

Thelma, a 25-year-old from Natchitoches, La., who didn’t want her last name used, said she’s been asked more than once to send naked pictures of herself to a man.

“It’s just when you’re talking to a guy who’s interested in you, and you might have a sexual relationship, so they just want to see you naked,” she said, adding that she never complied with those requests.

“But with my current boyfriend, I did it on my own; he didn’t ask me,” she said, adding that she was confident he would keep the image to himself.

Those who sent nude pictures of themselves mostly said they went to a boyfriend, girlfriend or romantic interest.

But 14 percent said they suspect the pictures were shared without permission, and they may be right: Seventeen percent of those who received naked pictures said they passed them along to someone else, often to more than just one person.

Boys were a little more likely than girls to say they received naked pictures or video of someone that had been passed around without the person’s consent. Common reasons were that they thought other people would want to see, that they were showing off and that they were bored.

Girls were a little more likely to send pictures of themselves. Yet boys were more likely to say that sexting is “hot,” while most girls called it “slutty.”

Altogether, 10 percent said they had sent naked pictures of themselves on their cell phone or online.

Criminal charges aren’t the worst consequences. In at least two cases, sexting has been linked to suicide. Last year in Cincinnati, 18-year-old Jessica Logan hanged herself after weeks of ridicule at school; she had sent a nude cell phone picture to her boyfriend, and after they broke up, he forwarded the picture to other girls.

And three months ago, 13-year-old Hope Witsell hanged herself, after relentless taunting at her school near Tampa, Fla. She had sent a nude photo of herself to a boy she liked, and another girl used his phone to send the picture to other students who forwarded it along. The St. Petersburg Times first reported on Hope’s death this week.

Other teenage suicides have been linked to online bullying, also a subject of the AP-MTV poll. Half of all young people said they have been targets of digital bullying.

That can mean someone wrote something about them on the Internet that was mean or a lie, or someone shared an e-mail or instant message that was supposed to be private. Less often, it can be more serious, such as taking pictures or video of someone in a sexual situation and sharing it with others.

The AP-MTV poll was conducted Sept. 11-22, and involved online interviews with 1,247 teenagers and adults ages 14-24. It has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.

The poll is part of an MTV campaign, “A Thin Line,” aiming to stop the spread of digital abuse.

The survey was conducted by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone and mail polling methods and followed with online interviews. People chosen for the study who had no Internet access were given it for free.

(Ed note: Ah yes, your body is dirty. Your body is sinful. Shame! Shame! Shame!Send all your sexting pictures to pixiesticks@gmail.com)

In a stunning random blow towards transgenders, a Chinese MMO has set up a gender verification process to prevent boys from playing girl characters and vice versa.

But seriously, how good can it be in a society when everyone looks the same?

Haha! Ow! OWWW! Why are you hitting me!

Swagbucks is a site I discovered a while back. You know I’m all about websites that give you rewards as long as they are legit and actually have awarded me something. Swagbucks is the real deal. I’ve obtained, albeit slowly, actual cash money put into my PayPal account.

I already had a Swagbucks banner over on shotalicious, but I thought it was time to put their Swidget over here on pixiesticks.

Because this is what paying for the interwebs would look like if we didn’t have it:

Pixie got a new computer tonight. Yeah, it’s pretty effing exciting considering the other one is like five years old. So, um, I’ll be working on getting things moved over from one computer to the other.

Here’s the specs:

20 inch flat screen monitor (Mine was 17 and more liek FAT screen)
2.3GHz AMD Sempron
2GB DDR2 RAM
250GB hard drive
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE video card. (Hurrah, no more integrated!)

Anyway, I gotta go continue getting it up to my high standards of usability and I probably need to learn more about Windows 7. Still, SO EXCITED!!!

The U.S. government plans to propose broad new rules Monday that would force Internet providers to treat all Web traffic equally, seeking to give consumers greater freedom to use their computers or cellphones to enjoy videos, music and other legal services that hog bandwidth.

The move would make good on a campaign promise to Silicon Valley supporters like Google Inc. from President Barack Obama, but will trigger a battle with phone and cable companies like AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp., which don’t want the government telling them how to run their networks.

The proposed rules could change how operators manage their networks and profit from them, and the everyday online experience of individual users. Treating Web traffic equally means carriers couldn’t block or slow access to legal services or sites that are a drain on their networks or offered by rivals.

The rules will escalate a fight over how much control the government should have over Internet commerce. The Obama administration is taking the side of Google, Amazon.com Inc. and an array of smaller businesses that want to profit from offering consumers streaming video, graphics-rich games, movie and music downloads and other services.

Julius Genachowski, head of the Federal Communications Commission, is also expected to propose in a speech Monday, for the first time, that rules against blocking or slowing Web traffic would apply to wireless-phone companies, according to people familiar with the plan.

(more at the Wall Street Journal)

Parents who install a leading brand of software to monitor their kids’ online activities may be unwittingly allowing the company to read their children’s chat messages — and sell the marketing data gathered.

Software sold under the Sentry and FamilySafe brands can read private chats conducted through Yahoo, MSN, AOL and other services, and send back data on what kids are saying about such things as movies, music or video games. The information is then offered to businesses seeking ways to tailor their marketing messages to kids.

“This scares me more than anything I have seen using monitoring technology,” said Parry Aftab, a child-safety advocate. “You don’t put children’s personal information at risk.”

The company that sells the software insists it is not putting kids’ information at risk, since the program does not record children’s names or addresses. But the software knows how old they are because parents customize its features to be more or less permissive, depending on age.

Five other makers of parental-control software contacted by The Associated Press, including McAfee Inc. and Symantec Corp., said they do not sell chat data to advertisers.

One competitor, CyberPatrol LLC, said it would never consider such an arrangement. “That’s pretty much confidential information,” said Barbara Rose, the company’s vice president of marketing. “As a parent, I would have a problem with them targeting youngsters.”

The software brands in question are developed by EchoMetrix Inc., a company based in Syosset, N.Y.

In June, EchoMetrix unveiled a separate data-mining service called Pulse that taps into the data gathered by Sentry software to give businesses a glimpse of youth chatter online. While other services read publicly available teen chatter, Pulse also can read private chats. It gathers information from instant messages, blogs, social networking sites, forums and chat rooms.

EchoMetrix CEO Jeff Greene said the company complies with U.S. privacy laws and does not collect any identifiable information.

“We never know the name of the kid — it’s bobby37 on the house computer,” Greene said.

What Pulse will reveal is how “bobby37″ and other teens feel about upcoming movies, computer games or clothing trends. Such information can help advertisers craft their marketing messages as buzz builds about a product.

Days before “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” opened in theaters on July 15, teen chatter about the movie spiked across the Internet with largely positive reactions.

“Cool” popped up as one of the most heavily used words in teen chats, blogs, forums and on Twitter. The upbeat comments gathered by Pulse foreshadowed a strong opening for the Warner Bros. film.

Parents who don’t want the company to share their child’s information to businesses can check a box to opt out.

But that option can be found only by visiting the company’s Web site, accessible through a control panel that appears after the program has been installed. It was not in the agreement contained in the Sentry Total Home Protection program The Associated Press downloaded and installed Friday.

According to the agreement, the software passes along data to “trusted partners.” Confidentiality agreements prohibit those clients from sharing the information with others.

In recognition of federal privacy laws that restrict the collection of data on kids under 13, the agreement states that the company has “a parent’s permission to share the information if the user is a child under age 13.”

Tech site CNet ranks the EchoMetrix software as one of the three best for parental control. Sales figures were not available.

The Sentry and FamilySafe brands include parental-control software such as Sentry Total Family Protection, Sentry Basic, Sentry Lite and FamilySafe (SentryPC is made by a different company and has no ties with EchoMetrix).

The Lite version is free. Others range from $20 to download and $10 a year for monitoring, to about $48 a year, divided into monthly payments.

The same company also offers software under the brands of partner entities, such as AmberWatch Lookout.

AmberWatch Foundation, a child-protection nonprofit group that licenses its brand to EchoMetrix, said information gathered through the AmberWatch-branded software is not shared with advertisers.

Practically speaking, few people ever read the fine print before they click on a button to agree to the licensing agreement. “Unless it’s upfront in neon letters, parents don’t know,” Aftab said.

EchoMetrix, formerly known as SearchHelp, said companies that have tested the chat data using Pulse include News Corp.’s Fox Broadcasting and Dreamworks SKG Inc. Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures recently signed on.

None of those companies would comment when contacted by the AP.

EchoMetrix has been losing money. Its liabilities exceeded its assets by nearly $25 million as of June 30, according to a regulatory filing that said there is “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

To get the marketing data, companies put in keywords, such as the name of a new product, and specify a date range, into Pulse. They get a “word cloud” display of the most commonly used words, as well as snippets of actual chats. Pulse can slice data by age groups, region and even the instant-messaging program used.

Pulse also tracked buzz for Microsoft Corp.’s “Natal,” a forthcoming Xbox motion-sensor device that replaces the traditional button-based controller. Microsoft is not a client of Pulse, but EchoMetrix used “Natal” to illustrate how its data can benefit marketers.

Greene said children’s conversations about Natal were focused on its price and availability, which suggested that Microsoft should assure teens that there will be enough stock and that ordering ahead can lock in a price.

Competing data-mining companies such as J.D. Power Web Intelligence, a unit of quality ratings firm J.D. Power and Associates, also trolls the Internet for consumer chats. But Vice President Chase Parker said the company does not read any data that’s password-protected, such as the instant message sessions that EchoMetrix collects for advertisers.

Suresh Vittal, principal analyst at Forrester Research, said EchoMetrix might have to make its disclosures more apparent to parents.

“Are we in the safeguarding-the-children business or are we in the business of selling data to other people?” he said. If it’s the latter, “it should all be done transparently and with the knowledge of the customer.”

1. William Shatner isn’t always an ass. He actually can be brilliantly entertaining even if he mostly appeared like he was talking with co-panelist Lenard Nimoy. Reoccuring themes included why he wasn’t in the movie, picking on Georgia natives (Nimoy has a lot of history in this city actually), the ongoing feud with George Takaei, and getting the lowest fare on priceline.com. Nimoy wins the battle however since he hates Glenn Beck as much as I do.

2. Movie trailers are always a big draw. People like watching them in the theatre, people like watching them at a convention. Even an hours worth of them can really be entertaining filler during a day’s worth of activities. The screen is big and you may get to see some you (or perhaps even the general public) has never seen. Avatar looks downright stellar if Second Life-like.

3. The name of your panel is very important. If you’re going to talk about the books rather than the television show, don’t call your panel True Blood. Call your panel The Sookie Stackhouse Novels. Because otherwise, it just looks obnoxious to bitch and whine and complain about the HBO series. This goes for any fandom really. You all need to get over the fact that books and television or movies are DIFFERENT. That’s why they’re called ADAPTATIONS.

4. The Con Suite really stepped it up this year. Either that or I got really lucky with what times I decided to drop in. For the uninitiated, this is a room set up by the staff, run 24 hours (except for a moments here and there for cleaning) that features food and drink. Sometimes you get something like Chex Mix, sometimes you get bacon and eggs like I did one morning. Other awesome dishes were red beans and rice, and Pocky. One of the misses was a huge ass pickle at 3am. Thanks but um, well I kind of wanted a real penis at that hour, I mean srsly.

5. Tom Felton (Draco Malfoy) has indeed become the hot delicious young adult I knew he’d be. Another member of the “delicious accent club,” he also has the benefit of playing a bad guy who finally found himself in The Half-Blood Prince. He couldn’t help but constantly flood the panel with fan service stating his favorite scene was with Harry in the toilets, that he actually prefers a Draco x Ron pairing, and that he’s a bit unsure about the photo-real slash out there.

6. I’m still unsure why the whole MST3K gang can’t seem to get back together all together even now. They all seem to talk about how they can’t get work in Hollywood and they really like doing their projects Cinematic Titanic and RiffTrax respectively. They all share a deep seeded hatred for Jim Mallon. Why not put your peanut butter in their chocolate already?

7. Malcolm McDowell was one of those celebrities that did indeed charge a premium for pix and autographs… HOWEVER!!! Unlike many of those other crappy actors that aren’t really worth the oxygen they’re sucking up at their empty Walk of Fame table, this guy is a real nice man who if you don’t have the money will still chat for a moment. I told him that I really like his work, which is technically true since I HAVE INDEED seen so many of his films that even he probably doesn’t remember doing. You know, because they’re bad.

8. I missed out on seeing Adam Savage because I got my hotels mixed up. It was in the Sheraton not the Marriott. The 4th hotel was added I believe last year and it’s kind of a haul as it sits away from the main three (which are lined up in a row across the three blocks). It was also ice cold for other panels like Crow vs Crow — No matter who loses, Tom Servo wins — and so maybe it’s not so bad I missed out seeing another Mythbuster this year. Besides, would it be right to see Adam without Jamie?

9. 3 Years ago in the Self Publishing panel it was filled with so-called experts who said it wasn’t a good idea. You should polish your letters and send them out to all the publishers and get yourself a good stack of rejections. This year they say that this is the way of the future and that while there still will be the big names, this is the best way to go forward. Durr. I told you so. That’s why I self-published “Later, Skater” and “Freakshow” and ignored your so-called advice. Bitches.

10. Steam Punk has taken over. An instant fandom (just add water) this re-envisioning of the way the world works if only we powered things by steam. While this isn’t exactly a new concept, per say, this is the first year it got its own track of programming at DragonCon. Yes, they did underestimate the appeal and gave it too small of a room. But considering how obviously overwhelmingly popular it was, I think that’ll be remedied quite quickly. The fact that Best in Show at the Masquerade went to a steam punk group will not be lost on those in charge, I’m sure. I’m quite pleased to be honest. It’s a far more interesting concept than Twilight or Browncoats or sucking the teat of Joss Whedon that’s for goddamn sure.

Dishonorable Mention: Furries still suck. Not content to stink up the internet, they continue to troll our conventions this time wearing shirts with the acronym FAP (Furry and Proud.) Die in a fucking fire.

A Vogue cover girl has won a precedent-setting court battle to unmask an anonymous blogger who called her a “skank” on the internet.

In a case with potentially far-reaching repercussions, Liskula Cohen sought the identity of the blogger who maligned her on the Skanks in NYC blog so that she could sue him or her for defamation.

A Manhattan supreme court judge ruled that she was entitled to the information and ordered Google, which ran the offending blog, to turn it over.

Ms Cohen, a tall, Canadian blonde who has modelled for Giorgio Armani and Versace, went to court after reading the wounding anonymous comments on Google’s Blogger.com.

“I would have to say the first-place award for ‘Skankiest in NYC’ would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen,” the blogger “Anonymous” wrote in one posting. The blog, since removed, ridiculed the former Australian Vogue covergirl as a “40-something” who “may have been hot 10 years ago”, when she was actually 36.

Justice Joan Madden rejected the blogger’s claim that the blogs “serve as a modern-day forum for conveying personal opinions, including invective and ranting”, and should not be treated as factual assertions.

The model was looking forward last night to discovering the identity of the alleged acquaintance who insulted her. “Everybody is waiting to see who this coward is,” Steven Wagner, her lawyer, said.

Andrew Pederson, a Google spokesman, said: “We sympathise with anyone who may be the victim of cyberbullying. We also take great care to respect privacy concerns and will only provide information about a user in response to a subpoena or other court order.”

(Ed note: Um, what? First of all, is it really defamation if you’re called a name? Someone better alert the playgrounds across the Universe! Second of all, how could the courts even dream of trying to set such a precedence? This is obviously going to become a loop-hole for every Tom, Dick, and Harry to come running to Google (or your ISP) with their hand out asking for your information because you said such and such about so and so.))

MARTIN COUNTY – Martin County Sheriff’s detectives didn’t buy it when a 48-year-old Jensen Beach man claimed that his cat was downloading child pornography on his computer.

Keith R. Griffin was charged Wednesday with 10 counts of possession of child pornography after detectives found more than 1,000 child pornographic images on his computer, according to a news release.

Griffin told detectives he would leave his computer on and his cat would jump on the keyboard.

When he returned, there would be strange material downloaded, the release states.

Griffin was being held in the Martin County Jail in lieu of $250,000 bail.

When goliath AT&T went mano-a-mano with a tiny site called 4chan.org, perhaps AT&T didn’t realize what it’s like to start a fight online. Things have gone from bad to worse to downright despicable ever since AT&T, in a move it said was meant to protect one of its customers from a Web-based attack, blocked access to the 4chan site. Here is what happened.

On Sunday AT&T blocked access to portions of 4chan.org, an image-board Web site that allows users to post uncensored images and content anonymously. Soon after the blockade was detected by 4chan.org its founder Christopher “Moot” Poole posted a statement to the 4chan site complaining about AT&T’s actions and urged 4chan users to “call or write (AT&T) customer support and (AT&T) corporate immediately” to complain about the blocking.

Next, in a statement posted to its Web site Monday, AT&T claims that one of its customers was affected by a DoS (denial of service) from multiple IP addresses related to the 4chan image-board Web site. AT&T has subsequently lifted the block on 4chan (/b/ & /r9k/) and says it continues to monitor for DoS activity.

Interestingly enough, and raising serious Net neutrality issues, is the fact that Poole claimed on his site’s status blog AT&T never contacted him regarding the blockade. To some 4chan users and Net neutrality advocates the blockade had the appearance that AT&T may be blocking 4chan because of content posted on the site, and not for security issues. That is claim AT&T loudly disputes.

Late on Sunday, sometime midway through the ban, a report surfaced on both CNN iReport and Digg claiming that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson was dead (thank you Businessinsider for the image ). It’s not clear whether this was a 4chan users prank. The iReport suggested Stephenson was found “delirious” outside his home after a party with “male dancers everywhere and the best blow west of Mississippi.”

The prank report also said Stephenson went into a coma in transit, probably due too massive cocaine use. The CNN iReport was taken down shortly after it emerged, although several hundred users voted for the story on Digg.com. Shortly after, personal contact details of AT&T senior staff appeared online, with users being encouraged to contact them regarding the 4chan block.

In today’s statement, AT&T said it didn’t block 4chan because of the uncensored and unfiltered content it features and insisted malicious traffic was to blame.

Poole has posted an update to the saga on his 4chan site’s blog. He is toning down his rhetoric explaining the AT&T and 4chan blockade was all a big mix up. He explains that in 4chan’s effort to thwart a DDoS attack against 4chan (not AT&T) it unintentionally created the appearance to to AT&T network administrators that it was the source of a DDoS attack. Now Poole says he doesn’t blame AT&T for blocking access to 4chan stating in the blog entry: “In the end, this wasn’t a sinister act of censorship, but rather a bit of a mistake and a poorly executed, disproportionate response on AT&T’s part.”

I’ve been trying to say something to this effect for a long time but as good of a writer as I may feel I am, I don’t think I could possibly write with as much clarity as this opinion piece.

Please enjoy.

Internet giant Google promised Friday to work harder to eliminate pornography from its Chinese Web pages as state media reported authorities had shut down some of its search services.

“Google has continually taken measures against vulgar content, particularly material that is harmful to children, on the Internet in China,” a statement by the company said.

“Google is currently stepping up its efforts in this regard.”

Xinhua news agency reported that the Chinese agency tasked with fighting online porn has already “stopped some of Google China’s searching businesses and asked it to clear up its lewd content.”

“Google China was ordered to suspend its overseas web-page searching services and associated word-search services,” Xinhua said, citing the China Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre (CIIRC).

The report gave no other details.

Neither Google officials nor the Internet watchdog could immediately be reached to confirm the report.

The centre slammed Google China on Thursday, saying it was continuing to facilitate searches for pornographic material.

“Google China’s website has not installed filters to block pornography in accordance with the laws and regulations of our nation,” the watchdog said in a statement.

“CIIRC strongly condemns Google China and demands that it thoroughly clean up the pornographic and vulgar content on its sites,” it said.

China has vowed to crack down on Internet content that it deems unhealthy, including pornography and information critical of authorities.

Computer makers were notified by the government recently that all personal computers sold from July 1 must be shipped with anti-pornography software, a move that has led to widespread concern both inside and outside China.

China has the world’s largest online population at nearly 300 million web users.

Authorities have a history of blocking websites they deem politically unacceptable or offensive, a censorship system that has been dubbed the “Great firewall of China”.

Xinhua reported separately on Friday that Beijing plans to recruit an “army of tens of thousands of volunteers” to scour the Internet for porn and report back to authorities in the capital.

(Ed note: Well, other than the obvious, “good luck with that” comment that should be made here, there is probably also the, “censorship is wrong” debate that could be hashed out. But I think the most important part of the entire news story is, I wonder how I can get a job in Beijing to scour the internet for porn. I mean, I kind of already do that now, but maybe if I could be a paid volunteer, that’d be great.

Unless all I found was vaginal/head fisting videos. That’d be kind of a bad day at the office, so to speak.

The link says: “VIDEO: Watch Obama Kill Fly During Interview…”
Where was the one that said: “VIDEO: Watch G.W.B Kill Thousands During Iraq War…”

I admit, I used to visit the Drudge Report a few times a day to gleam off some of the more unusual or interesting stories. Sadly, it’s become nothing but an anti-Obama machine.

And while I, OF COURSE, have some issues with our current administration, and I, OF COURSE, had some issues with the previous one, a non-stop blah blah blah is never interesting.

THIRD TIME CHARMING, SEXTON BRINGS “FREAKSHOW” TO THE MASSES
New novel brings colorful story of twin acrobat teen boys in traveling circus

A duo of slender and extremely agile youths face questions about their interests in bedding local boys, carnival staff, and one another in Jonathan Sexton’s third novel. This release marks his second release in as many years!

Hadyn and Devyn Robertson find themselves at a crossroads as the circus pulls into town at a stop in Macon, Georgia. While one of the twin acrobats seem to be in love with their world of high flying action and steamy weekend long romances, the other appears to be at war with it.

When Hadyn starts to reveal his feelings may be stronger for his twin than perhaps natural, things start to unravel. The natural ebb and flow between brothers seems off and when a local boy gets tossed into the mix, things get downright ugly.

“‘Freakshow’ initially was intended to be very free spirited,” Jonathan Sexton goes on to explain, “but as the story was crafted and worked over, a real raw heart appeared at its core that I’m quite proud of.”

The novel is printed by Lulu.com a Print On Demand resource that is giving a voice to thousands of independent minded artists.

In addition to a physical release, ‘Freakshow’ is also being offered as a digital download, a first for Sexton.

“I was leery at first, but then I realized I really only want to get this in as many hands as possible.” Sexton adds, “Not being in a physical book store brings you certain limitations you want to try and help overcome for the fans.”

His previous work, ‘Later, Skater’ is also being released as a digital download simultaneously.

Time Warner Cable Inc. is shelving its plan to bill customers based on how much Internet traffic they generate, following mounting public and political outcry.

Time Warner Cable’s capitulation doesn’t bode well for the future of metered billing of the Internet, in which people who use more bandwidth pay more.

Frontier Communications Corp., a Time Warner Cable rival in one key test market, Rochester, N.Y., also has dropped its plans for metering Internet use.

(Ed note: This is good news. Already in the United States our internet experience is less than that of many European and Asian countries. We need faster and more, not slower and costs extra.)

A friend of mine has started up a social meet and greet website where they will as they say in their non-mission statement, “provide a place for Fags and the Hags who love them to meet, greet and spill some nasty gossip about the men in their lives – or the men they *wish* were in their lives or the men they wish would get the hell out of their lives!”

Check it out.

Amazon managers found that an employee who happened to work in France had filled out a field incorrectly and more than 50,000 items got flipped over to be flagged as “adult,” the source said. (Technically, the flag for adult content was flipped from ‘false’ to ‘true.’)

“It’s no big policy change, just some field that’s been around forever filled out incorrectly,” the source said.

Amazon employees worked on the problem well past midnight, and then handed it over to an international team, he said.

Seattle-based Amazon.com sells millions of items, so the 57,000 affected represent just a tiny portion of the company’s selection. But Amazon’s perception problem was enormous, and aggravated by the company’s official description of the problem as a “glitch.”

(more)

(Ed note: I just checked over on Amazon.com my first novel “Pixiesticks” which is available over there (the others are exclusively on Lulu.com) and its searchability and sales-rank have been restored.

As for this latest, let’s call it Version 3.5 of Amazon’s response. I’m not so sure it holds water. Many other items didn’t get taken off that absolutely would have been tagged adult. The fact this has been happening since February is also bothersome. And finally, anonymous source? Haven’t we learned anything about Anonymous?)

Text messaging graphic pictures of yourself could soon be legal for teens in Vermont.

Lawmakers there are considering a bill that would make it legal for teenagers 18 and under to exchange explicit photos and videos of themselves – an act that’s come to be known by teens as “sexting.”

Under the current law, teenagers could be prosecuted as sex offenders if they get caught sending graphic sexual images of themselves, even if it was consensual.

A state House committee will hear more testimony on it later this week.

In a recent study, 18 percent of female students nationwide say they’ve tried sexting.

New York City student Stefanie Garcia is only in high school, and says sexting happens all the time.

“Girls in underwear, guys completely naked, muscle pictures, stuff like that,”

Karen Salmansohn is an expert on talking with teenagers about smart choices. She writes books to empower girls, and says parents need to talk to their kids about the dangers of sexting — using their language.

“Don’t talk to them in language saying this is right this is wrong. That’s not going to get to a kid,” Salmansohn said.

“You have to talk them, you know what you think is cool isn’t so cool. You have to use the language of cool because that’s why they’re doing it.”

Tell them that once that embarrassing pictures goes out, there’s no way to get it off the Internet, and could affect their college and future job opportunities when recruiters search the Web. They’re also up for grabs for sexual predators.

This is an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error for a company that prides itself on offering complete selection.

It has been misreported that the issue was limited to Gay & Lesbian themed titles – in fact, it impacted 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. This problem impacted books not just in the United States but globally. It affected not just sales rank but also had the effect of removing the books from Amazon’s main product search.

Many books have now been fixed and we’re in the process of fixing the remainder as quickly as possible, and we intend to implement new measures to make this kind of accident less likely to occur in the future.

Amazon Spokesperson
Drew Herdener

via Seattlepi.com

(Ed note: Ah, the comments that come too late in this modern world. Amazon is an online only company and should have hauled Drew out -yesterday- Holiday or not.

As of today, you can now search for my own book, “Pixiesticks” on Amazon’s main page like you used to before this happened, but I as of right now, still do not have a sales-rank. I still wholeheartedly promote lulu.com FTW!)

The number one word being used over and over on Twitter at this moment is “AmazonFail.”

Why?

Users are angry about a perceived anti-gay policy that removes lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender books from appearing in sales rankings.

Author Mark Probst writes on his blog that two days ago, “mysteriously, the sales rankings disappeared from two newly-released high profile gay romance books: ‘Transgressions’ by Erastes and ‘False Colors’ by Alex Beecroft. Everybody was perplexed. Was it a glitch of some sort? The very next day HUNDREDS of gay and lesbian books simultaneously lost their sales rankings, including my book ‘The Filly.’”

Probst eventually got a response from Amazon.com Advantage member services, he says.

In consideration of our entire customer base, we exclude “adult” material from appearing in some searches and best seller lists. Since these lists are generated using sales ranks, adult materials must also be excluded from that feature.

Hence, if you have further questions, kindly write back to us.

Best regards,

Ashlyn D
Member Services
Amazon.com Advantage

More than 800 people have signed a petition in strong protest of Amazon’s “adult policy” on thepetitionsite.com.

(more)

Update: There is now the phrase Amazon Rank that’s popped up in our lexicon for the moment.

Update: Here is a really great blog entry about Making Books Disappear.

Update: Here is an excellent article about Twitter’s impact on the news story really made a difference in just mere moments.

(Ed note: Indeed my own first novel, “Pixiesticks” has been de-ranked on Amazon — not that it was ranked very highly. More annoyingly if you try and search for it without specifically doing a search in the book category it no longer will show up. AmazonFail! LuluFTW!)

Tell me, faithful readers, it’s nearly been a year now for my last novel, “Later, Skater” and I’ve sold around 35 copies. Is that a success? Is it a failure? These aren’t really questions I concern myself with.

What I want to know today is if “Later, Skater” was made available as an e-book (essentially a PDF file) on Lulu that you could download and read and enjoy and fap to, for $5 dollars, would there be many takers?

Many authors have gone down this route while many others do not approve of it. I’m the Pixie of the People so I want to ask you, my fans, what you think.

5 dollars via credit card or paypal to Lulu.
You get to download “Later, Skater” as a PDF file.
No shipping. No handling. No physical book to be toting around.
And best yet this would work internationally.

What say you? Leave comments on this post, via the tag-board, or email.

PS: If you think this is a great idea, do you think I should release “Freakshow” the same way immediately or wait for a while?