Thursday, January 26, 2006

Sean Stewart on novel-writing vs alternate reality game writing.  Sean Stewart is a brilliant science fiction/fantasy writer (don't miss his gothic fantasy/ghost story book Perfect Circle) who's recently turned his hand to creating giant, ambitious alternate reality games -- those are games where people solve puzzles and achieve goals on the Web and in the real world, with faxes, IMs, websites, and many other components coming to play. Here's a great interview with him about writing novels and games: Right now, this art form is more exciting than novels. If I had to choose, I'd do this. And I don't say that because of the paycheck--though being a freelance science fiction novelist is not a great way to put your kids through college, so it has been nice to get paid. I honestly believe that the gods in their infinite mercy looked down and gave me a chance --miraculously and wholly unlooked for--to be at Kitty Hawk, to be in motion pictures in 1905, to be at a place and a moment in time where something extraordinarily exciting was just getting off the ground. As much as I'd like to think it had much to do with my merit, mostly it's this huge stroke of timing and good luck to be in the right place at the right time, working with the right people, to have a chance to be in on something at an extraordinary cultural moment. Link (Thanks, JeremyT!) [Boing Boing] 6:00:49 PM    comment []

Choicepoint to Pay $15M Fine. Atlanta-based data aggregator ChoicePoint today agreed to pay $15 million to settle charges that it violated federal consumer protection laws when it allowed criminals to purchase sensitive financial and personal data on at least 163,000 Americans. The settlement addresses a pair of lawsuits filed against ChoicePoint by the Federal Trade Commission and represents the largest civil penalty ever obtained by the agency. Via Brian Krebs at the Security Fix blog. [Emergent Chaos] 6:00:26 PM    comment []