Copy Protection Hasn’t Changed Much Since Medieval Times
Even thousands of years ago, creative types had to worry about protecting their intellectual property. Their approaches to discouraging piracy and theft may not have been too different from the intimidating warnings we see today, but they were far more creative and amusing. Sometimes people come to me and ask, “How did medieval filmmakers protect…
Searching for reality at the Philip K. Dick festival
Last weekend, hardcore Philip K Dick fans trekked to the high Rocky Mountains for a festival of Dickian dimensions. There were Dick scholars, biker bars, library lectures, Techgnostic side-trips with Erik Davis, and an epic, weekend-long attempt to define reality. Phil Dick’s science fiction often features characters alienated by the technology that surrounds them, overwhelmed…
How Edgar Rice Burroughs became one of the twentieth century’s biggest scifi authors
In 1911, a 36-year old loser, his latest business venture crumbling into insolvency, started to while away his idle hours at the office by writing a novel for the then-new “pulp” magazines. It was about a man going to Mars. The story he wrote, a swashbuckling tale of action, adventure, and romance set on the…
