The Secret Lair

The Beardless Overlord

Dr. Cmar and I have shaved off our facial hair for the 2011 How Not To Grow A Beard Month festivities.  As part of this, we are also accepting donations for the annual Beards4Boobs drive, wherein we ask you to sponsor a beard to raise money for Breast Cancer research.

Please donate on the Beards4Boobs page. Be generous and save the mammaries. 

What is How Not To Grow A Beard Month? I’ll let Kris Johnson explain in his own words.

How Not To Grow A Beard Month owes its existence to three things: National Novel Writing Month, Evo Terra, and genetics.

National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, as it is known to participants worldwide) is an annual challenge in which would-be novelists attempt to write 50,000 words in the span of 30 days. Since its inception in 1999, NaNoWriMo has grown from a mere 21 participants to more than 101,000 in 2007. The 30-day challenge has also spawned a host of imitators, among which HoNoToGroABeMo can be unabashedly included.

Dr. Cmar in his native habitat, albeit beardless

But applying the NaNoWriMo formula to facial hair would likely not have happened if not for Evo Terra’s largely unsung 5 O’clock Shadow project. In March of 2007, the podcaster and new media entrepreneur began including a photo of himself with his blog posts; specifically, a photo taken at 5 o’clock in the evening. The project continued on a more or less daily basis until Mr. Terra had amassed 100 photos of his early evening stubble.

And this is where genetics comes into play. When Evo began his 5 O’clock Shadow project, I decided it might be fun to do the same. Only in my case, it quickly became clear that the paltry stubble I managed to grow between my morning shave and 5 o’clock wasn’t visible in my self-portraits. Some of the blame could be cast upon the low-resolution cameraphone I was using at the time, but the truth of the matter was that I was not genetically disposed to beard growth.

So, in November of 2007, I decided to combine the month-long-challenge aspect of NaNoWriMo with the facial hair of Evo’s 5 O’clock Shadow into a single, cohesive event. Given my less-than-impressive record with growing anything beyond a simple goatee, I dubbed the challenge “How Not To Grow A Beard Month”.

The concept was simple:

1. Shave every bit of hair off my chin, cheeks and upper lip on October 31st.
2. Don’t shave again until December 1st.
3. Take a photograph of the “progress” at roughly the same time every day and post it to the Internet.

 

I made two small (but necessary) exceptions to this rule: the front of the neck may be shaved for the sake of comfort, and basic beard grooming (trimming along the jawline and upper lip; minor trimming to make the beard length even) is acceptable for the sake of not looking like the Unabomber.

Mr. Johnson on Dec. 1, 2008, bearded in all his Finnish glory.

After 30 days, my beard was (as predicted) less than impressive. Some of the words and phrases that were not used to describe it include thick, Norris-like, lush, Lincolnian and brawny. Despite this, I determined that HoNoToGroABeMo would be an annual event, and that I would invite anyone foolish enough to set aside their razor for a month to join me in my quest.

I was content to confine the scope of HoNoToGroABeMo to my personal blog, but wily web developer Bob Voegerl decided that the challenge was just ludicrous enough that it deserved a home of its own, and so created HoNoToGroABeMo.org, a place where beards of all shape, color and density can come together and grow in unison and harmony.

If you’ve watched The Baristas, then walking into Affogato in Bellevue, PA is like walking into Cheers in Boston. You know the place, it is familiar, but some part of you is unprepared for the actual size, filled with actual people, none of them the actors you have come to know. After a moment the feeling passes, and you just feel…comfortable. Like you’ve been frequenting the places for a long time.

That’s how I felt when I met Victoria Dilliott, the owner of Affogato, for an interview this weekend past. Affogato is one of those incredible local places that is such a part of the local community that it has a soul of its own. When I found out that it would likely be closing unless Victoria finds a buyer, I wanted to learn more about the place, to write its story.

I’m still listening to the audio from that interview, still going through the pictures. The more I do so, the more I feel that letting a place like Affogato close would be a substantial loss. With the big names pushing out indy stores everywhere, finding unique Third Places is getting harder. Even though I did not personally spend any significant time in Bellevue at Affogato, I remember places like it from my past; places which are now just memories.

Your call to action: Help spread the word and help a community keep its independent coffeeshop and help a hardworking owner make back a portion of her seven-year investment in the business. Affogato is up for sale. Pass this Craigslist link around and do some good with your tweets, your Google+, your Facebook, your social graph.

Thanks,
Chris Miller

As a side note, The Baristas is gearing up for some new episodes. You should go watch the promo.

At last, we’re back with a new podcast episode. In this bundle of joy:

• We hold a board meeting to reveal just what that bacon smell was in the Lair, and discuss the fate of Overlord Johnson…
• We relate what we’re currently reading…
• Natalie is reading [amazon_link id="0765328542" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Fuzzy Nation[/amazon_link] by John Scalzi
• Dr. Cmar is reading [amazon_link id="0972595961" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Warlords of Utopia [/amazon_link]by Lance Parkin
• Chris just finished [amazon_link id="344254193X" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Cryptonomicon[/amazon_link] by Neal Stephenson and is currently reading [amazon_link id="0470395354" target="_blank" container="" container_class="" ]Schneier on Security[/amazon_link] by Bruce Schneier
• David has read a Great Many Things, but saw Cars 2 recently.
• We discuss Medical Studies for Non-Medical Personnel with Dr. John Cmar, mainly, how do you tell a Good Medical Study from a Bad Medical Study (hint…the Good Medical Study does not necessarily appear in a bubble of light wearing sequins. That would be too easy.)

We welcome your adulation, your tribute, and your comments below.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:02 — 47.6MB)

The reports of my carbonite  freezing have been greatly exaggerated. I am back, thawed and ready to rumble in that way that we do around the Lair.

Posts will follow shortly.

Brace yourself, Effie. This shit just got real.¹²

1. Am I mixing metaphors? No. Am I mixing movie quotes? Yes.  Back off man, I’m an Overlord. I’m here to kick ass and chew bubblegum. [↩]
2. See?  I did it again in the previous footnote. I’m on a roll. [↩]

Magnatune, the online music label sporting the tagline “We Are Not Evil,” announced this week that their all-you-can-eat membership program has been so successful that they are shifting their business model to take advantage of it. For $15 a month¹, you can download as much music as you like from the service.

From founder John Buckman’s blog:

Why the change? Simply put: membership today accounts for 74% of our revenue. Over the past two years our album download sales have declined while the unlimited downloads memberships have grown.

The two graphs below spell out a clear message from our customers:

We don’t want to buy your downloadable albums one at a time, we want unlimited access. And we’re willing to pay.

  

You can see that download revenue has decreased in both relative and absolute terms. In contrast, revenue from memberships has grown 80% in the past year alone. I don’t know of any other long-lived Internet music services that are experiencing our kind of revenue growth.

Magnatune was founded in the spring of 2003 with the goal of being a music label that treated both the artist and the audience fairly; often the label is referred to as a “pioneer in the fair trade music movement.”  Users are able to stream and sample the music on the site before buying, and in recent years, Magnatune has become a the friendlier replacement for the iTunes Music store in Linux-based music players like Rhythmbox.

Magnatune was also one of the first commercial companies to make use of Creative Commons licensing, and is credited with helping the CC movement take hold.  They make non-exclusive agreements with their artists, and gives them fifty percent of the proceed from the online sale of their work. Sound familiar?  One of the inspirations for Podiobooks.com (founded in 2005) was Magnatune.

For the last several years, Magnatune has offered the work of artists using a “name-your-price” model, where the buyer could specify how much they wanted to pay for an album. The customer could order the music on CD, or via download of high-quality mp3 or .wav files.  With this change, they are ending the name-your-price concept (all albums will be a fixed $12 for non-members) and the CD distribution.

Below: Music from the game Braid, which was licensed from Magnatune:

Music from Braid by Sieber, Kammen, Fulton and Schatz

1. less if you buy time in bulk [↩]

In this episode of The Secret Lair, we’re joined by hacktivist and digital culture commentator Thomas “cmdln” Gideon and a bit later in the episode by author and DIY enthusiast Matthew Wayne Selznick (Brave Men Run). The topic is one near and dear to our hearts: free content. This time out, we’re looking at free content from the perspective of the podcast novelist, and we begin our discussion with the announcement that J.C. Hutchins, one of the most popular podcast novelists, will no longer be offering new content for free.

Discussion: Free Content vs. Paying the Creator

• Our discussion was prompted by a blog post from novelist J.C. Hutchins, author of 7th Son: Descent and Personal Effects: Dark Art.
• Podiobooks.com is home to a wide array of free podcast novels, including the entire 7th Son series.
• Dave Slusher at Evil Genius Chronicles: “Publishing 2010: The Beginning of the End or The End of the Beginning?“.
• How is price related to elasticity of demand? Cory Doctorow discusses this in an interview on Beyond the Book.
• Another author who has used podcasting as a springboard to more traditional publishing is Scott Sigler, author of Ancestor, Infected and Contagious, among others.
• Matthew Wayne Selznick asked (on Facebook), “When was the last time you paid for something creative (music, book, movie, art, etc.) even though it was also available to you for free?” The responses were interesting and sometimes eye-opening.
• Does the podcast novel walk a fine line between marketing tool and gimmick?
• How far is podcasting behind blogging on the adoption curve?
• Is there a sense of entitlement to free works among fans of podcast novelists?
• Mike Masnick at TechDirt says you have to (1) connect with fans and (2) create a reason to buy.
• Selznick: Even providers of free content like Jared Axelrod don’t expect to see direct financial return from that same content.
• What is neo-patronage? Matt explains.
• Thomas provides an example of an artist utilizing neo-patronage: cartoonist/animator Nina Paley.
• Matthew points to Another Sky Press, a publisher that lets customers decide how much they want to pay for a book.
• Matthew also mentions Amanda Palmer.
• Chris mentions Magnatune, which allows customers to set their own prices for music.
• Some artists have used The Ransom Model (or crowd-funding) to support their efforts.
  • Jill Sobule’s 2009 album, California Years, was entirely funded by her fans.
• Did the audience J.C. Hutchins created when he released the 7th Son podcasts let him down when it came time to pony up for the print edition?
• Mur Lafferty offers a variety of content for free: novels, short stories, dramatized fiction and advice for “wannabe writers”.
• John Scalzi is another author who successfully used free content to launch a successful (science-fiction) writing career.
• What does a creator owe their audience?
  • Neil Gaiman: Entitlement Issues; or, George R. R. Martin is not your bitch.
  • Matt isn’t currently working on the sequel to Brave Men Run, and he tells us why. While you’re waiting, you may want to check out Hazy Days and Cloudy Nights.
• Selznick: A better, more ubiquitous form of micro-payments would help make neo-patronage more viable.
  • Could Peter Sunde’s Flattr (currently in beta) be that system?
• The community that has sprung up around podcast novelists is very insular, and incredibly passionate, but have we been drinking too much of our own Kool-Aid? We try to put some perspective to the whole business.
  • Emer Sugrue: Websight: Podiobooks.com.
• Harlan Ellison: Pay the Writer (contains NSFW language).

Lairkeeping

• Our theme music is “Skullcrusher Mountain” by Jonathan Coulton.
• Visit us on the web at trip-dubs dot thesecretlair dot com.
• Try StatusNet for those short updates. This service is invite-only, so send us a note if you’d like to join.
• Got something to say that 140 characters just won’t cover? Say it on our community site.
• Coming up on The Secret Library, The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross.
• Did you know that The Secret Lair is powered by WordPress? Well, you should; it’ll be on the quiz.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:13:26 — 67.2MB)

Love is in the air here at the Secret Lair, and all personnel are advised that rebreathers must be worn on levels A14 through B31, and access to level B32 and lower requires (a) special security clearance and (b) use of an approved Hazmat suit. Once pheromone levels have returned to normal and a cleaning crew has dealt with the mess on B32, special access restrictions will be lifted. In the meantime, if you feel more-than-usually amorous toward your Overlords, co-minions or (in many cases) yourself, please contact Dr. Cmar for a dose of the anti-toxin.

In this episode of the podcast, we discuss the lover’s spat between Amazon.com, the largest bookseller in the universe, and Macmillan, one of the six largest publishers in that very same universe. We also discuss some myths surrounding Valentine’s Day, which looms like a shadow over—I mean, is the second or third most wonderful time of the year.

Amazon vs Macmillan

Apple introduced the iPad which—among other things—is going to be an eBook reader. Why does this cause a fight between Amazon and Macmillan? It’s all about the pricing model.

• John Scalzi breaks it down for us.
• Charles Stross shares an outsider’s perspective.
• Tobias Buckell offers his take on the whole mess.
• John Scalzi presents a deeply slanted play on why publishing won’t die.
• Cat Valente doesn’t want the publishing industry to go away, either.

Promo: Harvey by Phil Rossi

Staff Reports

Chief Medical Officer Cmar files his latest progress report, in which he once again questions our judgment. This seems to be a common theme in The Bad Doctor’s reports. Meanwhile, Minister of Crackpot Schemes and Unfortunate Synergies Jay Lynn seems to be…surrounded.

In our new segment, Ask the Overlords, Don asks about the possibility of purchasing a gently-used space shuttle for a mere $28.8 million.

Promo: I Should Be Writing, now featuring All Write!, a webcomic drawn by Natalie Metzger, our very own Secretary of Artistic Propaganda.

Valentine’s Day

Saints and cards and massacres, oh my!

• The name of that Family Ties spin-off was The Art of Being Nick. Only the pilot was ever aired, and only once.
• That St. Valentine was an amorous fellow. And there were three of him. Does that make him polyamorous?
• What’s a little Lupercalia between friends?
• Lupa: wolf.
• Loofah: not a wolf.
• How do Chicagoans celebrate St. Valentine’s Day? Keep your chocolates and your greetings cards. Don’t bother sending flowers. Instead, say it with bullets.

Lairkeeping

• Visit the blog. Oh, wait, you’re already here.
• Try StatusNet for those short updates.
• Got something to say that 140 characters just won’t cover? Say it on our new community site.
• Coming up on The Secret Library, The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 49:09 — 45.0MB)

The news has moved quickly in some circles, but for those who have not yet heard: Natalie Morris, wife of Podiobooks.com founder¹ and author Tee Morris, passed away suddenly yesterday.

In order to help Tee and his daughter through this diffcult period, Pip Ballantine has set up a fund where anyone who wishes to can chip in. Please consider doing so, if you have the means.

1. In the words of Evo Terra: “Tee was the first author to make his book into a serialized audiobook delivered by a podcast. And though others soon followed independent of Tee’s actions, his ‘Hey Evo, I have an idea…’ phone call in late 2004 was the genesis of what would become Podiobooks.com.” [↩]

To: All Lair Personnel

From: Overlord Miller

Subject: Web site uptime and podcast schedule

While Overlord Johnson and I reward hard work and appreciate an enterprising mind, whomever decided to hook up the Q-Crays to the Desktop Hadron Collidor needs to present him/herself to me as soon as possible.

The resulting gravitational anomaly has trashed all the recordings that Overlord Johnson and I made over the month of December. While we can appreciate that David Moore’s clone’s presence in the building was offensive, it did not call for the destruction of the recording of the interrogation.

Additionally, we’re tracing the individual who sent the Hound of Tindalos puppies to the Turkish Government as a holiday gift. While humorous, it did result in temporary downtime for the web site when the counterattack hit us.

I cannot overemphasize how important branding is to a successful evil enterprise. Microsoft, AT&T, and Chuck E. Cheese have dominated based on catchy slogans and animatronic figures¹ alone.  If we want to maximize the return on our investments in shock troops and propaganda campaigns, we cannot have these sorts of slip-ups and pranks.

Thank you.

1. Steve Ballmer, in the case of Microsoft [↩]

This episode of The Secret Lair was recorded in an unnamed coffeeshop somewhere in an eastern suburb of the largest city in northeastern Ohio. No baristas were harmed during the recording of this episode, but Kris did some serious damage to a blueberry muffin.

Your Overlords are Old Men or “Infirmateam Assemble!”

• Decaffeinated coffee? Non-dairy creamer? Artificial sweetener? Who wants to rule a world where such things exist?
• We do.

Turning Pages

• Chris has high praise for The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, which was recently nominated for the Compton Crook Award.
• Kris is reading Elric of Melniboné by Michael Moorcock.
• We are still reading The Sky People by S.M. Stirling for The Secret Library. Kris is very nearly finished. Are you?

What Makes a Good Novel?

• Chris wants to be engrossed and transported.
• Chris likes the poetic style of the 1960′s. Poetic style doesn’t necessarily require the ingestion of psychotropic pharmaceuticals…but it can’t hurt.
• Chris would like Patrick Rothfuss to rewrite Robert Jordan’s entire Wheel of Time series. Bring on the hate mail.
• Chris prefers dialog to description.
• Chris says, “Tolkien was a hack.” I’m paraphrasing.
• Kris likes lighter fare; what he calls “beach novels” (see James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series).
• Kris also wants good description, something he feels is lacking in Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series.
• Chris wants a good mystery novel. The last one he read was by Ellis Peters (Brother Cadfael Mysteries).

Promo!

• Max Quick: Book Two – The Two Travellers by Mark Jeffrey premieres 01 May 2008 on Podiobooks.com. You can subscribe to Max Quick: Book One – The Pocket and The Pendant at Podiobooks.com, and you should: it’s the first podiobook selection for The Secret Library. More information on the series is available on the official web site.

Books Into Movies

• Chris doesn’t think The Name of the Wind should be made into a movie; there’s simply too much that would not survive the translation.
• Kris thinks that translating Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Süskind to film was ill-advised.
• Kris also hopes that there are no plans to adapt Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides to film.
• Chris wanders off into Touchy-Feely Land for a few minutes. Someone give that man a hug.
• …aaaand we’re back. Kris is glad Jurassic Park made the jump from pulp and ink to celluloid.

Evil Experiments

• The overlords will be meeting each morning at a local coffeeshop for more decaf, powdered non-milk and aspartame.
• And writing.
• Chris wants to write flash fiction.
• Kris wants to write a horror story based on his exposure to countless hours of children’s television. There’s an animal in trouble somewhere.
• During our daily writing experiments, we will likely make use of resources like Plotstorming.com.

Miscellanea

• Batman & Robin: Clooney had rigidity issues.
• Kris ruins The Empire Strikes Back for everyone.
• Wesley Clifford: not human? You decide.

Lairkeeping

• Thank you to Zach from the Geek Survival Guide for beta-testing our new feedback e-mail address. We welcome your feedback. At The Secret Lair. Dot Com.
• Be sure to visit our official community and The Secret Library.
• Our theme music is still provided by the extremely talented and well-bearded gentleman, Jonathan Coulton.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 52:41 — 48.2MB)