automaticdoor75

I read The Count of Monte Cristo some years ago, and it remains one of my favorite novels. This year, I committed to read The Three Musketeers. I chose a Librivox audiobook narrated by Mark Smith, since I had enjoyed his recording of Tarzan of the Apes.

The audiobook used a public-domain translation which apparently toned down or removed the more risque parts of the story. If you want to read or listen to an audiobook (which I recommend), I guess try to find a more modern translation, even if you have to pay for it. The Librivox recording is of high quality, with excellent narration.

I very much enjoyed the story. The true pleasure of the novel is the bond between D'Artagnan and the musketeers, and discovering their personalities. Much like Little Women, this is a novel that you remember for the characters. On top of that, you get to know the "lackeys" of the four. I had assumed the lackeys would be irrelevant to the plot, instead, they all manage to play a role in the larger story.

#Milady

The most interesting character for me was the villain Milady. My opinion of her swung wildly across the story.

(SPOILERS)

About a third of the way through the book, D'Artagnan becomes smitten with Milady. He disguises himself as Milady's lover, the Comte de Ward, to have sex with her. This is glossed over in the translation I listened to, but I was alarmed when I read about it in a separate summary. What D'Artagnan does would now be considered rape, and it's no wonder Milady flies into a rage when she discovers the truth.

In another chapter, D'Artagnan's melancholy friend and father-figure Athos confides his own dark past: years before, he was a count, and married a young girl from his village. He later discovered this girl had been branded on her shoulder as a felon. Athos cut her clothes off and had her hanged. Ashamed to his core by the scandal, he renounced his title, took on the name Athos, and joined the Musketeers. Later, it's revealed that Athos' wife survived the hanging, and became Milady.

I can accept the explanation that Athos, as a nobleman, was bound by duty to carry out the execution. Still, in the moment of reading, what he did felt pretty damn brutal. I suppose I was thinking of Jean Valjean in Les Miserables, or the people who were sent to penal colonies for breaking a plate in a burglary.

All of that's to say that I started the second half of the book feeling like maybe Milady had been wronged a little bit, and may have had some reasons for seeking revenge on D'Artagnan and friends. I was accustomed to modern storytelling convention, which has no patience for purely evil characters. If the story were written today, the branding would have been treated as a tragic misunderstanding.

I hate to say it, but when Milady is captured in England on her way to assassinate the Duke of Buckingham, part of me was hoping she'd escape and get away with it.

I was sobered up by the end, when Milady has mercilessly poisoned Madame Bonacieux, and when we hear the Executioner's story. At that point, I was disabused of my notion that Milady was some victim of circumstance. If Athos had not discovered Milady's brand, she would have ruined him, too, if not killed him.

All I can do is give my compliments to Dumas' writing talents: just like the character Felton in the later chapters, I had been thoroughly seduced by the character of Milady. Milady's latest victim...was me!

#Conclusion

I'm glad to have finally read The Three Musketeers. I am encouraged to try to find some of Dumas' less-popular stories, including The Last Cavalier at some point.

An interview with Sefton Eisenhart, author of the new crime story The Chaos of Heat I asked him about what he enjoys reading, his writing setup, fanzines, and the authors who inspire him.

Hello,

I wanted to share one of my ongoing project. This is a directory of works by Harlan Ellison. Ellison was one of the most popular writers of science fiction in his time, but sadly most of his work is out of print. This directory includes summaries of his short stories, essays, book introductions, and teleplays.

Some of Ellison's best-known works include I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, Repent, Harlequin! Said the Ticktockman (which influenced V for Vendetta), A Boy and His Dog, Dangerous Visions and the Star Trek episode The City on the Edge of Forever.

So, far, 21 books have been added.

I hope this directory helps keep his work alive. If you're a fan and would like to contribute some write-ups of a book that's not been added yet, let me know.

I woke up this Sunday and the house was dead silent. I had time to lay in bed until 9:30 AM or so. I went downstairs, ground my coffee beans, made a pour-over for myself with some toast.

I wouldn't have it any other way. There's nothing better than having this time alone to just sit and think. On weekdays, I can come home from work and actually have time to decompress and do nothing. I have time for reading and hobbies.

I thought I'd take a moment and count my blessings for being childfree.

I am trying to understand an idea that Richard Stallman proposed to promote music "in the age of computer networking." This is from an article titled Ending the War on Sharing: https://stallman.org/articles/end-war-on-sharing.html

We could support musical artists with public funds distributed directly to them in proportion to the cube root of their popularity. Using the cube root means that if superstar A is 1000 times as popular as skilled artist B, A will get 10 times as much of the tax funds as B. This way of dividing the money is an efficient way to promote a broad diversity of music.

The law should ensure that record companies cannot confiscate these funds from the artists, since experience shows they will try. To speak of "compensating" the "rights holder" is a veiled way of proposing to give most of the money to the record companies in the name of the artists.

These funds could come from the general budget, or from a special tax on something vaguely correlated with listening to music, such as blank disks or Internet connectivity. Either way would do the job.

What I'm having trouble understanding is whether the artist (musicians in this case) is getting paid per-listen, or if they are getting paid as a percentage of the total fund.

Is the idea that if an artist was responsible for 8% of the songs played on a platform, they would get 2% of the funding?

Has anyone else read about this idea? I wish it had been explained a bit better.

EDIT: I emailed RMS and he replied. Here is how the cube root system would work. I have labeled the quotes for clarity:

RMS: I am assuming a program managed by the state, which measures the popularity of each musician and distributes a certain pool of money among them.

auomaticdoor75: Let's use a very simple example: let's say there's a treasury that will pay out $10,000 to three different artists. Artist A was responsible for 67% of the songs played on the platform, Artist B was responsible for 20% of the songs played, and Artist C was responsible for 13% of the songs played. Using your cube-root idea, how much money would each artist receive?

RMS: The cube roots are 0.8750340239643772, 0.584803579016074, 0.5065797363612384 Add them and you get 1.9664173393416897.

The A gets (/ 0.8750340239643772 1.9664173393416897) = 0.444988968749288 of the total.

B gets (/ 0.584803579016074 1.9664173393416897) = 0.29739545482845087 of the total.

C gets (/ 0.5065797363612384 1.9664173393416897) = 0.2576155764222611 of the total.

I do not say that the cube root is the perfect function to use. It gives an example of how such a system can work. A different function might be better.

So, it seems like you find the cube root of each person's percentage of the web traffic, divided by the sum of all the cube roots. The resulting quotient is that person's share of the treasury.