Chapter One, Two, Three...

Right now, I'm working on a new novel. For fun, and to trigger me, I post every chapter of it on my website, one after the other as they are completed (well, their first draft, anyway). Here is Chapter One:

A new novel in the making: Chapter One

 If you read it, please give me suggestions on any editing it might need.

I will not tell you what the novel is about. It's much better that you find out gradually, and probably more fun for you. At this point, I'ver reached Chapter Nine, and that's where things really start to unfold... ;)

English is not my native tongue, so it's not easy to write a book in this language - especially not a novel, where every nuance is so important. But the challenge is irresistible. Better to fail utterly than never to try.

I will tell you this much:

Actually, this story started as a screenplay, years ago. I completed it and it might be swimming around somewhere in Hollywood, if it hasn't sunk to the bottom of oblivion.

Anyway, I decided to make it a novel, but I want to keep as much as possible of the kind of straightforward storytelling of a screenplay. You may notice this in the style of the text and in the perspective of how the story is told.

I also found that I need to change the plot quite a lot from the screenplay version. There are some loose ends, to say the least. I'm in the process of that and expect to have several serious complications to sort out on the way. Wish me luck.

Pornography Reduces Sex Crime

British Prime Minister David Cameron wants to block Internet pornography and make it less accessible, especially to minors. But research shows that if he succeeds, sex crimes are likely to increase – especially those involving minors as victims or offenders.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Pornography Reduces Sex Crime

The Weakness of Rhetoric

President Obama defended the massive NSA monitoring of digital information, which was revealed a couple of days ago. It was not an easy task, not even with his rhetoric skills. There are limits to the power of rhetoric.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

The Weakness of Rhetoric

The Great Misfortune of Society: It's Ruled by Freeloaders

Society is far from perfect, in spite of its thousands of years of evolution. Most of the suffering it causes or at least readily allows, is due to injustice. Some few are privileged at the expense of the vast majority.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

The Great Misfortune of Society: It's Ruled by Freeloaders

The Quest for the Perfect Search Engine

Since the second half of 2012, the search results on Google have deteriorated. Single domains often dominate the first few results pages – especially, but not only, after the first ten results. Also, the relevance and quality of the  results have decreased. It got me wondering: What would be the perfect search engine algorithm?


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

The Quest for the Perfect Search Engine

Patterns of Creation Myths

I made a new website, devoted to creation myths, their stories, structures, and patterns of thought. There is much to discover about the human mind in what kinds of ideas about the world beginning have been imagined way back in the dawn of civilization. We haven't changed that much since, nor has the essence of our perception of the world.

To begin with, the material on my new website, creationmyths.org, is mostly stuff I earlier had on my stenudd.com website. But there it was hidden beneath layer of layer of other stuff. So, I thought I'd better make a new domain explicitly for my writing on creation myths.

And it got me adding a new text, about Rig Veda 10:129, an Indian hymn contemplating in a drastic way what might have been before the world was created. It's an old favorite of mine among cosmological writings of the past.

I've studied creation myths for years and years, mainly but not only within the history of ideas, where I'm still supposed to complete a dissertation on the subject. I don't know about that, but surely there will be a book of some kind, eventually. In the meantime, I will keep adding to my new website. Please have a look at it:

creationmyths.org

Facebook Makes No Difference

Facebook is an anomaly. Scientists have discovered that the most influential ones on it are not the young “hip” ones, but those in their thirties and above. Imagine. So, we should no longer hope to die before we get old.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Facebook Makes No Difference

Facebook Fading?

There is such a thing as a maximum, even for Facebook. Now, it seems to be declining in the parts of the world where it has the most subscribers. Internet users are an impatient lot – because they can be.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Facebook Fading?

Openleaks to Close the Leaks

A group from Wikileaks is starting an alternative to it, calling it Openleaks, with a slightly different modus operandi. Whether this is true or just another hoax to discredit Wikileaks, the plans presented so far imply more of a seal than a leak.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Openleaks to Close the Leaks

Rape is More than Rape in Sweden

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is locked up in English jail, in the process to be deported to Sweden for charges of rape. Rape is a terrible word, but in Swedish law it's not only what we normally mean by it. A number of sex offenses, major and minor, are called rape – and treated equally severely by the Swedish legal system. Moral panic replaces justice.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Rape Is More than Rape in Sweden

Cablegate Is Another Gate to Democracy

Wikileaks has published thousands of cables to and from a number of US Embassies, revealing the diplomatic negotiations behind the scenes. They call it Cablegate. There is a lot of gates, these days, that governments struggle to keep shut. No can do in the Internet era. Learn to live with it.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

Cablegate Is Another Gate to Democracy

The Biggest Blogs are “Blogs”

Having a look at the competition in the blogosphere, I'm disappointed to see that the top positions are occupied by what are not really blogs at all, but big commercial ventures, similar to newspapers online, with hired staff and all. That's not what I would call a blog.


The essay has been moved to my personal website:

The Biggest Blogs Are "Blogs"

In Your Face

Sometimes I refrain from the use of words. It's rare, but it happens. Above is a video I did for my YouTube account. Just for fun. Others might find it boring. To each his own.

I started my YouTube account in 2006, delighted by its treasure of videos of celebrities as well as very regular people. The latter intrigue me much more. People are wonderfully creative – or not – and display it in ways that can be anything from delightful to grotesque. The internet is truly a blessing, making all this creativity possible, and serving it to the whole world.

My small contribution, so far, is no more than 32 short videos. Mostly visual experiments and ploys, but also some poetry and what-not. I do it mainly to amuse myself, so I don't expect that many visitors. As long as I am pleased with the results, I'm fine.

The name of my account is Aravadia, which is the name I invented for a character in a novel I wrote years ago, a stone age drama. In 2006 Google had no hits at all on the name, so I hurried to use it for my account. Now, it gets 815 hits.

The video above is one of the first I made. It's just me in a dark setting, involved in improvised little amusements. I keep a very straight face all through. That's what makes it so funny to me. The contrast between that serious face and what happens to it.
Let me know if you are amused, too, or not at all.