more on LJ's link hijacking, and DreamWidth invites

I've still got a couple of spare DreamWidth invites.

I'm *tired* of this constant monetising creep on LJ, of feeling that I now need to subscribe to http://community.livejournal.com/no_lj_ads to keep up with the latest attempt to sneak ads into paid accounts. I pay for my account for one simple reason -- I don't want to see ads on other people's accounts, and I don't want other people to see ads on my account. I have no use for most of the paid features, and I can live without the ones I do use. LJ has repeatedly demonstrated this year that their definition of ad-free for paid accounts is "no ads other than the ones we think you won't notice us slipping in".

I don't have a problem with LJ offering ad-supported accounts. They need revenue to run the service, and it's a commercial operation so they need to turn a profit. But I do have a problem with them making money by using seriously dodgy software from a third party to covertly re-direct links for their commercial benefit. That's a big security and privacy breach.

And even without that aspect, I have a big problem with them doing this to paid accounts, with no real opt-out. I know that moving lock stock and barrel to DreamWidth and simply leaving a forwarding address as the only post in my LJ account is going to inconvenience a lot of my friends, but I don't see any other good reason to keep giving LJ money if they don't back down on this. Be aware that from now on, if you comment on the LJ account, the content will be exported at some point to my DW account.

Some useful links
How to Move from LJ to Dreamwidth in Six Easy Steps
Suggestion on breaking (for now) the rewriting for other people's view of your posts. It won't stop them seeing that people are following a link, but it should stop them making money from it. The tool used has its own security/privacy implications, but at least you get to decide which evil you prefer.

Oh and as one of the few paid features I do use is creating syndicated accounts... I've set up a feed to LJ of my DW account, in case of need. http://syndicated.livejournal.com/julesjonesondw/

Anzac Day

95 years ago today.

But the band plays Waltzing Matilda,
And the old men still answer the call
But as year after year, more old men disappear
Some day no one will march there at all.

They are all gone now, those old men I saw march on a late April day, but they are not forgotten.

book review: Sam_Storyteller -- Condition of Release

Another long piece of Whoniverse fanfic from Sam_Storyteller/Sam Starbuck/Copperbadge. This one's about 40k words long, i.e. short novel length, and uses those words to great effect. Sam has taken the "Doomsday" and "Cyberwoman" material, and linked it with some of the things we're shown about the classic Cybermen in the Hartnell and Troughton eras. The result is a story that takes Torchwood season 1, drops in one small fact a second or two after the credits roll in Cyberwoman, and makes you see parts of that season in a whole new light. It's beautifully written, with characterisations that build on and deepen what we get in canon. But this is more than good characterisation. There's a solid story here, one that would make a good tie-in novel.

The small fact is that Ianto wasn't physically converted, but *was* subject to direct mind control by Lisa's Cyber personality. With her death, the conscious control is gone, but that doesn't mean Ianto's free. Jack's interrogated more than one person who's survived an encounter with the Cybermen, he's heard enough about their methods to recognise what he's seeing, and he's not giving up Ianto without a fight.

It's not quite compatible with canon for me, because it doesn't quite mesh with the scene towards the end of Cyberwoman where Ianto is pleading with Lisa to remember who she is. But it makes a great deal of sense in the context of what we've been shown canonically about Cybermen over the years, both the original Mondas Cybermen of classic Who and the parallel universe Cybermen of new Who. This is an excellent piece of work, tying together elements of classic Who, new Who and Torchwood in a satisfying way.

Posted in five parts, plus author's notes on the canon material used, part 1 here. Sam's own description:
Rating: PG-13; R in the final chapter
Summary: Jack has studied the Cybermen for forty years, and he's damned if he'll let one take any of his people away from him without a fight.