Megaupload’s demise has the internet in an uproar, but the shutdown of the sharing site is unlikely to put a dent in online piracy. Still, sites such as FileSonic, FileServe, and and Uploaded.to have taken matters into their own hands by disabling sharing access in the United States, and MediaFire’s CEO has issued a preemptive statement on the matter. None of this is particularly surprising, though, which is why it’s so refreshing–for all fans of Schadenfreude–to learn that Kim Dotcom, Megaupload’s “Goldfinger”-esque founder, plans on releasing an album in the near future.
Megaupload Latest
A New Little Women
This week in book-to-film adaptation news: there will soon be another take on Little Women, to be produced by Amy Pascal and adapted by Sarah Polley.
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Using Neuroscience To Study Art
Dutch researchers are using moistened electrode caps to measure the brain waves, heart rate, galvanic skin response and facial expressions on an author and fifty of his readers. They hope to find patterns “that may help illuminate links between the way art is created and enjoyed, and possibly the nature of creativity itself.”
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The Peculiar Science of Hating The Beatles
At The Vulture, Nitsuh Abebe explains in seven steps how to do the impossible: convincingly hate The Beatles. It’s not easy, by the looks of it.
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For Tom Waits, Drink Everything
Do you like listening to music, but often struggle with an appropriate drink order? Enter Drinkify, a website which suggests cocktails based on the tunes you’re playing. (I tested it out with The Wu-Tang Clan. It told me to drink “1 bottle of gin.” Do with this information what you must.)
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The anticipations of a Most Anticipated book
Not every worthy book finds the audience it deserves as quickly as Edan Lepucki’s California. John Warner writes about the long aftermath of finding his debut, The Funny Man, featured in our 2011 Most Anticipated Book Preview: “I wondered, what if? Maybe this was going to be the next phase of my life, and when people asked me what I did, I’d say that I wrote novels.” His new collection of short stories is Tough Day for the Army.
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Tuesday New Release Day: Coover; Donoghue; Huneven; Glass; Coupland; Osborne; Waldman; Jamison
New this week: The Brunist Day of Wrath by Robert Coover; Frog Music by Emma Donoghue; Off Course by Michelle Huneven; And the Dark Sacred Night by Julia Glass; Worst. Person. Ever. by Douglas Coupland; The Ballad of a Small Player by Lawrence Osborne; Love & Treasure by Ayelet Waldman; and The Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison. For more on these and other new titles, go read our Great 2014 Book Preview.
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A Life in Books
“Reading is a type of reckoning with the self. That may sound like a simplistic platitude, but platitudes exist only because they are true, our self-serving intellectual mirrors be damned.” Cher Tan shares a lifetime’s reading history with Catapult, tracing her trajectory from “[k]eeping up with the boys” during high school to this past year, in which she made a personal pact to read only books written by people of color. Pair with our own Nick Ripatrazone in conversation with six authors on their childhood reading.