Apparently they used to be in California, thus subject to US law etc. No longer, apparently. It's not clear what this will mean for the non-Russian arm of LJ, but you can read lots more here, including links and directions on how to port your entire LJ to Dreamwidth ( Read more... )

That ridiculous anti-gay bill in Russia -- the one that would criminalize any book, song, film or organization that mentions the word "gay" -- has been revived. It has actually passed the legislature (the mind boggles) and is awaiting the signature of the mayor of St. Petersburg.

Read more here and here and then sign the petition.

For some reason I seem to be on a Russia roll at the moment...

The Library of Congress has a new online exhibit of a whole collection of beautiful color images from Russia -- which date from 30+ years before color photos were actually possible! The first color film (Kodachrome) came out in 1936, but a Russian photographer named Sergei ( Read more... )

Well, lots of people, apparently. It seems that the problems with LJ last spring weren't just software glitches. According to the Moscow Times, LJ is "the country's main platform for uncensored political discussion" and the April service issues were part of an organized attack on LJ by the Russian governmentWow. And here I thought LJ was all ( Read more... )

Translated from the Russian, this book first relates the events of LoTR as seen from the other side (Mordorians, orcs, Haradrim, etc.) and then segues into What Happens After (conspiracy, espionage, secret missions, etc.)

It's probably a good idea to read the author's essay on Salon.com before tackling this book. He's a Russian palaeontologist ( Read more... )

My reading in December outstripped my desire/spare time/attention span/dedication to writing about it, so herewith a very brief summary of the last of 2009 to get us up to speed:

It Could Happen Here (Judson) - prediction of collapse of the US due to gross economic inequity. Cites things like the French Revolution and the Great Depression as ( Read more... )

A couple of days ago I finished Night Watch. Two thumbs very high up for this highly original vampires-and-other-magical-beings story from Russian author Sergei Lukyanenko. (Thanks to anna-bird for providing the book, in exchange for which I sent her a small package of anarchy and probably got her on Dick Cheney's watch list, because you just KNOW he ( Read more... )

Finished this one by Alexei Panshin last night. In Mia's world (which is a giant spaceship built out of an asteroid), on their thirteenth birthday kids get dropped onto a planet solo except for a horse; if they survive for thirty days, they get to come home and be adults. If they don't, well, they don't. It wasn't bad -- interesting premise -- ( Read more... )