Link roundup

1. "However, the volatile situation in Syria means that activists' methods to get documentation off the streets and onto social media are rapidly changing. Unconfirmed reports claim pen phones and small camera phones are being smuggled into Syria by anti-government expatriates and both the Saudi Arabian and American governments."

2. Fascinating article about pirates. When I read about the Barbary pirates in Neal Stephenson's Quicksilver, I thought he was greatly exaggerating their exploits. But no:

Initially, the corsairs used galleys, which were fast and easily maneuverable, but the problem of supplying their rowing crews and soldiers, which could total some 184 men, limited their range. But European renegade sailors, such as John Ward, “without any doubt the greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from England,” as a courtier put it, and Danseker the Dutchman, known as the “Divil Captain,” were on hand to supply the expertise needed for a shift to sailing ships.

They could now raid along the British and the Irish Channels — they would even reach as far north as Iceland. Throughout the century, their raids caused havoc in coastal communities, with sailors and fishermen refusing to go to sea. In the Mediterranean, whole stretches of coast in Spain and Italy were deserted.

3. Useless, but a magical idea - - it looks like a camera, but when you press the shutter it doesn't take a picture. Instead, it pulls off from the net a random photo taken by someone else at that exact moment. Via these sites.

George Martin's A Dance With Dragons (no spoilers)

A Dance With Dragons is easily the worst book in George Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. But I read 950 pages in a week, and often gave up sleep to do so, so it would be silly to call the book bad.

In retrospect, the flaws of the book were trumpeted by Martin himself. A third (or more) of the book is content that was meant to be included in A Feast for Crows. But that book ran too long, so the content was saved for this. In other words, it's b-material that never deserved to be its own book. Another third of the book was frequently described by Martin as the "Meereenese Knot" - - an inescapable plot hole he had worked himself into. His difficulty in solving that "knot" was the reason the book was so famously delayed. What he really needed was someone to tell him that the Meereen portion was trash and should be completely discarded. (Is there somewhere where he's defended the main character's actions in that part of the book? Because they certainly made no sense to me.)

The last two hundred pages more than made up for the rest of the book, though, and it will be a long, difficult wait for the next book.