September 30th, 2009 by admin

Il vincitore del romanzo Il sigillo della nuova Atlantide, di Thomas Greanias (Longanesi, hardback, 18.60€), sarà comunicato sabato. Gli iscritti sono stati divisi in 4 gruppi. L’estrazione avverrà secondo le seguenti modalità:
- Fase 1
Il primo estratto sulla ruota Nazionale di giovedì 1 ottobre decreterà quale gruppo resterà in gioco (da 1 a 22, gruppo 1; da 23 a 45, gruppo 2; da 45 a 67, gruppo 3; da 68 a 90, gruppo 4).
- Fase 2
Il primo estratto sulla ruota Nazionale di sabato 3 ottobre vincerà il libro.

Ricordo che per concorrere bastava essere tra gli iscritti alla newsletter entro il 27 settembre.
Poiché ci saranno altre occasioni in futuro, se ancora non l’avete fatto, non correte il rischio di perdervi il prossimo libro in premio e iscrivetevi alla newsletter: cliccate qui e confermate l’email che riceverete.

Intanto, augurando buona fortuna a tutti (e invitandovi a condividere la notizia), vi allego le immagini con le colonne dei 4 gruppi (le email sono state rese parzialmente illegibili per motivi di privacy).

Libro in palio, ecco i concorrenti è un articolo di Thriller Cafe - libri thriller gialli e noir

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September 30th, 2009 by admin

La  Crime Writers’ Association ha reso pubblica la shortlist 2009 per l’Ellis Peters Historical Award, il premio che andrà al miglior thriller storico dell’anno e dedicato alla memoria di Ellis Peters, creatrice della famosa serie di Fratello Cadfael.
I finalisti quest’anno sono:
Rennie Airth: The Dead of Winter (Macmillan)
Philip Kerr: If the Dead Rise Not (Quercus)
Shona MacLean: The Redemption of Alexander Seaton (Quercus)
Mark Mills: The Intelligence Officer (HarperCollins)
Andrew Williams: The Interrogator (John Murray)
Laura Wilson: An Empty Death (Orion Publishing Group)

Vedremo se la Wilson bisserà la vittoria del 2008. Intanto qualcuno che se la gode c’è già: si tratta di Philip Kerr, che si rallegra per i 125000 euro dell’RBA International Prize for Crime Writing. La cifra ha stupito anche lui: “In un altro premio, in Francia, avevo vinto qualche bottiglia di vino” ha commentato sorpreso…

Ellis Peters Historical Award 2009: la shortlist (2 ottobre) è un articolo di Thriller Cafe - libri thriller gialli e noir

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September 30th, 2009 by admin

Ritorno a Bassavilla è il nuovo libro di Danilo Arona, pubblicato dalla attivissima Edizioni XII. Lo recensiamo oggi su Thriller Café.

Titolo: Ritorno a Bassavilla
Autore: Danilo Arona
Editore: Edizioni XII
Anno di pubblicazione: 2009
Pagine: 192

Trama in sintesi.
L’opera ci riconduce tra le brume della più spettrale tra le città della letteratura italiana, Bassavilla, popolata di fantasmi, segnata da inquietanti episodi di cronaca nera, in equilibrio pericolante tra la realtà (o quella che pensiamo tale) e un disturbante Immaginario.
Di Arona, Evangelisti scrive in quarta di copertina: è un Charles Fort moderno o uno dei migliori autori fantastici che abbiamo in Italia? Tra i mille dubbi che lascia nel lettore, questo è forse il più insondabile.

Non un thriller, neanche narrativa a dire il vero, né saggio o true crime. E’ un’opera che sfugge alle etichette, questo Ritorno a Bassavilla, ma è un’opera che lascia delle tracce nel lettore come solchi delle campagne alessandrine, in cui giacciono nascosti semi del Male che ogni tanto germogliano in delitti. Verità da cronache nere di folle ordinarietà, omicidi che sembrano sceneggiature da film dell’orrore, piuttosto che parti reali di una provincia silenziosa e poco chiacchierata. Eppure il sangue a Bassavilla e dintorni scorre a volte nei modi più assurdi, sangue documentato, tangibile, rosso e appiccicoso. E sangue altre volte raccontato, insinuato, protagonista di storie inquietanti che restano sospese nell’atmosfera nebbiosa che ristagna tra realtà e leggenda. Vicende di fantasmi, stregonerie, posti strani e fatti inspiegabili.
Un collage, Ritorno a Bassavilla, che trova la sua cornice perfetta nella seducente narrazione di Arona, capace di evocare presenze che grattano sull’uscio della razionalità e di instillare dubbi e inquietudini. Perché, se è pur vero che spesso l’orrore risiede nel banale quotidiano, siamo proprio sicuri che quegli episodi sfuggenti e contro logica non siano anch’essi dettagli di un quadro più grande e solo in parte comprensibile?
Ciascuno darà la propria risposta, ma – come conclude Daniele Bonfanti nella sua prefazione – dopo aver letto il libro sarà difficile non pensarci: prendere la macchina e andare a scoprirlo di persona, viaggiare verso il mistero, nell’attesa fremente e paurosa di scorgere nella nebbia un cartello che recita: Bassavilla.

Con una menzione finale per l’opera d’arte che è la copertina, non mi resta che consigliarvi un salto qui: sul sito dell’editore, a comprare il libro.
Ne vale proprio la pena.

Ritorno a Bassavilla – Danilo Arona è un articolo di Thriller Cafe - libri thriller gialli e noir

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September 30th, 2009 by admin

Last week the fledgling Canadian Pirate Party launched its very own BitTorrent tracker to show how this great technology can empower artists to get their material heard by a wider audience.

“We’re starting a BitTorrent tracker to show artists how to properly use P2P technology in order to gain access to a cheap and efficient marketing and distribution network,” Pirate Party spokesman Jake Daynes explained to TorrentFreak.

Just a couple of days later and already Canadian record label Thorny Bleeder Records is showing its support for the party and its new RivetTracker-based distribution system.

Thorny Bleeder Records is an independent record label and the fruits of a partnership between Art of Dying’s Jonny Hetherington and Greg Bradley along with industry veteran Brian Thompson. They aim to offer artists new options in today’s music business.

“As a show of support for the Pirate Party of Canada, Thorny Bleeder Records are proud to announce that our sixteen track, multi-artist Get Thorny compilation is now available for free on their website,” announced the label.

TorrentFreak caught up with Brian Thompson to learn more about their decision to embrace the Pirate Party and their tracker.

“Thorny Bleeder Records strongly believes in the culture of file sharing as a benefit to an artist’s development and to the growth of their fan base,” Brian told TorrentFreak. “It’s become increasingly difficult and expensive to have a band’s single added to a radio station’s playlist, so the Internet has quickly become the next best thing for new music discovery.”

“As a an artist and a record label, your number one goal is to be heard by as many people as possible. BitTorrent provides the perfect distribution for music discovery to occur, it’s today’s version of the record store listening post. Pirate Party’s new BitTorrent tracker provides us with the perfect avenue to expose our artists to an entire new audience that would otherwise be unaccessible,” he added.

Brian told us that Thorny Bleeder also supports the Pirate Party in their fight for copyright reform.

“The world has changed dramatically since these laws were introduced eons ago and it makes no sense to continue adhering to these old laws that no longer support creativity and distribution in the digital reality of today and tomorrow,” he added.

The compilation ‘Get Thorny’ can be downloaded here.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

September 30th, 2009 by admin

The Appeal Court announced today that lay judge Fredrik Niemelä has been disqualified from the upcoming Pirate Bay appeal. Unlike the previous calls to replace people involved in the Pirate Bay trial, this one came from the music industry, not the defense team.

Last week music industry body IFPI requested Niemelä to be taken off the case, since he is connected to the music streaming application Spotify which is partly owned by the major record labels. This request was soon backed by movie industry lawyer Monique Wadsted. “There should not be any doubt in this case,” she said in a response.

The Court today agreed with this assessment and disqualified Niemelä because he holds stock options in Spotify. This despite the fact that Niemelä himself denied a conflict of interest. The decision by the Appeal Court is unanimous and can not be appealed.

The question remains why the music industry was so eager to have this lay judge removed, since they usually keep quiet when the person in question supports their case. However, as we’ve pointed out before, there could be more to this lay judge issue than initially meets the eye.

Niemelä’s involvement with Spotify was limited to the technical side. In fact, he is a tech savvy programmer who co-owns a streaming technology patent along with the original developer of uTorrent and knows the ins and outs of BitTorrent.

Instead of having a bias towards the music industry, as IFPI wanted the Appeal Court to believe, he might actually be one of the rare candidates who knows how BitTorrent really works. Judging from the plaintiff’s discrediting of other tech experts in the previous trial, it might be that IFPI’s true motivation to remove Niemelä was not that humble.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

September 30th, 2009 by admin

Going into the elections, the ‘Piratenpartei’ must have been on a high. In local elections two weeks ago members of the Pirate Party were elected onto the city councils of Munster and Aachen, and just one week ago, in youth elections, they scooped almost 10% of the youth vote.

Despite all this, 2% was the best they could achieve in the Federal elections, although in itself, that is still not an easy figure to achieve. However, it is short of the 5% barrier required to enter the German Parliament. It also means that the seat they gained from the defection of Jörg Tauss has been lost.

Yet positives remain. Like their Swedish brethren, the Pirate Party is now the largest outside of government, eclipsing many established ‘broad spectrum’ parties. It also qualifies for federal funding, which at 0.85 Euros per vote nets the party somewhere in the region of €720,000 (or $1,050,000 US) from their 845,904 votes, plus additional money to match 38% of contributions and membership fees.

Perhaps the biggest accomplishment is that the party has gained more votes in this election than the entire movement has before. It got a very strong showing with first-time voters, with Business Week reporting up to 13% of that group went Pirate. The party has also grown its membership tenfold in just a few months, to around 10,000. Not as fast as seen in Sweden, but still impressive.

Jens Seipenbusch, national party chairman, was upbeat about the results. “Our new style of politics touches the nerve of the people in Germany. We will continue to bank on participatory politics and to fight for civil rights online as well as offline.”

While it’s easy to focus on the negative, the positive is there as well. The party doubled its vote percentage in just a few months. With the funding, the rapid growth of members and the high profile the party has received in the media, it can only be a matter of time before the party gains more seats.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

September 30th, 2009 by admin

As the music industry continues to pressurize anyone it believes can stop illicit file-sharing, its main focus remains ISPs. These service providers are often accused of doing nothing to stop the spread of pirated material on the Internet, despite being very well aware of it. The music industry wants to hold them accountable, the ISPs say it’s not their problem.

Previously the international music industry has taken legal action to order various ISPs in several countries to block The Pirate Bay, but to our knowledge none have offered to help block BitTorrent sites voluntarily – until now.

Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone Warehouse which operates the ISP TalkTalk, said the company would introduce a cinema-style ratings system for web content.

Aside from the self-explanatory 18 rating, there will be two others. Parents setting their connection to U and 14 will trigger a pornography and gambling filter, but they will also have the power to ban file-sharing and BitTorrent sites too.

“This is something that we are going to do anyway, as a service to our customers,” Dunstone told FT. “But through doing it we can also help the content industry by blacklisting sites that have BitTorrent files on them,” he added.

It’s not difficult to see how a system like this might prove attractive to the music industry if used in conjunction with the proposed “3 strikes” mechanism. Customers receiving an industry warning after their account is flagged as sharing illicit files could then have the immediate option to switch on this ISP-level firewall to thwart their kids.

But like all ’solutions’, for the tech-savvy they’re just another problem to be solved.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

September 28th, 2009 by admin

Dopo il successo di Trascina gli uomini il ferro, Marcus Sakey torna sugli scaffali delle librerie italiane con Brava gente (Good people), romanzo thriller edito come il precedente da Baldini Castoldi Dalai e nominato in America tra i finalisti del Barry Award 2009. La trama vede protagonista una coppia, Tom e Anna, da sempre alla ricerca di due cose: la sicurezza economica e una famiglia felice. Ma nonostante numerosi tentativi di avere un figlio i due non ci sono mai riusciti, e il costo emotivo e finanziario che hanno sostenuto per raggiungere questo traguardo è diventato tanto  ingente che il loro rapporto si sta poco alla volta sfasciando. Ma una notte tutto cambia. Viene loro offerta la possibilità di lasciarsi tutto alle spalle e di poter vivere finalmente la loro favola. Tuttavia, ben presto si rendono conto che ogni scelta ha un prezzo, e Tom e Anna si ritrovano in pugno di un gruppo di uomini senza scrupoli. Gente che non si fermerà finché non avrà la vendetta che cerca. Non importa dove e quando riuscirà a ottenerla…

Brava gente, di Marcus Sakey: acquistalo su IBS!

La Brava gente di Marcus Sakey è un articolo di Thriller Cafe - libri thriller gialli e noir

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September 28th, 2009 by admin

There are many popular BitTorrent sites on the Internet that are sorely missed when they go offline, but of course, the larger the site, the larger the disappointment.

One major site having serious technical issues at the moment is Demonoid. At the beginning of September, TorrrentFreak reported that the Ukranian-based site would go down for possibly-extended downtime due to some hardware problems.

“We are experiencing power outages that have caused some ram and hard drive issues,” site staff sad in a statement. “We might have to shut down everything to fix and prevent further damage,” they added, while warning that the site could disappear for days while the site’s power circuit received maintenance.

Since we receive questions daily from worried users on the situation at Demonoid, an update seems in order. Unfortunately, at this stage it doesn’t seem like good news.

Although staff at the site say they hope Demonoid will return as soon as possible, they have confirmed that the hardware issues have caused severe data loss. This problem is compounded by the fact that the person who can get the data back is unavailable to assist at the moment.

“A loss of a some months worth of activity including registered users and torrent submissions is to be expected because the backup we are hoping to get back is not up to date, so please be prepared for it,” Demonoid staff said in a statement.

When ‘the backup guy’ has worked his magic the site will return. In the meantime, anyone getting public BitTorrent site withdrawal symptoms can check out our alternatives list.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

September 28th, 2009 by admin

Say what you like about Lily Allen. Agree with her. Disagree with her if you like. Whatever the position, it’s difficult to take it away from her – she has done more in the last week to raise the online debate over illicit file-sharing than any other artist in recent months.

Lily has managed to capture the imaginations of both sides – people are talking about this issue and that is always a good thing.

Debate, discussion and hopefully understanding will bring this file-sharing ‘war’ to an end one day but in the meantime let’s not forget what this is ultimately all about – the music. We all love it and that’s why you’ll love this too;

“After Lily’s hectic week I’ve made a pro-filesharing song and video calling her up on a few of the claims she’s made,” UK musician Dan Bull explains to TorrentFreak.

“I’ve also tried to outline some of the main moral arguments for filesharing in the lyrics. Hope you enjoy, and hope the readers do too.”

The song is brilliant in my opinion, and, ironically I suppose, i’d like to give Dan some money for his work, he deserves it. Let’s hope this song gets to Internet #1 this weekend and he reaps the benefit. Now if I can just get the chorus out of my head…..

…or if you prefer, download the MP3 here.

Dan’s MySpace page can be found here and his album ‘Safe’ is available from FreshNut but can also be downloaded digitally from iTunes, Amazon and Napster.

You can grab it free of charge here or using Mininova.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.