Putting it all together

From the Washington Post:

To protect against skimming and eavesdropping attacks, federal and state officials recommend that Americans keep their e-passports tightly shut and store their RFID-tagged passport cards and enhanced driver's licenses in "radio-opaque" sleeves.

That's because experiments have shown that the e-passport begins transmitting some data when opened even a half inch, and chipped passport cards and EDLs can be read from varying distances depending on reader techonology [sic].

All right, folks – one Faraday cage wallet, coming right up.

We must adapt to new technology

Michael Schaub (of the Bookslut Blog) links to a a piece in Vanity Fair, thus:

James Wolcott on the main problem with the Kindle (I'm paraphrasing): The cute nerdy emo girl at the coffee shop has no way of knowing you're reading 2666.

It’s a tricky situation, to be sure – but there is a solution: Broadcast your literary taste on your hat, Judah Friedlander-style.

Ow! My angst!

All about LiveJournal, from Cracked.com:

LiveJournal is 95 percent female. Like an acting club or cheerleading squad, the minority of males who use it are either gay or there for the chicks. The all-female atmosphere means that 95 percent of LJ comments consist of people hugging each other, and the other 5 percent consist of people apologizing for judging someone’s Harry Potter rape fanart.

Ouch. Then again, poking innocent fun at LiveJournal these days is kind of like making fun of the Kaiser’s funny-looking hat, but at least they picked a target that can laugh at themselves. (Odd that they went for the “Ick! It’s full of girls!” thing, though.)

The Movie: The Book

Joe Queenan defends those writers who produce film novelizations:

Similarly, the whole time I was watching Hannah Montana: The Movie, I did not realize that Miley Cyrus, Miley Stewart and Hannah Montana were all one person. The wig confused me. Originally, I thought Miley Stewart was the young Minnie Driver, while her alter ego was Miley Cyrus dressed up to look like Hillary Duff. It was simply too hard to follow; it was more confusing than The Matrix Revolutions. Not until I read Hannah Montana: The Junior Novel by NB Grace did I realise that Miley Stewart/Cyrus was not only Billy Ray Cyrus's daughter but Hannah Montana in disguise.

Well that paragraph had big flashing “Post me on your blog!” signs hung all around, didn’t it?

Into Wodehouse

If you’ve been looking for a way into the works of P.G. Wodehouse, the AV Club is here to help:

With the exception of 1974’s Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen (or The Cat-Nappers, depending what country you’re in), the 34 short stories and nine novels of the Jeeves-Wooster cycle represent the most consistently amusing, well-paced series of Wodehouse’s career. The Mating Season isn’t as widely praised as The Code Of The Woosters or Jeeves In The Morning, but it’s just as deft, and it doesn’t have too many recurring characters to overwhelm novices.

Very helpful. Less helpful? No mention of how to pronounce the name.

Why Google, why now?

Techdirt asks why Google is building an operating system:

There have been rumors for years that Google might someday release its own operating system, but the announcement that it's turning the Chrome browser into an operating system is an odd duck for a variety of reasons (amusingly, the "Google browser" was also rumored for years before Chrome showed up). Why is it odd?

The first thing they mention is the fact that Android already exists, so Google already has an operating system. (My guess is that it’s something to do with the licensing.)

Of course, if you’re in a hurry to go with a cloud-centric, Google-focused OS, there’s always gOS.

Calling out the economists

From Newsweek:

One intriguing subplot of the economic crisis is the failure of most economists to predict it. Here we have the most spectacular economic and financial crisis in decades—possibly since the Great Depression—and the one group that spends most of its waking hours analyzing the economy basically missed it. Oh, a few economists can legitimately claim some foresight. But they are a handful. Most were as surprised as the rest of us.

We’ve said it time and time again: Never trust economists.

Here we go again!

From CJR:

The Financial Times led its front page with a major story today on the return of those dread words “financial innovation.”

[…]

The FT reports that these “schemes,” which it rightly calls them, could lower the banks’ cost of capital by up to half. Guess who’s leading the charge? Goldman Sachs—and Barclays Capital.

Will we never learn? (No, not if enough people can make their packet and get out, leaving someone else holding the bag.)

Everything I need to know I learned in Greyhawk

From Javaworld, a case where Dungeons & Dragons helps someone succeed in business:

Throughout my 20s and 30s, I played D&D and other fantasy role playing games at least once a week. Doing so did more than teach me the rules of combat or proper behavior in a dragon's lair. I gained several skills that truly did help me in my career.

Several common-sense pieces of advice follow, as seen through a D&D lens. One addition I might suggest, however is don’t piss off your healer. How that applies to the business world, I’m not sure, but there must be some connection.

Bound to be the Wetlands of the short-pants set

From the Guardian comes the story of a rather grim fairytale:

The word "slut" appears in the first line of Margo Lanagan's new book, Tender Morsels. The next few paragraphs describe an unsettling sex scene between a witch and a dwarf. For some parents this will simply be an upfront way of indicating the challenging content of an interesting novel for young people, for others it will signal the end of children's literature.

The novel, published this month by Random House, is a lurid reworking of Grimm's Snow White and Rose Red fairytale and also contains a gang rape and a frank description of a miscarriage. Within the book industry, the new title from the Australian author is already being described as uncompromising and controversial.

Of course, there’s a renewed call for some kind of book rating system as a result of all this. (I wish they had something like that when I was a kid. It would have saved me a lot of time, otherwise wasted on reading books without lurid depictions of sex or violence.)