iTrap

This is probably the best response I’ve seen to the iPad, thus far: Why The iPad Is Crap Futurism [io9.com].

I cry for the inanimate

This week's xkcd is rather touching, I thought.

(I also reflexively apologize to furniture when I bump into it.)

Using adverbs differently

Has the longstanding war on adverbs finally been won? Not quite.

Chemical migration

Asian industries may be the cause of a different kind of hacking:

Ozone from Asia is wafting across the Pacific on springtime winds and boosting the amount of the smog-producing chemical found in the skies above the Western United States, researchers said in a study released Wednesday.

So, wait — the putrescent cloud hanging above Los Angeles isn’t made up of lost souls that float above Los Angeles, watching their now-vacant bodies move zombie-like from to home to coffeeshop to work and back again? Oh no, of course not: souls are transparent, duh.

Then again, what about the pyramids?

I still think it's kind of funny.

This is pretty close to how I feel

Except for that whole sexual arousal thing.

A good thing

I love this shirt: Stressed? Devour Your Enemies

The fruit of hope

So, Gizmodo is running a contest: Guess the features of the upcoming Apple tablet correctly, and they’ll give you one. (I assume there are some engineers in Cupertino who’ll have a couple of extra tablets to sell on eBay, soon.)

Fortunately, Gizmodo has its own predictions. Here’s what they say about the price:

People are guesstimating a wild range. Mine: $600, and they will still make money out of it. My gut feeling is that Steve Jobs and Co. believe this will be their biggest contribution to computing since the original Apple Macintosh. And they will want it to be cheap, so it can spread quick, like wildfire.

Excuse me a moment: Hahahahahahahahahahaha. Ahem.

There are a few things that Apple never does:

1. Compete on price.
2. Charge anything less than the absolute maximum that the market will support
3. Do anything for altruistic reasons (not necessarily relevant here, just bears mentioning).

Rules in action

Power will always be abused. It’s a rule. Look it up. Also, read this:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation used false terrorism emergencies to illegally collect more than 2,000 phone records between 2002 and 2006. A series of e-mails and memos obtained by The Washington Post details how FBI officials violated their own procedures and strained their communication analysis unit with non-urgent requests. In many instances, approval was granted after records had been collected to justify the FBI’s actions.

See? Also, the software and databases that your favorite online services use to make it easier for law enforcement to gather surveillance on you are big, juicy targets for malicious hackers.

Today in linkbait lists

This list of “The 100 Greatest Science Fiction or Fantasy Novels of All Time.” As Choire points out at The Awl, this shit will drive you crazy, but I’m mostly linking to this because the cover images are so huge.

Don’t let it throw you

The news is out: The New York Times website is going to start charging for content. Here’s the thing: people are going to pay, and you’re bound to hear a few folks declaring victory. Hold steady.

As Techdirt said: “Will some people sign up and pay? Yes, absolutely. In fact, I'm sure that there will be stories early on about just how many people subscribed. But as we saw with TimesSelect, that initial number plateaued quickly, and getting the next generation of readers to sign up? Yeah... good luck.”

As much as I want newspapers to survive, and for all of their employees to make scads of money, my main concern is that this will not work, and that it will hurt the New York Times. I hope I am wrong--and I usually am—but this does not bode well.

Telethon for Haiti

Telethon for Haiti to air Jan. 22 on multiple networks | Music | Newswire | The A.V. Club

Near weekend

Well, I’ve been absolutely swamped today, so I guess I’ll just close out this week by saying: Congratulations, Amanda Palmer an Neil Gaiman!

Give

You know what happened. Please help if you can. Donate to Doctors Without Borders. Or find other ways to help here, and here. If you're worried about being scammed when trying to donate, there is information here that will help you.

Responding to Robertson

Haitian ambassador Raymond Joseph responds to Pat Robertson’s remarks.

W. T. F.?

What’s Pat Robertson up to?

US evangelical preacher Pat Robertson levied blame Wednesday for the devastating earthquake in Haiti on Haitians themselves, saying that the country "swore a pact to the devil" at its creation.

"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it," Robertson said on his Christian Broadcasting Network show "The 700 Club." [...]

"They said, we will serve you if you will get us free from the French. True story. And so, the devil said, okay it's a deal," the televangelist said.

Hang on a minute. This reminds me of—wait, here it is:

The just-world phenomenon [...] refers to the tendency for people to want to believe that the world is just so strongly that when they witness an otherwise inexplicable injustice they will rationalize it by searching for things that the victim might have done to deserve it. This deflects their anxiety, and lets them continue to believe the world is a just place, but often at the expense of blaming victims for things that were not, objectively, their fault.

Also: Pat Robertson says a lot of stupid shit.

It may have gotten out of hand

Guess who’s a fan of The Big Lebowski? Yes, it’s Jeff Bridges.

“Any animal can have a baby”

But now humans can take the Parental Standardized Aptitude Test!

"But not me"

Letters of Note has posted Kurt Vonnegut's first letter home after the end of WWII, which details the harrowing tale of his life as a POW in Germany.

Link via Fark.

And today...

... I am sick.

This is not turning out to be a good week.

Time pressure

Yumpin’ yimmany (I know that’s not how it’s spelt) I’m behind on everything, today. Find something else to do, and I’ll meet you back here tomorrow, okay?

Comedian Artie Lang attempts suicide...

... and the Internet laughs. I feel incredibly dirty just posting that link.

Diagnosis

“Well, like all forms of life, you’re a fragile and temporary machine. One that will stop working some day.”

Really not funny

From the LA times:

A onetime top attorney to former President George W. Bush is accused of trying to kill his wife at their Connecticut home by beating her with a flashlight and choking her.

Fifty-seven-year-old John Michael Farren is charged with strangulation and attempted murder. He was ordered held Thursday on $2 million bail.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. Attempted murder? I thought we all agreed to call it “enhanced interrogation” now. (I know. I hate myself.)

I can’t believe it’s science!

Meanwhile, at mental_floss:

Big news in the field of alcoholic fruit fly research—when fruit flies are offered unlimited amounts of alcohol, they drink until they pass out. They don’t know when to say when, much like their human counterparts, alcoholics.

The list of various fraternities to which the fruit flies belong has not yet been released.

I wanna party with those horses

Latawnya The Naughty Horse, Learns to Say “No” to Drugs. I bet all her normal friends think that she’s boring now.

Replicant rodeo

From Techdirt:

Last month, we noted that Philip K. Dick's daughter was quite upset about the fact (at the time, unconfirmed) that Google was going to call its new phone, the Nexus One -- insisting that this was a ripoff of the Nexus-6 robots from Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. It's difficult to see any legal basis whatsoever for the claim, but we wondered if Google might just choose a different name anyway. Instead, it launched with the Nexus One name, and it took little time for the Dick Estate's lawyers to send a cease & desist, claiming that it will sue Google for "trademark infringement." There are a few problems with that, of course. The Dick Estate does not have a trademark on Nexus anything.

When reached for comment, the ghost of Philip K. Dick responded by transmitting a beam of soft, pink light from a satellite out in space.

This should be fun

From Bruce Schneier’s blog:

Let's do it. I'm announcing the TSA Logo Contest. Rules are simple: create a TSA logo. People are welcome to give ideas in the comments, but only actual created logos are eligible to compete. (When my website administrator wakes up, I'll ask him how we can post images in the comments.) Contest ends on February 6th. Winner receives copies of my books, copies of Patrick Smith's book, an empty 12-ounce bottle labeled "saline" that you can refill and get through any TSA security checkpoint, and a fake boarding pass on any flight for any date.

Get yer crayons and get to it!

Money ruins everything

This shit is why I blog for fun, and not for money. Also: No one has ever offered me any money, ever.

Coast to coast (over the ocean)

I’ve always wondered exactly what kind of accent Cary Grant had; turns out it’s something called “Trans-Atlantic,” which is described as half-British, half-American. [Link via mental_floss]

Fiction is a world of danger

“Congratulations. Now you’re a real writer because your family hates you.”

In loving memory of OMNI

Oh, how I loved OMNI magazine when I was a wee lad:

The magazine was a lushly airbrushed, sans-serif, and silver-paged vision dreamed up by Penthouse publisher Bob Guccione and his wife, Kathy Keeton. It split the difference between the consumerist Popular Science—which always seemed to cover hypersonic travel and AMC carburetors in the same page—and the lofty Scientific American, whose rigor was alluring but still impenetrable to me. But with equal parts sci-fi, feature reporting, and meaty interviews with Freeman Dyson and Edward O. Wilson, Omni's arrival every month was a sort of peak nerd experience.

I did not know about the Penthouse connection. [Link via Slashdot]

Ugh

You ever wake up in the morning, see the latest Google doodle, and realize that, yup, it’s going to be that kind of day?