Quote: Colin Wilson

Colin Wilson, the man who could see the truth:

This, it seemed to me, is the basic difference between human beings. Some are perfectly satisfied with what they have; they eat, drink, impregnate their wives, and take life as it comes. Others can never forget that they are being cheated; that life tempts them to struggle by offering them the essence of sex, of beauty, of success; and that she always seems to pay in counterfeit money.

— The Outsider: Twenty Years After by Colin Wilson, pg. xviii

Compassionate Conservatism My Goddam Ass!

US conservatives block cancer vaccine for girls

Plans to vaccinate young girls against the sexually-transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer have been blocked in several US states by conservative groups, who say that doing so would encourage promiscuity.

I have no words left…

The Lighting War Opens A New Front

LEDs emerge to fight fluorescents

NEW YORK – The light bulb, the symbol of bright ideas, doesn’t look like such a great idea anymore, as lawmakers in the U.S. and abroad are talking about banning the century-old technology because of its contribution to global warming.

But what comes next? Compact fluorescent bulbs are the only real alternative right now, but “bulbs” that use light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, are quickly emerging as a challenger.

Just leave me in peace with my incandescents, dammit!

–linkswipe via reddit

Previously in this blog:
All Of You Who Want CFLs: Break Them And Eat Them!
Kill Kill Kill Kill The CFLs!!!
Lighting Nazis Must Die!!
Aha! Read This, You Lighting Nazi Bastards!
Eat Mercury And Die, Lighting Nazis!!!
Thank God! I Am Saved From The Lighting Nazis!!
Your Final Warning: Don’t. You. Fucking. Dare!
Don’t You Bastards DARE To Even TRY This Here!

Legalize Drugs? Yeah, Right.

Stopping a Kid Killer
A concoction called ‘cheese’ has led to 21 deaths in the Dallas area, and authorities worry it will spread.

May 21, 2007 issue – Nick Cannata finally seemed to be pulling his life together. A bright kid and talented artist, he had plunged into a spiral of drug use in his early teens after his parents’ divorce—marijuana, cocaine, then methamphetamine. But after attending a drug-rehab program in the fall of 2004, he seemed cheerful and motivated. By early 2005, he was doing his homework, going out with a new girl and testing drug-free. “Everything was falling into place,” says his father, Dave Cannata, who lives in Coppell, Texas, outside Dallas. Unbeknownst to Dave, however, Nick was likely taking a new, sometimes hard-to-detect drug concoction called “cheese”—a mixture of heroin and cold medication. One Saturday night in June that year, Nick, 16, came home from a party in an apparently altered state. Dave was worried, but decided to let his son sleep it off. The next day, when Nick failed to emerge from his room, Dave went in. “It was not pretty,” he recalls. “He was already gone.”

–linkswipe via reddit

Previously in this blog:
To Win The War Is Easy. Possession = Death. Period. No Exceptions. No Excuses. Buh-Bye!
Fucking Goddammed Motherfucking Meth!
This Is Your Face On Meth
Blunt-ed Minds
What The 1960s Tide Of Liberalism Washed Up
OMG
I Learn A New Word
The Kids Are All Fucked Up
Die You Meth Bastards! Die! Die! Die!
Meth. Die You Bastards!
Were They High When They Wrote This Shit?
You Meth Lab Bastards Must Die!
Ho Ho Owwwww…

Oh Wow. Color Photos Of America.

These are just amazing. Go look.

Bound for Glory: America in Color: 1939-1943

–linkswipe via reddit

Now I Know Why Analyst Starts With Those Four Letters

Can I coin a new term? Assylyst?

Dialing in to the iPhone bonanza

Some analysts argue, contrary to conventional wisdom, that the Apple phone won’t necessarily take a big bite out of other handset makers. Albert Lin, an analyst with American Technology Research, believes that in the long run the iPhone will ignite consumer interest in high-end phones, benefiting makers of so-called smartphones – devices that play music and movies and access the Web – such as Nokia, which he rates a buy.

Yeah, go ahead and buy Nokia. And kiss your money buh-bye!

Yeah, That HBO. It Ain’t Never Had No Future, Neither! Droool.

iTunes-like video services have no future: study

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Online video sites that sell shows and movies such as Apple Inc.’s iTunes will likely peak this year as more programming is made available on free outlets supported by advertising, according to a study released on Monday.

Sales of movies and television shows are expected to almost triple to $279 million in 2007 from an estimated $98 million last year. But unless the average consumer begins paying for their online video en masse, growth in sales will likely peter out next year, according to Forrester Research.

“In the video space, iTunes is just a temporary flash while consumers wait for better ways to get video. They’re already coming,” said Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey, the author of the study, who also called the paid download video market a “dead end.”

I mean, Jesus, can we get some thinking here, please? Bueller? Bueller?

I Put A Hate On Email Like This

From today’s email:

Mr. Cane – In your iPhone blog dated February 10, 2007, your refer in your title to POCKET MAC. POCKETMAC® is a registered trademark owned by Information Appliance Associates. Please use the ® symbol when referring to the POCKETMAC® product. If you intended to refer to pocket pcs generally, we request that you refrain from using POCKET MAC or POCKETMAC as Information Appliance Associates wishes to avoid its trademark from becoming generic.

Thank you for your cooperation.

My reply:

Piss off.

Bamford Provides Today’s Laugh

Doing fuck all. [blog dead]

In the morning you want tits and something hot inside you. Lets be honest.. A copy of the Sun, check her melons and have a steakbeak. Thats a good start to the day. And “checking out melons” counts as one portion of fruit.

And it gets better from there!

Previously in this blog:
Ah, Bamford’s In London Now
Bamford Gives Us A Good Laugh Today!
David Bamford Tried To Kill Me. Or Was It Turn Me Into A Newt?
David Bamford Reviews Another Movie!
Here, What Exactly Is David Bamford Doing In This Video?
David Bamford Does The Math On The Number 23 Movie
As Usual, Bamford Makes Me Look Stoopid
Bamfordized!
Filthy. Nasty. Funny. I Like!

The Book That Would Defeat The Sony Reader

The daily getTRIO.com newsletter brings this:

Steven Hall, author of The Raw Shark Texts, takes the hoariest of premises — amnesia — and through a combination of jump-off-the-page writing and a post-modern bag of tricks, delivers a smart, absorbing, mind-bending novel.

The author is consciously invoking everything from Jaws and The Matrix to the books of Haruki Murakami (Sputnik Sweetheart, for one), among the many hat-tips and clues. He does so in the service of a chap (the setting is England) named Eric Sanderson, who wakes up on the floor one day, completely unable to remember who he is or anything of his past. He finds an envelope that has been left for him by “the first Eric Sanderson,” who provides specific instructions on what to do:

“If you are reading this, I’m not around anymore. Take the phone and speed dial 1. Tell the woman who answers that you are Eric Sanderson. The woman is Dr. Randle. She’ll understand what has happened…”

Got you, didn’t he?

The Raw Shark Texts (the title is a pun — say it quickly and think of ink blots) is the author’s debut novel and there are some first-novel problems — more ambition than control, repartee between Sanderson and his girlfriend that falls flat. And if you like your mysteries neatly bundled, you may be left cold. But we think this is an enormously promising debut, not to mention a great read.

I saw this in a bookstore and got it from the NYPL. Go see it for yourself. Tell me Sony’s BBEB format wouldn’t be conquered by it! I dare ya! It has illustrations and typographic effects that I don’t think any existing markup language can handle (which, of course, begs the question: well, how was the book itself done?). It even has a flipbook animation in it! (Even though it’s in my reading queue, that’s no guarantee I’ll get to it.)

UPDATE: Hmmm… maybe not after all. I had to edit this to put in a link I missed — the author’s website! When I went there, what did I see? The flipbook animation that’s in the book itself! And typographic effects. Still, would BBEB format be able to handle that?!

SECOND UPDATE: Well shut my mouth! It got into my teeny tiny widdle brain to actually go see if the book was available for the Sony Reader. And guess what? It is! If you have it on your Sony Reader, drop me an email to let me know if it’s faithful to the printed original!