QotD for 30 Apr., 2009

We have enough youth. We need a fountain of smart. --- seen on a t-shirt at ThinkGeek

GMail Guide

PC Magazine has a handy guide to Google's GMail up on their site. See An Unofficial User's Guide to Gmail for a good place to get started with this popular, eternally in Beta, service.

Wallis and a Christian Mistake

The Religious Right was a Christian mistake. It was a movement that sought to implement a “Christian agenda” by tying the faithful to one political option—the right-wing of the Republican Party. The politicizing of faith in such a partisan way is always a theological mistake. But the rapid decline of the Religious Right now offers us a new opportunity to re-think the role of faith in American public life. ---Jim Wallis, in his Newsweek blog A Christian Nation

Why I Hate U2

Wanna know why I hate U2 ? No, it's not because I think Bono is a bit pretentious ;) No, it's not the :: shudder :: U2charist thing.

It's garbage like this that really gets to me...

QotD for 31 Mar., 2009

On the brouhaha by some authors and publishers over copyright & ebooks in general, and Amazon's Kindle specifically:

Maybe I'm right and maybe I'm wrong, but the important thing is, we don't need new theories about copyright law to test the proposition. The existing, totally non-controversial aspect of copyright law that says, "Amazon can't publish and sell my book without my permission" covers the territory nicely. ---Cory Doctorow

Simple, huh ? Now, if Kindle books:

• Didn't have odious and burdensome DRM attached (so I could make decent backups),
  
• Didn't cost so bloomin' much (make 'em the price of a paperback minus a buck or so to make up for the lack of printing costs), and
  
• Were compatible with other ebook readers & software
  

then you'd really have something... But as it is ? Meh.

[via boing boing]

I Always Knew Jar-Jar Was Creepy

Nothing spices up classic art like a little Star Wars.

The Big Takeover

Matt Taibbi has a take-no-prisoners article in Rolling Stone on Wall Street insiders and the global economic crisis:

So it's time to admit it: We're fools, protagonists in a kind of gruesome comedy about the marriage of greed and stupidity. And the worst part about it is that we're still in denial — we still think this is some kind of unfortunate accident, not something that was created by the group of psychopaths on Wall Street whom we allowed to gang-rape the American Dream.