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Posted on 06.27.06 by Widge @ 8:38 pm
These are both parts of an excellent series that Richard Dawkins hosted about religion and the dangers of "non-thinking." Highly recommended. Update: New links since the old ones had died, apparently. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 06.19.06 by Widge @ 1:36 pm
Here's an article on "Hot-Tub Libertarians" by Ryan Sager. Go ahead and check it out, it's not that long. Here's the part that kills me:
Big news? When the Democrats and the Republicans have, for all intents and purposes, become a single party? And we split down the middle to vote for one or the other because it really doesn't matter which one we give our votes to? This…is big news? Reminds me of a Bill Hicks routine about the puppet on the left and the puppet on the right. Gah. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 06.17.06 by Widge @ 5:33 pm
Parents of New York, I agree with you. I think this is an extremely important issue. After all, as long as your kids are getting a crummy public education, they might as well be able to call you and tell you about it during the course of the day. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 06.14.06 by Widge @ 2:34 am
My character Widge has started up Radio Needcoffee. He can be found on 28.97 if you're in the game. Here's the transcript of the first show. You broadcast "I'm Widgett Walls. And this is Radio Needcoffee." on 28.97 MHz… **Apocalypse Please by Muse plays** A song here about my experience in setting up shop in Malton **Drove Through Ghosts to Get Here by 65 Days of Static** Now something upbeat for you zed bastards in the RRF… **Monsters by Matchbook Romance** And now a classic, because it's just quite applicable… **Life on Mars? By David Bowie** **Bulletproof by Rilo Kiley** That's right..nobody's bulletproof..so be careful out there This song combines 2 things we all need: love and explosives **Love Like Semtex by the Infadels** **Promoter (of earthbound causes) by Clutch** Radio Needcoffee, this is the request line. What's up? hHARA mHAaHGbag, gHRHG anRA mHRrrARRZRZHARA? Morrissey, huh? Why am I not surprised? **You Have Killed Me by Morrissey** Okay, time to signoff for now. This is Radio Needcoffee. And I'm Widgett Walls, DJing to the damned. **How a Resurrection Really Feels by The Hold Steady** Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 06.09.06 by Widge @ 12:48 am
Little knickknacks of information. The tiniest little pinpricks into my head. That's what I keep walking away from things with. For example, out of this entire story about Wal-Mart and their supposed Legion of Infodoom HQ or whatever, here's the bit that leaps out at me: The prefix tera comes from the Greek word for monster, and a terabyte is a trillion bytes, the basic unit of computer storage. I had no idea that's where "tera" came from. Did you? You probably did, didn't you? Anyway, there's a lot going on in my head right now. First up, two ideas for books showed up. One while I was in Manhattan and it won't leave me alone. The second is something I wrote on a lark years back that somebody mentioned offhandedly that it could become a book unto itself. Then, I'm working on two new things that will hopefully see fruition in a bit. One next week, mayhap. We'll see. And the site looks like shit. It's one of those things that when I come here and I start looking around and what I need to do, my brain just shuts right the hell off. Maybe once I get the contest engine up at Needcoffee I can come back here and start cleaning up. I'm starting to hate what this looks like. So who knows what's coming? I just know I need to sleep a lot less. Getting old really fucking sucks. Filed under: General BS and Writing Fodder
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Posted on 06.08.06 by Widge @ 12:47 am
Filed under: Writing Fodder
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Posted on 06.07.06 by Widge @ 11:06 am
I know exactly what to use this for. And funny that the guy's name is Martin. Thanks to ScottC for the headsup. Filed under: Writing Fodder
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Posted on 06.06.06 by Widge @ 9:27 pm
Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 06.05.06 by Widge @ 11:25 am
Except me, the shmoe. I know you're thinking: "Rrrrright." But no, bear with me for a second. We know why the MPAA's wrong. And the RIAA. I maintain that if somebody is stealing your shit, then congratulations, you have something worthwhile that somebody wants so bad, they'll steal it. But why? Why are they stealing it? Obviously, some folks are poor, have ready access to a high speed network, and have nothing better to do with their time (*coughkoffcollegestudents*) and you're not going to convert them. You're not even going to be able to stop them, so why waste your time? Instead, they should be focusing on what I maintain is their failure: people want your product, but not enough to pay for it today. This means one of two things is happening. Or both. 1) People don't think your product is worth buying. Worth watching. Worth listening to. But not worth buying. 2) People would buy your product, but you're not giving it to them in the fashion they want. In other words, not quickly enough, not in the right format, etc. etc. I do think it's a little bit of both, because it's not like piracy's killing the industry. As we've seen with the recent box 0ffice performance of DaVinci Code, X3, and hell, even Break Up, people will go see movies that they want to see. Torrents of at least the first two are all over the Net and yet, box office is big for those. Horror movies–a genre you think would be crippled by piracy since the aforementioned coughing demographic is spot on who the studios are trying to get in there to see it–make money. Gnarls Barkley is selling like hotcakes, but versions of their songs have been available since January. So the MPAA and RIAA don't know what the hell they're doing–not news to anyone here, I'm sure. But the MPAA and RIAA aren't used to giving up control and as a result, they'll eventually die, when all of you out there get sick of paying for their crap. But the pirates have it wrong too. And I'm not just talking about doing things that are illegal. I make no bones about it: it's illegal. However, the only reason these people (apart from the coughcough) are doing this is because the people behind the products have forgotten how to deal with their own customer base. While I wish that the customer base would switch and buy stuff from people that want them to play around with their stuff and have it whenever they want (full disclosure: like me–buy my stuff already), that's going to be a long slow process because people are not necessarily long, but certainly slow. Here's the thing. Check out this post from the lawyer who's handling Pirate Bay. Read the whole thing. I'll wait. Did one thing bother you when you read that? …those of you who believe that freedom and law should not be dictated solely by financial power, but by logic, compassion, human rights and the right for everyone to have access to all cultural material, be it music, movies, books or pictures… The right to…wait, what? Hold on, he'll say it again: …to a non-profit trust fund that will work towards advancing freedom of speech, freedom to have access to culture, freedom of information and the right to personal privacy. I'm with the guy 100% until he says that people have a right to access to all cultural material. Is there anybody who doesn't have access to cultural material at this point? I mean, it's one thing if you're downloading a movie and it's been banned in your country or whatever, but does anybody think that's the majority of what's going on here? No, what I fear is that he's talking about free access to culture. And it's not free. It shouldn't necessarily be free. Shit costs money. And while it's the fault of the studios and record labels they're producing hardly anything worth money, I don't want anyone thinking that they should have free access to everything. If you want to see a movie in the cinema, go and pay money for it. If you download a song and like it, go buy the song. If not, then sooner or later the only thing we'll have is free culture because all the paid culture–even the good bits–will have gone the way of good Steve Martin movies. So no, you don't have a right to access or a right to free access. You should–and this isn't a right, people are so hung up on "inventing rights"–have companies that actually sell you what you want when you want it, instead of trying to force you to do it their way and suing the shit out of you when you don't. But, on the other hand, every dollar you give to MPAA and RIAA-related companies are dollars they're using to attack you. So, in reality, you're all masochists. The lot of you. Our therapy time's up for today. See you next week. We'll talk about your childhood then. Filed under: General BS
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Posted on 06.03.06 by Widge @ 3:38 am
Porphyre, our Lady of Perpetual Dreampepper, has co-founded a new LiveJournal place to go and gawk at the future. Futurotica they call it, and I've Bloglined it. Go and taste it. Chew it. It's delicious. Filed under: Writing Fodder
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John Robinson is a writer of prose, poetry and comics who also writes under
the pseudonym of Widgett Walls.
This is my latest book. Short stories written especially for you, or at least someone who reminded me a lot of you at the time.