- How Doctors Die [via]
- A Drug That Wakes the Near Dead
- Every Beatles song played at once. Can you make it to the end? It isn’t easy, and I’m not sure it rewards you for your efforts — audibly, that is; some of the comments are quite funny — but it’s an interesting experiment nonetheless. [via]
- “Won’t it make you lose your wits, / Writing groats and saying grits?” Can you pronounce all these words correctly? [via]
- And finally, Warren Ellis on what sounds like the worst computer repair problem ever:
One day, a few years ago, my backups all got corrupted, and my backup device died. I didn’t have online backups at the time. I’ll fix that on Sunday, I thought, as I was under deadline pressure. Saturday evening, my main machine died in flames. Sent it off for data recovery. The guy running the data recovery shop took it in and then went off to Europe for an operation. And died on the operating table. Came back to the shop to get my machine, because no-one was answering the phone, to find it boarded up, the (mostly off-the-books, apparently) employees scattered to the four winds, and the shop stripped down to the plaster. Not a computer left in there — not even mine. I lost everything, all notes and scripts for work in progress as well as the entire archive.
beatles
Wednesday various
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Tuesday various
- “This will end us.” Oh, Cooks Source, you say that like it’s a bad thing. (That you say it with many, many typos is just sort of amusing.)
Seriously, though, had there not been scores of examples of Cooks Source being a copyright-theft-for-profit publication, and had each “apology” from Monica Griggs not smacked of arrogance and shifting of blame, I might be sympathetic. I might chalk it up to an honest mistake, crossed wires in communication, overly tired people saying things they later regret. But Cooks Source‘s actions and attitudes speak for themselves.
- Far be it from me to badmouth a fledgling genre magazine, but…Sci-Fi Short Story Magazine launches with impressive art and no pay.
In theory, I wish them really well. But seriously? $11.99 for 34 pages (that’s about 35 cents a page!), plus a site heavy with ads, and you can’t pass along any of the money to the writers and artists? I give next to nothing at Kaleidotrope — I recognize that what I’m able to offer is only a token payment — but I think it’s still important to offer it. And Kaleidotrope, it should be noted, does not turn a profit. If you’re charging twelve bucks and hosting lots of ads, and you’re still not making any money, maybe it’s time to rethink your business model. And if you are making money, I feel you have an obligation to share some of that money with the people who provide you with content.
- Physician, heal thyself! A newly elected Maryland Republican, who campaigned strongly for repealing Obamacare, wonders why he can’t have his government-paid health care right away. [via]
- Which lends itself immediately to this question for the Democrats: when it’s increasingly clear that your opposition is a walking Onion headline, why do you keep insisting on caving into them? It’s hard to argue with the position that “every time Republicans are on the opposite side of an issue from the public, it’s the Democrats who cave and talk about ‘compromise.'” [via]
- And finally, the big news today is that the Beatles are finally on iTunes. As Rob says, “Hopefully now The Beatles will finally get the publicity and sales they deserve.”
Monday various
- Ten Things to Know About the Future of Comics. [via]
- After this interview with Roger Ebert and his recent Fresh Air interview, I’m starting to think maybe I underestimated Justin Timberlake.
- Inside the Lennon/McCartney connection [via]
- If you sign on to social networks over public WiFi, you might want to check out Firesheep. Then, if you have the patience, you might want to wade into the debate over whether revealing this security hole to the general public does more harm or good.
- And finally, There Will Be Blood for Nintendo.
Wednesday various
- It’s as I always suspected: Twilight will kill you.
- Heaven knows Kaleidotrope contributor Genevieve Valentine isn’t a fan:
The good news is that if you are seeing a Twilight movie to mock it, you’ll feast every time.
- The Fab Faux’s live cover of Abbey Road raises a really interesting question: what is the difference between a really great cover band and a classical orchestra? [via]
- Meanwhile, Janis Ian covers herself (with a few tweaks) for this year’s Nebula Awards. [via]
- And finally, also meanwhile, all those covers on Glee would probably get the school in a lot of trouble [via]:
These worlds don’t match. Both Glee and the RIAA can’t be right. It’s hard to imagine glee club coach Will Schuester giving his students a tough speech on how they can’t do mash-ups anymore because of copyright law (but if he did, it might make people rethink the law). Instead, copyright violations are rewarded in Glee — after Sue’s Physical video goes viral, Olivia Newton-John contacts Sue so they can film a new, improved video together.