Monthly Archives: February 2010

Barnes & Noble Nook is a Dreadful Failure

by Editor | 20 Comments

I’ve been so waiting with my bated breath and all for this magical Nook machine from Barnes & Noble.  I was in a right dither tonight about an hour and a half ago as I shoved my reading glasses into my pocket, put my regular glasses on my face and piled into my car for the short ride to my nearest Barnes & Noble bookseller.  But I stopped first at the Lenscrafters to run in and have them adjust my frames because my glasses are so new and have been drifting over lopsided all week.  So the woman there fixed them up nicely and shined them good.  Then I drove on toward my Nook encounter.

The store had a lone unit attached to an anti-theft device that scared the hell out of me because I tend to demonstrate new devices to myself until nearby customers think I’m a lunatic and I certainly didn’t want to raise any alarms.  The Nook said, ‘Press the Power Button to Wake Up.’  I spun the device around several times until I located said button embedded in the upper edge of the Nook.  I pressed it.

I waited.

Then I pressed it perhaps fourteen or fifteen times to try and make something wake up.  Then the screen went through a series of blinks, flashes and some rather frightening symbols appeared and then disappeared.  And then the machine said, ‘Press the Power Button to Wake Up.’

Continue reading …

Podcast Novel: Pirate Jack (Chapter 13)

by Editor | 2 Comments

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This book contains pirate battles, violence and death. Please use your judgment before playing for very young children.

Here’s a free podcast of our fantastic pirate adventure novel written for young readers. It’s got hidden scrolls, time travel, ships, battles, navigation, gold, islands, jungles and helicopters in it.

You can purchase the high-quality paperback from Amazon for $11.95 or just $1.99 for a Kindle e-book version.

You can purchase the paperback from Barnes & Noble (Price: $11.95)

You can also get it on Scribd.com as a download for just $1.99

Description:
Young Jack Spencer sees his father’s boat-building business destroyed by a powerful land developer. Then Jack unearths three ancient scrolls that propel him on a dangerous adventure through time in search of a pirate treasure.

When Jack finds himself aboard the pirate ship Revenge with Captain Jameson’s crew, he enters a life or death world of ship battles, jungle islands, prison escapes, gold, and treachery.

Set during the golden age of Caribbean piracy, Pirate Jack combines rollicking adventure with the moving story of a boy’s love for his father and a courageous effort to save a way of life.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

This book is read by the author.

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

What’s Wrong with Scientology’s Ideas?

by Editor | 2 Comments

I am impervious to the persuasions of all clubs, organizations and religions.  I’ve read the entire Old Testament and know that god has never spoken a single word to any living human being in history.  I’ve been in terribly close proximity to Catholic priests for extended periods of time, argued with them and sat gritting my teeth through their best attempts at mass.  You can burn all the bushes in my backyard and come down the hill with as many tablets as you like and I’ll know you’re a damned fake.  So I can watch L. Ron Hubbard speak through all six parts of the interview above and have not the slightest fear of showing up in a Scientology storefront with my wallet out.  However, I don’t really see anything terribly wrong with what Hubbard says in the interview.  What’s all the Scientology warfare really about?

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Fake Artist Sues Photographer for Taking Pics of Public Sidewalk Art

by Editor | 1 Comment

Some abject fool of an artist named Jack Mackie made a deal with the city of Seattle to embed an artwork called Dancers’ Series: Steps into a sidewalk back in 1979.  Then a photographer named Mike Hipple went and did a logical thing; he took a photograph of a public sidewalk with the artwork in it.  Now the nitwit fraudulent artist is suing him for using his artwork in a photograph!  It’s jackasses like this Mackie dude that need to be put out of business.  By this jerk’s reasoning I would have to pay royalties to all of the architects responsible for the design of every single building in the Manhattan skyline if I took a photograph of New York.  Ridiculous!  This fool is an insult to artists and intellectual property courts all over the country.

The only good thing about this Jack Mackie art is that people get to step on it.

I have an idea for a great photograph.  Someone goes up to Seattle with a jackhammer for a 4:00 am dig-and-run operation then takes a photograph of the hole that’s left and its caption reads, ‘Please Fill This Hole.’

And this would be something to do to every public artwork attached to a moronic lawsuit like Mr. Mackie’s. Every time one of these lawsuits is filed, destroy the artwork. Eventually, corporate midgets like Jack Mackie will go away.

And another thing, Mr. Mackie, I recognize the concrete incorporated in your artwork on the sidewalk.  It’s extremely distinctive.  My uncle owns the mill that made that concrete and he will expect to be compensated for the use of his concrete in your public artwork.  You owe him $600,000.  He’s coming to collect.  His name is Lou.  Smile when you open the door.

Hazardous Players Tell Tales of Hilarious Chivalry

by Editor

What we have here is an enormous tale of medieval chivalry, dragon lore, heraldry, round-tableness, and the insane goings-on of knights and their goonish glory.  The magnificent squad of funny men behind these tales of audio craziness call themselves The Hazardous Players.  Their ongoing comic production is a series of tales called Knighttime, which follows the lunatic adventures of Sirs Cottington and Bratwurst through the kingdom of Udenland.

Give a listen to the first episode, called The Problem in Pimpleton – Act I:

The audio stories are full of eccentricity reminiscent of Monty Python, Firesign Theater, Shakespeare, Douglas Adams,Terry Prachette and Christopher Moore.  They contain great bits of self-referential humor and constantly break out of the stories to comment on the very story that they find themselves in.  Characters do odd things like take breaks to go off to the bathroom.  They get enthusiastic when the laugh track goes off and start playing to the audience for more laughs.  It’s hilarious and engages the listener in the wonderful world of pure storytelling.  This kind of silliness that works so well is very hard to find and makes the Web a pure joy when you do find it.

The Hazardous Players have built a web site (www.hazardousplayers.com) around their world of funny characters, complete with sketches and a blog that chronicles various happenings in their story kingdom.  The audio is of excellent production value and uses music and incidental sounds with great precision and comic effect.  The vocal performances are magnificently ludicrous and enable the listener to clearly imagine each character in perfect detail. I look forward to many more episodes in the silly kingdom of Udenland.

Film About Blue Brain: Attempt to Build a Working Brain Model

by Editor

Using IBM computers, Dr. Henry Markram is building a model of the human brain that he hopes will take about 10 years to complete. Filmmaker Noah Hutton is chronicling the endeavor in an ongoing documentary that will be finished once the brain model exists. This is one of the most fascinating and important efforts I have ever heard about in modern science.  The brain project is called Blue Brain and is located at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. The idea to build a model based on minute and precise observations of how the brain synapses and cells actually work is a good one. Dr. Markram emphasizes that once you understand certain principles you can start to build models that increase in complexity and accuracy until you have have an understanding of how things work. Careful observation and exact mimicry will lead to a functioning model. Markram goes further to say that eventually you will be able to teach the model languages and watch it learn. He’s talking about artificial intelligence. He’s talking about making a machine think.

This is the modern world’s alchemy.  The simplistic understanding of Medieval alchemy is that it was the attempt to turn base metals into gold.  We are now trying to turn base metals into thinking beings.  It is a logical thing to do.  Think about it.  Every household and every pocket in almost every developed nation on earth has a small thinking machine in it.  What does that really tell you?  It tells me that our main effort on a planetary scale – a human species level – is to make machines think.  We aren’t going to the moon.  Or going to Mars.  Or trying to travel to the stars.  What we’re actually doing is trying to make metal and electricity think.  To live.

A working model of a brain is going to take us places we never thought we could go.

Comic About How Future Will See the Internet

by Editor

I’ve pilfered the vault over at BoingBoing again because Cory Doctorow posted this hilarious comic by Stephen Collins about how a post-apocalyptic future world will view the Internet.  The cartoonist does lots of work for the U.K.’s Prospect Magazine.  I like the inky black outline drawings.  Mr. Collins has an off-the-side kind of humor that takes me quite a while to actually get because I’m not always the brightest bulb.  I’ve always felt that the best cartoonists are never immediately funny.  It’s the slow-burn ones that put a little confusion into the picture that really get me.

Podcast Novel: A Princess of Mars (Chapter 16)

by Editor

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A Princess of Mars

This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.

Chapter 16: After a serious and long-overdue talk with Dejah Thoris, John Carter plots a dangerous escape to the city of Helium.

You can find all the previous chapters of the book here.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

Duration: 00:22:09
Read by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Podcast Novel: A Princess of Mars (Chapter 15)

by Editor

DOWNLOAD MP3 AUDIO

A Princess of Mars

This is the first John Carter of Mars novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the author of the Tarzan books. It was his first novel, published in 1917 and it’s a work of rip-roaring science fiction that has inspired many of the great writers in the genre.

Chapter 15: Sola reveals a deadly secret and tells John Carter the terrible story of her origins, revealing a deep hunger for revenge.

You’ll find regular podcasts of all the chapters over the next couple of months. Subscribe to our feed.

Duration: 00:18:41
Read by Alessandro Cima

All audio stories are Copyright © Candlelight Stories, Inc., All Rights Reserved.

Film: Nuit Blanche

by Editor | 7 Comments

Spy Films produced this short film by Arev Manoukian.  Lots of beautiful slow-motion, water and glass.  I like the black & white retro look.  The film captures one of those fleeting moments of imagination that usually don’t involve both parties, but rather just the lonelier one.  Usually the guy.  The woman in the restaurant would probably be too distracted by her drink and her own reflection in the window.  The guy in the street is not going to stand a chance with this lady.  No way.  But it’s nice while it lasts.  I found it over at my favorite film place, No Fat Clips!!!

Amazon and Macmillan Raise eBook Prices

by Editor | 3 Comments

There’s been a huge battle of the ebooks going on between Amazon.com and publisher Macmillan.  Last week, Macmillan, in response to rotten Apple’s announcement of $14 and $15 ebooks on its new iPad, insisted that Amazon give Macmillan the right to choose its own higher ebook pricing for the Kindle ereader device.  Amazon got peevish about the deal and simply de-listed all of Macmillan’s books.  I thought that was a nice nasty smack in the kisser for a doomed publisher at the time.  I was feeling so good about Amazon and its Kindle and so snitty about Apple’s iPad that I was within 60 minutes of plunking my digital money down on a brand new shiny Kindle.  But wait!  Amazon caved!  They rolled over and gave Macmillan what it wanted.

So now, dear reader, your Kindle ebooks from Macmillan will cost more.  Frankly, I was always kind of miffed by the whole $9.99 price tag on Kindle ebooks.  Too high.  Ebooks are invisible.  You can’t stack them and put boards across to make a coffee table.  Ebooks don’t have nice covers or fancy paper that you can bend and spill coffee on.  I don’t know about anyone else reading this blog out there, but when I walk into a book store I’m just a customer.  I don’t frankly give a damn about how the publisher is doing or how Amazon is getting along, or care a whit for Steve Jobs’ health, or the status of your average mid-list author and how he or she’s going to pay their mortgage.  I don’t give one syllable of a damn. Continue reading …