You May Mock, But When They Come For You, Who’ll Be Laughing Then?

“Since trying Michael Menkin’s Helmet, I have not been bothered by alien mind control. Now my thoughts are my own. I have achieved meaningful work and am contributing to society.”
$35, and cheap at the price.

Kiva plug again

I’m getting an unreasonable amount of pleasure from Kiva, previously mentioned. For less than the price of a cheap meal, you can positively and directly affect someone’s life in the third world.
In the current Western economic climate, with obscenely-rewarded bankers demonstrating that their spectacular incompetence is rivaled only by their rapacious greed, it is quite [...]

Archertypes

Why does every BBC radio drama production sound like “The Archers”?

The Future of Agenting

If you’ve been following the trade press, you’ll know that I’ve had a few thoughts on this subject recently. 
Now comes news, via The Guardian, that the reformed agency PFD is to offer a  POD (print-on-demand) publishing programme, aiming to make their clients’ forgotten books available once more.  Although this is likely to produce next [...]

The Kindle - Part… er, something or other…

Trying not to repetitively mention the e-book / the Kindle / digital stuff every week on Litopia After Dark… it can get awfully tedious, and people soon run out of interesting things to say.  Here’s a note from Silicon Alley Insider about the continuing, and to my mind, rather monotonous line from Amazon about their [...]

Kill This Bot Now

After a few seconds of watching this nightmarish new bot, you just know it’s going to be used for ineffably evil purposes… just look who funded it… I don’t relish coming up against this bastard when it’s fully tricked out with all its hardware…

Cramer Was Right

Flashback to August 2007 - we was warned, folks.  Happy Holidays.

What the Dalai Lama Must Do

picApp_publisherId = 1402;picApp_imageId = 7921;picApp_imageWidth = 201;picApp_imageHeight = 302;picApp_configUrl = “http://pis.picapp.com/IamProd/FlashSite/GetConfig.aspx”;picApp_Picview=”http://pis.picapp.com/IamProd/FlashSite/en/picviewerv1_1.swf”;picapp_numberOfLine=2;ImageServe(); The Dalai Lama is a theocrat, with much the same claim to authority as any other ruler who asserts leadership through birth and/or presumed special connection to God. However, we in the West prefer him over other theocrats (Khomeini, for example, or even [...]

Bear Stearns

Paul Krugman makes some good points writing in today’s NYT:

He goes on to say:

Rough times ahead.

Garfield Minus Garfield

“Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life?”
Less is more…

Wikipedia For Sale?

All the current Valleywag trash talk about Wikipedia chief Jimmy Wales, 41, who dumped his girlfriend with an announcement on the encyclopaedia’s website (girlfriend then sells Wales’ laundry on E-Bay… how very Web 2.0) misses the more important point.
There is serious talk in certain quarters concerning the possible private sale of Wikipedia.  Impossible?  With a [...]

RIP TFP

The Friday Project, darling of trade rag The Bookseller, has sadly come to grief. Today’s Telegraph reveals that an administrator was appointed on the 25th February (why didn’t The Bookseller tell us this?) and reports that HarperCollins are close to buying the publishing rights to The Friday Project’s book titles.
I first looked at TFP’s [...]

My Personal Media Audit

It was quite simple when I was growing up. We had the local newspaper, the radio (just BBC), and later on, the television with just three channels to chose from. Voila.
Today, this is my current media mix:
Morning
Radio Five – in the bathroom, for the simple reason that it’s the only station I [...]

My Favourite CAPTCHA

Is here.

Naked Bar

The right of British soldiers to drink in the buff is a time-honoured tradition and must not be abrogated by a bunch of nancy-pancy spoilsport Euro-trash nanny-state Johnny foreigners. There’s a lot of talk about what’s wrong with young people today, but as long as our fine young men continue this hallowed custom [...]