I previously mentioned that Cory Doctorow has put his new novel online. Now he points us to this Speed Reader remix, “based on the research of Xerox PARC researcher Rich Gold, which flashes the book, one word at a time, up on the screen, at a high rate of speed. It is astonishingly readable, and makes you feel like you’ve found a back-door to your brain’s comprehension nodes.” I think I will try to read the book this way.

This is interesting. Billmon wonders if the Massachusetts Supreme Court has not handed Bush the November election by making the gay marriage ruling now, just in time to consign John Kerry irrevocably to the dustbin of history by putting some beef the voters can really take a bite of into the inevitable “Massachusetts liberal” line of attack.

‘James Joyce’ rants on kuro5hin.org:

“You are all pretentious twats, every last one of you. You’re all latte-sipping, iMac-using, suburban-living tertiary-industry-working WASPs who offer absolutely no new insights on anything whatsoever apart from maybe one specialist field if we’re lucky. Most of you think that you’re writing original content and that you’re making a contribution by licensing your spewings under Creative Commons ‘Some Rights Reserved’ licences, just because it’s the hip thing to do. You think you know all there is to say about blogging because you understand the concept of HTML and CSS, but the horrible truth is that 40% of you are all using the same shitty default layout. Then you take pictures of yourselves looking pensive or making vague allusions to mythology.”

For the record, I don’t use Movable Type, nor an iMac (I’m surprised he singles it out and that anything other than Linux passes muster!). I think lattes have become effete but, when I do drink one (never never at Starbucks) I avoid sipping it. I am not a WASP and do not live in the suburbs. I am not even clear about what a tertiary industry is. Some of my readers feel that I distinguish myself when I write about my one specialist field. I challenge myself to write original content every once in awhile but suspect I am not that good at it. Yes, I plead guilty to carrying the little Creative Commons logo here because I thought the concept was hip. Nope, I created my own layout, I know at least enough HTML and CSS to be proud of that, but more proud of the assistance I received from other generous members of the weblogging community in my efforts. However, alas, no javascript, which would have been really hip, as you put it. Can’t recall the last mythological allusion I made and no pictures of myself, pensive or otherwise. I guess my weblog (I would go further than you do; “blog” is not even barely acceptable, and I apologize for any instances of using the word that have slipped through) might squeak by?

‘Joyce’ ‘s concerns about the rhetorical faux pas‘s and the sheeplike manner in which a single opinion echoes through the weblog universe (yes, I will never use the term ‘blogosphere’ either, although ‘blogroll’ isn’t galling to me at all), on the other hand, make more sense to me, and I do wonder about the impact weblogging has on Google. I (heart) kuro5hin, and think they deserve the increased hits they are getting from this rant. One of the comments on the post refers to this stunt as ‘pulling a Janet Jackson’; will this become the accepted term for offensive attention-getting antics like this? Then, there’s the reader who posts what he calls a ‘serious refutation’, which consists of reposting every paragraph of Joyce’s rant and following it with a one-liner about how he disagrees. I hope he’s being tongue-in-cheek. As I said, I (heart) kuro5hin.

Lileks bleats particularly loudly these days; reading his site is better than taking ipecac if you feel the need to be sick. First, he goes on at length (unbelievable length) about actor Patrick Stewart (Jean-Luc Picard)’s statement that space exploration is the height of arrogance before we “get things right” on our own planet. Lileks feels Stewart is foolish to squander the goodwill he earned in his premier role, especially because Lileks admired how he “projected the values of Western Civ into the inky void while confronting the baffling nuances of worlds we have yet to imagine.” Yes, he does love the sound of his own voice. He goes on to suggest that, instead of stopping space exploration, we ban filmmaking and divert the resources to helping the unfortunate. He knows how impeachable an ignorant rant ignoring the value of artistic output is, so descends into some incoherent sputtering in his final paragraphs.

Then, if you still have the stomach to scroll down, you get to this reflection on the Kerry campaign, which seems to distress him because the Democrats are starting to say such cruel cruel things about his beloved President (having gone AWOL from his military obligation etc.) and because they have the temerity to quibble with the new religion of preemptive imperialism and permanent waronterrorism:

I?m waiting for an ad that simply puts the matter plainly: who do you think Al Qaeda wants to win the election? Who do you think will make Syria relax? Who do you think Hezbollah worries about more? Who would Iran want to deal with when it comes to its nuclear program ? Cowboy Bush or ?Send in the bribed French inspectors? Kerry? Which candidate would our enemies prefer?

I take it back. He’s too funny not to read merely because he makes me ill.