Sucking the Quileute Dry, by Angela R. Riley | NYTimes.com

Sucking the Quileute Dry

The effect Stephenie Meyer's wildly popular 'Twilight' series has had on the real Quileute people of La Push, Washington. A great article written by the director of American Indian Studies Center at the University of California, Los Angeles, Angela R. Riley.

RWW Cartoon: Rest in Peace, Internet Explorer 6

Cartoon: IE6 RIP

Google giveth, and Google taketh away.
Praise be.

Computer games don't affect kids,

I mean if Pac Man affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive music. 

- Marcus Brigstocke

RIM's hybrid BlackBerry 'on course' | News | TechRadar UK

RIM's hybrid BlackBerry 'on course'

"Touchscreen and keyboard fused in one Berry package"

i'd like to thank the Academy.

Giiiiive me a break.
You 'Google Alert'ed yourself? HAHAHAHA! I don't care how many times you've been on Fox News. That's just... actually, the correct adjective escapes me at the moment, but I'll get back to you on that one. Promise.

But seriously. Thanks for the exposure, Mr. Snell. Really.
And thank you, John Welch, for... for... wow, for being twittrigger-happy for that better part of an hour. While you continued on with your unintended promotion--free of cost, (hey, the best PR is the kind you don't have to pay for) I just kind of sat there, peppermint tea in hand, jaw on the floor. I'm a little ashamed in retrospect that I couldn't come up with something more to say than "easy, tiger." But really.

He spent minute after minute, tweet after tweet, hammering home the notion that I'm nothing more than a... oh, hold on. There were a number of handles he gave me, and they were all too great to leave out:

PRECIOUS!
FEARLESS!
COURAGEOUS!

Wait, it gets better..

STUPID!
DUMB!
DUMBER!
RETARDED MAYFLY!
NEW MEDIA DOUCHEBAG! (My personal favourite)

Also, apparently all of my "little friends" and I have "the attention span of a fly in a puddle of Redbull."

And the award goes to Mr. Welch for Most Original Insults This Side of the Interwebz...lolwut.

Honestly though, retarded mayfly? All the cough syrup in the world couldn't inspire my brain to think that one up. Nice work. I can only assume that kind of genius is the product of the generation of kids who grew up with lead paint on the bars of their cribs.

In all seriousness, I need to make some clarifications for those of you who went rabid when I said the iPad was useless piece of technology. Maybe that was a little vague. What I should have said is that the iPad is an irrelevant, unimaginative piece of technology. Yeah, that's what I mean. Which, you know, some could argue renders it useless in today's market for fancy gadgets.

And just for the sake of flogging yet another dead horse, the 13" TV : 30" TV ::  iPod Touch : iPad. I get the oversimplified analogy, ok? But that's just the problem. It's oversimplified to the point that it's a terrible analogy. Bigger screens / more pixels alone does not make for a more innovative or useful product. It's the guts that give something like a tablet more capabilities. Like, saayyy... multitasking, for instance. Just saying.

Anyways, I've ridden this horse as far into the sunset as I care to. She's on her last legs, and my pizza pocket is getting cold.

Cheers, nerds.

UPDATE: the adjective is 'lllllllame.'

Hot times in Zombieland | Lorrie Goldstein | Columnists | Ottawa Sun

Hot times in Zombieland | Lorrie Goldstein
I don't normally care for Ottawa Sun columnists, but I read this article this morning and chuckled. Maybe it was the java fucking with me.

8 Things That Suck About the iPad - Gizmodo

8 Things That Suck About the iPad

By Adam Frucci
"A lot of people at Gizmodo are psyched about the iPad. Not me! My god, am I underwhelmed by it. It has some absolutely backbreaking failures that will make buying one the last thing I would want to do."

Why Apple’s iPad Will Succeed | The Rugged

Why Apple’s iPad Will Succeed

By Harry C. Marks

"...'why should I buy this?' To skeptics and jaded tech pundits, the iPad is nothing more than an oversized iPod Touch, a novelty product defining an unwieldy niche. To Apple and the many true believers out there, it’s an opportunity to break out of that niche and redefine entire industries."


How's THAT for balanced?

The News Record - Study: Fast food linked to depression

fast food linked to depression

"Burgers, french fries and pizza might taste good, but consumption of processed junk food is not only bad for the waistline, but also for mental health."

Me and my homeopathic overdose | Hadley Freeman

"How I knocked back a bottle of homeopathic 'medicine' and lived to tell the tale"

Columnist for the British daily newspaper, The Guardian, and author of The Meaning of Sunglasses, Hadley Freeman rips and tears at the facade of homeopathic medicine. If you've got an aversion to neo-hippies, and fancy yourself a lover of satire, do yourself a favour and read on.

Hope for Haiti now

Hope for Haiti now

"...the life cycle of this humanitarian endeavor must extend long after the initial burst of compassion."

Haiti still needs our help. Here's how you can continue to help.

the End of End Hits - March 13th 2010

the End of End Hits, an announcement from Shawn Scallen

After four years of supplying Ottawa with our fill of local and underground music, End Hits will be closing its doors on March 13th, 2010. Read on for a brief but honourable explanation written by Shawn Scallen.

squabbles in 140 characters or less.

Or 'micro-squabbling.' Whatever the correct name for it is, arguments in the Twitterverse are hilarious. Not only are they more personal than they were in the good old days of HTML chats (re: help, I broke my 'refresh' button) but they're damn well efficient. Anyone who can argue quickly and effectively within 140 characters or less gets a big fat gold star in my books. Even if your name is Jason Snell. Aaanndd.. even if you're a bit of a wimp. It's okay. You're a Mac enthusiast. I get it. Shh, shh, it's going to be all right.

Once upon a time, in the land of the Twits, a middle-aged editor retweeted something that only an Mac enthusiast would believe actually proved something:

saying an iPad is "just a big iPod Touch" is like saying a 30" monitor is "just a big 13" monitor"

I'll personally pay anyone $100 right now if they can make that statement make anything close to coherrent sense.

So, being the Apple misanthropist that I am, I replied to this retweet, saying:

uh...? epic fail on trying to effectively prove a point.

Not expecting anything in reply, I was delighted when my 'mention' was noticed and even more pleased with the ensuing ruckus I'd caused.

If you meant your use of the hackneyed "epic fail," uh, yeah.

High five, Mr. Snell. Funny yet subtly insulting, and even up to date with current internet lingo trends. Ku-fucking-dos, my friend.

I could have left it at that, but it would have made for a shitty story later on. So I countered:

no, i meant your sad attempt at defending a useless piece of technology by using ridiculously bogus comparisons. but nice try.

To which he replied:

I don't know if the iPad is a good product or not, but if you have already decided that it sucks, can you at least not be rude about it?

And replied again:

That last tweet was for the rude Canadian who has decided the iPad is "a useless piece of technology" and I should never suggest otherwise.

And again:

I know, a rude Canadian. I'm as shocked as you are.

I guess he thought he'd recognize his own oxymoron before I did.

He went on for another hour or so, bouncing between a bunch of pissed off Canadian tweeters, and more than a few asshole Americans pounding their chests like frat boys in agreement, and even defending himself against a few intelligent tweeters who agreed with me. In my own defense, I was (and still am, thank you very much) probably one of his only Mac-hating followers -- there is method to my madness, I swear.

AND for the record, his whole bit about "I'm not allowed to suggest otherwise," implying that I don't think anyone who likes the iPad should be able to voice their opinions as to why they do... that's not what I was implying at all.

Rule Numero Uno: If you want to defend something like the iPad, you best be making at least a remotely convincing argument for it. You know, one that actually makes a shred of sense. Por favor.

Sigh.
Alas, my fifteen minutes has come and gone. My claim to fame for now is that Jason Snell, renowned editor of Macworld, thinks I'm a "rude Canadian."

Cool.

I think he's a pretentious Apple-store turd,
but I'll get over it.

As for the aforementioned gold star... He still gets one. For now.

cuteness overload.