chrismooney's posterous

Closing of LA's Mystery Bookstore

I stole this from Joe Finder's Facebook page, but it bears repeating.  Here's what Mike Connelly said about the closing of one of the last, best independent mystery bookstores in the country: "My career was build on the author buzz generated by stores like this, and now new authors will have to be fostered by the Internet instead.  This is personal; the Internet is faceless."

Playing with Your Pee . . . ?

This is 100% true:

Potty training children (especially boys) is a difficult and potentially messy proposition.  One technique that parentshave used through the years is to throw a few Cheerios in the toilet bowl and encourage the boy to aim at the floating oats.

Now, according to Singularityhub.com, SEGA Japan is making the experience high-tech and available to both children and adults alike with their new “Toylets male urinal video game.”  Sensors are installed at the back of the urinal in order to measure the strength and location of the stream, and the interaction is reflected on an LCDmonitor attached to the top of the urinal.

The Toylet has four different games to choose from, ranging from weird to crazy.  The basic game simply measures the amount of urine produced and is hardly a game at all.  Another game allows the user to use their pee to clean graffiti off of a wall by aiming the stream.  Things get more bizarre with the next game whereby the harder you pee, the more wind is generated to blow a girl’s virtual skirt up.

However the craziest of the choices is called, “Milk from Nose,” where you try to pee as hard as possible in order to blow milk out of a character’s nose and knock your opponent out of the ring. While that initially may sound as bad as the other choices, the crazy part is that it takes your flow and uses it as the competition for the next person to use the Toylet. That makes this urinal game a pseudo MMORPG.

The urinal also has a USB port to save your data, but it's not clear what data that is for and who would actually want to use it.

How would you react if you saw this urinal at the local bar? Would you try to knock the previous guy out of the ring or go to a different establishment?

Why E-Books Aren't Scary

Why E-Books Aren't Scary

By JEFFREY A. TRACHTENBERG

Stephen King has filled HIS share of printed pages: Since "Carrie" was accepted for publication in the spring of 1973, he has written more than 40 books and countless short stories. His latest work, coming Nov. 9, is a collection of four stories titled "Full Dark, No Stars." In an author's afterword, Mr. King notes that he wrote one of them, "A Good Marriage," after reading a piece about Dennis Rader, the "BTK Killer" (for "bind, torture and kill") who murdered 10 people in Kansas between 1974 and 1991. He wondered what would happen if a "wife suddenly found out about her husband's awful hobby."

[KING]Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

King: A book is 'an object with a nice cover. You can swat flies with it.'

Mr. King is realistic about where books are headed. In digital publishing, as a writer, he's what might be called an "early adopter." Back in March 2000, Simon & Schuster Inc. issued Mr. King's story "Riding the Bullet" as an e-book that was downloaded from the Web onto hand-held devices or computers.

More recently, Mr. King's novella "Ur" was written exclusively for Amazon's Kindle e-reader when the second generation of that device went on sale in February 2009. In the interview below, Mr. King discusses his thoughts on the future of digital reading and publishing:

The Wall Street Journal: Do we get the same reading experience with e-books?

Stephen King: I don't know. I think it changes the reading experience, that it's a little more ephemeral. And it's tougher if you misplace a character. But I downloaded one 700-page book onto my Kindle that I was using for research. It didn't have an index, but I was able to search by key words. And that's something no physical book can do.

What about people who love physical books?

I'm one of them. I have thousands of books in my house. In a weird way, it's embarrassing. I recently downloaded Ken Follett's "Fall of Giants," but I also bought a copy to put on the shelf. I want books as objects. It's crazy, but there are people who collect stamps, too.

Is the future of publishing all digital?

It's a hard subject to get a handle on. People like myself who grew up with books have a prejudice towards them. I think a lot of critics would argue that the Kindle is the right place for a lot of books that are disposable, books that are read on the plane. That might include my own books, if not all, then some.

Any drawbacks?

I wonder if one or two atom bombs went off, would electromagnetic pulses erase the world's reading material from the servers where they are stored?

The one thing nobody asked in casual conversation, Darcy thought in the days after she found what she found in the garage, was this: How's your marriage?Excerpt from Stephen King's "A Good Marriage"

How much time do you spend reading digitally?

It's approaching half of what I read. I recently bought a print edition of Henning Mankell's "Faceless Killers" and the type was too small. A paper book is an object with a nice cover. You can swat flies with it, you can put it on the shelf. Do you remember the days when people got up to manually turn the channels on their TVs? Nobody does that any more, and nobody would want to go back. This is just something that is going to happen.

What's going to happen to bookstores?

The bookstores are empty. It's sad. I remember a time when Fifth Avenue was lousy with bookstores. They're all gone.

Would you consider publishing one of your big books yourself online?

I've considered it, but not seriously. The thought has crossed my mind. I didn't do "Ur" for money. I did it because it was interesting. I'm fairly prolific. It took three days, and I've made about $80,000. You can't get that for short fiction from Playboy or anybody else. It's ridiculous.

Write to Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg at jeffrey.trachtenberg@wsj.com

It's True, It's Officially True!!!

Apple’s Jobs is planning to offer iPhone on Verizon

By New York Times  |  

October 9, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO — Facing intense competition from phone makers wedded to Google’s Android software, Steven P. Jobs, Apple’s chief executive, plans to make the iPhone available on Verizon Wireless, the largest wireless carrier in the United States.

After more than three years of using only AT&T cellphone networks, Apple is now making a version of the iPhone 4 for Verizon’s network, according to a person who is in direct contact with Apple.

Apple and Verizon will begin selling the phone early next year, said the person, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because the plans were supposed to be confidential.

Apple and Verizon Wireless declined to comment.

The arrival of the iPhone on Verizon, which has long been expected and frequently rumored, could sharply alter the dynamics of the US smartphone market. The iPhone remains the best-selling smartphone. But around the world, many carriers, especially those that do not have access to the iPhone, have been promoting an array of models running on Android software. Collectively, those phones now outsell the iPhone.

The Android’s rapid ascent threatens to blunt Apple’s lead in the market for high-end smartphones. No other Apple product brings as much revenue for the firm as the iPhone, and analysts say that seeing that lucrative market imperiled may have finally pushed Apple into ending its exclusivity with AT&T.