Nabbed a couple of these from my sister. And a bonus cat poster!

Found this on Pinterest and thought it was cute. Enjoy.

From the New York Times:

Read the full article here.

I’m not a fan of BlackBerry or their products. I had to use a Storm 2 for a short while at work and it was by far the worst piece of shit I’ve ever had the displeasure of using, and that’s in any electronics category, not just phones. A horrible, horrible device.

I think this move is about a year too late. These guys were classic “head in the sand” leaders who couldn’t believe that anything could threaten their empire, and scoffed while Apple and Google ate their lunch. They’ve put all their eggs in the QNX basket, and there’s no turning back from that now, no matter who’s in charge. I just don’t see it happening. I think a full or partial sale of the company, like what’s been rumored the past few weeks, even though it was later denied, is really the only possible outcome for RIM.

I had this strange and vivid dream the other night that Morgan Freeman was the CEO of a company I apparently worked for. It wasn’t the company that currently employs me, however; I think it was some kind of technology start up. We were in a parking lot, and he was extolling wisdom of some kind to me in that smooth, authoritative, and convincing Morgan Freeman voice that is close to being the Aristotelian ideal of smooth, authoritative, and convincing voices. I don’t remember what he said, but I know he said it well.

What I do remember is that he decided he was retiring and was going to turn the company over to me. A big part of this transition, apparently, concerned what I wore. He opened the trunk of a gigantic car–kind of a Lincoln Town Car on steroids–and showed me at least thirty business suits that were hanging vertically in the trunk from a bar set across it from side to side. The trunk was probably fifteen feet wide–just absurdly huge. And the trunk was deep enough that that suits could hang down without touching the bottom of it. Completely impossible, but hey, I guess with Morgan Freeman, anything is possible.

He wanted me to see how one of the suits fit, so I tried on one of the jackets. It was too tight in the shoulders and too long in the arms. “I’m a 40 regular,” I said. “What’s this?”

“A 40 long,” he said. “It looks great.”

“No, it doesn’t fit.”

“You’ll be fine. A few adjustments and you’ll be ready to go.”

I remember sort of believing him and not believing him at the same time. I mean, the stupid thing really didn’t fit. But I had Morgan Freeman telling me it was fine. I felt conflicted. I wanted to look good in the suit, not like a monkey wearing circus clothes.

Then it ended, and I never found out if I took over the company or not. Rats.

I don’t usually remember dreams this vividly, which is why I felt like sharing.

Muhammad Ali, talking about Joe Frazier after the “Thrilla in Manila.”

In his suite the next morning Ali talked quietly. “I heard somethin’ once,” he said. “When somebody asked a marathon runner what goes through his mind in the last mile or two, he said that you ask yourself why am I doin’ this. You get so tired. It takes so much out of you mentally. It changes you. It makes you go a little insane. I was thinkin’ that at the end. Why am I doin’ this? What am I doin’ here in against this beast of a man? It’s so painful. I must be crazy. I always bring out the best in the men I fight, but Joe Frazier, I’ll tell the world right now, brings out the best in me. I’m gonna tell ya, that’s one helluva man, and God bless him.”

Read the full article here, which was originally published in Sports Illustrated in 1975. (It’s a great read, trust me.)

And wishing a happy 70th birthday to “The Greatest.”

Yeah, I can agree with this.

I somehow missed this when it was published over the summer, but it’s must reading for anyone who loves Gibson’s work, science fiction in general, or, really, good writing of any kind. A great, informative read.

This is how he dreamed up the word cyberspace.

I was painfully aware that I lacked an arena for my science fiction. The spaceship had been where science fiction had happened for a very long time, even in the writing of much hipper practitioners like Samuel Delany. The spaceship didn’t work for me, viscerally. I know from some interviews of Ballard’s that it didn’t work for him either. His solution was to treat Earth as the alien planet and perhaps to treat one’s fellow humans as though they were aliens. But that didn’t work for me. I knew I wouldn’t be able to function in a purely Ballardian universe. So I needed something to replace outer space and the spaceship.

I was walking around Vancouver, aware of that need, and I remember walking past a video arcade, which was a new sort of business at that time, and seeing kids playing those old-fashioned console-style plywood video games. The games had a very primitive graphic representation of space and perspective. Some of them didn’t even have perspective but were yearning toward perspective and dimensionality. Even in this very primitive form, the kids who were playing them were so physically involved, it seemed to me that what they wanted was to be inside the games, within the notional space of the machine. The real world had disappeared for them—it had completely lost its importance. They were in that notional space, and the machine in front of them was the brave new world.

The only computers I’d ever seen in those days were things the size of the side of a barn. And then one day, I walked by a bus stop and there was an Apple poster. The poster was a photograph of a businessman’s jacketed, neatly cuffed arm holding a life-size representation of a real-life computer that was not much bigger than a laptop is today. Everyone is going to have one of these, I thought, and everyone is going to want to live inside them. And somehow I knew that the notional space behind all of the computer screens would be one single universe.

The full interview is here, and it’s absolutely worth your time.

I’m going to be OD’ing on The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo stuff over the next couple of weeks, so either bear with me or check back later. I’ve picked up the Trent Reznor/Atticus Ross soundtrack and so far I’ve loved what I’ve heard.

The video linked to below (sorry, no embed was available) was directed by Fincher himself, and is apparently a creepy, nightmare-like montage from the opening credits of the movie. I love this version of Zeppelin’s “The Immigrant Song.” Bonus that it features Karen O, the lead singer from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Watch the video at Pitchforkmedia.

My wife will so relate to this!

Find more funny pictures on pinterest.

This has been a crazy day for my son Alex and me. He had a 7:40 dentist appointment this morning (I’m happy to report his teeth are healthy, though he has one baby tooth he really needs to yank out to clear the way for the encroaching adult tooth). After school he had a physical at 3:20. Two days ago his glasses broke, and the quick fix I put on them wasn’t holding up, so I’m typing this in a Pearle Vision Center while he gets his eyes checked. It’s been a little over a year, so he was due anyway.

And then he’ll get to pick new glasses. It’s almost like Christmas.