Line-by-Line

When I left, it was win­ter. I had arrived on a clear cold August night. Stopping on the butte over­look­ing the canyon, I won­dered if there was any rea­son not to sim­ply con­tin­ue rid­ing north. To be con­tin­ued… First line cour­tesy of The Oracle. But yours won’t be the same.

Leonard Cohen — Machine of Death

Leonard Cohen The atten­dant held out the dis­tinc­tive yel­low and orange enve­lope. “Thank you Mr. Su” he said cheer­ful­ly as Kam took the enve­lope. “Have a nice day, Sir.” Kam stepped out of the arcade into the Pacific Avenue rush. He squint­ed against the low October after­noon sun. Damn, no sun­glass­es. He crossed the street to … 

#fridayreads 1.jun.2012

Picked up The Jewel Hinged Jaw, Samuel Delany. Because Delany came up in a con­ver­sa­tion recent­ly and then I came across this lit­tle screed on io9:overmind http://io9.com/5910814/what-samuel-r-delany-can-tell-publishing-about-its-latest-trend Typically shal­low but hits a pain point of mine about how many authors have suc­cumbed to the pro­duc­tion line via ghost writ­ers and co-authors and how the product … 

Leaving Gmail. It’s Not Me It’s You.

New Look Sux. That’s the title of an email thread that went around my uni­verse. No one likes the new look of Gmail. You can search the web for details of the usabil­i­ty night­mare. But let me just offer this one tid­bit. The CSS is so bro­ken that the pages often don’t ren­der well in Google’s …