I had a more than delightful dinner with my friend Nick last night, over at his favorite place in Palo Alto. The conversation was an amazing flow about media consumption, writing, publishing, technology, inventions, news and anything else we could tangentially connect.

I promised him a bunch of links, but then decided I could throw them up here instead.

First up, there was the great New Yorker article on publishing, the iPad and the Kindle. (And if you missed the article on James Patterson a few months ago, read it too.)

Second was the great FB privacy debacle. There is the graph you’ve seen by now. But Joanne nailed this perfectly for me:

Facebook made me feel like I was hoarding people, and yeah, I mean it in the trashy reality TV show sense … I’d rather be a considerate friend to fifteen people than a negligent one to 1,500.

(And, as aside, her blog is one of my favorites, which is perhaps for another time, but I will not deny an intellectual crush [does this even exist?] on her writings.)

Nick, this morning sent me another link — and I’ve seen a couple more in passing even since then. This is the tipping point, my friends. Pay attention.

It’s worth noting though, that much like the techies decried the iPad, they are decrying FB. For the casual user, it’s going to be a while before this backlash trickles down. But it started last week, officially.

Thirdly, Nick hasn’t seen any of the SNL David Paterson skits. So here’s some.

What did I miss, Nick?

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200 things you should see/watch/experience online (aka youshouldhaveseenthis.com). And once you have, for the love of it all, logoff and go do something useful with your life.

First 100
Second 100

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Mike Sterling has a scan of the most questionable alien in a comic book ever.

and

my favorite, the history and evolution of the evony ads online.

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Les Lye dying at the end of last week. This guy was a staple of my childhood, back in the days when Nickolodeon didn’t have enough programming, when they went off the air at 8p.m., when they showed Danger Mouse and Bananaman, when Pinwheel was the same damn special every week (starring, actually, Les Lye. And some kids who got abducted by aliens.) “Daaaaa-Iiiiiiii heard that!” RIP Barth – er, Les.

From a month ago, Pizza Hut is now attempting to go by The Hut. I’m not kidding. Not only does this hurt me, but…no, really, it’s too painful to consider.

Speaking of painful, this qualifies. Wow. Can you really be this ignorant? I wan to believe this isn’t real, but something is telling me that isn’t the case.

Need extra battery life for your Mac? Yeah, this should cover you. The largest HyperMac battery looks like it gets you around 24 hours or so, depending on your Mac (and usuage). I needed this years ago; I’m already debating how I could use it today.

Comic Con happened over the weekend. It hurts me; I spent the time this year not lamenting I wasn’t there, but lamenting the Con in general. Back in the mythical days of high school, it was this mystery thing: I knew it happened, I read about it, but I never had the chance to go — I was on the east coast, young and simply didn’t travel. Plus it existed to sell comics. Comics I couldn’t afford and didn’t know enough about. This is no longer the case — now it’s a pop culture showcase and the 2 years I went were about as close to a death knell as I expect to see…well, they were more like last gasps. All the coverage I’ve read this year (which, incidentally, is another issue — the Internet has made actually attending the Con a silly endevour, unless you want to buy art or rare back issues), is less than impressive. I haven’t year read one interesting bit of news from the comcis world — plots, teasers, creative teams…nada. And then to hear how actual comic dealers are being squeezed out of the floor for games, toys and media companies…well, that’s just depressing. Comics have moved on, my friends. And if they don’t make the move to digital super quickly, they are going to cease to exist at all.

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