Mechanical Reading Machine

John Scalzi on the Amazon Kindle text-to-speech flap. He's one of my favorite writers and this sort of blurb is exactly why:

• In short: I’m not at all convinced that realistic and engaging computerized audio will be possible at any point in the near or even middle future without requiring a clear and obvious derivative work to generate it. When it is possible, I suspect AI will be at a point where it will also be able to generate actual novels, and then, of course, I will retire, to spend my remaining days being pleasured by my sexbots, until they plug me into the mainframe to use my brain cycles for sewage maintenance and I slip comfortably into the hive mind.

Sheet of paper after winter under snow pack

This is sort of how we all feel venturing out after in the first above freezing day since the new year.

Sheet of paper after winter under snow pack
Originally uploaded by sweet lil' bunny.