Expletive Deleted

There's a new book social networking site called Book Mooch. The idea is to share books you are willing to give away, and you earn points for sending them. You can then use the points to "mooch" books from other people. I signed up yesterday and listed an initial batch of books I'm willing to part with (because I have multiple copies!):

• Some Mistakes of Moses by Robert Green Ingersoll
  
• The Philosophy of Humanism by Corliss Lamont
  
• Arguing for Atheism by Robin le Poidevin
  
• Is it God's Word by Joseph Wheless
  
• 
  

When I woke up today, the first three book have already been mooched! Two moochers are from the US and the third from the UK. Sending overseas gives me 3 points each. Now I can get some of the books I've always wanted! And since these books are given not sold, I don't have to pay any taxes or tarrifs! Take that, you corrupt customs officials!

If you have books you want to give away, go sign up at Book Mooch. You might even have a few books I'm looking for!

1) I have recently finished reading Christopher Hitchens' latest book, god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Lavishly praised by the unchurched, it's a strong modern polemic against the depravity of organized religion. But it's not without its weaknesses. Hitchens goes off in a tangent from time to time, sometimes failing to return to his original point. His asides, while often amusing, do not necessarily clarify the points he wants to make. Still, I find it interesting enough to recommend to people.

2) Speaking of polemics, after reading a lot of books released by the so-called New Atheists™, I became interested in reading (and rereading) some of the more vintage antireligious works. To make a long story short, I made a new website, Freethought Library, which is a collection of some of my favorite works of the age of freethought that are available in the public domain. If I get more time in my hands, I'll add Tom Paine's The Age of Reason!

3) My new website is hosted in Google Pages, which annoyingly still doesn't support Opera (I had to dirty myself using IE and FF, and both crashed while editing some of the pages!). Worse still, when you try to access Google Pages from Opera, you get this pathetic message:

Our programming wizards tried their darndest to get Google Page Creator to work with as many browsers as possible. But alas, even the most expert practitioners of web sorcery must sleep now and again, lest their JavaScript magic run dry.

So, for now, you'll need either to download a new version of Firefox or download a new version of Internet Explorer (Windows only), and then come right back.

(Emphasis added)

As many browsers as possible, you say? Then how come you list only TWO browsers?! Worse still, this has been the case for over a year now!

4) My birthday's on the 26th. I don't plan on any real celebration, I'll probably just treat my office mates to some pizza. And I'll probably take my wife and son out to dinner. BTW, my son can stand already (for about a second or two)! How time flies!

So the Apple iPhone is now out. And the verdict is slowly trickling down the grapevine. While it's a gorgeous phone to look at, and perhaps even ok to use, there are also a lot of annoyances that needs smoothing out. PC Magazine gave it a 4/5 rating, which is pretty good. Like most reviewers, they find the display very well made. But as a cellphone, they have this to say:

When he announced the iPhone, Steve Jobs said to expect three things: "an incredibly great cell phone," "the best iPod we've ever made," and "the Internet in your pocket." One out of three isn't bad. Yes, the iPhone is best iPod ever—ironic for something not even called an iPod! But it's just a plain lousy phone, and although it makes some exciting advances in handheld Web browsing, it's not the Internet in your pocket.

and

it isn't a very good phone. Call quality was the worst we've heard on a high-end device in years. We're not going to put that on AT&T, either: our Blackberry Curve made much clearer calls at the same time, in the same place. Reception leaves something to be desired. It's complicated to dial, difficult to send text messages on, and missing all sorts of features that are basically assumed to be in most high-end multimedia phones nowadays.

So, it's just a techie gadget and iPod masquerading as a cellphone. Apple may be a genius with techie gadgets, but they're still figuring out how to make a better phone.

Ars Technica has a more positive impression with the iPhone. They also noticed that despite all the hoopla, the iPhone isn't flying off the shelves as was expected by the Apple fanatics. CNET reported the same. Also, CNET gave the iPhone a pretty good 8/10 excellent rating. Paul Thurrott, webmaster of the SuperSite for Windows, points out the glaring deficiencies with the iPhone design and usability.

As for me, I'll give the v1.0 iPhone a pass. I'll stick with my SonyEricsson a little longer and wait for Apple to iron out the kinks.

(click to enlarge)

Filehippo claims they already have Opera 9.21 (not BETA) ready for download. Yet I don't see it in the Opera website or their download page. Is this for real? I don't like to download beta or trojan stuff and this seems too dubious for me. I think I can wait for the official release.