Lovely.

Jay Thomas on Letterman, with a great Lone Ranger story.

“Could one chatbot fool another chatbot? What would one say to another in private? To find out, we arranged a conversation between these two chatbots. To get each snippet of chat rolling, we seeded it by posing a question from one bot to the other. After that, they were on their own. What follows is the unaltered text of what each said—the sound of two machines talking.”

A: Do you dream?

J: Yes, I dream.

A: It goes without saying. Do you remember your dreams?

J: I remember them vividly.

A: What do you remember about it?

J: I think I shouldn’t flirt with a robot.

Le Grand Content is an entertainingly perverse take on the meaning of life by Clemens Kogler—in the form of as PowerPoint presentation.

And while you’re there, don’t miss the hypnotic Herr Bar, set to music by Clark.

I don’t want to get a rep for being the deathwatch guy around here, but another great storyteller has closed his book and said goodnight.

Robert Anton Wilson, author of this and this and this and this (!) and this and this and this and much, much, more, is gone.

Tug his beard and say farewell.

I first read One Hundred Years of Solitude at the insistence of a roommate who herself had read it while feverish in Ghana. She said she hallucinated the whole novel. Which is probably the proper way to experience it.

The book’s author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, is dying of cancer and has retired from public life.

“If for an instant God were to forget that I am a rag doll and gifted me with a piece of life, possibly I wouldn’t say all that I think, but rather I would think of all that I say. …

“I would walk when others hold back, I would wake when others sleep. I would listen when others talk, and how I would enjoy a good chocolate ice cream! …”

More can be found here.

Henry Gale, or Benjamin Linus, or whoever he wants to call himself, is actually …

Jonathan Richman.

Though it looks like some unholy mashup of Mordor and Burning Man, this is a photograph of the brickworks at Hussain Khil, in Afghanistan. According to the photographer, Simon Norfolk, demand for bricks has soared in the country, given all the necessary rebuilding in Kabul.

Elsewhere on Norfolk’s site are photos from Iraq, Normandy, Palestine, Bosnia, Liberia, and other hot spots around the world, including the Bush/Kerry campaign. The images are extraordinarily potent, and the site is well worth a visit.

Thanks to the equally extraordinary wood s lot.

It’s Flickr Time.

Thanks to Waxy.