Guestblogger Paul Spinrad is a freelance writer/editor, and is Projects Editor for MAKE magazine. He is the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids, and was an early contributor to bOING bOING when it was an online zine. — Read the rest

Guestblogger Paul Spinrad is a freelance writer/editor with Catholic interests, and is Projects Editor for MAKE magazine. He is the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids, and was an early contributor to bOING bOING when it was an online zine. — Read the rest

I'm very happy to welcome my friend Paul Spinrad back as a guest blogger. If you missed him the first time around, do yourself a favor and check out his previous posts on Boing Boing.

Paul is one of the most original thinkers I know, and a warm, friendly person. — Read the rest

Last month I blogged about Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim, a glorious, gritty revenge novel from hell, tinged with Aleister Crowley, Tom Waits and Raymond Chandler. Sandman Slim, AKA Stark, is one of Los Angeles's magicians, and 11 years ago, his fellow magicians sent him to hell because they were jealous of his power. — Read the rest

Mark Dery is guest blogger du jour until August 17. He is the author of Culture Jamming, Flame Wars, Escape Velocity, and The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium. He's at work on The Pathological Sublime, a philosophical investigation into the paradox of horrible beauty and the politics of "just looking." — Read the rest

Richard Kadrey's new novel Sandman Slim is the most hard-boiled piece of supernatural fiction I've ever had the pleasure of reading. William Gibson says it's a "deeply amusing, dirty-ass masterpiece" and that's just right.

Eleven years ago, James Stark was banished to hell by his circle of magic buddies, betrayed by his supposed friends for the crime of being a better magician than them. — Read the rest

(Snapshots from the BBV Throbbing Gristle shoot by Chris Cooper).

Earlier this week, Boing Boing Video and Richard Metzger shot an interview with art-damage/industrial music godfathers Throbbing Gristle in Los Angeles. They're on a limited tour of the USA, with a show tonight in San Francisco, and dates scheduled in Chicago and Brooklyn (info on dates, venues, and tickets here). — Read the rest

As Cory noted below, JG Ballard died this morning. Ballard was one of my favorite writers ever and his thinking about culture, art, science, technology, and human behavior had a massive influence on me. He will be missed greatly.

"Picturing the psychology of the future is what it's all been about."

Boingboing's current guestblogger Paul Spinrad is currently Projects Editor for MAKE magazine and the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids. He lives in San Francisco. 

My friend Andy's literature blog recently pointed to this essay by Pat Holt, about how book publishers lose tons of money printing hardcover books. — Read the rest

Boingboing's current guestblogger Paul Spinrad is currently Projects Editor for MAKE magazine and the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids. He lives in San Francisco. 

I love the idea of NuRide, although I've never used it myself. — Read the rest

Boingboing's current guestblogger Paul Spinrad is currently Projects Editor for MAKE magazine and the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids. He lives in San Francisco.

I have just a few days left of guestblogging and more ideas than I can fit, so here's a list of some. — Read the rest

Boingboing's current guestblogger Paul Spinrad is Projects Editor for MAKE magazine and the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Wendy, their two young children Clara and Simon, and their cats Ron and Nancy. — Read the rest

Boingboing's current guestblogger Paul Spinrad is Projects Editor for MAKE magazine and the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Wendy and their two young children Clara and Simon. — Read the rest

Boingboing's current guestblogger Paul Spinrad is a freelance writer/editor with catholic interests. He is currently Projects Editor for MAKE magazine and the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Wendy. — Read the rest

Boingboing's current guestblogger Paul Spinrad is a freelance writer/editor with catholic interests. He is currently Projects Editor for MAKE magazine and the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids. He lives in San Francisco. 

I'm thrilled to be guestblogging here and looking forward to learning a lot. — Read the rest

Boingboing's new guestblogger, Paul Spinrad, is a freelance writer/editor with catholic interests. He is currently Projects Editor for MAKE magazine and the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids. He lives in San Francisco. please give him a warm welcome!

Yesterday, the robots.txt file for whitehouse.gov had ca. 2400 lines worth of files and directories that search engines were not allowed to index. Today, the file is two lines long: "User-agent: *" and "Disallow: /includes/"

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /query.html

Survival Research Laboratories, the legendary machine performance project that started it all, turns 30 today. Founder Mark Pauline has a blog post up about this milestone, with a copy of SRL's first-ever ad, above. Mark says,

Id like to thank all those who have helped me make SRL what it is, both voluntarily and involuntarily.

I love books about pranks, scams, bar bets, and cons. Not because I want to cheat people, but because scams and cons are a fascinating way to look at human nature. Sucker bets reveal our natural tendencies to be gullible, greedy, sympathetic, friendly, and suspicious. — Read the rest

John sez, "Night Shade Books has made the entire text of Butcher Bird available as a DRM-free download, in a wide variety of formats. Kadrey is the author of one of the quintessential cyberpunk novels, Metrophage (which you can also read online.)" — Read the rest