The #1 and #2 best-selling ebooks of the year weren’t even available in print editions, while four of the top 10 best-selling print books didn’t make it into the top 100 best-selling ebooks. “It couldn’t be more clear that Kindle owners are choosing their material from an entirely different universe of books,” notes one Kindle site, which points out that five of the best-selling ebooks came from two million-selling ebook authors — Amanda Hocking and John Locke — who are still awaiting the release of their books in print. And five of Amazon’s best-selling ebooks were Kindle-only “Singles,” including a Stephen King short story which actually outsold another King novel that he’d released in both ebook and print formats. And Neal Stephenson’s “Reamde” was Amazon’s #99 best-selling print book of 2011, though it didn’t even make it onto their list of the 100 best-selling ebooks of the year.

“People who own Kindles are just reading different books than the people who buy printed books,” reports the Kindle site, which adds “2011 may be remembered as the year that hundreds of new voices finally found their audiences.”

“I thought, ‘You know, that’s such a load of horseshit … I’m going to dismantle that poisonous propaganda lie visually… I’m going to portray these people how they are.” He started with the man who invented LSD — Albert Hoffman — on its 50th anniversary in 1988, and at one point drove over 11,000 miles in just 7 weeks (including a 26-hour drive to drink beer with William S. Burroughs).

He’s interviewed by the former editor of High Frontiers magazine (”the official psychedelic magazine of the 1984 Summer Olympics.)”, and the article includes three of his best photos. (He’s exhibiting them this month in Los Angeles). But the strangest fact of all?

He started his career taking photographs for the annual report of Mobil Oil!

In The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Lisbeth “spreads resistant messages despite powerful mechanisms of top-down control,” which is ultimately a more empowering message than what you get from searching “cyberpunk” on Google Images. (”Note, if you will, how many topless, pantsless, or pigtailed schoolgirls you see here.”) But even Gibson himself once argued the cutting-edge of cyberpunk is too unfamiliar to be defined.

Also included? The day 22 people were killed in 1900 at the Big Game between football rivals Stanford and Berkeley, and a story which concludes “The gunmen immediately started blasting away with shotguns and assault rifles…”

Usually on Thanksgiving, “Good old all-American chaos is down,” writes Marr sardonically. “But not entirely out.”

“Eventually I figured it out,” reports one technology blogger, “but it was a big shock to see more messages appearing from John himself on the day after he’d died.” They also dedicated their first ebook to Pospisil, a Thanksgiving children’s story, because “I’d always thought we’d watch the world changing together…”

Strangely, Amazon has just issued a press release saying they support the bill, calling it “a win-win resolution,” according to one Kindle blog, though they may just be hoping to lobby for exemptions from each individual state.

“Instead of a national sales tax, these new taxes will only be imposed at the individual discretion of each separate state legislature, and that’s an area where multi-billion dollar companies like Amazon can still exert a lot of pressure.

Keane was a good sport about fake Amazon reviews that gushed about supposedly hidden literary themes in collections of his newspaper comic strips, and he once even drew his own characters into a “guest appearance” in a Zippy the Pinhead strip. But in 1999, Keane’s syndicate threatened legal action against the “Dysfunctional Family Circus” site, which had been re-captioning Keane’s cartoons for over four years.

Heading off a “free speech” showdown, Keane resolved the situation with a friendly phone call to the webmaster, who ultimately decided to voluntarily remove the images just because “He’s actually a nice guy.”

“I think WikiLeaks represents a very important impulse and the start of a strong movement toward anti-corporate sentiment and the demand for government transparency,” he explains in this new interview, “As ineffectual as that movement may end up being – because it started so late in the process of corporate control being consolidated…”

He moves from discussing fictional zombie-fighting to the brutal real-world military violence in neo-colonial nations around the world. And he ultimately wonders if our wireless technology-enhanced future will also include the potential for massive global disinformation.

“Organizers hoped the theme would attract more volunteers than previous simulations of industrial accidents or train crashes,” the AP reports, quoting a spokesman for the agency as saying that “People got zombie fever here in Delaware.” The exercise included decontamination procedures for hazardous materials, and was inspired by an “emergency preparedness” post on the CDC web site citing the popular fascination with zombies. (The number of zombie ebooks in Amazon’s Kindle store has increased by 13.9% in just the last two months.)

Now, “Dozens of agencies have embraced the idea,” the AP reports, “spreading the message that if you’re prepared for a zombie attack, you’re prepared for just about anything.”

Kindle has allowed Amazon to harvest all of this borrowing data, so it’s an instant violation of all of our privacy policies … [I]f they’re using a Kindle, Amazon’s keeping friggin’ everything. And we haven’t told people that, and we need to tell people that.

She argues Amazon’s retention of your reading history may violate, for example, California’s Reader Privacy Act, and she also complains that the check-out and renewal process include unacceptable promotional content about Amazon’s for-sale ebooks. Though she owns a Kindle and loves ebooks, she’s urging librarians to speak up.

“How do you tell people, ‘Well this great device that works really well, and it’s the smoothest check-out process of any device or format that we offer here in the library – but it violates your privacy, it jeopardizes your intellectual freedom, and, you know, it might kinda be against state law, but I’m not really sure.’ How do you say that to people? But I think it’s important for us as library staff to figure out a way to say it to people, because it’s our job to stand up for their privacy and their reading rights, even when they don’t know when that they’re in jeopardy.”

The “WikiFocus” series targets obscure niches with few competing ebooks, like Hello Kitty, Aquaman, or the comic strip Archie.

“Of the 887 ebooks, all but 10 earned terrible reviews, averaging one star or less,” this article notes, “or received no reviews at all.”

A typical review? “This ‘book’ is just a word for word copy of the Wikipedia page.”

(And a least one other “author” has attempt the same trick, trying to pass off a Wikipedia page about Charlie Sheen as an $18.95 biography!)

A children’s bookstore noted that “the pie is getting cut into fewer pieces. I’d be nervous if I were an adult book publisher.” Borders bookstore has already declared bankruptcy, leaving The Daily Show to joke that bookstores should simply become “digital downloading” stations — or a “living history” museum where future generations can learn what “a magazine rack” was.”

SlutWalk protest in Toronto, 3 April 2011. Photo: Anton Bielousov (CC).

Violet Blue explains why the new SlutWalk protests are “a significant tipping point in cultural evolution” — and she’s serious. “Yes: I think scantily clad girls marching in the streets around the world are agents of change for our species.”

It started in April when a Toronto cop said that to stay safe from rape, women “should avoid dressing like sluts”. Soon “my clothes are not my consent” protests erupted, and the event “had an international identity within a few months,” representing “a huge reclamation and restatement about boundaries and women’s bodies.”

Now sex workers, young exhibitionists, high-heel feminists and random pissed-off women are marching “for the right to dress as they like while having their boundaries respected,” and Violet calls them the true punk rockers — the disruptors. “They’re the ones with the brass ovaries enough to dress like sluts and tell the world to STFU about what they should, or shouldn’t do, with their sexiness.”

“Maybe that’s why its critics are panicking and handwringing as if Invaders From Mars have come out of a time machine from the future in heels and hose, reminding everyone that their face is up here!”

Citing lessons drawn from Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, Alex Peake, founder of Primer Labs, sees the possibility of a self-fueling feedback loop which creates “a Moore’s law for artificial intelligence,” with accelerating returns ultimately generating the best possible education outcomes.

“What the computer taught me was that there was real muggle magic …” writes Peake. And he reaches a startling conclusion.

“Once we begin relying on AI mentors for our children and we get those mentors increasing in sophistication at an exponential rate, we’re dipping our toe into symbiosis between humans and the AI that shape them.

Basically, the act would allow American pharmaceutical companies to buy opium from the farmers in Afghanistan — and even offer aid and bonuses to the farmers to deter their cooperation with the Taliban (before eventually transitioning them to other crops). “Action has been nil and talk has been quiet,” the reporter writes, even though it could help efforts to “defeat, disrupt, and dismantle” al Qaeda and its allies.

“As we press our advantage after the death of bin Laden, it seems reasonable to use every available tool toward our stated goal.”

Mondo editor R. U. Sirius remembers fondly that Reznor “was still excited about us after the psilocybin wore off,” recalls the poop-and-diapers piece of performance art that disgusted the hipsters in San Francisco, and shares the legendary sad-eyed “Keane painting” mocking Reznor that may have ultimately spoiled the deal…

But their one “lost album” from 1993 is finally available online.

The #1 city on Amazon’s list (and the top purchaser of non-fiction titles) is Cambridge, Massachusetts, while four of the top five cities are college towns. This suggests students may be shopping online for cheaper text books – another bad sign for the future of the bookstore.

But the #2 city was Alexandria, Virginia, one of three cities on the list within 10 miles of Washington D.C. — which surprisingly, was also reported by Amazon as the city which purchased the most children’s picture book.

“With manual typewriters no longer being produced, I think it’s fair to say we’re now a world where computers rule supreme.”

The cartoon — entitled “Happy Tree Friends” — features singing animals who demonstrate the difference between uploading an infringing video and creating original content. (”YouTube has decided the solution is to patronize those users,” jokes one technology blog.) “Because copyright law can be complicated, education is critical to ensure that our users understand the rules and continue to play by them,” YouTube said in Thursday’s announcement. And some users who complete the YouTube “Copyright School” can also have copyright strikes removed from their account.

Amazon just announced a new $114 Kindle Wireless Reading Device — $25 cheaper than any other model — but it comes with a big catch.

It’s the Kindle “with special offers,” showing sophisticated advertisements in the screensavers, along with shopping discounts which display at the bottom of the screen.

Tesla Motors says the broadcaster faked the car’s running out of power, with the show’s host then announcing “it’s just a shame that in the real world it doesn’t seem to work.”

Tesla also charges “malicious falsehood” for the reporter’s claim that somehow “while it was being charged its brakes had broken,” and for implying that after it overheated it became immobile. In addition, the BBC also reported the car traveled only 55 miles on a single charge instead of 200 (thus implying that Tesla lied about its mileage).

The text of their lawsuit is available as a PDF, while the BBC has issued a statement that they “stand by the programme and will be vigorously defending this claim.”

“When I took over as CEO six months ago,” commented Digg’s Matt Williams, “Kevin’s role changed to that of Founder and Board member…” Rose is now reportedly closing over $1 million in financing for a new start-up, and his attention is apparently already focusing on the future. “This comes just a matter of hours after TechCrunch noted that even Kevin Rose doesn’t use Digg any more, with his use of the site having dropped off massively over the last few months…”

Evan-Amos (CC)

48% of tablet owners have used their tablet device to transmit sensitive data, according to a new online survey by Harris Interactive.

This compares to just 30% of smartphone users, though it’s younger adults (aged 18-34) who are more likely to than adults.

52% of tablet owners between the ages of 18 and 34 say they’re confident about transmitting sensitive data over their tablet device, versus just 41% between the ages of 35 and 34, and 28% between the ages of 45 and 54. (While just 33% of people over the age of 55 shared the same confidence.)

“There may be an psychological explanation for the main tablet vs smartphone security point,” notes one technology site. “Somebody using a tablet – even though its on a wireless connection – may think of it in the same way as a computer, where it’s well established people are usually happy to transmit sensitive data…With a smartphone, there’s still more of a psychological reminder that any information you send is literally beamed through the air.”

There’s also some other caveats. The results were based on an online survey “that was ‘not based on probability sample’, meaning there’s no way to estimate how accurately it represents the entire population.” And the responses also depend very much on how the respondent interprets “sensitive data.”

“What better way to make a little extra cash than to open an online store selling branded merchandise?” jokes this technology blog, acknowledging that all proceeds go towards running of the site, and that “Assange is facing a hefty legal bill which he’ll need to pay.”

The shop includes t-shirts with appropriate sayings, including “Censorship reveals fear” and “Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government.” Interestingly, the shop’s t-shirts are supplied by the same German merchandising company that makes t-shirts for the Spice Girls.

In a strange 10-minute video, the Velvet Underground singer recites a disturbing poem about walking on a dark October night, on the one-year anniversary of the death of the lost Ulalume. Someone’s spliced together the audio with eerie footage from a Kenneth Anger movie.

And there’s also a lost last verse to the poem. (Poe originally wrote Ulalume as an elocution exercise, then decided it was also a hauntingly beautiful poem!)

“Wolfram took a sample of Jeopardy clues and fed them into search engines,” explains this technology blog. “When it came to the first page, Google got 69 percent correct, just beating Ask with 68 percent and Bing on 63 percent… To put that into context, the average human contestant gets 60 percent of answers correct, while champion Ken Jennings has a record of 79 percent.” Interestingly, Wikipedia came in last, scoring 23%, though they may have more to do with how Wikipedia handles searches.

Kindle 2. Photo: Jon 'ShakataGaNai' Davis (CC)

Score one for technology. Amazon’s sales of ebooks have apparently almost doubled since this summer. Amazon just announced that they’re now selling more ebooks than paperback books — and three times as many ebooks as hardcovers!

In July, Amazon had said they were selling 180 ebooks for every 100 hardcovers — though paperbacks traditionally outsell hardcovers by about a 3-to-1 ratio. But if you combine Amazon’s latest statistics into a pie chart, it reveals that 45% of all the books Amazon sells are now ebooks. And Amazon’s statistic doesn’t even include all the free ebooks people are downloading to their Kindles.

If just one user downloads a free ebook for every nine paid ebook purchases — then Amazon is already delivering more digital ebooks than they are print editions!

Photo: Mila Zinkova (CC)

In 1980 there were just 60 floods, blizzards, or thunderstorms, but in 2010 there were 247. “It’s likely that the number of strong storms involving rain, snow and hail is also rising because of warming temperatures,” says the head of the Corporate Climate Center at Munich Reinsurance, adding “we believe we have indications that climate change is already, at least to some extent, visible.”

The number of damaging storms rose from 50 reported thirty years ago to 150 in 2010, notes this environmental blog, adding that “While politicians bicker over the reality of climate change, insurance companies are dealing with its reality.” In fact, altogether the past year saw 950 disasters worldwide, where 30 years ago the number was a mere 400.

But wouldn’t it be interesting if the single most powerful lobbyist on the issue of climate legislation became the insurance companies?

Jolly Ol’ St. Nick is guilty of more than just paganism, perjury, and trying to steal Christmas from Christ. “Pope John XXIII threw the suspiciously merry old clown out of the Roman Catholic church back in the late 1960s,” and “The Jehovah’s Witnesses have always denounced Santa for his unsavory pagan past. (They also recognized Christmas trees as phallic symbols long before Freud.)”

Santa also has “a rather criminal family history all around,” since he’s a descendant of the primordial bear-god. And in some rustic parts of Europe “and probably in Kansas, Santa retains traces of his carnivorous past. Children are told that if they are good all year, Santa will reward them, but if they are bad, he will EAT THEM ALL UP.”

He even recommended it to his son as a less-harmful alternative to alcohol. And this song from The Road to Morocco could be seen as a secret testament to how much how loved the mellow, laid-back life: