Read on for today’s interesting stories.

DRUGS: Chiense e-cigs grain ground amid safety concerns Greg Z told me about these… And here’s another article about them. Apparently, similar but not identical products have been on sale in America, but did not sell well. But the FDA has been “detaining and refusing” e-cigarettes because they are considered unapproved new drugs. (I predicted this.) This is the same idea behind vaporizers for marijuana. It is possible to deliver drugs to your lungs without smoking. In fact, it would probably save a lot of lives. Too bad it costs $60-$240, and most certainly costs more than cigarettes. And the cheapest form of a drug always sells well — which is why crack and liquor are so popular, and this would never surpass cigarettes unless it was cheaper. Which would only be possible with a government subsidy. In a country with socialized medicine, that subsidy would pay for itself. In a country with capitalist medicine, there’s profit to be made in people dying. (tags: politics drugs corporations news articles medical health AP nicotine cigarettes Canada FDA China tobacco smoking Beijing PhilipMorris HongKong WHO Ruyan vaporizers atomizers smokeless WorldHeathlOrganization TimothyO’Leary Gamucci SmokingEverywhere NJoy CES MiuNam NonSmokresRightsAssociation DavidSweanor RJReynolds)

  • COPYRIGHT: Amazon Caves On Kindle 2 Text-To-Speech feature pfft.. the new electronic marketplace is all about censorship, technical and otherwise. can’t get boobies on an iphone (or flash, or java), can’t use features you paid for on your Kindle 2…. looks like the pirates win again, as those who DON’T pay will continue being able to do whatever the fuck they want. There’s been a lot of speculation lately about the publishing industry following in the steps of and making the same mistakes as the now fey music industry. (tags: politics technology media TechnologyWar censorship intellectualProperty news hardware Slashdot books Amazon DRM appeasement DefectiveByDesign Kindle AuthorsGuild coypright text2speech text-to-speech Kindle2 PayForLess aritcles)

  • HARDWARE: 8 Little Things We Still Can’t Stand About the iPhone Lol… more things that would make me prefer to have Carolyn’s tiny cellphone over a huge overpriced crippled behemoth like the iPhone. Text messages are auto-split without telling the user? You can’t attach a picture to an email, or search it? The gestures they advertise don’t work everywhere? You have to use a bunch of clicks to save your battery? No custom themes? And of course, no adult applications: You’re a child by default, and Apple is your Mommy. Still can’t get over how these are followed like a cult. (tags: lists news articles hardware phones cellPhones iPhone TechCrunch emails textMessages MobileCrunch attachments gestures inconsistencies Userintefaces)

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