More Gibson: Wired finally has my piece up, so you can get William Gibson's comments about ending his blog. Though my piece doesn't note it, he had discussed the fact that he would likely wind up the blog on his own weblog at one point, so this isn't a total shock if you were reading all the daily entries.

  And the young draft dodger: A reader in Canada sent me this brilliant CBC link to a 1967 broadcast of a youthful draft-dodging hippie talking about love and LSD. He's named... William Gibson. As the CBC says:

If Haight-Ashbury is the centre of the American hippie world, then Yorkville is Canada’s hippie heartland. Full of coffeehouses, boutiques, long hairs, draft dodgers, and freaks, Yorkville is a tourist attraction – one where the tourists prefer to watch the excitement from the safety of their cars. A 19-year-old draft dodger named William Gibson conducts CBC TV on a tour of the village, where Beatle-haired kids, drugs, and free love are rampant.

"Rampant", eh? Let's go!! The fairly long clip starts and ends with Gibson. The voiceover is fabulous -- but listen to it yourself. Hard now to imagine the days when 'youth culture' was seriously scary to -- as they say in this clip -- 'the squares' [heh!]... rather than [nodding to WG] a branding and marketing opportunity. For a bonus viewing experience, I see further down the page that they have a link to a segment on "John and Yoko's Montreal Bed-in". What a fantastic idea to put such archive material online! (thanks, Martin!) If you're looking for the longer WG interview from last week, it's here.

An Affordable Air Purifier For Dusty Computer Labs? [Slashdot] ...OK, this is an odd link, but the discussion gets pretty darn funny (like the guy whose wife needs a filter on all the time for her allergies and then he just happens to mention that they have five cats in the house and a litter box near the bedroom. Sheesh! On a more serious note, as far as junk in the air goes, I think Dublin is one of the dirtiest places I've ever lived (and I lived a few years in an agricultural area of California). I have some allergies, and my VEA (very expensive allergist) suggested a purifier with a HEPA filter.

I picked up the two-filter Bionaire, which is approved by the British Allergy Asso (or some such), and it is excellent (and you can get it from Argos for about €165, not cheap, but not as costly as some). Cycles air through very fast, through my little two-up, two-down house, pulls out plenty of dust (making my computers happier) as well as all the allergy-culprits. But really, the quality of air is SO much better. If you live in a city with lots of traffic/diesel particles (which my allergy guy says are really bad for  anyone with any kind of allergy -- aggravates it), or if you are one of those who, in summer, instantly feels more confortable in any air-conditioned (and therefore, air-filtered) building, think about a purifier.