August 2010
197 posts
Mike Cane Has Left The Tumblr « Mike Cane's xBlog →
Getting Fed Up With Tumblr
1) I don’t like hitting Publish and waiting five minutes for a post to go public
2) Video can only embed one video at a time
3) Videos embedded in Text don’t appear in Dashboard to others
4) There are no Stats here, unlike WordPress
5) There’s no PC XML export and I’m beginning to think my stuff will be trapped here
I’m looking at WordPress themes right now....
“Then there are the truly ignorant. Who say let’s just pray to God, cut taxes and...”
– Lefsetz Letter - The Big Short
“Labor Day is approaching. Ouch. It always seems to be in September-October when...”
– ROI: Is a Crash Coming? Ten Reasons to Be Cautious - WSJ.com
Book People: STOP It Already!!
You are driving me mad.
The stupidity about the “look, smell, and feel” of books.
Now utter crap about the disappearance of “personal libraries.”
I didn’t see any of this about the transition from Compact Discs to downloads.
I didn’t see any of this about the transition from DVDs to streaming video.
You’re all a bunch of crybabies and you give...
BBC: Sherlock, Episode 3
Well, when I first posted about this series, I felt unlcean about it.
All three of the episodes have run — so how do I feel about it now?
It’s bloody genius! Absolute genius!
Episode 1 was really genius, but the update to modernity was really jarring.
Episode 2 was utter nonsensical rubbish that was boring as hell.
Episode 3 was back to stunning genius!
Moffat wrote the...
“We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.”
– Benjamin Franklin (Submitted by camiwiseman) (via quote-book) (via nighton) (via cti97)
Robert Reich: Forget a Double Dip. We're Still in... →
Also: To put more money in consumer’s wallets, eliminate payroll taxes on the first $20K of income (and make it up by applying payroll taxes to incomes over $250K.)
— that’s how the tax system should have been set up to begin with. If the lowest percentile can keep every cent they make, there’d be less need for welfare and far less tax cheating at the bottom. Tax cheating...
Pricing models, the freemium myth and why you may... →
Your Brand Or Their Brand?
Trust me, Voice123, you really don’t want my opinion.
The Voice123 brand is a determent to whatever semblance of a “brand” I might have. And what I mean by that is because of the numerous active entry-level talent with very limited abilities listed within Voice123, combined with clients posting little-to-no pay jobs, including paying jobs that are consistently well below fair market rates,...
“We’re losing money, but hopefully we’re making customers for life.”
– Vibram FiveFingers shoes try to outrace the black market - Aug. 13, 2010
“Every choice must have trust in mind. What does your audience think about you...”
– Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » Trusted Sources
Which One Does Not Belong?
[Note to those seeing this in the Tumblr Dashboard. There are three videos here. Come to the post to see.]
Crime Fiction, Psycho-Thrillers, Murder Mysteries →
“With the Brandon Sanderson book yesterday and some of the books today it’s hard...”
– For your Kindle – Saturday kindle book deals « Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review
joeclark asked: Your point might be more valuable if you investigated whether or not the claimed flavours of ePub actually passed the validators, used correct semantics, and used realistic CSS. In other words, you personally don’t have enough evidence to support your conclusions.
And incidentally, Mobipocket/AZW, used by Amazon, is also fundamentally HTML.
And incidentally, Mobipocket/AZW, used by Amazon, is also fundamentally HTML.
“Throughout history there have been very diverse attempts to arrive at a...”
– Eurozine - Will the book enter the digital age? - Pascal Fouché, Olivier Mongin, Marc-Olivier Padis An interview with Pascal Fouché
“I give them two years before they’re turning out the lights on a very...”
– BW Online | May 21, 2001 | Commentary: Sorry, Steve: Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work
“First of all, you must remember that we are not a book-reading country—not...”
– The Magic of Self-Help Books | SUCCESS Magazine | What Achievers Read
Closer To Midnight On The Doom Clock
John Williams: Times That Try Our Souls
The Fed will come in to salvage that situation, becoming the lender of last resort to the Treasury—literally monetizing the Treasury debt.
Published August 5th, what he stated right there began to happen this week.
None of this is going to end well.
Proofreaders Matter!
In the Case of the Billion-Dollar ERISA Typo, 7th Circuit Upholds Win for Verizon
A simple typo led to a lawsuit over 1.67 billion dollars.
What non-professional writers don’t understand is that publishers carry something called E&O insurance. E&O is errors and omissions. Because everyone understands human beings make mistakes.
But even so, if you are publishing yourself and...
How I Made Money Spamming Twitter with Contextual... →
I shouldn’t, but I found this to be both hugely clever and hugely funny too.
Kindle vs. iPad Displays: Up close and personal. |... →
This is really something that has to be seen. The eInk particles close up look like rocks at the bottom of an aquarium. Stupid me for thinking they were somehow all Science-like uniform in structure, like, I guess, tiny spheres.
New Sony Reader eBook Devices Coming Soon | Sony... →
Sony’s Last Stand. They can’t get these wrong. Which means they will. Touchscreen on a 5” device? Well, Samsung was showing off that at one time. But Notes also implies a stylus too — yecch. The WiFi Kindle is $139, the WiFi Nook is $149. Sony has to come in at those prices and really, really WOW! people. I don’t think they can or will.
See also: New Sony...
“It has often been said that, with the squeeze in publishing and the closing of...”
– Author Ray Connolly explains why he is publishing his latest novel chapter by chapter, online | Books | The Guardian [— thanks to Doctor Snake for link]
Dell accused of defying court order - Aug. 13,... →
I still have to do my follow-up post about Dell. But this article leads me to believe Dell has been covering up things and stonewalling customers. They’ve destroyed their reputation.
Judge orders identities of commenters be revealed →
iPad As Reading Device
I should stay the hell away from iPad posts here. That’s what the other place is for, but this is also book-related, so I twist the rules a bit.
iPad Reading Leap Marginalizes Kindle Hardware - But Not Kindle Reader…
Having now had the chance to test iPad as a reader on many different types of book, I’m happy to say that this is without question the best reading device...
Oracle Sues Google: Patent/Copyright Violations
Oracle sues Google over Android and Java Back when Google first announced plans to develop Android in 2007, it immediately raised the blood pressure of Java developers at Sun. Google’s Java implementation is different than the one advocated by a Java standards group, which worried those tech industry veterans who remember the problems that Microsoft caused for Java by following a similar...
Hmmmmm...
Superconductors go fractal
The team knew the material was made like a layered cake, with layers of superconducting copper oxide alternating with spacer layers. At higher temperatures, oxygen atoms tend to roam around in the spacer layer. But when temperatures drop, they settle down. These oxygen atoms — and the electrons they bring to what would otherwise be vacancies — are thought to contribute...
“In order for the artist to have a world to express he must first be situated in...”
– Charles Baudelaire (via anin) (via libraryland)
“When we do radical experiments giving away our content people tend to ask if...”
– The future of public service broadcasting
Office Depot Steals Livelihood From Speaker!
When imitation isn’t flattery…it’s theft…
Scott McKain has the details at that post. Go watch these two videos (people seeing this via the Tumblr Dashboard, come to my post or click through to Scott’s site for them):
There are certain things you don’t do in life. One of them is stealing bread out of a little guy’s mouth.
Especially if you’re two massive...
Market Versus Social Notes #2
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely:
As Margaret Clark, Judson Mills, and Alan Fiske suggested a long time ago, the answer is that we live simultaneously in two different worlds—one where social norms prevail, and the other where market norms make the rules. The social norms include the friendly requests that people make of one another. Could you help...
Notes: Market Versus Social
Market: I want something from you.
Social: I want to do something for you.
The impetus of the first is to get something.
The motivation of the second is to give something.
What, if instead of saying to someone, “I like your new haircut,” I gave them $5.00 because I like it but without telling them why I was giving that money to them?
What emotion does the first create in the...
““I’m going to buy as many books as I can on the e-reader, because they’re less...”
– As E-Books Gain, Barnes and Noble Tries to Stay Ahead - NYTimes.com
“We are living through an apparent up-tick in workplace murders, along with an...”
– David Rosen: Blood on the Floor
“I received the fundamentals of my education in school, but that was not enough....”
– Isaac Asimov (via awritersruminations) (via teachingliteracy) (via librarianista)
The Trillion-Dollar Metaphor - Hidden Frequency →
There is some interesting stuff here. But he is overlooking one thing: the market versus the social. The book Predictably Irrational showed me the reason why I get offended when someone offers me money after I’ve done them what I thought was a favor. In the same way, even if there’s a writer whose work I like, I get offended if he flogs his book at me. On the other hand, if he...
Manuscript reveals dark side of Lawrence of... →
The movie Lawrence of Arabia has been described (rightly) as “history as it never happened.” Still, great movie, and it did lead me to read about Lawrence. Now I want to read this book too.
“The hardback edition of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo failed to cause much of...”
– The publishing house that Stieg Larsson built - News, Books - The Independent
peHUB » What Happened To Demand Media’s Traffic? →
This is Google. First Book Search. Then Google-Verizon. Now this. Enjoy our new Algorithmic Masters.
“A heroic figure stands at the center of the private eye novel; there are no...”
– Otto Penzler: Noir Fiction Is About Losers, Not Private Eyes
“The U.S. is depicted as a fraying empire of obesity, ignorance, debt, gridlock,...”
– Europeans Can’t Be Bothered to Hate America - Newsweek
“The U.S. will not remain a stable society if this great employment crisis is not...”
– Op-Ed Columnist - The Horror Show - NYTimes.com