February 2010
51 posts
Zinc Blinked →
This is a bit out my usual blogging style, as it concerns technical aspects of the publishing biz. Feel free to ignore it and look at Stormwalkers made of Legos. But as an author, I have to keep up…
Amazon: we'll agree to Macmillan's terms →
Amazon says that it will accept publisher Macmillan’s preferred publishing and distribution model.
We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s…
January 2010
45 posts
A Message from Macmillan CEO John Sargent →
To: All Macmillan authors/illustrators and the literary agent community
From: John Sargent
This past Thursday I met with Amazon in Seattle. I gave them our proposal for new terms of sale for e…
Why My Books Are No Longer Available on Amazon.com →
So Amazon and Macmillan are in the middle of negotiations about how to sell eBooks. Amazon had, for a while, paid publishers an agreed upon price, and then discounted them to $9.99. Amazon’s…
Righteous Freedom Fighting →
Lately I’ve been thinking about righteous freedom fighters. You know, those librarians and future-librarians who see the task of librarianship as a global one. They go to far-flung places preaching…
Amazon stops selling Macmillan's books in argument... →
Amazon.com has removed the buy buttons from all Macmillan books, and also removed all Macmillan titles from Kindle sales, in response to the publisher’s proposed “agency model” for ebooks…
Amazon, Macmillan: an outsider's guide to the... →
(Apologies for the formatting; I’m typing this on a netbook with a tiny keyboard.) Last Friday, Amazon.com unilaterally pulled most or all of Macmillan’s books from their online store. (You can…
News flash →
Still on the road with a Vaio P instead of a full-on computer, so I’ll be brief: Amazon.com can kiss my ass. Shorter version: they’re engaging in monopolistic practices that damn well ought to be…
A Quick Note On eBook Pricing and Amazon Hijinx →
If nothing else, this bit of asshattery on the part of Amazon has well and truly cured me of any desire to ever get a Kindle. If Amazon is willing to play chicken with my economic well-being — and…
Amazon and Macmillan go to war: readers and... →
A publisher or bookseller can’t force you to buy Ikea sofas to sit upon while you read your books.
But Amazon can force you to buy Kindles (and Amazon-approved devices) to read your Kindle books…
Bug off, Bezos. And take your damned bookstore... →
Because if they’re going to choose to toss me overboard in a business dispute over which I have no influence, control or participation in, I can choose not to do business with them. Even if Amazon…
Slouching Towards Bethlehem - Somewhat Fantastic... →
I reached London towards the close of the morning. I had travelled under a clear cold sun, which entered, like myself, into the vast fog of the city, and suddenly became extinguished there. It was…
How to report the news →
Charlie Brooker reports. It’s remarkable how it differs in small but insignificant ways from the U.S.’s own ‘model.’ It also gave me weird flashbacks of 1980s’ BBC news reports concerning…
Why The iPad Is Crap Futurism [Rant] →
The real question about Apple’s new multitouch pseudo-computer, dubbed the iPad, is not whether it sucks or rocks. What all of us really want to know is whether it will change the future. The…
How to report the news →
Charlie Brooker reports. It’s remarkable how it differs in small but insignificant ways from the U.S.’s own ‘model.’ It also gave me weird flashbacks of 1980s’ BBC news reports concerning…
We will miss you when you are gone. →
The world is closing in on the Moken way of life. Sights and Sounds by the late Nicolas Reynard.
The Kabang serves both as home and transport.
Here’s how they are built.
The Moken have …
The Big Idea: Sara Miles « Whatever →
“Look away” is a big idea, if one embraced more by fools and losers than by the smart and powerful of our world. But my experience is that the more I look away from the way things are supposed to be,…
JUST IN TIME WORK →
Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, has a very good article in his magazine on the desktop manufacturing revolution. It’s definitely worth the read and is complimentary with thinking being done…
Something that really bugs me about the recent... →
There’s a scene at the end of the movie—and I don’t think this is a spoiler, the movie has been building to this point the whole time—where Kirk has the bad guy on the main bridge viewscreen. The…
12 Secrets To Being A Super-Prolific Short-Story... →
For many aspiring science-fiction authors, the first frontier of publication is short fiction. A few stories published in the right markets can launch your career. But it helps if you’re…
Travel The Universe on Zero Units of Energy Per... →
No more heavy fuel, perilous reactor-core explosions, or dilithium crystal shortages. The Casimir Effect could make fuel-less space travel possible.
To understand the Casimir Effect, we must…
JUST IN TIME WORK →
Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired, has a very good article in his magazine on the desktop manufacturing revolution. It’s definitely worth the read and is complimentary with thinking being done…
I am he as you are me and we are all together.* →
The earliest memory I have from researching the career of librarianship had me visiting my local library to find out where the best or nearest school was. And there was this old dude there, one of…
NOCs (Nerds of Color) [Essay] →
Try bringing up issues of race, class, gender, and homophobia on a video game message board and see the vitriolic response you get, no matter how diplomatic you try to be. Bring up issues of…
Bookninja says: Libraries in Vancouver should tell... →
The corporate assholes at the Vancouver Olympics, through the spineless leadership of the Vancouver library system, have instructed city librarians to not only not use products and services by…
THE WORLD QUESTION CENTER 2009 →
I don’t believe there’s such a thing as too much information. I don’t believe Google makes us dumber, or that prolonged Internet fasts or a return to faxes are a necessary part of mind health. But…
Skywalkers in Korea Cross Han Solo →
Shared by JJU
Truly the best headline ever.
SEOUL, South Korea — They came from all over the world, poles in hand, and feet ready to inch more than half a mile across a high wire strung over…
Burning the library in slow motion: how copyright... →
Jamie “Public Domain” Boyle sez, “When Ray Bradbury’s 1953 classic, Fahrenheit 451 was published, it was scheduled to enter the public domain this month — January 1, 2010. But then we changed the…
Orson Welles Sketchbook 3: Wellesnet →
I’m willing to admit that the policeman has a difficult job, a very hard job, but it’s the essence of our society that the policeman’s job should be hard. He’s there to protect, protect the free…
Cat in tree, firefighters stumped →
Shared by JJU
I love Canadian news sometimes.
A cat that’s been up in a tree in Waverly, N.S., just outside Halifax, since Friday morning has rejected two attempts by firefighters to rescue him,…
The Americanization of Mental Illness →
For more than a generation now, we in the West have aggressively spread our modern knowledge of mental illness around the world. We have done this in the name of science, believing that our…
Great. I have to buy an effing cat magazine? →
Look, a story about “45 Amazing Library Cats” in the February 2010 edition of Cat Fancy. No. Nobody is making me buy this, but if you’re a regular reader, you know that I’m a collector of…
Rudy Giuliani: "We have always been at war... →
Shared by JJU
I just hate the world and all its lying liars sometimes.
“We had no domestic attacks under Bush; we’ve had one under Obama,” said the man who was mayor of New York City on…
Advanced Imaging Reveals a Computer 1,500 Years... →
X-rays and advanced photography have uncovered the true complexity of the mysterious Antikythera mechanism, a device so astonishing that its discovery is like finding a functional Buick in…
Art Fag City » IMG MGMT: The Nine Eyes of Google... →
In theory, we are all equally subject to being photographed, but the Street View collections often reveal it is the poor and the marginalized who fall within the purview of the Google camera gaze.
Two Gentlemen of Lebowski →
Shared by JJU
I know everybody’s liking to it. But still. It’s great.
DONALD Of what dost thou speak, that tied the room together, Knave? Take pains, for I would well hear of that which tied the…
Potato salad →
By the Ross Sisters. Straight out of 1944. Shit gets real about a minute in, and it keeps getting real-er, so stay with it. Jonas Brothers, you better step it up. YouTube Video …
sjef: A Basic Introduction to Singularity... →
It should be clear to everyone on here that some time in the near future the ever accelerating pace of technological development will inevitably lead us all to become giant pink heads floating in…
About New York - Clothes Discarded by H and M in... →
It is winter. A third of the city is poor. And unworn clothing is being destroyed nightly.
A few doors down on 35th Street, hundreds of garments tagged for sale in Wal-Mart — hoodies and T-shirts…
Britain's police "descending into obvious... →
On Christmas Day, police in the U.K. rounded up tourists taking photos of the royal family at Sandringham church and confiscated their cameras. At The Independent, Dominic Lawson’s dismay…
Buddhism beats depression | Ed Halliwell →
Should the health service sponsor Buddhist techniques to beat depression? Why not, if they work
2010 could be the year that mindfulness meditation goes mainstream in the UK. It’s already…
Simple rules for good typography →
The fibonnaci sequence the first two Fibonacci numbers are 0 and 1 and each other number is a combination of the previous 2. These numbers are meant to have a natural visual elegance to each other….
YOU ARE IN CONTROL →
There’s a great article in TIME magazine by Amanda Ripley (I wrote a review of her great book, “The Unthinkable” in the City Journal) on one of the most under covered security lessons of…
Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2010 →
“…I realize that I’ve never been confident enough in the future to make any kind of long-time plans…Instead, I’ve always treated the future as a kind of unpredictable lurching thing, and tried to…
Winnipeg sells naming rights to raise revenue →
Shared by JJU
What fucking idiocy.
Ever dreamed of having your name immortalized on a parking meter? How about on a city bus ticket or a heart defibrillator in the back of an ambulance?
Winnipeg…