September 2010
11 posts
Schiphol position →
Lovely idea. Like Book Crossing, only purposeful collections.
bobulate:
This summer saw the opening of the world’s first airport library:
Opened with little fanfare over the summer, the library — the first ever at a major international airport — has 1,200 books in more than two dozen languages, all by Dutch authors or on subjects relating to the country’s history and culture…
There are 18...
Introducing "ū—": A Distraction-Free Writing...
I think the clown might be helpful sometimes.
merlin:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Experience “ū—”: The Last Distraction-Free Writing Environment You’ll Buy. Today.
PORTLAND, OR - The Ourobouros Fun Factory, LLC is proud to announce a revolutionary new tool for serious artists doing serious work. It’s a distraction-free writing environment that we call “ū—” (pron. “YOOOoooouuuuu…”). And,...
“We are all well aware of the awkwardness of the audience/author relationship...”
– Mark Teppo, in an interview with Tor on The Mongoliad
2 tags
Happy ebook addendum
Was talking to my mother, who’s trying out a friend’s Kindle. One of the knocks in the tech community on the Kindle is that you can’t share books. In Mom’s reading group a) almost everyone has one and b) the plan is for everyone to buy different books and swap Kindles to share them. Which makes me happy about the cleverness of humans—you wouldn’t do this with...
2 tags
Ebook thoughts
Finally got around to reading two things that separately ended up in my Instapaper bin. They combine in a very unsettling way which reinforces my feeling of dread about what ebooks will look like for scholars.
Thing 1: blog post at An American Editor on the prevalence of typos in ebook editions of books, particularly at the lower end of the cost scale.
Thing 2: analysis of a study of...
2 tags
Sunday, Sunday, Sunday
In which I attempt to unfold my somewhat odd arms-length relationship with pro football. College football has never really done much for me, though I did feel like the OSU-Michigan game was a bit of home while I was living in South Carolina. It’s NFL week 2, and I find myself wondering what the games are this week even though I probably won’t pay all that much attention to them while...
2 tags
Ebooks are a mess
Was reading Tim O’Reilly’s comment that ebooks, especially EPUB ones, are essentially web pages which have been locked away from the web. I wish they would just converge already so there will be some findable authoritative editions. My own experience of ebooks lately has been about pain, largely to do with bad metadata. Two projects this week: looking for Thomas Hobbes’...
“Prediction: the niche blog is old. What I’ll call the lens blog is what’s hot in...”
– Simen from Daily Meh does a nice job labeling a string that ties together most of my favorite places on the internet. (It also makes me feel very good about that About text over in the right column of my blog.)
Regardless, I can’t say it much better than this, and would only add that you could...
Frank Chimero: There is a Horse in the Apple Store →
viafrank:
There is a horse in the Apple Store and no one sees it but me. I think, “Why?” What is the villain here that blinds all of these people to this situation? Am I nuts for thinking this is exceptional? Does anyone else see this? Did I accidentally drop acid and not realize? I must take a photo….
