Bookmarks for April 18, 2012

  • CMAP #2: How Books Are Made – Charlie's Diary
    I have had a few conversations recently with people who have kvetched about having to pay the same price for an ebook as they do for the paperback, and I have wished that I was able to easily find this post to point them at. Short version: the cost of your paperback book is *not* a materials cost. Physical production, shipping and distribution account for around a quid of the price. The other six of seven quid is labour, and there's a lot more labour goes in that you might think, and most of it isn't the author's.
  • Twitter’s “Innovator’s Patent Agreement” – Marco.org
    No, it looks like other people have come to the same conclusions.
  • Twitter Blog: Introducing the Innovator's Patent Agreement
    This is quite a good idea, although one might quibble over what "only used defensively" means – it's possible that I'm misunderstanding the legalese, but it looks to me that any company who has filed a patent infringement suit for any reason in the last ten years (and who might be infringing, obviously) would be fair game. Which in turn means that this is meaningless, and will be just as innovation-stifling in practice as any current agreement. But I await being told that I've misunderstood.
  • Paul Woods – Life on the Northern Line
    This made me smile this morning.

Bookmarks for March 12, 2012

Bookmarks for March 3, 2012

  • Start Developing iOS Apps Today: Introduction
    Any once again, I mutter "I'll get round to it one of these days" to myself… (In case you're wondering, I've been largely away from the t'internet for a week, being either parked in front of the Xbox or out doing museums and galleries, and I'm catching up on what I've missed.)
  • In the Future Everything Will Be A Coffee Shop
    I find the sort of future he's describing here quite pleasing, as he's essentially saying that the one aspect of modern life that cannot be reduced away is the idea of a social hub. The practical reality of the matter is that someone with an internet connect does not need to go to the shops, the office, or really anywhere, except places where they can be among other humans.
  • CERN | booktwo.org
    Here's a nice, easy to understand, and very readable bit of writing about CERN, what they do there, and why it's important.
  • Olloclip vs iPro Lens review | The TechBlock
    Been vaguely wondering about getting one of these. On the strength of this, it looks like the iPro is the one to get.
  • Verisign seizes .com domain registered via foreign Registrar on behalf of US Authorities. » blog2.easydns.org – Happenings and observations
    The US government have just demonstrated that they will sieze the internet based assets of foreign entities, even though no transaction related to those assets took place on US soil, and the crimes it thinks the company may have committed are not illegal in the places they may have committed them. This is (very) roughly like the US government marching into someone's home in London, and taking away their TV (that was purchased in London), on the grounds that it can be used to watch programs made in the US, because the owner, while living in London, drank alcohol at the age of 19. (I pick a trivial offence only because it's the first thing I can think of as an easy and everyday difference between US law and the law elsewhere.)

    To quote the article: "This is no longer a doom-and-gloom theory by some guy in a tin foil hat. It just happened."

    Tags: internet, dns
  • 15+ Google Chrome extensions for better privacy control
    Every time I need to set up a new install of Chrome, I have to hunt this page out. I'm bookmarking it so as to save myself a little time next time. Some of you may find a lot of it useful, too.

Bookmarks for September 7, 2011

  • Mastergram
    Instagram is an absolutely brilliant thing – I'd be using it for my photoblogging, if it hadn't launched about three weeks after I started 365bullets, but it's going to be the tool I use for the next photo project after that. But, as this project shows, it's not the filters that make the photo (and they're not why I think instagram is great). Sure, sometimes they enhance what's there, but they'll destroy a great shot more often than they'll rescue a mediocre one.

Bookmarks for August 18, 2011

Links for Tuesday August 16th 2011 through Wednesday August 17th 2011

Bookmarks for July 7, 2011

Bookmarks for May 19, 2011