Simon Spurrier: A Serpent Uncoiled: LAUNCH DAY I tweeted about this earlier, but tough. Simon Spurrier's "Contact" was one of the best novels I read last year. "A Serpent Uncoiled", his new weird crime novel shows signs of being the best novel I'm going to read this year – I haven't finished it yet, having only bought it this morning, and the year isn't done yet, but so far, I'm fucking riveted. It is out now and both dead-tree and electronic editions for Kindle, and on the iBooks store, so you really don't have an excuse for now buying it at once. Get to it. You won't regret it.
Open the Future: Sword of Taxation, +5 You may or may not have heard/give too hoots about Diablo 3, but if you have, you might also have heard about their plan for an in-game auction house, where players will be able so sell the in-game items they acquire for real world cash. Leaving aside the fact that is going to take gold-farming to a whole new level of third world sweatshop labour, Jamais Cascio makes an excellent point, here: because these items will have a directly-measurable real world value, they will be be taxable in the US, the UK, and other places. Not taxable-when-you-sell-them, you understand. Taxable when the game randomly gives them to you. This could get very interesting, and I'm certainly going to think twice about playing – I just don't need the paperwork.
The Robot-Readable World – Blog – BERG Absolutely 100|% mandatory reading for anyone interested in the future-present. If this doesn't spark at least six exciting ideas in you, then I fear you do not understand when you are living. Also of interest: the Louis Vutton QR code. Suddenly, there's space for design in a barcode.