- Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil? – Charlie's Diary
Here's a good primer on why Amazon are likely to be long-term bad for creators. As well as being short term bad for anyone who works for them…
Tag: amazon
Bookmarks for April 29, 2014
- Gerry Conway: The ComiXology Outrage | Comicbook.com
Legendary comics artist Gerry Conway breaks down the ways that this Comixology business will be bad for independent creators.
- The ComiXology Outrage
Marco Arment on Gerry Conway on Comixology and Amazon. Specifically, he's making the point while Conway is correct to blame for the changes, the changes are nevertheless simply Amazon doing what it always does, and the Comixology were irresponsible in selling out a behemoth with a proven track record of being bad for publishers and independent creators.
Bookmarks for October 31, 2012
- Pentametron: With algorithms subtle and discrete / I seek iambic writings to retweet.
An automated sonnet-generator, scanning twitter for iambic pentameter tweets, and combining them, complete with rhyme.
- Migrating from Kindle to iBooks – zacwe.st
This is definitely esier now that it was the last time I looked at it. Must do this.
Bookmarks for October 22, 2012
- Outlawed by Amazon DRM « Martin Bekkelund
This story, if true, is just mind-blowing. Amazon have contacted a women to tell her that her account has been closed, because it has been linked with another account that has be closed "for abuse". The woman protests that she has no idea what they're talking about – she has only ever had one amazon account. Amazon refuse to tell her any more, tell her it's against their policies to divulge any further information, and inform her that if she opens any future accounts, they will be closed at all. In closing her account, they have deleted everything from her kindle, with nothing she can do about it, because they will not enter into any dialogue at all about it.
Bookmarks for April 17, 2012
- What Amazon's ebook strategy means – Charlie's Diary
Mr Stross, on Amazon's strategy, and the obvious step publishers could take to help unseat them from monopsony.
Bookmarks for April 16, 2012
- I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave | Mother Jones
I feel guilty about shopping with amazon (and other internet-only retailers). Not guilty enough to stop, yet, but guilty nonetheless.
Bookmarks for March 23, 2012
- A Newbie's Guide to Publishing: Presumed Inane
This si interesting food for thought – a couterpoint to the usual amazon-is-bad publishing-industry rhetoric. I don't know if I buy it (and I don't know if I don't) but it's certainly made me think about some of the things I've taken for granted as "facts" in the debate.
- On Improving iBooks – Connor Tomas O'Brien
This is two years old, and I am frustrated that most of the things that are being talked about here are not implemented. At the very least, it seems it ought to be possible to make iBooks-DRMed content available to other apps on the same device, via API. Apple/Publishers still get to make their sales money, while another app could do the work of tracking my reading habits.
- Large Bookbag – Henry Tomkins
I think I may have found the bag of my dreams. Satchel strap, double buckle, with front pocket. Knocking on the door of 200 quid, as opposed to my current 40 quid effort, but oh, isn't it beautiful? Time to start saving.
- Cool Tools: Where There Is No Doctor
This is either brilliant, or pure hypochondria fodder.
- Geeklist and a public apology
In the spirit of fairness: Geeklist have made a pretty unreserved public apology in the time since I bookmarked that first link. I'm still annoyed that they didn't get it right first time, but then, who among can say that they always do?
- Cow magnet – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I have absolutely no reason to blog this, except that I did not know these were a thing, and the words "Cow Magnet" make me laugh. I also wish that there was an accepted a alt.fan.warlord syntax for blogging as this comment would have been shorter if I thought more than three of you would understand IHNW IJLTS "Cow Magnets" without having to look anything up.
- OH HAI SEXISM · charlesarthur · Storify
Short version: woman calls geek men on their sexism. Geek men lash out in a grossly disproportionate and unprofessional manner. This is nothing new, except that these people are in the same industry as me, with a product that is targeted at, well, people exactly like me – well, it's saddening. And pathetic.
Bookmarks for February 6, 2012
- The ‘Eggs In One Basket’ Index – SplatF
Dan Frommer take a look at major tech firms, and what percentage of their revenue is generated from for their largest revenue source. I was saying the other day that I would be happy to pay google a lot for their services, in exchange for an advertising-and-tracking free experience. I look at this chart, and I realise that it might even make (some) sense for Google to offer that option, just from a diversification-of-revenue point of view. I don't expect they will, and I'm sure there are big hurdles in their way that would stop it, but still, there's an awful lot of eggs in the advertising basket, there.
- Britons give more to donkey sanctuary than abuse charities | Money | The Guardian
This statistic is four years old, but I bet it's still true. People always look at me funny when I occasionally express my serious disgust with people who given to animal charities. I'm familiar with the walk-and-chew-gum theory, and indeed, use it myself when arguing for things like funding for the space programme, but that's an apples-and-oranges comparison – tech progress vs. abuse – while this is directly a "which abuse is worse" like-for-like comparison, at least to me. And many people appear to prefer to spend the money that they have available to spend on animals, instead of people. Because it really matter when someone shoves a cat in a bin, but much less when someone shoves their fist in someone else's face.
- Who the hell do Camden Council think they are?
Unfuckingreal. Local council decide that what residents really want, when hanging out in communal gardens of their flats, is a) to be on camera, and b) to have that camera tell them in the disembodied voice of authority to move on, or their photos will be "sent for processing". This photo of them, in their own garden.
Bookmarks for May 20, 2011
- Amazon.com now selling more ebooks than print books
In the UK, they're only selling more ebooks than hardbacks, but in the US, it's only taken 4 years for ebooks to pass print, so I imagine it'll be even quicker here. Still: if your business depends on dead trees, it's time to start thinking about switching. And when I say "time to start thinking about", I mean "if you don't have a plan in place already, you're probably fucked".
Bookmarks for April 18, 2011
- Online Backup for Mac | Arq | Haystack Software
Mac-only cloud backup tool using S3. Very tempting.
- txt2re: headache relief for programmers :: regular expression generator
This will be handy