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Sunday, February 07, 2010:

"Makers" serialized

Kind of late to the party, but Cory Doctorow's "Makers" was serialized at the Tor Books site this summer, and is still available: Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / Cory Doctorow’s Makers Index

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Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / SyFy to Mangle Beloved Fairy Tales; In Other News, Christmas Coming All Year Long to Bad-Movie Fans

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / SyFy to Mangle Beloved Fairy Tales; In Other News, Christmas Coming All Year Long to Bad-Movie Fans: "Luckily, the network’s plan to churn out unintentional comedy continues unabated, and fans of timeless artistry will rejoice knowing that SyFy will produce a series of fairy-tale adaptations as movies of the week."

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Thursday, February 04, 2010:

Sunglasses

This is kind of cool: Modo Sunglass sells wholesale sunglasses that are replicas of famous brands like Liz Claiborne, Gucci, and Juicy Couture. It looks like you can get a dozen pairs for the price that one pair of the brand names would cost. I guess it's mainly geared toward resellers (they have some fun looking package deals), but I'm thinking that buying a dozen pairs of reading glasses wouldn't be a bad idea at all since I try to have a pair in the car, a pair at the office, a pair in the bedroom, a pair in the living room, etc. Or you could buy a dozen pairs of sunglasses for inexpensive Christmas gifts. Now there's an idea . . .

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Genesis 1 - LOLCat Bible Translation Project

Genesis 1 - LOLCat Bible Translation Project: "1 Oh hai. In teh beginnin Ceiling Cat maded teh skiez An da Urfs, but he did not eated dem. 2 Da Urfs no had shapez An haded dark face, An Ceiling Cat rode invisible bike over teh waterz. 3 At start, no has lyte. An Ceiling Cat sayz, i can haz lite? An lite wuz.4 An Ceiling Cat sawed teh lite, to seez stuffs, An splitted teh lite from dark but taht wuz ok cuz kittehs can see in teh dark An not tripz over nethin.5 An Ceiling Cat sayed light Day An dark no Day. It were FURST!!!1"

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Wednesday, February 03, 2010:

Testing

Testing: Have you noticed how many anodynes there are laying around on the floor

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Sunday, January 24, 2010:

eHow


How to Videos & Articles: eHow.com

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Thursday, January 07, 2010:

Willa's Wild Life

How come I never heard of this before? Willa's Wild Life

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Nic Cage as Everyone

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Happiness Project

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Saturday, December 05, 2009:

Booksellers Seek Antitrust Probe of Price War - WSJ.com

This is an article about a lawsuit that has been filed by the ABA regarding the price war between WalMart and Amazon (and now, apparently, Target) on bestsellers this winter. Of course, independent booksellers won't be able to compete, and that's sad, but I can't afford $35.00 for a book. If I want to read a book before it comes out in paperback, I put myself on the reserve list at the library and wait a few months.

I took advantage of the deal and bought Stephen King's "Under the Dome," a hardback priced at $35.00, for $8.98 on Walmart.com, and got free shipping. It was a ridiculously good deal--should I have passed it up and spent $35 I could ill afford at a local bookstore, assuming that there are any left (bookstores, not books)?

I understand that the demise of local booksellers is bad, just like the failure of any small local business is bad, but unfortunately, in this economy, that's just the way it works. If I want to keep reading, and I do, I either read books I already own, go to the library, or buy books at the used bookstore. Even in a good economy, I don't buy hardbacks at full price. The WSJ article says:

Although independent booksellers typically stock only a smattering of best sellers, the steep discounting of such well-known authors ultimately could cause consumers to question whether all hardcover books are priced too high, at $25 or so.

I don't think the steep discounting is the cause of people thinking $25 is too much for a hardcover book, people already think it's too much. I haven't seen any sales figures, but just from my own perspective, $35 is ridiculously expensive for a book. Granted, "Under the Dome" is something like 1700 pages, so it's not something I could read in an evening, so in that case, yes, it might be worth it to me for a few weeks' worth of entertainment. But a regular-length hardback? I'm willing to wait a couple of months to get it from the library.

I haven't started King's opus yet, mostly because it's too heavy to carry around. He required his publisher to delay the release of the Kindle version until Christmas Eve so that ebook sales wouldn't hurt sales of the physical book.

In an interview, Mr. King said that he wanted to delay the e-book edition in hopes of helping independent bookstores and the national bookstore chains sell the hardcover edition.

"I never thought we'd see people preordering a copy for $8.98," he said. "My thinking was to give bookstores a chance to make some money."

Sounds like the "price war" caught him by surprise, too.

I plan to buy the Kindle version when it comes out later this month. Since it will probably take me a month or more to read it, it will be a lot easier to carry around.

What Amazon's Bestselling Items Say About America

Booksellers Seek Antitrust Probe of Price War - WSJ.com

Publisher Delays Stephen King E-Book - WSJ.com

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Wednesday, December 02, 2009:

Amazon.com: Already Dead: A Novel eBook: Charlie Huston: Kindle Store

Amazon is offering the ebook version of Already Dead: A Novel by Charlie Huston, for free in the Kindle Store. I don't know how long it will stay that price, some of them stay free a long time and others go back to regular price fairly quickly.

Already Dead is the story of Joe Pitt, a vampire detective in New York. I listened to it in audiobook format recently, and loved it. I grabbed the ebook this morning.

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