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Author Archives: gmcdavid
Apple turns the screws
Apple wants 30% of Kindle App ebook sales
It’s quite amazing how unpopular the move is. Even people on Apple sites are against it.
It’s all rather strange – Unless you consider the fact that people who are reading are not doing things Apple wants them to do i.e. watch movies, grow stupid, become consumers, watch TV, etc.
Books turn brainwashed consumers into free thinkers, and that might be the last thing Apple wants.
More, including comments (many NSFW), at Apple responds: we want a cut of Amazon, Sony e-book sales.
Politics and the AntiVaccination Movement
From Why the ‘Prius Driving, Composting’ Set Fears Vaccines
I talked to a public health official and asked him what’s the best way to anticipate where there might be higher than normal rates of vaccine noncompliance, and he said take a map and put a pin wherever there’s a Whole Foods. I sort of laughed, and he said, “No, really, I’m not joking.” It’s those communities with the Prius driving, composting, organic food-eating people.
The Long Divergence
IN 2002 a group of Arab scholars produced a brave report, under the auspices of the United Nations, on the Arab world’s twin deficits, in freedom and knowledge. A salutary debate ensued. Now Timur Kuran, a Turkish-American economist based at Duke University, has written an equally brave book on “how Islamic law held back the Middle East”. One can only hope that the result will be an equally salutary debate.
Ayn Rand in old age
From Monastic Musings:
I was surprised to read about Ayn Rand’s old age at Gruntled Center. In the face of the cost of treatments for lung cancer, she signed up for Social Security and Medicare using her legal name, Ann O’Connor.
This would not bother me in the least, had she written or said anything to retract her condemnation of those programs. But – in spite of her many tirades against hypocrisy – she quietly accepted government funding while continuing to condemn both the programs and the people who accepted the funding.
The Irish Bail-out
From the Financial Times via Memex and BoingBoing
Monday night Irish class, January 24, 2011
Irish Class, January 24, 2011
Rang Gaeilge, 24ú lá mí Eanáir 2011
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Fadas: áéíóúÁÉÍÓÚ
Beauty Tips from ancient Rome
I am very beautiful. That’s why they call me Pulchra. Here are some of my beauty tips:
Read them at the Roman Mysteries Blog. Don’t try them at home!
Via RogueClassicism
The rise and fall of a bookstore chain
Borders struggles amid rapid changes in book sales
Though only 8 percent of readers surveyed in a recent Harris Poll own e-readers, those owning the devices were nearly twice as likely to buy six to 10 books a year as those who were sticking with print.
More nuts at the Puff Ho
Not content with anti-vaccination nonsense, which I have noted before, you can also find Pseudo-Astronomy at the Huffington Post.
Get the facts at Betelgeuse and 2012 and Will Betelgeuse Really Become a Second Sun in 2012?.
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 