Linked List: April 19, 2008

Saturday, 19 April 2008

Free Your Mind ★: Steven Poole, on the results of making a PDF version of a previously-published book available as a free download:

If the breathless advocates of “the free distribution of ideas” are serious, they need either a) to come up with a realistic proposal as to how I am to keep feeding myself while giving the fruits of my labours away for free; or b) come out and say honestly that they don’t think any such thing as a “professional writer” ought to exist, and that I should just get a job like anyone else. In a way, I’d respect people who came out and said the second thing. What I don’t respect is people who can’t see that those are the choices.
My Perception Is That Comcast Stinks ★: Charles Miller on Comcast’s stilted Twitter presence:

Joining in the online conversation is a great way to connect to your customers. But only if you’re prepared to be human and honest.
Clusterflock Interviews With Jason Kottke ★: Astute observation from Kottke:

Other times, it’s not so fun running a visible site. Some people are determined to deliberately misunderstand much of what they encounter in life. Sometimes I have a hard time realizing that that’s their problem, not mine.
‘Just a Feed That Works Will Do Nicely’ ★: Dean Allen on the nutty practice of offering the same content in two (or three!) different RSS/Atom XML formats. I’ve never understood this — why should would-be subscribers to a feed be forced to choose a specific XML format? It’d be like asking web site visitors what flavor of HTML they wanted: “No XHTML 1.0 Strict for me. HTML 4.01 Transitional, please.”