Linked List: May 19, 2011

Thursday, 19 May 2011

‘And That’s How the Look of the Droogs Came; Because I Had My Cricket Stuff in the Back of My Car.’ ★

Hunter Daniels talks to Malcolm McDowell and Leon Vitali on the 40th anniversary of Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange.

High School Fuckup Now in Charge of Checking Airport Luggage for Explosives ★

The Onion:

According to airport sources, Tibbets, who once tried to punch his 11th-grade English teacher, was given the bag-searching job in December after TSA personnel deemed him the sharpest man on the metal detector team.

‘I Don’t Take a Piss Without Getting Paid for It’ ★

Harlan Ellison, on getting paid. (Via Coudal.)

Kindle Claim Chowder for Yours Truly ★

Me, back in November 2007:

After chewing it over all day, I’ve concluded that Amazon’s Kindle is going to flop. Or at least I hope it does.

What it comes down to is that when you purchase books in Kindle’s e-book format, they’re wrapped in DRM and are in a format that no other software can read. There are no provisions for sharing books even with other Kindle owners, let alone with everyone.

They’ve added some sharing features, but right now it looks like the future of e-books involves proprietary DRM. One thing I did not foresee was Amazon expanding the “Kindle” to be a software platform across numerous hardware devices, like the iPad and iPhone.

And, truth be told, I buy a lot of Kindle books.

Dan Frakes on TapeDeck 1.4 ★

Nice review of a great app.

Lawsuit Claims AT&T Overcharges iPhone Data Users Up to 300% ★

Jim Dalrymple:

One lawyer compared the AT&T charges to a rigged gas pump where you pay for a gallon of gas and only get 9/10 of a gallon.

AT&T says the charges are “without merit” and says customers misunderstand how data is charged.

It’s true. Every month my iPhone bill from AT&T contains dozens of small charges I don’t understand.

Amazon Now Selling More Kindle Books Than Print Books ★

Amazon:

By July 2010, Kindle book sales had surpassed hardcover book sales, and six months later, Kindle books overtook paperback books to become the most popular format on Amazon.com. Today, less than four years after introducing Kindle books, Amazon.com customers are now purchasing more Kindle books than all print books — hardcover and paperback — combined.

Man Eats 25,000th Big Mac ★

Dan Gorske has eaten 25,000 Big Macs over 39 years — close to two per day, every day. My first thought when I heard about him was that he must be either an idiot or an asshole. But now I think not. I think maybe he’s a lucky man — someone who found the perfect food to suit his taste, an obsessive who never tires of it, and it happens to be cheap and readily available almost everywhere in the world.

Markdown Is the New Word 5.1 ★

Kevin Lipe:

All you need is a good text editor. Really. That’s all.

The Life of a TV Weatherman ★

Philly TV weatherman John Bolaris took a vacation to Miami Beach last year:

It was days before Bolaris figured out that the women had slipped him a roofie, the infamous date-rape drug. “Then I woke up in a taxi. My shirt was stained with red wine, and I had this huge painting of a woman’s head.”

He tracked down Marina and Anna, who said he had bid for the painting at the fundraiser. They met him at his hotel - ostensibly to return his sunglasses, which they had taken by accident - and promised to straighten the whole thing out, if only Bolaris would share a cab with them to the Caviar Bar, where one of the women said she left her purse. Bolaris obliged. Then he was drugged again, according to the FBI.

“They got me twice,” he said. “I couldn’t put anything together. I had no idea what happened.”

A few days later, Bolaris said, he got a phone call from American Express. The company asked about the $43,000 he had just spent on booze and caviar in South Beach.

Anyway, WWDC starts two weeks from Monday.

Keys to the Cloud Castle ★

Terrific piece on Dropbox security and privacy by Glenn Fleishman for The Economist.

Why Isn’t Google Chrome a Part of Android? ★

MG Siegler:

During a panel with a bunch of engineers on the Chrome team, it was one of the first questions asked. The response? “It’s not something we’re talking about right now.” Ouch.

“I don’t know how to answer that,” the engineer continued. Okay…

Another team member, probably realizing those answers sounded both cryptic and harsh, chimed in. “The important thing at the end of the day is to make browsers better. While it’s not strictly Chrome, we share a lot of code with the Android team. We’ll share more over time.” Okay, that’s better. Still, a bit odd.

Like I wrote after Google I/O’s day two keynote, “Chrome feels like Google’s natural platform — all web, only the web. Android feels like an independent Google subsidiary.” Think about it that way and the inherent conflict between Chrome OS and Android starts to seem merely curious, not problematic.