Blue Dasher

August 7th, 2006

Blue Dasher dragonfly, perched with torn wing

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, August 4, 2006

Eastern Amberwing

August 7th, 2006

Eastern Amberwing dragonfly perched

Brooklyn Botanic Garden, July 26, 2006

Copyright is a Noun, Damn It

August 6th, 2006

A recent article in yesterday’s New York Times demonstrates a growing grammatical irregularity that needs to be stopped:

In the complaint, the record companies contend that LimeWire’s operators are “actively facilitating, encouraging and enticing” computer users to steal music by failing to block access to copyright works and building a business model that allows them to profit directly from piracy.

Copyright is not an adjective, damn it. Read the rest of this entry »

Credit Card Foreign Currency Transaction Fees

August 1st, 2006

Would you use a credit card that added 1-3% off the top to every purchase you made? Sadly for the last year or so that’s exactly what you may have been doing when traveling outside the country or purchasing from foreign retailers like Amazon.co.uk.
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Penn Station: Gone but not Forgotten

July 31st, 2006

The old Penn Station in New York was torn down before I was born. Looking at these pictures, that feels like a mistake. The current site is functional, but no more; really just some office towers and underground corridors of no particular interest or beauty. The new Madison Square Garden is an arena, but nothing more. The old Penn Station appears to have been much more beautiful. Whether it could have handled the traffic levels of the 21st century, I don’t know; but I can’t help thinking that we lost something special here. At least we still have Grand Central.

Amazon Author Blogs Now Have RSS Feeds

July 25th, 2006

I was fiddling around with my Amazon blog today when I noticed a new link to an RSS feed. This URL now allows you to subscribe to my Amazon feed in your feed reader of choice:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/id/AYXOSXMBUAT1Y/rss.xml

At first glance, this appears to be a full-text feed. There are also Atom 0.3 feeds, though those feeds don’t seem to have anything the RSS feeds don’t. Amazon’s a little behind the curve here. In 2006, I’d suggest going straight to Atom 1.0 and skipping the whole RSS mess.

Here are the feeds for some other authors who blog on Amazon:
Read the rest of this entry »

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