Mobile Flash Fail: Weak Android Player Proves Jobs Right

The difference between the smooth Flash trailers on Sony.com, the jerky episode of CSI, and the system locking Flash video on Fox.com is that the smoother ones were optimized specifically for phone playback. But if content providers have to go back and optimize their videos for mobile platforms, one of the key benefits of mobile Flash–backward compatibility with millions of existing videos–is lost. If you’re modifying your videos anyway, why not go the full monty and use an HTML 5 player instead of Flash?

via Mobile Flash Fail: Weak Android Player Proves Jobs Right

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What A 20-Hour “Formatting” Job Looks Like

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Estimated time to prepare a book as an ebook is 20 hours from scan to publication

Quoted from 9 Must-have Clauses for Digital Rights Contracts | Stormwolf.com

OK, I didn’t want to be cruel and just jump on the first thing I happened to sample. So I grabbed a second:

Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » The Disconnect

Are you inside the castle, or out?  It’s fascinating watching the newspapers and record labels and concert promoters claiming that normalcy is right around the corner, that the good times are coming back.  They’re never coming back!  Because the public has contempt for these institutions, and can rally around self-created niches, creating their own scenes, in charge of their own destinies, you expect them to give this up?

[…]

[C]ommerce is now secondary to trust and credibility.  Those on the other side of the moat, the audience, have now seized power.  And they’re raining shit, pelting crap upon that which is shoved down their throats, which they disapprove of.

[. . .]

The future isn’t whores, people who will do anything to make it, but talented folk performing for the love of it, gaining fans one by one.  It’s not only musicians, but bloggers, everybody building a home online, where it’s not about marketing so much as quality.

via Lefsetz Letter » Blog Archive » The Disconnect

Leftsetz is daily reading.  He nails it all perfectly.

9 Must-have Clauses for Digital Rights Contracts | Stormwolf.com

Estimated time to prepare a book as an ebook is 20 hours from scan to publication

via 9 Must-have Clauses for Digital Rights Contracts | Stormwolf.com

What?

What orifice did he pull that insane figure from?

This is simply not true if you’re handing in a manuscript and it has to go through actual editing, copyediting, proofreading, design, formatting, marketing, and distribution.

Even Do It Yourself (DIY) wouldn’t take so little time unless you’ve been cranked up with meth — and the result would probably be incomprehensible and fail ePubCheck.

5 Ways To Download Torrents Anonymously | TorrentFreak

5 Ways To Download Torrents Anonymously | TorrentFreak

A Man With a Memorial: Vonnegut Library to Open in the Fall – ArtsBeat Blog – NYTimes.com

“We have boxes of rejection letters,” Edie Vonnegut, the author’s oldest daughter, told The A.P., “letters saying ‘You have no talent and we suggest you give up writing.’ He did not have an easy time of it, and I think for anyone who wants to be a writer, it will be important for them to see how tough it was for him.”

via A Man With a Memorial: Vonnegut Library to Open in the Fall – ArtsBeat Blog – NYTimes.com

Opera Browser Acid Tests

This, filled with fast cuts, would skip horribly in other browsers:

And this video I had to rip and download to view:

Both play about 97% fluid — and I don’t know how, but the images are sharper than in any other browser too!

It’s like I’ve upgraded this rotten old PC without spending a cent!

Really, you must try Opera!

How To Add Applications to your Nook E-Reader | Popular Science

With the glut of e-book readers now on the market, Barnes & Noble’s Nook is easy to overlook—it’s not as ubiquitous as Amazon’s Kindle or as slick as Apple’s iPad. But the Nook has something that its competitors don’t: It runs on Google’s open-source Android platform, so you can hack it to add functions that go well beyond just displaying an e-ink version of War and Peace.

via How To Add Applications to your Nook E-Reader | Popular Science

Not exactly true any longer.  As Nate pointed out, a hardware revision by Barnes & Noble closed off this avenue.  That was an incredibly stupid move by Barnes & Noble.  It’s like they want to not sell it.

Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library ePub Lending Library

@mikecane Okay, epub report: 4,251 TITLES in collection. 4,423 COPIES in collection. We have very few things with more than 1 copy.Thu Aug 19 12:58:19 via webRobin Bradford
Tuphlos

OK, that takes my breath away. It crushes the number my beloved NYPL has!

Previously here:

Boston Public Library ePub Lending Library
New York Public Library ePub Lending Library

Do Some Damage: My Kindle Problem–A Moral Conundrum

And then a funny thing happened. As the trip went on more and more e-Readers popped up. At one point I had a running count 6 Kindles, 4 Nooks, 2 Sony, and two iPads. By the end, I think I was over 20.

via Do Some Damage: My Kindle Problem–A Moral Conundrum