QR Codes Heat Up

With Their Own QR Code Trick, Bit.ly Eats Google’s Balls

Back in April, Google added a very nifty feature to their URL shortener, goo.gl. If you simply add “.qr” to any shortened URL, you will be taken to a page with a QR code for that URL. If you scan that image with a QR code reader, it will take you to the link that was originally shortened.

I didn’t know creating a QR Code was now so easy.

Although I just tweeted that this means writers can embed QR Codes in their eBooks — for their websites and other available eBooks — I wonder if a QR Code displayed on an eInk screen would register on a cellphone camera? (Yes, you can tell I have zero personal experience using QR Codes …)

Anyone out there want to try and report in Comments?

In fact, let me try that trick here. Tell me where this QR Code leads you:

Update:

@artistikem in Comments said:

I downloaded the picture [of the QR Code], had to convert it into a PDF to sync it with my Sony Reader and it worked perfectly.

Click = big

That’s an old school Sony PRS-600.

Previously here:

QR Codes In Advertising
Springbox – What Everyone Should Know About QR Codes
Video: Contrasting eBook Device Visions

I Feel Like Lot In Sodom

Dilbert Shows Us Our Future Of Doom

I can’t embed it here because it won’t rescale to fit the width of the column.

So click through to see it.

More Of Rubicon’s API Joins Twitter

Let me just give the complete lineup (so far):

Truxton Spangler
Kale Ingram
Will Travers
Tanya MacGaffin
Miles Fiedler
Maggie Young
Grant Test

(Sorry, Grant. I put you last because you’re so Suit!)

Julia Harwell is still MIA. Probably on vacation in whatever country it is that speaks Urdu. But given that one of the companies Will was studying has “Harzwell” in its name …

… I wonder if she’s a mole? Pretty lame cover, though, just dropping one letter from your name! Still, watch your back, Miles!

Previously here:

In Search Of … Rubicon’s Tanya Pill
In Search Of … Rubicon’s Katherine Rhumor’s Home
AMC-TV’s Rubicon Messes With My Head!
In Search Of … Rubicon Locations #2
In Search Of … Rubicon’s Conference Room
Rubicon’s API Gets On Twitter
In Search Of … Rubicon Locations
In Search Of … Rubicon’s Episode 9 Book
In Search Of … Rubicon’s Episode 8 Meeting Places
In Search Of … Spangler’s Rubicon Office Side Window
In Search Of … Spangler’s Rubicon Office, Sequel
In Search Of … Spangler’s Rubicon Office
In Search Of … Kale’s Rubicon Office
Yeah, Baby! I Start At API Tomorrow!
In Search Of … The Rubicon Entrance
In Search Of … The Rubicon Roof

Mark Billingham’s Thorne Comes To TV!

Writer Mark Billingham’s email list (one of the few I get and actually read) brought news today that two of his crime fiction novels, Sleepyhead and Scaredy Cat, have been adapted into a TV series that will air on Sky One in the UK this Sunday at 9PM local time.

Sky One has done up a huge site for it, which includes video clips that can be seen here in the U.S. (unlike BBC’s clips).

There’s also an iOS app!

David Morrissey — who played the ersatz Steampunk Doctor Who in the last Christmas special — will play Thorne.

Unfortunately, Sky One didn’t think to plop at least one promo on YouTube so I could embed it here. So I took the one from Mark Billingham’s site and uploaded it to YouTube. It gave me chills!

The quality isn’t the best, but watch!

Congratulations to Mark!

Additional:

Writer Mark Billingham website

Previously at Mike Cane 2008:

You Can Make Her Happy!
Writer Mark Billingham On eBooks, More
Mark Billingham: Writer, Crime Victim

Fraud On The Scale Of A Nuclear Bomb

“Now we’re sitting on the biggest bomb man’s ever made.”

Robo-signers: Mortgage experience not necessary

That story is from the AP, so I can’t quote it without the morons demanding a US$17.00 fee from me.

The bottom line is: This is fraud on a widespread scale and it’s been institutionalized.

It is fraud as the new way to do business.

The entire damned system has been looted so the sociopaths can keep having their six-figure salaries, keep doing their greedy vanity purchasing, and maintain their worthless egos.

And through TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines, they spread that disease of corruption to everyone:

In 2008, I did a post comparing all of this to the opening episode of Space:1999. Looking back on that post, I can see I didn’t know enough of the situation back then — but I was correct about the key point that all of this is going to explode and threatens everyone.

“If this goes wrong … there will be no survivors.”