Links and things I’ve recently run across.
Babylon 5 Fans: How many of these people can you recognize?
Bill Mumy is probably best remembered as young Will Robinson on the original Lost in Space, but he’ll always be Lennier to me. Nowadays, he’s pursuing his music career. (You can catch some of Bill Mumy’s music on Spotify.)
Anyhow, this past weekend, he posted this cellphone photo on Facebook, with Walter Koenig, Claudia Christian, Patricia Tallman, and J. Michael Straczynski.
Big B, little b, …
… what begins with B?
Buffalo beans and bagels,
and banana bread for breakfast! (Recipe courtesy Emeril Lagasse.)
The Four Stages of Life
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You believe in Santa Claus.
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You don’t believe in Santa Claus.
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You are Santa Claus.
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You look like Santa Claus.
(A classic, circulating around the Internet.)
Google Reports on Government Requests to Remove Search Results
Google has some observations on government censorship in Western democracies, connected with their data on government requests to remove users’ political content.
An astounding number of these requests came from US governments. According to Google, in the latter half of 2011 in the US, “The number of content removal requests we received increased by 103% compared to the previous reporting period.”
When the Whole World Is against You
Posted a new (long-overdue) piece on ArdorPoint.com, about how we all make fun at the expense of people we don’t understand.
If You Thought the Economy Was Bad
Did you know that almost half of US workers live paycheck to paycheck, just to make ends meet? Fortunately, millions of families (including mine) are climbing out of that trap… which may be partially to blame for the perception that the economy is struggling.
Hardcovers Going the Way of the Dinosaur? Not in the Star Trek Universe
TechCrunch reports that ebooks have beaten hardcover revenues for the first time. Of course, in indie circles this is what is known as “old news.” But now maybe big media will stop acting so terrified of the ebook.
The article concludes with: “Given that Ikea is even reducing the size of its shelves to reflect the lack of interest in printed books, you’d better stock up now before this stuff goes the way of vinyl, 8-tracks, and the merkin.” Well, if Ikea is doing it… Wow, that is scary, isn’t it?
I actually believe Star Trek had it right. In every rendition of Star Trek, people read most books on electronic devices. But they also used paper books, usually high-quality hardcovers. In other words, they read ebooks for utility, and luxury paper books for fun.
Today’s Quote
If you have no successful example to follow in whatever endeavor you choose, you may simply look at what everyone else around is doing and do the opposite, because — THE MAJORITY IS ALWAYS WRONG.
(Dan Kennedy, probably paraphrasing Earl Nightingale)