Read How Saidiya Hartman Retells the History of Black Life (The New Yorker)
The scholar’s provocative writing illuminates stories that have long gone untold.
This is an interesting take on history and archives. Reminiscent perhaps of Zora Neale Hurston’s anthropology and fiction work. One definitely heavily informs the other. I’ll have to pull some of her work to read.
Read books and the indieweb by Maya Maya (maya.land)
One thing I wonder about is what the various goals of structured book review content can be. The classic example would be a citation, to make it precisely clear whence one’s quotes originate and whither to search for context. The second obvious example would be a product review; “should you buy ...
Read - Reading: Raven Black (Shetland Island #1) by Ann Cleeves (Minotaur Books)
Raven Black begins on New Year’s Eve with a lonely outcast named Magnus Tait, who stays home waiting for visitors who never come. But the next morning the body of a murdered teenage girl is discovered nearby, and suspicion falls on Magnus. Inspector Jimmy Perez enters an investigative maze that leads deeper into the past of the Shetland Islands than anyone wants to go.
Finished through chapter 12 last night.

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Read - Want to Read: The Cathedral & the Bazaar by Eric S. Raymond (O'Reilly Media)

Open source provides the competitive advantage in the Internet Age. According to the August Forrester Report, 56 percent of IT managers interviewed at Global 2,500 companies are already using some type of open source software in their infrastructure and another 6 percent will install it in the next two years. This revolutionary model for collaborative software development is being embraced and studied by many of the biggest players in the high-tech industry, from Sun Microsystems to IBM to Intel.

The Cathedral & the Bazaar is a must for anyone who cares about the future of the computer industry or the dynamics of the information economy. Already, billions of dollars have been made and lost based on the ideas in this book. Its conclusions will be studied, debated, and implemented for years to come. According to Bob Young, "This is Eric Raymond's great contribution to the success of the open source revolution, to the adoption of Linux-based operating systems, and to the success of open source users and the companies that supply them."

The interest in open source software development has grown enormously in the past year. This revised and expanded paperback edition includes new material on open source developments in 1999 and 2000. Raymond's clear and effective writing style accurately describing the benefits of open source software has been key to its success. With major vendors creating acceptance for open source within companies, independent vendors will become the open source story in 2001.

First heard about as a “bible for opensource” from Francesca Marano at WordCamp LA. Sounds interesting…
Read Teageneration (or: why I don’t trust transporters) by fluffyfluffy (beesbuzz.biz)
A series of 3D-printed objects, starting by printing the iconic Utah Teapot, scanning the print, and printing the scan, iterating as the object degrades. Thi...
This poses an interesting question about copies of intellectual property. When does it become something else or someone else’s?
Read Understanding Library eBook Lending: Q&A with Panorama Project Lead Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (IBPA)

(Manhattan Beach, CA - October 13, 2020) -- When an IBPA member sent the office a link to this Wired article about ebooks flying off libraries’ virtual shelves with the question,...

“I am a bit confused by why one ebook could cost 40-60 dollars. Is that only with the Big 5?”

...IBPA reached out to Panorama Project lead Guy LeCharles Gonzalez for more information.


IBPA: Hi Guy. So, what's with the average $40 price for a library ebook?

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez (GLG): That Wired article has caused quite a stir despite being a little behind the story! The ebook pricing cited is a little too broad, but it's on the right track, especially for Big 5 ebooks which are what most of these articles tend to focus on.

I’ve been meaning to do some research into pricing that libraries pay. Apparently it’s more than I would have expected.
Read - Want to Read: The Raconteur's Commonplace Book by Kate Milford (Clarion Books)
Nothing is what it seems and there's always more than one side to the story as a group of strangers trapped in an inn slowly reveal their secrets in this new standalone mystery set in the world of the bestselling Greenglass House, from a National Book Award nominee and Edgar Award-winning author.
How can you resist a book about commonplaces?!

Comes out in 2021.

Read The Kairos Mechanism (Arcana #1) by Kate Milford (Kickstarter)
A self-published (print and digital) novella companion to my second book, THE BROKEN LANDS. Both will be released in September.
Looking back at older Kickstarters makes me wonder why they don’t have an “ongoing” functionality which allows those who could continue building and distributing Kickstarted products even after the initial fundraising has finished. 
 
Presumably the user would have a separate site set up to do this so they save the fees, but why wouldn’t Kickstarter offer functionality like this? 
Read Get a story and do some good. Buy The Kairos Mechanism PDF and I’ll donate the full amount to BINC. by Kate Milford (ClockworkFoundry)
Observant folks have noticed that one of my books is much harder to find than others. The Kairos Mechanism was my first self-published book, meant as a sort of semi-sequel to The Boneshaker that would connect it to the events of The Broken Lands. It’s also a sort of sequel to Bluecrowne, if you were to follow Trigemine’s adventures rather than Lucy’s and Liao’s. I funded it on Kickstarter and used a startup e-book platform (which has since gone defunct) as well as McNally Jackson’s Espresso Book Machine (which has since been discontinued at that location). So Kairos has been basically out of print since, oh, 2018ish. I get emails almost daily from readers asking where they can find it, to which I always have to answer, with mixed feelings, “Unfortunately it’s basically out of print. The good news is, there’s an illustrated PDF available.” Mixed feelings because I don’t like that Kairos basically doesn’t exist in real-world form, so that makes me sad; however, the illustrated PDF is a very cool thing that includes art from some amazing young illustrators, so that makes me happy.
Interesting to see that her book disappeared ostensibly because the web platform that she had it stored in shut down. 

I funded it [The Kairos Mechanism] on Kickstarter and used a startup e-book platform (which has since gone defunct) as well as McNally Jackson’s Espresso Book Machine (which has since been discontinued at that location). So Kairos has been basically out of print since, oh, 2018ish.
—Kate Milford

Read - Want to Read: The Boneshaker by Kate Milford (Clarion Books)
Thirteen-year-old Natalie Minks loves machines, particularly automata--self-operating mechanical devices, usually powered by clockwork. When Jake Limberleg and his traveling medicine show arrive in her small Missouri town with a mysterious vehicle under a tarp and an uncanny ability to make Natalie's half-built automaton move, she feels in her gut that something about this caravan of healers is a bit off. Her uneasiness leads her to investigate the intricate maze of the medicine show, where she discovers a horrible truth and realizes that only she has the power to set things right.
Set in 1914, The Boneshaker is a gripping, richly textured novel about family, community, courage, and looking evil directly in the face in order to conquer it.
Read Your Local Bookstore Wants You to Know That It’s Struggling (nytimes.com)
Independent booksellers are desperate for customers to return, and not just for an online reading.
Bookmarked on: Oct 15, 2020 at 20:19


Avid Bookshop in Athens, Ga., sends personalized URLs to customers with a list of handpicked recommendations. 

Perhaps if they went the step further to set up domains for their customers, they could ostensibly use them not only as book blogs, but also to replace their social media habits?

An IndieWeb friendly platform run by your local bookseller might be out of their wheelhouse, but it could potentially help solve their proximal problem while also solving one of society’s problems all while helping to build community.
Annotated on October 16, 2020 at 12:51PM

Take Vroman’s Bookstore, a 126-year-old institution in Pasadena, Calif. It has more than 200 employees, 20,000 square feet of space and the rent to go along with it. In a normal year, it hosts anywhere from 300 to 400 events, bringing in authors for readings and signings, along with customers who buy books and maybe a glass of wine from the bar. But none of that is happening this year. 

Coincidentally I bought two books at Vroman’s yesterday and it looked reasonably busy for mid-day. (Maybe because of this article?)

It’s a bit disingenuous to mention wine at their bar as their wine bar was only finally open for a minute before the pandemic shut everything down.
Annotated on October 16, 2020 at 12:54PM

Like many other stores, Vroman’s is hosting online events to promote new books, which can attract attendees from all over the country but generally bring in almost no money. 

Maybe they need a book paywall for admission into those events? Buy a book to get the zoom code to get into the event?

David Dylan Thomas essentially did this for his recent book launch.
Annotated on October 16, 2020 at 12:55PM

In the best of times, the margins at a bookstore are paper thin — traditionally, a successful shop hopes to make 2 percent in profits — but operating during a pandemic is even more expensive. 

Yes—they said paper thin…
Annotated on October 16, 2020 at 12:57PM

Read A Long Time Coming by Daniel Jalkut (Red Sweater Blog)
When I founded Red Sweater Software in 1999, I picked the name “Red Sweater” because I happened to be wearing a red sweater (jumper, to you Brits) as I was thinking of a name for the company. I liked the way the words rolled off my tongue, and I knew it would lend itself to […]
I’m always watching a few domain names myself, ever hopeful. It’s nice to hear stories like this where the patience eventually pays off.
Read Reflections on HAX Camp (Throw Out The Manual)
I spent the last 2 days in a whirlwind trip driving down to Durham, North Carolina to meet up with a motley crew of web developers and talk all things web components at HAX Camp [https://hax.camp]. I came away with my mind reeling and trying to stay above water on all the interesting stuff I was seeing and hearing in hopes of taking something tangible away. But let me back up for a second and explain why I would end up at an event like that, much less why Reclaim Hosting would be interested in s
I still need to spend some time digging into HAX. 
Read Understanding .htaccess by Lauren Brumfield (labrumfield.com)
All Reclaim Hosting servers run Apache Web Server Software. So when an account is provisioned the server creates a directive telling Apache what a user’s domain is and where the files for that domain are located on the server. A single server is able to host multiple sites this way because Apache...
Some great basic information and resources here for understanding and working with .htaccess.
Read More than 280 characters by Gary Pendergast (Gary Pendergast)
It’s hard to be nuanced in 280 characters. The Twitter character limit is a major factor of what can make it so much fun to use: you can read, publish, and interact, in extremely short, digestible chunks. But, it doesn’t fit every topic, ever time. Sometimes you want to talk about complex topics...
Nice mention of the influence of IndieWeb ideas of POSSE and Tweetstorm here.