A bit earlier today:
Happy invoicing!
- What is Harmony? - "A couple of weeks ago, we published a post called "What is music?" and had a flood of comments from people asking a follow up post. Here it is." Interesting article from a site full of "Physics and maths that makes you think."
- I Greet You in the Middle of a Great Career: A Brief History of Blurbs - Alan Levinovitz looks at the history of promotional comments from other writers on book covers: "Let’s be clear: blurbs are not a distinguished genre. In 1936 George Orwell described them as 'disgusting tripe'..."
- A Flowchart Of The Internet Argument To End All Internet Arguments - "A follow up to a flowchart called “So You Found Something Cool On The Internet,” here’s the flowchart of the internet argument – thought up by H. Caldwell Tanner and Rosscott Nover – that should effectively end all internet arguments, if anyone actually reads all the way through it."
- To My Old Master - "In August of 1865, a Colonel P.H. Anderson of Big Spring, Tennessee, wrote to his former slave, Jourdon Anderson, and requested that he come back to work on his farm. Jourdon — who, since being emancipated, had moved to Ohio, found paid work, and was now supporting his family — responded spectacularly by way of letter..."
- How Amazon's KDP Select Saved My Book - David Kazzie explains how giving his book away for free for a limited period led to a great surge in cash sales once the promotion ended: "One week ago, my book was dead in the water. And I mean dead. After a promising start last summer, sales crashed, completely, totally and spectacularly, despite wonderful reviews (from people who didn't even know me!). From December 1 through January 24, I sold 21 copies on Amazon. One on BN.com. And that was it. Barely enough to fund a lunch date for me and my wife."
- The Status of the P Versus NP Problem - "When I started graduate school in the mid-1980s, many believed that the quickly developing area of circuit complexity would soon settle the P versus NP problem, whether every algorithmic problem with efficiently verifiable solutions have efficiently computable solutions. But circuit complexity and other approaches to the problem have stalled and we have little reason to believe we will see a proof separating P from NP in the near future." Excellent overview by Lance Fortnow.
- The Real Details of the Hot Coffee Lawsuit - "Any time you find yourself in an argument about frivolous lawsuits and tort reform, someone’s probably going to bring up 'that woman who sued McDonald’s over the hot coffee and won four ba-jillion dollars in damages.'" In fact, the woman won her case because McDonalds were in the wrong and then acted like dicks; Ethan Trex explains the details.
- Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos meet "Ginger" - "Steve Kemper was given complete behind-the-scenes access to Dean Kamen and the Segway design team during development of the much-hyped 'human transporter.' The result: A new book, Code Name Ginger. Here's an excerpt."
- The Lost Pubs Project - Online directory of lost pubs: "Although there are 60,000 pubs still in existence in the UK today, they are currently closing at an accelerating rate of 50 each week. Once closed they rarely reopen as most are either demolished or converted to housing. Help us in our quest to index these lost pubs before they are forgotten for ever. If you know of a pub which has closed at any time in the past, please submit it, together with any anecdotes, historical information or photographs that you might have. Pubs do re-open from time to time, so if you see one on the site that is open please let us know."
- Tack-O-Rama - "Vintage tomfoolery for the easily amused." More silly nonsense with the occasional snippet of great wisdom, like this:
Happy invoicing!
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