Monday News: Privacy wear; Another list of books; Comic Sans inventor defends font; Special releases rely on superfans
How To Disappear When Someone’s Spying On You; ‘Privacy Wear’ Comes To Market – With NSA’s spying, the emergence of things like Google Glasses, and general spy implements easily and cheaply obtained on the internet, a new industry of privacy wear is emerging. These tools are designed to foil people who are spying on you and the product line contains everything from hooded capes to fabric pocket protectors for your phones. The hero in Reckless by Skye Jordan needed this phone protector since the heroine got his private cell phone number from an app that her friend had developed. But her invasion of his privacy turned out okay because who doesn’t like sexy tweets from strangers in an airport? Radio Lab
11 Books Every College Freshman Should Read – I had to read Carl Sagan before I started college. I think there were others on my list but that was the one I remembered because I understood only about ever third word. I’m not sure if the summer reading list sent you by college is meant to make you fear school or prepare you for it. Huffington Post says that every college student’s pre college reading list should include books like “The Body” by Stephen King and “Consider the Lobster” by David Foster Wallace. I think it should include “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt. Don’t join a secret society in college, kids. You never know what you might be asked to do. HuffingtonPost
Vincent Connare, Inventor Of ‘The Most Hated Font,’ Defends Himself – Among design folk, probably the biggest slap in the face would be to hear a comment like “at least the design doesn’t have comic sans” because comic sans is the most hated font created on the internet. Created by a Microsoft employee, comic sans has been used on everything from road signs to Vatican bulletins. It has even brought a couple together, united by their hatred of the font. HuffingtonPost
The real problem with Star Trek Into Darkness‘s bungled Blu-ray release – Star Trek’s Into The Darkness is being released Blu-ray this week but the fans are angry because there are so many different versions containing differing special features that it might cost a viewer over $100 to get to view all the various features and commentaries. There are special features exclusive to Target and different exclusive features exclusive to Best Buy. Apple has a special audio commentary available only to iTunes buyers. There will be special features in international releases as well. All of these has fans steaming mad. As GigaOM says, “trying to keep an entire industry alive on the backs of devoted fans craving limited edition features isn’t the most solid business model. It’s a solution that speaks of short-term thinking, at a time when the rise of HD-quality video coincides with ever-shrinking data caps.” GigaOM Tech News and Analysis
I was absolutely convinced “The Secret History” was about my university. I also recall that one of the characters had to live in a cruddy, health-threatening rented room, just like I had to one semester. I reread and reread that book and tried to make all my friends read it. I should read it again now and see how it holds up.
This mistyping made my morning, but I suppose you’ll want to fix it:
@Carolyne: Ah ha ha. Clearly I shouldn’t do more than one thing at one time!
@Carolyne:
It’s my favourite typo in a long time! I hope it gets left in.
I’m seeing it now, on my little MS Word pull-down menu…
Colonna MT
Comic Sans MS
Consider the Lobster DFW…
I have never understood the hatred for Comic Sans.
It irks me a lot when the BluRay release gets special features and the DVD none (or very limited) as I don’t have a BluRay player yet (behind the times I know). It also irks me when I buy a DVD and a year later they release a special edition with tons of special features. But releasing a bunch of editions with different special features at the same time is just mean.
I suppose this is one reason to be glad I don’t have a Blu-Ray player. This extra content bears a resemblance to all the airline fees: creating revenue, not through innovation and service but through fees. Here, the content is enhanced–usually a good thing–except it’s spread all over the place, making it difficult and expensive to purchase. And fast food companies are unwilling to pay workers a living wage because they say we would revolt against paying an additional .25 per hamburger? Morons.
Based on all the alerts I’m getting, Random House has now joined Penguin in lowering many of their book prices across the board (at Amazon). $6.83 appears to be the new black for Ben Aaronovitch, Kevin Hearne, Devon Monk, Ilona Andrews, M. K. Hobson, Seanan McGuire, Lynn Kurland and others. Anyone else seeing this, know what’s behind it or how long it will last?
@Darlynne: I’m not sure if the discount is coming from Amazon or from the publisher. Many of my Kindle books were marked down to $6.83 as well — but at least two are $5.99.
These prices aren’t reflected at B&N so I don’t think it’s a new list price (from the publisher) — unless B&N is just behind on updating the catalogs. So right now, I suspect the discount is coming from Amazon.
I have no idea how long it will last.
I think every student should spend the summer before going off to college reading as many romances, mysteries, space operas, or whatever recreational reading drug is their choice as they can possibly cram in.
The good Lord knows they won’t have much time for it once they get to school. My daughter is an English major and bemoans that she “never has time to read.” I sort of stared at her, and she said, “Well, you know, read something I don’t have to write a paper on!”
@Meljean Brook: I stumbled into an Amazon promo for YA books when I purchased two being-made-into-movies books this weekend for Kindle because they were 3.99 each (Divergent, The Fault in Our Stars). Right afterward, I got an email from Amazon saying that I now qualified for a promotional credit to purchase up to 10 additional YA books, from a select list of bestsellers, for $1 each. Real question: Are promos like this only possible because agency pricing settlement? Or could (and did) Amazon conduct promos like this anyway? Here’s the link if anyone is interested. http://www.amazon.com/YAdeal
@Preeti: The same thing happened when I bought some scifi/fantasy titles yesterday. I was given a link to nine other titles in the genre that could be purchased for $1.00. I wasn’t familiar with any of them, unfortunately, and didn’t feel like adding to the TFB pile.
Gamers have been dealing with special edition hell for years. Pre-order the game from Gamestop and get THIS super cool piece of armor, pre-order from Best Buy and get this exclusive weapon, and pre-order from Target to get special early access to the game. I’m not surprised it’s finally making it’s way to DVD/BluRay sales, just another way to stick it to fans in an effort to soak up as much cash as possible.
They did a similar thing with the Twilight DVDs a while back. I recall people saying that they were planning on buying multiple editions just to get all the special features. Guess what? All the special features somehow found their way to YouTube and it was possible to watch them there. I know that was not the intent of the DVD publishers, but if you make things too complicated for people to buy, they will find other means to get what they were willing to pay for.
As a Kindergarten teacher, Comic Sans is my first go-to font when making Language Arts activities. To 4- and 5-year-olds, an “a” or a “g” in a “regular font” looks nothing like the a and g we teach them via our classroom materials. And to the little ones, that difference often equals a completely new letter for them.
I confess, I used to frickin’ love Comic Sans. Now I feel sad for it that it needs defending. :( It is not the font’s fault that people overuse it or use it in professional documents or presentations where they are not actually using a comic speech bubble.
Personally , I reserve my disdain for Times New Roman. Too establishment!
@[email protected]: And they have done the same with the Harry Potter movies.
It irks me so much that, if I want to get at least a modicum of extras for the latter movies, I must buy the DVD/Blue Ray/Violet whatever package edition–a plain widescreen DVD has nothing. Why on earth would I buy three copies of the same movie, at the same time, from the same vendor?
@Preeti: Honestly, I don’t know. I suspect that it’s because the Agency agreement is gone, but I really don’t know the specifics of what Amazon is allowed to do now (Jane probably has a better grasp of those specifics than I do). You’re probably right that they can offer different promotions now because of the change in terms, but I can’t tell you that with any real knowledge or authority.
Speaking as an author and a reader, though, I’m glad to see the discounts finally going through.
I love comic sans. It’s one of the very few fonts I’ve come across in which the ONE, small L, and capital I are easy to tell from one another. Also, zero and capital O. I always use it for labels and tables in which accuracy is important.