Morning Linkage (Aug 24)

Technology

Just in case there’s any­one who has­n’t seen this infor­ma­tion on
extend­ing the win7 tri­al period.
http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2009/08/how-to-use-windows-7-for-free-for-120-days-legally.ars

There’s a new lap­top in my future. I just wish it could be this one. A
built in graph­ic tablet would mean one less piece of hard­ware to try
to find a space for when I’m on the road.
http://www.whitezine.com/en/design/laptop-concept-for-designers-and-illustrators.html

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Transportation

Ilmor is work­ing on a 5 stroke, 3 cylin­der engine. Sort of. I need
time to hunt up videos before I“ll claim to under­stand how this works.
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2009/08/five-stroke-engine/

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Science

Why hav­ing a cou­ple of drinks with the plan­ning ses­sion won’t help you
meet your goals. I think we all intu­itive­ly know that the things you
say you’re going to do dur­ing the Saturday night bull ses­sion don’t
amount to much on Monday morn­ing but now sci­ence is set­ting out to
prove it.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/vodkagoals/

Tossing a coin is sub­tly not as fair as your old­er broth­er told you it was.
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/08/non-randomness.html

An mys­te­ri­ous cloud for­ma­tion in Queensland Australia. Look like rolls
of cot­ton batting.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/08/morninggloryclouds/

A TV sta­tion in Cleveland man­ages to top our own King5 for heinously
fear mon­ger­ing report­ing. That is until it becomes clear that someone
is pulling off a bril­liant farce. Do you think the news director
caught on to it before the seg­ment hit the air?
http://www.misscellania.com/miss-cellania/2009/8/22/backyard-bear-report.html

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Intellectual Property and Copyright

Nominee for the best worst use of copy­right. How doc­tors (or rather
their rep­u­ta­tion man­age­ment lack­eys) are using the DMCA take down
pro­vi­sions to remove bad reviews from rat­ings sites.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20090328/1445494290.shtml

A nice sum­ma­ry of the State of Union with respect to the Google Books
set­tle­ment and the many chal­lenges to it. Microsoft and Amazon have
clear motives for their objec­tions but that does­n’t inval­i­date their
point that Google seems to have made a land grab for the rights to
books that are out of print.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/08/microsoft-amazon-join-opposition-to-google-books-settlement.ars

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Visual Arts

Not the same as the Google land grab but a col­lec­tion of old map based
games and puz­zles. By old I mean the first was pub­lished in 1680.
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2009/08/puzzle-and-game-maps.html

A recent dis­cus­sion of low­er prices wines on this list yield­ed several
rec­om­men­da­tions for the “the label is pret­ty” school of wine shopping.
Here’s a selec­tion of wine labels and pack­ages that would qualify.
http://www.thecoolist.com/amazing-wine-labels-30-creative-and-unique-wine-label-designs

A love­ly gold­fish paint­ing. Click on the fishy for bigness.
http://thejasminedragon.deviantart.com/art/a‑fish-a-fish-a-fishy-oo-98009668

I don’t real­ly dig the pic­ture but the fact that it was cre­at­ed on an
iPhone kind of makes the iPhone look like less of a sil­ly idea.
http://insomnio.org/post/170004968/a‑walk-in-the-park-created-on-an-iphone-using

I love the soft old school look of these illus­tra­tions by the Russian
Dmitry Ligay.
http://www.evasion.cc/blog/comments/illustration-dmitry-ligay/

Last night Elvis Costello made a Sean Connery joke. Almost too easy, I
admit. As an anti­dote here’s a clas­sic Connery pic.
http://theimpossiblecool.tumblr.com/post/168151304/connery

Until tomor­row campers,