links for 2009-08-14

"Students who choose Cengage’s rental option will get immediate access to the first chapter of the book electronically, in e-book format, and will have a choice of shipping options for the printed book. When the rental term — 60, 90, or 130 days — is over, students can either return the textbook or buy it." Nice.

"Last night, Rep. Gene Green (D-TX) hosted a rowdy town hall meeting to discuss health care reform. Fox’s local Houston affiliate reporter, Duarte Geraldino, reported that he talked to the participants and found that “some attendees admit they don’t live in the district.” How did they get there? Geraldino noted “an internet campaign” by far right activists urging their allies to attend and heckle Democratic Representatives. Geraldino then aired a clip showing one participant acting disrespectfully towards Rep. Green." Another day another town hall.

"I know. One minute they're telling us that Gawd created humans exactly as they are now, and all those hominin fossils are just apes, and the next, they're telling us Homo erectus and Neandertal are just Noah's great-grandkids (he had a very complicated family, didn't he?). Consistency is one of those trivial details that gets thrown out when you dismiss human reason, I guess."

Makes it easy to avoid getting an IP Address block.

"Retweeting is a great example of Twitter teaching us what it wants to be. The open exchange of information can have a positive global impact and the more efficient dissemination of information across the entire Twitter ecosystem is something we very much want to support. That's why we're planning to formalize retweeting by officially adding it to our platform and Twitter.com." Awesome.

"Palm did not say exactly how end users can opt out of these data-sharing services, nor did it fully explain why Palm would want to know which applications users have downloaded and are running."