January 2015

What the Web Said Yesterday

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/26/cobweb

“I’m completely in praise of what Tim Berners-Lee did,” Kahle told me, “but he kept it very, very simple.” The first Web page in the United States was created at SLAC, Stanford’s linear-accelerator center, at the end of 1991. Berners-Lee’s protocol—which is not only usable but also elegant—spread fast, initially across universities and then into the public. “Emphasized text like this is a hypertext link,” a 1994 version of SLAC’s Web page explained. In 1991, a ban on commercial traffic on the Internet was lifted. Then came Web browsers and e-commerce: both Netscape and Amazon were founded in 1994. The Internet as most people now know it—Web-based and commercial—began in the mid-nineties. Just as soon as it began, it started disappearing.

The (Still) Mysterious Death of Edgar Allan Poe

Was the famous author killed from a beating? From carbon monoxide poisoning? From alcohol withdrawal? Here are the top nine theories

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/still-mysterious-death-edgar-allan-poe-180952936/?no-ist

A little old, but it’s new to me 🙂

Idris Elba is developing a supernatural story that features Edgar Allan Poe as an unlikely hero

The story, published in 1978, is set in New York City in the 1840s, with Edgar Allan Poe fighting demonic forces and his personal demons while teaming with a renowned fighter pursuing a sorcerer who murdered the fighter%u2019s wife. The sorcerer is seeking the Throne of Solomon, which will grant him immortality and control over Lucifer.

http://variety.com/2015/film/news/idris-elba-developing-thriller-poe-must-die-as-trilogy-1201403339/

After The Social Web, Here Comes The Trust Web

That’s why going head-on against existing stakeholders and regulators is a futile exercise. The bitcoin economy growth will come from the creation and appreciation of its own value around its own ecosystem. For example, users will be paid in cryptocurrency in exchange for real services, decentralized apps members will add crypto value to decentralized organizations by virtue of their actions, and new crypto tokens will continue to be mined and linked to the creation of new business models built on top of blockchain protocols.

How Amazon Tricks You Into Thinking It Always Has the Lowest Prices

The goal of the index is to highlight how a nuanced approach to pricing %u2014 such as Amazon%u2019s %u2014 can be a smarter, more cost-effective option over simply price-matching across the board. This is where Boomerang enters the conversation: The startup wants to help Amazon competitors think about pricing in as sophisticated a way as Amazon does.

http://recode.net/2015/01/13/how-amazon-tricks-you-into-thinking-it-always-has-the-lowest-prices/

Boy Says He Didn’t Go To Heaven; Publisher Says It Will Pull Book

Nearly five years after it hit best-seller lists, a book that purported to be a 6-year-old boy’s story of visiting angels and heaven after being injured in a bad car crash is being pulled from shelves. The young man at the center of The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven, Alex Malarkey, said this week that the story was all made up.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/01/15/377589757/boy-says-he-didn-t-go-to-heaven-publisher-says-it-will-pull-book

Washington DC’s Public Library Will Teach People How to Avoid the NSA

%u200BLater this month, the Washington DC Public Library will teach residents how to use the internet anonymization tool Tor as part of a 10 day series designed to shed light on government surveillance, transparency, and personal privacy.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/washington-dcs-public-library-will-teach-people-how-to-avoid-the-nsa

Books & bikes: Share program considered for a CT library

Town residents may soon be able to check out a bicycle from the Fairfield Public Library as easily as checking out a book.

The Health Department, in conjunction with the library, has received a $10,463 grant from the state for a pilot bike-share program with the goal of getting residents active and healthy.

http://www.ctpost.com/local/article/Books-bikes-Share-program-considered-for-6022691.php

Not every president needs a library

But why should each president get his own library? Multiple libraries are wasteful, costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year. And they’re undemocratic, because they allow our presidents %u2014 not the people who elected them %u2014 to define their legacies.

http://triblive.com/opinion/featuredcommentary/7546138-74/presidential-library-libraries#axzz3PBmLe5fQ

Do libraries still need to provide Internet access? – The Washington Post

Maybe many of the costs that bureaucrats decry are bound up in this online entertainment center aspect of libraries.

With the real definition and purpose of a library in mind, Fairfax officials should strive to offer what avid readers have wanted all along: a book-filled and Internet-free library.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/do-libraries-still-need-to-provide-internet-access/2015/01/15/9a82018c-9b65-11e4-86a3-1b56f64925f6_story.html