Amazon Japan just sent me a notice that Okina Kamino has a new novel out,Tarot Knight. My first response was that AsoIku was dead for good, since he’s got three other series running now; my second thought was suddenly aborted when I clicked through and saw that the “customers who bought this also bought” linked to AsoIku book 15. And it’s not just a repackaging of the short stories that were included with the BDs; it looks like Aoi’s half-sister is coming back with marriage on her mind (ah, but who’s the lucky one…), and Chaika’s other two daughters are sneaking out to play on Earth.

Guess I should finally finish book 11 and catch up.

(as for Louie, well, I hit the first honest-to-gosh Stupid Thing and set it aside for a while; the worst part was that it wasn’t Louie’s bad idea, it was Merrill’s. It’s a bad plan, honey)

Everyone’s talking about it, but the details only seem to be available in a clip that requires a premium membership to Nicovideo.

Lots of links to footage from the PS2 game and the earlier short animation, but it doesn’t look like there’s a trailer or site open yet.

I must say, given the increase in the amount of Hoihoi-san merchandise recently, I’m not surprised.

[Update: since I first posted this, some idiot Marketplace dealer’s auto-pricing system has jacked their (virtual) copy up to $999. Plus $3.99 shipping, to add insult to injury. Wonder how long it will take their sloppy code to notice that the used book they plan to buy from someone else and resell at 8x is now over-priced by 5x?]

I ordered a book of the sort that’s in print but out of stock everywhere, so that all the dealers list it at prices ranging from 1.5x to 15x. Amazon’s order confirmation (which, as always, reached my inbox before I could switch windows) said, “no idea when we can get a copy, but as soon as it shows up, we’ll get it out to you”.

That was Monday at noon. Yesterday at 5pm, they sent an update: “found one, expect it Tuesday”. Two minutes into today, another update: “okay, you’ll have it tomorrow”. With free shipping, of course.

(and they bought 8 copies, just in case anyone else wants to start studying Japanese swordsmanship)

Local book stores could give me this sort of service, but past experience suggests that very few will, and even fewer will do it consistently. Right now, I’d have to drive 90 miles to reach one that might, which stretches the definition of “local” a bit. Amazon isn’t driving the competition out of business with predatory pricing and sales-tax avoidance; they’re doing it by being a better book store. And a better furniture store, appliance store, hardware store, etc.

I love book stores, but after reinventing themselves as coffee shops with a small selection of books sandwiched in between the videos and the sandwiches, I really have no reason to go to one. The only ones left worth patronizing are the used book stores, which still have some actual variety on their shelves, to surprise and delight the customer. And a lot of them stay in business by listing all their stock on Amazon.

(and yes, after my first two nights in the dojo, all sorts of underused muscle groups are complaining)

The product is actually quite useful, and I wish I’d brought back a few more packs from Kyoto, since none of the Japanese stores around here seems to carry it.

It’s basically a mentholated wet-nap, good for cooling down after a workout, sold by a company that markets primarily to pretty-boys. And, yes, there are worse versions of the ad.

Overheard in the office break room:

"Yeah, did you see the new John Carter movie? I guess it was a remake, from like before Star Wars, before Star Trek."

When the iPad first came out, I answered Jeff’s question by describing the <a href-”/archives/003544.html”>killer app that would get me excited about it as a tool and not just a toy. The newly-launched iPhoto for iPad is not that app (emphasis added):

When you import a RAW image to your iPad, iPhoto will display only the JPEG version of the image embedded in the RAW file. When editing a RAW image in iPhoto, the edits are derived from the embedded JPEG, and saved in JPEG format.

...

If you import RAW+JPEG images, iPhoto will display and export the JPEG version.

The JPEG embedded in most RAW files is a tiny little thumbnail, so this is pretty useless. It detects RAW+JPEG, which is nice, but any edits you make are to the JPEG version, and you can’t replay them against the higher-quality image once you’re on a real computer.

So, great for casual users or for serious photographers who just want to dink around on throwaway images, but don’t waste your time copying RAWs to it. You can play with your JPEGS on the road, but leave the good stuff on the memory cards until you get back to a computer.

Consumer Reports bought a Fisker Karma. Two days later, the dealer had to tow it away on a flatbed, because it refused to go into gear.

Oops. Seems the Department of Justice doesn’t care for price-fixing and collusion, even when you put lipstick on it and call it the “agency model”.

Of course, it’s hard to take publishing spokesmen seriously when they claim that the physical printing costs were never a significant part of the cost to make a book, when they start selling e-books of thirty-year-old SF novels at the same price as new releases. (hint: some of us know how much work is actually involved in scanning, OCRing, and proofreading an old paperback)