[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)

QA. Look into it. Then perhaps you’ll learn about things like “iTunes 10.6 can’t see my iPhone 4S” before you release. There’s not a lot I can do about usbmuxd core-dumping.

The key error seems to be when you start up the new iTunes:

3/7/12 4:34:18 PM	iTunes[10876]	_SubscribeForMuxNotifications (thread 0xb081b000): USBMuxListenerCreate: Connection refused

[Update: you have to reboot your machine to get it to work. Nice.]

So I started book 3 of Rune Soldier last night, and I think the parts I read last night neatly sum up the difference in character between book Louie and anime Louie.

It opens with a restless Louie throwing off his covers. Summer has arrived with a vengeance after their previous adventure with the weather-control device, and it’s just too darn hot and muggy for him to sleep. So, he puts on his street clothes and heads out for an evening of fun in the entertainment district. After a few hours of pub-crawling, he’s nicely drunk and headed for home, when he happens to look into an alley and see two suspicious-looking punks harassing a 13-year-old girl whose high-class clothing suggests she has no business in this neighborhood, especially in the middle of the night. He butts in.

They vaguely recognize him as “that guy” from various places in the district, and he in turn can tell that they’re low-level members of the Thieves Guild. But Louie doesn’t want to get into more trouble with the Guild by beating the crap out of them, so he name-drops Merrill and identifies himself as one of her partners. They were willing to fight a drunken tavern brawler for their prize, but an experienced adventurer with ties to an established Guild member is a bit much, so they slink off.

The girl naively complains that her new friends were about to help her find lodging and a job, and as Louie leads her out of the entertainment district, he gives her a carefully sanitized explanation of what her “friends” meant by that. Recognizing that she won’t be safe on her own, and knowing that the only lodging houses open at this time of night are no safer than the alley, he takes her back to the Mage College, wakes up Ila, and asks her to take the girl in for the night.

He’s quite surprised when Ila calls her by name, recognizing her as the daughter of one of the richest and most powerful merchants in the country, in fact her own father’s primary rival. Gentle questioning gets young Muriel to confess that she’s running away from home to escape an arranged marriage. She had been reluctantly willing to abide by her father’s decision, until she went to the temple of Mylee and consulted one of the priestesses…

Yes, Melissa is the one causing trouble this time, and Louie staggers off to his own room in a daze, waking up the next morning to find a dagger at his throat, in the hand of a very angry Merrill. Not the least bit surprised by this after having used her name to influence Thieves Guild members, he casually greets her and explains the situation. She quickly calms down, and agrees that they need to go see Melissa and get this straightened out fast. As he gets dressed, they banter quite companiably, with Louie responding to her obvious envy of rich families by offering to introduce her to Carwes, who always wanted to adopt a daughter. She quips back that she couldn’t handle having a blockhead step-brother like him, and he admits that he’d be too worried about getting his throat slit to ever fall asleep around a little sister like her. Unspoken, they both know that she values her independence too much to ever be anyone’s dependent.

Louie is naked for most of this conversation, and Merrill makes no effort to turn away. She’s not ogling, but she’s paying enough attention to comment on how he seems even bigger and more muscular than when they met, which he credits to his daily solo sword practice. She suggests that if he has enough free time for that, he should spend it working on his magic and leave the fighting to them. He refuses, both for his own goals and for Melissa’s expectations of a hero. He wants to be a proper Rune Soldier, expert in both combat and magic, something that hasn’t been seen for a long time.