Chris Kubica's Posts

Feb 8 / 6:58am

@ annual physical overheard nurse around corner say, "God, I'm just not in a caring mood today!"

by Chris Kubica

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Feb 5 / 7:35pm

J. D. Salinger Time Magazine Cover

by Chris Kubica

Here's a picture of Salinger from the cover of Time Magazine.

via 204.232.203.158

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Feb 2 / 7:53pm

Here's a recall PDF about shrapnel-shooting '01 Honda Civic airbags

by Chris Kubica

You must have flash to see this embedded document.

(download)

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Feb 2 / 8:38am

My cogent analysis of the Amazon/McMillan eBook price war standoff

by Chris Kubica

It is my sincere hope that within five years or so there will be enough people reading eBooks and enough really good electronic publishing platforms that eBooks can be to more than $5 each or so with $4.50 going to the author and $.50 (a 10% fee) going to the maintenance of the platform.

And McMillan will either be gone or morphed into one of these online platforms but abiding by the pricing mentioned here due to competition from other awesome, homegrown publishing platforms.

And amazon.com will morph into one of these platforms also. Or maybe they'll just become a multimedia streaming service. Or maybe they'll just focus mostly on selling housewares, toys and prescription medicine.

And Apple will go back to just making hardware. And maybe the OS, too. But their attempt at being a monopoly on the content also will be thwarted by the above.

Thanks.

Your friend in infamy,

Chris Kubica

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Feb 1 / 6:52pm

@jonathanstark 's tweet abt a parking ticket reminds me of my own experience w tickets in Chicago...

by Chris Kubica

I lived in Chicago from oh, about 9/95 to 9/00. I'd somehow heard in a newspaper or somewhere (The Chicago Reader?) that someone had used the "Dispute by Mail" option that you used to have available in Chicago (maybe it still is an option, I don't know) and that ever since they'd never paid a parking ticket.

So I tried it. When I got a parking ticket, I wrote a short letter and sent in a picture stating my case and did the same again off and on for five years and never once ended up paying a parking ticket. I think the parking office people must have been overworked and understaffed and got so few by-mail disputes that they just approved any that came in just to get them off their damn desks. I'll never know for sure, though. It is entirely possible that there is still an open warrant for my arrest or something in Illinois.

Love,

Chris of the Shire

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Feb 1 / 1:39pm

The Ten Commandments 2.0 - Amazon.com-Style

by Chris Kubica

Hi! How are you, buddy?

In this age of mashups, remakes, redos, rehashes, and reruns, I thought it was high time we put a new, Web 2.0 spin on everyone's favorite Decalogue.

So here goes--and this list is in honor of amazon.com which has been trying of late to be declared Emperor of All Bookdom:

The Ten Commandments of Amazon.com

1. Amazon.com is your only source for readable content.
2. You shall have no other sources of readable content before Amazon.com and you shall not make yourself a reading device or eBook format.
3. You shall not make wrongful use of the name Amazon.com.
4. Remember Amazon.com's proprietary DRM formats and keep them holy.
5. Honor your Father, Jeff Bezos, and his heirs.
6. You shall not hack Amazon.com's DRM-protected content.
7. You shall not purchase readable content anywhere other than at Amazon.com.
8. You shall not pay more or less for readable content than Amazon.com says.
9. You shall not covet thy neighbor's non-Amazon.com readable content.
10. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor not purchased at Amazon.com.

What do you think? They should put this on their Terms of Use page.

Chris

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Feb 1 / 12:03pm

@gkiely Your "amazon hates you" tweet reminds me of this quote from Backdraft...relevant? You make the call. :)

by Chris Kubica

Fire.
It's a living thing, Brian.
It breathes, it eats,
and it hates.
The only way to beat it...
is to think like it;
to know this flame will spread this way across the door...
and up across the ceiling;
not because of the physics of flammable liquids,
but because it wants to.
Some guys, fire owns 'em. Makes 'em fight it on its level.
But the only way to truly kill it...
is to love it a little...

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Jan 31 / 8:02am

FUNNY pic of Steve Jobs as Job in "The Book of Jobs" iPad article on The Economist cover

by Chris Kubica

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Jan 28 / 1:20pm

Start Developing Your iPad Apps Today - iPhone SDK 3.2 beta is now available

by Chris Kubica

iPhone SDK 3.2 beta is now available to all iPhone Developer Standard and Enterprise Program Members from the iPhone Dev Center.

The iPhone Dev Center also provides additional resources including the iPad Programming Guide, iPad Human Interface Guidelines, Preparing Universal Applications, and sample code.

Log in to the iPhone Dev Center and start developing innovative applications for iPad today.