{"id":3740,"date":"2010-02-03T18:30:41","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T23:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3740"},"modified":"2010-02-03T16:18:59","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T21:18:59","slug":"wednesday-various-32","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3740","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday various"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\"><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>This could be interesting: apparently Redbox is looking to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hackingnetflix.com\/2010\/01\/redbox-seeking-library-locations.html\">install DVD rental kiosks at libraries<\/a>. As a librarian at the link above writes:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\">Unfortunately I think Redbox will only target libraries in large cities and wouldn&#8217;t bother with a small town like mine. It would be a great service to the community, but probably not enough profit to make it interesting for them.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><font face=\"Verdana\" size=\"2\">Where it could do some good &#8212; that is, by generating foot traffic and providing DVDs to libraries that couldn&#8217;t otherwise afford them &#8212; Redbox likely won&#8217;t be interested, but will instead focus on locations where they might actually do some harm &#8212; by charging for what are now free rentals, and by sharing only a tiny percentage of that charge with the libraries. If nothing else, though, I think it suggests that Redbox understands the precariousness of its existence; as online streaming becomes the dominant industry model, it will need to seek out more and new rental locations to survive.<\/li>\n<li>There are two ways to look at this: the first, &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/scifiwire.com\/2010\/02\/obama-cancels-moon-missio.php\">Obama cancels moon mission<\/a>,&#8221; makes for a quick and easy soundbite. But the second, &#8220;Obama scraps Bush&#8217;s wildly empty promise and redirects funding to more important areas&#8221; is probably more accurate. Still, it&#8217;s a shame we&#8217;re not going back to the moon any time in the near future.<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;m not sure <i>all<\/i> of the titles on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebookseller.com\/news\/111542-record-number-of-submissions-for-the-2009-odd-title-prize.html.rss\">Oddest Book Title of the Year award longlist<\/a> are really that odd, but what library would be complete without <i>Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes<\/i>, <i>Map-based Comparative Genomics in Legumes<\/i>, or <i>Planet Asthma: Art and Acitivty Book<\/i>?<\/li>\n<li>An interesting article by A.O. Scott on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/01\/24\/movies\/24scott.html?partner=rss&#038;emc=rss\">Smoking in &#8216;Avatar&#8217; and the Limits of Boundaries on Ratings<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>And finally, there have got to be easier ways to get around New York [<a href=\"http:\/\/www.waxy.org\/links\">via<\/a>]:\n<p><object width=\"320\" height=\"265\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Gi4ClspNrNs&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0x2b405b&#038;color2=0x6b8ab6\"><\/param><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\"><\/param><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\"><\/param><embed src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/v\/Gi4ClspNrNs&#038;hl=en_US&#038;fs=1&#038;rel=0&#038;color1=0x2b405b&#038;color2=0x6b8ab6\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" width=\"320\" height=\"265\"><\/embed><\/object><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This could be interesting: apparently Redbox is looking to install DVD rental kiosks at libraries. As a librarian at the link above writes: Unfortunately I think Redbox will only target libraries in large cities and wouldn&#8217;t bother with a small town like mine. It would be a great service to the community, but probably not &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=3740\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[16,112,14,54,6,38,113,10,7],"class_list":["post-3740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-books","tag-business","tag-movies","tag-new-york","tag-politics","tag-science","tag-space","tag-various","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}