Thursday links

Thursday, December 6th, 2012

• Don’t know how long this will last, but the Kindle edition of Jackie Clay-Atkinson’s Ask Jackie: Canning Basics book is free right now on Amazon. Can be downloaded to any Kindle device, including free Kindle readers for the PC. (Thanks to B for the tip!) (Ooops. Sorry. Apparently the free offer ended just hours after I set up these links.)
• Speaking of books, anybody read Two Cheers for Anarchism? If so, what did you think of it? Here’s a review. And an Amazon link. It’s by the James C. Scott, same guy who wrote The Art of Not Being Governed (which documents how near-anarchism actually works in some parts of Asia) and Seeing Like a State (which documents why so much authoritarian do-gooding doesn’t work).
• I knew the FCPA “Africa sting” case had blown up in the FBI’s face earlier this year. But I didn’t know that piece of human pond scum, Richard Bistrong, the snitch-provocateur who masterminded the arrests of 22 innocent people in the firearms (and related) business, had gotten a mere 18 months in prison.
• This is good. Lifehacker presents the best replacements for privacy-invading online services.
• Also good. M.D. Creekmore presents some privacy-enhancing hacks for Firefox. Several require going into the scary looking config section. But they’re actually really easy to do.
• Which leads to Bruce Schneier’s observations on “feudal security.”
• I know this isn’t a happy homemaker blog or anything. But damn, these apple pie cookies look delicious, cute, and absurdly elaborate to make. (H/T to K for finding another apple tree project.)

Several of today’s links arrived courtesy of the prolific J. Thanks, J.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2012 at 2:40 am and is filed under Books and Movies, Computers, Gardening heaven forbid, Guns and Gun Rights, Privacy and self ownership. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

7 Responses to “Thursday links”

1. Woody Says:
   December 6th, 2012

   It seems that Jackie’s book is only available free to Amazon Prime members. :-(

2. Claire Says:
   December 6th, 2012

   Woody. Well darn. It was free to anybody as of last night when I set up the links. I downloaded a copy myself.

   Those free Kindle book offers don’t last more than a few days, but boy, that one did seem to go away too quickly …

3. Concealed Carrying Cyclist Says:
   December 6th, 2012

   If you do much shopping on Amazon, the Prime membership isn’t a bad deal.

4. Ellendra Says:
   December 6th, 2012

   Those cookies look way to fiddly for me, but they’re giving me ideas for other things……

   Hmmm….. pumpkin pie cookies, maybe?

5. Benjamin Says:
   December 6th, 2012

   Sorry you missed it Woody. When Dave had his book and some issues of BHM free in November they were only free for a day each. I’m hoping when I’m done buying presents there is some money left for the book specials here.

6. jed Says:
   December 6th, 2012

   I’m all for privacy-enhancing services. How do I get all the people I know to use them? This is a serious problem. In general, it’s network effects. I’ve tried to get people to use Jabber. I’ve gone on and on about Gmail. The benefit I get from using COTSE is certainly dimished because the people I correspond with the most are using Gmail. I’d fall over dead if I could convince even one of my Skype contacts to use Jitsi. People either just don’t care about privacy, or they aren’t willing to do extra work for it. People look at me funny when I tell them that I pay monthly for e-mail. They look at me even funnier when I tell them I use DuckDuckGo instead of Google.

   And encrypted e-mail? Fuggedaboutit.

7. Benjamin Says:
   December 9th, 2012

   Another of Jackie’s books is free today, Ask Jackie: Water Bath Canning.