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The strange state of Google Short Links

authorKevin Costain    
blog

You might remember the recent sunsetting of Google’s URL shortener.  This was something I took notice of because it meant that the url.cwl.cc service (based on their link shortener) was going to be shut down. Right? To be fair, I took notice, but also didn’t do much at the time. March 30, 2019, came and went and I could still use the service. 2020 arrived, and the service was still functioning. Now, more than a year and a half past the end, I can still create short links. This is perhaps the biggest oddity I have ever seen from Google.

Google's Link Shortener

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Bond, Jim Bond

authorKevin Costain    
blog

With recent news exploding with talk about a possible Tom Hardy Bond casting and, well, this being the year (hopefully) another James Bond movie is released; I decided to dig into some lore around the character. In the process, I came across The Real James Bond: A True Story of Identity Theft, Avian Intrigue, and Ian Fleming. This book doesn’t cover much about secret agent James Bond, Ian Fleming or much identity theft for that matter. This is primarily about the man whose name was lifted from a book cover to (somewhat randomly) name the world’s most popular Mi6 agent.

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Piranesi – a world of prisons and obsessions

authorKevin Costain    
blog

Every so often a book comes along that, once I start reading it, I’m so deeply enthralled that I absolutely must finish. This became that kind of book. I felt as if I was the rather innocent Piranesi himself, picking up clues yet not knowing exactly the grander significance.  As it all unravelled in front of me, I descended deeper. Not purposely, but I devoted an entire afternoon to soak up the constructed world that is “The House.” It is hard to imagine for me that a book of mere 272 pages could be so interesting and layered.

Piranesi Cover

Piranesi Cover

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The art of reading slower

authorKevin Costain    
review

The act of reading about reading itself always holds a special interest for me. I love to hear others muse about it, and I love to write about it. This what brought me to The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time by David L. Ulin. The physical hardcover is small. For a hardcover at 4.7 inches by 7.28 inches, the book is very distinctive on a shelf (when you can see it back there). That’s probably what drew me to the book itself. And, for a book to be about books and reading, I’m interested. Buying this from my local indie book store was a bonus (support them!).

The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time

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Goodreads really sucks. We book readers deserve much more.

authorKevin Costain    
blog

Goodreads Recommendations

Hate for the book-tracking, Amazon-owned Goodreads is near-universal. Since Amazon purchased the tool on March 28, 2013, Goodreads has languished in a kind of purgatory that would have doubled over any Google moonshots (Google loves to shut down stuff). For all its pains, Goodreads is so frustrating because it has value. Any attempt to improve our experience as book readers has to transfer over this value to be a worthy replacement, but none have come along. Let me get into this a bit more though.

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The age of lies and fake news

authorKevin Costain    
blog
Source: Mikey on Flickr

Fibs, half-truths, lies and the liars that tell them. There’s now a clear sense in this 2020 U.S. election season that our reality is being shaped by those who craft false stories – what’s left is equally false outrage and more lies. I can’t really point to the moment all of this started, but technology plays a very large role in getting us here. We’re living in societies that move lies as fast as light travels across a fibre cable.

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Book Review: The Crash Detectives

authorKevin Costain    
review

My thoughts on The Crash Detectives: Investigating the World’s Most Mysterious Air Disasters – This is definitely not a book to read on a flight. I had just gotten to the runway on a one hour trip when picking up this book to continue post-chapter 1. That was a bad idea. I doubt a page was read before I locked it away tight in my carry-on bag. I nevertheless endured and finally finished the book., on I really enjoyed it actually.

4 stars of 5

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