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How the Kindle Brought Back the Popularity of Short Stories

I love a good short story. When you are standing on the train and there is a man staring you down and you want to do something until you get to your station yet don’t want to only read part of a novel or work of non-fiction, a good short story that takes you from Kew Gardens Union Turnpike to Lexington Avenue 63rd street (that’s twenty five minutes on a good day) and fills you with a sense of accomplishment that really hits the spot. The problem has long been where to get new short stories. There are, of course, anthologies and literary magazines that that bring you fantastic short stories, but there are also many of them. When you spend twenty-five dollars on an anthology and go story by story only to find five interesting stories, you have effectively spent five dollars per interesting story.

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Evidence of a Bored National Palate: Hot Dog Pizza and Bacon Ice Cream

Every day America gets lazier and fatter and more bored — and for proof of that argument, we only need to look at the fast food enticements pocking our diets.  The new “Hot Dog Stuffed Crust” pizza from Pizza Hut hits a new all-time low in massive, cynical, consumerism in the family dining niche.  Who wants mustard on their pizza?

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New iPads Arrive: Typekit Fonts Now a Blogging Necessity

Today was a busy and glorious day. Our new iPads arrived three days early from China and we enjoyed setting them up via iCloud and experiencing our first, if limited, tastes of LTE on Verizon. In Jersey City, LTE comes and goes in our apartment. Sometimes it flickers to life. Other times, we’re stuck on 3G with no way to understand the why or wherefore of being pressed off the LTE network. Here’s a quickie screenshot I was able to grab of my iPad on LTE with two service bars active. 5.67 Mbps down and 0.19 Mbps up.

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Fairness to The Truth

I was raised to believe that in journalism there should be one primary goal and that is to strive to tell the truth in your storytelling. In school we were shown the late Walter Cronkite as a sort of role model for what journalism should be. It told the story of the world in which we live and told it without any sort of bias.

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Debunking the Obesogen Theory

“Obesogenic” means “tending to cause obesity” and the new “Obesogen Theory” strikes a new argument against many food goods because there are undisclosed chemicals and additives in those packages that can actually make us gain, and not lose, weight.

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The Breitbart Blowback

Radical blogger, and social infidel firestorm bomber, Andrew Breitbart, is dead at 43.  Watching the flow of internets reactions to his sudden death slowly roll into the virtual public square are telling in the portrait they create of a cunning and cruel man in life.  I won’t be shedding any tears for losing Breitbart.  I believe the divisive politics of hate will be less vicious without him knowingly and purposefully spewing predetermined lies at cultural touchstones for his sport and personal profiteering.

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Writing Short Stories to Push You Toward Novels

I really love to write, but I often get into a rut — one that lasts for months and sometimes even longer. What happens is that I get an idea for a novel and I have some idea of how I want it to work out and then I sit in front of the keyboard, white screen staring me in the face. I really want to start the novel but I am not sure how to start it so I just keep staring at the screen until I decide to do something completely different and then move on to something else. This staring procedure happens again and again until I give up on the novel entirely. I then get another idea for a novel and the problem starts up again — this is why I have only managed to write exactly one book in this lifetime but I have ideas for many more.

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Imprinted Experiences: How to Know a Good Apartment Neighbor

If you’re big into City Living in the urban core, you likely have imprinted experiences that can foretell precisely what will happen before it happens when it comes to those living around you.  Today, I will share with you my secret for instantly knowing if your new neighbor is a good person or not — and you don’t have to meet them, or speak to them, to find out.  Their one behavior will tell you everything.

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The Apple iBooks Author Review

When it comes to creative software, from my perspective, there are two important factors — the most important factors, really. They are ease of use and power — interdependent in that creative software can be good with one but not the other, yet not nearly as good when both are present. For example, Microsoft Paint is an easy to use program but all but the most skilled artists would find it difficult to make something really beautiful with it. Final Cut is one of the most powerful pieces of software for editing video but I have found it extremely difficult to do even the most simple task.

I am happy to say that I have found iBooks Author to be a perfect combination of ease of use and power. I have only had it since Sunday morning and I am already blown away by what I have been able to make with it. It is quite clear that Apple wants people to start making fun and educational iBooks right out of the box, excuse the antiquated expression.

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Steve Jobs Replies from the Grave: From iBoles to iPad to iAuthor

When the iPad was originally introduced, I was already an Apple fanboi with iBoles and iJanna and a couple of Apple books in the pipeline — and I was especially interested in the iPad as a book publication vehicle.  At that time, Steve Jobs was still alive and randomly replying to email inquiries, and on March 23, 2010 at 8:29pm, I decided to take my shot with Jobs and I emailed him my iPad Book Publishing Query:

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