WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Amazon Bookmarklet [MetaBlog]

Summary:Here's a no-down-side way for people who shop at Amazon to help support their favourite web site - mine by default, any other with a little editing.

What it is: Please click and drag one of these links to your links bar or right-click to 'Add to Favourites' (or similar). You may well get a warning that the link you are adding is unsafe, that's because it uses JavaScript - sorry, you'll have to trust my programming at your own risk. Use it in future to go to Amazon to browse. Also, before you buy anything from them, display the book and click the link - you'll get the item you are about to buy displayed in its own simplified window. Finally, if you have anyweb address displayed that includes an ISBN, click the link to view details of it on Amazon. Using the bookmarklet link will ask Amazon to give me a commission on your purchase (costs you nothing more) and I'll use that to help keep my web site running.

Links: Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.com

How it works: Jon Udell wrote a handy bookmarklet that lets you find a library that stocks a book you're looking at on Amazon. I've used that as the basis for a bookmarklet that detects an ISBN in the URL you are looking at and adds an Amazon partner identifier to a request to display the book ready for purchase. If there's no ISBN in the current URL, it simply launches a view of the Amazon home page, also tagged to show a referrer. In the spirit of Jon's original copyright, you are more than welcome to use this as the basis of your own bookmarklet. For example, you might want to change my referrer IDs into those of your favourite non-profit so they get the commission each time you order. If you find bugs, please let me know by following the Comments link below.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

posted at 10:52 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Patriotic Traitors [SocioPolitico]

Stunning search engine pointers over at Boing Boing. Was it the US government that gave Iraq the starter cultures for Anthrax and other biological weapons? Well, according to Donald Rumsfeld (quoted by CNN),

"I have never heard anything like what you've read, I have no knowledge of it whatsoever, and I doubt it"

But according to declassified defence department documents (as reported by Dawn):

The administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale to Iraq of numerous items that had both military and civilian applications, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological viruses, such as anthrax and bubonic plague.

And who was the US government's special envoy to Iraq?

Among those instrumental in tilting US policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war was Donald Rumsfeld, now defence secretary, whose December 1983 meeting with Saddam as a special presidential envoy paved the way for normalization of US-Iraqi relations.

Go read the entry on Boing Boing and research other jaw-dropping information that suggests the current US administration has a love of contextual ethics.

posted at 11:06 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Paging Mr Ruby [MetaBlog]

OK, Sam, I've added the tag. And I have changed over to long-form RSS, we'll see how it goes... [Updated 18-Jan: Added a title so it appears in the RSS feed]

posted at 10:13 AM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |

Dramatic News for 2003 [BiblioPoesis]

What dramatic news item could possibly force me out of my post-Christmas lethargy to get on the PC? MSFT being told to ship a real JVM within 120 days? The US delegation blocking the phrase 'support for Open Source' from an international agreement at the behest of un-named US 'software companies'? MSFT managing to squeeze through a settlement in California which, if accepted, would increase their education market share at Apple's expense instead of punishing them? Nope. An e-mail to one of the kids telling them they can pre-order the new Harry Potter book "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" at half-price.

I of course have complied and pre-ordered (no Phoenix involved). If you want to too, it's at amazon.co.uk in the UK and amazon.ca in Canada (at 40% discount). Interestingly, there's no discount announced at amazon.com, presumably they don't want to join in the frenzy that has shot the book straight to the top of the best seller list in the UK.

posted at 5:11 PM (UK) | Comment? (0 so far) | links to this post | |