Category: Various and Sundry

Various and Sundry

Downloading Local Copies of Kindle Purchases is Kaput as of February 26th

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I’m interrupting my usual posting cadence for those seven or nine regular readers who might also have a number of Kindle purchases. Basically, as of February 26th, Amazon is removing the ability for you to download purchases as copies over which you have full control. For more information, you can check out Andrew Liszewski’s piece for The Verge that, like many of us, you may have missed on Valentine’s Day or read David Gewirtz’ article…

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Various and Sundry

The Joy of LEGO Organization

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

This Valentine’s Day, have you considered LEGO? If you or your significant other have considered this as a gift, you are more statistically likely to have a lot of LEGO bricks around your domicile. And that means you should have a way to organize the LEGO bricks you have. Enter LEGO enthusiast Tom Alphin and his LEGO Storage Guide over at Brick Architect. You can begin at the beginning, but this guide came on my…

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Various and Sundry

The Rise of Fake Job Listings

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Amidst all the changes happening in America at the moment, I suppose “ghost jobs” aren’t on the top of some people’s concerns, but for anyone needing to find a new place to work, the increased existence of ghost jobs is something to bear in mind. CNBC has a nice 12-minute piece from last August that walks through what now can account for four out of every 10 job listings. What I like about the newspiece…

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Various and Sundry

Wait! Those are the lyrics? The Civ VII Theme

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Tomorrow will be the release of Civilization VII, the latest version of the video game series that has been tempting players with “one more turn” for over 30 years. In fact, certain users who pre-ordered the game got early access in case you were wondering if friends disappeared from online spaces and social gatherings. They almost certainly missed the Superb Owl this past Sunday. I have played all the versions of Civilization over the decades…

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Various and Sundry Writing

More about what’s in the Public Domain in 2025

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

My now annual post about the Public Domain continues to a noticeable amount of traffic and I continue to find additional resources post-January 1st, so here’s two more. First is a video from energetic book-lover Jenny Fern whose 16-minute video about books entering the public domain. She is candid about not knowing some of the authors or characters at all, so don’t be hatin’ on someone who doesn’t know about Miss Marple, and enjoy this…

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Various and Sundry

This Looks, if not Fantastic, in the Right Direction

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

The Fantastic Four were never my favorite team of superheroes, certainly not wowing me in their various on-screen incarnations despite some of the cast. However, I always felt like there was a place for these public do-gooders and their matching “can-do” attitude… and by gum, I think this latest iteration seems to have tapped into the right tone! I also appreciate that they released it on the fourth (which I gotta guess is on purpose).

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Various and Sundry

Boldly Going: February Edition

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I saw the illustration below shortly after the Black History Month memes and celebrations began spreading on social media this past Saturday… and this captures a lot of awesome actors in line with the month. (Somebody get me the artist/their website so I can properly credit them!). It did occur to me that some folks might be wondering, “Say, who is…?” so as a value-add, see the links below for a who’s who: Top row:…

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Various and Sundry

You Can’t Beat the System: New Year’s Edition

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Okay, so “the system” is not something people are generally groovy about, now that I think about it, but I came across this article by James Clear from December 2013 that I shared more than a decade ago, pre-blog. What with the new year approaching, he was counseling against setting goals and instead establishing systems that would become habits. If this sounds familiar, or in fact he does, that’s because five years later, he published…

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Producing Various and Sundry Writing

More Public Domain Highlights for 2025

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

I think I’m going to need to expand my list of usual suspects for 2026, because there’s two more public domain pieces I want to share beyond the resources shared yesterday. First is an article, with plenty of audiovisual samples, by Ellen Wexler for Smithsonian Magazine. As you might imagine, the Smithsonian is very into collections, culture, and curating. Here, Wexler relies in part on Jennifer Jenkins, and the Center for the Study of the…

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Producing Various and Sundry Writing

Public Domain Day, 2025

By Bjorn Munson | by Bjorn Munson

Happy New Year! One of my favorite new traditions since 2019 has been noting all the creative works that enter the public domain here in the United States every January 1st. For this year, 2025, that means creative works first published in the U.S. in 1929 as well as sound recordings from 1924. There’s a host of caveats and, of course, U.S. copyright is different from other parts of the world, often markedly so. That’s…

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