Links for 06-25-2008

• Yapta: Tracking Airfare Changes Made Easy - ReadWriteWeb - I should probably look at some of these travel booking sites a bit more closely.
• Black Star Rising - The Case Against Photo Illustrations - I'm inclined to agree with this comment: "A "photo illustration" must be clearly fake or else it is not acceptable."
• Morning Conundrum: DIY Wedding Albums - Shoot The Blog - I've used Blurb and LuLu. I'll probably try MyPublisher the next time I put together a book of my photography.
• tecosystems » Question for Cloud Campers: The Cloud and Standards - I need to think some about how to most usefully organize the cloud computing space.
• Pajamas Media » Why Trains Just Don’t Work in America - Sadly, I think Charlie's right. I much prefer rail to air but US distances are just too big outside of a few limited regions (e.g. Northeast).
• In Energy-Stingy Japan, an Extravagant Indulgence: Posh Privies - "High-end toilets can also sense when someone enters or leaves the bathroom, raising or lowering their lids accordingly. Many models have a "learning mode," which allows them to memorize the lavatory schedules of household members.These always-on electricity-guzzlers (keeping water warm for bottom-washing devours power) barely existed in Japan before 1980. Now, they are in 68 percent of homes, accounting for about 4 percent of household energy consumption. They use more power than dishwashers or clothes dryers."
• Marginal Revolution: My favorite song - What to do if you end up in Europe in 1000 AD--set to music :-)
• Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Encryption and the law - Good thought. Implication is that we're probably going to move towards encrypting data in the cloud in a way that the service provider can't decrypt it.
• Photos: How UPS Next Day delivers | CNET News.com - I find the scope of today's big logistics operations REALLY impressive.
• Digital politics: The future is broadband, not Facebook | The Social - CNET News.com - In other words, as in business, a lot of the most important action happens in the backroom blocking and tackling.
• Bert P. Krages Attorney at Law Photographer's Rights Page - A downloadable PDF flyer describing the rights of photographers.
• Microsoft Watch - Corporate - A Month of Gates #6 - Interestingly, the monopoly not really discussed here is AT&T--which was broken up and then reconstituted in different form after a generation of technology.
• How we read online. - By Michael Agger - Slate Magazine - Interesting read, but I'm not sure how you square simultaneous advice to be brief and to be thoughtful and comprehensive.