Lifehacker bravely read Starbucks' Terms of Service and reports that you can get free refills on certain drinks. This is news to me.
According to the company’s website, to qualify, you have to have purchased your original drink using the Starbucks app with a Starbucks card connected to your account. You’ll have to present this to a barista to obtain a refill.
One other thing: if you leave the store, the deal's off.
(Just for fun, I'm using this photo of a Starbucks in Kyoto. I went there when I was in Japan last year, and it's by far the coolest Starbucks I've been to. See more photos here.)
Image: Starbucks in old town Kyoto, by f11photo/Shutterstock Read the rest
While I suspect most celebrities would immediately call their attorneys if a paparazzo sneakily shot a nude photo of them and then tried to sell it online, singer Sia took a different approach.
The creepy photographer in question snapped the shot of Sia from behind, when she was on vacation, "apparently taken with a long lens," according to The Guardian. And then he tried to sell it online.
But she nipped it it in the bud by offering the same photo to the public via Twitter – for free – thereby shutting down the pap's sleazy business scheme before it picked up steam.
"Someone is apparently trying to sell naked photos of me to my fans. Save your money, here it is for free. Everyday is Christmas!" The last line of her tweet also refers to the title of her latest album, Everyday is Christmas. Brilliant!
Top image: digboston Read the rest
This looks like a good collection of public domain novels, in Kindle format. I've been wanting to read Sister Carrie again, so I got this. It's volume 1 of a 2 volume set. Here's volume 2.
Here are the books in the volumes that I've read and recommend.
Burroughs, Edgar Rice: Tarzan of the Apes
Wells, H. G.: The Time Machine
Twain, Mark: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Stevenson, Robert Louis: Treasure Island
Sinclair, Upton: The Jungle
London, Jack: The Call of the Wild
Lewis, Sinclair: Main Street
Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor: Crime and Punishment
I did a spot check and the formatting looks fine. (It's sometimes a problem with free and cheap Kindle books.)
Image by Mark Brennan from Oakton, Virginia, United States of America (Portage Glacier) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons Read the rest
I've read a few of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels and they are a lot of fun. James Bond is much more flawed and weird in the books than he is in the movies. Right now Amazon is selling the Bond series for $2 a book as Kindle editions. But if you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited (I do) you can read them for free. Here's a link to a join Amazon Kindle Unlimited with 30-Day Free Trial. Read the rest
I've not read Wuthering Heights but Carla read it twice and keeps telling me too. I found out Amazon has the Kindle edition for free, which isn't a big deal because you can get it on Gutenberg for free, but it also includes the free Audible audiobook, too. Read the rest
I haven't read T.W. Piperbrook's Contamination post-apocalyptic zombie series but it has 4.1/5 stars with 744 customer reviews on Amazon. Right now you can get the first 4 books as the Kindle editions for free. Read the rest
Drum tracks for jam offers more than 300 drum loops in various genres, neatly organized by beats-per-minute. [via Hacker News]
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Imhotep, by Jerry Dubs, is free for a limited time as a Kindle e-book. It has 4.3/5 stars with over 500 reviews. It sounds like A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court but this time the Hank Morgan character winds up in ancient Egypt. Read the rest
Snag Your Free Copy of this New York Times' Bestseller.
I don't remember how I found out about Munseys. It's a website with links to thousands of out-of-print books, with over 1,500 pulp era novels. There's a lot of good stuff to be found here, as well as much that fits somewhere between excellent and awful. I downloaded and read a so-so novel called Alley Girl, by Jonathan Craig. There's no "alley girl" in it, which I didn't care about anyway. It's a about a hard-boiled sociopathic cop who tries to set up an innocent man for the electric chair so he can profit in more ways that one. It took me about an hour and a half to read and it made me forget about my 18-hour plane ride last week.
At the top of the chart, get Charles Willeford's Whip Hand (he ghost wrote it for Frank Sanders, or at least wrote most of it). It's about a kidnapping/murder seen through the eyes of different characters, and takes places in Texas. Willeford is one of the great hardboiled noir writers. I read everything of his I can get my hands on.
Munseys Read the rest
I just grabbed DMQZ, a free Kindle novel, on a recommendation. Sounds a bit like the excellent Last Policeman.
In the wake of the global pandemic known as the "little dormouse," the line between the Safe Zone and the Quarantine Zone divides New York City. The shores and waters of the East River are the "DMQZ," the uninhabited area that separates uninfected Manhattan from the slowly dying borough of Brooklyn.
Jacob Hale is a Manhattan police officer rising in the ranks of the Safe Zone military government until a bank heist gone wrong lands him on suspension and under suspicion. On a quest to clear his good name, Hale finds himself drawn into a web of conspiracy, terrorism, and revolt - and into the orbit of a mysterious woman who may be the key to it all.
DMQZ Read the rest
My friend Jon Lebkowsky (an editor at bOING bOING and the co-founder of Fringe Ware) says, "Your Popeye post sent me to Amazon, where I discovered you can acquire old original issues of Mad Magazine (and various other comics, including Batman #1 and Superman #1) for the Kindle. Best of all, Mad #1 is free!" (It's also free on Comixology) Read the rest
Dream of Pixels reverses time on the best game of Tetris you ever had: a grid of blocks lies already complete, and you have to unpack the tetrominoes that fell to create it.
The iOS version is coming out on Thursday, but you can play the prototype—which lacks the full game's beautiful graphics‐for free on the web. At the official website, developers Dawn of Play promise 5 types of play, amazing music, and a "Zen"puzzle mode for people who like to take their time. [via Free Indie Games] Read the rest
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