In an effort to boost reading, Denmark is proposing to abolished their 25% VAT on books, the highest tax rate on books in the world. This would hit their government revenue stream for about 330 million kroner ($51 million) a year. The culture minister hopes that this will reduce the cost of books and encourage more people to read.

Denmark's VAT rate on books is a bit out of line. From the article: "Other Nordic countries also charge a standard rate of 25% VAT, but it does not apply to books. VAT on books in Finland is 14%, in Sweden 6% and in Norway zero.

Sweden reduced its VAT on books in 2001, resulting in a rise in book sales, but analysis found they were bought by existing readers.

“It is also about getting literature out there,” said Engel-Schmidt. “That is why we have already allocated money for strengthened cooperation between the country’s public libraries and schools, so that more children can be introduced to good literature.”

A total of 8.3m books were sold in shops and online in Denmark in 2023, according to the national statistics office. The country’s population is just over 6 million.

I don't know that people are reading as much as they used to. I can pull up the numbers of how many books my library has lent over time, but if I don't have the corresponding number of how many students and teachers we've had for the same years, that raw number sadly doesn't mean much.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/20/denmark-to-abolish-vat-on-books-in-effort-to-get-more-people-reading

https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/08/22/0031247/denmark-to-abolish-vat-on-books-to-get-more-people-reading

Terence Stamp was a notable actor who made his mark in many, many films. The first two Superman movies with Christopher Reeves, Star Wars Episode 1, Priscilla Queen of the Desert, His Dark Materials. Other work included a Federico Fellini film of an Edgar Allen Poe story, various voice work, Modesty Blaise, Young Guns, Bowfinger, Wanted, the Tom Cruise film Valkyrie, The Adjustment Bureau, Miss Peregrin's Home For Peculiar Children, and more. His final film was Last Night In Soho (2021).

THREE volumes of memoirs, a novel, and a cookbook were also amongst his accomplishments. His voiceover work included Elder Scrolls IV, Halo 3, documentary voiceover work, and music video appearances. He shared a house with Michael Caine before they both made it big! His brother, Chris, was a rock music producer and manager and was largely responsible for bring The Who to prominence! That's more of an interesting footnote since Terence probably didn't directly have an effect on that event. OR DID HE?

Among his awards and nominations were a Golden Globe Award, a Cannes Film Festival Award, and a Silver Bear (German) as well as nominations for an Academy Award and two BAFTA Awards.

He was a busy man.

https://gizmodo.com/superman-and-star-wars-actor-terence-stamp-dies-at-age-87-2000644162

This is really cool. Researchers found a bacterium that binds to CO very effectively and synthesized a protein that seeks it out in your blood, removing it from hemoglobin, which then lets the hemoglobin return to its normal job of carrying oxygen through your body! In mice tests, 50% of the CO was removed in ONE MINUTE. The bound CO is then removed through urine!

I'm guessing a double bag IV of the protein and saline to get the bag in and to increase the need to pee. Hopefully it could be part of a paramedic's kit.

According to the article, CO binds to hemoglobin 200-400x more effectively than oxygen, which is what makes CO poisoning so deadly. And the only treatment currently is flooding the victim with oxygen, often in a pressure chamber, which is still a slow process. In the US, there are 50,000 ER visits for CO poisoning and 1,500 deaths.

The question is, of course, how long until this makes it to market and how expensive will the treatment be.

https://newatlas.com/disease/first-antidote-carbon-monoxide-poisoning/

https://science.slashdot.org/story/25/08/14/0010227/first-antidote-for-carbon-monoxide-poisoning-cleans-blood-in-minutes

My first thought was 'AOL is still around?' Turns out that yes, it was. They had a terrible merger with Time-Warner, then were bought out by Verizon then are now owned by Yahoo? But they still exist. And until the end of September, will still have modem banks that people can access.

Modems? Modems are still made? I can't remember the last time I saw a modem in a store, much less connected to working hardware.

Apparently dial-up internet is still sort of big in rural areas, which makes sense. Not having DSL, much less fiber, dial-up is the best that can be managed. After AOL shuts down its modem banks, dial-up will still be available from Earthlink, Juno, MSN, and NetZero, and probably other smaller, local ISPs.

https://www.tomshardware.com/service-providers/network-providers/aol-will-end-dial-up-internet-service-in-september-34-years-after-its-debut-aol-shield-browser-and-aol-dialer-software-will-be-shuttered-on-the-same-day

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/08/10/0626249/aol-finally-discontinues-its-dial-up-internet-access---after-34-years

This is the puppy: a Canon SX740 point and shoot.

https://www.usa.canon.com/shop/p/powershot-sx740-hs?color=Black&type=New

I'm actually both ecstatic and annoyed! I've been on the 'notify me when it's in' list at the Canon web site for literally a couple of years, never heard a peep. So I get on the same list at B&H Photo, maybe six months ago. Complete absence of peeps. I called Canon and spoke with them, they said it's a very high-demand item as it's quite capable: ridiculously huge zoom range, 4K video with time-lapse, flip-up viewfinder, image stabilization, etc. And it's just a skosh over $500. So I waited patiently.

Monday I call B&H: their phone tree sent me straight into a group that deals exclusively with Canon point & shoots! I found that rather remarkable. And the guy tells me that whenever they receive an order, the whole thing goes towards backorders, that demand for it is huge.

He asks me if I have a backorder, I tell him I'm on the notify list as I didn't know about the backorder system. So I order one with the backorder, along with a case. He tells me that I can expect it within SIX WEEKS! Also, because of the amount, I'm getting two-day shipping, and they'll ship the case at the same time rather than in advance. I don't bother with a spare battery or a memory card, I have some extra cards.

Excellent! We're going to Nevada at the end of September for our annual little fan weekend/writer's conference! Should be here by then!

And this afternoon I get a FedEx notification. I've got a few things on order right now, ordering stuff seems to come in clusters, so I didn't think much of it. When I had an idle moment, I open up the email, and it's from B&H! My camera (and case) are arriving THURSDAY!!!!

[cue Happy Snoopy Dance!]

I've had two Lumix point and shoot cameras. One I bought a decade ago and took it on our European river cruise. It worked quite fine, but it wasn't exactly what I wanted. When I bought a second Lumix, a ZS-70, to replace it, I gave it to my youngest niece (now nephew) as he was interested in photography. The ZS-70 is an absolutely amazing camera, largely equal to the SX740, but it's a bit of a hanger queen. It developed problems not longer after I bought it and had to be repaired. Then a different set of problems, and they replaced it. And now the second set of problems have returned. It's just not very robust, and this camera is going to mostly live in my backpack. While it isn't going to be horribly abused, it's not going to be treated with kid gloves, so it needs to be a bit on the rugged side. Having shot Canon for 35 years, though never one of their point and shoots, and never had a problem with their bodies regardless of buying them new or used, I have confidence in their gear, which the Lumix hasn't demonstrated to me.

This one was an excellent exception and I heartily recommend it for a smile. Completely SFW.

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/lesson

Literally just a couple of weeks after his farewell blowout in London, Ozzy passed away last night, cause of death not disclosed, possibly not yet known. He suffered from Parkinson's, not to mention injuries from a late-night fall suffered not long ago and compounded from an extensive history of drug and alcohol use. He was 76.


https://www.huffpost.com/entry/ozzy-osbourne-dead_n_58d28a9fe4b0f838c62e57fd

The RS article may be behind a paywall:
www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ozzy-osbourne-black-sabbath-dead-obituary-1227265/

This is pretty cool.

Someone bought the remains of the Commodore company for "low 7 figures", hired back original engineers, and reinvented the machine via FPGA chipsets. There are three different models, all in the same basic form factor with the addition of USB and HDMI ports. The original ports are still there, so you can plug in that original CRT display and floppy disk drive that's sitting in an old box somewhere. All of the original games work, and they come with a spiral-bound manual and a USB drive with 50 LICENSED games on it!

The base model is currently $250 and is a plain beige case, more expensive models include a clear case with LED lighting and a founder's case that is spiffier yet, but still quite affordable. You will be charged for tariffs, and that charge may go up or be refunded if lowered before shipping.

The boxes are planned to ship in October but may slip. If you order one now, your card will be charged immediately but you can cancel and get refunded prior to shipment.

To connect to a CRT TV, you need to buy a cable adapter to connect to an edge card, it's designed for HDMI interface. It has 3x USB-A ports, 1x USB-C, WiFi and Ethernet and a MicroSD slot, and a headphone jack. And as expected, two DB-9 joystick ports, the datasette port, and the floppy disk drive port. That's fairly nicely equipped, all in all.

AND, in a shout-out to the originals, it has the original signatures inscribed in the cases and PC boards!

For $250-300, I think I may buy one. I never owned one, and I've considered getting a used one but I've balked at such old hardware. With this being new and warranted hardware, that reluctance is lifted. It would be interesting to do some 'low-level poking into the hardware' programming again, and theoretically I should be able to slave this into a KVM switch to share the monitor around.

https://www.commodore.net/

https://slashdot.org/story/25/07/19/0528234/after-30-years-you-can-buy-a-new-commodore-64-ultimate-for-299

This is the recipe that I used:
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/141169/easy-indian-butter-chicken/

The major prep is doing a fine dice on the onion and cutting up a pound and a half of chicken into bite-sized pieces. Not a terribly expensive recipe - if you have the spices - I'd guess the chicken, tomato sauce cost, and cream to be under $20 or so. I did not have the spices, so that cost me another $13ish, but those will be usable for a few more iterations. It also makes for a busy stove: I had three burners plus the oven going: rice, sauce, onion reduction, and the oven was cooking the chicken.

VERY high-fat recipe! A cup of butter and three cups of heavy cream! I made it with rice and there was way more sauce than needed, if I use this recipe again I'm going to cut the amount of sauce by at least a third. Milk Street has a recipe that uses some sort of cashew puree, I'll be investigating that.

VERY yummy recipe! But as I said, also quite high-fat.

Not long ago, Google released an update that slammed the batteries in the Pixel 4 phone. That phone had batteries from two different makers, and it was found that one of those batteries did not age gracefully, the update greatly reduced its ability to charge to reduce its likelihood of bursting into flames. They also offered various compensation schemes to get the battery replaced or retire and replace the phones, but the hoops they put in place for said compensation were rather onerous.

Well, the circle has come around again and now it's the 6a's turn. But this time, the phone isn't particularly old. This one still has two years of updates available, and the compensation is higher than what was offered to owners of the 4. But it appears that the terms are just as bad, you'll need to make sure the screen is absolutely perfect and that there's nothing else at all wrong with the phone and that you read all the fine print before you try to comply with any of the terms.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/a-mess-of-its-own-making-google-nerfs-second-pixel-phone-battery-this-year/

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/07/11/1921242/google-nerfs-second-pixel-phone-battery-this-year