links for 2010-08-25

A (reportedly) rare look at Trader Joe's, grocery darling. It's owned by Aldi Nord, which is a story in itself. "Trader" Joe Coulombe "doesn't remember" how much he sold the chain for in 1979.

Michael Zimmer details the steps of opting out of Facebook Places, as his wife struggles with the process. Until you've opted out, you can be checked into locations by your friends, and those check-ins remain even after opting out unless you manually delete them.

Esther Dyson discusses the future of search as more action-oriented and vertical. I know that's been the future for at least five years now, but I still believe. Great Bill Gates quote: "The future of search is verbs." Bing!

Robert Darnton reviews Lewis Hyde's new book about considering intellectual property from a constitutional perspective. Sounds good!

Charles and David Koch are multi-billionaire Obama opponents and shadowy Tea Party supporters. They're responsible for huge amounts of environmental damage, and funding bad science to cover that up. If they were from anywhere other than Wichita, they'd almost certainly be Bond villains