ThinkGeek:

Short of whipping out a skillet and doing a quick fry-up, how can we enjoy that wonderful meaty sweet and smokey aroma without the temptation and subsequent belt-busting and heart-clogging richness of actual cured-pork ingestion? Bacon scented candles, of course!These premium scented candles are long-lasting and made from actual rendered bacon fat using a top-secret process that preserves bacon’s natural aromas and essential oils.

Mmm…Bacon. I have to imagine the only people who would buy these would be single guys. Would any woman allow you to fill up her home with the smell, however delicious, of bacon?

Hearing the commotion, Cisco came from the back yard and into the driveway, barking at the officer, as any dog would do. Mike’s hands in the air, a gun pointed at him, he was afraid for his life, and therefore could not move or attempt to quiet or restrain Cisco. He told the officer that Cisco would not bite him, to please not shoot his dog. Almost immediately, a bullet was put into Cisco’s chest, killing him instantly.

The cop was responding to a domestic dispute call, went to the wrong address and shot this poor guy’s dog.

Joshua Schnell:

Five minutes of fact checking online turned up five examples of Google abusing its power and doing things in direct contrast to a free and open web.

Bill Amend:

Announcing my simultaneous first steps into the worlds of e-books and self-publishing. I’m pretty excited. If you’re an iPad user who likes FoxTrot or who has a kid who likes FoxTrot, these are for you.I’m calling them FoxTrot Pad Packs, because I like the metaphor of collectable cards and how you build up your collection via booster packs. I made them myself using Apple’s free iBooks Author software. Each $1.99 book contains 100 strips, some old, some new, some story lines, some stand-alone jokes, some black and white dailies, some color Sundays. The idea is to create mini books that take maybe 20-30 minutes to read and which aren’t bogged down with a ton of outdated references, as happens with my older, chronologically arranged print books.

Most of us are fans of the strip and this looks like an interesting way to collect a variety of them.

Cards includes a few new categories and templates, including one for Mother’s Day.

Amazing.

Dedicated runners keep a detailed log of all of their runs. But keeping a running journal can be tedious. You have to enter data like route names and distances over and over. LogMyRun for iPhone streamlines the process and eliminates the tedium. LogMyRun also makes it easy to share your runs with your teammates and friends via email and Twitter.

Cast your vote on the most relevant Apple stories of the day. Predict how others in the community will vote. Win when you’re right. Get the free Scoople app.

I’ve been using this app for quite a while and am liking it.

Matt Peckham for TIME.com:

If you own the highway as well as several of the vehicles that use it, is it fair to tax everyone except your drivers? That’s essentially what Comcast did when it decided to exempt its TV-based Xfinity “On Demand” service for the Xbox 360 from counting against periodic data caps, effectively un-leveling the playing field. Comcast’s defense: The service is delivered over its private IP network, not the public Internet.Should that exempt Comcast? Absolutely not, according to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings. “Comcast no longer following net neutrality principles,” writes Hastings on his Facebook page. “Comcast should apply caps equally, or not at all.”

I doubt Comcast is going to get a lot of complaints from its own customers that it’s offering them “favored nation” status, but Hastings is right – it’s the principle of the thing, and this is what some activists who are concerned over net neutrality feared would happen.

Larry Jordan:

Apple began providing “advanced looks” as part of the roll-out to the launch of FCP X and wanted to continue letting us know what’s coming. (I think this is a great idea, because it helps us plan.)Here are the bullet points (none of this was demoed):– Multichannel Audio Editing Tools – Dual Viewers – MXF Plug-in Support – RED camera support

Fox News:

A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) official has been charged after being accused of stealing eight iPads from luggage at Dallas/Fort Worth International airport.

Erin Griffith for PandoDaily:

But, especially with Squarespace 6, Casalena said the platform is ready for adoption from publishers of any size. Version five, while excellent, “wasn’t a developer’s dream come true because they couldn’t get into all the code,” he said. The new version is more open for developers. The company is completely capable of hosting high volume sites and is building out programs comparable to WordPress’s support staff.

I’m beta testing Squarespace 6 and I really like what I see so far. There are some functionality things that I’m not too sure about yet, but I expect this to be a really big rollout.

Many thanks to Pixelmator for sponsoring The Loop’s RSS feed this week.

Pixelmator – beautifully designed, easy-to-use, fast and powerful image editing app for Mac OS X.

Jim and Dan talk about bad customer service, collusion, WWDC, false spam, mug censorship, and crunchy guitar tones.Sponsored by Harvest and EveryMe.

For those that said they liked my laugh, you have to listen to the beginning of this show.

Brent Dirks:

My utter disgust at Spotify’s inability to produce an official iPad client has been well documented. And Petriv, an interactive UI/UX designer and developer from New York, is taking it upon himself to beat Spotify to the punch.

Florian Mueller, FOSS Patents:

…Today, finally, Apple’s motion was granted in part: “Apple is permitted to intervene in this suit, but such intervention is limited to the issues of patent exhaustion and licensing.”Judge Rodney Gilstrap concluded that Apple was entitled to intervene, and in any event, a permissive intervention (one that the court can allow in its discretion) was also an option.

Lodsys is a patent troll who last year tried to sue iOS app developers for patent infringement. Lodsys says that in-app purchases violated its patents.

With this ruling, Apple is allowed to exercise a measure of protection to shield developers who otherwise might have been exposed to such suits.

Reached for comment, an Apple spokeswoman said the company is not working on a new product with Starck.

If he was working on a project with Apple, he isn’t any more.

Federico Viticci:

With third-party developers, however, adoption of iCloud sync and storage features has turned out to be a bit tricker, and possibly less intuitive than Apple’s own implementation due to the early nature of the platform.

I’m hoping this gets easier for developers. I rely on iCloud and would like to use it even more.

Instarchive:

There’s been a lot of talk about Instagram lately. We’re pretty sure the sky isn’t falling, but you should always have a backup, so we built this little tool for you.It’s called Instarchive, sign into your Instagram account and we’ll send your photos down to your computer in a convenient zip file. It’s quick and easy, we hope you like it.

Hat tip to Daring Fireball.

Jeff John Roberts for paidContent:

District Judge Edward Da Vila responded to Apple’s request by upholding four of the parents’ five claims, including allegations that Apple violated consumer protection laws by falsely marketing the apps as free:“Contrary to Apple’s argument, Plaintiffs have alleged with specificity which misrepresentations they were exposed to, their reliance on those misrepresentations, and the resulting harm. Plaintiffs pled specific facts that Apple “actively advertis[ed], market[ed] and promot[ed] its bait Apps as ‘free’ or nominal .”The ruling was issued last week but didn’t attract attention until Seattle tech lawyer Venkat Balasubramani wrote about it on Eric Goldman’s Law and Marketing Blog.

The next step is for Apple to file its defense, which it will do late next month.

Apple came under fire after some users – mainly children playing games – racked up large bills by making in-app purchases following the download of a game. Initially, Apple did not require users to re-input a password to make in-app purchases within 15 minutes of downloading the game.

Pebble E-Paper Watch:

The Pebble is an “electronic” watch with an e-paper display. It vibrates, has a three-axis accelerometer and contains Bluetooth 2.1+ EDR for connecting to your phone. Battery life is seven days and is charged via USB.The beauty of the Pebble Watch will be the apps and customization – everything from different styles of watch faces to all kinds of apps.

Amazingly, this Kickstarter project is fully funded already with over $2 million dollars pledged and still 35 days left to go.

Cool Material:

The Craft Beer App has (deep breath): an enormous database of craft beer (from all 50 states), beer podcasts, beer videos, beer descriptions, reviews, ratings and food pairing recommendations. Most importantly, it will locate your favorite craft beers around your location. Want an Allagash White, like, yesterday? Done. Left Hand Milk Stout? No problem.The availability obviously depends on your location, but it’s easily the best use of geo-location to date. Besides, what else are you going to do in the car/bus/cab? Draw something? This is obviously better.

Mmmm…beer.

My dog sends me texts. I post them here. Yeah, it’s weird.

I couldn’t help but laugh at a few of them.

“The DOJ’s accusation of collusion against Apple is simply not true. The launch of the iBookstore in 2010 fostered innovation and competition, breaking Amazon’s monopolistic grip on the publishing industry. Since then customers have benefited from eBooks that are more interactive and engaging. Just as we’ve allowed developers to set prices on the App Store, publishers set prices on the iBookstore.”

Jason Snell:

Thursday marks the 20th anniversary of the venerable Mac text-editing app BBEdit. I’m sure there are other apps not published by a gigantic company that have managed to last as long, but I’m not sure that any app has changed with the times and remained as relevant as BBEdit.

I’ve been using BBEdit for 18 years to build Web sites and do my daily writing. It is an indispensable tool.

Congrats to Rich and the crew at Bare Bones Software and thanks for such a great piece of software.

TechCrunch:

Livestream, the live video streaming service, is announcing an interesting new product: a $495 hardware encoder that can be connected to virtually any camera and that can stream HD video directly to the Web through a WiFi connection or most USB wireless modems.The small device is fully integrated into the new Livestream platform. The purchase price includes three months of free access to Livestream’s ad-free HD streaming service (normally $45/month). Livestream describes the device as “the industry’s first affordable unlimited ad-free HD live streaming end-to-end solution.”

This could be a very exciting piece of tech for broadcast geeks. It would allow them to quickly and easily get high quality video streamed live to the web.

The New York Times:

The government’s decision to pursue major publishers on antitrust charges has put the Internet retailer Amazon in a powerful position: the nation’s largest bookseller may now get to decide how much an e-book will cost, and the book world is quaking over the potential consequences.Amazon, which already controls about 60 percent of the e-book market, can take a loss on every book it sells to gain market share for its Kindle devices. When it has enough competitive advantage, it can dictate its own terms, something publishers say is beginning to happen.

This is a story with a lot of different angles and repercussions depending on your point of view.