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So they want total control over the next generation?

No. They're trying to protect a dead business model. Not the same thing by a long shot.

They're greedy and stupid, but their motivation is profit, not political control. Their efforts to lobby Congress and sway the courts are designed to keep an industry built around middlemen from imploding. However, they are also trying other approaches as well (striking iTunes distribution deals with Apple, for example).

The RIAA/MPAA know that their lawsuits are unpopular, but at the moment they haven't found an approach that (in their minds) does a better job of protecting their profits. They'd rather not spend all that money on litigation, but they feel compelled to do so at the moment. Once one of the labels gets smart and breaks ranks, then makes gobs of money by treating customers like customers rather than criminals, the rest will follow.

Also, Orwell was referring to state control, not corporate control. If you want to wallow in some good corporate dystopia, check out Ambient by Jack Womack.

Does this mean that Disney cartoons will only have one mouse?

No, they'll still have many mice, but Mickey's red shorts will only have one button. ;)

Thing is, most of those libertarian hard scientists become liberals or conservatives when they eventually get girlfriends and reproduce, and see the value in cooperating with other humans rather than hiding out in their parent's basements alone.

Well, you've just proven that you don't understand anything about (L|l)ibertarianism. Nothing about being a (l|L)ibertarian is imcompatible with "cooperating with other humans rather than hiding out in their parent's basements alone."

(L|l)ibertarians only assert that no one can be **forced** to cooperate with anyone else. People are free to **voluntarily** cooperate with whomever they choose, for whatever end they choose. Or they are also free to hide out in the basement, if that is what they **choose**.

That's the essense of (L|l)ibertarianism distilled into a nutshell: no one can use force or fraud to compell someone else to take any action, or to take their property, or otherwise violate their rights. Voluntary cooperation for the "greater good" of groups is absolutely accepted and encouraged.

Just to look at one small example, see the Libertarian Party position on Welfare and Poverty and look at a snippet:

We should eliminate the entire social welfare system. This includes eliminating AFDC, food stamps, subsidized housing, and all the rest. Individuals who are unable to fully support themselves and their families through the job market must, once again, learn to rely on supportive family, church, community, or private charity to bridge the gap.

I think families, churches, communities and private charities fulfilling the role of social welfare certainly constitutes "cooperating with other humans."

'Cause, you know one thing that libertarianism creates? Legalized Enron.

Wrong. (L|l)ibertarianism does not accept the use of fraud to steal money from people. The only real controversy about this is among (L|l)ibertarians who don't always agree on exactly how to regulate companies to prevent Enron type incidents. At either rate, the current system didn't prevent Enron from stealing a bazillion dollars and raping many retirement funds, and most of those people will never get their money back. So how exactly would moving to a (L|l)ibertarian model make an Enron any worse than it already is?

I should add however, that (L|l)ibertarians would hold that an individual has a responsibility to do "due diligence" on any investment, and we do generally see a distinction between being defrauded and just being (or acting) stupid and then expecting somebody to bail you out. Investments are not guaranteed to increase in value, they all have risk... so anyone who invests in stock has to understand this and should not expect a refund anytime they lose money because they made poor decisions. Now clearly Enron did defraud people, but at the same time, there *were* warning signs that should have warned smart investors away from Enron before the stock crashed. Some analysts were issuing warnings some time before the big fall. See "The Smartest Guys In The Room", "Power Failure", or "Conspiracy of Fools" for more details.

Thing is, most of those libertarian hard scientists become liberals or conservatives when they eventually get girlfriends and reproduce, and see the value in cooperating with other humans rather than hiding out in their parent's basements alone.

Well, you've just proven that you don't understand anything about (L|l)ibertarianism. Nothing about being a (l|L)ibertarian is imcompatible with "cooperating with other humans rather than hiding out in their parent's basements alone."

(L|l)ibertarians only assert that no one can be **forced** to cooperate with anyone else. People are free to **voluntarily** cooperate with whomever they choose, for whatever end they choose. Or they are also free to hide out in the basement, if that is what they **choose**.

That's the essense of (L|l)ibertarianism distilled into a nutshell: no one can use force or fraud to compell someone else to take any action, or to take their property, or otherwise violate their rights. Voluntary cooperation for the "greater good" of groups is absolutely accepted and encouraged.

Just to look at one small example, see the Libertarian Party position on Welfare and Poverty and look at a snippet:

We should eliminate the entire social welfare system. This includes eliminating AFDC, food stamps, subsidized housing, and all the rest. Individuals who are unable to fully support themselves and their families through the job market must, once again, learn to rely on supportive family, church, community, or private charity to bridge the gap.

I think families, churches, communities and private charities fulfilling the role of social welfare certainly constitutes "cooperating with other humans."

'Cause, you know one thing that libertarianism creates? Legalized Enron.

Wrong. (L|l)ibertarianism does not accept the use of fraud to steal money from people. The only real controversy about this is among (L|l)ibertarians who don't always agree on exactly how to regulate companies to prevent Enron type incidents. At either rate, the current system didn't prevent Enron from stealing a bazillion dollars and raping many retirement funds, and most of those people will never get their money back. So how exactly would moving to a (L|l)ibertarian model make an Enron any worse than it already is?

I should add however, that (L|l)ibertarians would hold that an individual has a responsibility to do "due diligence" on any investment, and we do generally see a distinction between being defrauded and just being (or acting) stupid and then expecting somebody to bail you out. Investments are not guaranteed to increase in value, they all have risk... so anyone who invests in stock has to understand this and should not expect a refund anytime they lose money because they made poor decisions. Now clearly Enron did defraud people, but at the same time, there *were* warning signs that should have warned smart investors away from Enron before the stock crashed. Some analysts were issuing warnings some time before the big fall. See "The Smartest Guys In The Room", "Power Failure", or "Conspiracy of Fools" for more details.

Thing is, most of those libertarian hard scientists become liberals or conservatives when they eventually get girlfriends and reproduce, and see the value in cooperating with other humans rather than hiding out in their parent's basements alone.

Well, you've just proven that you don't understand anything about (L|l)ibertarianism. Nothing about being a (l|L)ibertarian is imcompatible with "cooperating with other humans rather than hiding out in their parent's basements alone."

(L|l)ibertarians only assert that no one can be **forced** to cooperate with anyone else. People are free to **voluntarily** cooperate with whomever they choose, for whatever end they choose. Or they are also free to hide out in the basement, if that is what they **choose**.

That's the essense of (L|l)ibertarianism distilled into a nutshell: no one can use force or fraud to compell someone else to take any action, or to take their property, or otherwise violate their rights. Voluntary cooperation for the "greater good" of groups is absolutely accepted and encouraged.

Just to look at one small example, see the Libertarian Party position on Welfare and Poverty and look at a snippet:

We should eliminate the entire social welfare system. This includes eliminating AFDC, food stamps, subsidized housing, and all the rest. Individuals who are unable to fully support themselves and their families through the job market must, once again, learn to rely on supportive family, church, community, or private charity to bridge the gap.

I think families, churches, communities and private charities fulfilling the role of social welfare certainly constitutes "cooperating with other humans."

'Cause, you know one thing that libertarianism creates? Legalized Enron.

Wrong. (L|l)ibertarianism does not accept the use of fraud to steal money from people. The only real controversy about this is among (L|l)ibertarians who don't always agree on exactly how to regulate companies to prevent Enron type incidents. At either rate, the current system didn't prevent Enron from stealing a bazillion dollars and raping many retirement funds, and most of those people will never get their money back. So how exactly would moving to a (L|l)ibertarian model make an Enron any worse than it already is?

I should add however, that (L|l)ibertarians would hold that an individual has a responsibility to do "due diligence" on any investment, and we do generally see a distinction between being defrauded and just being (or acting) stupid and then expecting somebody to bail you out. Investments are not guaranteed to increase in value, they all have risk... so anyone who invests in stock has to understand this and should not expect a refund anytime they lose money because they made poor decisions. Now clearly Enron did defraud people, but at the same time, there *were* warning signs that should have warned smart investors away from Enron before the stock crashed. Some analysts were issuing warnings some time before the big fall. See "The Smartest Guys In The Room", "Power Failure", or "Conspiracy of Fools" for more details.

I'm left wondering two things: where do they learn these "innovative" problem solving methods, and what the fuck ARE they learning in high school?

Steven Johnson, in his book Everything Bad Is Good For You, would argue that they are learning these "innovative" problem solving methods from video games, television and the Internet. (I think he has some articles about it online as well.)

With apologies for straying off-topic to answer...

BTW, can you point to online info about IQ test norming?

The notorious but well-written and methodically researched 'The Bell Curve' http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684824299/002-21 85531-9075203?v=glance&n=283155 also springs to mind, if your interested in the intersection of race and racism with intelligence testing.

For a casual historical introduction Wikipedia covers the basic history and common instruments, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence_quotient , as well as the specific topic of race and intelligence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence .

I'm particularly interested in historical data about the levels to which common instruments were normed in prior decades.

I'd say that the converse is true. Sony still has very appealing designs but the build quality and component reliability suck.

I'd say that the converse is true. Sony still has very appealing designs but the build quality and component reliability suck.

Ever whipped out a calculator when trying to pay a tab at a restaurant?

Calculator? Why yes I have. And I am ashamed to say that I am a lazy college graduate.

It's an odd situation that humans are so expert at navigating their way through three-dimensional space, which suggests some familiarity with mathematics, and yet we are so uncomfortable with numbers, and math is dreaded in schools in a way no other subject ever is. Paulos's classic work Innumeracy shows that the average man suffers from a serious lack of interest or skill with mathematics, and as a result we're victim to all manner of scams and failures. So, an article title like "Humans Hard-wired for Geometry" makes us really seem more competent than we actually are, since this simple ability to amble about doesn't actually give any useful skills with numbers.

I can't explain the left vs. right brain espects of it, but... The author and artist Betty Edwards can and does in her book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain (which, imho is a great read for any accomplished artists, and also any person who'd like to improve their skills in drawing from observation)

I guess Gilliam bailed out - funding I Imagine.
But wee free men (and maurice and a hat full of sky) would be nice, they are fun offshoots from the discworld series that would lend themselves well to film - for that matter the bromeliad trilogy (truckers, diggers, and thieves) would be great as well. Seems like the main discworld strain would be spottyish - I think that all the guards and the witch books would do well, as well as some of the standalone ones, especially small gods..

I guess Gilliam bailed out - funding I Imagine.
But wee free men (and maurice and a hat full of sky) would be nice, they are fun offshoots from the discworld series that would lend themselves well to film - for that matter the bromeliad trilogy (truckers, diggers, and thieves) would be great as well. Seems like the main discworld strain would be spottyish - I think that all the guards and the witch books would do well, as well as some of the standalone ones, especially small gods..

I guess Gilliam bailed out - funding I Imagine.
But wee free men (and maurice and a hat full of sky) would be nice, they are fun offshoots from the discworld series that would lend themselves well to film - for that matter the bromeliad trilogy (truckers, diggers, and thieves) would be great as well. Seems like the main discworld strain would be spottyish - I think that all the guards and the witch books would do well, as well as some of the standalone ones, especially small gods..

• Start with the HTML validator at W3C and use HTML 4.01 as your target for HTML. This will ensure that most browsers will be able to read your web pages.
• If you are REALLY paranoid you may go for HTML 3.2, but personally I think that it is to stretch it too far.
• Second stage is to check JavaScript version and make sure that you use the right version. E.g. <script language="javascript1.2" type="text/javascript"></script>.
• O'Reilly's book JavaScript: The Definitive Guide is really helpful. It contains examples of how to determine JavaScript version if you need to use features from a newer JavaScript in some cases.
• Whatever you do - DO NOT USE VBSCRIPT/JScript! (Except if you want to catch special quirks with IE).
• Firefox contains two good tools that are really helpful when doing Javascript, the JavaScript console and the DOM Inspector. Of course - you will still need to verify against the older browsers too, but you will get a good start.
• Use JavaScript to warn the user (in a nice manner) that there may be some problems with the browser used.
• Be careful with the use of CSS. It is useful, and can make your HTML more 'clean'. The backside is that not all browsers handles CSS the same way.
• When specifying sizes - always use specify the size unit.
  The following three alternatives produces different result, and it may also depend on your browser:

  <span style="font-size: 10px;">Hello</span><br>
  <span style="font-size: 10pt;">Hello</span><br>
  <span style="font-size: 10;">Hello (invalid - unit must be used)</span><br>
  

  Validate the CSS you are using through the CSS Validator

• Double-check for script errors in other browsers since there are differences in the handling even though two different browsers may support the same scripting. For example - IE does not allow JavaScript to focus a hidden field while Firefox does.
• Put almost all JavaScript source in an external file and don't embed it into the web page. This will make the page a lot cleaner! The same goes for CSS.
• When specifying a font in CSS, give a list of fonts and end the list with one of the following; "Proportional", "Serif", "Sans-serif" or "Monospace". This will ensure that the page is displayed with a look&feel that resembles your intent.
• ALWAYS specify the content type so that the correct character set is used! E.g.: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">. W3C specifies that if it isn't given UTF-8 shall be used, but different browsers behaves differently here! Use ISO-8859-1 or UTF-8 even if your page is in plain US-ASCII, since both are supersets of US-ASCII and you may be using a symbol outside the US-ASCII range without realizing it!

The 'Nemesis' theory is decades old, Isaac Asimov even wrote a book using this premise in the '80s!

When you are scooped by a work of fiction that is over 16 years old, you either have some serious problems with you research dept. or it is a VERY slow news day.

I never asked for examples of why the book sucked. In fact, I never mentioned if I like the book or not. I asked for someone with some crypto knowledge to give their opinions on whether the idea behind rolling clear text was possible.

You need to work on your reading comprehension. You might want to start Here.

Hey davidsyes, the library called and they want their book back.

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

NDS Metroid Pinball comes with a Rumble Pack that fits into the GBA slot. I know that Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time has support for the Rumble Pack as well - not sure about other games.

How about the book Dereliction of Duty, authored by the man that carried the "nuclear football" and witnessed first hand the seriousness of the Clinton administrations' effect on national security. Or even Unlimited Access

Gah, I hate how I get baited into off-topic politics.

How about the book Dereliction of Duty, authored by the man that carried the "nuclear football" and witnessed first hand the seriousness of the Clinton administrations' effect on national security. Or even Unlimited Access

Gah, I hate how I get baited into off-topic politics.

If by Tribbles you mean Martian Flat Cats,
and by David Gerrold you mean Robert Heinlein...

You decide...

kulakovich

Don't flame me if I have my facts wrong here, but I heard somewhere that early Christianity did believe in reincarnation, but that it got suppressed after awhile. And it's the The Church Of The Latterday Saints, or something (again, don't flame me for factual inaccuracy), that believe that Jesus was reborn in North America. Not that I'm trying claim that this "proves" reincarnation, you understand.

I think a more accurate view would be that people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to end up as programmers and engineers because of the lack of educational opportunities in those areas.

Actually, I think and even more accurate view would be that people tend to want to fit in with those they identify with. Call it cultural inertia, but dumping educational opportunities into poor communities doesn't make as big an impact as one would like to believe. In general, the culture in those areas ridicule intellect and honest ambition. I'll leave it to someone else to hypothesize why it got that way, but the end result is that children from those communities reject becoming like outsiders, as it might feel they are "selling out".

Even if the kids are moved to a better area, if they are recognizably different (e.g. black) they are likely to latch on to others that they see as similar. If that subculture is not education oriented, they won't be either. However, if the child has nobody obvious to identify with on race, they may choose to identify with some other group -- say "nerds" or "jocks" or whatever, and will likely pick up habits and culture from those groups.

It works both ways, as the more intellectual Asian and Jewish cultures tend to maintain their identity even when mixed in with any variety of other cultures with varying degrees of intellectual respect.

I recommend The Nurture Assumption for some insightful thoughts on this topic.

Cheers.

Your argument about racism is well-worn - you should read The Mismeasure of Man, by Stephen Jay Gould, for an alternate perspective on the idea of "group IQ". In short, it sounds plausible (and perhaps appealing or convenient to some) that the average IQ of different racial groups could follow a bell curve, but it doesn't actually turn out to be that way in reality.

...unjust war and unneccessary application of the death penalty to be as big of a sin as abortion or euthanasia...

I agree, and I think all of my Christian friends do, though many of us would allow euthanasia if a family desires to withhold special/medical treatment (passive euthanasia).

...the word "Trinity" cannot be found in scripture...

Are you using that as an argument? Given two distinct languages, especially vastly destinct with little overlap or carryover, there will always be ideas and things that aren't summarized by a single word in both languages. Many words and phrases in Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek have no word-for-word equivalent in Latin or English. BTW, do you think the translation of the Bible as the Latin Volgate is inspired, inerrent, or infallible? Many words are given a full-bodied definition, and the "members" of that body can be derived from various sources and locations in source material (e.g., the 66 books of the Bible). The one word-label for the result of the systematic theology of the nature and persons of God, the result being a culmination of truth from the texts speaking on the subject matter: prooftexts that the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit, and visa versa visa, that each is God and eternal, that there is no other God, that one talks to the other (e.g., not my will, but thine be done), one sends the other (I will send another in my name...the Comforter), the baptism of Jesus where the Spirit appears as a dove descending upon him and the Father says This is my son...etc. It doesn't take a genius, Creed, Council, Confession, Tradition, or Pope for a common reader to put the pieces together while hearing or reading the source material. The reader can accumulate the pieces of the definition and assign a simple word to it all if he so chooses; "Trinity" just happens to be by far the most popular/accepted one.

Real Roman Catholics recognize that Vatican II was an ecumenical council- and thus is binding. The heretical extremes are not important- the wide center follows the Pope, First Among Equals, the Vicarius Fillis Christus.

The same type of argument can be used by Protestants following the ecumenical Creeds, the Councils such as the explicit sovereignty of God in all things such as prayer as stated in the Council of Orange, and the Confessions of the Reformation: Westminster, the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, The Heidelberg Catechism, The Canons of Dordt), etc.

The Jesus Seminar

Don't even Catholic scholars consider the members of that seminar to be self-deceived idiots?

Regarding dating the book of Revelation: Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0915815435/ and The Beast of Revelation http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0915815419/

...unjust war and unneccessary application of the death penalty to be as big of a sin as abortion or euthanasia...

I agree, and I think all of my Christian friends do, though many of us would allow euthanasia if a family desires to withhold special/medical treatment (passive euthanasia).

...the word "Trinity" cannot be found in scripture...

Are you using that as an argument? Given two distinct languages, especially vastly destinct with little overlap or carryover, there will always be ideas and things that aren't summarized by a single word in both languages. Many words and phrases in Hebrew, Aramaic and Koine Greek have no word-for-word equivalent in Latin or English. BTW, do you think the translation of the Bible as the Latin Volgate is inspired, inerrent, or infallible? Many words are given a full-bodied definition, and the "members" of that body can be derived from various sources and locations in source material (e.g., the 66 books of the Bible). The one word-label for the result of the systematic theology of the nature and persons of God, the result being a culmination of truth from the texts speaking on the subject matter: prooftexts that the Father is not the Son nor the Holy Spirit, and visa versa visa, that each is God and eternal, that there is no other God, that one talks to the other (e.g., not my will, but thine be done), one sends the other (I will send another in my name...the Comforter), the baptism of Jesus where the Spirit appears as a dove descending upon him and the Father says This is my son...etc. It doesn't take a genius, Creed, Council, Confession, Tradition, or Pope for a common reader to put the pieces together while hearing or reading the source material. The reader can accumulate the pieces of the definition and assign a simple word to it all if he so chooses; "Trinity" just happens to be by far the most popular/accepted one.

Real Roman Catholics recognize that Vatican II was an ecumenical council- and thus is binding. The heretical extremes are not important- the wide center follows the Pope, First Among Equals, the Vicarius Fillis Christus.

The same type of argument can be used by Protestants following the ecumenical Creeds, the Councils such as the explicit sovereignty of God in all things such as prayer as stated in the Council of Orange, and the Confessions of the Reformation: Westminster, the Three Forms of Unity (Belgic Confession, The Heidelberg Catechism, The Canons of Dordt), etc.

The Jesus Seminar

Don't even Catholic scholars consider the members of that seminar to be self-deceived idiots?

Regarding dating the book of Revelation: Before Jerusalem Fell: Dating the Book of Revelation http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0915815435/ and The Beast of Revelation http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0915815419/

An obscure punctuation mark which doesn't exist BTW.

Or, to clarify, it has as much existence as cattle mutilations, UFO abductions, intelligent design or astrology. Which is to say that while it has a marginal mindshare, typographists never used it, and aparently never will.

So while it's nowadays easy to create silly looking stuff (such as corporate letters in Comic Sans) it doesn't mean that those are part of any established typographical standard.

You might want to read "Eat, shoots, and leaves" (plain Amazon link) which apprently is also popular in the US for further insight on punctuation mayhem in English.

Disclaimer: I'm French, I just happen to speak English, sorry about that.

Make a web page. State your areas of specialty. Give a mission statement and post samples of your work. Explain how technical writers equal cost savings and work safety. Explain how hiring a professional technical writer can save money in client tech support by ensuring quality and palatability of the prose and layout. Give examples of places you've worked and how you improved their workflow. Ask former clients kindly for testimonials. Associate yourself with a guild like the STC or a local faction since this is often the first place prospective employers will look (or at least troll their job listings). It's a fact of life, however, that the people who need tech writers the most don't know that they need them. It sucks, but nothing beats cold calling business that reflect your specific areas of expertise. Throwing a few bucks to Google AdWords couldn't hurt either.

Check out Managing Your Documentation Projects by Joanne Hackos (or just read the first few pages) for some great selling points to quote to potential clients.

Make a web page. State your areas of specialty. Give a mission statement and post samples of your work. Explain how technical writers equal cost savings and work safety. Explain how hiring a professional technical writer can save money in client tech support by ensuring quality and palatability of the prose and layout. Give examples of places you've worked and how you improved their workflow. Ask former clients kindly for testimonials. Associate yourself with a guild like the STC or a local faction since this is often the first place prospective employers will look (or at least troll their job listings). It's a fact of life, however, that the people who need tech writers the most don't know that they need them. It sucks, but nothing beats cold calling business that reflect your specific areas of expertise. Throwing a few bucks to Google AdWords couldn't hurt either.

Check out Managing Your Documentation Projects by Joanne Hackos (or just read the first few pages) for some great selling points to quote to potential clients.

Now the marketing juggernaut of Harry Potter is another thing entirely, but that's not Rowling's creature. It's instructive to look at Rushdie's book Fury and the whole Little Brain sequence of events. It's very similar to what Rowling is going through, I'd imagine.

Your creation takes on a life of its own, a puppet master to soulless marketeers who have no connection nor empathy to the creation, only viewing it as a money making tool.

Clancy on the other hand. . . yeah. His Op Center stuff and the other crap he's been pulling (Tom Clancy presents. . . .) is really annoying. Shameful, even. Which is a shame, as some of his books (Without Remorse, Red Storm Rising to name two) are absolutely fantastic.

I'd look at Robert Jordan as another author who seems to be interested in the dollar rather than the story. That or he's simply lost control. Either way it amounts to the same thing, a story that gets progressively weaker and one I've lost any interest in reading. Give me the cliff's notes. I'll read the reviews about the final book and if it's overwhelmingly praised I'll consider reading the rest.

Sorry. The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture (Hardcover) (Clicky-pops).

Great read - you'll learn a lot about the history of the search buisness. Slashdot probably did a book review, but I hate trying to find old /. articles.

Looks like you'll be needing this then: How To Survive a Robot Uprising : Tips on Defending Yourself Against the Coming Rebellion

They DO order in bulk--for books that will sell. Actually, Amazon is probably the only place a small publisher like you has a chance at all. Why in heaven's name would they want to buy from you in bulk? They know your self-published wonder book isn't going to sell. It would be stupid for them to buy in large quantity.

First of all, my 'wonder book' is one of several which sell in the thousands of copies. Yes, I'm small press, but I've generated about a half million dollars in retail sales.

Second, my sales track record with Amazon over a one year association with them saw about 200 unit sales. Again, not a big deal, but big enough I would think to earn an average of more than 1 or 2 copies per book per purchase order. (P.O.'s which they sent almost weekly for a whole year.) For this they demanded a 50% discount. It would have made a lot more sense for them to order a whole case of books once every two months rather than annoy my shipping department with silly orders.

Now, as to the fact that Amazon does not pay shipping. First of all, what does that have to do with anything? Neither does any bookstore.

It makes all the difference! --And actually, bookstores DO pay for shipping. If they want to stock their shelves, they have to pay the truck driver like everybody else. Amazon, however, required me to ship books to their sorting plants on my dime. The math worked like this. . .

On a 2 book purchase order, after giving a 50% discount, I grossed an average of about $12. Okay. Now, to ship those 2 books to Amazon via air mail, including packaging, it cost me around $10. --The price to print those two books was about $6, which leaves me in the hole to the tune of about $4 per order. This is why bulk discounts should only ever apply to bulk purchases. After a year of this nonsense, on sales which would normally have netted $800 or so, I ended up losing around $200. That's bad math!

--However because I paid to ship the books to Amazon, and because their customers paid to ship the books from Amazon. . , disregarding their sorting costs, Amazon made about $2000 from my work. I'm not inventing this. This is how it really works! I couldn't believe just how ridiculous Amazon was, when all the while, I was engaged in real and rational business deals with all my other distributors.

You see, every other book distributor I've ever dealt pays for shipping from me to them. Brodart Co., for instance, has a universal UPS account which it gives out to each publisher. I use this number to ship books to them, and they get the bill. If you have, as you say, worked in wholesale book sales, you would know that this kind of practice, or similar, is the industry standard. --And the distributor doesn't lose out, because they then charge the retailers and libraries who order from them to ship books the rest of the way along the chain. So in the end, the only people paying for the shipping are the end customers, which makes sense. Amazon, however, has somehow managed to put a hiccup in this practice without anybody even realizing it.

You're still claiming Amazon is skimming 40-50%, but the numbers simply do not add up. They only GET a 40-50% discount, they can't therefore also TAKE it. I couldn't find a paperback with LESS than a full 20% discount

Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Cover price, $5.99 Amazon price, $5.99
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Cover price, $6.99 Amazon price, $6.99

They DO order in bulk--for books that will sell. Actually, Amazon is probably the only place a small publisher like you has a chance at all. Why in heaven's name would they want to buy from you in bulk? They know your self-published wonder book isn't going to sell. It would be stupid for them to buy in large quantity.

First of all, my 'wonder book' is one of several which sell in the thousands of copies. Yes, I'm small press, but I've generated about a half million dollars in retail sales.

Second, my sales track record with Amazon over a one year association with them saw about 200 unit sales. Again, not a big deal, but big enough I would think to earn an average of more than 1 or 2 copies per book per purchase order. (P.O.'s which they sent almost weekly for a whole year.) For this they demanded a 50% discount. It would have made a lot more sense for them to order a whole case of books once every two months rather than annoy my shipping department with silly orders.

Now, as to the fact that Amazon does not pay shipping. First of all, what does that have to do with anything? Neither does any bookstore.

It makes all the difference! --And actually, bookstores DO pay for shipping. If they want to stock their shelves, they have to pay the truck driver like everybody else. Amazon, however, required me to ship books to their sorting plants on my dime. The math worked like this. . .

On a 2 book purchase order, after giving a 50% discount, I grossed an average of about $12. Okay. Now, to ship those 2 books to Amazon via air mail, including packaging, it cost me around $10. --The price to print those two books was about $6, which leaves me in the hole to the tune of about $4 per order. This is why bulk discounts should only ever apply to bulk purchases. After a year of this nonsense, on sales which would normally have netted $800 or so, I ended up losing around $200. That's bad math!

--However because I paid to ship the books to Amazon, and because their customers paid to ship the books from Amazon. . , disregarding their sorting costs, Amazon made about $2000 from my work. I'm not inventing this. This is how it really works! I couldn't believe just how ridiculous Amazon was, when all the while, I was engaged in real and rational business deals with all my other distributors.

You see, every other book distributor I've ever dealt pays for shipping from me to them. Brodart Co., for instance, has a universal UPS account which it gives out to each publisher. I use this number to ship books to them, and they get the bill. If you have, as you say, worked in wholesale book sales, you would know that this kind of practice, or similar, is the industry standard. --And the distributor doesn't lose out, because they then charge the retailers and libraries who order from them to ship books the rest of the way along the chain. So in the end, the only people paying for the shipping are the end customers, which makes sense. Amazon, however, has somehow managed to put a hiccup in this practice without anybody even realizing it.

You're still claiming Amazon is skimming 40-50%, but the numbers simply do not add up. They only GET a 40-50% discount, they can't therefore also TAKE it. I couldn't find a paperback with LESS than a full 20% discount

Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Cover price, $5.99 Amazon price, $5.99
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, Cover price, $6.99 Amazon price, $6.99

Precisely! Once they have these technologies they'll fake a nuclear war and send us all into bunkers far underground (to "protect" us) in which we can do little but build the rich more robots.

Hmm... this is all sounding kinda familiar...

(For the PKD impaired: A link!.)

Or maybe they won't realize it, and you'll be writing the kind of code that ends up on The Daily WTF. The reality is, unqualified graduates have been coming out of CS programs for years. The problem is that many employers have no good way to guage whether a candidate can really write code or not. In the mean time, you can take comfort that these incompetent employees will be moved the where they can do the least damage, management (The Dilbert Principle)

Depends on whether you've read this Tom Holt book.

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: Beginning Excel What-if Data Analysis Tools. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Save yourself some money by buying the book here: Beginning Excel What-if Data Analysis Tools. And if you use the "secret" A9.com discount, you can save an extra 1.57%!

Why can't something that gets removed from the Earth and never replaced run out?!

Because as a non-renewable resource becomes scarcer, the price rises. This reduces demand and allows the remaining supplies to last longer.

In general, the price of a non-renewable resource must rise at the rate of interest each year. This is because an owner of a source of a non-renewable resource must make a decision: sell today or hold out until tomorrow? If they sell some amount today, they can take the cash and invest it at the rate of interest. But if they hold out until tomorrow, they will have forgone that interest unless the price of the resource has risen in the meantime. So in an economy where there are many suppliers, sales will be just enough for the resource price to rise at a rate equal to the rate of interest. Of course I have ignored the cost of exploration and extraction and many other factors, but that is the basic economic model that underlies non-renewable natural resource use rates and prices over time.

Tony Fisher's textbook is an accessible introduction to the economics of both renewable and non-renewable natural resources.

That's an outright lie, or plain ignorance. I should know, I live with an author, max wolf valerio.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-ur l/index=books&field-author-exact=Max%20Wolf%20Vale rio&rank=-relevance%2C%2Bavailability%2C-daterank/ 104-2424868-6408710

I'm much more concerned about the fact that taco can't differentiate "to" and "too".

As am I. In addition to story duplication, poor grammar is yet another source of irritation.

Taco is justified in asserting that we should not expect WSJ or NYT-class writing. I think we're justified in expecting writing that wouldn't make a high school junior blush. Poor grammar isn't just an aesthetic concern, but a genuine pox on efficient reading.

I'd expect that Slashdot's paid editors invest in this little peripheral:

The Elements of Style Illustrated by Strunk, White, et al.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1594200696

No intelligent person wants to hear the hate mongering and ignorance festering that is the christian religions.

Someone needs to mod the parent down. That's just flaming, plain and simple. And I'd like to think Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Donald Knuth (suck on that one, computer geeks), Gödel, Cantor, nearly every U.S. president (there has to be at least one that you agree is/was intelligent), W. D. Phillips, and the list goes on and on. I chose those whom most people on Slashdot would undoubtedly consider intelligent men. Additionally, each lived during the 20th century, so they could have easily rejected Christianity without persecution.

One of the major discoveries of last century was just how pervasive and powerful psychic trauma is to people, especially soldiers, police officers, and emergency rescue personel.

It is way, way, WAY more common than was ever suspected, has NOTHING to do with one's strength of character or moral fibre, and can be crippling in ways that physical injury can never be.

There is NO choice in who will wind up with PTSD, and little to no way to predict when a particular individual will come down with it, or how strongly. It is insidious, often nearly invisible, and powerful.

I have seen many friends struggle with the effects of PTSD, and it is not at all a laughing matter.

Happily, there are techinques to help people deal with it, and to lessen the impact it has on their lives. Two books I highly recommend are On Killing and On Combat, by Lt Col Dave Grossman. These books are, to the best of my understanding, the first books to really deal with the psychic cost of killing, and how to minimize it if you are forced to deal in violence.

They aren't perfect - Col Grossman makes much of the desensitizing nature of certain video games (which I think is overblown) and parts of On Combat start to read like advertisements for his consulting agency, but these are required reading for anybody in the military or law enforcement trades - or for anybody who thinks that PTSD victims in any way choose their fate.

DG

One of the major discoveries of last century was just how pervasive and powerful psychic trauma is to people, especially soldiers, police officers, and emergency rescue personel.

It is way, way, WAY more common than was ever suspected, has NOTHING to do with one's strength of character or moral fibre, and can be crippling in ways that physical injury can never be.

There is NO choice in who will wind up with PTSD, and little to no way to predict when a particular individual will come down with it, or how strongly. It is insidious, often nearly invisible, and powerful.

I have seen many friends struggle with the effects of PTSD, and it is not at all a laughing matter.

Happily, there are techinques to help people deal with it, and to lessen the impact it has on their lives. Two books I highly recommend are On Killing and On Combat, by Lt Col Dave Grossman. These books are, to the best of my understanding, the first books to really deal with the psychic cost of killing, and how to minimize it if you are forced to deal in violence.

They aren't perfect - Col Grossman makes much of the desensitizing nature of certain video games (which I think is overblown) and parts of On Combat start to read like advertisements for his consulting agency, but these are required reading for anybody in the military or law enforcement trades - or for anybody who thinks that PTSD victims in any way choose their fate.

DG

Perhaps you should read the book Chickenhawk for an idea of what PTSD can do to a person. His (Robert Mason's) story is probably a mild case of it's affect - but how would you like your ex Vet airline pilot suddenly blacking out on approach?

Or your rape victim cab driver, or surgeon.

I think your stupid statement indicates you think PTSD is simply a case of "bad memories".

...contrary to the popular "deal with" or "confront" psychology of dealing with tragedy the most helpful mindset is actually to accept and move on. It is actually well documented that in dealing with disaster/death/tragedy it is best to acknowledge that it happened and the accept it and move on. This is well detailed in the book The Road To Malpsychia. Perhaps this pill will truly help. If you choose to take it you can save yourself years of trauma. While it sounds sinister, it may prove to be better than years of dysfuntions or worse suicidal depression etc. Who knows? I am willing to see how this pans out, although I am skeptical this will ever be handed out with rescue blankets by the government. Perhaps as an alternative perscription from a liscences psychiatrist, but not as a mass amnesiac.