Always check for wedding bands before pouring on the schmoove moves.
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Month: May 2002
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Corporate welfare at its worst
The small publisher/distributor relationship is supposed to be a symbiotic one: the small publishers get their books into stores everywhere, while the distributor gets books to distribute and a cut of the profits. However, that’s not the case with 40 Canadian and American small publishers and General Distribution (a wing of Jack Stoddart’s General Publishing, a big Canadian publisher).
General Publishing is in dire straits and is asking for the infusion of another CDN$3 million from the Bank of Nova Scotia. Without it, they say, they will collapse. The Bank of Nova Scotia will pony up the money, but only if the Ontario Superior court rules that General’s past receivables, including those it collected on behalf of the small publishers for which it is the distributor, are its sole property. Furthermore, the Bank wants Canada’s big bookstore chain, Chapters/Indigo (about whom Stoddart went on the record two years ago, warning of the consequences of its dominance), to pay its CDN$1.4 million bill directly to General rather than to the small publishers.
The receivables are valued at about CDN$18 million, and not surprisingly, the people at the top of the list of those who have claim to them are the Bank of Nova Scotia, followed by Jack Stoddart. General owes about CDN$13.3 million to its client publishers, and CDN$3 million of that is owed to small publishers. The client publishers probably won’t see that money for a long time, if not at all. Stoddart has said that the court’s ruling means that “authors, booksellers, employees and publishers” are the winners, but this is a use of the word “winner” that I’m not familiar with. The only people smiling at this outcome wopuld appear to be the Bank of Nova Scotia and General Publishing.
For more details, take a look here.
Speaking as someone who’s owed a lot of money that may never materialize (and by a guy who made more money than me), I can relate.
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You too can be a Teletubby
French researchers are using optical fibers to create t-shirts that can double as video displays.
(Thanks to MetaFilter for the link).
Right now, the t-shirt is still pretty low-resolution.
His video display often reads “Hi, sailor!”
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(In The Happiest Geek on Earth):
More ETCon reportage
Ben Hammersley covers the O’Reilly Emerging Technology Conference in today’s Guardian.
Read it here.
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How to age 20 years in three weeks
From an ABC News piece on exercise:
A two-part follow up study at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, tracked five healthy men over three decades in one of the most intensive fitness studies ever attempted.
It began in 1966, with five fit 20-year-old college students. The study, which sought to determine the adverse effects of bed rest on physical fitness, put its subjects to the ultimate test: three weeks of bedrest.
The men were confined to total and complete inactivity, ordered to use a wheelchair even for trips to the bathroom.
The effects were remarkable. Results showed that the men’s hearts had actually become smaller. Furthermore, the men’s muscles had shrunk causing a 25 percent reduction in strength and stamina.
Dr. Benjamin Levine from the Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas told World News Tonight correspondent John McKenzie that the results of the study were significant. “These 20-year-old men, after three weeks of bed rest now had the physical fitness of men that were 45 or 50 years old.”
Holy crap!
According to the study, the reverse is also true — out-of-shape middle-aged men leading sedentary lives were put on an exercise program and in six months had the same aerobic capacity as twemty-year olds.
Suddenly I want to hit the gym.
(Once again, the full story is here.)
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Finally, cats get useful
I have often commented that cats — hateful, spiteful, contemptuous creatures and spewers of toxic allergens — are merely egg rolls waiting to happen. It turns out that Rik Rose has discovered that they could be used as anti-gravity devices. Thanks to cats, we may all someday zoom about in landspeeders just like those in Star Wars!
Here’s the scientific principle behind it all:
- Take a cat. Drop it. It will land on its feet. All cats land on their feet.
- Take a piece of toast. Butter it. Drop it off the table. It will land butter side down. All toast lands butter side down.
- From the combination of the two, we can easily make a small (roughly cat sized) levitation unit, by buttering the back of a cat. The back will want to land first, from the butter, and the paws will want to land first, because it is a cat. The two forces can be balanced, resulting in a levitating cat. Please note, this cat is now even harder to catch, since it can fly, and is greased
Rik proposes that a Buttered Cat Array can be used to create flying vehicles and space shuttles; I envision floating, furry-bottomed cities.
Damn, science is cool.
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(In The Happiest Geek on Earth):
Back to the grind
Smart-ass commentary on Paul Graham’s latest Lisp treatise and a quick ETCon followup.
Read it here.