b.cognosco

Internet book retailing is not quite the same story as book publishing. It seems that while the Internet ostensibly has unlimited shelf space, the amount of actual space available for internet book retailers is limited -- and Bertelsmann is dropping out of the race.

Bertelsmann to close German Internet book retailer. CW360.com Oct 23 2002 5:41AM ET
German media giant Bertelsmann will fold its Internet book club BOL at the end of the year after failing to find a potential buyer, company spokesman Gerd Koslowski said yesterday.
BOL had once hoped to compete with Amazon.com, the leading online retailer for media products in the US and Europe. But while Amazon has gone on to post annual sales of more than €3bn (£1.9bn) and profits, BOL has struggled to top revenue of more than €100m. [...] [Moreover - Book publishing news]

Book Biz is Still Good

11:15:01 PM

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Despite the generally torpid economy here and in Europe, the book publishing business is good if you know what you're doing.

'Fabulous' numbers at HarperCollins. Publishing News Nov 9 2002 4:34PM ET
AS NEWS CORPORATION reported its first quarter results this week, Victoria Barnsley, UK CEO of HarperCollins told PN that UK book publishing profits were up by 39% driven by a sales increase of 9%. [...] [Moreover - Book publishing news]

US and Euros Clash on Censorship

11:08:40 PM

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At the rate we're going, it won't be long before Freedom of Speech is a non-issue here, as well.

Europeans Outlaw Net Hate Speech. The measure, which bans the publication of material that promotes racism and violence online, clashes directly with U.S. laws protecting such speech. By Julia Scheeres. [Wired News]

The Foundation

11:01:04 PM

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"It does not take a majority to prevail ... but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men." --Samuel Adams

Silly mailto Snafu

9:57:24 PM

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I recently setup a new computer and I can't get it to take my e-mail program as the default for mailto URLs in my browser. The AMD machine has largely the same software load as my last PC but every time I click a mailto URL in a browser I get about 37 blank Internet Explorer windows popping up instead of of my e-mail program. This is a real PIA.

I've changed every setting I can find but Windoze 2K appears totally brain dead. It happens in all my browsers. Any suggestions?

Steelers and Falcons Play to Wild Tie

9:32:40 PM

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Boy, I'll second that -- best game so far this year.

Steelers and Falcons play to wild tie. Sports Network Nov 10 2002 9:15PM ET [Moreover - NFL: Atlanta Falcons news]

Bush is a Liar

7:23:15 PM

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The last President was a liar too and, just like then, half the people think it's terrible and half think it's ok -- but now the roles are reversed. That's politics for you.

Bush is a liar....
Bush Lies, Media Swallows [Ye Olde Phart]

NFL: Atlanta - Steelers Go To OT!

4:34:13 PM

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Atlanta rallies from a 17 point deficit to take the game into OT. Atlanta would be a great AFC team -- all offense, no defense. Ashley Ambrose got burned for a big score but Michael Vick and the offense come back. Warrick Dunn rambles for 59 yards and a TD. With a couple of minutes to go Vick took another run in for a score. Atlanta got some fortunate turnovers and the defense really needs work but, win or lose, at Week Ten of the NFL season we can finally say we have a real football team here in Atlanta. It's about time.

NFL: Atlanta - Pittsburgh The Rout is On

3:33:10 PM

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Atl fought back at the start of the 3rd quarter with a strong drive and a TD to pull within 3. But add Ashley Ambrose the list of BBQ'd DBs. Maddox promptly added 6 more points to the score with a long TD pass and the route began. No matter how good a team's offense may be, if the D can't stop the opponent from scoring you can't win. At least Maddox isn't showing any favoritism -- he's steamrolling the entire defensive backfield. Now 14-29. The rout is on.

NFL: Atlanta at Pitt H1

2:45:23 PM

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Atlanta 7 Pittsburgh 17: Atlanta DBs Ray Buchanan and Gerald McBurrows should have smoke pourng from their ears, they've been scorched so bad by Tommy Maddox and the Steeler receivers. The Steeler D is pounding Michael Vick, who is showing signs of confusion under the pressure.

In both the last two games Atlanta fought back immediately after opponent scores. Now they're down by 13 (but for a stroke of luck on a missed Steelers FG at the end it would be 16) at the half for the first time this season. Will they fall apart? Will they adapt? Dan Reeve's conservative approach has not historically shown he could adapt at the half to radically different conditions. What does the second half hold for Atlanta?

NFL: Atlanta at Pittsburgh Q1

1:35:14 PM

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Lucky to get out of the first quarter down only 0-3. The defense continues to cover the field like a sieve, compensating for the lack of consistency with blind luck and the occassional great play -- not a strategy for long-term success. Pitt had two prime scoring opportunities and came away with only 3 points.

Hollywood Plays by Different Rules

12:55:04 PM

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Seems Hollywood doesn't mind taking ideas from others, it's only when others use the same ideas and make money that feathers get ruffled.

Copyright: Bollywood takes on Hollywood. Economictimes Nov 10 2002 2:00AM ET
[...] The West though, has been taking serious note of Bollywood’s aping. The Sunday Times, London, quotes a Hollywood studio lawyer as saying, "Until now it has not been worth our time tangling with the filmmakers in a Bombay court. But if this Reservoir Dogs rehash (Kaante) starts making serious money in the East, we shall have to start investigating how closely such movies are copying the originals." [...]
[...] And recently, a case of copyright infringement was filed against Dr Dre, Universal, Aftermath and Interscope of Houston. Addictive has huge tracks of Resham lagta hai, from the '70s film Jyoti.
"We approached Universal in June and told them to withdraw the music. Instead of taking any action, they went ahead and entered new markets giving a message that ours was a small Indian music company. And so we have decided to take this case to its logical end," says Abheek Mitra, managing director, HMV.
[Moreover - IP and patents news]

Andy Fragen's Print Outline Tool

11:25:39 AM

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Radio's Outliner is not for the feint-of-heart, it's got quirks and it really seems geared more to programmers than writers, but I think it's worth learning. Besides, the MSWord outline feature -- ostensibly for writers -- has it's own flaws, just different ones. And while I've used other outline programs, none make it easy to render the outline to HTML or presentation format. Dave's Outliner, for whatever flaws it has for low-level users like me, is an outliner plus publishing tool -- a worthy combination.

I've just really begun toying with Andy's Print Outline Tool, which gives me a handy way to generate HTML in different formats and see how they look. I still have to learn about rules and using templates.

Updating Print Outline Tool. I'm in the process of updating my Print Outline tool. That's where the preceding tidbit about fixing the scripts to make the "View in Browser" and "Save As HTML" File menu items work correctly. The default rendering now uses these commands. Alternatively stated you can use these commands instead of my new Default Renderer command.
Please give me feedback. I'm doing away with the Extra Templates option. You'll just have to render the same outline twice and specify the template using a #template statement at the beginning of the outline. I also see no easy way to copy the text to the clipboard and still use the built-in scripts in an unmodified way.
If any of these changes are too extreme or you really want the former functionality let me know. [Surgical Diversions]

Phoenix Browser Test

10:44:48 AM

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Prying Opera from my cold, dead fingers. Mark Pilgrim has turned me on to Phoenix, an Open Source project to take the Mozilla browser engine and strip out all the foo-foo crap that makes it slow, buggy, and generally useless. Phoenix is in an early beta, but it's already faster, more efficient, and far more stable than Mozilla 1.0 or 1.1 proved to be on my machines. And it has a decent approximation of the Opera Tab interface.

Why do this? Opera's failure to support DOM in versions through 6.x and their delay in releasing version 7 with DOM support. I want to use the Radio Outliner more in my weblog maintenance, and I want to begin using Matt Mower's liveTopics which requires Marc Barrot's activeRenderer.

aR needs DOM support in the browser. I have mixed feelings about forcing this requirement on either of my regular readers, but since I control their computers I can coerce both my wife and son to view using Phoenix as well.

So far Phoenix looks pretty good. I'm curious to see how it shakes out over the next few months.