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Rethinking the fiction publishing business, by Michael Harris | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics

Thu, 23 Feb 2012 03:01:27 -0500

Rethinking the fiction publishing business, by Michael Harris | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics:

Many self-published books suffer from typographical and basic grammatical errors. A publisher could offer proofreading and editing services on a pay per service basis. If this service succeeds, the demand will far outstrip capacity. This can be solved by establishing a services marketplace where independent proofreaders bid on job requests from authors. The publishing company would still offer its own services, but at a premium to the general market. For this extra fee, the author would receive a quality guarantee as well as premium services, such as editing and coaching on writing styles.

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Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:22:13 -0500

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Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:22:01 -0500

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Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:21:55 -0500

War Tard: The Syrian Uprising: No foreign intervention when you've got no oil?

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 20:15:59 -0500

War Tard: The Syrian Uprising: No foreign intervention when you've got no oil?:

Who knew that some humble fruit seller who torched himself in a market square in Tunisia last year could kick start an Arab Spring and shake up the entire Middle East where the citizens of six Arab countries could trade-in their ruthless dictators and exchange them for a whole new variety of oppressive bastards?

Peter Straughan: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: What John Le Carre Really Thought of the Movie Adaptation

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:44:50 -0500

Peter Straughan: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: What John Le Carre Really Thought of the Movie Adaptation:

Working with Tomas was a little like working on a project with a mad professor. Instead of the usual studio notes on “characters arcs,” “three-act structure,” and “dramatic stakes,” Tomas would begin a script meeting by wondering what kind of fairy story “Tinker Tailor” would be; the good Prince who is thrown out of the castle and must defeat the usurper King, we decided. Another meeting began with Tomas arriving with a chess set he had just bought. Which character was which piece, he wondered? We spent the afternoon playing with that idea - and the chess pieces made it into the script. Other notes included his telling the cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema that the film should look like the smell of wet tweed. (He told me that world should have the color of an old man’s foreskin. I haven’t actually seen an old man’s foreskin, but I took the point.)

Metamagician and the Hellfire Club: Hutton and Dawkins on secularism - Hutton gets himself confused

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:43:01 -0500

Metamagician and the Hellfire Club: Hutton and Dawkins on secularism - Hutton gets himself confused:

You can also be a secularist without being an atheist, and indeed while believing in some religion or other. There are many such people; in fact they are probably the majority of secularists in many countries.

It’s going to depend on your theological standpoint, but many theologies allow the view that it is not the business of their religion to try to get the state to impose true religious views on non-believers. If that is your position, you can certainly accept the secularist coin view that it is not the business of the state to be identifying the true (or most beneficial) religion and then imposing its standards on everyone,including non-believers.

jbacardi: Dave Johnson. Via.

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:56:00 -0500

jbacardi:

Dave Johnson.

Via.

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Sun, 19 Feb 2012 22:55:26 -0500

Cult Den interview answers - Jeff Noon, Feb 2012. - MOVIES.SHOWS.COMICS.BOOKS.GAMES.MORE

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:14:02 -0500

Cult Den interview answers - Jeff Noon, Feb 2012. - MOVIES.SHOWS.COMICS.BOOKS.GAMES.MORE :

Language is a fluid medium. This is sometimes lost to us because words are so tied up with meaning, and narrative. But they are a substance in their own right, like paint, and they can be manipulated as such, and new substances discovered. I can’t emphasise this enough: language is liquid. But it’s not a thin liquid, it doesn’t flow easily: it’s gooey, sticky, like treacle. It’s not watercolour, its oil paint. And that’s even better. It’s malleable, but it retains shape. It’s an organic fluid

theclearlydope: Patrick: Do you like Lana Del Rey? Paul: She’s...

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:51:04 -0500

theclearlydope:

Patrick: Do you like Lana Del Rey?

Paul: She’s OK.

Patrick: Her early work Lizzy Grant was a little too bluesy for my tastes, but when Born to Die came out in ‘11, I think she really came into her own, commercially and artistically.

robotcosmonaut: Soundwave

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:44:58 -0500

robotcosmonaut:

Soundwave

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Thu, 16 Feb 2012 19:43:39 -0500

"Android does prioritize scrolling to some extent now, but it still doesn’t feel as smooth as it does..."

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:15:46 -0500

“Android does prioritize scrolling to some extent now, but it still doesn’t feel as smooth as it does on iOS. An inordinate amount of time went into perfectly designing the physics simulations performed by iOS’s elastic scrolling and other touch event responses. Android’s initial development clearly did not include this attention to detail, because issues regarding the user experience appear to have been beyond the scope of the original vision. As a result, the fundamental engineering choices made during the initial stages of building Android’s interface layer were flawed. This is why Android feels “wrong” to so many people.”

- Nothing in Android makes sense except in the light of its original vision by Dustin Curtis

Romance Novels, The Last Great Bastion Of Underground Writing | The Awl

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 03:01:03 -0500

Romance Novels, The Last Great Bastion Of Underground Writing | The Awl:

And there is, always, falling in love. I have often wondered whether romance novels mightn’t generally serve the same purpose for women that pornography does for so many men. I do not mean as an aid to autoeroticism, though, so much as the imaginary fulfillment of a profound imperative that is never too far from your mind.

Ux developers

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 02:18:32 -0500

Ux developers:

The sad truth is that UX has stopped referring to the quality attribute of a product or a set of specific skills and activities, and has become a value judgement. For some reason people think that the term UX means “better”, “more valuable” or “more important”. So by adding UX to your business or job title it somehow sets you apart as a better designer, a better developer or a better agency. That, or at least one that can charge more money. This is obviously nonsense and disrespectful to all the talented designers and developers out there. So when I see people adding the term UX to an otherwise perfectly descriptive job title, it makes me view them with a healthy dose of scepticism.

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Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:59:34 -0500

kevindrakewriter: lulz-time: ;) don’t click Yes it is.

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:50:07 -0500

kevindrakewriter:

lulz-time:

;) don’t click

Yes it is.

kevindrakewriter: This past week I went to see The Artist on a...

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 19:02:53 -0500

kevindrakewriter:

This past week I went to see The Artist on a Thursday night. When my friend and I came out there were cos-players lining up to see the Star Wars 3-D experience. One person dressed as a topless Darth Maul, which when I first say his I thought “Why is there a burn victim in the theater. It wasn’t until I saw the person in a Jedi rob that I realized I was watching Fanboys queuing for the midnight release. Ah the laugh I had at their expense.

Does Taste Depend On Context? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:42:10 -0500

Does Taste Depend On Context? : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR:

Many of you are probably pretty sure that you could, and also that you could tell the difference between a $100 bottle of a splendid vintage and some $5 schlock, right? But can you really? In a blind taste test?

Scientists have looked into these questions and the findings are, well, they’re disgusting. It turns out most people won’t notice the difference between paté and dog food, so long as the latter is suitably presented with the right sort of garnish. And as for our ability to discriminate wine, even experts may confuse a white wine with a red when it is served at room temperature in a dark glass. And we’ll enjoy soggy old potato chips, it turns out, if our chewing is accompanied (over head phones) by the satisfying sound of crunching.