As long as we’re talking about post-punk pop and the early days of MTV:
Can we get a moratorium on advertising uses of “Kids in America” until those of us who actually were kids in America when the song was released are all dead? It’s a little disconcerting. Not to mention that it’s a pretty grim song with which to associate a brand of toaster-oven pizza rolls.
It’s not my birthday, or that of any of my family or friends, but nevertheless this song has been bouncing around my head all day.
This may have been the first thing I ever saw on MTV. In 1981 I definitely knew that Clare Grogan had the cutest voice I had ever heard from a human being.
For a few years there, this kind of Scottish and British post-punk pop and the cheap, crappy, enthusiastic videos that went with them were a big part of my world.
Really? Well. Yeah. OK. It is called “A Conversation On Cool,” and I guess a conversation has to include both sides.
(Source: aconversationoncool)
Been thinking more about HarperCollins’ goofy plan to make libraries re-license ebooks after 26 loans.
Okay, maybe “abject toads” was a little harsh. But still, it makes me crazy when companies go out of their way to cripple the fruits of a new technology, desperate to chain it down to the limitations of the past, simply because they already know how to charge money for the past and can’t be bothered to come up with a way to make money on the future.
And they do this at their peril, ignoring the fact that those who do figure out how to make money on the future are those who always win.
Clearly the model of a new license every 26 loans is ridiculous. At least it is ridiculous if the reason is that “it’s the way paper works.”
Can HarperCollins honestly not think of any other way to make money and stay in business while publishing ebooks?
Here’s a wild idea, using a term that’s been bounced around a lot lately: A subscription model. Let a library buy an annual subscription to HarperCollins ebooks. One annual fee could let the library initiate as many loans as they like over the course of a year. The publisher could set tiers based on total number of patrons served by the library overall, or tiers based on the number of distinct titles that can be accessed during the year. (That’s distinct titles, not individual loans.)
Maybe this is a terrible idea. Surely there are details I haven’t thought through. But the point is that a model like this, or a better one devised by someone smarter than me, would take advantage of those ways in which ebooks are superior to paper books. Cost-free and frictionless duplication and distribution means that libraries can avoid some of their biggest planning headaches — deciding exactly what titles to stock months ahead of time, deciding how many copies to buy, waiting for a truck to deliver them, and making sure there’s enough shelf space to keep them. And publishers can benefit from steady revenue rather than hoping for an annual blockbuster.
Ebooks were supposed to be indestructible. Where you had disk-space, you had literature – in perpetuity. Which is bad news for publishers now deprived of that extra round of sales revenue engendered by books being dropped in baths.
HarperCollins has got wise to this: it has announced that US libraries will be allowed to lend ebooks only up to 26 times. Its sales president, Josh Marwell, believes that’s only fair: 26, he claims, is the average number of loans a print book would survive before having to be replaced. HarperCollins UK won’t rule out applying this ebook strategy to British libraries - and should it do so, it can expect a frustrated reaction. “Clearly, printed books last a lot longer than 26 loans,” says Philip Bradley, vice-president of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.
This is the dumbest shit I have ever read. (I work for Collins — the British half of HarperCollins — incidentally, and this is far from the dumbest shit they are guilty of.)
Holy moly. This makes as much sense as
- limiting a car to the top speed of a horse-cart
- making sure the car literally falls to pieces when it reaches the end of a horse’s useful lifespan
- requiring that new medical techniques don’t work any faster, or last any longer, than old ones
- requiring that phone calls be transcribed and delivered by Western Union messengers
It also shows that some people at HarperCollins are abject toads. And that they are doomed.
Making your products arbitrarily and artificially less useful, less convenient and less attractive? Good luck with that.
(Source: nostrich)
I feel like I should apologise in advance for what is, right now, just about twenty-five minutes of incoherent shouting about ghosts and UFOs.
Apologize? Sounds to me like a reason to get to Berlin.
Hey guys!
I’m gonna be a cool dad!
Awesome news. Congratulations.
Now’s the time to start looking for one of those tiny vintage tuxedos.
Put This On Episode 4: Grooming
Jesse visits the barber, a how-to for the classic wet shave and some guidance on avoiding and removing underarm yellowing in shirts.
Episode Sponsors: Shirt.Woot.com / Instapaper
Another outstanding installment of PUT THIS ON.
A wet shave as demonstrated in this video is a delightful daily ritual. I’ve always preferred using a mug soap and brush for shave lather, and I like it even more since I began using the excellent shave soap from Porter’s Lotion of Bozeman Montana. (No relation to me, though I do like having my name on my shaving mug.)
Long ago I used to use a safety razor similar to Jesse’s. Since then I’ve tried a straight razor and a bunch of different Gillette high-concept multi-bladed gadgets. PUT THIS ON may have inspired me to try the safety razor again.
Here’s the piece we were listening to.
It lost them right around 2:30.
Me, I’ve been binging on Belbury Poly for more than a month now. Wonderful stuff. Go to Ghost Box Music and get some.
That’s my favorite (non-useful) 105 seconds in the latest episode of Back to Work.
Because everything is connected.1
Just so you know? The lady with the gorillas was “Bob Fosse.” Bob Fosse. ↩
Absolutely beautiful. It’s like Back to Work briefly channeled YLNT.
