Commercial announcement

Well, I have enough t-shirts up on Spreadshirt that I feel I can shout it out a little louder. So I'm adjusting my policy about "no ads" to "ads just for my stuff." Now I'm a commercial blogger in an age where blogs are dead. Go me.

For those of you reading the RSS feed, you can find my t-shirt store on Spreadshirt. I have a few shirts on Zazzle, but so far I don't like the interface. More venues to come (there's some background work I need to complete first before adding those).

So if you enjoy my humor, work in allied health fields, have cancer, or looking for the odd t-shirt about NE Ohio, I'm here for you.

Corporal Pedantic on Chemicals

So, I think I've had enough. See, there's this meme about treating people who are worried about "chemicals" as idiots because, well, everything is made out of chemicals. And so the people who point that out can feel superior in their knowledge and at the same time dismiss the concerns people have.

The above is a joke, you can tell by the "dihydrogen monoxide" (water if you don't know). That's the key here. Audit's very successful propaganda if my Facebook feed is anything to judge by. And yes, it's propaganda. And it's spread by people who don't want you to really know anything, but are trying to get you to trust them because they're smart.

Don't fall for it.

First of all, let's clear out the air here. Chemicals. People use words. Words are symbols, they represent ideas and concepts. And those meanings are individualistic and variable. Ask any writer you may know. There is the dictionary definition, and then there is the societal use. While many people think of it as slang, it's not, words work differently for different people.

When most people say "chemicals" it's a short hand statement. It means, to them and anyone who understands how words work, industrial chemicals. What they want to say is the chemicals that are being produced by our industry and, surprise, find their way into our body.

And only an idiot would think that when people are worried about "chemicals" in the bloodstream that they mean the dictionary definition of "chemical". And a political propagandist would be the one who would use that to dismiss the argument concerning non-organic chemicals (the ones that the body doesn't produce and can not process regularly) showing up in the environment and in the human blood stream.

Because here is my response to that graphic, I wanna know the person who created it, and offer them a big glass of Tetraethyllead or (CH3CH2)4Pb. See, that's a chemical. And it was a damn important one for many, many decades. You may remember it as "leaded gasoline." You might remember lead paint. As a human of a certain age, I have trace amounts of these different leads in my body. And it's toxic. Highly neurotoxic.

But it's just a chemical, isn't it? And we once thought it was very, very helpful. After all, we put lead in everything (lead pipes, lead in gas, lead in paint, lead in our jewelry, lead everywhere). In fact, in many parts of the world you can still buy leaded gas and lead paint. We still make it here in the US (you just can't sell it in the US).

Then there's Thalidomide. It's a chemical. It's a damn useful chemical. It was so useful we once prescribed it to expectant mothers to help with morning sickness. How did that work out when it reached the fetal blood supply? I mean, it's just a chemical, that wasn't supposed to be able to pass the placenta. And we still make it because it is a damn useful drug (it treats a whole host of other things).

There's methyl mercury. That's a chemical, and highly useful industrial chemical. And it's in your blood. Ah, but you know about the problem with mercury, mad hatter's disease and all. When I was a kid, we played with mercury, because it was "safe." We knew it was safe, didn't we? Well, there was Minimata disease, but that was in Japan. Now, when a mercury thermometer breaks, the hazmat team is called in. But mercury is just a chemical. And I'll bet you that you have it in your blood right now. Remember how tuna has mercury? It still does.

Just because a chemical is in your body doesn't mean that 1) it belongs there, and 2) just because you're not falling over doesn't mean it isn't killing you.

But there's a whole industry that wants to make sure you're not thinking about it. There's a hellalotta money riding on the fact that the people who really like this graphic also don't know what chemicals, or chemistry is about. And just because we don't know that something is bad for you doesn't mean it's not killing you right now. Lots of the chemicals they list do occur naturally. But here's an interesting fact. You see that line about ketone bodies? Yea, that's actually a natural occurrence. It's a byproduct of processing proteins and fats into sugars to use as energy. All those commercials about proteins being good for you, as a long term source of energy they're all true.

But do you know about ketoacidosis? This is when you have too many of them in your blood stream. And you begin to die as your blood pH levels turn off your enzymes. You can get it from too much alcohol, from diabetes (and especially from undiagnosed/uncontrolled diabetics drinking too much alcohol - oo, that's really bad, don't do that, seriously). See, the alcohol and/or proteins and fats aren't bad by themselves. But what your bodies makes from them can. Ketones are very natural, or biologic, chemicals and you have them right now. Hopefully not enough to do the pH in your blood.

Carbon dioxide is also a chemical that you can breathe and that you make. It's "natural." You make a lot of it. There's a lot of it in the environment. And it will kill you as well. And strangely enough by the same process that the ketones will, by dropping your blood pH (unless it suffocates you first). Want a lot of that?

You might remember a lot (and I mean A LOT) of congress peoples talking about how carbon dioxide is good for you, it's not poisonous. How can it be hurting us? Mostly in reference to global warming, but you get my drift. See, it's just a chemical, and because we know what it is, we know all about it. Not really. Also, CO2 will kill you quickly (like if you're in an enclosed space with too high a concentration of it) or slowly (by altering the climate of the earth until we can't adapt fast enough).

There is a whole industry (well, multiple industries) that are hellbent on you not knowing that. There are industries who really hope you don't think about how much we've altered the environment, how many of the chemicals your body doesn't make (and we don't know how it affects you, hell, we don't know how the chemicals our body makes affect us) have found their way into your blood and tissues. And if you actually think of that, they most assuredly want to make sure you think there's nothing wrong with it, because you're not falling over dead right now, are you? And they sure as hell don't want you to think it's a problem and want your government to regulate their production or use. Because they wouldn't make as much money. And you can trust companies, because if they hurt you, they wouldn't be in business for long, would they?

Ask Exxon-Mobil.

So, pay no attention to those chemicals. Scientists know them. You food is made of them. And you can trust the people in the white coats, can't you? It's all under control. You can go back to sleep.

'Cause after all they were right about lead, mercury, and all the rest. Especially all those drugs that the scientists researched heavily before putting them on the market. Like fen-phen.

Now plastics. Plastics are uber-ultra-good for us. They don't breakdown, so they're non-reactive. Yea, plastics are good. Like micro-beads. All good. You should get a job in plastics.

How about a nice glass of Agent Orange?

The Lamentable State of the Business Today

Or why I'm doing the reboot.

Why the design market sucks. here's one example from Monster. Looking for a Graphic Designer/Assistant Manager to handle co-managing a team plus be responsible for 100+ "multiple page" publications within 4 months (4x4x5=80 days, which means 1+ large publications per day). Plus communications with their 100+ customer base. And what are they willing to pay? $13-15 an hour (or $27,040 to $31200 a year). "Company confidential"? Why, so we won't egg your place? Dear company confidential, same you pal, and the horses you rode in on. Seriously? The sad part is they're probably swamped with resumes. More fodder for the reboot.

I guess it could be worse. You could be applying for "This position is your opportunity to join a respected organization that is redefining media advertising in Northeast Ohio by offering an extensive portfolio of digital and print media solutions." :: rolls-eyes :: The small print, "Northeast Ohio Media Group is a new, digitally focused company…" So, a brand new company that's respected and redefining advertising. That's some shit slinging right there. Oh yea, the title is "Part-time", but the description is "full-time". That's redefining all right.

Last but not least is this designer position who is basically responsible for everything. I mean everything. Writing, layout, proof-reading, and all their social media out reach (that's 3 full-time jobs right there). Plus, "Possess strong graphic design skills." Oh yea, there's also the "Demonstrate strong computer skills including proficiency in Microsoft Office Applications…" (meaning they want you to design print ads using Powerpoint). And what education do they want? "Associates or Bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university preferably in English, Marketing, or Business Administration." Uh, yea, Bob.

Creative salaries for creatives

For that other part of my life, the writing fiction part, there's been a lot of people who have been open with various figures on their earnings, advances, etc. Which I have to say is totally fabulous and for any aspiring writer one should find those to have a big dose of reality. And I thank all those who have done that sharing (Tobias Buckell, Jim Hines, and John Scalzi leap immediately to mind)

For the day thing, fortunately we have a few organizations who started publishing salary and compensation data about a decade ago. This was a way for us to judge just how well we were being compensated (the design field had been notorious for under payment and wage theft, although I think we've hammered through most of that now). So here is one of those for the current year (please note, they're lumping a lot of regions and job responsibilities together for these numbers - one of the other reports typically runs about 30-40 pages- but I am slightly sad to see I'm on the lower end of my range - possible combination of smaller market, depressed conditions, and working "in house").


Find design jobs and careers at HOW Design.

In case you're wondering about your own field, Indeed.com has a nice little salary tool you can use to enter the position title and your location to see how you compare (note, I don't know what data Indeed is using for their tool, but that's just because I haven't taken the time to research it).

Who mourns for Adonais? Fanny Mae and Freddie Mac.

Okay, officially tired of the meme of Fanny(Mac) and Freddie(May) was forced by Congress to make "imprudent" loans and that's what lead to the economic doom that was 2007-2009 (ie. our latest recession and the implosion of the construction industry and everybody's job).

The thing is, Fanny and Freddie default rates overall are less than 3% (for some origination years it's over that, 2006/2007 originating loans are almost 4.5%). That's for all the mortgages F&F bought/originated/secured. In 2008 their default rate was less than 1.15%, when other mortgagers were facing default rates of "1.47 percent for prime mortgages, 8.35 percent for Alt-A mortgages, and 20.74 percent for subprime mortgages" at the same time.

Where are those other mortgager's now? Well, here's one that thinks with a 5.3% default rate they're doing ducky. As of Jan 31 of this year, 8.9% was the going statistic for those that report to the FHA. Granted, F&F accounts for 50% of all home loans in the US, so that less than 3% is a relatively large number of people, but as an overall business, they are still in fracking' fantastic land.

So, yeah, it's not Frannie and Freddie's (or Congress') fault. Anyone still flogging this desiccated horse carcass is intentionally lying to you.

Once while swimming cross turtle creek, man them snappers right at my feet

So I'm driving home when this story comes on the radio. That's a story about how those enforcers of vaccines are now peddling the HPV vaccines for boys. And I thought, well now we have a whole new category of people who will refuse to be vaccinated for something. I mean, it's only to help prevent spread of the virus among girls, right (actually, yeah, that is how it is transfered, because boys are dirty - take a shower, slacker, and use soap this time).

And then they hit this fact, HPV can cause penile cancer. Okay, well, it was in the actual radio segment, but it's not on the web page (whatsamatter NPR, have you decided to stop corrupting our youth?). On the webpage they only talk about "genital warts and… cancers of the head and neck, as well as the anus." But I was thinking, "Wow, prevents cancers of the penis, so it won't shrivel up and fall off? They'll be stacked up 3 deep to get the shots."

And then I thought, "ZOMFG! My favorite toy can get cancer? Shoot me now."

Okay, well, yeah I already knew that (although testicular and prostate cancer is more of a problem). And penile cancer turns out to be squamous cell carcinoma, or skin cancer. Just where have you been letting that hang that you're getting too much sunshine there?

But cancers of the head, neck and anus? Umm… Doing it wrong?

(Disclaimer. Yes I know about bi and homosexual men. Yes, cancer is serious. Yes I'm in the high risk group for testicular and prostate cancers due to my Mom having breast cancer and my maternal uncle having prostate cancer. Guess who has two thumbs and probably the genetic disposition for those. Thank you very much. Yes, both men and women should check themselves - or have a partner do it - for breast and testicular/vaginal cancers, boys should get the glove snap and PSA test and girls should get pap smears. Do it for yourself, do it because it's fun - okay, well, maybe not the glove snap or pap smear, YMMV - and do it because it's important.)

Half a league, half a league, half a league onward

Tweet of my heart: @eyerweb: Dear business leaders whining about uncertainty: know what reduces uncertainty? Nationalization. Any takers? The line forms to the left.

Yes. That. I've said it before, I'm damn tired of hearing about how our "brave and entrepreneurial business leaders" are paralyzed and can't move forward because of "uncertainty." You can't have both. Either our business leaders are "brave and entrepreneurial" or they're quaking in their birkenstockings about "uncertainty." One cancels out the other.

No, really. Personally I blame this on the rise of the MBA. People who aren't really entrepreneurial or have insight into business are running our businesses (or are consulting for them). They have a degree, but in most cases, no actual working experience. Then they are capriciously put into positions of responsibility. These are people who are now looking at the world with a deer in the headlights look.

Here's the thing. If you are running a business, now is the exact moment to make your move. This is the time of "fortune favors the bold."

As for "uncertainty" in the future being a problem, it is never different. In most cases this "uncertainty" is shirt rending over "new possible regulations" or "new taxes". Well, most of this is being driven by the fear engine that is one of our major news outlets, and one of our political parties. And it will never change. We have elections every two years where the make up of Congress could change from one party to the next. Every four years we get to change who sits in the White House. It doesn't stop.

Once you think you may know exactly what is going to happen, in two years that can be overturned. Always thus.

Want to know what real entrepreneurs do? They entrepreneur. They take risks, and put their money on the line. Corporate profits (and money in the bank) are at all time highs. All this, "UNCERTAINTY!" is a bunch of manufactured FUD pap that a certain political faction wants you to believe. But only because it benefits them.

There has to be an invisible sun

You know, all the free marketers are for the Invisible Hand of zombie Adam Smith. They're especially for it when they're cutting other people's pay or positions. They use it to justify their outrageous management and executive raises because they have to retain the best people. Oh, they're all for it when they don't want to be tied down by those nasty regulations, like making sure your paint and gas doesn't have lead added to it. But when that Hand comes around to dope slap them, they no wanna.

I keep hearing about all these employers gnashing their teeth and rending their shirts that they just can't find good employees. Yes, after making sure that the unemployed shouldn't even bother to apply, cut benefits and pay scales, removed OSHA regulations, and generally create a work environment that people of my age (tween Boomer and Gen-X) and younger know for certain that the job you're giving them won't last a moment longer than you need it too (and that cycle is about 5 years or so), that you're constantly looking for younger employees, you're bitching because you can't find anybody willing to take that shit and be happy about it.

Well here are the cows coming back to Capistrano to lay in the bed they made.

Okay Mr. Free Market, yes, I know you're just trying to hammer home the point about how there are jobs out there if people would just bend over and take them (there wouldn't be any unemployment if we could just pay people $1 an hour to flip hamburgers). I know you're also trying to make a point about how horrible the laboring class is (see, those lazy labor unionists just want to soak us dry of our well earned 8-12% yearly raises). I get that this is an ongoing part of the "we need to outsource overseas" idiocy (we can't find anybody).

But here is the Invisible Hand coming to dope slap you. If those are the actual conditions you find yourself in (can't get anybody to apply, those that do aren't skilled, or don't have the work ethic), then you have to respond to the market by hiring older workers (ageism is rampant again) and pay more for them. That's the Invisible Hand of the Market working.

I know, you don't want to hear it. I believe there's a proverb about living by cutting things out. Oh, wait, I think it was about a sword.

Hypothetically speaking

In my post about business people claiming "uncertainty" is keeping them back, Anonymous Cassie poses this hypothetical (and my answer would be longer than a comment should/can be):

I own Business A. I need to upgrade my lighting in my business. I prefer incandescents for a variety of reasons - my product looks better under them, my fixtures currently work with them, I like them better, what-have-you.

Right now, there's a repeal working its way through Congress. Hey, if it goes through, I get to continue to buy the product I like best. If it doesn't, and I don't want to use CFLs and halogens have some side issues that concern me. LEDs aren't an option because of their poor quality of light.

What do I do?

Okay, let's add a little more to make this close to what I was talking about. You also have the cash to go in a few directions.

Now, here is what I would tell you in the real world (in case anybody is in or knows someone in this position), call up Nela Park (GE) And their Lighting Institute and ask to speak to them in a consulting position. The lighting were talking about here is the shittiest kind available. It is cheap. That's THE only reason they still sell it. Trust me on this.

But, okay, let's say there is someone's real world case and we don't have standard incandescent bulbs that meet the new standard (hint, we do, it wasn't that hard to make them, seriously, I can't stress this point enough, the bulbs being phased out are crap, they're specifically manufactured to be crap).

Okay, you have a choice. See, the bulbs we're talking about won't last you a year in a retail/business environment (unless you don't turn them on, and this question is moot at that point anyway). And let's say you and all your employees and customers are the minority of people who can see the flickering of the cfls/incandescents. And for some reason buying a warm light LED bulb is, I don't know, not an option (the argument about not liking the light is non-sensical, you've just been buying the cheapest bulb available and you get the crappiest light, you aren't noticing it with the incandescents because you're used to it (but I can tell you that as bad as those cfls and cheap LEDs look, the same is the case with your incandescents if you're buying those that can't meet the new standard, and for a business, crappy light is deadly).

Here's the solution for you, stock up on bulbs. It's an expense you would have to make anyhow. And since you're making a bulk purchase (if you're buying the cheap bulbs, trust me that you're buying in bulk here) that you should be able to itemize it and depreciate the value (this only works because you're buying in bulk). Problem solved, cash spent. You know, until 3 or 6 years down the road when you're now out of bulbs. But then your in the position you are in now. Hopefully you've planned for the conversion by now and are ready to go.

If Congress repeals the law (again, can I say how much this is a tempest in a tea pot? Seriously, this is a non-issue), well, you would have had to buy those bulbs anyway. If they don't, then you're positioned to get more of your ducks in order to make the switch (and if you were in business and haven't prepared for this, frankly, 1) you're wasting money with inefficiency and 2) you aren't really competitive). So, no matter what happens you're ahead of the game (except for not being prepared for the new regulations that were passed over 5 years ago).

I sit and wait to see what Congress is going to do. Maybe I go out and buy up a supply, delaying my decision. Maybe I hold onto the cash pending the development of a better light bulb.

If that's you're plan, you're screwed. Doing nothing, and engaging in wishful thinking is a sure way to lose. The old maxim, "pigs get slaughtered, rabbits get skinned," is true in investing and in business. Standing still in business is not an option.

What you can do (valid strategy) is plan for the worst case scenario and move forward. If things turn out better than you planned, that's great. But sitting on the sidelines is a sure way to have someone else eat your lunch. Not growin, or shrinking, or going out and finding business, or meeting your customer's needs (try and sell something in a dark showroom) is a sure recepie for business stagnation. Which leads to death. I've seen it too many times.

Uncertainity is indeed an issue. Maybe it's the MBAs running the show. Maybe it's my uncles in their businesses -not one of them is an MBA, btw - who say "Until I get a clue what's going on with the health care, I'm not doing anything."

There is always an excuse for doing nothing. Again, engaging in wishful thinking. Understand that even if you get you're way and ACA is repealed, then it'll be "will Congress extend the Bush Era tax cuts," (earliest repeal will be next year, tax cut extension expires December 2012). There's always something that you won't know. Hell, Democrats could retake state governments and the House as well as keep the Presidency, and then your uncertainty will be if they increase taxes. There's always some excuse to not do something.

Edited to add Understand the issue is if you have unproductive capital (ie. cash on hand). Now, if you're struggling with cash flow, those are different issues. But with the cash, you can do various things. However, letting it accumulate a great deal without a plan (such as short-term investments to grow cash while you're pulling together enough capital to do a big move) just isn't smart. And that's what is happening with much of this cash companies are keeping on the books. It's sitting in (at best) short term, quick liquidity vehicles.

Running your business without examination will run you into the grounds. There is always going to be uncertainty in business. It's part and parcel of the business gig (and one of the reasons I'm not running my own business at this point, btw, I understand the paralysis of not knowing which way to turn, also I hate sales). So, if you're using some future possible event as a reason for staying still, maybe being in business isn't really for you? Because, like I said, there will always be uncertainty.

If you're in a business that doesn't have that, I want to know what it is.

Letting the cash sit helps no one. Non-working capital is outside the economy (economy is the movement of cash, unproductive capital is a negative on GDP, etc). The technical recession is over, has been for over a year and a half now. Except for construction, most retail numbers are back to normal. So what's different? All those businesses are sitting on their cash instead of doing the smart thing. Because they're afraid. If it continues for too much longer, it'll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. So the goal is to get that capital moving and working. Hell, pay it as a dividend to your shareholders.

Right now is the exact opportune time to make a move. Waiting until everybody is moving it too late. You'll have missed the boat, and even if you're able to catch up, you'll be paying a premium for it (both in costs, and in any loans you may have to take). Building your business now is the smart money. In two years you'll be reading about the companies that are doing that, because they'll be the industry leaders (like I've said before, this isn't my first time on this merry-go-round).

Now, if you're facing the opposite problem (not enough cash flow), then you have different choices to make. And in either case, YMMV (not everybody's situation/market is the same as others).

I wonder if we can call e-book cards Quatloos?

Dean Wesley Smith on how to think like a publisher #11. he has an idea of how to sell e-books as physical objects, and it's pretty interesting (Grokked from Jay Lake). There's a few things wrong with this, but they're at the tips of my fingers and I haven't been able to grab ahold of them yet.

The one thought I could wrestle to the ground is that while he's talked to indie booksellers if they like they idea, I'm not sure he's talked to those who read books on e-readers if they'd want to purchase books this way. Seems like if you have the reader, you already have a good mechanism for purchasing built-in.

However, that's not to say this isn't a cool mechanism, and a very useful one at that. Now, while he was talking about a "book on a gift card" I have to admit I saw a different purchasing mechanism. Most smart phones/e-readers don't have card readers (as in magnetic strip readers), but that may also be an interesting way of selling books (need to verify data storage capabilities on those magnetic strips).

Enthrill ebooks (linked to from DWS's article) have created a business model for this, but I think they missed the boat here. They're using QR technology, but I don't think to it's fullest extent. See, with QR tech, you could give books serial numbers (they don't have the information density to include a whole book, but could be customized to URLS). Each one of those cards on the stack could have a unique QR tag, which would lead to a discrete ebook sale/download (also possible with the book on magnet strip idea above). And the information you could garner from that scheme I think publishers/retailers would love to have. (And here I will let leak that one of my book promo ideas was to use QR codes to distribute samples, you know, once I get published).

The big draw back to all of these right now is device integration. There's only one e-reader that I think would work with this (although my knowledge of e-readers is woefully small here), the Nook. Which has been getting big buzz lately. But then, just as the Nook is wining brain-share for it's open format (to how books can be loaded), with these models we're just created another micro-space environment to substitute for others (Apple iBooks, Kindle, etc).

As you can see, I'm not being entirely coherent because my brain just went all 'splody with the idea. It's not perfect, or even (IMHO) a full plan at this point. But I can feel a great solution lurking just below the surface. This beggars to have more thought put into it.

For love or money

The Great Kalman vs Duffy Deathmatch. That's a combative interview about the future direction of design which occurred while I was in school (yeah, it's old, but still relevant). At the time Duffy seemed to have been winning the hearts and minds of the new generation. However Kalman's vision has come back with a vengeance (I'm cynical about it in that it's a basic play to not pay for good design). Possibly way too design geek napery for most, but this actually was a very influential event at the time.

And, as I stated, it's something the industry is still struggling with. Are we artists who shan't be sullied by vulgar corporate concerns of money and feeding ourselves? Or are we just highly educated street walkers charging a ten-spot for a hand-job?

Personally, I come down on the educated street walker side, although I'm worth more than a Hamilton. While what I do may look, smell, and taste like art, it isn't. Art is a personal expression, even for art that is commissioned (either as we do it now, or even in the days of patronage). What I do is an expression of my client/day job. While my personal style may leak through, it's more a function of production values than a real artistic expression.

That's not to say that I haven't done pieces that are my sole expression of composition. These are typically for the clients who "can't pay" (done as pro boon, work done for which the client welshes, that's another matter entirely). But even with that, most often the message isn't mine.

I'm also not arguing that artists also have free range of expression. Many do commissioned works. That's how you keep the lights on. An artist, however, typically is sought for their vision. Their patron or client is paying for that vision (if they agree with it at the end can typically be a sticking point).

Graphic designers are sought for their skills.

If you think of it militarily, artists are like the warriors who fight because of agape. Graphic designers aren't even soldiers, we're mercenaries who fight for the dollar. Soldiers are somewhere in between those. For a designer, it closely relates to recruitment posters of Poncho Villa. They stated, "Join up for the Glory and the Gold." But mostly for the gold.

Once more unto the breech

This morning we're back in airports, seeing if we can make it to the south. The timing is not coincidental as it is spring break at Lakeland.

And just an update, Delta finally turned on their monitors and even though my flight isn't for an hour yet, we're already delayed. Great.

I was about to say that this will be the first spring break (ever) that I've gone someplace. And even though this is for work, at least I'm goin to Florida. Tallahassee, but still Florida. It's strange that at 44, I'm taking my first real spring break. When I was working on my undergraduate at Akron, spring break was a time to work 60 or more hours at my various jobs. I hope to not work that much this week.

So, wish me luck. I also have a quiz when I get back, with the possibility of a test on Wednesday when I return. It's a spring break alright.

Chicken Dance

Coolio Daddy Dan sends a link to some interesting technology. Now, I'm not one to buy into the "technology will save us" philosophy, but this is very cool. One of the problems with converting to a hydrogen economy is the storage of the fuel (hydrogen). People are working like mad on battery tech (hello Bolivia!) and trying to get fuel cells to be practical (they are, but they cost too much and are prone to breakdowns). And now most of the promising technology to store hydrogen safely and efficiently in a portable fashion (unless you want all our hydrogen cars to have to carry those "Flammable/Explosive" icons on them) has been hideously expensive (like the price of a BMW, one of the nice ones). Well, necessity is the mother of something and some enterprising people at the University of Delaware have come up with a very cost effective method. Chicken feathers. Baked chicken feathers.

Those scientists. They're always thinking. Even when making a late night KFC run.

Large fuels cells just became more practical.

Let us sit on the ground and tell sad tales of newspapers past

Sam Butler had a post about the demise of newspapers and print (journalism and other printed materials). And just like I am I had to comment. With his encouragement I'm going to make it a post here.

So some background. Sam was discussing this post by Clay Shirky about the death of newspapers and print journalism. Sam pulled this quote, and I think it is the main argument being made here.

"With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem."

This is the same argument about how digital books will replace printed books, the death of music (live performances are still up), the death of TVs, Movies, etc. Digital delivery of books will eventually replace most hard copy (my guess is in about 40 years although there will still be hard copy). While music is delivered differently, it isn't essentially made any differently (although the tools now exist to bypass the music publishing industry, those tools just democratized the function they didn't alter it in any real sense). The same can be said for TV and movies. Made the same basic way, just delivered differently.

Let's just say that since the early 90s I've listened to how the "internet"/"digital revolution" was going to replace print media and give us the paperless office. Since then I've seen print increase to the point that most paper mills churn out cubic miles of laser grade paper at the expense of "real" paper (copy bond just ain't it, you know) which can still be had, but for anything other than "house papers" (the paper print houses buy in bulk for when the client doesn't know how to spec paper, which leads to it's lower cost, which leads more people to select those papers... it's like why most barns are red, because that's the cheapest paint. Why? Because they sell a lot of it to paint barns) you're looking at special orders. Most highly specialized paper is no longer manufactured in the US, you have to ship it from former East Block countries or Asia (which ups the price, which furthers our drive to cheap white copy bond papers). But over all we produce more tons of paper now than we did in the late 80s. So much for the paperless office.

IMHO, if you want to see the real future of newspapers, google the term "hyperlocal." The national and international news are covered by other businesses. I don't watch local TV news anymore. Why? Because it's become a foreshadowing of the National News broadcast that I would watch in just a half an hour. If my local news is covering the fires in Australia, something is wrong. But hyperlocal requires manpower, which is expensive. So most news organizations reprint AP bulletins and rely on phone calls to cover local sports, add in syndicated columns, decrease the very thing people wanted from their paper (including my former local paper the Canton Repository decimating the obituaries page, of which the found out very quickly just how much of a bad idea that was, they changed it back - my opinion, very stupid of them, obituaries are PAID placements, normally not written by in-house staff - although some of them are - WTF were they thinking?).

So without making this a dissertation, here's my comment.

(full disclosure, I work in printing)

So, back when I was doing real design many clients kept on talking about how this "internet thing" was going to replace all catalogs/brochures/business cards (whatever). Those clients that did go all the way saw their businesses stagnate. Those that went halfway, "we'll not print next year's catalog," always ended up printing next year's catalog.

He's cherry-picking points in history and post hoc ergo prompter hocing all the way to his conclusions which explain absolutely nothing except, "The world has changed, we're all going to have to get used to it." Moveable type presses in Europe (and I'm being specific here) came at a time when lots of other movements were coming together. The Renaissance had already begun, the feudal system was collapsing with the rise of guilds, power was shifting from Spain, Germany and Italy to France, England, and Turkey. The enlightenment was a powder keg just waiting for a match, which Martin Luther provided. All of which drove and were driven by printing and the new found wealth of Africa, Asia and the New World (and here I'm limiting myself to Western/European Culture and ignoring most of the rest of the world because he also did in his post).

Newspapers are dying because of a number of factors. While the "Bagdad Bureau" was a part of it, it was only because everybody had to have one, and they did so at the expense of other reporting (like the local council meetings). People want the local news. When that "local news" reports things in Florida, New Zealand and Somalia, it's not as valuable. There are other organs that can do that. Decimating city desks in favor of "glamor" positions and AP reprints also leads to their own demise. Our local newspaper can't spare someone to cover our town's events. Guess what we did when it came time to appoint a paper of record, we went with the lowest cost, highest circulation press. Local sales have gone down, and the newspaper now focuses on communities east of us, all the while bewailing the loss of their subscriptions and revenue from our town.

Advertising dollars are way down. Everywhere. That the "internet" isn't suffering as much from the drop is because there wasn't much there to begin with (internet advertising nearly died six years ago). More money is flowing that way only because the ad execs have to be hip and sexy and the internet is hip and sexy. It's a contact high. Once the businesses start realizing that they can use old metrics to measure the "new media" they'll find out just what their money bought them.

The internet is fabulous when you know what you are looking for. It's horrible when you don't know what you don't know but need to find it. And I've heard the "old economics" arguments before. His view of what "publishing solves" is also very surface. It's like an NPR report I heard on the way home about a non-profit company providing coaches to poorer schools to structure recess for the kids. The reporter gave one of those truisms, "You may not remember it, but somebody taught you how to jump a rope, play kickball, tag, hopscotch, all the games of youth."

It's the End of the World for a New Year

(Cross posted on Genre Bender)

If you've been paying attention to the publishing world lately, you know that they've been predicting Armageddon for all of the past November-December. As the economy hits the skids, publishers haven't been immune from the bird-flue epidemic of layoffs and cutbacks. Since Harper-Collins' executive announcement about not purchasing new manuscripts leaked out, it's all been doom and gloom.

Well, genre sales have gone up this past Xmas buying season. You wouldn't know that except for actually looking at bookscan data (no, I don't have access, but those who do tell me it's true).

But things aren't all rosy. Since the 70s, genre publishing has been on a downhill slope. This was made manifest to me by going to a panel honoring Betty Ballantine at the 2007 World Fantasy Convention. Part of that panel interviewing and honoring her covered how the industry has changed since she helped start Ballantine Books. Of the major changes, print numbers and sell-through (how many actually sell) have been the most drastic (besides the switch from paperback to hard-cover and the rise of the trade paperback). In the 70s is wasn't uncommon to print 30,000 books for a new author and sell 90% of those. These are numbers a best-selling author would envy today. 30M (30,000 in print speak) books is the same as the combined total of the first, second, and third printings of a new author. And 70% sell through is considered good.

Here are two blog posts that shed light on not only the current state of genre publishing but also the history of how we got here (thanks, BTW, to Jay Lake's link salad).

First up is Charlie Stross' Why SF & F novels are the length they are.

Here's another from Scrivener's Error on the Publishing Squeeze.

Hope that helps with perspectives. As for me, I'm going to spend my Xmas Borders' gift cards as quick as possible and hunker down on the new work for the new year. Here's hoping with have happier news to talk about at the end of 2009.

I write I'm sorry but my letter keeps coming back

(Cross posted on Genre Bender)

S. Andrew Swann points us (through his blog post which has a really good LOLcat) to a new publishing group at HarperCollins that's trying something different. Here is a Reuters article giving the basic overview and a NYT article with more details about the new group and what they maybe trying to do.

I think it's good that some publishing house has not only realized that the distribution and business model of book selling is broken, but is trying something new to fix it. The "share the profit instead of an advance" has me a little worried and sets off my "Scam" alarms, but with the HC name behind it, I'm willing to give it a little room to wiggle. For that part to work, accounting at the publishers and distributors will have to become simpler than the full work-up astrology charts they currently resemble. Really, there's a whole art to figuring out when advances earn out and how much royalty is due afterward. Go ask any published author who has actually earned a royalty check. Santeria has more straightforward rules.

The process of "stripping" is also something that should be abolished and this new venture goes a long way to plunge the stake into it's heart. For those of you not in the know, many moons ago the publishing houses realized they were losing money on return shipping (having started the process of full credit returns during the last depression IIRC) so for paperbacks, they allowed the stores to strip the covers off and return just the cover for credit. The store was then to destroy/pulp the book themselves. I'm sure you've all seen the warnings to never buy a book without it's cover. You wouldn't need such warning if it hadn't been such a widespread practice. Personally, I'd rather see the front side of distribution change with adding more actual people on both the handing books to the stores and the stores buying books (IMHO, this is where printed fiction has lost the majority of their audience, the automation of the process and the reduction of real humans who actually knew what people wanted to read in their local markets on both sides of the transaction).

How this will affect the whole life cycle of a book remains to be seen (publish, sold, shelved, returned, discounted, remaindered). And as you can see they're only tackling one part of this. That part is pretty important (constant shipping of one book can soak up more than the royalty), but it exists in a larger context of the business model.

Unfortunately I see this as becoming into a more traditional "partnership" with the publisher. And it still remains to be seen how the other aspects of publishing are handled (marketing, shelf space, printing complexities, art direction, etc) with this model. For some reason (call me a cynic) I don't believe the publisher will re-shoulder more of the marketing responsibilities. Although 25 books a year is considered "boutique" from what I understand, there are small presses which publish more books. So they may be able to give more in all these concerns.

In the overall scheme, I think this is a good new practice. I have some minor quibbles, but it doesn't even sound like they have it all together yet anyway. It'll be interesting to hear from the authors that sell into this new imprint. I hope they will share and can share their experiences. It'll also be interesting to see how this would stack up against other small press deals (who I would see adopting a business model close to this faster than the larger imprints).

Well, since all the stores think it's Xmas anyway

When I posted at the beginning of the year of going to the Jeff Dunham concert in Youngstown, I was surprised to find a lot of you like his comedy. I also mentioned how he was prepping material for an Xmas Special and a few of you asked about it. Well, tonight it debuts on Comedy Central (9pm eastern), and on Tuesday you can get the DVD for yourself. YouTube previews here.

In my former life as a high profile designer (before I became a factory worker - there's another term but I'll spare you all) I used to do DVD and CD cases and packaging. Now, you might think that these are filmed on Xmas and released the next (we did work for the gospel music industry so we had a lot of experience with Xmas Specials). You'd be wrong. Most are filmed in August or September for release that year. So when you see all those people with their heavy coats and clothing sitting in the theaters watching the show you're watching, understand that even with the air-conditioning running at full tilt, they're sweating their bums off. Also, all that snow and sugar plum fairies and xmas trees are just out for the show. Afterward they hang around the back dock smoking their cigs and talking about where the best place is to get mojitos.

So, go forth and watch, laugh, enjoy. Feel sorry for the audience members who are very uncomfortable (but mostly get free tickets). Knock back with some eggnog, and try not to have it come through your nose while you laugh. 'Tis the season after all.

Bad Flash, no Cookie

Fab-dad and techno-wizard Dan sends me word about how Flash has cookies. Here's the /. article. And here's a control panel to adjust security settings.

So, Macromedia, just WTF is Flash doing being able to access my built-in camera and microphone without asking me? Why do you need your own cookie file that really isn't accessible through the software? Are you really ignorant about the security and privacy concerns this "functionality" endangers?

For too long corporations have felt they have a freedom to run over their customer's rights and then only have to present a mea culpa for redemption. Much of modern internet functions rely on the use of Flash technology, so dumping the code isn't an option. Hauling the programmers and executives out into the streets to tar and feather them (not verbally, I mean real boiling tar and chicken feathers) should be the remedy. It's far better than the treatment they would have received just 200 years ago and we would only need to do it a few times before the situation rectifies itself.

Don't like that idea, Mr. Big Business Suit? The other option is to impose actual fines that would cripple your business and help the deficit. Say 50% of revenues (not profits, gross revenues). That should do it. Tar and feathering of a few key executives doesn't sound so bad anymore, does it? And yes, your violation of my privacy does rise to the level of your company being put out of business.

Dipping their huge little toe in the waters

If you're a writer you really can't have missed the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments surrounding the whole Pixel-stained Technopeasant, "give it away for free" vs "pirates are going to deep-six the publishing industry" controversy. Really, for the past three years (at least in public) the partisans of both sides have clashed. Often. And with great bruhaha. As a side line to this discussion is the "electronic books will kill the dead tree versions real soon now" concept (my response, "Yeah, and we're going to have that paperless office RSN").

Many of us in SF/F who believe that there is benefit to offering free samples point to Baen's Free Library as an example of success (that link point to Baen's Universe where Eric Flint has been holding court on some of this issues). Main stream media points to Harper-Collins tentative steps in the field (this is a note to those conservative friends of mine who proclaim loudly that the main stream press always gets their side "wrong," the msp gets everything "wrong").

Hopefully NPR will post the whole transcript of the story, it's really worth examining. In case they don't post the whole thing, here's some of the highlights. With the H-C test you can't download the books, you have to read them off the site. Sales of the dead-tree version of the books they've tested have been significantly higher. Neil Gaiman's American Gods (which is an excellent book, BTW, I highly recommend it) saw a sales increase right after they released the electronic version (the book has been out for five years, I think). Also, while some people read the whole book online, most read 20-40 pages. By that point, the thought process goes, they know if they want to buy the book or not. But just in case anybody missed it, hard copy sales went up for the titles they released for free. Nothing succeeds like success.

In fairness, they have only tested a miniscule number of titles (compared to the H-C catalog). Their release isn't like Tor Books experiment (which gives you the whole book in a number of formats you can read offline). The difference here is the H-C authors are all BNA (big name authors) who have typically had the most to lose by giving away free books (under the "worst thing for a new author isn't pirates, it's obscurity" line of reasoning).