Who decides what an e-book book costs, the retailer or the publisher? This is the question at the heart of the debate on e-book pricing. Previously many publishers sold e-books to retailers for a fixed rate and the retailer decided what to charge the end user. If the retailer wanted to make a small profit, big profit or even a loss it was up to them. Amazon seized this model since they can sell e-books for near, at or even below cost and still make money by selling other products. Amazon’s loss-leader strategy paid off and the Kindle is their best selling product ever.
However, Apple would rather that the publisher set the retail price and give the retailers a fixed 30% margin. Even though this is blatantly anti-free market nobody seemed to care in this case because iPads are very shiny and people are impressed when you have one of these fondle-slabs. Apple doesn’t sell anything at a loss or even at low margin so this model fit better with their philosophy.
Today Random House became the last major publisher to switch over to the agency model that Apple prefers.
When you listen to Apple talk about the iPad 2 tomorrow just remember what it costs you and what it costs the market.
The 81st International Motorshow in Geneva is kicking off this week. Auto manufacturers are showing off new cars and concepts. As with most auto shows it is a mix of stunning, ugly, practical, affordable and those that we can only wish to own.
If your dream has always been to own a $1M electric car then Rolls-Royce has just the limo for you. It’s every bit as handsome, or ugly, as previous RR machines but it will get you 125 miles down the road without a recharge. Suicide doors are standard but Grey Poupon is not included.
Rolls-Royce Phantom Electric - DailyMail
While the Rolls-Royce styling may not be for everyone, it’s not the ugliest car in the world. That title now belongs to the AstroBionix Thor. Marketed as an “Ultimate Deployment Vehicle,” this UDV is U-G-L-Y. On the up side it does rock a 600 horse power 7.0L V8 in case you need to escape escape a mob of pitchfork carrying peasants.
AstroBionix Thor - Jalopnik
An electric coupe with a bit more style and affordability is the Nissan Esflow concept. The Esflow is a rear wheel drive machine meant for two and uses the same battery pack as the Leaf that you can’t buy. It will get you through 150 miles of driving bliss and at least a dozen nods of acceptance from anyone you pass on the street.
Nissan Esflow Concept - AutoBlog
A less practical coupe is the Wiesmann Sypder concept. If Speed Racer were to choose a car from the show this would be it. It has air intakes big enough for a 737 and headlights that could belong to an insect. It uses a V8 with 420-horse power and has no windshield. Bring a helmet and goggles.
Wiesmann Spyder Concept - AutoBlog
But the car that you’re most likely to want to take on a camping trip is without a doubt the VW Bulli. Get your prescription card ready because the Micro Bus is back and it’s a hybrid! Hippies everywhere are rejoicing.
Hello Crasstalk. Wonderful as always to see you all here. It’s been an exciting day and hopefully we will have a fun night together. A couple of servicey reminders. First, if you are new, here is a handy guide to commenting on Crasstalk. Now if you could just take off your clothes so we can see what we’ve got here (sorry, I will seek help). Second, please pimp us on the social media thingies on the page so that we may storm to victory on the internets.
Despite his bizarre claims in an interview with ABCNews’ Christiane Amanpour, Gaddafi’s crackdown on opposition forces intensified over the weekend with Special Forces, regular Army forces and fighter jets striking opposition targets. Meanwhile, opposition forces announced the formation of the National Libyan Council and selected former justice minister Mustafa Mohamed Abdel Jalil is to lead the initiative. The Council will coordinate attempts to liberate Tripoli and other Libyan areas still under Gaddafi’s control. On Sunday, Sens. McCain and Lieberman called on the US government to recognize and arm the provisional opposition government. Over the weekend and through last night, opposition forces fought fierce battles against pro-Gaddafi forces to maintain their hold on ‘liberated’ areas, but neither side appears to have gained a clear military advantage. Opposition forces repelled sustained pro-Gaddafi assaults on the opposition-held towns of Zawiyah and Misrata, but attempts to reach Tripoli did not materialize and it remains under Gaddafi’s control.
Opposition organizers in Benghazi
Beyond the military assaults, Libyan civilians trapped by the fighting are facing food and medical supply shortages. Over the weekend, The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) entered Eastern Libya, including opposition held Benghazi, and is now providing medical assistance. The ICRC reports 256 killed and 2,000 people wounded in Benghazi. On Monday, French Prime Minister, François Fillon, announced that France is also sending two planes carrying doctors, nurses, medications and medical equipment to Benghazi. The planes are scheduled to leave this morning. However, due to the security situation, aid is not reaching western parts of Libya. According to Valerie Amos, the UN humanitarian chief, the security situation around Tripoli remains too dangerous for international aid agencies to assess the need for medicine, food and other supplies in the west. The ICRC has also not been able to access Western Libya and Al Jazeera reports this morning that Gaddafi’s regime may be purposefully blocking food supplies to Western towns as a means of undermining opposition control.
Benghazi, the de facto capital of the opposition, is where much of anti-Gaddafi actions are co-ordinated and executed.
For Libyans and foreign nationals who have been able to flee the country, refugee support remains limited. Sybella Wilkes, spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, announced that more than 140,000 refugees have fled into neighboring countries, estimating that up to 75,000 refugees had already crossed into Tunisia from Libya and 69,000 others had crossed from eastern Libya into Egypt. Over the weekend, witnesses and news reports documented Tunisian guards repeatedly opening fire on refugees attempting to enter and refugees being beaten by guards. Once through the border, the refugee situation remains precarious. The Tunisian camp can accommodate about 10,000 people. “The resources are being drawn down as quickly as we can pump them in,” Ms. Wilkes said in a telephone interview. Relief workers have said they are concerned about sanitation in the camp and supplies of drinking water. In Geneva, Secretary of State Clinton announced the Obama Administration has set aside $10 million for emergency humanitarian relief through the U.S. Agency for International Development and that two teams of USAID experts are being sent to Libya’s borders to assess the refugee crisis and organize the delivery of aid.
Member of opposition forces outside Benghazi military base
More than two weeks after the uprising began the International community continues to increase pressure on the Gaddafi regime though military intervention but the imposition of a no fly zone remains unlikely at this point. Over the weekend, acting on President Obama’s Executive Order, the US Treasury Department froze $30 billion in Libyan government assets. The European Union imposed new sanctions, including an arms and police equipment sales embargo and a visa ban for Libyan officials. On Saturday the Security Council met for a second time and adopted Resolution 1970 under its Chapter VII, Article 41 authority which includes 1) an ICC referral, 2) an arms embargo, 3) an asset freeze and 4) a travel ban (Note: the Resolution link provides summaries of the Security Council member statements on the Resolution. Importantly, Ibrahim Dabbashi, the Deputy Permanent Delegate, represented the Libyan delegation).
Despite repeated pleas from the Libyan UN delegation, human rights groups and some US elected officials, the UN Security Council did not include imposing a no fly zone to prevent Gaddafi from bombing civilians by air. Today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov ruled out Russian support for a no fly zone. Russia is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and has veto authority. NATO could impose and enforce a no fly zone but has stated that any military interventions would have to be UN authorized.
For those having problems with the Al Jazeera live stream (maybe it’s just me), sign up for LiveStation (it’s free!) and you can watch any Al Jazeera channel: http://www.livestation.com/
After deciding not to run again because of being on the receiving end of some shady mortgage deals from Countrywide, Chris Dodd (D-CT) has a cushy new job as the CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). He will replace Bob Pisano who is the acting CEO. Pisano is a Hollywood insider who spent time at SAG, MGM and Paramount, whereas Dodd is certain that he’s seen movies but is outraged by the price of popcorn and the lack of wide parking spots.
The MPAA is the organization that determines what rating a film will receive based on how many instances of boobs, butts, peens, dirty words, violence, sex and Mel Gibson are in the film. They don’t tell you what you can’t have in your film, but if you want it to get a R or below you know what you have to do.
A look at today’s MSN Homepage reveals a varied representation of either the nadir or the zenith of our socio-political media culture, depending on which way you hold the chart. This sort of thing would normally upset me, but I am too busy looking up the location of the nearest IHOP to care.
The six weeks before Paris Fashion Week are now marked as the time wherein the fashion world is rocked to its core after last year’s January suicide of Alexander McQueen and this year’s career suicide of John Galliano.
After video of him declaring “I Love Hitler” and “People like you would be dead. Your mothers, your forefathers, would all be fucking gassed,” was released by The Sun yesterday, Sidney Toledano has fired John Galliano from his post as head designer at Dior. The irony that, he too, would have been subjected to Hitler’s wrath under Paragraph 175 of Germany’s 1871 penal code (banning sodomy), seems to be lost on Mr. Galliano, who is openly gay.
Dior’s spokeswoman, Natalie Portman, spoke out against the designer stating that “I am deeply shocked and disgusted by the video of John Galliano’s comments that surfaced today…In light of this video, and as an individual who is proud to be Jewish, I will not be associated with Mr. Galliano in any way.” Ms. Portman also protested the designer at the Oscars by wearing a dress by Rodarte, whom was responsible for a number of the costumes in the movie Black Swan for which she won the Oscar for Best Actress. Mr. Toledano, President and CEO of Dior, released a statement saying “I condemn most firmly the statements made by John Galliano which are a total contradiction with the essential values that have always been defended by the House of Christian Dior.”
Rumor has it that Dior has been looking for a reason to fire Galliano after a series of collections that have received middling reviews and comments regarding repetition, but the timing of this incident couldn’t be worse as Paris fashion week ramps up. There’s no word yet on whether the industry will boycott the Dior and Galliano shows, but given that Dior is too important and that they fired Mr. Galliano, it seems safe to believe that the industry will forgive the famed house. They are, however, much less likely to do the same for Galliano’s eponymous label for which there is currently some speculation as to whether or not that particular show will be canceled altogether.
One thing is for certain, fashion has lost its King and there will be a brouhaha in the coming month over who LVMH will decide to replace Galliano. The safe bets are on any acclaimed French or British designer, but wouldn’t it be grand if say, Rei Kawakubo or, more scandalously, an American, was hired?
I love modern society. Charlie Sheen claims that he is a winner at life. The French are shocked – SHOCKED! – that there is anti-semitism within their borders. And the Oscars stunk. Not because Anne Hathaway had a bad case of dramaqueenitis. Not because James Franco spent the evening somewhere in the upper reaches of the ionosphere.
According to Andy Cohen of Bravo!, the Oscars stunk because of children. Public school children. In choruses. Wearing tee-shirts. And behaving like children.
The pearls of wisdom roll in after the 3-minute mark. “There was a thing called ‘Up With People’ in the ’70s or ’80s. Here’s what: Oscar night is not about Up With People. Like, I don’t need to see that. It was just bad. It was just awful. It was horrible.” Now this is a man I can get behind. Screw you, optimism!
And the solution: kill the children. “A public school chorus singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” I literally — if I wasn’t going to go out to some parties I would have slit ’em right then. It was the worst. I was looking for a knife to stick in my eyes, it was so terrible.”
And the Academy Award for Best Performance By A Douchebag goes to Andy Cohen for his portrayal of Patrick Bateman in American Psycho III: I Want To Slit The Throats Of School Kids.
Personally, I can’t think of anything better than a rich white man telling a group of kids from the crappier sections of Staten Island that “You just ruined everything.” Yeah, and those public school teachers need a paycut. I’m sick and tired of them drinking Cristal at after hours clubs and being chauferred to work in Maybachs.
UPDATE: Because of a lot of “Who the heck are these kids and why did they sing at the Oscars” flying around the Net, I did a little reading (at their website). The Chorus has been written up a lot of times over the last 5 years. They hit it big when one of their YouTube performances of a Tori Amos song was sent to Perez Hilton, who loved it and posted it. It wound up getting well over a million hits.
An excerpt from a NYT article on them:
“And Mr. Breinberg [a/k/a Mr. B, the chorus’ director], in turn, seems to feel a deep affection for his singers. ‘There’s a great feeling in seeing these kids — some of whom have been abused, neglected, who have nothing to look forward to when they get home — and knowing that when they come in to my class to sing, you can just see the depth of their emotional experience come through,’ he said.”
They’re also part of the “Save The Music” type efforts to keep music and arts programs in public schools (often first on the chopping block).
It really gives perspective to whom exactly Andy Cohen was shitting on. I’ve got no problem with him having an opinion. I do tend to draw a line on publicly dumping on children. You don’t have to like the kids or the performance but taking to the national airwaves to tell a group of lower and middle class 10 year-olds “You ruined the Oscars for everyone” borders on sociopathic. Especially given the oeuvre that is The Real Housewives Of…
On the racial front, look at the 2011 Oscar lineup. The winner was The King’s Speech (about as white, rich, and privileged as it gets). Of the nominees, only Javier Bardem was a minority. It was a lily-white ceremony with lily-white presenters honoring lily-white subjects where the only “black” nominated was Black Swan.
Try not to break anything while fist-pumping to this video.
Seriously, is there anything cooler than the 1:12 mark when you see the sub go underwater? Someone should fix up one of those old ships and charge people to go out into the ocean and just blast those machine guns up into the air. I would pay good money to do that.
I’ve had several people email me and say things like “I just heard the word episiotomy for the first time” or “I didn’t know that your face blew up into craters when you were pregnant!”. The emails invariably end with the phrase “Nobody told me that.”
Indeed. That is part of the gestation initiation: There’s a whole bunch of stuff they don’t tell you before you get pregnant. Then, when you’re pregnant, slowly, the mysteries of gestation and birth are revealed to you. It’s highly unsettling and, I think, a little bit unfair. There should be a bit more disclosure for the potential recruits. I doubt knowledge will change much. Most people will still have kids anyway, thinking “I’ll be the exception to the rule”. Knowledge doesn’t stop lots of people from having second or third children. Look at Michelle Duggar. There can’t be much she doesn’t know at this point and it’s no deterrent for her.
In the interests of full disclosure, here are a few things about pregnancy no one ever tells you about. Some might happen to you, others won’t. However, at least two of them will.
Pregnancy zits: They can put adolescence to shame. You can get them on your face, chest, back, nose, wherever. By this point in your life, you’ve probably forgotten how much zits can hurt. You’ll remember.
Food aversions: You hear a lot about morning sickness, which is something you usually get over after 12 weeks. Food aversions can last the whole pregnancy. I was personally so freaked out by chickens during one pregnancy that I had to stay away from the rotisserie chicken section of the grocery store. I couldn’t even think about the shape of a chicken without wanting to vomit. I know a woman who had the same problem with lettuce. She was convinced she could smell lettuce if it was in the same room. Common food aversions include eggs, meat, milk and salad.
Hair loss: This might happen after your delivery. Or it can happen when you’re first pregnant. Or both. If it happens afterward, buy the Rogaine for Men. The kind for women isn’t as good (of course).
The advice and the touching: They say it takes a village to raise a child and I will vouch for the fact that the village certainly seems to think so. The moment you show signs of gestating, the village will be up in your grill nonstop and the customary boundaries of personal space will cease to apply to you. People love two things in life: Dispensing advice and touching pregnant women. They’ll come up to you with all kinds of advice, some good, some weird and then their hands will creep towards your belly. They’ll get more aggressive as you grow. By the time you are in the 3rd trimester, you can’t fight people off with a blowtorch. Sometimes a woman, with her hand on my belly, would relate a gem of wisdom from her years of parenting and what I really want to do was not to ask for more advice but to ask “Have we met?”
Bad jokes: Around the third trimester, people start making hysterical jokes. Look how huge you are! Do you beep when you walk backwards? You don’t walk, you waddle! You’ve been pregnant since God was a boy! Do you think you are ever going to have that baby? Are you eating lots of pickles and ice cream? You still haven’t had that baby? Oh boy, are you in for some sleepless nights!
Yes, the people around you turn into standup comedians and they all recycle the same jokes. I firmly believe this is at the root of all pregnant women’s grouchiness. The swelling, the exhaustion – these are all things a person can cope with. However 9,878 jokes about the same damn thing will make a woman want to slap everyone she sees. Fortunately, people will write any and all bitchy comments you make off to pregnancy crazies so feel free to tell people to go to hell. For once, you can get away with it.
There are many, many more untold stories of pregnancy, birth, and child rearing. I’ve barely scraped the surface. Unfortunately, I got so annoyed thinking about all the irritating jokes that I’m going to need a glass of wine to calm myself down and think clearly again.
