Being an internet refuge for Graeme McMillan
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
US soldiers secure a French armored vehicle aboard a C17 aircraft at the Istres military airport prior to take off bound for Mali. French forces are continuing their advance northwards in Mali with over 2,000 troops assisting Malian forces fight islamic militants. Photograph: Gerard Julien/AFP/Getty Images
There’s something about this that feels as if it belongs in a science fiction movie to me; only the car looks like it belongs in the world I’m familiar with.
Why, yes: I am writing about schlock and the myth of “so bad, it’s good” over at Time Entertainment today.
I was talking to a friend the other day about the problems she was having writing a paper for school; she was telling me that she kept writing things and then realizing that it was all in the wrong order, and that she wanted to keep changing everything even though she wasn’t even finished a first draft, leading to a particularly distracting, frustrating experience. That was this piece, for me; it stubbornly refused to come together, and I was tearing my metaphorical hair out trying to get it into some semblance of coherent argument (I’m not entirely sure I succeeded in the end, to be honest). There was one point where what is currently a paragraph in the first third of the piece was the final paragraph, then in the middle, then somewhere towards the end, and so on and so on. Some things just don’t want to be written, it can feel like.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Little knitted caps are placed on top of fruit smoothies during the 2013 World Economic Forum annual meeting at the Swiss resort of Davos. The event is taking place from 23 to 27 January. Photograph: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images
Knitted caps on top of smoothies. Sometimes, the world is a confusing, wonderful place.
My own guess, based on watching my sales profile over the years, is that print, eBook and audiobook do not inherently cannibalize each others’ sales — it seems to me that for each there is a class of reader that is “native” to each — that is, there is a group of readers who strongly prefers print over eBook or audio, another group who prefers eBook strongly to the other formats, and a third group (correlated, I imagine, with people who have long commutes) who strongly prefer audiobook. I don’t think I lose a print sale by selling in eBook, or an eBook sale by selling in audio — rather, that selling in each of these formats is allowing me to expand my overall audience. Once again, this is an argument for remaining actively involved in all of the formats rather than throwing one (or more) overboard and putting all my chips on a single format.
From here.
John Scalzi breaks down the sales of his last novel, Redshirts, across formats now that Tor has moved the title from hardcover to paperback in print form, and it’s the kind of thing that’s fascinating for someone like me, who’s unnaturally geeky about this kind of thing. The part about digital and audio and print not cannibalizing the other format’s sales is of particular interest to me, because I’m beginning to suspect that the negative sales velocity that digital brought to analog music and movies just doesn’t exist for either books or comics, perhaps because the latter two are more active pastimes and therefore have more engaged audiences with more specific interests and habits surrounding their preferred format.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Smoke and steam rise from cars stuck in traffic in central Moscow, Russia, as the temperature tumbles to -15C. Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA
Apocalypse now.
My subconscious decided to offer me a strange gift this weekend, in the form of a particularly vivid dream where I was leaving old jobs I’d once held – Clearly, this week being my last for both SpinOff and Comics Alliance is weighing on my mind more than I’d realized – and all of my old workmates were preparing individual parties to say farewell, with each workplace chipping in to buy me a going away present. So far, so sweet, you might think, and you’d be right. Except for this strange detail: Each of the three workplaces had chipped in to buy three separate but identical action figures of the Legion of Super- Heroes character Mon-El.
Now, I’m a pretty big LOSH fan, I’ll admit, but quite why my subconscious chose one of the more bland characters from the series as the gift chosen by seemingly everyone for me, I may never know. Now, though, I’m almost hoping for a Mon-El in the mail before the week is over (Although I’d prefer a Darkseid or Mister Miracle).
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
Meanwhile spectators gather to witness the inauguration. Photograph: Eric Thayer/Reuters
Apparently, the Where’s Waldo Fan Club is out in force to support Obama being sworn in for a second term.
From the Guardian’s Photo Blog:
A man checks the size of the icicles at Gibson’s Cave in Teesdale today as temperatures have reached -5C. Photograph: Owen Humphreys/PA
File Under: Another Reminder That It Really Could Be Colder Than It Is Here In Portland.
