cstross

104 ms·

751.
by cstross 12y ago
Hmm. Misses out all of the business side of being, like, a working novelist -- understanding what publishers do and how the retail chain works, marketing and sales, contracts, agents and editors. Misses out the key point that while the auth
752.
by cstross 12y ago
Point of note: some of the design constraints of the Shuttle were imposed by the USAF, whose proposed mission for it was to retrieve KH-11 class spysats from polar orbit for refurbishing/relaunch. (This mission was never actually carri
753.
by cstross 12y ago
Two words: "reversion clause". This is what literary agents are for.
754.
by cstross 12y ago
Wrong. (Wrong on both details. I know authors who've been discounted to zero and sold as a daily deal for $0.99 and no, they did not get paid on the basis of the cover price. And again: if you want Amazon's best remuneration dea
755.
by cstross 12y ago
If I did that, I'd be foregoing all sales through channels other than Amazon. Amazon are a big channel, but just about under 50% of total, although in my US ebook editions they're about 80% of the 50% of my sales that are ebooks
756.
by cstross 12y ago
I'm not "giving up 85% of my money in perpetuity". Yes, authors get paid a royalty of 6%-25% of the cover price. However, the biggest cut of the cover price goes to the distribution/retail chain . And when I say "b
757.
Amazon: malignant monopoly, or just plain evil?(antipope.org)
131 points by cstross 12y ago|163 comments
758.
by cstross 12y ago
I've had no kernel panics on 10.9.3 ... but this Haswell rMBP 13" periodically froze after password entry when screen locked. And froze so badly that switching user was no way out: I had to hard-reboot. Since disabling the screen
759.
by cstross 12y ago
You missed the European Parliament, which is elected (with elections taking place right now). The balance of power between the EC and the EP needs to be shifted towards the EP, and other reforms are essential -- but the EU is not intrinsi
760.
by cstross 12y ago
Calling Modi "pro-business" seems like a bit of an over-simplication. He's a member of the RSS ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh ), which is arguably a violently anti-muslim par
761.
by cstross 12y ago
Textutil handles a couple of apple-specific file formats (rtfd, webarchive) that do an embrace-and-extend on open(ish) standards. (Annoyingly it doesn't provide a way to get at the guts of Apple's own Pages files. Which sucks be
762.
by cstross 12y ago
One command I can't live without: textutil. Basically it's a command-line front end to Apple's TextKit file import/export library. Works with a bunch of rich text/word processor formats, including OpenDoc, RTF, HTML
763.
by cstross 12y ago
Symbolic move only. The USA wants to operate aboard ISS until 2024. They're currently contracted to use Soyuz for astronaut transfers until 2020. Russia is refusing to renew the contract past 2020. However, Dragon version 2.0 should be
764.
by cstross 12y ago
I sincerely think it's a good thing for the courts to look out for individuals's rights, but they are overestimating the power of the law. By your logic, it's a good thing for the courts to look out for individuals' ri
765.
by cstross 12y ago
No commercial aircraft operate at such altitudes. No, seriously: you run out of air for air-breathing engines above FL600 (the SR-71 flew at FL800 very fast indeed partly because it needed to go like a bat out of hell to keep enough airfl
766.
by cstross 12y ago
They are paid a meagre sum per book (a dollar, maybe?) so they really don't care about the price other than that it is as low as possible to stimulate sales Wrong. We are paid a royalty which is a percentage cut of the sale price.
767.
by cstross 12y ago
This isn't the first time this has happened. They whacked on Hachette a couple of years ago in the UK (delisting titles on amazon.co.uk) -- I'm told that what made Amazon back down was Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse ser
768.
by cstross 12y ago
Married (wife works at home, too); no kids. (Our flat has three bedrooms ... or rather, had three bedrooms: in practice, it has one bedroom and two offices.)
769.
by cstross 12y ago
Just to note that I've been working from home for nearly 14 years now, and I have always broken almost all of these rules. Except the one about loving what I do. Because I do love it: if I didn't, I'd get a different job.
770.
by cstross 12y ago
I was interested to see them use a Bayer Aspirin in their demo. Aspirin is -- or was (my pharmaceutical formulation training is nearly three decades out of date) almost unique in being one of the few drugs that has the perfect powder flow,
771.
by cstross 13y ago
Yup. Like the decision to send the engineers and technicians working on jet engines to join the infantry in late 1940, because they'd be needed for the war against the Soviet Union and jet engines wouldn't be required in the short
772.
by cstross 13y ago
Yes; there are perverse disincentives built into the profit mechanism underpinning the commercial pharmaceutical industry. Patents on antibiotics last no longer than on any other type of medicine (20 years, minus the substantial time taken
773.
The Space and Freedom Party in light of the crisis of 21st century capitalism(antipope.org)
19 points by cstross 13y ago|2 comments
774.
by cstross 13y ago
Alas, you can't gamble your company on getting a Terry Pratchett or J. J. Rowling -- or a Dan Brown. Those folks come along once a decade in the worldwide English language market. The overwhelming majority of works of English language
775.
by cstross 13y ago
Minor nit here: Generally, publishers don’t just accept submissions from any aspiring author. They go through agents. So you must first convince an agent that you will be a lucrative investment. As a rule, agents take 15% of everything you
776.
by cstross 13y ago
Interesting question, that ... I was out of the industry by 2002 (do not ask me about what it was like to be part of a team making our first pitch for VC seed investments on September 12th, 2001 ...). But I am informed by a barrister of m
777.
by cstross 13y ago
Hmm. I joined SCO in early 1991, and one of my first jobs in techpubs was working on documenting compatability between SCO-branded Xenix and SCO's release of SVR3.2 UNIX -- which was able to run binaries compiled for SCO Xenix (unsurpr
778.
by cstross 13y ago
Remember the stage being retrieved to ground level weighs a lot less than the stage sitting on the launch pad, because it's empty. Grasshopper took off and landed on the same (permanently extended) legs, so its legs, like the undercarr
779.
by cstross 13y ago
Cf. Peter Drucker: the job of any company is not to generate sales, it's to generate repeat customers . (Apple's stores exemplify this lesson with their emphasis on customer happiness with the overall experience over actual har
780.
by cstross 13y ago
That mirrors my response to the $20M question, too. Congratulations: you have a vocation, not a job. (Me? I'd finish off my existing more-for-money-than-for-love contracts, because I owe my customers. (I get paid a huge deposit in adva

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