Cleanup has begun from the massive storm system that rolled through the Dallas / Fort Worth metropolitan area yesterday afternoon, generating heavy rain and wind and spawning a number of tornadoes. Amazingly there have been no reports of serious injuries or deaths. Here’s just a sampling of the tempests and the damage left in their wake.
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Here’s more proof that e-books are gaining greater prominence and respectability. Media Control GfK International, a market research company based in Baden-Baden, Germany, has launched Germany’s first authoritative e-book bestseller lists. According to “Börsenblatt,” Media Control will collect sales data reported by online bookstores and publishers. The reported sales cover an astonishing 40% of Germany’s e-book market. “Börsenblatt” will be one of the publications featuring these lists on a monthly basis with a delay of about 6 weeks.
E-books still represent a fairly small percentage of the book market in Germany – just 5.4% of publishers’ revenues based on a questionnaire answered by 437 publishing professionals in January 2011 and published in the study The Global eBook Market: Current Conditions & Future Projections.
As in many cases, however, the primary issue with consumers is finding the right device. But, there’s also the lack of convenience with regards to digital rights management (DRM), installation procedures and the lack of standardized processes. Pricing is another big concern; the discrepancy between the tax customers pay for printed books is 7% vs. 19% e-books. But, the availability of titles has been increasing. “Börsenblatt” notes that consumers can now find 80-90% of print bestsellers in e-book format. The challenges the still-fledgling e-book market faces are the same encountered by other similar technological advances, such as the CD player and personal computer. It’s just a matter of time before prices will lower, equipment will become standardized and people will adjust.
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As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, a series of tremendous storms passed over Northeast Texas, hitting the Dallas / Ft. Worth metropolitan area particularly hard. The video below is actual footage of a tornado plowing through a truck yard in Hutchens, just south of Dallas, lifting up many of the trailers like balsa wood. I actually saw this live on CNN earlier today. Some 240 flights at DFW International Airport were cancelled. Fortunately, no one was critically injured, and no deaths have been reported yet. Nothing humbles a person like the power of nature!
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Quetrupillán Volcano is one of many in Chile’s lakes and volcanoes region. This landscape of fuming volcanoes and emerald green lakes, ancient forests and steaming hot springs lies in central Chile, between northern Atacama – the driest place on Earth – and southern Patagonia. Settled thousands of years ago by the native Mapuche people, the area has ten volcanoes, scores of lakes and white-water rivers, and ten national parks and reserves. Photograph by Robert B. Haas, National Geographic.
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“We got any Darwin fans in the house?”
— Baba Brinkman, a performer at Rock Beyond Belief. The gathering marked the first time the U.S. military hosted an event expressly for soldiers and others who don’t believe in God.
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This chart shows a distribution of 2500 newly printed fiction books selected at random from Amazon’s warehouses.
This is an interesting graph I saw on Linked In today. Paul Heald, a law professor at the University of Illinois, was curious how copyrights apply to older works of literature in the new digital age. In other words, if an outfit like Amazon publishes a long out-of-print book in digital format, can the author – or his or her heirs – claim copyright infringement? In a speech he gave to the University of Canterbury on March 16, Heald pointed out that most books published since 1923 have copyrights. But, he also noted that there are just as many books with copyrights in the first decade of the 21st century as there were in the decade from 1910 to 1920. It’s a significant observation with a global impact, considering how the publishing industry is moving more and more towards digital formats. As always, it seems standard laws can’t keep up with technological advances.
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Flowers line the steps of a cathedral in Girona, Spain, along the Costa Brava region, for last year’s “Temps de Flors” festival. The annual spring gathering sees an explosion of colorful flowers that clutter Girona’s patios and gardens and surround a number of public buildings. This year’s event will be held May 12 – 20. Photo courtesy David Adamson.
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“We are updating our economic model, but we are not talking about political reform.”
– Marino Murillo, a top government official in Cuba, after Pope Benedict XVI visited the communist nation and called for a more open society.
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Chief Writing Wolf 