January 12, 2006

Bookselling Online: Big Surprise: BN Holiday Sales Stagnate:

Barnes and Noble online sales demonstrated almost no growth in 2005, despite a 25% increase in holiday ecommerce sales in general.

How long till they pull the plug?

New Scientist News - Doomsday vault to avert world famine:

WITHIN a large concrete room, hewn out of a mountain on a freezing-cold island just 1000 kilometres from the North Pole, could lie the future of humanity.

The room is a “doomsday vault” designed to hold around 2 million seeds, representing all known varieties of the world’s crops. It is being built to safeguard the world’s food supply against nuclear war, climate change, terrorism, rising sea levels, earthquakes and the ensuing collapse of electricity supplies. “If the worst came to the worst, this would allow the world to reconstruct agriculture on this planet,” says Cary Fowler, director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an independent international organisation promoting the project.

New Scientist has learned that the Norwegian government is planning to create the seed bank next year at the behest of crop scientists. The $3 million vault will be built deep inside a sandstone mountain lined with permafrost on the Norwegian Arctic island of Spitsbergen. The vault will have metre-thick walls of reinforced concrete and will be protected behind two airlocks and high-security blast-proof doors. It will not be permanently manned, but “the mountains are patrolled by polar bears”, says Fowler.

Excellent idea. But after THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, won’t Spitzbergen be under about 100 feet of ice? Or, after the Antarctic Ice Shelf melts, won’t it be under about 100 feet of water?

Good start, anyway. Remember, though: in a proliferated world, all assets must be distributed assets.

Overlook Press publisher blog:

what really broke the Overlook mold this year and took us far ahead was the curious phenomenon of Overlook being first out in America—and consequently the industry leader month after month after month—with that tantalizing and addictive Japanese puzzle that has swept the world, SUDOKU.

While Overlook’s SUDOKU book was out first—and now has seven Overlook cousins—unsurprisingly fifteen other publishers quickly rushed out SUDOKU books so that by Christmas there were 70 or 80 competitors with Overlook and Michael Mepham still the best established.

In my book, Overlook is especially deserving of this good fortune because of their commitment to republishing the works of P. G. Wodehouse.

Blackwater USA Unveils New Subsidiary:

Blackwater USA, the world’s premier security, peace and stability operations firm recently unveiled its plans to create a new subsidiary; Blackwater Airships.

Blackwater Airships’ initial focus will be the development and deployment of small remotely piloted airship vehicles (RPAVs) that can operate from 5,000 – 15,000 feet, move and hover, and stay aloft for up to four days. The airships will be equipped with state-of-the-art surveillance and detection equipment that can detect, record, and communicate in real time to friendly forces the movement and activities of terrorists.

Gary Jackson, president of Blackwater USA said, “This project is in keeping with Blackwater’s commitment to peace and security throughout the world.”

Follow-on phases of the project will include larger airships that will carry tons of payload in support of remote humanitarian and peacekeeping missions. Blackwater, who is already involved in stability operations throughout the world, continues to innovate in support of peace and security, and freedom and democracy everywhere.

The first Blackwater Airship will be available in December 2006.

Cool.

Nimble Books is pleased to announce the publication of HYPOCHONDRIAC’S GUIDE TO HOODIA GORDONII (H 57).

You can browse the text for free here.