Nimble Books LLC

W. Frederick Zimmerman gave 1 star to: A Dictionary of Modern English Usage

W. Frederick Zimmerman's Customer Reviews — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 15:16:37 +0000

A Dictionary of Modern English Usage: The Classic First Edition (Oxford World's Classics) by H. W. Fowler

Five dead fishes to Oxford U. Press: book printed upside down!, February 28, 2010

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

When my copy arrived, I discovered it is literally printed upside down. The text on the binding points one way, the text on the interior pages points the other way.

Nice in a way to know that even the boffins at Oxford University Press can miss an enormous book-sized typo. Makes the rest of us feel a little better.

W. Frederick Zimmerman gave 4 stars to: The Essential P. G. Wodehouse Collection (96 works)

W. Frederick Zimmerman's Customer Reviews — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:44:24 +0000

W. Frederick Zimmerman reviewed:

The Essential P. G. Wodehouse Collection (96 works) by P. G. Wodehouse

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

Essential? No. "Long", yes., February 16, 2010

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

These are most of the Wodehouse works published before 1922 which, sadly, leaves out most of his best stuff and includes primarily juvenilia.

W. Frederick Zimmerman gave 5 stars to: Keller in Dallas

W. Frederick Zimmerman's Customer Reviews — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 03:42:20 +0000

W. Frederick Zimmerman reviewed:

Keller in Dallas by Lawrence Block

Hitherto unpublished Keller novella, February 16, 2010

Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)

I was thrilled to find this novella, which is not available in printed form, at all, on the Kindle.

the Kindle formatting needs a careful proofing.

Test Twiogle post

Fred Zimmerman — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:58:40 +0000

Test Twiogle Twitter => WordPress

W. Frederick Zimmerman gave 5 stars to: Somebody Owes Me Money

W. Frederick Zimmerman's Customer Reviews — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:56:13 +0000

W. Frederick Zimmerman reviewed:

Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald E. Westlake

An unexpected gem from Westlake’s early years, February 8, 2010

This early Westlake novel has been reissued from the terrific Hard Case Crime imprint. Flashes of Westlake’s LOL-funny style shine through more frequently than I expected. Up to the standard of some of the Dortmunder novels.

W. Frederick Zimmerman gave 5 stars to: Somebody Owes Me Money

W. Frederick Zimmerman's Customer Reviews — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:56:13 +0000

W. Frederick Zimmerman reviewed:

Somebody Owes Me Money by Donald E. Westlake

An unexpected gem from Westlake’s early years, February 8, 2010

#TabletPC $MSFT Microsoft’s Creative Destruction – NYTimes.com

Fred Zimmerman — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:28:21 +0000

Tablet PC and Microsoft guru Dick Brass cuts his ties with Microsoft in “I told you so” letter about struggles with Tablet PC in 2001. As a product consultant at LexisNexis, I led our participation in the the Tablet PC Alpha program and struggled mightily to get LexisNexis to drink the Koolaid. I was right, but nine years too early, which equals being wrong! LexisNexis was right to wait for the iPhone and iPad, which are a great fit for technophobic lawyers. The struggle over Tablet PC was one of the key experiences that led me to create Nimble Books — so that when I am ahead of the curve, I can take advantage of it!

At Microsoft, it has created a dysfunctional corporate culture in which the big established groups are allowed to prey upon emerging teams, belittle their efforts, compete unfairly against them for resources, and over time hector them out of existence. It’s not an accident that almost all the executives in charge of Microsoft’s music, e-books, phone, online, search and tablet efforts over the past decade have left.

via Op-Ed Contributor – Microsoft’s Creative Destruction – NYTimes.com.

in praise of the ampersand

Fred Zimmerman — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 14:51:09 +0000

LOL.

the ampersand… stands for the word “and”, which if I were a symbol and I had to stand for something, would be a pretty damn good choice. Very optimistic and inclusive

via f | Cover.

#science numbers: How many #birds are killed in the US every year? A lot.

Fred Zimmerman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:27:49 +0000

From the Acopian Center for Ornithology at Muhlenberg College:

Before much was known, annual deaths attributable to windows were hypothesized to be 3.5 million in the 1970s. Since then, extensive studies over the past three decades have been used to estimate the annual toll to be between 97 million to 975 million birds in the U.S. alone. The wide-ranging difference among these figures attests to the complexity of attempting to determine accurate amounts from a source in which every individual bird is a potential victim and sheet glass of every size is a potential killing site in the environment. The roughly 100 million to 1 billion toll is based on the assumption that 1-10 birds are killed at one building in the U.S. each year. Another independent study produced similar results, and evaluated this current range of annual mortality figures to be reasonable. This confirming study examined records of 5,500 volunteers who optionally recorded bird strikes at windows while they counted visitors to feeding stations at their homes. To put these numbers in perspective, annual U.S. bird populations are estimated to be 20 billion in the fall, and annual glass kills are estimated to be 0.5 to 5.0% of this figure.

That is a significant proportion. I feel guiltier than I expected.

By comparison, each year U.S. hunters are estimated to take 120.5 million birds, and free-ranging domestic cats are suspected to kill hundreds of millions to over a billion songbirds.

Cats are bastards.

Some researchers suggest that the overall avian mortality attributable to glass is likely to be much greater than what is attributable to cats: reasoning that cats are active predators that most often capture vulnerable prey while sheet glass is an indiscriminate killer that takes the strong as well as the weak and is astronomically more numerous than cats.

Apparently, windows are also bastards.

Minimally, from an ethical and moral perspective, any unintended and unnatural killing associated with human presence in the environment should be addressed and reduced if not eliminated. Guilt and anxiety are common feelings among an increasing number of people who discover an accidental fatality beneath the window of their home, workplace, or any other structure.

CMYK blacks for book cover design

Fred Zimmerman — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:05:36 +0000

My printer (LSI) will not accept more than a total of CMYK = 240 (cool or warm black).

Once again, easy fix; use values for rich black. Rich black mixes in some cyan, magenta, and/or yellow to darken the 100% Key. There are many different opinions on what is best, but there are basically two kinds; warm and cool. Generally accepted values (in order of CMY) are 70, 50, 30 (known as “designer black”), 60, 40, 40 (cool black) and 40, 60, 40, (warm black). All of these are mixed with k=100.

via 3 Deadly Sins of Print Design | Fuel Your Creativity.