Here are the economics of publishing a typical novel. For the sake of mathematical cleanliness, let's assume a first print run of 10,000 copies, an advance of $10,000, and a price tag of $20.

10,000 x $20 does not add up to $200,000. The average discount to bookstores, libraries, etc is 48%, which means that if the whole run sells out, the publisher gets $104,000. Almost never does the whole run sell out. If the author is lucky, 7500 copies will sell - a "75% sellthrough," a very good percentage. (50% is more typical.) This means that the publisher actually gets 75% of that $104,000, or $78,000.

From this money must be deducted direct expenses for production . . .

Nice set of data on the costs and potential revenue of writing a book . . .

Mystery Writers of America - The Economics of Publishing

"No citizen should be subjected to criminal charges for a crime he might commit. This is a fundamental principle in our society: One does not take blame for what might happen, only for violations of the law that he actually commits."

Well said.

I've been following this story about police shutting down a rave in Utah, and I have to admit concerns. If it was shut down because police observed actual illegal drug activity, that's one thing, and I'm okay with it. If, on the other hand, it was shut down because, "It was a rave, and there's usually drug activity at a rave, so we shut it down on general principle," then that's an entirely different matter, and I'm completely opposed to it.

Continuing to watch as the details unfold . . .

Elonka

Can Police Shut Down a Rave for what *Might* be Happening There?

Rattle wrote:

The schedule for the D*C space and science track, headed up by our own jonnyx, is available for your perusal.

You'll also find at least 4 MemeStreams regulars presenting both here and in the Electronic Frontiers Forum. The schedule does not appear to be updated yet, but Decius and I are confirmed to be speaking at the Hacking 101, 201, and 301 panels.

I'll be there too, speaking on games and cryptography. I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to make the Hacking 101 talk, since it got rescheduled and is now conflicting with another event I'll be at. If nothing else though, I'll try to pop in towards the end.

Elonka :)

RE: Dragon*Con Space and Science Track Schedule

Stare at the crosshairs in the centre of this picture. After a short while you'll notice that there is a green dot revolving around, replacing each purple dot in turn. Then if you keep staring the purple dots disappear, and all that remains is a circling green dot.

But it's all an illusion - there's no green dot and the purple dots never actually disappear.

Interesting effect.

Optical Illusion

Iron content of various foods/drinks

1 pint of guinness 0.3mg

The RDA (recommended daily allowance) of iron for men is 11mg and 14mg for women.

In a word: No. Though if someone really wants to drink 30 pints a day to get their RDA, that's up to them. ;)

Urban Legend check: Is Guinness a Good Source of Iron?

falun wrote:

Hm.... From health class a long (well, long for me) time ago can't you sustain yourself with more like 1500 calories? Especially if dealing with a smallish, sedentary, techie-type?

Well, it depends on things like age, gender, size, and activity level.

According to DietOrganizer v1.3, here are some caloric requirements to maintain current weight, based on a sedentary lifestyle:

22-year-old male, 5'6" tall, 155 pounds: 1865 calories/day
25 y.o. male, 5'7", 180 lbs: 2276 calories/day
25 y.o. female, 5'7", 160 lbs: 1879 calories/day
30 y.o. male, 5'10", 180 lbs: 2281 calories/day
30 y.o. male, 6', 220 lbs: 2615 calories/day
40 y.o. female, 5'11", 200 lbs: 2365 calories/day

Most of the nutrition charts on food labels, when calculating percentages of daily nutrients, assume an average of 2000 calories/day.

I poked around to see what body sizes would maintain at 1500 cal/day, with a sedentary lifestyle. It's possible, but all (healthy) results I came up with involved either the elderly, or very very small or thin people:

60 y.o. female, 5'8, 125 lbs
20 y.o. female, 5', 95 lbs
30 y.o. male, 5', 98 lbs

So yes, you're right, 1500 cal/day would probably keep you alive, but it's generally used more as a quantity designed to help lose weight. The target of my calculations has been based on maintaining current weight, but it really all depends what you're aiming for!

Elonka :)

RE: Lunch for about $1 a day: BumbleBee Tuna

Neoteric wrote:

So here's my first recipe:
Ghetto Office Tuna Salad

Everything except the tuna in the recipe was taken from the condiments tray in my office cafeteria. That means this meal cost me a whopping: $0.44. Regular price for bumblebee is $0.69 but a quick swipe of my safeway card saved two bits.

Ingredients:
* 1 can of BumbleBee Tuna (I used the "Light in Water", but I guess "In Oil" would be just fine.)
* 3 pkts of mayonnaise
* 1 pkt of sweet relish
* 3 pkts of pepper
* 1 pkt of salt
* 1 pkt of mustard
* half a pkt of hot sauce
* as many pkts of crackers as you can steal

Okay, I typed in your recipe to my nutritional-analysis software (DietOrganizer v1.3), and here's what I came up with.

Note: I made the assumption that the tuna fish mixture would get you through about 10 saltine crackers. If you'd like me to plug in a different number, let me know.

With the tuna, the condiments, and the crackers, the nutrition comes out as:

Calories: 480 (about 25% of a typical day's calories)
Fat: 35 grams (about 82% of recommended maximum)
Protein: 15 grams
Carbohydrates: 25 grams
Saturated fat: 4.5 grams

Sodium: 1590 mg (over 50% of recommended maximum)
Cholesterol: 45 mg
Fiber: .5 grams

Eating this mixture about 4 times a day (to reach 2000 calories/day) would:

- Definitely keep you alive, though it would mean that you were eating a diet that was: 13% protein, 21% carbohydrates, and 66% fat

- Only give you 10% of daily fiber requirements

Or in other words, prepare for heart and circulatory problems if doing it on a longterm basis.

In terms of other nutrients, it's a mixed bag. You'd be getting adequate amounts of vitamin C, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin, and Folate. However, there would be very little in the way of Iron, Calcium, Vitamin B6, and zero Vitamin D or B12.

Recommendations: Include a multivitamin with iron, a calcium supplement, and concentrate on getting fiber into one of the other meals. I'd also recommend switching from 3 packets of mayo, to 1 packet of light mayo, which would bring the protein/carb/fat ratios more into line: 24/42/34, though that would also reduce the calories of one batch from 480 to 260, so it would require several additional batches per day to meet calorie requirements. The next gating factor would be sodium, since at that point you'd be getting 400% of the recommended maximum. Though you might be able to find a place to swipe some salt-free crackers.

For me, to reach the "$1 per meal" goal, I'd go with protein bars. You can buy them in bulk at places like Sam's Club (or online) for about $1 each. The main minuses that I saw with the bars I checked, were that they're low on fiber, and a bit *too* low fat to be comprehensive, but you can get that taken care of by going into a nightclub and grabbing a handful of (free) peanuts. Eat the below and you're at 1922 calories/day, with protein/carb/fat ratio at 23/52/24, and all nutrients taken care of:

* 4 Protein bars per day
* .5 cup of bran cereal
* .5 cup of whole milk
* 2 ounces of peanuts, scrounged from a bar somewhere
* 2 bananas (for potassium)

Looking forward to your next recipe,

Elonka :)

Lunch for about $1 a day: BumbleBee Tuna

A study examining the role childhood diet plays in breast cancer has found an association between eating French fries regularly during the preschool years and developing breast cancer as an adult.

Each weekly serving of French fries girls consumed between ages 3 and 5 increased their risk of developing breast cancer as adults by 27 percent, according to researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health.
 . . .
The finding of a correlation between French fries and breast cancer does not necessarily point to a cause-and-effect relationship between the two, however.

Michels speculated the French fries may be implicated in breast cancer because they are prepared in fats that are high in harmful trans-fatty acids and saturated fat.

It's important to note that this is a stand-alone study, and has not been verified by any other research groups. But I still think it's interesting data.

Newsday: Study finds link between fries and breast cancer

The first sign that something was amiss came a few days before Christmas Eve 2003. The US department of homeland security raised the national terror alert level to "high risk". The move triggered a ripple of concern throughout the airline industry and nearly 30 flights were grounded, including long hauls between Paris and Los Angeles and subsequently London and Washington.

But in recent weeks, US officials have made a startling admission: the key intelligence that prompted the security alert was seriously flawed. CIA analysts believed they had detected hidden terrorist messages in al-Jazeera television broadcasts that identified flights and buildings as targets. In fact, what they had seen were the equivalent of faces in clouds - random patterns all too easily over-interpreted.

Steganography - Rumors of Messages in Al Jazeera Broadcasts were False Alarms

Review IS required for encryption commodities and software that:

a. Are “mass market” products with symmetric key length exceeding 64-bit algorithms
 . . .
b. Do not qualify as “mass market” and employ key lengths greater than 56-bits for symmetric algorithms, 512-bits for asymmetric algorithms and 112-bits for elliptic curve algorithms (“checklist” questions 2.a and 2.b), or which provide an open cryptographic interface as defined in Section 772.1.

Current guidelines on what kind of encryption technology requires review before export from the U.S.

U.S. Export Regulations - Encryption - 7/24/03