] This page is a listing of adult fiction books which have
] made number one on the New York Times Best Seller List
] along with the date that they first reached number one,
] in date order. This listing starts with the very first
] book ever placed on the list back on August 9, 1942.

Interesting list. It's worth remembering that the years with only a few titles, must have obviously been dominated by one of those titles. Years with lots of titles, mean there wasn't any one clear leader for the year.

New York Times Best Seller Number Ones Listing

] Greetings! You have found the home of the 133t version of
] the Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith trailer. Only 15 hours
] after I put this file online, it has already sucked up over 23 GB
] of bandwidth. At this rate I'll be in the poorhouse before
] nightfall.

Heh. Watch it once just to see the trailer. Then watch it again and laugh at the 133t subtitles. ;)

Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith - 133t trailer

noteworthy wrote:
] Elonka wrote:
] ] Note: I've been curious as to what other books beat DVC's
] ] sales records.
]
] Nothing definitive on that point, but I did find a few data
] points:
] This page claims that "The Valley of the Dolls" is the
] bestselling fiction of all time. (This is affirmed by other
] sources, as well.)

I went poking around some other places, too.

According to guinnessworldrecords.com:

Best-selling non-fiction book is the Bible, with an estimated 2.5 billion copies sold since 1815. It has been translated into 2,233 languages and dialects.

Mao's "Little Red Book" was sold or given away to around 900 million people.

The "Guinness World Records" book itself claims the title of biggest selling *copyrighted* book as of 2003: 100 million copies, in 37 languages

Best-selling diary: Anne Frank's, with 25 million copies

Best-selling author of fortune-telling books: Ms. Kazuko Hosoki of Japan, with 34 million copies sold of her series of 81 books on fortune telling (Ms. Hosoki is also one of the judges on the show "Iron Chef").

Best-selling fiction writer: Agatha Christie. Approximately 2 billion copies of her 78 crime novels have been sold, in 44 languages. Royalty earnings are about $3.7 million/year.

Highest one-year sales for a book series: 23 million books in one year, for the Harry Potter series. The fourth book sold 5.1 million copies in two days.

And some other interesting factoids:

Biggest-selling album: Michael Jackson's "Thriller", with 52 million copies.

Best-selling solo country album: Shania Twain's "Come On Over" - 18 million copies

Best-selling classical album: Jose Carreras' "In Concert", with 10.5 worldwide copies

Best-selling latin singers:
 male: Julio Iglesias, 200 million albums
 female: Gloria Estefan, 35 million albums

Best-selling car: 24.9 million Toyota Corollas, as of 2000.

Best-selling video game: "Super Mario Brothers", 40+ million copies. The entire series has sold 152 million copies.

Note: For those who are curious how that last one stacks up to "Grand Theft Auto", according to CNN, as of October 2004:
 - GTA 3: 5.4 million copies in the U.S., 11 million worldwide
 - GTA Vice City: 6.1 million copies in the U.S., 13 million worldwide
 - GTA San Andreas: 5.1 million in the U.S. (as of 1/2005)

Bestsellers around the world (RE: Vatican goes on offensive against 'Da Vinci Code')

] Who knows how many specters haunt the historic Hotel
] Union Square. Concierge Tom Steele says guests like their
] accommodations so much that some never check out.
]
] Most recently, a young Scot traveling with his
] grandmother confided to Steele that a female ghost
] appeared to him in Room 207.
 . . .
] On the other hand, guests often request 207. Some at the
] hotel connect the mischievous ghost to Lillian Hellman. A
] boozer, a lover, a fighter, the volatile playwright was
] not one to go quietly into the night. (She's said to have
] propositioned a young dinner companion the night before
] she died at age 79.)
]
] It is said that much of Hellman's glamorous and
] celebrated affair with mystery writer Dashiell Hammett
] played out at the hotel when they visited. Hellman is
] thought to have inspired Nora Charles in his book "The
] Thin Man." Before Prohibition, guests entered the hotel's
] bar by means of a slide on Powell Street. Lively days --
] so lively that present-day guests report bodies sleeping
] it off in hotel hallways. Of course, on closer
] inspection ... no one's there.

Heh, I found out about this ghost story *after* I'd checked out. I'd been in room 207 of this hotel all last week, while in San Francisco for the GDC. Alas, no ghosts, though I did have some unusual dreams on a couple nights (a very specific but unknown-to-me male character kept showing up).

Then again, I was sick with the flu for much of my time in SF, so even if any ghosts would have been trying to wake me up, I might well have slept through it! ;)

Ghost in Hotel Union Square in San Francisco

] ROME After months of turning the other cheek, Vatican
] officials are lashing out against "The Da Vinci Code,"
] saying Christians should not buy or even read the
] best-selling thriller.

I'd been curious as to why traffic to my Kryptos website had doubled over the last couple days, but this is probably why. Evidently a Catholic Cardinal condemned the book, "The Da Vinci Code". Of course, this is guaranteed to boost sales, of what is already the biggest selling (adult hardcopy) fiction book in history. 25 million copies in print, translated into 44 languages, 104 weeks on the bestseller lists, and still in hardcover!

Note: I've been curious as to what other books beat DVC's sales records. For example, I've heard that the "Harry Potter" novels are around the 250 million mark for the entire series, but I've been unable to find a breakdown of which book is the biggest seller. I've also heard that certain eBooks have sold more copies, but I haven't been able to track down those titles either. Anyone here have a good source for that kind of info?

- Elonka :)

Vatican goes on offensive against 'Da Vinci Code'

Looks like a useful site. Reviews different software packages in a variety of different categories.

I can't speak for the other categories, but I took a close look at the "Nutrition Software" section. They rated about 15 software packages -- summaries were included on a "side by side" comparison chart, and then there were links to lengthier reviews.

All of which is fine and good, but I found their list of software incomplete. There are several other major diet software packages ("Weight by Date", "Food and Exercise Diary for Windows", "Diet Organizer"), which weren't even included on their list, which makes it hard for me to trust the reviews of the ones that *were* on the list. For example, "Diet Organizer" is still my favorite pick, and though it wasn't included in their set, it's definitely above (in my opinion) the #3 title on this "Top Ten" site, Diet Power.

The reviews of the other packages do make this site useful though. I plan on checking out several of the titles they've listed, before making my final decision on what to purchase.

Nutrition Software Review 2005

Courtesy of Scott Miller, some pics of me and others of my game developer peers (Raph Koster, Dave Arneson, Brian Green, Damion Schubert, etc.) from this year's Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.

- Elonka

GDC 2005 Pics

] What nutrients are in your food? Find out in the Nutrient
] Data Lab's searchable database, which contains
] listings of over 6600 foods. Get accurate information
] about fats, carbohydrates and protein and learn what
] foods contain the most nutrients you're looking for.
 . . .
] USDA National Nutrient Database, Versions for Windows PC
] and Palm OS® Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
 . . .
] Contains free downloads of USDA National Nutrient
] Database for both Windows PC and Palm OS® personal
] digital assistants (PDAs). Allows users to search and
] display nutrient content of thousands of foods.

This database has an impressive variety of food. It doesn't have some of the more exotic combinations (like I can't type in just "sushi"), but it does have thousands of natural foods, and a good sampling of processed foods, from Big Macs to Hostess Ding Dongs to Kellogg's Corn Flakes. And for the foods it does have, it analyzes them *really* thoroughly. Not just fat/protein/carbohydrates, but every different type of vitamin, right down to the milligram of caffeine, or microgram of selenium, and a bunch of other nutrients I didn't recognize. All in a single package which I can download directly to my desktop or handheld. For free.

Every so often I find a resource from the government which is actually personally useful . . .

Nutrition.gov

] Virtual Tour of Santa Maria Delle Grazie

For those "Da Vinci Code" fans who are hungry for a good hi-res closeup of "The Last Supper", this is the best page I've found. Via Java, you can zoom in on any section of the image that you want.

Leonardo Da Vinci's The Last Supper - Java VR Homepage

Here's my report on this year's GDC:

The conference was at the San Francisco Moscone Center this year, and reportedly had about 5000 people (about 20% larger than what it was last year at the San Jose convention center). The main difference in demographic is that the conference is really getting an "international" flavor, with many attendees (and even some speakers) coming in from other countries. For example, it was not uncommon to see talks that were being given by Japanese speakers (such as execs from Nintendo and Capcom). The speakers would give their talks in Japanese, and we could all wear headsets to hear a real-time English translation. It felt very United Nations!

Online games continue to be a big subject of buzz at the GDC, but the focus has been shifting more towards web/downloadable and wireless games these days. At the various "Online Game Developers" gathers, there were usually three times as many web/downloadable people as MMO developers. Mobile/Wireless games are also definitely being talked about, though there's a debate as to whether or not they really qualify as "online" games or whether they're a separate category. Folks also generally agree that Mobile games, while simple to develop on a single platform, are enormously difficult to make compatible with the wide variety of hardware types out there. Plus, marketing these games is still extremely tough, since a typical user will only download a game from their provider, and the provider's marketing is usually limited to a single page with a list of game titles in text, with nothing else to really base a decision on. Top games in this space seem to be those that have a cool branded title (such as Spongebob or a sports franchise), and really nothing to do with whether or not the game is any good.

In another section of the conference, there were a few dozen independent games showcased, and I was impressed with the attention that these titles are getting in the marketplace. Though the conventional wisdom is saying that a game needs to have huge production values in order to be viable, the web/downloadable space is proving that there's still very much a market for the games by smaller development teams. Some of the games showcased were written in Flash by teams of 1 or 2 people, but since they were very fun and easy to download, were getting literally hundreds of thousands of downloads. For example, the Metanet "N" game, written entirely in Flash by a team of 2 people, has reportedly gotten 500,000 downloads. The top downloaded title in the world right now, from what I was hearing at GDC, is one called "Diner Dash". Though some of these games are freeware, many are making money. The most common model on these games is to allow 60 minutes of free gameplay, and then require the user to buy the game for $19.99 if they wanted to continue playing (personally I think that's too little time and too high a price point, but it seems to be pretty industry sta... [ Read More (0.6k in body) ]