July 2011
Q: I don't understand book lengths. How can books have the same number of pages but have different word counts?
Books need to be a predictable size; they have to be manufactured to a price, stored, transported and displayed. Then they have to fit on home bookshelves. People tend to like books that are easy to read, handle, and store. We generally like and need novels to be certain sizes. If you picked up a diary-sized novel in a series one day and the sequel was the size of a family bible, you'd probably find that annoying. I know many readers won't buy hardcovers and wait for mass market paperback editions simply because the regular size of "MMPBs" fits their bookcase, or is easier to carry around.
So, production editors and typographers do a very clever job of smoothing out that big variation using white space and font sizes to get more words on each page - or fewer. They're so good at doing it that a manuscript of 100,000 words can be made into a book that is identical in overall size to one up to twice the length. Don't believe me? Pick a few books at random, do a word count, and then look at the appearance of the pages. You won't notice it unless you're looking for it.
[...]
Page count doesn't mean a thing. It doesn't tell you how much book you're getting for your money. And, to be brutal, if your evaluation of any book is based on how many words you get rather than the impact it has on you and how well it's written - well, that's just dumb. Sorry, but it is. It's not like a pound of apples for 50 pence being better value than a pound for 75 pence. You're not being short-changed if you get a shorter novel. And left wanting more is not being short-changed. It's what good books are supposed to do.
[...]
So don't get hung up about counting pages. A book is as long as it needs to be to tell the story. Just open it, and enjoy.
December 2010
Catholic Teen Bibles
Fascisme de perroquet, sur BioloGeek, l'avis d'un freelance passionné par le web et son évolution.
* La copie : il est très facile de copier (sélection, copier, coller) ou encore plus rapide sur l'interface de twitter (1-click retweet - pas encore breveté ;) )
* La vitesse : la vitesse à laquelle le message recopié se propage est bien plus grande. (propriété de nos sociétés technologiques dont un des buts est d'accélérer la circulation du message depuis la Chine ancienne)
* La distribution : la surface de distribution est bien plus large que précédemment par l'intermédiaire du réseau.
Le fascisme, dans ce cas comme l'opacité, n'est pas tant dû à la répétition, mais aux attitudes des gens face à l'information. Les infrastructures d'une église, d'un village, d'une province, d'un état précédemment permettait ce fascisme de perroquets. La bible est un instrument pour ce fascisme, la constitution un autre. Le message absorbé et non compris, non analysé favorise le fascisme.
October 2010
Chris Harrison - Visualizing the Bible
June 2010
Indicateurs Clé de Performance des sites web
April 2010
O Verbo
NET Bible : The Biblical Studies Foundation
March 2010
January 2010
Review: Legion - Cinematical
Red Green Series - a set on Flickr
a vandercook press is a letter press. the gutenberg bible was
created on a letterpress. it goes back to the days of hand setting type.
before digital, before plates. each letter is set by hand, and then
each print is done one-by-one by hand. a long process, but a
very satisfying one. it's back to the days of no computer.
hand done, and can not be reproduced exactly the same each time.
unplugged art. :O)




