“According to a complaint filed on Thursday in California state court, [CEO Tim] Cook and other senior Apple figures bear ‘responsibility for ensnaring Apple in a multi-year anticompetitive scheme’ that resulted in a highly-publicized trial and a proposed $450 million payout … The shareholders claim that Cook and others … breached their fiduciary duty to the company and engaged in ‘waste of corporate assets’.”
Category: words
Save The Footnote!
Nathan Heller: “Online, explicit source citation tends to be redundant: you don’t need notes, because, ideally, you can click to an original source. In this context, the removal of back matter makes some kind of sense. But publishers aren’t taking endnotes off the Web. They’re putting them on the Web. Instead, back matter is starting to vanish from books, the one place where it’s still very much needed.”
Some French Bookstores Refuse To Stock Tell-All By President’s Ex-Wife
“As Merci Pour Ce Moment (Thank You For This Moment) hit the bookshelves last week, signs appeared in some bookshop windows across the country to explain to readers why they wouldn’t find Valérie Trierweiler’s opus in store. ‘This bookstore doesn’t aspire to be a washing machine for Madame Trierweiler’s dirty laundry,’ one read.”
Reading Insecurity: Has The Internet Really Killed Our Ability To Deal With Long Things Like Books?
“Maybe we’ve sensed that we rely on physical cues to ground ourselves in complex arguments, and that we get more of those from books than from flickering screens. … And after centuries of vaunting the solidity of written language, there’s a kind of whiplash in signing on and watching our literary output swoosh by. … Yet the Web giveth, even as it taketh away.”
Writers Paying Homage To Other Writers Deal With Pitfalls In Their Own Work
“Should you explain the referenced work so that those unfamiliar with it can enjoy your book? Or should you simply accept that some readers will fall behind and end up befuddled? It’s a tricky enterprise.”
Ursula LeGuin, That Sharp-Tongued Writer Of Science Fiction And Fantasy, Gets A Lifetime Achievement Award
The National Book Foundation: “She has shown how great writing will obliterate the antiquated — and never really valid — line between popular and literary art.”
Booker Prize Shortlist Announced, With Americans Still On It
“The decision to open the prize beyond Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth was a controversial one, and the BBC announcement of the longlist carried the headline ‘Commonwealth Authors Edged Out.'”
How Do You Rhyme In Sign Language?
“Since rhyme is based on the repetition of portions of words, the portions of words that get repeated don’t necessarily have to be sounds. They could also be movement, hand shape, location, palm orientation, or other components of signs.” (Includes video clips and a bonus: “finger fumblers”, the sign-language equivalent of tongue twisters.)
A Woman’s Epilepsy Medication Turned Her Into A Compulsive Poet
“Introducing what appears to be the exact opposite of writer’s block: After starting a new medication for epilepsy, a 76-year-old woman was suddenly stricken with an unstoppable urge to write poetry, according to a [new] case study.”
If You Avoid Amazon Because Of Its Publisher Snit, Get Ready To Drain Your Bank Account
“In about a month, because I couldn’t buy two paperback books from Amazon, I’ve ended up spending $400 with its rival. The first time I had to make a special trip to the bookstore might have been a fluke, but by the second time, I was irked.”