Via Liz, Michael Froomkin, Norman Geras, and Jewschool: here’s the Wikipedia entry on the word “jew” and the Judaism 101 answer to the question, “Who is a jew?”
Author Archives: ghw
don’t try to confuse us with the facts
Via The New York Times: Two economists have released the draft of a study concluding that illegal music “[d]ownloads have an effect on sales which is statistically indistinguishable from zero, despite rather precise estimates.” Felix Oberholzer-Gee of the Harvard Business School and Koleman S. Strumpf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have conducted what the Times is calling “the first study that makes a rigorous economic comparison of directly observed activity on file-sharing networks and music buying.”
[T]hey analyzed the direct data of music downloaders over a 17-week period in the fall of 2002, and compared that activity with actual music purchases during that time. Using complex mathematical formulas, they determined that spikes in downloading had almost no discernible effect on sales. Even under their worst-case example, “it would take 5,000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy,” they wrote. “After annualizing, this would imply a yearly sales loss of two million albums, which is virtually rounding error” given that 803 million records were sold in 2002. Sales dropped by 139 million albums from 2000 to 2002.
So why have sales been dropping? Here’s my take, and keep in mind it’s only a theory unsupported by any rigorous analysis: because most music being produced by the music
industry
sucks. And the level of suckitude (or suckage, if you’re a speaker of French) appears to be following an upward trajectory.
giving kinja a try
I signed up for a free account with Kinja, having read about it on misbehaving.net.. You can read my digest of favorite info sources if you like.
vegetarian indian cuisine
I bought a print copy of the NY Times for my flight to Boston last week. One of the best sections of the Times is their food section. Last week, there was a great article by Julia Moskin entitled, “After Centuries, the Vegetarian Feast of India Finally Arrives.” Moskin writes,
With the arrival here of South Indian vegetarian staples like dosas and uttapams, samosa chat and idlis, Indian cooking in New York is finally reflecting how Indians eat in India. And that often means vegetarian meals at least twice a day, or an entirely vegetarian home kitchen. Indian restaurants outside India have rarely reflected the central role of vegetarian cooking in Indian life, or its varied flavors.
Ah, it is to laugh. Ten years after L and I ate first began eating about once a week at Udupi Palace in the DC area, the Times explains to its readers what dosas, uttapams, and idlis are. And KC has Udipi Cafe. Who says New York is the cutting edge?
book history in india
Via SHARP-L, this sounds interesting:
The editors of Print Areas: Book History in India solicit articles for the
second volume of the series. Articles may be on any aspect of the history of
the book in the Indian subcontinent as well as adjacent or related areas /
countries. Articles should ideally be 4,000-8,000 words long and should be
written in accordance with the 14th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style,
with endnotes in the Humanities style. Submissions should be typed in
double-space and should not carry the name of the author on the main body.
Articles may either be posted to the address below or e-mailed to
offog@vsnl.com. In case of e-mail submissions, please attach the article as
an RTF document. The last date for receiving submissions is 30 September
2004.
Dr Abhijit Gupta
Prof. Swapan Chakravorty
Department of English
Jadavpur University
Kolkata 700 032
INDIA
Tel: 91-33-24146681
Telefax: 91-33-24137903