- John Seavey on the “Vote With Your Wallet” Fallacy as it applies to comic books:
And of course, the worst part is that DC and Marvel are the bread and butter of the modern comics store. For all that people encourage buying indie comics as a way to vote with their wallets, if DC and Marvel (possibly even just Marvel) got out of the publishing business and decided to focus on their movies and videogames, it would be an utter apocalypse for the comics industry. All the other companies combined do not sell enough copies to keep a comics store in business. And without comics stores, indie publishers have very few places to sell their stuff. So voting with your wallets…might actually mean buying DC and Marvel books you hate just to keep the store you like in business.
The business model of the comics industry would drive Warren Buffett mad.
- Is Detroit on its way to becoming a food desert?
About 80 percent of the residents of Detroit buy their food at the one thousand convenience stores, party stores, liquor stores, and gas stations in the city. There is such a dire shortage of protein in the city that Glemie Dean Beasley, a seventy-year-old retired truck driver, is able to augment his Social Security by selling raccoon carcasses (twelve dollars a piece, serves a family of four) from animals he has treed and shot at undisclosed hunting grounds around the city. Pelts are ten dollars each. Pheasants are also abundant in the city and are occasionally harvested for dinner.
Not a single produce-carrying grocery chain in the city. From the little I saw of it a couple of years ago, I’m sorry to say I can believe it. [via]
- Is Accelerated Reader’s only criteria for assigning points the number of pages in a book? It sure seems that way, if Hamlet can be “worth fewer points than the fifth installment of the Gossip Girl series.” Shouldn’t some other factors be taking into account? [via]
- “When Henry Hudson first looked on Manhattan in 1609, what did he see?” This, apparently. I got to see a little of the Mannahatta Project a couple of weeks ago when I accompanied my mother to an after-hours members event at the Museum of the City of New York. Interesting stuff. [via]
- And finally, when the police shoot the Fire Chief in the courtroom over speeding tickets, you know that, just maybe, something’s wrong. [via]
One thought on “Tuesday various”
Comments are closed.
I remember Accelerated Reader. My first year of middle school they showed it to us, but it was just a computer in the back of the room that you could take tests on for points. Then every so often during the year, they gave out prizes to people based on how many points they had acquired. There was nothing academically linked to it, though, it had no affect on our grades or anything; I think they just were hoping the incentive of prizes would get kids to read more.
The best part was that since I was already basically reading at a college level, that first year I went and took dozens and dozens of tests, and practically broke the reward system. I got free Pizza Hut almost every week from them. Then the next year I was all tested out, and only got points on new books I read, so probably only around 1/4 of the points.