News You Can Bruise for 2002 September 10

"The AIDS fundraising community"???

There are two types of used bookstores: those that try to look like new bookstores and those that try to look like antiquarian bookstores. The difference, I believe, stems from the fact that the former buy remaindered books in relative bulk. They then figure that because they have multiple copies of books, they should go all the way and create a well-lit, spacious place with well-organized book sections marked by preprinted signs, and try to pass for a new bookstore that has really good prices. Sometimes they also sell almost-outdated calendars, used software, and so on.

The other type gets all its books from individuals selling their books, so they don't have multiple copies of anything except Atlas Shrugged. These bookstores cram their books together on buckling shelves and hand-letter their section names to create the impression of a disorganized antiquarian bookstore in which a careless employee has thoughtlessly priced a first edition Hemmingway at trade paperback prices.

Some used bookstores that would otherwise fall into the second category look like the first category because they sell both new and used books. Other stores selling both types put the used books off to the side, in a separate room or on a separate floor. The new books are always closer to the cash register, because they are higher margin. In these cases it's like being in two bookstores simultaneously. Space and time become fluid and pliant, resulting in good bargains.

This has been Taxonomy Of Used Bookstores.

Blindingly obvious solution to the union man/thug for J.H. Blair partition problem: the narrator is an unreliable narrator. Alternatively: "They say" this, but it's just an idiom.

Cute!

I'm just mad about sunfish
They're just mad about me
I'm just mad about sunfish
They're just mad about me
They call it mola mola...

I can now file entries under categories from the add and edit CGIs. But it's broken now when I rename or move a category; the category's entries don't know that the category's path has changed. I'm not sure whether to notify all those entries on a change, or whether to create a pseudo-database where categories have IDs that don't change and refer to categories by their ID. Categories open up all sorts of cans of Consistency brand worms that I don't like dealing with.