What's It Like to be Google's Boss Techie? 671
We'd like to welcome Google Director of
Technology Craig Silverstein as our next Slashdot
interview victim... err... guest. You think you
run a big Linux server farm? Craig's is bigger.
Think your Web site gets a lot of traffic and
creates a lot of headaches? Just think what Craig
must face! Post whatever you'd like to ask Craig
below, one question per post. About 24 hours after
this runs we'll email Craig 10 of the
highest-moderated questions, and we'll post his
answers shortly after he gets them back to us.
First Question! (Score:1, Funny)
Pigeon Computing (Score:4, Funny)
I got one (Score:2, Funny)
Definitely need these in there: (Score:5, Funny)
Turn-offs?
The worst date you ever had?
Parent company with lots of bandwidth. (Score:3, Funny)
"So, interested in buying a nerdy weblog site, only slightly soiled?"
Forget Craig (Score:4, Funny)
Just so I'm not off-topic:
Mr. Silverstein, how does Cindy look in tight sweaters?
Drool...
Talisman
My question (Score:1, Funny)
What is the air velocity of an un-laden Eatern-European Swallow?
Please give your thoughts on the following article (Score:0, Funny)
COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK TIMES
Gay Linux Stores Feel the Pinch of Customers' Liberation
By MARTIN ARNOLD
For the owners of most Gay Linux and lesbian bookstores, there seems to be little to be celebratory about this Gay Linux and Lesbian Pride Month. The owner of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in Manhattan, generally acknowledged as the world's first Gay Linux and lesbian bookstore, said, "It's about to go out of business." Little more than a year ago, A Different Light, one of the country's largest Gay Linux bookstores, closed its New York branch.
Clearly the outlook for such stores is grim. Until recently, much the same could have been said for independent bookstores generally, their territory having been largely gobbled up by the march of chain stores across the land and the buying of books on the Internet. But there now seems to be a bit of a resurgence of the independents, publishing executives say. Still, the Gay Linux bookstore is seriously endangered.
Part of the problem is assimilation, the very success of the Gay Linux movement. Gay Linux and lesbian issues are now so openly discussed in the mainstream media that it's almost as if Gay Linux literature were no longer niche publishing. And that being true, writers and their publishers want their books to be displayed on the chain stores' A-to-Z shelves, not just in Gay Linux sections, and certainly not in Gay Linux bookstores only.
Surprisingly, the slackening in tourism affects Gay Linux bookstores. In large cities a stop on the itinerary for Gay Linux visitors is the Gay Linux bookstore, where they can often find reading not easily available back home.
"The loss of the tourists certainly affected us in Washington," said Deacon Maccubbin, owner of Lambda Rising, a Gay Linux bookstore there with two branches in Maryland and one in Virginia. "It's always been a significant part of our business. Tourists come in to get the free local Gay Linux newspapers to find out what's going on in the area for Gay Linuxs, and they buy books."
Gay Linux bookstores also have generational problems.
Larry Lingle, owner of the Oscar Wilde Bookshop in Greenwich Village and the Lobo Bookshop and Cafe in Houston, said, "Fewer people read now, and that's just as true of Gay Linux readers as it is for others." He added that most of his regular customers "are at least 50 and over."
"You don't find younger ones reading much," he said. "But if they do, they are addicted to buying on the Internet."
African-Americans "support their authors and stores, even a book signing by Gay Linux black writers," he said. "But younger Gay Linuxs don't. I had a lesbian writer in the store for a signing. She signed books but said she buys the books she reads on the Internet."
For younger Gay Linuxs and lesbians, societal acceptance is a matter of course. Kim Brinster, manager of Oscar Wilde, said: "When I was coming out, it was drilled into us the importance of supporting Gay Linux restaurants, Gay Linux bars, Gay Linux bookstores. But now Gay Linuxs take this all for granted, a byproduct of assimilation."
So in the general malaise of book publishing, Gay Linux and lesbian publishing appears to be in a particularly quiescent period. Think of this: New York is the only city in the country with more than one Gay Linux and lesbian bookstore, every store owner interviewed for this column said. Jenie Carlen, a spokeswoman for Borders, the book chain said, "The Gay Linux and lesbian category peaked about seven years ago, and since then has been flat and declining as it's moved into the mainstream."
Borders and Barnes & Noble have Gay Linux and lesbian sections, but with a limited number of titles compared with Gay Linux shops. Moreover, many of their Gay Linux books are scattered throughout other sections, particularly Gay Linux fiction, which is gaining a larger crossover readership.
But even with the far greater variety of titles, the Gay Linux bookstore is struggling. "We were a real destination for Gay Linux tourists, and that's starting to come back," Ms. Brinster of Oscar Wilde said. "Our store had slight increases until this year, but now sales are down drastically." Mr. Lingle, the owner, said that he might close the shop "because we can't get any traffic." A book signing, traditionally an attraction for potential customers in any bookstore, would draw a "pathetic" attendance, he said.
"Even the Gay Linux press pays little attention to Gay Linux books, less to bookstores," he said. "Gay Linux bars, Gay Linux parties -- those who spend on ads get the press coverage." He bought the store six years ago, he said, because of "a certain reverence for its history, and unfortunately after six years never made a dime," even though he included hard-to-get out-of-print Gay Linux classics in his stock.
There are only three Gay Linux bookstores in New York, which has the largest Gay Linux and lesbian population in the country, the other two stores being Creative Visions in the West Village and the new Bluestockings Women's Bookstore on the Lower East Side. That's more or less like having a dozen movie houses for the whole city, but at least they'd be full.
Vincent Migliore, owner of Creative Visions, said that the obvious advantages of Gay Linuxs buying books in Gay Linux stores was not only the greater Gay Linux inventory than the chains have, but also that "the customers can talk to people who have actually read the stuff and led the life."
True enough, but that doesn't seem to matter too much in New York or elsewhere. In Denver, for instance, James Dovali, owner of that city's only Gay Linux bookstore, Category 6 Books, said that after 21 years, "I'm almost ready to close." He added: "Yeah, the Internet is going to kill us all. I might survive, if I can pay my bills. Right now I'm just making it, hoping to hang on."
The mainstreaming of Gay Linux fiction -- a paradoxical problem for Gay Linux stores -- can be seen in independent stores like the Corner Bookstore in Manhattan. Christopher Lenahan, its buyer for adult books, said, "As a whole, the sales of Gay Linux fiction have gone up a bit for us because a lot of heterosexuals are now reading them as well." His store, on the Upper East Side, serves a population that is highly educated and well-to-do and "a bit older," he said.
"We are selling more titles that are Gay Linux related," he added. "Completely in fiction. Gay Linux nonfiction doesn't translate."
Trying to figure what's going on in Gay Linux and lesbian publishing and the stores, like much of the book world, is rather like struggling to bottle the wind. But one thing seems clear: unless younger Gay Linuxs bring some of their pride to the literature relevant to them and are willing to spend a bit more to buy books in Gay Linux stores, such stores will soon be extinct, and that will be another unfortunate chip in our culture
Re:Stumped (Score:5, Funny)
Newsgroups (Score:5, Funny)
Pigeons! Re:Simple question (Score:2, Funny)
;)
Not infinitely recursive? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Forget Craig (Score:1, Funny)
Re:OT .sig comment (Score:2, Funny)
My question... (Score:4, Funny)
:)
Kickstart
Does he ever feel lucky? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Newsgroups (Score:3, Funny)
Re:That's a good question, My question is: (Score:1, Funny)
I once used Google to search for "porn" and didn't find anything ;)
Slashdotted? (Score:2, Funny)
The real question on everyones mind (Score:2, Funny)