Daily Archives: June 4, 2004


Where is the Book?

Amanda Butler at Crescat Sententia writes:

At Books-a-Million tonight (no, I don’t normally go there, but it was next to the wine store), I could not find a copy of The Federalist Papers, though I searched in American politics, philosophy, and the other likely categories. When I asked the store clerk where I’d find it, he said, “Oh, I shelved that yesterday. It’s in fiction.”
what?
“It’s in fiction and literature. It’s been declared a classic.”
[continued look of skepticism]

“I agree it makes no sense, but that’s where it is.”
[figures the guy has to shelve things where he’s told to shelve them]
There may be more to this. I was equally puzzled the other night when I entered my new copy of The Anti-Federalist Papers into my Readerware database. I had Readerware set to search Amazon or Barnes & Noble for book information and here is what it returned: Literature & Fiction: General: Classic.
On the other hand, Randy Barnett’s Restoring the Lost Constitution returns: Nonfiction: Government. Legal System. Seems like this would have worked for the others. I wonder if the nonfiction tag means that Barnett is right?
I think it is a problem with whoever (the publisher?) categorizes books. The clerk at the store was simply following current industry practice…broken as it is.


No prior art?

Microsoft has just been awarded another stupid patent:

Microsoft has successfully patented using short, long or double clicks to launch different applications on “limited resource computing devices”
How long did it take you to think of a code that used short, long or multiple iterations of some symbol or activity to represent something or initiate an action?
All I can say is -… ..- .-.. .-.. … …. .. – (go here to translate).
Via the Apostropher.