[PHOTO] Front-yard sunflower on Dovercourt below Dupont

[PHOTO] Confederation Centre lilies, Charlottetown

[LINK] "Why Indie Bookstores Are on the Rise Again"

Slate's Zachary Karabell suggests that independent booksellers in the United States may be entering an era of modest prosperity, owing to the overstretch of major book chains in previous decades.

Only a few years ago, observers projected that the rise of chain stores and Amazon would lead to the vast shrinkage of independent bookstores. According to the American Booksellers Association, the number of member independent bookstores has increased more than 20 percent since the depths of the recession, from 1,651 in 2009 to 2,094 in 2014. Meanwhile, Borders went bankrupt in 2011, and the fate of Barnes & Noble, which failed to make the Nook into a viable e-reader competitor with Amazon’s Kindle, appears murky. What happened?

The short answer is that by listing their shares as public companies, both Borders and Barnes & Noble were drawn into a negative vortex that destroyed the former and has crippled the latter. Not only did they become public companies, but they positioned themselves as high-growth companies, focused on innovation and disruption. That forced them to compete with the growth company par excellence in their space: Amazon. It also forced them to pursue high sales volume at the expense of inventories. Those strategies, as it turned out, were precisely wrong for the actual business they were in: selling books to a selective audience. Which is precisely what independent bookstores are good at.

Barnes & Noble, Borders, Books-A-Million, and even Costco looked to be squeezing the life out of indies in the 1990s and into the aughts. Borders alone went from 21 stores in 1992 to 256 superstores in 1999. Barnes & Noble saw even greater growth. Those stores offered more choices, cafes, magazines, and for a while, music. Many independents, already operating with razor-thin margins, couldn’t compete. Between 2000 and 2007, some 1,000 independent bookstores closed.

But even as they were expanding, the chains were beset by questionable management decisions pressured by the demands of public markets to grow, grow, grow. Facing the need for expensive investment in technology, Borders sold its online distribution to Amazon in 2001 and threw its efforts into more stores and bigger stores, using its share price to finance massive debt. Barnes & Noble opened more superstores as well, but it also decided to challenge Amazon by developing the Nook at a cost of more than $1 billion.

The results were disastrous. Barnes & Noble bled money; it just announced earnings with yet another quarter of losses and declining revenue. Amazon dominated because it could spend far more money on technology than the chains, and because its core competency was in the disruptive technologies of e-readers, distribution, and inventory management. Amazon was never seen primarily as a retailer, and hence it could carry massive inventories that were a drag on its earnings and then spend billions on research and development because investors accepted Amazon’s narrative that it was a disruptive technology company redefining how everything is sold, not just books.

[LINK] "Europe's Herky-Jerky Russia Sanctions"

Bloomberg View's Marc Champion makes the case that apparent European Union caution on imposing more stringent sanctions against Russia over Ukraine might, or might not, be deeper. Much depends.

There is a straightforward explanation as to why the EU went ahead with adopting the new punitive measures despite the truce: It holds a deep suspicion that Russia -- which still denies any role in the Ukrainian conflict -- promoted a temporary deal precisely and solely to stave off those sanctions.

The real issue, therefore, is not whether ground offensives halt for a few days, but whether President Vladimir Putin withdraws his troops and equipment back to the Russian side of the border and seals it. So far -- and admittedly here we are largely reliant on information from unreliable witnesses, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Ukraine's government -- that doesn't appear to be happening.

If the EU really were delaying imposition of the newest round sanctions against Russia's state-owned oil companies and banks to leave time for Putin to start pulling back his troops, that would be smart. There are two reasons, though, to suspect that isn't the case.

The first is that in announcing the delay, EU President Herman Van Rompuy didn't mention a withdrawal. [. . .]

The second reason to doubt EU resolve (apart from its generally weak foreign policy record) is the identities of the nations that demanded the delay, which reportedly include EU countries that have had to be dragged kicking and screaming into supporting sanctions against Russia in the first place -- such as Austria, Cyprus and Slovakia.

We'll see if the terms of the cease-fire are implemented by both sides, in particular the sealing of the border by international monitors, and removal of all illegal units and equipment from Eastern Ukraine. And we'll see whether the EU responds by imposing the latest sanctions, should it become clear that Russian troops aren't pulling out. Georgia is still waiting for Russia to honor the terms of its cease-fire agreement, six years after the war there ended.

[LINK] "Atikamekw First Nation declares sovereignty over its territory"

The CBC carried the Canadian Press article regarding the declaration of sovereignty made by the Atikamekw, an Algonquian-speaking group related to the Cree living in north-central Québec. My impression is that this is much more of an opening negotiating position than an attempted UDI.

The Atikamekw First Nation in Quebec has declared its sovereignty over 80,000 square kilometres of territory and says any development in that area must get its approval.

Armed with a Supreme Court of Canada judgment recognizing ancestral rights for First Nations in British Columbia, the Atikamekw want to have their say on projects located in the Nitaskinan region.

Constant Awashish, grand chief of the Atikamekw First Nation, says 35 years of territorial negotiations with governments have provided nothing.

Awashish said Monday that elected members of the aboriginal First Nation adopted the unilateral declaration of sovereignty to assert their right to self-government on the Nitaskinan region.

The grand chief says any companies thinking of pursuing projects in the area will have to do it in co-operation with the Atikamekw.

[BRIEF NOTE] On the likely non-habitability of Gliese 667Cc

At his blog Drew Ex Machina, physicist Andrew Lepage takes a look at apparently confirmed exoplanet Gliese 667Cc. The planet likely exists, Lepage suggests, but because of tidal heating and its likely size it is not likely to be Earth-like. Think of a hot Neptune instead.

While the spin state and curious cyclically varying orbit would make for interesting diurnal and seasonal cycles on GJ 667Cc, there is a dark side to it that would hamper its habitability. Makarov and Berghea found that tidal heating resulting from the eccentricity of the orbit of GJ 667Cc would amount to 1023.7 joules per year assuming an Earth-like composition. This rather odd notation translates to about 1.6X1016 Watts of heat flow or a factor of about 300 greater than Earth’s current internal heat (i.e. from the decay of radioactive elements as well as left over from its formation). Makarov and Berghea estimate that the temperature of an Earth-like mantle in GJ 667Cc would increase at a rate of 1.6° K per 100,000 years and, barring any limiting mechanism not included in their simple model, the mantle of GJ 667Cc would be rendered completely molten inside of 100 million years. Such a tidal heating rate would seriously affect the potential habitability of GJ 667Cc or even make it impossible.

Another major obstacle for the potential habitability of GJ 667Cc is that it is likely not even a terrestrial planet. As is the case with all planetary discoveries made using precision radial velocity measurements, only a minimum mass or Mpsini can be derived since the inclination of the planet’s orbit with respect to our line of sight, i, is not known from spectral measurements alone. The inclination must be determined by other means. Without a known inclination, only the probability that a planet has a mass in a certain range, such as the mass range consistent with a rocky composition, can be stated.

A recent analysis of Kepler data by Leslie Rogers (California Institute of Technology) has shown that a noticeable change in the composition of planets takes place at around 1.5 times the radius of the Earth (RE). Taking into account the uncertainties in the measured radii and especially the independently measured masses of Kepler objects with radii less than 4 RE selected for her analysis, Rogers found, at a 95% confidence level, that the majority of planets with radii greater than 1.6 RE are likely to possess a substantial volatile envelope rich in water, hydrogen and helium. In other words, such planets are more likely to be mini-Neptunes or gas dwarfs that are extremely unlikely to be habitable and would not be rocky, terrestrial-type planets. Rogers’ conclusions agree well with previous analyses of Kepler data by Marcy et al. as well as Weiss and Marcy published earlier this year. It also supports a theoretical study on the transition from terrestrial to non-rocky planets by Eric Lopez and Jonathan Fortney (University of California – Santa Cruz) that was formally published just a few days ago.

[LINK] "China’s Yutu Rover Is Still Alive, Reports Say, As Lunar Panorama Released"

Universe Today's Elizabeth Howell reports on the continued survival of China's Yutu land rover.

It hasn’t been an easy few lunar months for the Yutu rover, which reportedly had problems positioning its solar panels in March while exploring the lunar surface. That said, reports are emerging that the rover is still alive. Along with those reports came a new panorama released in time for the Moon Festival in that country.

As you can see in the video above, the new panorama shows the Chang’e-3 lander and the tracks of the Yutu rover in the Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains). The duo landed on the Moon on Dec. 14, 2013, with the rover on the top. Yutu then drove on its six wheels on to the surface only about seven hours after the touchdown happened.

"Yutu takes 360-degree panoramic photo of the Moon" (Watch on YouTube)

[BLOG] Some Wednesday links

• blogTO shares pictures and photos of Toronto overhead from 1879 on, noting the ever-rising skyline.


• Centauri Dreams notes the fascinating results of an in-depth study of the emerging planetary system of HD100546.


• The Dragon's Gaze links to a paper looking at causes for orbital eccentricty of planets in trinary systems.


• The Dragon's Tales notes the current state of eastern Ukraine and notes that Australia's Lynch Crater apparently conserves records of forty-five thousand years of human influence on the global environment.


• Joe. My. God. observes that Finland's Tom of Finland-themed stamps are a huge hit.


• The Planetary Society Blog charts patterns of growth of planetary exploration by probe over 1959-1989.


• pollotenchegg examines ethnically-driven patterns of support in Belarus' last free elections.


• Spacing Toronto reviews the 2014 State of the World.


• Supernova Condensate shares pictures of the Space Cats.


• Towleorad notes that Toronto school trustee Sam Sotiropoulous shuts down when asked on television about his transphobic and homophobic statements.


• Why I Love Toronto notes that Toronto's new streetcars are great.


• Window on Eurasia notes that on economic issues Putin is not Marxist but rather statist, and observes the long-term consequences of the utter breakdown in Russian-Ukrainian relations.