Adam Victor Brandizzi

A gigante americana Amazon ainda está mais para nanica no Brasil, onde vende livros impressos há três meses, mas editores e livreiros temem esperar para ver a varejista crescer ao ponto de monopolizar o mercado, como acontece nos EUA e a Inglaterra.

Após anos de discussões sobre uma legislação que estipule o preço fixo para o livro, e apesar de o tema ainda dividir o mercado, um projeto de lei deve ser apresentado em Brasília em 2015. A iniciativa será da senadora eleita Fátima Bezerra (PT-RN), com apoio da Associação Nacional de Livrarias (ANL).

As leis de preço fixo, em vigor em países como a França e a Espanha, impedem as lojas de darem descontos acima de 5% em lançamentos. Os grandes descontos, comuns às redes —que, ao comprar mais livros dos editores, conseguem adquiri-los e repassá-los ao consumidor por preços mais baixos— são considerados prejudiciais às livrarias independentes.

Antes de a discussão chegar ao Senado, nesta segunda (17) e nesta terça (18), no Rio e em São Paulo, dois seminários debaterão o tema —o segundo será capitaneado pela ANL, antiga defensora da lei do preço fixo, mas a surpresa fica por conta do primeiro encontro, coordenado pelo Sindicato Nacional dos Editores de Livros (Snel), que por anos foi contrário à proposta.

"O Snel sempre acreditou que o preço é uma ferramenta de marketing e, como tal, pode ser utilizado como impulsionador de vendas. Está aí a Black Friday, em que promoções trazem resultados incríveis. Mas temos recebido queixas dos pequenos livreiros, que sofrem com a pressão da concorrência. Daí um seminário para entender como funciona o modelo em mercados mais maduros que o nosso", diz Sônia Jardim, presidente do Snel.

'A HORA É AGORA'

O seminário carioca reúne nesta segunda palestrantes de países que adotam a prática, como França e Alemanha, ou já adotaram, como a Inglaterra.

Entre os participantes, o britânico Sam Edenborough, presidente da Associação de Autores e Agentes do Reino Unido, país em que um acordo comercial para o preço fixo vigorou de 1890 a 1997, afirma que, se o Brasil quiser implantar uma lei, deve fazê-lo já.

"Há uma janela estreia de oportunidade no Brasil —e a hora é agora— para introduzir uma lei do preço fixo. Isso poderia estabilizar a indústria e impedir a Amazon de construir uma posição extremamente dominante. Nos EUA e no Reino Unido ela [a Amazon] fez isso; na Alemanha, na França e em outros países que têm regulamentação, ela não conseguiu", diz o especialista.

Para ele, uma lei protegeria autores, editores, livreiros e consumidores —que teriam mais títulos a escolher. "O importante é que os consumidores entendam por que a lei pode ser necessária e como poderia beneficiá-los."

Ednilson Xavier, presidente da ANL, diz que a regulamentação pode até baratear o livro. "Havendo mais livrarias para o escoamento do livro, este pode ser barateado pela escala." Para ele, um dos perigo dos grandes descontos é que eles reduzem a bibliodiversidade.

ERA DOS DESCONTOS

Um exemplo desse cenário pôde ser percebido no Reino Unido nas últimas décadas, desde que, em meados dos anos 1990, alguns editores abandonaram o acordo comercial que estabelecia o preço fixo.

"Com o fim do acordo, começou uma era de grandes descontos, especialmente nos best-sellers. Os editores passaram a focar em títulos mais comerciais —ficção de massa, biografias de celebridades, livros de filmes. O alcance e a diversidade dos livros sofreu, e essa situação permitiu que um único varejista passasse a dar as regras", diz Sam Edenborough, que não vê mais possibilidade de um novo acordo no Reino Unido.

O seminário do Snel reúne ainda nomes da França, onde uma lei permite descontos de apenas 5% até dois anos depois do lançamento, e da Alemanha, onde o controle é exercido pela indústria, mas não trouxe nenhum especialista dos EUA, que nunca exerceu controle do tipo.

A presidente do Snel, Sônia Jardim, tem dúvidas sobre qual modelo seria mais efetivo no caso de adoção no Brasil —na avaliação dela, o alemão seria o mais adequado, já que pode ser mais facilmente revertido caso não funcione.

"Mas não sei, por exemplo, como ficariam eventos promocionais, como as bienais do livro ou datas específicas. O desconto ficaria limitado ao previsto pela lei?"

Using this image without linking to here isn't sharing it's just theft.

You've heard the old adage 'you learn something new everyday' or even 'you can't teach an old dog new tricks'? Well this old dog recently learned a very new trick.

Ten years I've been a Mum, ten years.  Not once in these ten years did I question why baby vests have envelope shoulders.  I just blithely accepted that this is how the world is.  Sure, it makes them a bit easier to get them over baby's head but that's about it.  Then somebody on a FaceBook parenting group enlightened me with the news that the shoulder design serves a purpose.  We've all been there, your baby has created a poonami.  Shit (or vomit) has quite literally hit the fan (and everywhere else).  You need to strip baby and hose them down. You fear things couldn't possibly get any worse until you try to get the vest over their head (something many babies object to even when the vest isn't dripping with shit) cue poo being moved up over their chest, shoulders and in their hair.

So what if I told you that you can roll the vests down and take them off that way?  Crisis averted.

If you already knew this, why didn't you tell me?! If this is news to you, like it was to me, welcome to enlightenment!

Ever the cynic I decided to try this strange witchery out.  It works.  Better still, it works one handed! How do I know this? why, I filmed it of course!  Actually I filmed it twice.  The first time was a genuine poonami situation yet I feared the site of explosive breastfed poo splattered baby may traumatise you so I did it again with a clean Moomin then tossed a coin as to which one I blogged.  Excuse the crap video, I'm not a V-Blogger, it was midnight with shit lighting and it's filmed one handed with my phone. Oh and yes, Moomin did infact poo mid video.  She's her Father's child.





***Disclaimer: this entry is a bit of fun. Obviously I don't know if this is officially the reason they were designed this way but it's certainly made my life a whole lot easier!

Six months after hosting governance conference NETMundial, Brazil is leading the creation of a permanent platform to discuss improvements in the way the Internet is managed.

The country's Internet steering committee CGI, the World Economic Forum (WEF) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) are the organizations behind the initiative, which is presented as a collaborative group that will be coordinated by stakeholders across the globe.

According to the organizers, the idea is to turn the NETmundial initiative into an "essential mechanism to advance the creation of policies and governance for the global Internet."

"Dialog is essential, but the global community is now ready to take action. The NETmundial initiative channels this energy to offer practical solutions in Internet governance to solve immediate needs," says ICANN president Fadi Chehadé.

The platform has been described as a "meeting point", where stakeholders will be able to put ideas forward, discuss them and attract the support to make them reality if necessary. In that sense, the WEF support icomes in handy, given its reach within the business community. 

But the initiative's "caretakers" CGI and ICANN, as well as supporter WEF, will not be responsible for any activities regarding the selection of financing of the projects and are keen to stress the collaborative nature of the initiative. To that end, the organizations have started a process of putting together the group's coordinating council and this will be done through a nomination process, open until December 6.

Some 20 individuals from all continents - from governments and academia/technology experts to private sector and the civil society - will take part in the Council. In addition, the CGI and ICANN will take two seats each, while the WEF and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will take up individual seats in the coordinating group for the initiative.

Demi Getschko, board member at the CGI and chief executive at the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br), highlighted that the individuals that, as well as the organizations that kickstarted the initiative, the Council will have no decision-making function other than ensuring that the platform functions properly.

"All Council members will also have to support and agree with the principles that came out of the NETmundial meeting in São Paulo earlier this year," he told ZDNet.

According to Getschko, the collaborative work within the Internet governance initiative will be carried out mostly online and there is no set agenda for meetings, online or in person.

For now, the only goals in terms of timescales are that the Council should be in place by year end and that some form of inaugural meeting will take place in January 2015 so the initiative can start its activities.

Brazil's role in global Internet governance

The NETmundial initiative follows a conference with the same name, organized by the Brazilian government and held in São Paulo in April, in the aftermath of the National Security Agency spying scandal that included Brazil as one of the non-adversarial countries being monitored by the United States.

Back then, the Brazilian government said that the US government's plan to end its contractual oversight of ICANN over certain key aspects of Internet addressing and naming also made NETmundial "even more timely."

But Dilma Rousseff's government stressed that it wasn't intending to seize control of the Internet - rather, it was advocating for a more globalized mechanism that would allow discussions around Internet governance to take place in a multistakeholder environment.

Local Internet steering group CGI was responsible for a manifesto document that described principles for Web use and governance and was ultimately used as a foundation for Brazil's Marco Civil da Internet (also known as the country's "Internet Constitution"), passed a day before the April event and guided many of the debates at the conference.

Senior government representatives, academics, Internet heavyweights and supporters of Brazil's campaign to secure a more democratic and decentralized web all attended the São Paulo event, where two documents were produced collaboratively to set the initial agenda of the group and future governance goals.

According to CGI's Getschko, while the documents are not a mandatory set of rules for supporting organizations and countries, they "paint a picture of aspirations and commitments from the overwhelming majority of the international community to guide Internet governance from that point on."

The Internet pioneer adds that the fact these discussions started in Brazil and the steps the country has taken towards a multistakeholder model for Internet governance meant the country was an obvious leader for the NETmundial initiative, despite the fact that other nations were also involved in the original debate.

"Through CGI, Brazil is a good paradigm in that area and ended up serving as an inspiration for the process of horizontally integrating all sectors and also with regards to the meeting results, which generated a letter with fundamental principles that should guide future steps in Internet governance," Getschko says.

"So when it came to following up on all those discussions that NETmundial started, CGI was naturally approached to be part of this continuation and also make it happen," he adds.

• Paul Ford, 52, spent five years on his DIY replica inside an old factory in his in-laws' garden in Cambridgeshire
• All 320 Fokker Dr1 Dreideckers have been destroyed or lost, so he had to base it on 1970s U.S. technical drawings
• Mr Ford is no ordinary enthusiast - he spent 26 years at Cambridge University and entered BBC hit show Robot Wars
• He narrowly avoided death when he crashed it last year, but rebuilt plane and made sure it passed safety checks
• 'It was very scary the first time I flew it,' the hobbyist admitted. 'But after the first time they're just so much fun to fly'

A plane-mad engineer has spent five years and £50,000 building a perfect replica of the Red Baron's Fokker triplane - and is still flying it despite coming close to death in a crash.

Paul Ford used his wife's patience, his in-laws' garden and his three children's help to recreate the Fokker Dr1 Dreidecker, a First World War fighter made famous by German pilot Manfred Von Richthofen.

Nicknamed 'The Red Baron' for his penchant for painting his aircraft scarlet, Von Richthofen downed at least 70 allied pilots until his death in aerial combat aged 25 a few months before the war ended in 1918.

Scroll down for video 

The 52-year-old co-owner of Derby Aero Club has been obsessed with vintage planes since he became an 11-year-old volunteer at Duxford Airfield in Cambridgeshire, now home to the Imperial War Museum.

The triplane is his crowning achievement and his full-time career - delighting air show crowds across Britain in mock dogfights with a vintage Tiger Moth.

'It is the ultimate plane from the First World War,' he said. 'My wife, Sarah didn't believe I'd do it until one day when the metal and the wood arrived at the front door.'

His madcap project took 3,500 hours and began 15 years ago, when he built a radio-controlled quarter-size model of the Red Baron's scarlet craft.

'I wasn't satisfied', he said. 'I had to have the real thing'.

So to the bemusement of his 50-year-old wife, he bought a book called How to Build a WW1 Replica AND Stay Married! and began work on the Fokker in his in-laws' garden in the village of Cottenham, Cambridgeshire.

'Ironically my wife had time to read it but I didn't,' he said. 'I was too busy working on the plane'.

Mr Ford added: 'I was very lucky. Sarah's parents lived in a very old Victorian house and in the garden there was an old basket-waving factory from the 1800s so we used that. Most of it was built in there'.

The challenge was not easy. All 320 Fokker Dr1 Dreideckers have been destroyed or lost, and many surviving photos were grainy at best.

So Mr Ford, from Egginton, South Derbyshire, used technical drawings created in the 1970s by aviation fanatic Ron Sands, a U.S. engineer who drew up detailed plans for many wartime planes.

It meant converting many imperial measurements into metric ones and hand-making the parts, but without the drawings the plane would never have been cleared to fly by the Light Aircraft Association.

With the help of friends and Mr Ford's three children - Ashley, 25, Kirsty, 20, and Michael, 17- the Fokker had its first test flight six years ago and built up a reputation at air shows, where it flies replica dogfights with an original Tiger Moth.

But a year ago, Mr Ford crashed the plane on the grass runway of Podington Airfield in Northamptonshire - narrowly avoiding death.

'I had a little accident', he admitted.

'The trouble with First World War planes is they have to be landed into the wind. Unfortunately a gust of wind caught me sideways, the wing clipped a gate and I landed on my back.

'If there had been a fire I wouldn't be here. One of the wing struts was broken and it took a year to rebuild. We've only just got it flying again.'

To this day, the only part of the plane which wouldn't have been the same in 1918 is the engine. Instead of a rotary engine it is a U.S.-made Lycoming which allows him to fly for up to four hours.

To complete the look there is a dummy engine - little more than three old fire extinguishers painted silver - and machine guns on the nose, unarmed of course.

Mr Ford is no ordinary hobbyist.

He spent 26 years developing gas turbines in Cambridge University's engineering department - despite not having a degree.

With talented colleagues there he made Mortis, one of the most famous, fearsome and expensive entrants ever to the BBC's hit show Robot Wars.

He then quit to run his own company which worked on military jet engines, where he spent ten years.

Unlike similar lookalikes which modified an existing plane, the Fokker was completely built from scratch. 

'There are a few other planes that are quite similar to this one but the Fokker just stood out to me,' Mr Ford said. 'It can be a little unstable when flying it but that's what makes it so special.

'It's actually unstable on purpose because it means when it's in the air it can get out of the way very, very quickly and back on your opponent's tail in a dog-fighting situation.

'It was very scary the first time I flew it. Having built it myself I was a little bit nervous - you always are. But after the first time they're just so much fun to fly.'

The Red Baron's is not the first plane Paul has built. He is currently working on two other projects inspired by German First World War planes which he hopes to have finished by next year. Once they are completed, he intends to begin work on a British plane.

Paul, who thanked several devoted friends and family members including his wife for their help, said: 'They cost around £50,000 to make, but they're worth a lot more. The tri-plane is worth around £180,000, but I won't sell any of them.

'They're a lot of fun, and they'll keep me busy when I retire.' 

The human brain, about to be irreparably damaged by technology (a scalpel is technology, so it counts). Photograph: Graeme Robertson/Guardian

Following her recent article about the potential neurological dangers of the newly announced "Facebook phone", it's becoming increasingly likely that any new technological development will eventually have an article about it in which Susan Greenfield predicts the serious damage it could do to people's brains.

Overlooking the fact that the recent article reads as though it was written by someone whose understanding of Facebook and smartphones is based exclusively on an overheard conversation between two drunken advertising executives in a pub, Greenfield tends to stick to a reliable and predictable formula.

Technological advances usually focus on making things faster, slicker and more efficient. So, should you need a Greenfield-esque article about the latest technological announcement to make your needless paranoia-inducing agenda seem more scientific/credible, there's no need to wait until the Baroness herself can fit you into her schedule. Now you can write your own by following this simple step-by-step guide.

INTRODUCE THE TECHNOLOGY

Begin with a simple description of the technology that is to be the focus of the article. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it's something new that people can experience in a way that involves the brain. Previous examples include video games, online porn, social networking, anything with a screen, the internet in general, television, books, typewriters, the printing press, the internal combustion engine, carrier pigeons, and that hot orange stuff you get when you rub sticks together that makes raw food dangerously edible.

Not newspapers, though. Never ever newspapers!

EXPLAIN THE BRAIN

The article is concerned about the effects this new technology will have on the brain, so you will need to include a general explanation of the brain's workings, particularly a feature of it that is somehow relevant to this new thing people should be scared of.

It's impossible to summarise the brain in a paragraph, nobody would expect that. Generally pointing out that the brain is very adaptive thanks to its inherent plasticity is a safe bet. The brain changes in response to things you experience; this is the basis of learning and memory. Ergo, anything you experience, like a new technology, has the ability to change your brain. So it's not "wrong" to make that claim.

You can be more specific if you have more details. For example, if the new technology offers new types of visual stimulation, briefly describe the brain's complex visual system. If it's more language based, the language processing features of the brain can be discussed. It's a big, complex organ, the brain; there's probably some feature of it that seemingly supports your "concerns", so don't feel restricted.

EMPHASISE THE DANGER

After explaining the brain a bit, explicitly state how the new technology could damage it or lead to harmful changes. This can be as tenuous as you like. For example, "people's sense of smell has been linked to powerful emotional responses. This has caused many to worry that 'smellovision', which allows people to experience any smell at any time, will turn us into emotionally stunted robots". Or maybe "the human brain has evolved to recognise faces, so there is a very real possibility that automated Rhytidectomy kits will cause our brains to get confused, leaving us unable to recognise our own mothers". It's a prediction; you're not saying a thing does happen, just that it might, so it doesn't matter how unlikely it really is.

If possible, present the danger as a matter of a stark binary choice, as in the following example:

"If I had to choose between unfettered internet access, and having children potentially harmed psychologically or worse by porn sites, then for me the decision is an easy one."

That's top-level Greenfielding there. There's no middle ground; it's access to porn or undamaged children. If you can, come up with your own, e.g. holographic phone interfaces or the survival of the human race.

FOCUS ON THE CHILDREN

Ensure that you enhance the impact of your claims by emphasising the harm that could be done to children. Children's brains are, undeniably, still developing, so any harm inflicted by the new technology will be doubly dangerous for their vulnerable young minds. The focus on children will increase the impact among parents, allow you to present your claims as motivated by concern and moral obligation and make any critics look like cruel monsters who actively want to use technology to warp fragile youthful brains.

You can also get extra Greenfield irony points if you contextualise your claims amid wider concerns about technology making children too insular and disengaged from the outside world then publishing your piece in a publication that regularly portrays the outside world as a lawless maelstrom of perverts, workshy criminals and powerful carcinogens.

EVIDENCE

You don't really need evidence. Evidence is for bitter people who hate children. It's fine to just make your claims with confidence. If you need to back up your claims, it's fine to say you've spoken to some relevant people about this. There may even be a survey or two that will back you up. Don't limit yourself to the scientific literature, that's needlessly complicated. If you really need to cite some research, it's probably sufficient to link to a study that didn't really look at what you're talking about but has some relevant words in the title.

If anyone criticises you over this, just ignore them.

AT THE END

Most Susan Greenfield articles end with a summary of who she is, her position and possibly her website. If you do this with your article, it would imply that she's written it, so don't do that because she hasn't and this is almost certainly illegal.

Dean Burnett has spent so long mocking Greenfield's claims that it's probably altered his brain in some way, which is ironic. He's on Twitter, @garwboy

There's a lot in the world to get stressed about lately. This last week alone we've seen bombings and city-wide gunfights in Boston, massive explosions in Texas, on-going violence in the Middle East, emotions raised over Thatcher's funeral, increasing measles cases in Swansea, continuing savage benefit cuts and maybe an alien invasion or two that got lost among the onslaught of bad news.

It seems to many that the world in general is becoming an increasingly awful and depressing place. Is this the case? Or is there as much bad stuff happening as there's ever been, but 24-hour rolling news and an increasingly interconnected, always-online society have contributed to ensuring that no bad news ever goes unreported? Either way, it doesn't really matter; the negative effects on people's wellbeing are the same.

But the things covered in the news, as terrible as they can be, are more "mainstream" worries; things that everyone can worry about to some extent. The more typical concerns people have tend to be more specific, as they're things that affect them personally and directly and maybe affect them alone.

When stressful events keep occurring, you will often hear people claim they are heading for a "nervous breakdown". You may be someone who says this, or you may be someone who has experienced (or is experiencing) such a thing. It's a well-known concept. Even celebrities are vulnerable to nervous breakdowns. Stephen Fry has spoken candidly about his breakdown, Spike Milligan had several, and the Rolling Stones claim to have had at least 19 (although that may be an exaggeration).

But "nervous breakdown" seems to be one of those terms that is often used but not well understood. As a neuroscientist, I always find myself reflexively thinking it means nervous tissue is breaking down, so means someone is suffering from a neurodegenerative disorder like Alzheimer's or Parkinson's disease. This may seem a bit ridiculous, but then what does "nervous breakdown" actually mean? Is it one of those terms that people use freely without understanding the actual meaning, like "irony" or "offside"? Interestingly, despite its widespread use, "nervous breakdown" isn't a term that is used by the medical profession.

[As an aside, my first draft of this used the phrase "medically speaking, there's no such thing as a nervous breakdown", but that's not that accurate a statement, and I also worried that someone from ATOS would read it and immediately declare thousands of sick people fit for work.]

The term nervous breakdown is actually surprisingly old, and stems from a time when both "nervous" and "breakdown" arguably had different meanings to their modern ones. It seems the "breakdown" element refers to a breakdown in the same way that cars or other machines can break down. And nervous just refers to the nervous tissue. So originally it meant a fault or error in the nervous tissue that controls the body. And suddenly my interpretation doesn't seem so literal.

But this doesn't mean it's an invalid term, it's just more of a rule-of-thumb or generalisation used to refer to what happens when someone becomes psychologically unable to function as normal. In the simplest sense it could be said that, mentally speaking, a nervous breakdown occurs when an individual finds that the number of things that they are able to cope with is lower than the number of things that they have to cope with.

In a psychiatric/psychological sense, these things you have to cope with are known as stressors. Stressors don't necessarily have to be negative, anyone who's ever gone on holiday will know this; for something that's meant to be fun and relaxing, they involve quite a lot of stress, especially if they involve Ryanair in some way. But stressors generally have certain qualities in common, such as:

• They reduce personal control (as in they remove the amount of authority you have on your own life)
• They reduce options for action (as in, they restrict your options regarding what to do about them)
• They cause fatigue (as in, dealing with them leaves you physically or mentally knackered)

And so on. Most people in our society probably experience stress in the workplace. Unfortunately, stressors can lead to more stressors and greater stress, part of the stress cycle. Say you get a new boss who assigns you a lot more work than is reasonable. This would cause stress, and you react to this stress by working longer hours to deal with the workload, and eating and drinking more to unwind. This has negative consequences on your health, which stresses you out further and makes you vulnerable to further stressors.

Alternatively, you could break into your boss's house and smother him with a pillow as he sleeps. This may remove the cause of the original stress, but the guilt coupled with the danger and hazards of life on the run from the law would cause ample stress. And on it goes.

These are all external factors, of course. They are easier to identify, and even have their own scale to measure how bad they can be. But there are also internal factors, like pre-existing illnesses (physical or mental), a general predisposition to reacting badly to stressors for whatever reason (e.g. harsh life events, genetic factors), even something like having a big ego can make things worse (if your self-image is very important to you, then finding you can't deal with something will potentially stress you even more). And stress has numerous health consequences.

This delicate balance between stress and vulnerability is well documented, particularly in the case of psychosis, by the stress-vulnerability model, which basically shows that the more vulnerable you are to stressors, the less stress it takes to tip you over the edge.

Sufferers of psychosis may call this an "episode", but a breakdown can take many forms. A psychotic episode, a depressive funk, panic attacks, anything that means you can't function normally any more. Like I said, it's a general term, not a specific one.

The point of this article, if there is one, is to demonstrate that stress affects everyone, and some people, largely through no fault of their own, are more vulnerable to it, and this can lead to a nervous breakdown, however you choose to define such a thing. But as unpleasant as they may be, they're not permanent, and even those with pre-existing conditions can return to "normal" (which is another term that isn't that specific). So if you're experiencing a breakdown of any description, know that you're not alone, and that countless other people have gone through something similar.

Of course, now that I've explained it, I may have made things worse. Another cause of stress in humans is uncertainty. This is why a troubled economy and job market can cause a lot of consternation even when they don't directly impact your present situation or daily routine. So by explaining how a nervous breakdown can occur, I've introduced an awareness of the possibility of one occurring in people who would otherwise have remained blissfully ignorant, thus adding to their overall stress levels.

Stupid science and its chaotic consequences!

Dean Burnett tries to maintain a stress-free life by saying nothing controversial on Twitter, @garwboy

His new science/humour podcast "Dean and Dave's science webnoise" with close friend and fellow science blogger David Steele, is available here and via iTunes.