A just-released joint press release from Bertelsmann, the corporate owner of Random House, and Pearson, the corporate owner of Penguin, announces that the two companies have […] come to terms on a deal to combine their book-publishing businesses.
OK, then. And now what.
 It’s official: Random House and Penguin announce agreement to merge » MobyLives.
The world’s first open contest to celebrate excellence and beauty in data visualizations, infographics and information art.
And here are the winners for 2012:
Data Journalism
Gold: CNN Home & Away, Stamen
Silver: Government Spending, Guardian data and graphics teams
Bronze: Metallica on Stage, Deniz Cem Önduygu, Amaç Herdağdelen, Eser AygünInteractive Visualisation
Gold: Notabilia, Moritz Stefaner, Dario Taraborelli, Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia
Silver: The American Energy Spectrum, Hyperakt, Deroy Peraza, Eric Fensterhei
Bronze: Evolution of Web, Hyperakt, Deroy Peraza, Eric FensterheiData Visualisation
Gold: Information graphics in context, Peter Ørntoft
Silver: Look at the sky, Carla Fernandez / Arce
Bronze: Lunar calendar, Dimitre LimaInfographic/Infodesign
Gold: Cover mania, Michele Mauri
Silver: Envisioning emerging technology for 2012 and Beyond, Michell Zappa
Bronze: Paulo Estriga CV, Paulo EstrigaMotion Infographic
Gold: Afghanistan – What is the true cost of war?, Peter Jeffs, Tom Stevenson
Silver: Stuxnet: Anatomy of a virus, Patrick Clair, Scott Mitchell
Bronze: Economist – The Seventh Billion, Economist.com teamTool or Website
Gold: The Antimap, Trent Brooks
Silver: FF Chartwell, Travis Kochel and FontFont
Bronze: Gephi, Mathieu Bastian, Sébastien Heymann, Mathieu JacomySpecial Awards
Studio Award:
Best Individual Contribution:
Student Award:
Timeline of the Universe, Omid Kashan
Corporate Award:
The Interactive UK Energy Consumption Guide, Epiphany Search (Gaz Battersby and Bryan James)
Information Art:
Judges’ note: Regrettably the entries did not meet the necessary standards.
Community Award
Metallica on Stage, Deniz Cem Önduygu, Amaç Herdağdelen, Eser Aygün
Challenge Winner, infodesign
The Top Most Profitable Movies of 2001 Across 22 Story Types, Cristina Vanko
Challenge Winner, interactive
Budgets Big and Small, Daniel Leventhal
Ultimate Award – Most Beautiful
Information is Beautiful Awards Winners! – Information Is Beautiful Awards.
Worth knowing (and maybe worth celebrating, at least a little bit):
A landmark fair use ruling: a judge in the Southern District Court of New York has ruled that Google’s program of scanning books for libraries, and giving them copies to use for full-text search is fair use. The suit was brought by the Authors’ Guild against the Hathitrust Digital Library, which holds the digital books for the library.
China has its first literary Nobel Laureate as the prize has gone to 57-year-old novelist Mo Yan. Yan is said to make use of magical realism and satire in addressing China’s recent history. His books have been frequently banned in China and “Mo Yan†is a pen name meaning “don’t speak.†Yan’s given name is Guan Moye.
Author Alex Shakar wrote about Yan’s novel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out.
Yan’s style here is maximalistic, headlong, sloppy to be sure, but bursting with life; or rather, lives — human and otherwise. A Chinese landowner is executed at the dawn of the Cultural Revolution, and the story follows him literally to hell and back, again and again as he’s reborn in a progression of animal incarnations. Each time, he winds up near his former family and participates in its dramas, goes on animal adventures, and witnesses the hardships, cruelties, and absurdities of life in China over the last half-century. Mo Yan himself shows up as a character from time to time.
The Millions : Chinese Novelist Mo Yan Wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
First celebrated nationally in 1937, Columbus Day pays homage to Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas. It is, needless to say, viewed very differently by different groups of Americans. Some people forget it’s a holiday at all. Some Italian Americans see it as a point of cultural pride. Other people — especially Native Americans — point out that Columbus personally oversaw the murder and enslavement of thousands and see the holiday as an intrinsically cruel celebration of the beginning of a massive genocide and generations of oppression.
…
[Let’s] [r]eplace Columbus Day with Exploration Day.
The logic is quite neat. Columbus Day is about one guy and the actually untrue claim that he was the first person to discover America. Inherently, that’s pretty Euro-centric, which is a big part of why it sits awkwardly in a pluralistic country. But exploration is inclusive.
Sign the Change.org and the Whitehouse.gov petitions, if you agree.
