GRUMPY, SLEEPY, DOPEY ...; ESPRESSO MACHINE FOR LIT WORKS

Grumpy, Sleepy, Dopey ... and that's just the judges

Above: some of Walt Disney's most lovable creations ...

The IPKat, following a tip from his well-informed friend Uma Suthersanen, can reveal to you that three quarters of Americans can correctly identify two of Snow White's seven dwarfs, while only a quarter can name two Supreme Court Justices, according to a poll on pop culture released on Monday. Other key findings:

* 57 percent of Americans could identify J.K. Rowling's fictional boy wizard as Harry Potter, while only 50 percent could name the British prime minister, Tony Blair;

* Just over 60 percent of respondents were able to name Bart as Homer's son on the television show "The Simpsons," while only 20.5 percent were able to name one of the ancient Greek poet Homer's epic poems, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey."

* Asked what planet Superman was from, 60 percent named the fictional planet Krypton, while only 37 percent knew that Mercury is the planet closest to the sun.

Above: US Supreme Court in seven-in-a-bed scandal. But will they be named?

The IPKat says, this just goes to show how powerful are the effects of intellectual property: fictional creations are more familiar to us than reality itself. Merpel says, stop pontificating and just tell us which were the two dwarfs and seven judges you couldn't name ...?

Names and biographies of the US Supreme Court judges here
Names of the Seven Dwarfs in lots of different languages here
Dwarfs: facts, figures and political rectitude here


Espresso machine for literary works

The IPKat thanks his friend Miri Frankel for this link to an informative article by Judith Rosen in Publishers Weekly. It discusses an exciting venture, On Demand Books, which is beta testing the Espresso Book Machine which can print black-and-white text for a 300-page paperback with a four-colour cover, and bind it, in three minutes. Try this quote for size:

"In theory, every book printed will be digitized, which means the market will be radically decentralized. A bookstore with this technology, without any expense to themselves [other than the machine] can increase their footprint".

The IPKat agrees that the possibilities are endless. Booksellers don't need to store a vast stock and police it: all they need is a bit of electronic cable and a broadband connection. It's also environmentally friendly: no books need ever again be pulped. And electronic tagging can record every book printed, for royalty purposes. Merpel says, can we have one for DVDs too, please?

Some novels you don't want the person in front of you in the line to be printing here, here and here