It looks like I’m off the hook and can relax (after a few months of rewriting/correcting/learning LaTeX-quirks). To all of you NeverEndingBooks readers : the bookproject has ended and will appear sometime this fall. It will be around 600 pages thick and cost just under 100$. This is about 4 times the amount NeverEndingBook-ers paid over at Lulu.com. To all (?!) those who did : treasure the two volumes, they will become (extremely rare) collectors’ items, one fine day. Here is the final cover-design :

Compare it to the covers produced two years ago by the NeverEndingBooks-design department (thanks again Jan and the rest of the crew).

The final fight was over the promotional material. The copywriters did include the captivating sentence “A Novel Approach to Difficult Cases in Mathematics and Physics”… Here’s my reply

I realize Im a difficult (some say hopeless) case, but there is little point advertising this. Here a few alternatives that may require spicing-up
“A gentle introduction to one of mathematics’ (and even physics’) hottest topics”
“A novel approach to noncommutative geometry”
“Get rid of singularities by going noncommutative!”
“The first readable text on an over-hyped topic…”
etc. etc.
I can do better if I have to, so please tell me and I’ll open up a bottle of wine.
Whatever you do, please remove the difficult cases-sentence from all material.
atb+apologies :: lieven.

UPDATE (august 1st) : if you want to order the book for your university-library, have a look at the promo flyer. All my suggestions (apart from the last one) are included…

One final comment about all of this. The project started as a bookproject with the AMS in 1999 and was abandoned (for a variety of reasons, all of them only relevant to myself) sometime early 2002.

Here’s the one thing that will hurt for some time to come. I wanted to dedicate the book to “the women in my life : my mother, Ann, Gitte&Bente”. Unfortunately, my mother will never see the book. The current dedication is :

This book is dedicated to the women in my life
Simonne Stevens (1926-2004), Ann, Gitte&Bente

(more…)

In the ‘subscribe to my brain’ post I promised to blog on how-to get your own

button up and running on your homepage. It seems rather unlikely that I’ll ever keep that promise if I don’t do it right away. So, here we go for a quick tour :

step 1 : set up a rudimentary FoaF-file : read the FoaF post if you dont know what it’s all about. The easiest way to get a simple FoaF-file of your own is to go to the FoaF-a-matic webpage and fill in the details you feel like broadcasting over the web, crucial is your name and email information (for later use) but clearly the more details you fill out and the more Friends you add the more useful your file becomes. Click on the ‘foaf-me’ button and copy the content created. Observe that there is no sign of my email adress, it is encrypted in the mboxsha1sum data. Give this file a name like foaf.rdf or myname.rdf and put it on your webserver to make it accessible. Also copy your mboxsha1sum info for later smushing.

step 2 : subscribe to online services and modify your online-life accordingly : probably you have already a few of these accounts, but if not, take a free subscription just for fun and (hopefully) later usage to the following sites :

• del.icio.us a social bookmarks manager
• citeUlike a service to organise your academic papers
• connotea a reference management service for scientists
• bloglines a web-based personal news aggregator
• 43things a ‘What do you want to do with your life?’ service
• audioscrobbler a database that tracks listening habits and does wonderful things with statistics
• backpackit a ‘be better organized’ service
• flickr an online photo management and sharing application
• technorati a Google-for-weblogs
• upcoming a social event calendar
• webjay a playlist community

So far, I’m addicted to del.icio.us and use citeUlike but hardly any of the others (but I may come back to this later). The great thing about these services is that you get more value-information back if you feed more into the system. For example, if you use del.icio.us as your ‘public’ bookmarks-file you get to know how many other people have bookmarked the same site and you can access their full bookmarks which often is a far more sensible way to get at the information you are after than mindless Googling. So, whereas I was at first a bit opposed to the exhibisionist-character of these services (after all, anyone with web-access can have a look at ‘your’ info), I’ve learned that the ‘social’ feature of these services can be beneficial to get the right information I want. Hence, the hardest part is not to get an account with these services but to adopt your surfing behavior in such a way that you maximize this added value. And, as I mentioned before, I’m doing badly myself but hope that things will improve…

step 3 : turn these accounts into an OPML file : Knowing the URL of your foaf-file and sha1-info (step 1) and your online accounts, go to the FOAF Online Account Description Generator and feed it with your data. You will then get another foaf-file back (save the source in a file such as accounts.rdf and put it on your webserver). Read the Lost Boy’s posts Subscribe to my brain and foaf: OnlineAccount Generator for more background info. Then, use the SubscribeToMyBrain- form to get an OPML-file out of the account.rdf file and your sha1. Save the source as mybrain.opml.

step 4 : add/delete information you want : The above method uses generic schemes to deduce relevant RSS-data from an account name, which works for some services, but doesn’t for all. So, if you happen to know the URL of RSS-feeds for one of these services, you can always add it manually to the OPML-file (or delete data you don’t want to publish…). My own attitude is to make all public web-data available and to leave it to the subscriber to unsubscribe those parts of my brain (s)he is not interested in. I know there are people whoo are mainly interested to find out whether I put another paper online, would tolerate some weblog-posts but have no interest in my musical tast, whereas there are others who would like me to post more on 43things, flickr or upcoming and don’t give a damn about my mathematics… Apart from these online subscriptions, it is also a good idea to include additional RSS-feeds you produce, such as those of your weblog or use my Perl script to have your own arXiv-feeds.

step 5 : make your ‘subscribe to my brain’-button : Now, put the OPML-file on your webserver, put the button

on your homepage and link it to the file. Also, add information on your site, similar to the one I gave in my own subscription post so that your readers know what to do when do want to subscribe to (parts of) your brain. Finally, (and optionally though I’d wellcome it) send me an email with your URL so that I can subscribe (next time you’re in Antwerp I’ll buy you a beer) and for the first few who do so and are working in noncommutative geometry and/or noncommutative algebra, I’ll send a copy of a neverending book. Mind you, this doesn’t apply to local people, I’m already subscribed to their brain on a daily basis…

The third volume in the NeverEndingBooks-series will be written by Geert Van de Weyer and will be about (double) Poisson structures in the noncommutative world. Volume 4&5 are becoming clearer every day and if you think you have a project fitting in this series, you can always email to [info@neverenedingbooks.org][3].

As for the NeverEndingBooks-URL, I will probably close this blog by the end of the month (at its first birthday). The main reason is that I found out that it takes several people to maintain a mathematical blog for some time. So, if you want to co-author a group-blog on noncommutative algebra and/or noncommutative geometry, please [email me][5] (or even better, leave a comment here so that other people may be willing to join in too) and if there is enough critical mass to go ahead with the plan I will be happy to set up a group-blog at noncommutative.org.

At this URL I’ll probably put a frontpage for the book-series we started and which you can buy at all times via lulu.com/neverendingbooks. It will contain errata- and suggestions-pages for each volume and details about forthcoming books, links etc… Btw. it would probably be a good commercial move to delete TheLibrary links sooner, now that even String Theorists are driven to this site via Lazariou‚Äö√Ñ√¥s paper On the non-commutative geometry of topological D-branes

As my main objective next year will be to write courses (from first year down to post-doc level) I will set up (again) a Moodle site (mainly in English, although UA-students will be free to add to it in Dutch). News about it will be posted eventually at my regular, but forgotten homepage and perhaps here.

Once again, if you are interested to contribute at unregular intervals to a noncommutative group-blog, please leave a comment!

[3]: mailto: info@neverendingbooks.org
[5]: mailto: lieven.lebruyn@ua.ac.be

A quick reply to some of the comments to the lulu/neverendingbooks post.

Are they also responsible for the graphical design in your books ? No! In fact it was one of the more pleasant experiences of the last couple of weeks to develop our own format, LaTeX-style and covers. The usual gang had their say in all of this but it is only fair to say that Jan did most of the work. We developed the cover-concept (that is, macro shots of games in duotones and placing of titles etc) by trial and error. Jan is responsible for the photo-shoot, I did choose the shots to be used and did the initial coloring and placing of titles and left the final tweaking to Jan, who did some lay-out work before. We, at least, are happy with the result… As mentioned before, the LaTeX-style sheets were made using the memoir package.

Who is responsible for trying to sell the book, you or them? I dont think we are doing great efforts to try to sell the books, yet. Up to now, you can only get to the book-sites via this blog or via my homepage. Lulu claims that they will only make money if we do… and as this is clearly sales-talk (they make money on every book they print) it involves no (or a very small) financial risk on our part. Anyone who wants to have a copy of one of our books, orders them at Lulu, they print it and ship it to you. But beware! They have several shipping options and for most of them it costs you more to get them shipped than to buy the books… In fact, that was the main reason why we didnt put the URL online before we had two volumes out. The reason being that if you buy for over 25dollars you can have them shipped via their “SuperSaver” option, that is, shipping is free (but probably slow). But, based on my own experience it works well (I ordered a few copies of book 1 via SuperSaver and another one via their InternationalShipment and got the free SuperSaver package a day before the costly other shipment…). Our real investment is that we have bought ISBN-numbers for the books (at a price of 35dollars/book) and hope to earn this back from a small royalty we get from each book (the Lulu-rule is that they get 25% of any royalties you set). Even though we are not entirely happy with the distribution process we opted for this series for an unusual book-format making it handy and fun to use (the square 7.5 x 7.5 inch format is very pleasing to read and the coil-binding makes it extremely handy to lay flat on the table). So we view this series as a student-edition of the books and we keep them as cheap as possible. At a later stage it may happen that we will also have a library-edition of the books which will have global distribution (meaning that you can order them via Amazon or your local bookshop). For this to work, you have not so much freedom in your book-format and can only have regular binding. Besides, buying such a global-ISBN is more costly and will make this edition (a lot) more expensive. But, as you can see from the picture, the books get printed and shipped and look VERY nice. In fact, of the few copies I ordered, I had to hand out already two because some people just liked the feel and touch of it. I think, people will only gradually be willing to buy their own copy when (1) they have glanced through a copy at some meeting or seminar and (2) if more volumes come out and they have a greater choice in bying 2 volumes to get free shipping. On this last issue : already three people have expressed interest in writing a book in our series. My own hunch is that the next book out will have to do with Poisson noncommutative geometry and will have a macro shot of a war-game on its cover (authors can give suggestions for which games they want on their cover), curious how this will work out…

How many have you sold so far? Well, not enough so far to get our ISBN-investment back… But, once again, I think it will take some time for people to trust the series enough to buy a volume or two. In the first week we made the URL available we sold 16 books, so if you want to increase our sales-index please do by going to this page for the first volume and to this page for the second volume. But perhaps it is easier to bookmark the lulu/neverendingbooks if you want the latest news on the series. I”ll keep you posted on our sales via this page. If you buy a book and like the result, please tell others about it (or even better, let them see and feel the copy. Hopefully you will get it back…)

Half a year ago, it all started with NeverEndingBooks in which I set out a rather modest goal :

Why NeverEndingBooks ? We all complain about exaggerated prices of mathematical books from certain publishers, poor quality of editing and refereeing offered, as well as far too stringent book-contracts. Rather than lamenting about this, NeverEndingBooks gives itself one year to learn (and report) about the many aspects of the book-production cycle and to explore whether an alternative exists. If at the end of this year we will have produced at least one book this experiment will be considered a success. If, however, we find out that it is an impossible task, we will explain where it all went wrong and why it is better to stick to an established PublishingHouse and accept its terms.

I assume we did manage to do it after all as you may check by visiting our storefront : www.lulu.com/neverendingbooks. However, it all turned out to be quite different from what I had in mind half a year ago. So, perhaps it’s time to recap.

Originally, I’d planned to partner-up with the publisher-on-demand LightningSource but in the process they did require a VAT-number. In Belgium, the safest way to get one is to set up a non-profit organization (a VZW as we call it). But then you have to write down your legal statutes, get them published in the Moniteur Belge (at a hefty price) but what really put me off was that you have to set up a “board of directors” consisting of at least three people. I don‚Äôt mind following a folly but if I have to involve others I usually pass, so I abandoned the whole idea. Still, I couldn‚Äôt help talking about the VAT-problem and at a certain time there was an idea to revive a sleeping VZW (=non-profit organization) of the Belgian Mathematical Society, the MaRC (MAthematical Research Centre), the statutes of which allowed to become a publishing house. But, this wouldn‚Äôt involve just two other people but the whole BMS so I decided to forget all about it and have a short vacation in France together with a few (former)PhD-students.

Given plenty of sun, cheese and whine (not necessarily in that order) sooner or later we had to talk about the problem. For Raf it was the first time he heard about it but when we realized I thought one could easily publish books well under 25 dollars he was immediately interested and insisted we should set up a board of directors and continue with the plan. The different roles to play in the board were more or less self-evident : I had to be the trasurer (given the fact that I was the only with a secure, though small, income), Geert had to become chairman (being the only one possessing suits), Raf would be secretary (being the only one who could write better Flemish than English) and Jan or Stijn would do PR (as they are the only ones having enough social skills). So, we went back willing to go through the whole process (at least 3 months) of obtaining a VAT-number.

But then Raf got so interested in the whole idea that he explored other possibilities (I think he was more motivated by the fact that his sister wanted to publish her thesis rather than anything else) and came up with lulu.com. No legal hassle, no VAT-numbers, nothing required (or so it seemed). Still, before risking his sister‚Äôs thesis he wanted to check the service out and as it is a lot easier to take a book lying around rather than write one yourself he took my version 2 and published it at Lulu’s (since then this version is nicknamed Rothko@n).

Although I gave him the permission to do so, it didn‚Äôt feel right that people should pay even a small amount for a nicely bound unedited version 2. So, the last month and a half I‚Äôve been editing and partially rewriting version 2 and the two volumes are now available! Major changes are to the 4 middle chapters. There is now chapter 3 “Etale Technology” which contains all of the etale tricks scattered earlier in two chapters, chapter 4 ‚”Quiver Representations” collects all the quiver material (again, scattered throughout the previous version). Chapter 5 ‚”Semisimple Representations” now includes recent material such as Raf’s characterization of the smooth locus of Cayley-smooth orders and our (together with Geert) classification of the central singularities, and chapter 6 ‚”Nilpotent Representations” now includes the material on Brauer-Severi varities which was in version 1 but somehow didnt make it to version 2 before.