They look like they need a pick-me-up.

A bunch of requests for this, so here it is. We'll set up the Slideshare version for downloading on Monday, but in the meantime, let's see if this works. (I bumped hard into file size restrictions on email, work blog, home blog, before settling on DropBox public URLs. Handy!) 

(sent via mobile device)

They were the second item-level RFID bookstore in the world, following hot on the heels of Selexyz / Boekhandels Groep Nederland. After trying to go to their site to see how things were progressing, I found an unresponsive URL, which led to some more digging and Google Translating. As of November, they are apparently in the Portuguese version of bankruptcy protection.  Sad to see, for those interested in item-level RFID at least. (And for fans of large, well-appointed bookstores in Lisbon, it goes without saying.)

Byblos: Bookstore asks insolvency proceedings, pending appointment of managing social 
November 20, 2008, 13:17 

Lisbon, 20 Nov (Lusa) - The Byblos Bookstore, the largest in the country, opened a year ago in Lisbon, filed an insolvency proceeding, Lusa said today the source of the company. 

According the same source, the meeting with workers, held this morning at the premises of the library that did not open doors to the public, was reported to have been applied for insolvency proceedings and should now be appointed by a court authorizing the bringing together social shareholders. 

Located in Amoreiras in Lisbon, Byblos was "the first book smart", representing an investment of four million. 

According the same source, "there are no wages in arrears" and postponing the company disclose today a statement on the closure. 

The Byblos Bookstore prepared 150,000 titles in an area of 3,300 square meters, with a sophisticated system of identification by radio frequency, unique in the world. 

The main shareholder is the owner of Byblos Américo Areal, former owner of Asa Editions, which expected annual charge EUR 10 million and open three more bookstores in Porto and Braga in Faro. 

Its inauguration on 13 December last year, had the presence of the then Minister of Culture, Isabel Pires de Lima.

Michael Lewis is author of Liar's Poker, Moneyball, and the Blind Side and one of my favourite writers of nonfiction. He's in Iceland, a country that went from fishing nation to international investment banking capital to "financial failed state" all in the space of a few years.

 A quick excerpt from the Vanity Fair original - http://bit.ly/2AOwc

 "Iceland’s de facto bankruptcy—its currency (the krona) is kaput, its debt is 850 percent of G.D.P., its people are hoarding food and cash and blowing up their new Range Rovers for the insurance—resulted from a stunning collective madness. What led a tiny fishing nation, population 300,000, to decide, around 2003, to re-invent itself as a global financial power? In Reykjavík, where men are men, and the women seem to have completely given up on them, the author follows the peculiarly Icelandic logic behind the meltdown.
...

 Global financial ambition turned out to have a downside. When their three brand-new global-size banks collapsed, last October, Iceland’s 300,000 citizens found that they bore some kind of responsibility for $100 billion of banking losses—which works out to roughly $330,000 for every Icelandic man, woman, and child. On top of that they had tens of billions of dollars in personal losses from their own bizarre private foreign-currency speculations, and even more from the 85 percent collapse in the Icelandic stock market. The exact dollar amount of Iceland’s financial hole was essentially unknowable, as it depended on the value of the generally stable Icelandic krona, which had also crashed and was removed from the market by the Icelandic government. But it was a lot.

 Iceland instantly became the only nation on earth that Americans could point to and say, “Well, at least we didn’t do that.” In the end, Icelanders amassed debts amounting to 850 percent of their G.D.P. (The debt-drowned United States has reached just 350 percent.)..."

 (more at http://bit.ly/2AOwc )

 The crazy thing is that we studied the Icelandic banking industry in b-school just last year. We were chided by our finance professor for the cowardice and lack of innovation shown by boring Canadian banks. "Look at how Canada is being outclassed by a tiny nation of 300,000 people."

 Sometimes, boring is good.

 (thanks to Paul Kedrosky for this)