Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with distribution

Help me find this AC: SPT WA-1211S for Baltimore pickup today.

joecacti — Wed, 15 May 2013 06:12:52 -0800

I have settled on the brand and model. OK, grab the keys, let's go get it. But where?! Has the air conditioner retail distribution model changed? I can't seem to find anywhere that I can pickup this Air Conditioner today. My google-fu has run out, Sears, Walmart, Home Depot, local appliance shops, it seems this brand must be exclusively provisioned from a Warehouse out on I-81?

The Soiled Reputation of Film Distributors

mousepad — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:56:56 -0800

Is it true? Are film distributors on the whole pretty much... scum? Well, North American distributors (to moderate to scope). I've never met nor yet attempted to negotiate a deal with one; but there seems to be a consensus among the Independent Filmmaker advice-givers that distributors are all the same: looking to roll you over at every turn.

Sure the film industry can be a cutthroat business, but just like everywhere else one hopes to think there are exceptions to the stigma. But these guys (mostly guys right?) seem to have earned themselves a notorious reputation - even for an industry like Hollywood.

Obviously a good entertainment attorney is a must, but the part of me that hopes in the basic decency of people wants to think the same can apply here (e.g. we've got it in the contract, we both understand the spirit of the deal, I'd rather form a relationship or at least manage my own reputation than look for any opportunity to take more than a fair share of the cut, because that's the honorable thing to do).

What's the real deal?

Basic Linux distro for text-only system?

Grinder — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 05:56:50 -0800

What is a suitable Linux distribution for a text-only system? I am looking for a good Linux distribution to use in text-mode only. This is for a netbook (Eee 1000H) which really struggles to run GUI applications. I want to try to use it as a simple text-editor-on-the-go.

It would be ideal to be able to run Dropbox on it but I think this will require a GUI. I am reasonably comfortable with administering Linux from a CLI (although years of Mac use have atrophied those reflexes). I can live without Internet access.

An alternative would be a GUI distribution that is lightweight. (I'm currently using Ubuntu 12.04, which is probably overkill.)

I don't trust myself with the $1000...health savings account question

teg4rvn — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 07:18:08 -0800

Had a medical procedure that cost $3100. Paid for it in full with money in my HSA. Provider will now bill insurance for me and according to benefits schedule I will get a check back for $1000 from insurance company. I would have been perfectly happy to have only paid out $2100 and have left the $1000 to accrue tax-deferred. But the provider insisted on payment in full at time of service. Can I put this money back in the HSA? I see that there is an entity called a "Mistaken Distribution" for instances when you use your HSA debit card by accident. The language surrounding this "mistaken distribution" warns of potential tax consequences. But in my instance I did not make a mistake. I already contribute maximally to the account so I can't go over. What should I do?

Abundance Economics Truth or Fiction?

mary8nne — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 07:48:42 -0800

Abundance or Scarcity: Is current global aggregate production of consumable 'necessities' sufficient for current global population? Or are food shortages and starvation due to insufficient aggregate production? I see a lot of talk about how today there is actually enough foodstuff to support the current world population but that due to waste in supply chains and distribution issues there are still people without sufficient food.

Is this true and are there reliable sources to back this up?

By 'necessities' I mean vaguely say food of sufficient quantity and quality for an individual to live in reasonable health and say basic medicines (anti-biotics, paracetamol, generic drugs) for a healthy individual to stay alive in the course of average treatable accidents / illnesses.

How do I calculate the probability of a specific sum of repeated die rolls?

Richard Daly — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:16:58 -0800

I'm looking to learn how to calculate probabilities for a multi-round dice game. I've researched this question some, and it looks like I might need to know how to use the multinomial distribution, but I can't find any good introductions. Please point me to the most layman-accessible educational material on this subject, and help me to help myself. The game I'm playing can be abbreviated like this:

I roll two six sided dice and add them.
I then subtract a (fixed) penalty value, and score as many points as remain.
I cannot score less than 0. If I would score less than 0 points, I score 0 instead.
I repeat this process several times, without altering the penalty between rolls.

How do I predict the probability of any 1 particular cumulative score?
I am not interested in simulating this event and taking a random sample; I want to calculate all possible outcomes and their precise probabilities. Examples follow:

Example #1:
My penalty value is 0, and I repeat the die roll 36 times.
Each roll will produce a number between 2 and 12 inclusive, and my final score will be between 72 and 432. What is the chance that I will score 7 points exactly 6 times.

Example #2:
My penalty value is 11, and I repeat the procedure 40 times.
Each roll will produce a value between 0 and 1 inclusive, and my final total score will be between 0 and 40, and likely closer to 0 than 40.
I wish to predict the chance that I will score a cumulative total of exactly 2 points across the sum of all 40 trials.

Example #3:
My penalty value is -5, and I repeat the procedure 5 times.
Each roll will produce a value between 7 and 17 inclusive (negative penalty). I wish to plot the probability of a arriving at each possible total: 35 through 85.

Again, I think maybe this is a case of the muiltinomial distribution, but everything I can find about it (wikipedia) is confusing and not written as educational but as reference material.

I'm familiar with MS Excel and have a basic Liberal Arts understanding of calculus and probability/statistics, though I'm quite rusty. I'm willing to re-learn what I have forgotten, and also to learn new skills - within reason. If this procedure requires me to learn lots of new math, I would appreciate links or book titles to pursue as well as a general outline of what the fields of study are called, and what I'll need to know to pursue them intelligently (i.e. help me ask questions without sounding ignorant/clueless).

I gather that the program R might be helpful in this, so please feel free to recommend a good introduction to both R and Statistics.

Thanks for any help you're able to give!

Volume 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations, are you saying what I think you are?

ignignokt — Fri, 03 Aug 2012 08:09:02 -0800

Are bitmapped fonts still not copyrightable? How have you used bitmapped fonts in your work? According to the comp.fonts FAQ, bitmapped fonts are not copyrightable:

The U.S. Copyright Office holds that a bitmapped font is nothing more
than a computerized representation of a typeface, and as such is not
copyrightable:

"The [September 29, 1988] Policy Decision [published at 53 FR 38110]
based on the [October 10,] 1986 Notice of Inquiry [published at 51 FR
36410] reiterated a number of previous registration decisions made by
the [Copyright] Office. First, under existing law, typeface as such is
not registerable. The Policy Decision then went on to state the
Office's position that 'data that merely represents an electronic
depiction of a particular typeface or individual letterform' [that is, a
bitmapped font] is also not registerable." 57 FR 6201.

However, scalable fonts are, in the opinion of the Copyright Office,
computer programs, and as such are copyrightable....

Is this still true?

The reason I ask is that I'd like to make a font bitmap of Helvetica at a certain size for use in an executable that will be distributed to iOS devices and the web. (I'd use the system font, but the engine I'm using doesn't let me do that.)

I can't afford to consult a lawyer for this issue, unfortunately. I'd like to hear about cases involving this if there are any, as well as common practices surrounding bitmapped fonts.

Is there a minimum sample size required to use the bell curve for performance management?

r2d2 — Sat, 21 Jul 2012 15:20:04 -0800

Is there a minimum sample size required to use the bell curve for performance management? I was wondering if small teams (3-5) can use the normal curve / bell curve for categorizing employees by performance? I have a feeling that the sample size needs to be much larger than that (3-5) for the bell curve to apply. Anybody know if there is a minimum? If possible please share link to supporting evidence.

Which group of athletes is more abnormal in height?

Trurl — Mon, 04 Jun 2012 08:19:20 -0800

Which group of athletes is further from the center of the bell curve distribution for height: Olympic gymnasts or NBA players?

Density = f(Particle Size Distribution)

stepheno — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 09:21:36 -0800

Sphere packing problem: for a distribution of sphere sizes? Sphere packing has been of interest for many years, notably since Kepler conjectured the maximum packing efficiency for spheres of a single size.

Wikipedia tells me that for a sphere size distribution the problem quickly becomes untractable, but I have found references in some papers for estimation methods – however these go a bit too deep for me to gain usable knowledge.

So, given a continuous particle size distribution function (e.g. a log-normal distribution), how can I estimate the maximum (or even typical or likely) packing efficiency and make comparisons between different distributions?

(My eventual goal is to correlate density of a real particulate substance to its PSD, but I though I'd phrase the question more generally.)

Best way to distribute my music to Spotify, Itunes, Amazon ECT? Secondly, how can I protect my songs prior to releasing them?

audio — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 18:49:42 -0800

Best way to distribute my music to Spotify, Itunes, Amazon ECT? Secondly, how can I protect my songs prior to releasing them? Title pretty much explains the entire (2) questions.

There seems to be so many music distribution companies out there.
I need to find a good reputable one that specializes in Spotify as I've noticed many don't offer it yet.

Web-based self-serve tool to manage existing distribution lists?

multiphrenic — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 06:13:50 -0800

Looking for a web-based self-serve tool to manage existing distribution lists that will work with Exchange 2003 and 2010. We're a large organization that relies on distribution lists to communicate issues to a number of users. Our current solution was made in-house but doesn't have any source code or support.

We're looking to buy a better solution. I've googled around but can't seem to find anything that meets our criteria.

Here's what we need:
-Ability to define which distribution lists can be managed, and to manage existing DLs
-A self-serve interface, and an admin interface
-Interfaces with active directory and exchange 2003/2010 through IE. Should be able to recognize users without them having to login (e.g. NTLM etc).
-Ability to manually define contacts external to the organization
-Ability to manually add embedded distribution lists

Best distrubution for Linux VPS?

davar — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 04:58:05 -0800

I run a couple of django-based websites/webapps. What OS should I use for my VPS? The most important thing is security and easy installation of packages (including dependencies). I also prefer a system that is easy to maintain. Security is more important, but if all else is equal I would specifically love something with easy to make init-scripts. I know I can install third party packages to do just about anything, but I prefer a batteries-included approach if it exists. Currently I use CentOS. It's okay, but I am not in love with it and changing VPS providers seems an opportunity to re-evaluate my choice of OS. I remember that it was difficult to upgrade python on my old Centos distrubtion, but that was years ago already. I am now playing with Ubuntu 10.04 at another VPS provider and that seems to work fine, but I noticed that many packages (like pip) are very out of date already. I'd guess that Ubuntu 11 has more up to date packages, but I like the Long Term Support of 10.04. On the other hand, I also see a significant advantage in being able to use the default packages that come with a distribution and that are automatically upgraded with security patches etc. I see that Debian has a backports repository that looks like it could be useful in this regard but I don't know how well that works in practice for the packages I need.

My new VPS provider offers a choice between CentOS (5 or 6), Ubuntu (10.04 LTS or 11) and Debian (5 or 6). I don't need many fancy things like control panels. Currently I need python 2.6 or 2.7, django, celery and rabbitmq and apache2 with mod_wsgi (I might change that to nginx/uwsgi at some point). I currently use postgresql, but want to try sqlite on the new server because I think it's enough. Still, if I do need a "real" database it will be postgres, but I wouldn't need the latest version. I would like information/opinions on what is the best of these for my situation when it comes to security and ease of installing/upgrading packages and system maintenance.

Under WordPress(ure)

Melusinewave — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:16:26 -0800

I have until noon tomorrow to prove to my company that switching out our proprietary CMS system to Wordpress is a terrible idea. Difficulty: I know nothing about Wordpress. Help! Okay, here's the problem:

I provide articles to many different web sites covering my company's area of expertise. Thousands of them. Until now, we've hosted the article pages and templates ourselves; this way, we can append tracking and display the proper template for each affiliate/partner.

Awhile back, the developer who created our proprietary CMS was fired. This software was built and designed over a decade ago, and nobody in the company knows how it works or how to fix it (including me). Said developer is uncontactable and whereabouts are unknown.

Now, upper management has decided that I should just "put everything on WordPress" - however, they do not understand how the content distribution system works. Right now, I might be displaying the exact same article on 17 different sites; each of the 17 sites has a unique tracking ID. I am easily able to see who visits my company's site, buys a product and/or how long that visit lasts from each affiliate, including page views. I calculate and divide the revenue share with each affiliate based on this tracking system.

Not to mention that I use variables and JavaScript to display different images and search queries for each affiliate, because several of them are direct competitors, so not having these variable options would be a Bad Thing. (Imagine one partner REQUIRES A to be the default search engine, while the other REQUIRES B - hopefully that's clear enough for you.)

Right now, the CMS I have is essentially an interface for managing the actual data stored in SQL database tables. Each article is like the filling in an Oreo; my job is to slap on the cookie parts (one side being the affiliate article template, and the other being our company's tracking/billing/promotions for new products/etc.). Also, there are no timestamps or publication dates on our articles; while we might promote product A in one part of US this year, it won't roll out to the rest of the country (or globally) until months or even years later, if at all. However, to work within my limited budget, I must re-use the same article to promote the same product along different timelines on different sites to different competing businesses. Therefore, there can be no set publication date or timestamp.

While our proprietary CMS can do all of this, I don't believe Wordpress can... can it? If I'm right, how can I explain this to a brand-new CEO (who has no technical background) or the social media consultant they hired who made this recommendation - in layman's terms?

If what they're asking for can be done in Wordpress, HOW?

And finally: IS there an open source or cheap/affordable CMS that can do what I'm currently doing? I've spent all day looking at options and I need a solution that works right out of the box.

Disclaimer: I have zero knowledge of Python, Ruby on Rails or PHP; however, I am willing to learn. The variables and JavaScript elements were set up before I began this job, and while I am familiar with some of the programming basics and HTML, the company is not allocating any additional resources to this project.

THANKS!!!!!

Font, you should have been up front with me about your legal status.

ignignokt — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 22:02:06 -0800

Help me navigate the IP landmine field that is the world of font-embedding. My question has three related parts.

1) Is there a quick and reliable way to tell if a font is free to distribute by embedding on a web page or in a native app? A site that had a quick query or handy table would be great. I had to do a lot of googling to conclude that most likely, I can't use the font I want.

I'm hoping to use Bell Gothic Std right now (which I got from Photoshop), and I'm guessing Adobe would not be cool with it, but they're not explicit about embedding. So, 2) is that actual redistribution?

The owning foundry of the font doesn't make it clear to me whether embedding is redistribution.

3) When it turns out you can't use a font, is there a good way to find distributable alternative fonts? I found a font lookalike listing on about.com, but to me, the alternatives it listed looked nothing like the font I wanted.

iPad, you say? Looks like a little teevee to me, sonny.

le morte de bea arthur — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 11:28:27 -0800

My next task at work is to turn one of our existing web applications into an iPad app. Help me get to the point where I know where to start. So I've never owned an Apple product, although I've been a programmer and web developer of various kinds for 20 years. I don't think I've ever actually seen an iPhone close up, let alone an iPad, and the last time I used a Mac it was running System 7. I'm by no means out of touch with the world; I just don't live or work in an Apple-centric environment. All of which is to say, please excuse my obvious ignorance.

I've been tasked with converting a couple of parts of a (LAMP) web app into one or more dedicated iPad apps (maybe a universal app that'll also work on an iPhone). I understand that to do serious development work I'll need an iPad, a Mac (a mini or a macbook seem to be the cheapest options) and a signup for the developer program. So far so easy.

My first real hurdle, I suspect, is finding the right development platform. My background includes things like Visual Basic, which then led to all kinds of web stuff (ColdFusion, Javascript, ASP, PHP and Flash). I take to new languages like a duck to water, usually. Given this background, what development strategy is going to suit me best? Note that the result must be a fully-fledged 'app', and preferably not something browser-based or running on top of something else that needs installing or carries its own branding. The iPad app will essentially be an alternate front-end to the web app.

My second point of confusion is about getting to grips with app distribution. This will be an app that is given to couple of hundred existing customers as a 'free' extra on top of their web app subscription, and will only be relevant to them. The wider world has no need to be aware of it. The process for getting the app needs to be as straightforward as following a link in an email. What's the best way to reconcile these requirements with Apple's various distribution channels?

I realise that it might seem illogical to specifically want an app when there's already a perfectly usable web version of the same thing; but logic often loses out against fashion and the enthusiasm of big boys for shiny toys.

Effect of torrents and/or free downloads on culture generally

cmp4Meta — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:15:17 -0800

Have you read or can you point me to any interesting articles about what will be the future of media like films/software/books given the way they are all being distributed online via torrent sites & the like. Will copyright go away or what? I am looking for INTERESTING theoretical speculations, not some person just saying the letter of the current law will be enforced or the usual doomsday-talk.

Finding a robust content syndication platform for social media distribution

Hammerikaner — Thu, 05 May 2011 18:51:37 -0800

Developers and content curators: Help me with some market research. I am trying to find an off-the-shelf solution or to spec out how to develop a solution to the following problem. My organization is looking to setup an internal collection, curation, and distribution system to push multimedia content to hundreds of social media accounts (in dozens of languages) with potentially hundreds of users. Ability to enable push-button publishing via Facebook, Twitter, and other APIs through a plug-in architecture. Sound interesting? Read on. Development environment/platform is flexible--I just want to know what's out there or how this could be accomplished. Desire is to be able to create multimedia content streams around various themes, either created in-house (hosted on public-facing website) or linked from third-party sites. Must be able to target tagged content to dashboards based on user groups and individual preferences. Oh, and it's got to be able to spit out statistics as to who posts what content to which social media accounts and when. Heck, and knowing how many likes, comments, @comments, retweets, etc. would be useful too but not necessary. Pointing me to other forums or resources that could help give me a sense of how to further spec out a solution would be appreciated as well.

How to transform random variables from a non-normal distribution to a normal distribution?

formless — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 14:34:41 -0800

How would I find a function that transforms random variables from an non-normal probability distribution to a normal distribution? I have a set of scores from a random distribution that is skewed left. Maximum likelihood estimation using the tools from Wessa.net show a likely Beta or Weibull distribution. For background, the scores are inflated ratings for games.

What I'd like to do is normalize the scores. So that given an arbitrary score from the real distribution, the result is a new score from the transformed normal distribution.

What keywords and topics should I search for to learn how to do this? I'm familiar with R and Matlab, so code from there works too.

Excessive Distribution List Use

forallmankind — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 10:11:36 -0800

Email Distribution Lists: we set up a bunch of distribution lists at work and guess what? They started off real useful, and now they've spiraled out of control and their effectiveness has been eclipsed by users receiving excessive amounts of email traffic. How do we get out of this? Shut them down? Police them? Re-train? I'm trying to find the best way of dealing with this - I don't want to shut them down, but I'm a bit cynical that re-training will reduce the email volume for long. Bottom line is that most users can cite situations in which they're not sure who should be informed, and so inform everyone - a degree of insecurity, a degree of a$$-covering.

Is there any hope? Can we come back from this? Are distribution lists more trouble than they're worth? Is this a common tale? Would policing be effective, and how would this work?

Any wisdom on this matter would be most appreciated - thanks!

Digital distro prefs?

monospace — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 11:13:00 -0800

What is the best way to get music on iTunes and Amazon? CDBaby offers this as a service, as does ReverbNation and WATunes. Would you recommend one service over another and why?

Looking for a good Press Release Distribution service

taz — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 03:22:04 -0800

In the U.S.: Do you use a press release distribution service that you would recommend? This is for a small business (with a relatively small budget) that at the moment mainly needs coverage in a metropolitan area, but which may soon expand to online sales so it would be good to establish as much visibility as possible. More details inside... We don't need editorial services, and would like a good, solid service that makes the submission process as clear and intuitive as possible.

To expand on that last item, we've had experience with one major service that seems to want to make the submission and review process unnecessarily complicated and difficult — even going so far as to withhold necessary information — in order to nudge customers into $ upgrades like writing/editing/we-handle-submission, etc., as well as presenting the submission form so that other upgrades appear to be choices related to standard submissions. It's a bit like navigating a minefield to just submit a release. (and I'm speaking here as a sophisticated user, not somebody who is going to be rattled by going through an online multi-step process.)

At the moment, yes — we are going to be on the lower end of the pricing spectrum, but we have a regular schedule of releases planned (so ultimately the service we use will make more from us sending a release monthly than they will from someone opting for more coverage but only once or twice a year), and we may well grow into higher brackets, but we don't want to do that with a service that seems to be partially working against us.

Do you have a service you are happy with, and will you share? :)

How Did My Coffee Cup Get Here?

forallmankind — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 11:53:53 -0800

I am sitting here drinking coffee from a Crate & Barrel jumbo mug (ie reasonably specialist item), made in China. What journey did it take from its origin in China to get to my kitchen? I'm particularly interested here in how freight & distribution of specialist items works - ie if you're shipping rice, I'm guessing you just fill an ISO container with rice and send it off, but if you've got lots of weird little things, how is the contents, packing, count, destination etc of a container determined?

Need help solving a zip archive timestamp & GNU make interaction problem on Linux, MacOSX, and other systems.

StrawberryPie — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 08:53:45 -0800

We ran into the following conundrum while distributing source code for some open-source software we produce. Our code is pretty straightforward C++ stuff with makefiles designed for GNU make. We distribute the package as a zip archive. Works on most systems (Linux, Windows, MacOS, FreeBSD and others). Now, zip stores and unzip restores the file timestamps. Problem is, if someone downloads the archive in an earlier time zone than the one in which it was produced, the unarchived files have a timestamp in the future. For example, if I create the archive on the east coast and shortly afterwards, someone on the west coast takes it and unpacks it, the files in the archive will have timestamps roughly 3 hours into that person's future because the files were last modified in my timezone (roughly 3 hours ahead of theirs). This confuses make, and the builds fail (in our case, because make's implicit rules do undesired things, although the implicit rules issue could be resolved) because the timestamps of object files it builds are older than the timestamps of the files they're based on (because they're from the future). I tried the -X option to zip, but it doesn't change the file timestamps (both in MacPorts' most recent zip and /usr/bin/zip on MacOS 10.5.8).

How do we work around this problem?

The only things we've found so far is (1) touch all the files after unpacking them or (2) wait 24 hrs before distributing the archive. As far as (1) goes, we don't want to have to tell recipients to do that, because most won't, or probably will miss that portion of the instructions. We've been basically relying on (2), but I'd like to solve this problem in a better way.

Indie documentary distribution for absolute beginners

mtgoldma — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:30:50 -0800

Beyond Film Distribution for Dummies: What do I need to know about distributing my feature-length grassroots documentary film? (specific q's inside) I made a somewhat unorthodox documentary, a feature-length video about young women and sexuality around the U.S. I am not trained in filmmaking, although I've had lots of help along the way from my experienced friends. The project is basically done and, not too surprisingly, doesn't fare very well with the film festival programmers, even among the niche markets (women's film festivals, documentary festivals). Audiences who see the movie, however, have been extremely enthusiastic about the project. My primary goal is to reach the most people, my secondary goal is to make back the personal investment that I put into the project. I am not putting it on youtube and I am not cutting it down to a 30- or 60-minute version. I don't have my sights aimed at theatrical distribution (although I don't want to sell the project short), but late night PBS in small cities would be a dream come true. I am trying to develop grassroots outreach techniques to accommodate my grassroots project. So, my question is in two parts:

1. Immediate Issue/Self-distribution: For now, I am distributing it myself, through screenings on college campuses and the like. What is an appropriate rate to charge (if I charge at all) for a campus screening? Should that amount be less if it's a club with a small budget rather than a department? If I am invited to do a Q&A or lecture, what should my speaker fee be, again for clubs and/or departments (there is no "salary finder" for guest speakers)? I have also been approached by teachers and professors who want to use the film as part of a curriculum. I'm not sure how much that should cost, either, and what the terms of that transaction should be. I really don't want to prevent any screenings from happening but I also don't want to undervalue the work or give the impression of being unprofessional. I have checked out the fees on New Day Films, so I have $300 as an idea for an institutional purchase, but that feels like a lot for me to be asking someone who approaches me and wants to use this film in her college course.

2. Medium-Term Issue/Regular-distribution: I don't have a reasonable sense of whether a distribution company would want my project, and I've been hesitant to approach them without some knowledge first. I'm not incredibly excited about learning everything there is to know about distribution in order to do it myself, but I also want to retain control of what happens to the project. For instance, I would like to facilitate small MoveOn-party-style home screenings at little cost to the host, and I'd like to pursue pay-per-view online streaming, but I'm not sure that a distribution company would be open to those approaches. I could do each of these things on my own, but I am not sure how scalable my efforts are, and I'm not sure how much of a liability I am to the project with my lack of know-how. What are the ups and downs of seeking distribution? What are the differences between companies? What rights should I be looking to retain? The types of places I'm looking at are: New Day Films, Women Make Movies, Working Films, and Chicken and Egg Pictures.

Is there a (reliable) book I should be reading? What are your insights? Message me if a link to my project would be helpful for advice-giving.

P.S. I am familiar with MediaRights and I tried to obtain the toolkit mentioned by djacobs in a 2003 askme post, but the links seem to be out of date.