Archive: January 4, 2010

<<< January 3, 2010

Home

January 6, 2010 >>>

very not really

Monday,  01/04/10  08:25 AM

A Monday morning observation: the words "very" and "really" are never needed, and invariably detract rather than emphasize.  Really :)

 

on book ownership

Monday,  01/04/10  06:37 PM

From Dave: I know from being a regular reader of your blog that you are a big fan of the Kindle. Amazon's sales figures for this past Christmas suggest many others are as well. I'm curious about your thoughts on the issues raised in this speech by Cory Doctorow: How to Destroy the Book Do these considerations temper your Kindle enthusiasm at all? Is Cory bringing up real ownership issues of concern, or are they the complaints of someone not willing to consider progress? From Ole: I like Cory and like his posts on Boing Boing and elsewhere, but he is definitely at the edge of anti-DRM activism. Although it would technically be possible for Amazon to destroy all the books I’ve ever bought from them for my Kindle, I don’t lose sleep over that. I guess I trust them at some level, or maybe I trust the market; there would be such an uproar if they ever did anything like that, I am confident eventually my books would be restored. Think of it like this – I have money on deposit at my bank. That money is represented by little 1s and 0s in some computer. Yeah, the bank could destroy all my money but I don’t lose sleep over that, either. There is a new world now, “information” is being stored digitally, including entertainment content like music, movies, and books. The devices for translating the digital forms of this information into human consumable experiences are getting much better, like the iPod and AppleTV and Kindle, and this is enabling a transition. I am sure in 100 years nobody will have physical forms of any of this information. Books will go into the dustbin of history, just like records and CDs and VHS tapes and DVDs. I must tell you I love books – my house is full of them – but that is the future. I loved records, too, and while I didn’t love VHS tapes I sure had a lot of them, and still have a lot of DVDs which I never watch because of my AppleTV. I know I love my Kindle :) PS look for this conversation in a blog post … :)

 

Monday,  01/04/10  07:03 PM

And so we're off!  Boldly onward into a new year...  I have a great state of mind, slate clean, mind cleared, energy level high.  Just got back from a slow creaky Rockstore ride, still recovering from the 200K, but encouraged by editing and posting my little video.  (Thanks for the nice comments BTW :)  And there will be football; just now I am watching TCU against Boise; as a purist I bemoan the encroachment of bowls into January, but it is cool to have big games every night.  Looking forward to Thursday, will be rooting for ‘Bama… So how are you feeling going into the year?  Optimistic?  Happy? Tyler Cowen: It may not feel that way right now, but the last 10 years may go down in world history as a big success.  Excellent.  But perhaps not for our President: Why Time passed Obama by.  I wondered about this too, Ben Bernanke?  C'mon.  Important work: Japanese scientists create goldfish with invisible scales.  Aka a transparent fish.  Now how cool is that?  Not only cool but useful, it makes inspection of the fishes organs much easier...  Robert Scoble is back to blogging (yay) and back to posting about adaptive cruise control.  To him it is an important safety innovation, which is right of course, but to me it is a way to speed traffic...  A tip for those of you using Win 7 trying to connect to Samba shares (you know who you are :); here's how to get them to work together.  Courtesy of Mr. Google, the greatest tech support tool ever invented.  BW: Five ways Apple's Tablet may change the world.  "The iPad is on the way, and it just might reduce calling costs, cut your commute, and, to the delight of journalists everywhere, pull print media back from the brink."  We shall see...  This I love: Ten things thou shalt not Tweet.  Nor blog.  Anything is better than being boring.  I must confess by blogging about cycling I violate #5, "your workout," quite often; sorry...  I especially agree with #7, "speaking out of context"; this means you, my Facebook friends; posting something weird and enigmatic doesn't make you cool, it makes you boring.  Sorry.  The inimitable Mark Pilgrim dives into HTML 5: A form of madness.  Entertaining even if you don't give a whit about HTML 5 or indeed know what it is.  Fox: New HDTV's to be obsolete?  Thanks a lot, 3D.  I'm afraid so... with Avatar's incredible success, the writing is on the wall.  It will be interesting to see what solution evolves for filtering eyes; will we all be wearing glasses in our family rooms?  Contact lenses?  Seems like a technology barrier still exists...  Slashdot asks a great question: Whatever happened to Second Life?  Yeah, it was all the rage three years ago, and now, you never hear about it anymore...  Fark's Headlines of the Year.  Please be sure to put down any sharp objects and hot liquids before clicking this link.  The winner: "Gas blowing out exit brings 69 to a complete halt."  With that, onward...  into a couple of really busy days.  See you on the other side!

 

out to new worlds (BlPh)

Monday,  01/04/10  08:46 PM

onward...

Return to the archive.