Bookraft

Need I say more ?

The old adage "you get what you pay for" is getting a real workout as two philosophical viewpoints on the Internet vie for dominance in the Web marketplace. First, there is the journalistic community which is arguing it cannot rely on the current payment model which cnow uses primarily advertising and a few special services to pay for the costs of gathering and delivering information to customers. Prominent news organizations argue that free information built on the Open Source Software model (no direct charge for Software or Information on the Internet with revenues to be derived from advertising, support services, analysis services and other downstream sources) will not work and will be the downfall of major sources of public information and monitoring of the contemporary social, economic, political, technical and other important scenes/events.

Here are two markers of the Economic Decline of Journalism.The first is from President Obama's remarks at the Washington Correspondent's Dinner this past weekend:

And the second is from Frank Rich's column in the NYTimes - where he has Journalism on Suicide Watch - implying some self-inflicted wounds :
The American Press on Suicide Watch

As a blog writer and reader I am part of the problem and victim too of it - The Commons and Free Resources are often mutually unsupportable. Many mechanisms for charging a small fee for services rendered have been proposed for the Web - none has been successful. And that is the other essence beyond Frank Rich's salient points for the Decline of Journalism. Eventually some mechanism is going to have to be found for charging for small services rendered over the Web. And advertising is not the model way to do this.

So expect to see a decline not just in Journalism but also in a broad range of "service" businesses from consulting thru higher education to many of the advisory professions. And remember there is a counter current that says all information should be free. This is one of the major disruptions of the Internet Age which has yet to work itself out.

I have been enjoying some great plays of late as I commute to and from work. The "plays" are audiobook readings of some of the great classics like Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and The Comedy of Errors. However, the latest, Mansfield Park by Jane Austen, has really caught my fancy. It is almost like reading a historical account of the life and times in the early late 18th and early 19th century.

Its just 3 short months since the intro of Kindle 2 and Amazon has already launched a replacement - Kindle DX which coincidentally is also the White Knight that will rescue America's ailing newspapers and magazines plus help lower high school and college costs by making textbooks available on Kindle DX for less. So, for $130 more here is what you get for the Kindle DX over the smaller Kindle 2:
1)Bigger screen which is nearly double the size. From Kindle 2's 42 sq inches viewing to Kindle DX 75 sq.inch screen;
2)More than double the storage from 1500 books to 3500 books or other material;
3)Adobe PDF support built in so you can move PDF files directly to Kindle DX, where as PDF on Kindle 2 must be dowloaded as other images and documents from Amazon Servers after upload to your Kindle account there;
4)Rotate the Kindle DX from portrait to landscape view and the display adjusts automatically to the new viewpoint;
5)Longer battery life from 1 day to 4 days with Web usage; 1-2 weeks without web usage;
6)New keyboard - not sure it is better.
Correct me if I am wrong but these are the big Kindle DX value adds. Certainly Kindle DX addresses one of my major concerns for Kindle 2. See the earlier review - Kindle 2 : The Book that can run out of Power.

In the 20th century, the British Isles have produced many great series of fictions in which one can follow a group of familiar and often endearing characters in their adventures. Many like Tolkein's Lord of the Rings or J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter are fantasy worlds of no small entertainments and fancy. Others like Agatha Christies Hercule Poirot or Ian Fleming's James Bond have a mix of murder and sinister spying intrique (see Agatha Christie's The Big 4 for a Hercule Poirot in the spy game). Thus Patrick O'Brian's historical novels set in the Napoleonic War era and featuring Captain Jack Aubrey and his Boat's Doctor, Steven Maturin are a departure from the the novel norm.

As a Web surfer one can think of some of the social networking sites with some trepidation - sort of a popularity contest in the Cloud. Judge your Flickr friends by the quality of their comments more than the number of their image postings. Facebook - look for Friends that investigate whats up in your images, postings and events. Twitter ... hmmm well StumbleUpon and Digg seem more helpful. In fact one can easily recommend looking for more targetted sites that feature topics and references which cluster around your interests. Such is the case with Business Week's Business Exchange

Some of the best stress relief is a good cartoon or two:

from Mike Cagle of the Denver Post

and of course there is always Dilbert:

But the real Irony is the following story - how editorial cartoonist jobs are disappearing.....

There are two books that I am "reading" and they have an intriguing confluence. One is the Tale of Two Cities in audiobook format. This is Charles Dickens' alternately brutal and romantic tale of the French Revolutionary Times - it might be thought of as one of the first thriller novels. This audiobook reading of the unabridged novel by Frederick Davidson is masterful because not only are the characters brought to life wonderfully but also Mr. Davidson brings to full flourish the rich cadences, wonderful meter and so richly descriptives tapestry that is Dickens in full writing craftsmanship. The narrations often sings like a specially prepared score that softly underline or boldy stroke Dickens powerful scenes.

As one friend commented, this book is, like the original Mary Shelly Frankenstein, not necessarily the audiobook you want to play on a family trip - both have many horrors to insinuate themselves into childrens' minds and possible nightmares. But to the book's credit, Dickens shows that the terrors of Paris at the Revolution had caustic echoes in London at the Old Bailey where "justice" was meted out with nearly equal blindness and brutality. But what makes this story even more compelling is the confluence with Niall Ferguson's The Ascent of Money.

The Times,
....the times have words ....
....hundreds of words ...
filing ... just filing on by...
... like workday rush hour commuters ..... as ideas...
no ... no ......
really ....more impressions ..... or moods ....
yes ... perhaps ..... emotions on the move ....
.....sauntering forth ... dejected ... no ... watchful..
maybe just ... just powerless .....
in these trying ... or .... more anxious .....
...but maybe .... not unexpected ....
Times