TECHNOLOGY: Publishers on the road to perdition

Friday, October 28, 2011

http://www.impactlab.net/2011/10/20/amazon-signs-up-writers-pushes-out-publishers/

October 20th, 2011 at 10:55 am

Amazon signs up writers, pushes out publishers

in: Business, Latest Trend, Science & Technology News

*** begin quote ***

Readers have been taught by Amazon.com that they do not need bookstores. Now Amazon is encouraging writers to cast aside their publishers.

Amazon will publish 122 books this fall in an array of genres, in both physical and e-book form. It is a striking acceleration of the retailer’s fledging publishing program that will place Amazon squarely in competition with the New York houses that are also its most prominent suppliers.

It has set up a flagship line run by a publishing veteran, Laurence Kirshbaum, to bring out brand-name fiction and nonfiction. It signed its first deal with the self-help author Tim Ferriss. Last week it announced a memoir by the actress and director Penny Marshall, for which it paid $800,000, a person with direct knowledge of the deal said.

Publishers say Amazon is aggressively wooing some of their top authors. And the company is gnawing away at the services that publishers, critics and agents used to provide.

*** and ***

Publishers caught a glimpse of a future they fear has no role for them late last month when Amazon introduced the Kindle Fire, a tablet for books and other media sold by Amazon. Jeffrey P. Bezos, the company’s chief executive, referred several times to Kindle as “an end-to-end service,” conjuring up a world in which Amazon develops, promotes and delivers the product.

*** end quote ***

The days of the “publisher” are over. “Dead Man Walking”.

I “LULUed” (i.e., self-published) “CHURCH 10●19●62”. Just by getting it listed on Amazon, I was automagically invited to ebook it for the Kindle. I gave the OK and they did all the work. And, then did it for Europe. Translation and all. (Wish I read German just to see how good a job it did on ½ a million words. It can’t be good, but it might be funny.)

Then, with their KINDLE DIRECT PUBLISHING program, you can get content out there for the KINDLE and get 70% of the proceeds.

It’s amazing. It’s transformative. It’s destruction and disintermediation!

Too bad for the dinosaurs.

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HARDWARE: IPAD and PROJECT GUTTENBURG

Thursday, October 27, 2011

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37800

GIVEN: There’s a lot of good old content for youngsters on PROJECT GUTTENBERG.

FIND: If it was on the IPAD, then maybe the child would read it.

SOLUTION: Overlooking the issue of content selection for the moment …

I found an appropriate text — at least appropriate to this fat old white guy injineer — so I fowarded the link to the appropriate Mommy for approval.

(Our Girl’s Rule #1 for dealing with children: “Everything must be mommy approved first!” Boy, I miss her.)

So while awaiting approval, and being the grumpy old techie skeptic, I sprung to my IPAD — okay, so “sprung” is an exaggeration — for a test.

Fired up the safari browser, punched the link for the “book”, and what to my wondering eyes do appear … an error message about “FRAMES interrupted”.

(Nothing is ever as easy as it should be when it come to technology.)

So remembering how I got my novel “CHURCH 10●19●62” on to my IPAD, before Amazon listed it for the Kindle, …

I downloaded the illustrated epud format file to my mac.

Created an email with and attachment and sent it to “fat old white guy injineers ipad @ reinke dot cc”. (That’s an email address defined on the iPad.)

Open the email on the iPad.

Double tap on the attachment.

Select open with iBooks.

Voila!!!

It is there like a “real book”.

As a follow up, I’m going to ping an apple fanboy that I know for his interpretation of this story. (I’m sure it’s something like “tap the bezel while temporarily suspending Angry Birds, then with your left thumb stuck … in your right ear, while humming any Sousa melody for Dragon, poke your right eye out with the stylus. And it’ll work perfectly. You shouldn’t have reset the yada yada yada. And, that’s why Steve Jobs should be canonized.)

YMMV

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Posted by reinkefj

SERVICE: FOURSQUARE allows someone else to be mayor of my house?

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

https://foursquare.com/v/ferds–fremont/4c59d05b2091a593f7d65dd0

And, interesting rant about software, how is someone else the “mayor” of 51 Fremont?

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Posted by reinkefj

HARDWARE: SLINGBOX not recommended

Monday, October 24, 2011

SLINGBOX sucks.

I bought it with the intention that Our Girl would be able to watch her soap in the hospital.

Couldn’t get it to connect to the (at the time) Comcast router.

(At the time, I was working for Comcast and their official supprt reaction was “good”. No surprise there.)

SO, needless to say that was a waste and “Non returnable” to the Sling folks.

(Isn’t the first time I’ve gotten stuck with a “whte elephant” by a vendor. But like the elephant, I never forget. I have alist of “folk I’ll never buy from”. Hardware, software, carpet, windows, home improvement, cars, etc. etc. I get screwed a lot.)

Down the shore, I have a cable router that I can’t cancel for another year. So, let me see if I can get it working down there. Now it connects to the net, but when I go to register the website won’t give me anything other than “invalid password”. (How can any password be invalid?)

Go over to support, can’t get support on anything unless it’s within 90 days of purchase.

Argh!

(Maybe it’s time to annoy some Gooferment bureaucrats?)

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TECHNOLOGY: The secret of longer life?

Monday, October 24, 2011

http://science.slashdot.org/story/11/10/16/0215224/dna-sequenced-of-woman-who-lived-to-115

DNA Sequenced of Woman Who Lived To 115
Posted by Soulskill on Sunday October 16, @02:20AM

*** begin quote ***

chrb writes

“The DNA of W115 — an anonymous woman who lived to the age of 115 years and left her body to science — has been sequenced. Despite her old age, W115 showed no signs of dementia or heart disease, and tests at the age of 113 showed she had the mental abilities of a woman aged 60-75 years. Dr. Henne Holstege of the Department of Clinical Genetics at the VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam has suggested W115 had rare genetic changes in her DNA which protected against Alzheimer’s and other late-life diseases.”

*** end quote ***

Is this the secret of longer life?

I remember a Heinlein SciFi novel that postulated the premise that long life was genes. You wither had them or you didn’t.

Hmm?

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SERVICE: Remind me about availability?

Sunday, October 23, 2011

201110230029.jpg

Recorded after the World Series Game at approx 0030 EDST 23 Oct 2011.

Guess any day is as good as another.

lol!

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Posted by reinkefj

DATA: Getting content on to the ipad without spending money

Saturday, October 22, 2011

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37815/37815-h/37815-h.htm

SNOWDRIFT
A Story of the Land of the Strong Cold
By JAMES B. HENDRYX

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Posted by reinkefj

TECHNOLOGY: The problem of a digital bookcase

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Designing an infinite digital bookcase
Posted: 18 Oct 2011 12:29 PM PDT

(Cross-posted on the Google Code blog)

As digital designers, we often think about how to translate traditional media into a virtual space. Recently, we thought about the bookcase. What would it look like if it was designed to hold digital books?

A digital interface needs to be familiar enough to be intuitive, while simultaneously taking advantage of the lack of constraints in a virtual space. In this case, we imagined something that looks like the shelves in your living room, but is also capable of showcasing the huge number of titles available online—many more than fit on a traditional shelf. With this in mind, we designed a digital bookcase that’s an infinite 3D helix. You can spin it side-to-side and up and down with your mouse. It holds 3D models of more than 10,000 titles from Google Books.

{Extraneous Deleted}

Posted by Aaron Koblin, Data Arts Team and Bill Schilit, Research

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I love the ability of reading books on the IPAD.

But, I’ve lost the ability of sharing a book with others.

And, it seems that everyone wants me to pay, re-pay, and pay again for the same content.

Ain’t going to happen! Can’t happen.

Reason #1: I can’t afford to buy all that content over again. Reason #2: Some of the content I want to have (i.e., Heinlein’s Starship Troopers) is not available.

And, I still have a grip with CopyRight law. If a book is “out of print”, how is that benefiting society. And seventy or more years under “protection”.

Sorry, copyrights and patents shouldn’t last more that a decade or two. And, just putting a ribbon on the donkey’s butt should give another decade or two of lock up. We, as a society, exchange the lockup for the benefit of everyone. Where’s the benefit of an extended lockup.

Argh!

# – # – # – # – # 2011-Oct-19 @ 13:18

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HARDWARE: IOS5 Wireless syncing

Saturday, October 15, 2011

http://www.macworld.com/article/163060/2011/10/up_close_with_ios_5_wireless_syncing_and_updating.html#lsrc.rss_main

Up close with iOS 5: Wireless syncing and updating | Mobile | Macworld

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The new wifi sync is a big benefit of doing the IOS5 update. but you have to turn it on. Who knew? Argh.

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SERVICE: GOOGLEPLUS invite if you want it

Saturday, October 8, 2011

https://plus.google.com/i/dvpVtEu9JJ4:1hsACMsbowE

[JR: GOOGLEPLUS invite for anyone who’s interested.]

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Posted by reinkefj

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