Month: December 2007

old school

But with a week of it ending, I woke with a well-remembered dream, a reasonably good-sized chunk of a story that has so far resulted in 18 pages (double-sided, folded down in half) of longhand scratching.

…It’s an Aurora and I think it’s a student pen, as it has a steel nib (most of them use gold).

NaNoWriMo has come and gone and I sat it out this year. But within a week of it ending, I woke with a well-remembered dream, a reasonably good-sized chunk of a story that has so far resulted in 18 pages (double-sided, folded down in half) of longhand scratching. I think I am able to physically write more this way, as I am a lousy typist (still mostly two fingers and a thumb). I can’t go for long runs of typing, so I lack the ability to keep up. What my penmanship lacks in legibility, it makes up in quantity 😉

Using an old fountain pen I haven’t used in awhile adds to the experience. I don’t like ballpoints or even rollerballs all that much. I’ve had this one forever, it seems. It’s an Aurora and I think it’s a student pen, as it has a steel nib (most of them use gold). Probably just as well for me. Though a browse through eBay turns up all kinds of reasonably priced, good quality pens. The one I have seems to be out of production.

I figure the best way to get this digitized is to read it and then get it transcribed. The kids can’t read it (see note above on legibility) so I have to read it if they’re going to experience it.

what does a successful publisher think of ebooks and ebook hardware?

My advice to publishers and authors is this: figure out what it costs to produce what you sell, estimate what kind of volume you’ll be able to achieve using the best available data, and then set your prices at a level that will deliver a reasonable profit from your efforts.

…This is not to say there won’t be lots o’ Kindles in this season’s holiday loot, but there were a lot of Yugos back in the day as well.

Strangely enough, his opinions dovetail nicely with Charlie Stross’s. Hmm, a successful publisher and an author differ from a department store/distribution channel owner: wonder who to listen to?

My advice to publishers and authors is this: figure out what it costs to produce what you sell, estimate what kind of volume you’ll be able to achieve using the best available data, and then set your prices at a level that will deliver a reasonable profit from your efforts. Sound familiar? That’s what you do in business today. Don’t expect any suspension of the law of gravity. Leave that to the subprime folks, who followed on the heels of the dotcommers in coming up with new math that ultimately didn’t make any sense. [From Bad Math Among eBook Enthusiasts]

This is not to say there won’t be lots o’ Kindles in this season’s holiday loot, but there were a lot of Yugos back in the day as well. Not so many anymore . . .

links for 2007-12-05

Stross, Charles: 1, Bezos, Jeff: 0

If Amazon had designed their hardware a little bit differently, then stitched up a deal with Elsevier and the other big publishers of peer-reviewed journals and textbooks, they could have rented pre-loaded Kindles out to students for $1000 a year and shifted container ships full of the things on day 1.

But instead of designing a device that will allow college students to carry all their (expensive) textbooks around in a single notebook-sized package, Amazon seem to be going after the consumers of (cheap) popular literature and fiction.

This is exactly right. $400 is a lot of sub-$10 paperbacks that you can’t loan to friends or give away. This kind of permanence and ease of transport lends itself to some segments and not to others.

The ideal launch market for an ebook reader exists; it’s college students and academics. They’re used to paying over $1000 a year for textbooks and often up to $100 for a single book. The books are big and heavy and they need to carry them around. The books go out of date — an ebook reader with an online subscription service for correcting errata and adding supplementary material would be perfect. If Amazon had designed their hardware a little bit differently, then stitched up a deal with Elsevier and the other big publishers of peer-reviewed journals and textbooks, they could have rented pre-loaded Kindles out to students for $1000 a year and shifted container ships full of the things on day 1.

But instead of designing a device that will allow college students to carry all their (expensive) textbooks around in a single notebook-sized package, Amazon seem to be going after the consumers of (cheap) popular literature and fiction. Readers who are unwilling to spend much more than US $7 on a mass-market novel in the first place, and very unlikely to read more than 100 titles per year. And then they’re expected to put up with intrusive DRM that devalues their purchases, intrusive privacy-invading monitoring, and (to add insult to injury) a $400 entry price before they can join the party. [From Why I don’t like Amazon’s Kindle]

links for 2007-12-04

yikes

The post this came from is full of alarming weather-related happenings, but none as awe-inspiring as this:

–Waves as high as 70 feet are reported off the North Oregon coast, and, says KOMO, “the weather buoy off the Columbia Bar become ripped from its tether and is now adrift in the Pacific.”

The post this came from is full of alarming weather-related happenings, but none as awe-inspiring as this:

–Waves as high as 70 feet are reported off the North Oregon coast, and, says KOMO, “the weather buoy off the Columbia Bar become ripped from its tether and is now adrift in the Pacific.” [From Mega Rainstorm All Up in Our Shit]

70 feet?

quote of the day

We’ve got some bad-looking trend lines; all the indicators point toward a system that is more complex, less well-understood and more interdependent. With infrastructure like that, who needs enemies?

We’ve got some bad-looking trend lines; all the indicators point toward a system that is more complex, less well-understood and more interdependent. With infrastructure like that, who needs enemies? [From Security in Ten Years]

links for 2007-12-03

what the …?

It’s about the atrocious treatment endured by some Fort Lewis soldiers who were escorting the remains of a colleague home to Virginia earlier this month.

Brief background: On the tarmac, an honor guard had been formed by Port of Seattle Police, airport fire and rescue and military personnel as the soldier’s body was placed on the plane.

Generally, these professional curmudgeons are annoying (think: Andy Rooney). But this guy has a real point.

I don’t think things can get more screwed up with airport security.


This isn’t about how investigators were able to smuggle liquid explosives and detonators past TSA screeners earlier this year.

It’s about the atrocious treatment endured by some Fort Lewis soldiers who were escorting the remains of a colleague home to Virginia earlier this month.

Brief background: On the tarmac, an honor guard had been formed by Port of Seattle Police, airport fire and rescue and military personnel as the soldier’s body was placed on the plane.

A police officer then took the escort soldiers up to security.

The TSA screener checked everyone’s ID, including the police officer, and then had the soldiers go through the metal detectors.

Their combat ribbons and medals set off the alarms.

So what does the TSA screener do?

He has the soldiers strip off their uniforms – in front of everyone – down to their tee shirts, pants and socks.

Will someone please tell me what the hell is wrong with these people?

How does some inept, insensitive idiot with the IQ of room temperature even get a TSA job?

That TSA screener should have his ass fired.

And those soldiers deserve at least an apology.

[From Ken Schram: Someone should be fired | KOMO-TV – Seattle, Washington | Ken Schram ]