Mojosmusings
9.08.2007
Raging Paranoia, or what?
Am I the only one that thinks the new Bin Laden video could be a fake?
1. He's dyed his beard. Do old arabs even do that?
2. He's talking about converting America for the first time.
That last one is new. Bin Laden has always focused on pushing America out of the Middle East. However, the latest right-wing talking point is that Bin Laden wants to come here and put your wife in a burka. So now Bin Laden is talking about converting America?
OK, this is probably raging paranoia, but is it possible this tape is a fake? ¶ 8:21 PM 0 comments
1. He's dyed his beard. Do old arabs even do that?
2. He's talking about converting America for the first time.
That last one is new. Bin Laden has always focused on pushing America out of the Middle East. However, the latest right-wing talking point is that Bin Laden wants to come here and put your wife in a burka. So now Bin Laden is talking about converting America?
OK, this is probably raging paranoia, but is it possible this tape is a fake? ¶ 8:21 PM 0 comments
9.06.2007
E-Books story in the NYT #9234 misses the point, again.
As reported in today's NYT, Amazon is going to start selling e-books, and a $300 device to read them on. I think I speak for everyone when I say, big freakin' deal. As the chairman of BN said, “If an affordable device can come to the market, sure we’d love to bring it to our customers, and we will. But right now we don’t see an affordable device in the immediate future.”
As the article points out, everyone's waiting to see who can do for books what Apple did for music. Of course, what Apple did was unbundle everyone, drop the cost to $1 a song, and make it easy for people to find and buy the music they want.
So when someone comes along who can sell e-books for $3 or less and you can read them on a really cool device that's as light or lighter than a paperback (maybe your video iPod, maybe your phone) they will take off for certain, more disposable elements of the market. Remember, a lot more people have full bookshelves in their living rooms than full shelves of records and CDs.
In other e-book news, though, Google is also working a deal with publishers to sell soft copies of the books you can find with Google search. This is not e-books/entertainment, really. This is PDFs of books that are important for research or some other reason. This is InterLibrary Loan in real time, in a way that lets publishers monetize demand that would otherwise go to libraries.
This is freakin' HUGE. ¶ 8:02 AM 0 comments
As the article points out, everyone's waiting to see who can do for books what Apple did for music. Of course, what Apple did was unbundle everyone, drop the cost to $1 a song, and make it easy for people to find and buy the music they want.
So when someone comes along who can sell e-books for $3 or less and you can read them on a really cool device that's as light or lighter than a paperback (maybe your video iPod, maybe your phone) they will take off for certain, more disposable elements of the market. Remember, a lot more people have full bookshelves in their living rooms than full shelves of records and CDs.
In other e-book news, though, Google is also working a deal with publishers to sell soft copies of the books you can find with Google search. This is not e-books/entertainment, really. This is PDFs of books that are important for research or some other reason. This is InterLibrary Loan in real time, in a way that lets publishers monetize demand that would otherwise go to libraries.
This is freakin' HUGE. ¶ 8:02 AM 0 comments
