Seth Godin on the idea of the “book”

February 17, 2012

Godin tends to be too enam­ored by big ideas for my tastes, but there’s a few ideas in here worth chew­ing over, specif­i­cal­ly how the forced-scarcity of tra­di­tion­al book pub­lish­ing is giv­ing way to near­ly infi­nite elec­tron­ic bookshelves.

The struc­tures of books cer­tain­ly are bound­ed by the forms of their mar­ket­ing. One lim­i­ta­tion Godin does­n’t men­tion is the 64 page min­i­mum – this is what you need to be able to put a spine on the book, am essen­tial fea­ture if it’s to show up book­store shelves. One of my trick­i­est type­set­ting assign­ments back in my non­prof­it pub­lish­ing career was to stretch a 40 page essay to 64 so it could be a book. I used all the tricks of a des­per­ate first year stu­dent with class twen­ty min­utes off (the book went on to become one of our best­sellers, if I could have stretched it 96 pages we might have remained solvent).

This book just exag­ger­at­ed a com­mon phe­nom­e­non. Many of our authors had a few great insights that could be ade­quate­ly shared in the first few chap­ters. The rest of the books would­n’t just be my calorie-free mar­gins. There were enougn words to fill up a book but after 70 or 90 pages the read­er would have read the most orig­i­nal con­tent and could safe­ly put the book down in the “to be fin­ished lat­er” pile.

Free of book lim­i­ta­tions – and book sell­ing lim­i­ta­tions – most of these works would habe been far dif­fer­ent. some of the more basic ques­tions will remain with us: how do we get our works into the hands of read­ers, and how we pay the rent while doing it?

Embed­ded Link

blank

The end of paper changes every­thing — The Domi­no Project
Not just a few things, but every­thing about the book and the book busi­ness is trans­formed by the end of paper. Those that would pre­fer to deny this obvi­ous truth are going to find the busi­ness they lo… 

Using apps to help kids with autism

February 12, 2012

Sounds like a ther­a­py that can get pret­ty expen­sive pret­ty quick­ly, and the arti­cle shares con­cerns about just how help­ful all of these might be. Still, I have to admit it’s pret­ty amaz­ing to watch my 6yo play­ing the read­ing games on reas​dingeg​gs​.com web­site and he’s pret­ty instinc­tive with the touch­screen of my smart phone.

Embed­ded Link

blank

Using apps to help treat autism | Macworld
Some par­ents of autis­tic chil­dren see ben­e­fits from the use of apps and tech­nol­o­gy; how­ev­er, experts raise concerns. 

An Atsion Walkabout

February 1, 2012

An unusu­al­ly warm begin­ning of Feb­ru­ary so I took the boys up to near­by Atsion NJ. The aban­doned rail tracks were part of the New Jer­sey South­ern Rail­road. The semi-famous “Blue Comet” train would have roared through here:
* NJ South­ern: http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​N​e​w​_​J​e​r​s​e​y​_​S​o​u​t​h​e​r​n​_​R​a​i​l​r​oad
* Blue Comet: http://​en​.wikipedia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​B​l​u​e​_​C​o​met

In album Atsion Walk­a­bout (5 photos)

blank

blank

blank

blank

blank

Reblogging

February 1, 2012

My long-running blog over at http://​quak​er​ran​ter​.org has been out of the loop for awhile. I don’t often have the time for long-form blog­ging. The style of clas­sic blog­ging feels less imme­di­ate nowa­days: Face­book, Google Plus, Tum­blr, etc. are eas­i­er to post to and get more respons­es. The imme­di­a­cy of the social net­works pro­vides mini ego boosts. The staff at the hos­pi­tal where my daugh­ter Lau­ra was born last week invit­ed me to bring my cam­era phone into the oper­at­ing room to take pic­tures of the new one. The hos­pi­tal had pub­lic wifi so it was just a click of a but­ton to share it to Face­book. I was receiv­ing my first rounds of aww’s and con­grat­u­la­tions before my wife has even been stitched up.

But being an ear­ly blog­ger (start­ing near­ly a decade before Face­book became an open net­work), I know that the most influ­en­tial posts took months and even years to make a dif­fer­ence. It’s not very rev­o­lu­tion­ary to find out your friends are your friends, which is 90% of Face­book com­men­tary. Per­son­al change hap­pe­na when you meet some­one new; cul­tur­al change hap­pens when you’re exposed to peo­ple whose ideas are new to you. On the inter­net that hap­pens at two in the morn­ing when you won­der whether any­one has made a con­nec­tion between two ideas obsess­ing you – the unex­pect­ed results in a Google search can change how you under­stand the world. It can starts you down the path of a new self-identity. It does­n’t mat­ter if the post is a cou­ple of years old: what mat­ters is that it’s speak­ing to the spir­i­tu­al con­di­tion of that searcher. 

I know this (and I’ve writ­ten about it before) but I still tend toward short social media posts. So I’m going to inte­grate my Google Plus account with my WordPress-powered blog at Quak​er​ran​ter​.org. I’m pick­ing Google Plus because it’s where I’ve found myself writ­ing the more thought­ful bits and pieces. A neat Word­Press plug in called Google Plus Blog (link below) will help the integration.

Embed­ded Link

The Google+ mus­ings of Daniel Treadwell
Google+ Blog Con­cept — Daniel Tread­well. View your Google+ Posts in the form of a clean and sim­ple blog. Also home of the Google+Blog Word­Press plugin. 

65% of Hollywood revenue comes from technologies the industry said would kill th…

January 27, 2012

65% of Hol­ly­wood rev­enue comes from tech­nolo­gies the indus­try said would kill them.

Reshared post from +Bri­an Fitzpatrick

MPAA and the film indus­try are “real­ly about fight­ing innovation”

This info­graph­ic tells the tale pret­ty clearly.

http://​mata​dor​net​work​.com/​c​h​a​n​g​e​/​i​n​f​o​g​r​a​p​h​i​c​-​w​h​y​-​t​h​e​-​m​o​v​i​e​-​i​n​d​u​s​t​r​y​-​i​s​-​s​o​-​w​r​o​n​g​-​a​b​o​u​t​-​s​o​pa/

#sopa

Embed­ded Link

blank

Info­graph­ic: Why the movie indus­try is so wrong about SOPA | Mata­dor Network
It’s not the first time the MPAA has fought new technology. 

Laura’s first half day

January 23, 2012

Things to remem­ber:
* almost cat-like cry first few min­utes;
* sur­prise of a girl;
* the sec­ond last-minute arrival of our mid­wife back from warm-weather vaca­tion;
* the luck of Mar­tin and the boys being with will­ing friends when the call came.

blank

blank

blank

blank

blank

blank

blank

blank

blank

blank

What might it mean that one of the best-selling new novels revolves around a Quaker…

January 12, 2012

What might it mean that one of the best-selling new nov­els revolves around a Quak­er plot line? Yes indeed, “The Mar­riage Plot” by “Vir­gin Sui­cides” author Jef­frey Eugenides appar­ent­ly does. I’ve ordered it and will try to write up impres­sions too, Accord­ing to this piece in Com­men­tary, anoth­er cur­rent book has a Quak­er theme. Curi­ous. #books #eugenides

Embed­ded Link

blank

Jef­frey Eugenides « Com­men­tary Magazine
I am writ­ing about Jef­frey Eugenides’s mag­i­cal nov­el The Mar­riage Plot at greater length else­where, but a remark­able coin­ci­dence — an instant of serendip­i­ty in lit­er­ary his­to­ry — struck me upon re…