As for reading, I recently found some lovely free resources on the web. Books you can download, or have sent to you, but there’s usually a cost attached to them writing it to CD or DVD then.

ReadItSwapIt or Bookmooch are both sites that offer a facility for you to get new-ish books and get rid of your old ones.

Which reminds me – what happened to the old ‘leaving you book on the tube’ idea that happened a few years back? That was a brilliant idea!

Gutenberg  also offers great resources. I’ve always wanted to read the ‘Art of War’ by Sun Tzu, but never particularly wanted to buy the book. Not sure what I’d do with it after wards really....

So, the nice thing is that you can download it here, and read it on your laptop, and either write it to CD, or just delete the file. Saves a huge amount of space on the bookshelf!

Now, as usual, I searched for Bingo related books, as you knew I would, and I never came up with much, although Gutenberg had ‘Bingo, the Story of My Dog’ in a collection of short stories. Not that I think there are many books on Bingo, not much to say about it except to explain the variations of 75-ball bingo, 90-ball bingo, and extrapolations of those. I’ll do that in my next post, in case you don’t know them.

Until then, have a great day downloading books you always wanted to read!

I believe the Internet will bring an end to that. It's gonna seem messy for a while, but eventually it will pan out to a better system than the one we had before. One example is the New York Times, who have utilized comments, sharing buttons, audio/video content, and cross-categorized articles. Readers will have an easier time finding content, and content creators will have an easier time publishing and distributing their work. Companies won't be able to sell audience attention to advertisers without simultaneously giving that audience exactly what they require.

I'm also hoping that Arbcamp will be instrumental in teaching me about these subjects. The weekend conference takes place in Ann Arbor, MI, over the weekend of October 18-19, 2008. I think it will be a great way to establish connections between online publishing and marketing.

In questi giorni avrete certamente letto una serie di lettere scambiate tra Alessio Miglietta e il sottoscritto, lettere che raccolgono le nostre riflessioni sull’invenzione della stampa, su Gutenberg e sulle conseguenze. Ebbene, vi propongo questo bel dipinto eseguito dal pittore spagnolo Pedro Berruguete (Paredes de Nava, Palencia 1450 ca. – Avila, 1503) per indicare un dettaglio che ci interessa.

Pedro lavorò per un periodo di tempo alla corte di Federico da Montefeltro (1422-1482) a Urbino, dove incontrò Piero della Francesca, Francesco di Giorgio Martini e tanti altri artisti dell’epoca rinascimentale italiana.

Raffigurati in questo quadro, a piè di pagina, troviamo il duca e suo figlio Guidobaldo, fanciullo elegantemente vestito, con lo scettro in mano. Risaltano immediatamente alla vista il drappo rosso e l’ermellino, segni e simboli di potere, nonché l’armatura, la spada, l’elmo sempre pronti a sostenere l’arte della guerra, ma nello stesso tempo c’è un codice, un manoscritto, uno dei tanti che Federico alloggiava nella sua preziosa biblioteca. Sottolineo manoscritto e non libro a stampa, giacché il duca, come altri dell’epoca, non accettava ancora la nuova invenzione gutenberghiana.

Federico amava la cultura, gli piaceva leggere e ascoltare la lettura di particolari testi. Nei periodi che non era impegnato nelle sue campagne militari e risiedeva nel suo bel palazzo, durante il pranzo o la cena, usualmente, un lettore lo intratteneva con ricche pagine che allietavano i suoi convivi. Nella sua biblioteca v’erano testi sacri, dei Padri della Chiesa, letteratura classica, umanistica, opere tecniche e scientifiche, tutti esemplari riccamente decorati. Erano opere che venivano altresì dalla bottega di Vespasiano da Bisticci, miniate da personaggi come Franco de' Russi, Bartolomeo della Gatta, Francesco del Chierico e tanti altri. I copisti spesso alloggiavano nel suo palazzo, dedicandosi a trascrivere quei libri che più lo appassionavano e interessavano.

Solo col passare degli anni la stampa prenderà forza nei confronti dei codici.

Rino, nell’Urbino rinascimentale.

Pedro Berruguete, Federico di Montefeltro e il figlio Guidobaldo, 1476-77

Kay spoke about the evolution of thought about the power of the printing press in one or two of his speeches entitled The Computer Revolution Hasn't Happened Yet. In them he said that after Gutenberg brought the technology of the printing press to Europe, the first use found for it was to automate the process of copying books. Before the printing press books were copied by hand. It was a laborious process, and it made books expensive. Only the wealthy could afford them. In a documentary mini-series that came out around 1992 called The Machine That Changed The World, I remember an episode called "The Paperback Computer". It said that there were such things as libraries, going back hundreds of years, but that all of the books were chained to their shelves. Books were made available to the public, but people had to read the books at the library. They could not check them out as we do now, because they were too valuable. Likewise today, with some exceptions to promote mobility, we "chain" computers to desks or some other anchored surface to secure them, because they're too valuable.

Kay has said in his recent speeches that there were a few rare people during the early years of the printing press who saw its potential as a new emerging medium. Most of the people who knew about it at the time did not see this. They only saw it as, "Oh good! Remember how we used to have to copy the Bible by hand? Now we can print hundreds of them for a fraction of the cost." They didn't see it as an avenue for thinking new ideas. They saw it as a labor saving device for doing what they had been doing for hundreds of years. This view of the printing press predominated for more than 100 years still. Eventually a generation grew up not knowing the old toils of copying books by hand. They saw that with the printing press's ability to disseminate information and narratives widely, it could be a powerful new tool for sharing ideas and arguments. Once literacy began to spread, what flowed from that was the revolution of democracy. People literally changed how they thought. Kay said that before this time people appealed to authority figures to find out what was true and what they should do, whether they be the king, the pope, etc. When the power of the printing press was realized, people began appealing instead to rational argument as the authority. It was this crucial step that made democracy possible. This alone did not do the trick. There were other factors at play as well, but this I think was a fundamental first step.

Kay has believed for years that the computer is a powerful new medium, but in order for its power to be realized we have to perceive it in such a way that enables it to be powerful to us. If we see it only as a way to automate old media: text, graphics, animation, audio, video; and old processes (data processing, filing, etc.) then we aren't getting it. Yes, automating old media and processes enables powerful things to happen in our society via. efficiency. It further democratizes old media and modes of thought, but it's like just addressing the tip of the iceberg. This brings the title of Alan Kay's speeches into clear focus: The computer revolution hasn't happened yet.

Below are a couple videos that I think give a glimpse into the possibilities of the computer as a new medium. The first is a talk Alan Kay gave at TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) in 2007, which I think gives some good background on what he would like to see this new medium address:

"A man must learn on this principle, that he is far removed from the truth" - Democritus

Viewpoints Research Institute, a non-profit organization Kay founded some years back, released an Emmy award-winning documentary on DVD several years ago called Squeakers. They released the full length documentary to the public on Google Video recently. Here it is:

[googlevideo=http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-5076722170893842722&hl=en&fs=true]

Part of what this video shows off is that Squeak is an attempt at creating this new medium. The tools you see the kids working with are part of the system. They can be put to any use the children desire. The tools are not targeted at any particular use or project. A literate squeaker can even create their own tools in it. The tools are just there and serve a certain function, like tools that exist in the real world. The children, under the guidance of their teachers, have to figure out how to use them to solve real world problems, involving math and science. In the course of learning, the children create their own artifacts in order to model concepts they are experimenting with. This is a key concept in programming.

Squeak in and of itself will not automatically get you smarter students. Technology does not really change minds. The power of EToys comes from an educational approach that promotes exploration, called constructivism. Squeak/EToys creates a "medium to think with". What Squeakers makes clear is that EToys is a tool, like a lever, that makes this approach more powerful, because it enables math and science to be taught better using this technique.

From what I've read in the past, constructivism has gotten a bad reputation, I think primarily because it's fallen prey to ideologies. The goal of constructivism as Kay has used it is not total discovery-based learning, where you just tell the kids, with no guidance, "Okay, go do something and see what you find out." What this video shows is that teachers who use this method lead students to certain subjects, give them some things to work with within the subject domain, things they can explore, and then sets them loose to discover something about them. The idea is that by the act of discovery by experimentation (ie. play) the child learns concepts better than if they are spoon-fed the information. There is guidance from the teacher, but the teacher does not lead them down the garden path to the answer. The children do some of the work to discover the answers themselves, once a focus has been established. And the answer is not just "the right answer" as is often called for in traditional education, but what the student learned and how the student thought in order to get it.

Learning to learn; learning to think; learning the critical concepts that have gotten us to this point in our civilization is what education should be about. Understanding is just as important as the result that flows from it. I know this is all easier said than done with the current state of affairs, but it helps to have ideals that are held up as goals. Otherwise what will motivate us to improve?

What Kay thinks, and is convinced by the results he's seen, is that the computer can enable children of young ages to grasp concepts that would be impossible for them to get otherwise. This keys right into a philosophy of computing that J.C.R. Licklider pioneered in the 1960s: human-computer symbiosis ("man-computer symbiosis", as he called it). Through a "coupling" of humans and computers, the human mind can think about ideas it had heretofore not been able to think. The philosophers of symbiosis see our world becoming ever more complex, so much so that we are at risk of it becoming incomprehensible and getting away from us. I personally have seen evidence of that in the last several years, particularly because of the spread of computers in our society and around the world. The linchpin of this philosophy is, as Kay has said recently, "The human mind does not scale." Computers have the power to make this complexity comprehensible. Kay has said that the reason the computer has this power is it's the first technology humans have developed that is like the human mind.

Expanding the idea

Kay has been focused on using this idea to "amp up" education, to help children understand math and science concepts sooner than they would in the traditional education system. But this concept is not limited to children and education. This is a concept that I think needs to spread to computing for teenagers and adults. I believe it should expand beyond the borders of education, to business computing, and the wider society. Kay is doing the work of trying to "incubate" this kind of culture in young students, which is the right place to start.

In the business computing realm, if this is going to happen we are going to have to view business in the presence of computers differently. I believe for this to happen we are going to have to literally think of our computers as simulators of "business models". I don't think the current definition of "business model" (a business plan) really fits what I'm talking about. I don't want to confuse people. I'm thinking along the lines of schema and entities, forming relationships which are dynamic and therefor late-bound, but with an allowance for policy to govern what can change and how, with the end goal of helping business be more fluid and adaptive. Tying it all together I would like to see a computing system that enables the business to form its own computing language and terminology for specifying these structures so that as the business grows it can develop "literature" about itself, which can be used both by people who are steeped in the company's history and current practices, and those who are new to the company and trying to learn about it.

What this requires is computing (some would say "informatics") literacy on the part of the participants. We are a far cry from that today. There are millions of people who know how to program at some level, but the vast majority of people still do not. We are in the "Middle Ages" of IT. Alan Kay said that Smalltalk, when it was invented in the 1970s, was akin to Gothic architecture. As old as that sounds, it's more advanced than what a lot of us are using today. We programmers, in some cases, are like the ancient pyramid builders. In others, we're like the scribes of old.

This powerful idea of computing, that it is a medium, should come to be the norm for the majority of our society. I don't know how yet, but if Kay is right that the computer is truly a new medium, then it should one day become as universal and influential as books, magazines, and newspapers have historically.

In my "Reminiscing" post I referred to above, I talked about the fact that even though we appeal more now to rational argument than we did hundreds of years ago, we still get information we trust from authorities (called experts). I said that what I think Kay would like to see happen is that people will use this powerful medium to take information about some phenomenon that's happening, form a model of it, and by watching it play out, inform themselves about it. Rather than appealing to experts, they can understand what the experts see, but see it for themselves. By this I mean that they can manipulate the model to play out other scenarios that they see as relevant. This could be done in a collaborative environment so that models could be checked against each other. What I said though is that this would require a different concept of what it means to be literate; a different model of education, and research.

This is all years down the road, probably decades. The evolution of computing moves slowly in our society. Our methods of education haven't changed much in 100 years. The truth is the future up to a certain point has already been invented, and continues to be invented, but most are not perceptive enough to understand that, and "old ways die hard", as the saying goes. Alan Kay once told me that "the greatest ideas can be written in the sky" and people still won't understand, nor adopt them. It's only the poor ideas that get copied readily.

I recently read that the Squeakland site has been updated (it looks beautiful!), and that a new version of the Squeakland version of Squeak has been released on it. They are now just calling it "EToys", and they've dropped the Squeak name. Squeak.org is still up and running, and they are still making their own releases of Squeak. As I've said earlier, the Squeakland version is configured for educational purposes. The squeak.org version is primarily used by professional Smalltalk developers. Last I checked it still has a version of EToys on it, too.

Edit: As I was writing this post I went searching for material for my "programmers" and "scribes" reference. I came upon the article I link to where I say "like the scribes of old". I skimmed the essay when I wrote this post, but I reread it later, and it's amazing! It caused me to reconsider my statement that we are in the "Middle Ages" of IT. Perhaps we're at a more primitive point than that. Anyway, I really, really recommend it to all who read this. It adds another dimension to what I say here about the computer as medium, but it also expounds on what programming brings to the table culturally.

It turns out the essay was written by Chris Crawford, the author of some classic computer games, including Eastern Front (1941). It's part of a series of essays he wrote in the mid-1990s, which you can view here. They're also worth reading.

Here is an excerpt from Crawford's essay that I reference. It's powerful because it surveys the whole scene:

So here we have in programming a new language, a new form of writing, that supports a new way of thinking. We should therefore expect it to enable a dramatic new view of the universe. But before we get carried away with wild notions of a new Western civilization, a latter-day Athens with modern Platos and Aristotles, we need to recognize that we lack one of the crucial factors in the original Greek efflorescence: an alphabet. Remember, writing was invented long before the Greeks, but it was so difficult to learn that its use was restricted to an elite class of scribes who had nothing interesting to say. And we have exactly the same situation today. Programming is confined to an elite class of programmers. Just like the scribes, they are highly paid. Just like the scribes, they exercise great control over all the ancillary uses of their craft. Just like the scribes, they are the object of some disdain -- after all, if programming were really that noble, would you admit to being unable to program? And just like the scribes, they don't have a damn thing to say to the world -- they want only to piddle around with their medium and make it do cute things.

My analogy runs deep. I have always been disturbed by the realization that the Egyptian scribes practiced their art for several thousand years without ever writing down anything really interesting. Amid all the mountains of hieroglypics we have retrieved from that era, with literally gigabytes of information about gods, goddesses, pharoahs, conquests, taxes, and so forth, there is almost nothing of personal interest from the scribes themselves. No gripes about the lousy pay, no office jokes, no mentions of family or loved ones -- and certainly no discussions of philosophy, mathematics, art, drama, or any of the other things that the Greeks blathered away about endlessly. Compare the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians with the writings of the Greeks and the difference that leaps out at you is humanity.

You can see the same thing in the output of the current generation of programmers, especially in the field of computer games. It's lifeless. Sure, their stuff is technically very good, but it's like the Egyptian statuary: technically very impressive, but the faces stare blankly, whereas Greek statuary ripples with the power of life.

What we need is a means of democratizing programming, of taking it out of the soulless hands of the programmers and putting it into the hands of a wider range of talents.

---Mark Miller, http://tekkie.wordpress.com

A Tender Age: Cultural Anxieties over the Child in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
How Taiwan Became Chinese: Dutch, Spanish, and Han Colonization in the Seventeenth Century
Manhood in the Age of Aquarius: Masculinity in Two Countercultural Communities, 1965-83
Pestilence and Headcolds: Encountering Illness in Colonial Mexico
Caught in the Crossfire: Adrian Scott and the Politics of Americanism in 1940s Hollywood
Arms and the Woman: Just Warriors and Greek Feminist Identity

You can view these titles and many more at http://www.gutenberg-e.org/index.html.

Good Morning Brazil...

This morning, we wake up in the almost incomprehensible Sao Paolo.

With a population of nearly 20 million people, covering an area of 3,108 square miles, it is the largest city in the world. (by some measures).

It is big.

It makes NY look like... well, manageable, at least.

I am here to give the keynote address at MediaOn, a pan Latin-American conference on journalism and the Internet.  I will be speaking tonight, so much of today will be spent getting my act together, so to speak.

The sponsors of the event have asked that I direct the speech toward, obviously, the impact of technology but also the US Elections and social networking on the web. These are the ares of focus for MediaOn this year, and the keynote address is supposed to bring them together.

At first I thought these we relatively disassociated topics, but the more I think about them, the more I see there is a direct linke between Barack Obama, John McCain and Sarah Palin and the 'revolution'.

They are all outsiders.  Biden is the anomoly, but was elevated to the position by Obama. Hillary Clinton more properly belongs in the group (and perhaps had Obama chosen her, we would not be in the mess we are in - but more on that another time).

The core of the speech of course (and most of what I do) is the revolutionary impact of new technologies - faster, cheaper and accessible, they have cracked open the world of media to anyone - the 'democratization' of television, print, web etc.  Now anyone can produce, write, publish and distribute globally at almost no cost.

This is a revolution as groundbreaking as Gutenberg's invention of movable type and will have ramifications as far reaching (and as hard for us to predict as newspapers were for Gutenberg in this time, despite the technology being in front of him).

Gutenberg's printing press did far more than simply allow him to make cheaper bibles; it overturned an entire world.  We transmogrified from being an oral culture (the Law was the Word of the King, religion was the Word of God, translated by priests) to a written one: the law became written consitutitons, available to everyone; religion became the word of God, readable in the vernacular by everyone.  Whole institutions collapsed.

I think the same thing is going to happen here. I think the power of video/web/democratization is going to impact every aspect of our own society, government included.

the web/video/democratization revolution gives rise naturally to social networking online. It is almost an instinctive human reaction to communalize, to seek out those of a similar bent.  It is the village square write large.

This democratization has liberated and elevated the 'average person' to a kind of digital equality with those who were once the 'decision makers'.  The blogger today is no different from Tom Brokaw, really. In fact the potential reach for web borne blogs is global, while NBC Nightly News is confined to its cable/broadcast limits.  We are only at day 1 of this revolution, but like looking at Gutenberg's printing press, you have to be able to see the future in the seeds of technology.

What does this have to do with the US Elections?

Elections are, for better or worse, in the end about mass popularity.

We elect candidates who, in some ways, reflect the 'vibe' of the moment.

Richard Nixon certainly reflected the paranoia of the times.

Clinton, I would argue, was a product of the 60s.

Barack Obama, who came from nowhere in about a minute, is a manifestation of a culture which now is just beginning to feel the power of democratization.  No party machine would have selected him.

The GOP, feeling the vibe, the resonance that Obama generates, responded by elevating Sarah Palin, their own 'average person' to the level of national politics to counter the Obama phenom.  It seems to have worked.

If anyone can get online and blog, well then anyone can be President.

Or so it seems.

After all, when Gutenberg was printing his first bibles, who in their right mind could have conceived that someone like Angela Merkel, a woman, a commoner,  would one day rule Germany?

eu já estou devidamente matriculada nesta turma e vou experimentar bastante a linguagem e a técnica dos tipos móveis. abordagem contemporânea aliada às raízes tipográficas de gutenberg. é disso que estamos falando! vamos criar um livreto coletivo com as composições. resultados em breve!

"To interpret the message, you must first know the author." That sounds like an important quote of prominence from the past, does it not? I believe that it is your right to know a little bit about who I am to justify your continued viewing of this publication - and that's exactly what I'm going to deliver to you first. However, that quote, to my knowledge, is one I recently made up and I don't subscribe to it. The picture leading us off could be saying, "look, I am stylized and have a sense of magical realism to my personality." More likely, I realized that I couldn't get the consumer camera to focus on what I wanted and therefore made up for my error by controlling another element. I think the former has as much truth.

This blog is a social, lifetime-experiment, much of which I'm choosing to rely heavily on the art of photography. In the spirit of photography that is how this first post will enlighten you to the quirks of Doctor Jones. I thought first to exhibit photographs of distaste to my preference, thus you the audience, would then learn who I am by knowing what I am not, or at least what I think, what I hope, I am not. By the sheer explicit title of this page you could probably assume what I am not. Do not assume though, the title is a mere statement that expression is limitless as there are over six billion perspectives in this world alone, and I possess one of those. That supersedes politics, religion and even social interests, though it may enter into those realms. Literature certainly falls into all of those categories and isn't it interesting to speculate on how, as seen in photo above on row 2, column 1, the books following onto the other could symbolize the cyclical nature of things, time and knowledge folding upon itself. Even the colors can suggest additional interpretations. The duality of every action...well, was it Newton who said for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction? Blowback (that's a CIA term, research it)? The truth lies between the lines and on other pages.

They are, some, representations of what I enjoy. The big hint is they are not what I am not. They are who I am, even when in the past (or possibly the future) I would/will not agree. Naturally, I wouldn't intentionally lead you into discovery of the secretive, shameful things that make up my being (although sometimes people do and those are called, "cries for help"). Don't worry, I'm confused too. As literature has pushed along human existence so has music (at least there would be many who would argue a convincing case). The technology of music, never ceases to amaze me. Can you imagine how excited I am when I start planting the ideas of extra-terrestrials, spiritual energy and alternative solutions to exclude carbon nutrients that can substitute for food that replenish the energy our bodies need (disclaimer: only if we had bodies that were not carbon would this be possible, which brings up another interesting thing to ponder). Oh my. Oh my. As boundless as God can be, I need that structure you often find in spiritual faith. I function, or rather exist often without it, but the older I get the more I strive for it (without, hopefully, becoming brainwashed and enslaved by it).

In lieu of the aforementioned idea behind the blog derived from the title, you might have induced the original thought, that all of these images are basically still life portraits under a controlled environment, by what I like to think of as my own doing. Therefore you could deduce a trait of my own is a desire for control despite it's contradiction of my semi-inferred Marxist title. You might be 25% correct in your estimations, possibly less. I would advise a more open-minded approach. The possibility could lie simply in the fact that I didn't have the equipment quality to catch sudden, un-scripted, occurrences in nature. Now you know that I am a Democrat...or maybe I am a Republican Constitutionalist...or on the verge of Joker like anarchy. I HIGHLY doubt it! For the record...

...this blog exists, simply, for the purpose, as a citizen of the 21st Century, to utilize the web, as other advocates of free expression who came before us used the printing press. Not to say that what good is a right if you don't exercise it (cause lawyers will often tell you to reserve your right), right? The Internet is the market place of ideas. I just hope they don't apply the Stamp Act to the World Wide Web.

All with a smile,
Doctor Jones

p.s. Don't assume this to be the personality of the blog going forward. Never, ever, assume. Only have fun and be serious with intentionality (I don't know what I mean by that).

p.p.s. I feel like being courteous and giving you a bonus photograph to clear up in more ways than one the vagueness of this post. I do not as much employ the idea of vague as a progressive thought process. Being open minded, which is what I am attempting to illustrate, is quite different. Most American elections are vague.

This photograph, taken by Grant Perkins, a good friend of mine who graciously loaned me his camera (ah, a little enlightenment), however, illustrates a most explicit action, don't you think? I am not what I would consider a smoker (not that I haven't ever, ever) but there is a lifestyle behind this photograph. Not necessarily an absolute creed or genre of individuals but no doubt more than it's "message," it's a statement (could be synonymous for message) of artistic beauty from this blogger's perspective. I'll go out on a limb though and say that my position is more educated and less subjective. Yes, subjectivity, if open-minded, has it's limits. Doesn't it? That doesn't stifle perspective, it's more of an elitist principle.

*All photographs (with exception to Grant Perkins snapshot & the photo of the camera which is taken by an iPhone) were taken on the day of this post, September 4th 2008, between the times of 9:45am and 10:15am in the basement of the ACU library in Abilene, Texas.

Gelukkig is er software die deze vormgeving wat kan aanpassen: GutenMark. Die neemt de eBooks en converteert ze in html-bestanden met aparte hoofdstukken, waarbij woorden in andere talen cursief gezet worden, alle fragmenten die volledig in hoofdletters staan terug naar gewone kleine letters omzet, enz.

Haal je zo'n boek door de software, dan wordt die veel gemakkelijker om de boeken op bijvoorbeeld een mobiel toestel te lezen.

GutenMark is gratis, en geschikt voor Windows en Linux; voor Mac OS X zal je misschien toch wat problemen ondervinden.

http://www.sandroid.org/GutenMark/

Birkert has a very hostle attitude when it comes it technology. Birkert states that " i worry not only that the world will become incresingly alien and inhospitable to me, but also that i will be gradually coerced into living against my natural grain, forced ti adapt to a pace and a level with others in certain prescribed ways." Here Birkert is explaining how much he doesn't want to live life with technology. he wants to live life like they did in the past. i'm not to sure if i agree with much of what Birkert has to say. i believe society is doing great with technology. Birkert looks forward to the future with his daughter, but does not look forward to the "lushly animated narrative" called the disney empire. Birkert strongly dislikes the idea of a "narrative created by a team, rather then a single artist." i noticed that Birkert does not enjoy trying anything new. when i first heard we were goin to read a book on The Gutenberg Elegies, i was extremely excited. i expected a lot from this book. i wanted Birkert to explain more of the history of books rather then then how books are the highest technology we should ever need. Birkert explains that he trys to convince his daughter that "books are a place away from routine, a place associated with dreams and fantasies", but Disney is full of dreams and fantasies. its a place where her imagination and sore, and the best way for her to experience these dreams and fanasies are threw movies and technology.

Why does Birkert not like technology? he believes that books are and will forever be the greatest technology ever invented, but what about the machines that type up the books, or the factory machines that produce the books. why can't Birkert just excpet the fact that the world gets higher in technology every year?

Here, he starts to stumble between beliefs and feelings, between modernistic and emotional paths of thought. When he taught American Short Stories at a local college, his passages of Irving and Hawthorne were met with apathy and laziness. Now while this may attest to the literary lack of interest in that area, that should not characterize American literature's hold on imagination.

On one hand, he can not stand that his daughter loves the story so much she reads it repeatedly; he would never want a tale to be over-enjoyed as though it is forced. On the other hand, Birkerts truly loves that his daughter has not fallen to the Bill Gates youth, thriving on neon computer screens. Now, while he argues that the integration of technology into modern life has a negative effect on literacy, he admires a film adaptation a Virginia Woolf novel, and the stellar acting he sees on the television.

Now while he tries to solidify his belief in technology's venomous effect on literacy, he seems to take backward steps anytime he tries to go forward or when tries to make valid points. When he tests the waters with his love of Virginia Woolf, he'll argue with himself about whether or not A Room of One's Own was a better story or film adaptation. Birkerts will complain on how the youth never enjoy reading; instantly afterward, he'll be irked by his daughter's over-enjoyment of a Disney book.

Birkerts seems to be too fearful of his surroundings to fully take stand against commercialism and technology. While he feels comfortable loathing computer screens, he seems to not have a problem with most novels to be electrically printed and sold.

I wonder what Birkerts would do if he had to meet a real writer. His descriptions are drawn out and snobby while his understanding of teenage mindset is almost laughable. I wonder how he would feel nowadays where stories like Harry Potter and Twilight shatter all the records and make billions of dollars.

Now, I am not sure how much of a literary wasteland the 1990's were, but the 21st century is, if anything, an oasis of free thought and publication, where anyone can become a Stephen King, a Tom Clancy, or an Anne Rice.

Ce-ar fi fost daca Gutenberg nu ar fi inventat tiparul?

La ce opinii, de la amuzante la interesante, am avut parte data trecuta, risc sa nu mai am nicun farmec cu ideile mele, asa ca voi fi primul care va impartaseste versiunea sa:)).

Consider ca dezvoltarea civilizatiei asa cum o stim ar fi fost perturbata si toate beneficiile ei, de care ne bucuram astazi (democratie, cultura, rafinament, egalitate), de parca ar fi ceva natural, ne-ar fi fost inaccesibile pentru o lunga perioada, poate pentru totdeauna. Omenirea sau civilizatia europeana, cel putin, ar fi ramas in era in care artele plastice si arhitectura reprezentau principalele mijloace de comunicare de masa. Coehlo ar fi sculptat statui motivationale, iar Sandra Brown ar fi facut goblenuri cu scene siropoase, pe care le-ar fi vandut in targ gospodinelor plictisite si un pic frustrate.

Mio carissimo Alessio,

stamani ero seduto nello stesso caffè dove eravamo qualche settimana fa, quel caffè San Giovanni che ci vide e ascoltò le nostre piacevoli conversazioni storiche. Ed è a proposito di queste che desidero scriverti, giacché il tempo tiranno non ci permise dissertare ulteriormente su quell’argomento che avevamo ben impostato e che tanto appassiona sia te che me: Gutenberg, la stampa, i torchi, i caratteri mobili, i libri.

Tu dicevi che i caratteri mobili del nostro permettevano, correggendo le bozze, stampare libri privi di errori ortografici - salvo eventuali altre sviste - e che la Bibbia a 42 linee aveva inaugurato non solo un nuovo modo di diffondere la cultura, legato all’imprenditorialità e al nuovo e fiorente commercio, ma anche alla nuova forma di comunicare tra i dotti, grazie alla – certamente oggi scontata – uniformità dei testi. Cosicché, la pubblicazione in serie dei libri permetteva ad ogni singolo studioso riferirsi a un determinato testo, uniforme e codificato, indicando, per esempio, numero di pagina, senza rischiare che questa potesse essere diversa da quella di un’altra copia, come sovente accadeva nei manoscritti.

Però, e qui non siamo riusciti a proseguire, a definire un passo - ricordi che erano le 10 di sera e dovevano chiudere il locale? -, un passo a mio avviso importante, però, dicevo, credi che i libri stampati allora, e ti parlo di fine 1400, abbiano preparato il terreno al futuro Martin Lutero? È altresì indubbio che la maggior parte dei volumi editi erano opere religiose, strettamente in latino, erano opere dedicate all’esaltazione della Chiesa, di Dio, libri rivolti per lo più ai dotti, a coloro che sapevano leggere, e costoro non erano molti.

Così stamani riflettevo, sorseggiando un caffè e aspettando che aprisse la chiesa di San Giovanni Fuorcivitas, che non siamo riusciti a visitare perché chiusa in quei momenti da noi erroneamente scelti: anche la devozione ha i suoi orari!

Un abbraccio e un doveroso saluto alla tua dolce metà.

Tuo Rino.

"A recent LA Times article features an interview with Caltech economics professor R. Preston McAfee, who is bucking the trend by offering his students a free, online, open source textbook. McAfee is (rightly) outraged by the prices charged to what is in effect a captive market. This isn't the first time that overpriced textbooks have been highlighted in the media either.

As the ranks of faculty slowly swell with those of us raised in the digital age, there are some signs that suggest hope. Blogs, wikis, and even tools like Second Life and YouTube are gaining traction with some professors as teaching tools that can engage students, and do so without emptying their wallets. Christopher Rice, a lecturer in political science at the University of Kentucky, is one such trend-setter.

In 2006, Rice experimented with a wiki for his Introduction to Political Science class. In addition to online articles, the wiki links to books at Project Gutenberg for older texts. This kept the students' reading list to below $40, an important consideration when tuition seems to go up every year. Students could also collaborate, posting class notes and helping to develop the course."

read more

Maybe online books will never replace paper books: I still prefer touch a book (of course, it depends on the kind of book) when I read it. But in a lot of cases, it is a really good (and cheap) solution to "spread" the knowledge.

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Right away as I begin the reading (my second time--I read the 1994 edition earlier this summer) I hear and see in the new introduction lots of oppositions and antinomies, phrases that indicate and figure what reading is (for SB) vs. what technology has done to reading. I am going to list a few here as I keep reading, then go back to one or two and dig in, see what I notice about these oppositions.

digital bit vs. material atom

life hurried and fragmented by technology vs. life slow and frustrating, vivid in material totality (xii)

deep transformation in the nature of reading: shift from focused, text-centered engagement to far more lateral kind of encounter (restless, grazing, clicking, scrolling): xiv

duration vs. distraction; counter-technology (anti-technology) vs. technology

page vs. screen

[notice]

I am noticing a fairly narrow defintion (and from this, narrow view) of 'technology.' The phrase "counter-technology of the book" raises a problem. He is so sharply defining things in terms of the binary opposition book vs. technology, he neglects historical perspective on book technology. The book is a technology--as is the writing it contains. Indeed, he glides over the fact that book publication was a major technological invention and innovation; and that the digital revolution is often thought of as the most transformational invention since the printing press. I first went to this book (and thought it would be helpful in the course) wanting more historical perspective on what "Gutenberg" means for literature and reading--in other words, what the technology of reading/writing books is about and how that compares/contrasts with more recent technologies of reading and writing in digital environments. Thus far, I don't see much historical perspective on what "book" means; rather, see him taking the object of a book for granted--and assuming that its main difference from the 'electronic' text (screen, etc) is that the book is an actual object whereas the other is not. But books are made from printing technologies--and still made from printing technologies that have migrated to digital formats and still involve electronic components [a point that Katherine Hayles will make]. And aren't digital technologies such as computer screens objects?

[wonder]

On page xiv he defines "Literature" very narrowly as fiction--then asserts that fiction is under assault by nonfiction. What's up with his view of nonfiction? Is he adding fiction vs. nonfiction to the reading vs. technology list of binaries? Is nonfictional somehow more technological and fiction more artful? This is where these binaries get interesting because they start to slip and slide. One of the things I particularly wonder: he includes 'memoir' in his definition of nonfiction--yet his own book (also nonfiction) relies on autobiographical perspective and experince, as he tells us in the introduction. His focus is on something he calls "private self." A contradiction?

Does the 'digital bit' have material atoms in it?

What does he mean by reverie?

Prior to Gutenberg, most of the books in Europe were the Bible; scribal production was so slow that simply recopying that one book took up much of the available output. After Gutenberg, publishers began experimenting with new forms—novels, scientific papers, periodicals of all sorts.

That is, the kinds of information that effectively counted—that were of sufficient (or potentially sufficient) importance to merit a run on the printing press—expanded rapidly & irreversibly. As Shirky points out, a whole lot of garbage flowed into that vacuum & scandalized everyone.

But we managed, even though the volume of garbage hasn't been reduced all that much. We've learned to identify the kinds of publications that interest us, & we've seen that a lot of the good stuff still rises to the top. Of course, some truly horrible shit still sells well; that's the price you pay when you open up the means of production. But that's been the case since the printing press took off, & trudging through the cesspool still seems infinitely more desirable than being handcuffed to the pre-Gutenberg Church monopoly.

It's worth noting that most of the arguments made against the printing press were correct, even prescient. Readily available translations of scripture did destroy the Church as a pan-European institution. Most of the material produced by the new class of publishers was flyweight. Scribes did lose their social function. And so on, through a battery of transformations including public scrutiny of elites, the international spread of political foment, and even literate women.

The thing I want to point out here—Shirky doesn't take this tack explicitly—is this: while the current Most Loud Wringer-of-Hands (the literary establishment, which is part & parcel with the humanities) doesn't actually need to control the means of literary production, it's going to get itself into some Gutenberg-era Church-style trouble if it continues to insist that it does. The humanities has no good reason, really, to believe that we'll all be out of a job if we fail to prevent the "death of the book." When did we forget that our job isn't to talk about books but to talk about thought & the words that express it?

This doesn't mean that the literary forms to which we're accustomed are going to wither & die. I doubt that people will stop writing novels & stories (& maybe even poems). I also doubt that people will stop reading such works. Will everyone have a filled floor-to-ceiling bookcase? I doubt that, but that's a different question entirely.

What I do know is this: it's altogether too late for the literary establishment or anyone else to enforce this notion that the physical book should be the privileged form for literary output. If we insist otherwise, we're going to be in a fix, because there's nothing we humans like less than being told what we can & cannot think or read. & the literary establishment has a great deal less clout than the Church had when it comes to enslaving people's minds & enforcing censorship. But that's the cast that a great deal of this death-of-the-book nonsense has taken on, & it's really unbecoming.

Here's the other thing: we're supposed to be the least trammeled when it comes to freedom of thought & expression. We like thinking new thoughts & learning new things. Well, new things are happening, & if the literary establishment is going to keep telling us that the things that we're interested in "don't count", then that's too damned bad, but there's a whole lot of really interesting artistic work being done & damned if I'm going to miss it. If the humanities won't have us, we'll take our clever little brains & go someplace that will.

The humanities only has one other choice: to change. As Shirky puts it:

It is too early to tell whether the internet's effect on media will be as radical as that of the printing press. It is not too early to tell that there is nothing that happened between 1450 and now that comes close. It is also not too early to tell that we are in for a significant transformation of intellectual life, and the lesson from the last revolution is that the way to make society better is not to try to preserve the old forms, but to experiment, wildly, with new ones, including hybridization of the book with the web.

These are exciting times. This is, in fact, supposed to be the very stuff that we literary-critical types should be getting all in an excited, ridiculous, hopeful lather about. Technology is allowing us to innovate in ways that have never been possible, & we're lucky enough to be here to watch these patterns emerge. Simple example: we've struggled for centuries with the problem of how to tell a four-dimensional, non-linear narrative within the constraints of the necessarily-linear page. We've seen remarkable solutions to this problem, from Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1756) to Pessoa's Book of Disquiet (which doesn't even have a publication date, really), to Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars (1984, which was published in two versions, male & female). These works aren't going to get any less compelling than they already are; but the internet's virtual nature allows us to remap space & even time with something as simple as a link. Really amazing things could happen in fields like genre or narratology (but that's a rant for another time). For now, I'm just pleased to be here, excited at the prospect of seeing new forms of art & of learning to feel comfortable reading & thinking in ways that currently overclock my mental CPU to even consider.

But right now the humanities can't seem to be able to look past its fearful visions of the upswelling of dross that we'll have to sort through, or how much money we're going to lose in our already-negligible book sales, or the horrifying idea that we might find ourselves, along with everyone else, having to learn how to read again.

I'm sorry, but that's just bullshit.

(Thanks to Jacob from Conventioneers! for linking this in comments.)