Happy Blue Beanie Day

 

I support web standards and accessibility -- and so can you!

Kindle Swindle

 Please stop talking about the demise of the traditional book! To do so in the same breath as the Amazon Kindle gives this contraption way more credibility than it’s due.

The defenders of this device say we shouldn’t rush to judgment while at the same time they make such extraordinary associations.

It’s marketing. That’s all.

UPDATE: Ultimately, we're going to describe all the hype surrounding the Amazon Kindle as "The Little Bandwagon Effect That Couldn't".

I mean, Amazon said to the media, 'jump', and the media responded, 'how high'? (Here's a particularly embarrassing example from Businessweek.)

But the public won't have any of this. The level of resistance is due in large part to how far the claims for this device simply defy common sense.

Kindle Schmindle

So every time some new 'ebook' device is announced, we're 'sposed to drop everything and proclaim it a paradigm shift? At least that's the routine.

This week's candidate is the Amazon Kindle -- at least as presented in an article in Newsweek extolling its virtues titled "The Future of Reading" by Steven Levy.

The article is nothing but an uncritical paean to Amazon. The thinking behind it literally is: because Amazon has released the device, ipso facto we're entering "an exciting -- and jarring -- post-Gutenberg era". "The e-book reader," he declares, "is coming of age".

On the other hand, there's no serious analysis of why similar devices have failed in the past or why alternatives such as smartphones and laptops continue to prove more successful.

Instead what we get is a mis-mash of every technical buzzword and concept in the book. Words like "milestone" and "revolution" are mentioned. There's the obligatory iPod analogy. The device is possessed of a "disruptive" nature (well, what isn't these days?) and there's even talk of "Book 2.0".

From there, the author gets totally lost in a discussion of paper vs. electronic and the joys of hypertext (the "always-on book") that could have been written by Vannevar Bush.

All you have to know about the author is that he plunked down $1.99 for an electronic copy of Dickens' "Bleak House" -- a work long out of copyright and available for free at close to a million other sites -- and thinks he got a bargain ("You can also get classics for a song.")

This is gonzo tech journalism at its worst -- repeated for a day only to be replaced by the next new (under-preforming) device that some media giant wants to shove down our throats.

Update: Here's another example of uncritical stenography -- this time from CNET ...

TECH cocktail 6 (Chicago)

Thursday (11/15) was Tech cocktail 6. It's always great to see so many geeks located in one place. This like earlier Tech cocktails was at John Barleycorn in Wrigleyville.

LISNews Now All Drupal

Blake Carter completed the (momentous) transfer of LISNews from Slashcode to Drupal a while back but I just noticed that he was kind enough to put in a special thank-you to me.

All I did was send him a comment every once in a while. Every system has a specific learning curve. Drupal is no exception. So what I added was easy stuff that by now, he'll have gotten on his own.

The truly herculean task was what he did. Still, it was nice to get a mention.

Um, Welcome to Chicago?

I know the Metra Station at Roosevelt is under construction but can't we do better than this ramshackle shack? You literally have to walk through this structure, hoping it won't tumble over, in order to get from the train platform to Downtown Chicago.

Nov. 4, 2008

Today is a milestone of sorts. It represents the beginning of a year that hopefully will see the departure of the Republicans from the White House and a Democrat elected to take their place. It hopefully will also see gains for the Democrats in the House and Senate.

It's hard to imagine a period in our recent history when there was so much to clean up. On the bright side, polls look good for us. On the not-so-bright side, polls don't elect Democrats to office -- people do. The short version of American Democracy ought to read: It's not going to happen on its own.

So in a sense, today marks a day when we all should be thinking about our own role in the coming year. We all have loads of other responsibilities to take care of. That's a given. But many of us are lucky enough -- or maybe crazy enough or pissed off enough -- to have a little time left over to dedicate to things like this.

The question then is how we want to allocate the time and for whom. Whatever we decide, our country is a better place as a result of our participation.

Three Days Till Doomsday (Mass Transit in Chicago)

Love the subtle messaging of the Chicago Sun-Times. This graphic greeted commuters somewhere halfway in Thursday's paper. The headline read, "3 Days Until Another 'Doomsday".

UPDATE: Doomsday averted. Praise the Lord!