Category Archives: Cyber-life

E-books recreated as paperbacks

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Wait, I thought the ad campaign for the Amazon Kindle was “think green, buy e-books”??  Now Amazon is going to print e-books in paperback?  Then why do you need e-books again?

There is something so odd, almost reverse-Darwinian about this. As if Thomas Edison decided that candles and oil lamps were better than light bulbs.  And printing paperbacks is SOOOOOOOOOOO ungreen, especially if publishers have unsold hardcover or paperback copies stacked in warehouses.  Don’t kill more trees.

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HP, Amazon to sell paperback versions of e-books

  • By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer – Wed Oct 21, 2009 2:16PM EDT  

SAN FRANCISCO –

Some of technology’s best-known companies are betting there’s pent-up demand for on-demand books.

Hewlett-Packard Co., the world’s top seller of personal computers and printers, is teaming up with online retailer Amazon.com Inc. to join Internet search leader Google Inc. as the latest entrants in the quirky new market of re-creating digital books as paperbacks.

The concept represents a different type of book recycling, as digital copies created from print get a second life as paperbacks.

[rest of article deleted]

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For Serious News, Turn on Comedy Central

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Last night, Jon Stewart skewered CNN on its coverage of the health care debate.  I love Jon Stewart because he points to the idiocy of the 24 hour news cycle and the schnews (schmooze plus news) or newsertainment that passes for pertinent information about our cities, our country and the world. 

All the networks do is talk about finding out information, but they don’t really.  They ask us what we think and then read from the Twitter responses.  Fact-checking Saturday Night Live skits and not fact-checking what the politicians are saying is sheer idiocy.  Spending more time on whether SNL is a bellwhether for Obama than the issues is a disservice to viewers.

Other than Jon Stewart and Bloomberg News, I don’t know where else on TV to get pertinent information.  If I want comfort TV, I watch Rachel Maddow, because I agree with her views.  But for cold, hard, factual news . . . Comedy Central?  What an irony.

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More stress dreams

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Last night, I dreamed I forgot to graduate from law school.  But I forgot to dream about computer malfunctions so, sure enough, computer malfunctions abound in the office today.  Because everything is mechanized, even the fax machine goes straight to a scanner which doesn’t function in a system malfunction.  I think all legal documents should have as an excuse for performance — along with acts of G-d, civil unrest, widespread labor strikes — a computer malfunction that renders lawyers useless (ok, more useless).

Thank G-d we have a second fax line that spits out faxes using paper (of all things), like the old days.  I have had to dictate letters to secretaries in other offices. 

I am thinking about a whole new PBS kids show: “Dinosaur Lawyer”.  Lawyering before computers and other amenities made us soft.  Back to the days of hand-to-hand/pen-to-pen combat.  Where if you wanted to be snarky, you had to say it to the person as opposed emailing the snarky comment from the safety of your computerized bunker.

In a separate stress reality, the news has been reporting all day that the Senate Finance Committee’s vote is imminent.  VOTE ALREADY.  You’re stressing me out.

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A typical day in my life

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Crazy day on the road to Utopia.

I had every textbook stress dream a person can have.  Teeth falling out.  Not being dressed at work.  Having to use the bathroom in front of people.  Having to take an exam in a course at school I thought I dropped.  Running and never making it where I need to go.  Have I missed any?  

I woke up in a cold sweat and groggy. My partner thinks it is because she put too much garlic in that new recipe she tried last night. While the amount of garlic was indeed impressive and did require a Tums or 5, it didn’t cause my bad dreams.  Those I was able to conjure up all by myself.

So, I was exhausted when I started the day at the office.  I was able to get some work done before my computer crashed.  Apparently, everyone else’s computers worked.  Mine was the only one frozen.  Maybe it happened because I didn’t have a stress dream about it.  Note to self: Don’t get out of bed until you’ve had EVERY stress dream imaginable.

I walked to the east side to have lunch with a friend.  I bumped into the Columbus Day parade.  A sad little affair with marchers dressed up in period clothes to look like people of Columbus’s time.  If you want to parade, go to Randall’s island. Get out of my way in midtown.  Although I did get perverse pleasure in being jostled into an Orthodox Jewish man who would not otherwise touch me lest I were ritually unclean (I was not).

I did have an opportunity to pass by a prayer station.  I’m not kidding.  See?  Prayer is fine, but you think with all those who are praying, something would have changed by now.mail

I had a really fun lunch with my friend who is so hysterically funny.  Because I want to maintain confidentiality of my sources, her stories will come out over time.

After fighting my computer for the rest of the day (the computer won), I went home on the train.  There was a guy drizzling hot sauce on top of the hugest falafel I have ever seen, as he was swaying in the subway car.   Shreds of lettuce were falling out of his mouth as he ate. I needed to switch cars at the next stop.  In my next car, there was an angry child demanding “eye contact” from his mother and saying hateful things in jags and spurts. I think I witnessed a portrait of a sociopath as a young child.  They got off and a bike messenger who reeked of pot got on and everything got sooooo mellow.

A day in the life.

Off to bed.  To sleep, perhaps to dream.  (Maybe I’ll make a pot of coffee and stay awake to keep the dreams at bay.)

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The Fat Pictures

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I was a skinny, athletic kid, until 16.  From 16 to 22, I was hefty (a term I find preferable to chunky, heavy or the big “O” word).  Since 22, I have slimmed down and, while not so athletic anymore at 45, I am fit.  Every now and again, when I recount my years of being “two tons of fun”, people are often disbelieving and want to see the fat pictures. 

Well they surfaced on Facebook, courtesy of a college friend to whom I haven’t spoken in years and years and, after this, may not for many years to come.  Ok, I am exaggerating.  I’ll talk to him at our 60th college reunion because we will both be senile.

I can honestly say I have been the trifecta of fat, dumb and happy — all at once and at different times.

Ah, the joys and perils of connectivity.

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Thought for the not-so-new media

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Too much information is available on Facebook.  And available for everyone to see.

If we could put a man on the Moon, someone techie can figure out how to devise a nuclear-proof fire-walls between parents’ and their children’s Facebook pages.  If you want to know the threat to family values, finding out too much about your parents or your kids can really cause embarrassing (or worse) moments.

For example, how does a father explain to his daughter that his nickname in college was Spanky, or The Fiend?  How does a daughter explain those inappropriate pictures at a party where there are social lubricants in evidence.

I hope that Facebook and its progeny don’t exist when my son is old enough to have a page.  I know I won’t want that information.

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Why I love twitter

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It is a good thing I am more or less anonymous because no one I know would believe me when I say that I love twitter.  Let’s set some ground rules: there are inane tweets and spam tweets and creep tweets.  But there are moments when it is a social support system.  A few days ago, a mother with a young child tweet that she was feeling as if she had nothing left to give her child — she was worn out  and out of patience.  I tweeted her to give her support and tell her that every parent reaches that point many times in the first few years and it gets better.  I also told her that people who make it look easy are lying.  Others tweeted their support.  Real time support for a true (and virtual) stranger who was overwhelmed and needed a reality check.

She tweeted her thanks.  That a few words from me helped a stranger made my day.  And I am grateful.

Ah, sweet tweets.

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Crazy is as crazy does

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Crazy is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome.  Every time I watch a reality TV show, I last through the first 3 minutes.  My tastes are not mainstream (but they are not crazy weird either).  Every time I pick a check-out line, it is the line on which a person doesn’t have a credit/debit card and wants change of $100 bill for a 89 cent purchase.  So, what was I thinking when I was looking on Amazon for DVDs to purchase?  I was looking for indie films — not ones that made the big screen because I am trying to support living artists.  I went by customer reviews.  Based on the reviews, one would think the ones I bought were cinematic experiences of a lifetime.  My partner and I settled in to watch one of the movies and we were sucked in, not by the plot line but, by the low quality of the writing, the acting and the cinematography.  It was a cinematic car crash  — we couldn’t look but we couldn’t look away.

Ok, I learned my lesson this time.  But next time . . . .

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Tales from the office

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A colleague walked down the hall with a Costco size bottle of orange listerine.  Time for the afternoon gargle in men’s room.  (Of course, that is better than a colleague who brushed his teeth in the convenience kitchen until I suggested ever so gently that it was gross.)

There aren’t many people at work, after all of the layoffs and attrition, so this was an exciting event in the work place, worth of twitter and blogosphere entries.

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