Print is dead!

Dr. Egon Spengler... a modern prophet.  (For the, hopefully, few of you who do not know the works of Dr. Spengler - go here)

Print is officially dead, long live the electron!  I just celebrated my 24th anniversary, and my wife got me a Kindle for a gift.  Wow!!!  I have had many a cool gadget in my day, it’s kind of my schtick, but this is the coolest of them all (until the iPhone 2.0).  But beyond being cool, I think this is the beginning of something big.

Now, I have had many e-book readers in the past, and all of them have sucked ass in one way or another.  The Kindle??  definitely does not suck ass!  While this bit of prose will be a semi-review of the Kindle, keep in mind that I am also talking about the future here, and it may not be the Kindle itself that drives the nail in the coffin of the printing presses.  But the coffin is closing, and things like the Kindle are doing it.

I toyed around with the Sony E-book reader a while, at the Borders store in town and I found it to be cumbersome, fuzzy and generally a joke.  Coupled with the paltry selection of books they have and it’s a dead product.  (And that is not just my pure hatred of Sony coming through, they can’t give them things away.)  I also used every version of my PDA with MS-Reader installed.  Too small for most books.

Well, in walks the Kindle, with it’s gorgeous screen, luscious lines and smoooooth buttons. (Ok the buttons aren’t smooth, but that line was getting kind sexy, no?)  It looks at you, with those little “read me” eyes and says - “I’ll even play your MP3s while you read, baby”.  Face it, you’re doing the reading rumba with this thing before you know it.  Best part is... in the morning, it’s still there, ready for the newspaper and a good comedy.

Truly, the screen on this thing is better than white paper.  It has just the right contrast for me, and the print font is perfect.  Of course, the font is scalable, so you can have teensy print or really big print, your choice.  It does everything a book will do an alot more.  You can dog-ear pages, annotate passages and even look up the really big words in the built in dictionary.

Truly, this thing is a wonder.  But beyond that, I think it is ushering in a new era.  Imagine if you will, an 8th grader on the first day of school.  Rather than getting a ton of books to lug around all year, he gets his Kindle (or similar) device with all the years books already loaded on it.  And not the old books that alot of our school systems are struggling along with, revised updated editions.  All the handouts that teachers would give out are now just uploaded to the classes Kindle’s and assignments are handed in the same way.  Even better, spin this up to the same kid in college.  Same device, just has to get the book(s) for each class uploaded at the beginning of the semester.  The cost savings to the school system are immense, as it is to the publishers and teachers.

Obviously, this is a few years down the road, but even now, I get the New York Times delivered to my Kindle every night, ready to read in the morning.  Time Magazine, same deal.  More are coming all the time.  Granted, Amazon is making money with the Kindle now, selling books and their selection is a tad bit limited.  But I have gone to a bunch of sites that offer many books free, all the great classics are totally free.

While I will not say that the Kindle or it’s progeny will kill print media, a device like it will.  A full blown laptop PC (Macbook Air?) with this screen, in this format is coming soon, and you will see it take the world like the iPod did.  Mark my words.

As to reviewing the Kindle itself, I have a hard time doing it fairly.  The thing is just about perfect.  I’m not sure if I am just so enamored with it, or if it is really this good.  I have thirty books on it right now, and I am finding myself staying up WAY too late reading.  What a joy that is!  The controls are intuitive and VERY easy to use, the management of the device is made incredibly easy by Amazon.  Maybe in a future blog I’ll have some things to say against it, but for now, I can’t give it up.

If you decide to get one, please use my store link to get it so I can buy some good books :)

E. Gary Gygax. Farewell, and thank you!

E.Gary Gygax - July 27, 1938 - May 4, 2008

I know, I know, he died in May and here it’s June before I get around to this.  Well, let me explain.  For a long time, I thought this guy was one of the bad guys.  Stealing the original D&D game from Dave Arneson and going on to make a bundle of $$ off someone else’s work.  Well, time and age make one do research and it turns out that my youthful derision of EGG was pretty much based in bullshit and here-say.  So, my apologies.  The delay, therefore comes from not really knowing what to say about a guy who changed your life, but you never met him.

Some folks relax by knitting, working on cars, gardening or whatever.  My particular, and favorite method, is Role Playing Games.  When not in one, I like to think about and modify the things that are going on in my world.  Not every waking moment, mind you, but my free time.  I find the mental challenge, the creative expression and the pure satisfaction of creating something to be very relaxing and enjoyable.  I wouldn’t have that were it not for EGG.  Surely, someone else would have done it, maybe better, maybe worse, but in this dimension, it was EGG who did it, and there ya go.  Thanks EGG!

He went through alot of crap in his life, especially when he was in charge of TSR.  He did manage to weather it all and kept doing RPG stuff through his whole life.  In 2007 he was publishing source books for the D20 system.  Pretty cool.

Now, here is a stretch for you.  Do we owe modern pop culture to E. Gary Gygax?  Let me explain.  Gygax makes a game called D&D.  It’s a pen and paper RPG, but then they come out with the Personal Computers (Apple II, Commodore 64 etc).  What games are pushing well on these?  Computerized RPGs.  Yes, there are a bunch more games and software than RPGs, but the D&D type games are a huge push in the industry.  Video technology is pushed by the needs of the game industry.  Some of the BIGGEST selling games ever, on any system, are RPGs.  Final Fantasy, NeverWinter Nights, Oblivion, Daggerfall and a host of other games are all computer RPGs.  I won’t even mention EverCrack, and World of Warcrack.  All this industy, all this development to perfect a system that was originally printed in a chainmail magazine...

Makes you wonder... maybe... a little.

I’d love to ruminate more, but I have to work on Pam’s character a bit so we can play a bit of 4E tonight :)

The State of the Music Industry?? Kiss my Arse

Why do stupid but famous people get to talk to the press??  It’s a damn shame, because alot of the time, their opinions are not just wrong, they’re fucking stupid.  Take for example this excerpt from Gene Simmons of KISS.

The music industry is suffering, and it's all because of those darn fans. Er, what? It turns out that KISS member Gene Simmons believes exactly that. He claims that piracy is to blame for the industry's woes, and KISS is apparently taking its ball and going home until the situation gets under control.


"The record industry is dead. It's six feet underground and unfortunately the fans have done this," Simmons said, according to AOL News. "They've decided to download and file share. There is no record industry around so we're going to wait until everybody settles down and becomes civilized. As soon as the record industry pops its head up we'll record new material."


Wow, KISS isn’t going to release anything until this is settled. THANK YOU, GOD!

Mr Simmons, let me help you get your bearings here...

1 - You’re a no talent hack who is famous because of a costume and a brilliant marketing campaign, not the soul searching depth of your musical talent.  After all, you cannot exactly tell me that “Lick it up”, “Detroit rock city”, “Shout it out loud” and “Calling Doctor Love” are staples of the musical library of this or any generation.  Don’t threaten me with something I’ve been hoping for and think it matters...

2 - Piracy to blame for the music industry, get real, old man.  The only reason the music “Industry” is dying is because it HAS to.  It’s an industry mired in the past and cannot seem to figure out that the world has changed a wee bit since Duane Eddy was recording.  The RIAA had alot of chances to make things right, but they clung to the OLD business model.

3 - Your rant about suing every college kid in the world is priceless.  It just really points to how out of touch you and the RIAA are.  You just cannot conceive of the world where the record industry does not own every method and manner of expression in the world.  Wake up, put down the cocaine you can barely afford anymore and join us in the 21st century.

4 - Face it, music is online, now and for ever.  You shouldn’t worry too much about KISS music being stolen, nobody wants it that bad.  But music is going to be stolen as long as it is being overcharged for.  Until you give up your old sales paradigm (album centric) and move to 2008 (song centric) methodology, you’re going to keep losing.  Today’s buyers are not going to buy a CD with 14 songs they don’t want to get the one that they do.  Face it, iTunes and Amazon music will continue to kill you and your kind.

Gene, it’s not the fans, and it’s not a British band that is killing the music industry.  Face it, it’s the RIAA itself that is eating it’s own tail, has been for years and is no digesting it’s own head.  It’s time for it to die.  It’s time to get some people in the industry that can understand where the music has to go.

This one got a great comment that I just loved... brought tears to my eyes...

jack

Whomever...wrote this...against Gene Simmons....you are a no good cock sucking mother fucker...you are not a musician. and you...never will be...and if your job was mowing lawns..and someone came and took your lawns away from you would be pissed off wouldnt you?....

the whole entire music industry has been leveled by interenet jackoffs and limewire type programs.. music artist suffer greatly to people like you and your sheer ignorance.. cds dont sound as good as vinyl anyway....people are getting shortchanged from hell there to...before you write anything else on the interenet...get a reality check ....

Saturday, May 2, 2009 - 01:24 PM

Myself

Wow, thank you for that.  it's cutting, insightful and well... honest.  I like it.
In my own defence, I don't purport to be a musician.  The only thing I can play is a CD.
Really though... vinyl?  Please.
The industry is being killed by it's own ineptitude.  Artists will remain artists until there is no more planet to live on, but the industry that they are being abused by and unwittingly supporting is in it's death throes and thank god for that.  As long as the RIAA controls the marketing and accounting for the recording industry, nobody but the lawyers win.  Not artists, not consumers, nobody!
And lastly, I'll have you know that my music library contains only songs that I own.  I do not pirate anything.  so :p

Friday, May 8, 2009 - 11:52 PM

Bill Castello

Hey Jack...  Did you see, KISS released an album, so piracy must be dead...  Or Gene Simmons is a lying piece of no-talent shit...  Hmmm, which could it be?

Thursday, October 29, 2009 - 07:43 PM