As of late I have been not only discouraged, but pissed off by the level of decorum on a lot of sites and blogs that I visit. It seems that people can’t make informed opinions about anything remotely related to politics, current events or anything even the slightest bit controversial without being greeted by swarms of ideologues, sycophants, and idiots.
Internet
Will Amazon Kindle Your Interest ?
I’m very intrigued by Amazon’s new Kindle device.
Dave Davison, IT venture capitalist and visualization maven, is very high on the potential of Kindle:
“Amazon “kindles” a new fire in electronic book reading. This 6 minute video shows how you will use this new portable, 10.3ounce, paperback size device. Download your reading library via a wireless connection just like calling on your cell phone. This device and the kindle service will revolutionize the book, magazine,newspaper and blog publishing media space.”
Count me as an avid reader and collector of books but if Amazon has truly solved the ” reading online” problem that causes me to print out anything longer than a handful of pages, with a vision-friendly, virtual-paper screen, then I’d be keen to own a Kindle. Just putting all of my magazines on it to reduce clutter or using it to read on the treadmill instead of lugging books in my gym bag, would be worth it. I would also speculate that, if you buy an absurdly large number of books annually, as I do, a kindl could allow you to purchase strategically; some in dead-tree version and some virtual form, and accumulate a considerable cost savings.
I would also expect that, as a platform, the uses for Kindle are only going to grow.
Cross-posted at Zenpundit
The New Individualist
Ed Driscoll, interviewed me for and quoted me in, an article in the New Individualist.
He seemed to particularly like my Parliament of Clocks metaphor.
Usenet and Discussion Moderation: Religion and Politics
Here’s a long discussion in a Usenet group devoted to bicycling that begins when a veteran, reasonable, commenter announces that he is leaving the group because he is tired of the vicious personal attacks and speech-suppression attempts that increasingly accompany discussions of technical topics as well as anything that veers toward politics. The commenter singles out another contributor for having driven him to decide, finally, to stop commenting.
Impending Revolutions
While I had heard of the Negroponte project for $ 100 laptops previously, it was not until today that a post at Dave Davison’s Thoughts Illustrated made me appreciate the true scale of the endeavor. Dave’s post led me to this article about Alan Kay, one of the fathers of the PC and of the very internet itself. Some key points from the Kay article: