It's Not About Me

Pay Attention!

Interesting (and helpful) comments from a review of the book, "Is The Internet Changing The Way You Think" in the WSJ 1/7/10:

"Thomas Metzinger, a philospher, argues that the Internet isn't changing the way we think; it is exacerbating the deceptively simple challenge of 'attention managment'.  'Attention is a finite commodity, and it is absolutely essential to living a good life.'

"Neuroscientist Brian Knutson imagines a near future in which 'the Internet may impose a survivial of the focused, in which individuals with some natural ability to stay on target, or who are hopped up on enough stimulants, forge ahead while the rest of us flail in a Web-based attentional vortex.'"

So, today's free advice - pay attention to that which is worth paying attention to!

Journalistic Multi-Tasking

Limp iPad

Well, the iPad may not be the best eBook, but its potential for interactive news played in lush, gorgeous color will make us forget about the soggy newspaper lieing in the driveway on a rainy morning.

Kindle Talk

I've had my Kindle now for about a year and a half. I still love the feel of a book in my hand, but I also use my Kindle a lot. The feel, weight and contrast of the device is as good if not better than the printed page. Not only is it an elegant little machine, it adds searchability, easy underlining, note-taking and dog-earring, only the latter of which you can do with paper. If you want access to your notes and highlighting you have your own private Kindle web page where they're waiting for you. There is even now a 3rd-generation Kindle - smaller, lighter, even better contrast and supposedly a month of battery life.

Find a free book on line? Say from John Piper's website? Just send the PDF to Amazon and they wire it back to your Kindle for a dime.

I thought all the Kindle needed is color and a good web browser, so the Apple iPad launch had me pretty jazzed. (Although were there any women on the committee who named that thing?) It only took a minute of having the iPad in hand to know it was no match for the Kindle when it comes to an e-book - too heavy, too wide and underlining was way too awkward. Then you watch people trying to use it. They can't figure out whether they should hold it in their hands, lay it flat on the table (terrible angle) or use a stand to prop it up (like a laptop).  Hmmm. Why not just keep your laptop. I hear there's rumors of smaller iPad in the works. Let me know - I'm sure someone will make a better ebook than the Kindle. They just haven't yet.

Here's Jeffrey Bezos on his baby.

"Over some time horizon, books will be read on electronic devices. Physical books won't completely go away, just as horses haven't completely gone away.

If you think about books, it's astonishing. It's very hard to find a technology that has remained in mostly the same form for 500 years. And anything that has stubbornly resisted improvement for 500 years is going to be hard to improve. To do that, you have to capture the essential element of a book, which is that it disappears when you get into the flow of the story. None of us when we're reading a book think about the ink and glue and the stitching. All that fades away and you get into the author's universe."  - Jeffrey Bezos, Amazon CEO