That's not true. Getting an ISBN isn't hard and self publishing companies will generally assign you one as part of the deal.
Amazon's Kindle, for example, will assign you an ISBN. However, if you bought your own ISBNs you can use them too. You are supposed to assign a different one to the eBook, paperback, audio and hardback. However, if you use the same one for all there are not many checks to stop you if you are using multiple services.
With the advent of self-publishing and individuals purchasing their own ISBN blocks, the possibility of different works getting the same ISBN increases greatly. Especially when they are not using a distribution service like Amazon that *might* check to see if that ISBN is already in use.
"I'm afraid you're mistaking "no DRM" for "free"."
You might be right. John has one book out free, that can be downloaded in multiple formats, no restrictions.
The no DRM part was the others, inclucing mine, can't be copied willie-nillie without some effort. Most are available as PDFs that can be shared and read on multiple platforms.
This is probably bad to admit on Slashdot, but when I got my only story finished my friend started walking me through the Kindle posting process (in chat). I gave up and just sent him the file to post under his account.
Not a plug, not even linking or naming any of our books.
Expanding your first point, you can read them on iPad, iPhone, iPod, Blackberry, MAC, and PC. I like the way they look on my iPhone better than on an actual Kindle, but I can see why most people prefer the bigger screen.
As soon as I saw this article I cheered that the publisher of my only story is the same as these famous authors:) Need to pass this on to my friend I help with his books too.
E-Junkie.Com provides PDF hosting. On our stuff there, has some DRM (can print I forgot how many copies, can copy and paste too) but we are aware that those measures can be sidestepped.
Scribd.Com is a new place he has posted his free book and all of our stuff is available in paperback. They also sell eBooks in multiple formats.
As for "no DRM", if we wanted our works out there totally free, that is the way we would do it. His second book is and it still gets Amazon and paperback sales, but lower than the others. On Scribd.Com it has been read thousands of times, lots of free downloads from E-Junkie.com.
All of the stories are priced low, most below $4, except for one that is a collection of the first four books. Kindle has a preview function and they are also on Google Books where 20% (or 30%, can't remember) can be browsed without having to buy.
That is just the thing that I find so annoying with many exploit announcements. The buzz and cloud of publicity abounds, the MSM gets all panicky over what? Something that is not really a threat at all.
This was an idea we had when I helped with a futuristic book series. In the first book most of it got cut, he just went with a mention (I think) that ads along Crystal Drive (Arlington VA) would detect who was walking through their head-mounted computing/communication devices and display an ad, unless the user went to the effort to lock that feature out.
Throughout the series there are voyeur cams saturating the industrial world and people run bots on the network and at home to spot people they find attractive in whatever location they like.
Bingo. Driving games could cause reckless driving in real life. Or people who drive recklessly enjoy driving games. Reckless go-kart racing could also be associated with both games and automobile driving, but that wasn't the focus of the study.
I'm glad TFA admitted that one isn't necessarily the cause of the other, thereby bypassing the whole causation != correlation argument. Kudos for that.
My thoughts exactly. [shakes fist] you got to it before me!
John was pretty thorough about trying to get input from others to make sure his stuff did not read like others too.
When we find stuff, like the main story here, we try to get it posted to the blog right away to give proper credit to the people who think about these things and make them reality. Especially of they were working on it before Jan. 2009.
This was a concept that my writer friend had in the books I helped with. It continued through the fan fiction and now he is using it in his new series.
In the first books, people walked around typing in the air, not paying any attention to others while looking through the transparent displays in their glasses (gogs) and listening to their earbuds.
I moved the displays to contacts in a story I wrote, then John made the contact displays interactive with the virtual keyboards or with eye movements.
Did not really think of the hearing-impaired angle, we were all looking at it like the way people talk into their earbuds now and look strange, but even stranger in the future.
My blogger buddy mentioned seeing a device like this from GE about TEN years ago. Can't even find an old article about it any more.
Anybody else remember other attempts at this?
Maybe an international treaty should be drafted that changes the spelling when crossing the Mid-Atlantic trench?
BTW, I intended to use both spellings in my comment. Too late now:(
This bit from the post: he iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE. It seems that AT&T may finally be tired of taking the heat.
That is enough for me to delay my purchase until I see something really good.
If there's enough atmosphere to lift a balloon, there's enough atmosphere to transmit sound.
And the balloon would also be the machine he is 'not getting aid from.'
he will exceed the speed of sound — the first person to do so without the aid of a machine. (from the/. story)
I was going to mention that too. Thanks!
Looks like me and John's other friends have a new project looming, add interactivity to the Suki series. We already have a map and other info. Adding it to the books should not be too hard now.
This leads to a question: How high up could it go before the air becomes too thin to generate enough lift to continue ascending?
Whatever that height is would be the flight ceiling.
Still sounds like whop, whop, whopor ware to me.
Slashdot Mirror
I became your fan for that :)
That's not true. Getting an ISBN isn't hard and self publishing companies will generally assign you one as part of the deal.
Amazon's Kindle, for example, will assign you an ISBN. However, if you bought your own ISBNs you can use them too. You are supposed to assign a different one to the eBook, paperback, audio and hardback. However, if you use the same one for all there are not many checks to stop you if you are using multiple services.
With the advent of self-publishing and individuals purchasing their own ISBN blocks, the possibility of different works getting the same ISBN increases greatly. Especially when they are not using a distribution service like Amazon that *might* check to see if that ISBN is already in use.
Reason covered this with a little more serious take the other day.
"I'm afraid you're mistaking "no DRM" for "free"."
You might be right. John has one book out free, that can be downloaded in multiple formats, no restrictions.
The no DRM part was the others, inclucing mine, can't be copied willie-nillie without some effort. Most are available as PDFs that can be shared and read on multiple platforms.
This is probably bad to admit on Slashdot, but when I got my only story finished my friend started walking me through the Kindle posting process (in chat). I gave up and just sent him the file to post under his account.
Not a plug, not even linking or naming any of our books.
:) Need to pass this on to my friend I help with his books too.
Expanding your first point, you can read them on iPad, iPhone, iPod, Blackberry, MAC, and PC. I like the way they look on my iPhone better than on an actual Kindle, but I can see why most people prefer the bigger screen.
As soon as I saw this article I cheered that the publisher of my only story is the same as these famous authors
E-Junkie.Com provides PDF hosting. On our stuff there, has some DRM (can print I forgot how many copies, can copy and paste too) but we are aware that those measures can be sidestepped.
Scribd.Com is a new place he has posted his free book and all of our stuff is available in paperback. They also sell eBooks in multiple formats.
As for "no DRM", if we wanted our works out there totally free, that is the way we would do it. His second book is and it still gets Amazon and paperback sales, but lower than the others. On Scribd.Com it has been read thousands of times, lots of free downloads from E-Junkie.com.
All of the stories are priced low, most below $4, except for one that is a collection of the first four books. Kindle has a preview function and they are also on Google Books where 20% (or 30%, can't remember) can be browsed without having to buy.
That is just the thing that I find so annoying with many exploit announcements. The buzz and cloud of publicity abounds, the MSM gets all panicky over what? Something that is not really a threat at all.
This was an idea we had when I helped with a futuristic book series. In the first book most of it got cut, he just went with a mention (I think) that ads along Crystal Drive (Arlington VA) would detect who was walking through their head-mounted computing/communication devices and display an ad, unless the user went to the effort to lock that feature out. Throughout the series there are voyeur cams saturating the industrial world and people run bots on the network and at home to spot people they find attractive in whatever location they like.
Bingo. Driving games could cause reckless driving in real life. Or people who drive recklessly enjoy driving games. Reckless go-kart racing could also be associated with both games and automobile driving, but that wasn't the focus of the study.
I'm glad TFA admitted that one isn't necessarily the cause of the other, thereby bypassing the whole causation != correlation argument. Kudos for that.
My thoughts exactly. [shakes fist] you got to it before me!
Oh wow, no way we beat that.
John was pretty thorough about trying to get input from others to make sure his stuff did not read like others too.
When we find stuff, like the main story here, we try to get it posted to the blog right away to give proper credit to the people who think about these things and make them reality. Especially of they were working on it before Jan. 2009.
Updating the blog post with your comment now.
This was a concept that my writer friend had in the books I helped with. It continued through the fan fiction and now he is using it in his new series.
In the first books, people walked around typing in the air, not paying any attention to others while looking through the transparent displays in their glasses (gogs) and listening to their earbuds.
I moved the displays to contacts in a story I wrote, then John made the contact displays interactive with the virtual keyboards or with eye movements.
Did not really think of the hearing-impaired angle, we were all looking at it like the way people talk into their earbuds now and look strange, but even stranger in the future.
That was my first thought too. Haven't some of the US coastal cities dealt with this problem for decades?
Interesting. So it is sort of like a thermocouple, without metal converting the energy?
He says it wasn't nuclear. Catalytic electricity generator from hydrocarbons, natural gas.
My blogger buddy mentioned seeing a device like this from GE about TEN years ago. Can't even find an old article about it any more. Anybody else remember other attempts at this?
Maybe an international treaty should be drafted that changes the spelling when crossing the Mid-Atlantic trench? BTW, I intended to use both spellings in my comment. Too late now :(
So, "I am Wednesdaying with my beloved" is right out?
Enfibre? Befibre? Fiberize? Fibrate?
How about "Install Fiber"? Love the Google American to UK English translation in the headline too :)
Yes and Arthur C. Clarke tried to warn us in the 2001 series. The visionaries are always ignored until it is too late.
Was thinking the same.
This bit from the post: he iPhone itself doesn't really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very gracefully, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever 3G connections aren't optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE. It seems that AT&T may finally be tired of taking the heat.
That is enough for me to delay my purchase until I see something really good.
If there's enough atmosphere to lift a balloon, there's enough atmosphere to transmit sound.
And the balloon would also be the machine he is 'not getting aid from.' he will exceed the speed of sound — the first person to do so without the aid of a machine. (from the /. story)
I was going to mention that too. Thanks! Looks like me and John's other friends have a new project looming, add interactivity to the Suki series. We already have a map and other info. Adding it to the books should not be too hard now.
This leads to a question: How high up could it go before the air becomes too thin to generate enough lift to continue ascending? Whatever that height is would be the flight ceiling. Still sounds like whop, whop, whopor ware to me.
Silly, the Na'vi don't have computers. They have all of nature as a network.