e-Books are not there yet. Paper is simply better. When eBooks do get into the zone of usability then we have problems.
Right now the technology is not friendly, the price point is high compared to paper and there is no good way of making sure the author gets the return he/she should expect.
A real big problem is that the culture is wrong. The expectation is that you can go a torrent site and help yourself. Fixing/improving the tech is not the whole answer. You have to change the way people think of intellectual effort and intellectual rights. The way things are going it does not look as though the author is going to be respected or rewarded anytime soon. In fact the dynamic is all going the wrong way.
I respect the Baen approach but wonder if it really, really is working. I was given the other day the entire works of Eric Flint the energy behind the Baen experiment. I took the download because I wanted to check out the Sony e-Reader I had just acquired. I did not feel all that guilty because I had every page and CD Flint had ever produced on my bookshelf (bought and paid for).
And my own conundrum? A final thought is that I have seen the distortions wrought upon the copyright system by big corporations, and the nasty way they limit fair use of content. In areas other than books I have no real problems in stiffing the major corporations. They stiff the authors/composers/performers, and they stiff me with DRM and regionalization that renders my laptop useless since I source my DVDs from three or four markets. I own legitimate copies from the UK, Australia, US and Europe so why can't I play them on my laptop without getting locked after five plays? Its even worse for a Mac user because the chances of unlocking the player are almost nil. So screw them, culture or no.
Thank you. At about 2.30 pm yesterday everything stopped, cars and buses honked their horns and factories blew their sirens - 3 minutes. Thousands were at Tiananmen to mark the occasion. The three day mourning is something all Chinese want. There may have been days of mourning in the past for leaders but a mourning for people this is the first ever. And the population appreciates the opportunity.
As to inconvenience, mainly the lack of movie and entertainment channels and the absence of live music in bars and resturants - at least as far as I can see.
Rioting Pacifist:
You know, you do have a point. Public mourning by a nation is nothing new and sometimes it does go a bit overboard - the overly self-indulgent mourning that followed 9/11 in America, in some senses, has not stopped and it indeed served to make so many brain dead, scared and irrational (cf. the PATRIOT Act and an illegal war). Just look at US history since that awful day and and a sustained public disinterest, it seems, at the damage inflicted over and over to the constitution and its protections. But you are correct, much rests on how well the Chinese government does - the mandate of heaven was always questioned first by a string of disasters and China these past six months or so has had a few biggies. In the realm of symbol and superstition the dots are being connected here by some. The Sichuan disaster is big and the government has done a lot that is well done and fast. At one level there is no doubt that a public mourning is self serving to the regime (and political instincts and survival are no different here than in the west). But do not by that token misread the general public's approval and recognition that a mourning may be appropriate. Three days is probably a reasonable balance here in China between not enough and too much. FYI, so far, and its only morning of the first day, I have not been inconvenienced by the mourning.
Agreed. That said, to put the GWOT example in perspective: the number of Chinese dead does not yet exceed the number of Iraqi dead since 2003 and America's war of aggression upon Iraq.
I think this is a bit over the top. Many people lost relatives or friends in the quake. Some entertainment can help them get over the grief. Now they're constanty reminded of the quake by the media. That can't be good for them. I live in Beijing. Such sentiments as above sound so selfish and self-indulgent. Great shows of national mourning are not unusual, even in our own western countries (or at least they used to be). I am no apologist for China but, on this, please cut the Chinese a bit of slack. You have no idea how this tragedy has affected people in China and while three days of mourning might seem excessive it is not necessarily so here. Moreover, it helps focus the national mind on what has to be done next: no more hope for rescue, the need for rebuilding, fund raising, etc.
BTW, I have so far not been affected in my access to the internet or TV, etc.
Here in Beijing expat reporters have their knickers in a twist about Yahoo (HK), Jiang Lijun and Li Yibing. I have some sympathy for their position but, really, you have to apply a bit of common-sense and objectivity to this. The underlying sentiment, if not argument, is that what Yahoo (HK) and China did together would not happen in the US. Lets all move servers. Huh? Come on. The only difference between China and the US is that China for some reason is allowing Yahoo (HK) to speak to the press about China's legitimate (as in legal) request and Yahoo (HK)'s response. In the US, government requests to Yahoo for similar data are allowed, frequent, protected and secret. The whole process is secret and cannot be revealed even in court - by law. Yahoo, cannot tell anyone about the governement request, its against the law. The victim, if he/she were to somehow get to know of the government request, would be forbidden from telling anyone about it - its against the law and you can't go to court and have it reversed. The main difference here folks is that China does not have the Patriot Act and is not applying a press gag. I am no defender of China but . . . . Sheesh. The US is the one that has the Patriot Act and makes all such transactions and requests secret, hidden, beyond review.
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e-Books are not there yet. Paper is simply better. When eBooks do get into the zone of usability then we have problems. Right now the technology is not friendly, the price point is high compared to paper and there is no good way of making sure the author gets the return he/she should expect. A real big problem is that the culture is wrong. The expectation is that you can go a torrent site and help yourself. Fixing/improving the tech is not the whole answer. You have to change the way people think of intellectual effort and intellectual rights. The way things are going it does not look as though the author is going to be respected or rewarded anytime soon. In fact the dynamic is all going the wrong way. I respect the Baen approach but wonder if it really, really is working. I was given the other day the entire works of Eric Flint the energy behind the Baen experiment. I took the download because I wanted to check out the Sony e-Reader I had just acquired. I did not feel all that guilty because I had every page and CD Flint had ever produced on my bookshelf (bought and paid for). And my own conundrum? A final thought is that I have seen the distortions wrought upon the copyright system by big corporations, and the nasty way they limit fair use of content. In areas other than books I have no real problems in stiffing the major corporations. They stiff the authors/composers/performers, and they stiff me with DRM and regionalization that renders my laptop useless since I source my DVDs from three or four markets. I own legitimate copies from the UK, Australia, US and Europe so why can't I play them on my laptop without getting locked after five plays? Its even worse for a Mac user because the chances of unlocking the player are almost nil. So screw them, culture or no.
Thank you. At about 2.30 pm yesterday everything stopped, cars and buses honked their horns and factories blew their sirens - 3 minutes. Thousands were at Tiananmen to mark the occasion. The three day mourning is something all Chinese want. There may have been days of mourning in the past for leaders but a mourning for people this is the first ever. And the population appreciates the opportunity. As to inconvenience, mainly the lack of movie and entertainment channels and the absence of live music in bars and resturants - at least as far as I can see.
Rioting Pacifist: You know, you do have a point. Public mourning by a nation is nothing new and sometimes it does go a bit overboard - the overly self-indulgent mourning that followed 9/11 in America, in some senses, has not stopped and it indeed served to make so many brain dead, scared and irrational (cf. the PATRIOT Act and an illegal war). Just look at US history since that awful day and and a sustained public disinterest, it seems, at the damage inflicted over and over to the constitution and its protections. But you are correct, much rests on how well the Chinese government does - the mandate of heaven was always questioned first by a string of disasters and China these past six months or so has had a few biggies. In the realm of symbol and superstition the dots are being connected here by some. The Sichuan disaster is big and the government has done a lot that is well done and fast. At one level there is no doubt that a public mourning is self serving to the regime (and political instincts and survival are no different here than in the west). But do not by that token misread the general public's approval and recognition that a mourning may be appropriate. Three days is probably a reasonable balance here in China between not enough and too much. FYI, so far, and its only morning of the first day, I have not been inconvenienced by the mourning.
Agreed. That said, to put the GWOT example in perspective: the number of Chinese dead does not yet exceed the number of Iraqi dead since 2003 and America's war of aggression upon Iraq.
Here in Beijing expat reporters have their knickers in a twist about Yahoo (HK), Jiang Lijun and Li Yibing. I have some sympathy for their position but, really, you have to apply a bit of common-sense and objectivity to this. The underlying sentiment, if not argument, is that what Yahoo (HK) and China did together would not happen in the US. Lets all move servers. Huh? Come on. The only difference between China and the US is that China for some reason is allowing Yahoo (HK) to speak to the press about China's legitimate (as in legal) request and Yahoo (HK)'s response. In the US, government requests to Yahoo for similar data are allowed, frequent, protected and secret. The whole process is secret and cannot be revealed even in court - by law. Yahoo, cannot tell anyone about the governement request, its against the law. The victim, if he/she were to somehow get to know of the government request, would be forbidden from telling anyone about it - its against the law and you can't go to court and have it reversed. The main difference here folks is that China does not have the Patriot Act and is not applying a press gag. I am no defender of China but . . . . Sheesh. The US is the one that has the Patriot Act and makes all such transactions and requests secret, hidden, beyond review.