This makes no sense. Imagine that SpaceX took a photograph on the moon, and then a university freely used the image in its marketing materials. Would that make sense? Would it make any more sense if the university had a space program? No.
SpaceX isn’t the greatest example here. They commonly release their photos into the public domain with a Creative Commons waiving all copyright and related or neighboring rights to their work. Though the point still stands with photographers and photo releases in general.
A lot of problems around copyright is a self-inflicted mess caused by (IMO) wrong abstractions, not reflecting the nature of the works and the media. For instance, photography has an issue of copyrights on buildings, which is prima facie a ridiculous concept, but it is recognized to some extent around the world, including in the US.
Completely, if I’m a photographer in Texas I would be worried about the effect of this ruling on my work. It’s hard for people to understand when they hire a photographer that even though they paid for images and prints they might not even have the right to modify and/or print more. But this sidesteps that completely.
The idea is that the sovereign can do nothing illegal because by definition it is the fount of legislation. Lawful, therefore, is whatever suits the sovereign.
In the UK this is neatly seen by the Queen being immune, and not needing any documents. After all, why would she need a document asserting that she gives herself the right to drive? She can just say so to the cop that pulls her over. Except the cop cannot pull her over if he knows she's the driver.
Even the constitution is subject to the sovereign, if you think about it, since it is meaningless without the sovereign but the sovereign is not meaningless without the constitution. It's a bootstrapping problem, after all. Why is the constitution valid just because a bunch of blokes signed it and one you sign is meaningless? Because they, the winners of the Revolution, the folks in charge of the militias, the de facto sovereigns at the time, signed it.
1984, followed directly by Brave New World. Our world resembles a lot from each of these books. Much like in 1984, we have devices and companies constantly monitoring us (iOS, Android, Facebook, etc.), we have “news programs” and websites seemingly modeled after the “two minutes hate”, and we clearly have some Ministry of Truth-like misinformation getting spread around while accurate information gets lost or ignored. Much like in Brave New World, we have soma-like drugs, distractions and trivialities occupying people while they accept the world as it is and even shy away from wanting to change things. Really, we live in a world that blends together much of what was described in 1984 and Brave New World. Neither book predicted the future accurately, but together the picture these books painted is pretty damn accurate, and disturbing.
>Much like in Brave New World, we have soma-like drugs, distractions and trivialities occupying people while they accept the world as it is and even shy away from wanting to change things.
Now hold on. There are millions of people in the streets demonstrating on a regular basis these days. How many have to be trying to change things before we stop labeling them all distracted, sleeping, over-amused sheeple?
"We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we, at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares.
But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Orwell added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we desire will ruin us."
— Neil Postman (Author of Amusing Ourselves to Death)
I first learned about Neil Postman in the last year from Alan Kay's reading list. I've found myself wishing he were still alive to champion his ideas today - they seem just as relevant in the era of Facebook as they did in the era of television.
Both you and pdog have made interesting observations, I suppose, but as I said, neither book described our reality accurately. Our reality is far more complicated. As you point out, millions have protested, but tens of millions haven’t. As pdog remarked, the world in 1984 might be described as a totalitarian hellscape, in part, but parts of our world can also be described as such; pdog needs to look outside his locale, I’m afraid. Our world really is like a combination of those two books, even if your neighborhoods aren’t. We haven’t matched the world portrayed in either book, obviously, but it feels to me like were transitioning to a world a lot like a combination of those books. Let’s review things in a decade or two and see what comes to be.
>As you point out, millions have protested, but tens of millions haven’t.
On both an absolute and per-capita level, those millions are actually record highs. These are historically large demonstrations. I'd have to check where I read this, but IIRC about 3% of a country's total population is typically the amount you need demonstrating in order to overthrow a government.
We're possibly looking at a revolution in progress, and all you guys can say is, "Why aren't there more of them?"?
I think it's important to note that the majority of these protests are happening in large urban cities on the coasts that overwhelming did not vote for Trump. There are no large protests in the Middle of the country.
I'd also like to see the source for he 3% number that leads to overthrow.
Well, that's roughly how much of the population you need to mount an ultimately successful revolutionary movement. And we're 1/3 of the way there already.
Also, if I had to venture a guess for why things have been improving, it's that modern economies rely on very fine, highly-skilled divisions of labor. If you're a marketing manager, you probably don't really understand how software goes together. This makes it very difficult to point a gun at a programmer and force them to work.
This means that in order to climb the ladder of value-added production, you need to keep your social organization nonviolent, and possibly even increasingly peaceful. You need everyone to cooperate, and when they cease to do so, even nonviolently, you start losing all that value you can't extract at gunpoint.
> Our world resembles a lot from each of these books. Much like in 1984, we have devices and companies constantly monitoring us (iOS, Android, Facebook, etc.), we have “news programs” and websites seemingly modeled after the “two minutes hate”, and we clearly have some Ministry of Truth-like misinformation getting spread around while accurate information gets lost or ignored.
Is this a joke? Having recently reread Orwell's 1984, you can't seriously believe our society resembles Oceania in the slightest. The world may have some problems today, but the world in 1984 is war-torn, totaliarian hellscape from which no one can escape.
Mankind has a historically short memory (unless stories are elevated to religious levels). Witness the recent Holocaust Remembrance statement from the White House.
From what I can see, Vedic Soma makes someone immortal and invulnerable.
Huxley's soma is some kind of narcotic haalucinogen. This is a list of quotes from the book that include the word "soma" in them, and it should give you an idea of the drug's effects and the characters' attitudes toward it: https://www.huxley.net/soma/somaquote.html
>From what I can see, Vedic Soma makes someone immortal and invulnerable.
Rig veda describes Soma is a hallucinogenic used for intoxication.
1. Intoxication, though not addiction, is a central theme of the Veda, since the sacrificial offering of the hallucinogenic juice of the soma plant was an element of several important Vedic rituals. The poets who “saw” the poems were inspired both by their meditations and by drinking the soma juice. The poems draw upon a corpus of myths about a fiery plant that a bird brings down from heaven; soma is born in the mountains or in heaven, where it is closely guarded; an eagle brings soma to earth (4.26-7) or to Indra (4.18.13), or the eagle carries Indra to heaven to bring the somabo
2. we have seen a Vedic poem (10.119) in which someone exhilarated (or stoned) on soma says that the drinks have carried him up and away, “Like horses bolting with a chariot.”
Source:
Doniger, Wendy (2009-02-24). The Hindus: An Alternative History (p. 122).
After just now hearing about Amazon Echo, I positively, absolutely cannot be the only person who immediately thought of this show: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_Humans
It appears to be either live or live-ish. (On the other hand, according to the schedule, Jaron Lanier should've been the first speaker, and he doesn't appear to have been from the perspective of the stream. Did he speak and it wasn't broadcast, or what?)
My first thought is that knocking drones out of the sky (not necessarily to steal their contents) could become the new fun activity for bored juvenile delinquents.
If drones become the common place, why should any one steal them.
Honestly its a 18th century person using horse carriages saying cars becoming common will lead to rampant car theft. If something is freely available the motivation to steal it drops.
Presumably they'll have GPS and will phone home constantly- if someone shoots it down/hits it with a thrown ball/etc Amazon will probably send someone out to find it. If they find it mounted on someone's wall like a hunting trophy they'll call the police.
Shoot it down, take out the battery, put it in a faraday cage bag and sell it to the blackhat hardware modder. It ain't pretty but a few of those, and you can afford both food and mortage. You got to live off something, and jobs have been hard to come by since The Automatization. </story>
"Amazon should hire a world-class book designer to serve as product manager for the Kindle."
I think this comment is just about right. The Kindle team really needs to focus on making the Kindle as good as traditional books, when applicable, but better than books whenever possible. Currently the Kindle fails to be as good as books where it counts most (e.g., clarity/sharpness of text, page layout decisions [e.g., hyphens], font choices, display contrast, index functionality, TOC functionality), and it only does a decent job of employing some of the technological advantages it has over books (e.g., the Kindle has a great weight-to-content-offered ratio, it backs up your collection remotely). It kind of surprises me that the Kindle hasn't already surpassed traditional books in every way. Maybe my expectations are too high, or maybe Amazon is more concerned with the bottom line than responding to readers like me. I don't know.
As a (very) avid Kindle user - I'd add the following to your list of features to make the Kindle "as good as a physical book":
o ability to loan to others
o physically robust (I've cracked three (3) screens)
o extended reading time (on at least two 10 day vacations
I ran my hyperjuice extended battery down
recharging my K3 every couple days)
o random-access speeds/location
o support for color.
I thought these were actually universal desires - so I'd be interested in hearing why?
o Robust - You don't mind breaking kindles?
o Ability to loan to others - You never lend books? To anyone?
o Extended Read Time - How on earth couldn't you want extended battery life. It drives me crazy to go on vacation and have a fully charged kindle run out of battery. I would kill for a solid 100 hour battery life.
o Random Access - You never want to flick through a book? (Admittedly, the K3 has the +/- chapter view, which is good, but not as good as being able to flick back and forth in a real book - particularly textbooks or a complex Game of Thrones reading)
o Support for color - Really? You don't want any color in your books? Not even Text books?
With the possible exception of "Loan to others" - I can't understand why every single one of those isn't a "Must have" in order for the kindle to be as good as a paper book for everyone. Also, and not coincidentally, they also make for a better eBook experience as well.
I would love to switch to "eBook Only" (I've purchased about 200 books so far for my kindles over the last several years) - but, for some things, I continue to purchase paper books.
I won't break a Kindle. The Kindle is sufficiently robust, and then some.
> Ability to loan to others - You never lend books? To anyone?
No. The only exception was my textbooks in college.
> Extended Read Time - How on earth couldn't you want extended battery life.
How long does it take to read a book? My Kindle lasts easily 4 weeks, reading about 5-8 hours a week, and in that time I can usually get through a 1,000 page novel. I've never taken a trip where I would be without electricity for more than 4 weeks, and even if I were, I doubt I would want to lug around more than one 1,000 page novel.
> Random Access - You never want to flick through a book?
No. Again, textbooks are the only exception, but that's not really a common use case for e-readers.
> Support for color - Really? You don't want any color in your books? Not even Text books?
Maybe for textbooks, although all the textbooks I've actually enjoyed enough to keep after class have been monochrome.
> With the possible exception of "Loan to others" - I can't understand why every single one of those isn't a "Must have" in order for the kindle
And, conversely, I can't understand why many people would care at all about these issues.
I see no reason to not strive for more, but for the most part I disagree.
However, if they really wanted to advance ebook readers instead of just enjoying their dominant position and branching into androids tablets and phones, they ought to try to push the envelope.
Frankly, if I could legally get textbooks and have random access, color and better pen support... I would be so, so keen. I think there are education opportunities as well with good pen options and text books.
Why can't you buy your third grader a Kindle and have their math book, math workbook/worksheets, answers, tutorials, everything in their hand? The technology more or less exists for this.
I should have mentioned that I also have an iPad. I basically use the Kindle as a small paperback replacement, and use the iPad for everything else.
I whip out the Kindle when I want to blow a Saturday breezing through the latest John Sandford cotton candy or awesome-seeming fan fiction, and I read most technical books and my Instapaper backlog on my iPad. So maybe my desired set of Kindle features is smaller than the average Kindle user, or maybe this discussion is proof that I have no idea what the average Kindle user wants.
- I've owned my (4th-gen, non-touch) Kindle for ~9 months, and it has held up just fine. Maybe if/when I break it, I'll wish for more robustness.
- I've never lent books; maybe I should!
- I haven't been without power for long enough to substantially discharge my Kindle's battery yet. I went to Belize for 9 days with it and had power the whole time, although I did more diving than reading ;-)
- Nope, I've never longed for random access. I've flipped through paperbacks before, but that's a feature I can easily live without.
- Nope, I definitely don't miss color. When I want to lay back and feel like I'm reading a little paperback from my neighborhood bookstore, I reach for the Kindle. When I read a textbook and inspect diagrams or want to look at pretty pictures in Flipboard, I grab the iPad.
I'm just weird with tablets though, so this data point may be worthless. I've considered buying a Nexus 7 (or its rumored successor) just to lay in bed and read code, and the official GitHub app for Android is the best tablet code-reading experience I've found.
I understand now, and I think I see where you are coming from - but I think we're speaking at cross purposes to each other. You don't want these features that I've described on your kindle, because you don't see your kindle as serving 100% replacement for all books.
I think the point that Gruber, the OP, and I were trying to make (though I could be wrong) - is that we believe the ultimate goal, the end-game for a kindle, is to be in every way as good as a book. Books don't run out of battery, don't shatter when you sit on them, textbooks have color, and can be flipped through.
I think you'll agree - that unless the Kindle has (at least) all of those features, you won't be able to replace 100% of your book usage with one - and you'll need to turn to other sources (either your tablet, or paper, etc...)
Power, for me, is probably the killer feature. I can be careful with the kindle, I rarely read/use textbooks when I'm not taking a course, and I can work around (painfully) the ability to flip through a book - but particularly when we are heading off grid for a while, trying to keep the kindle charged is always a hassle, and I'm always dragging along at least one, if not two hyperjuice batteries in my packout (though, admittedly, one of them also serves to keep my iPhone charged for GPS/Map usage)
Of course, on the flip side, I'm bringing my entire 200+ book library with me....
I don't see the value in a "100% replacement for all books" for the same reason I don't see any value in "100% replacement for all cooking utensils" or most other things. I can do a lot of things with my favorite knife, but that doesn't mean it would be better with a can opener attached to it.
Obviously longer battery life would be fine, but I wouldn't trade any size or weight for it. A color screen would be fine but I wouldn't trade any contrast or battery life or additional expense for it. A stronger case would be fine but I wouldn't trade cost or weight for it, and so on. It's a great device for reading novels, papers, long blog posts that I send to it. My ipad is a great device for movies and magazines. My computer is a great device for doing research and copy/pasting code snippets and playing games. My radio is a great device for listening to music or news in the car. My TV is a great device for watching movies and shows.
That's a mere 6 devices that pretty well cover my information and media needs. Not too bad considering I use at least twice as many different tools to make dinner.
I use a Sony PRS-350 and I'm not hurting too bad in most of these:
Robust: I've had it for almost 2 years, and most of that time didn't even have a cover.
Ability to loan to others: Since I have to strip the DRM anyway to read kindle books, no problem there.
Extended Read Time: Nice to have, but it will charge off of my phone charger (micro USB) so not a big deal.
Random Access: This is the one that hurts. Humans have great spacial access "It's about half way down the page maybe 3/8 of the way through the book" Not a big deal for most novels. I still use dead-tree reference books
Support for Color: Can't remember the last time I read a book with color, other than graphic novels.
I don't see these as anywhere near 'must haves'. For reading fiction, random access and colour support are not necessary. Most people I have spoken to find the battery life mindblowing. And I am not sure why your Kindles keep breaking, but I don't even use a case and mine has survived a lot of rough treatment.
Even if the Kindle was more flawed, I'd continue to use it. There is no way I'm going back to worrying about which physical books to take with me, or on holiday, and having to carry them everywhere. I haven't purchased a paper book since buying the Kindle.
I totally boycott DRM'ed books. Period, absolutely non negotiable. Problem solved.
> o physically robust (I've cracked three (3) screens)
I have a metal-cased Sony reader since 2008. It's really, really robust. It's not as good as the latest readers, but good enough nonetheless (and it has two sets of metal-cast page turning buttons).
> o extended reading time
Strange, my Nook Color easily lasts a couple of days and my Sony PRS 3 weeks of avid reading.
> o random-access speeds/location
Yes, this one is unsolved so far, though the Nook color quick page slider is quite good.
> o support for color.
That's why I have both an e-ink and an LCD reader so far. When will readers with Qi screens come?
I want to be able to lend books, but that's about it.
> o physically robust (I've cracked three (3) screens)
Yeah, but as long as Amazon's willing to replace it free each time I don't really mind, and they have been so far.
> extended reading time
Were you using it for just reading? With internet turned off? I know javascript-heavy pages absolutely kill my kindle's battery, but if you're just reading it should be able to handle 10 days fine.
> o random-access speeds/location
Not something I ever want or need.
> o support for color.
No, no, a thousand time no. Keep it black and white so that the focus is where it should be, on the content.
Ability to loan is one I'd love, currently I have to break the DRM to let my wife read books we share, we could swap kindles (or share an account) but frankly it's easier to break the DRM.
My kindle (international v2) has a small crack in the screen after I dropped it on a hard floor when it wasn't in its case, also I have a few hairline cracks starting to appear in the case plastics. I'd guess it's not much worse than a laptop screen though.
Battery life - Still happy with mine spend around 2 hours a day reading while I commute and need to charge it around once a month. It's rarely been a problem and when on holiday I usually have either a PC or a micro USB charger. However I don't leave the 3G on.
Random access speeds - Don't jump around enough for this to be an issue.
Color - Not all that bothered to be honest.
However keeping buttons for page turning is an important feature for me. I was wondering how to get the paper white over here in europe but the reviews I've been seeing don't make me want to upgrade.
Without my Kindle, my fortune of being born in the digital age may have prevented me from recognizing the value in buying a printed book. Furthermore, I was able to ebay it for cost (plus shipping!) thereby transforming the invaluable lesson into a gift.
