Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
Friday, January 27, 2006
Sin
Isn't it a bit presumptuous of us to think that by our actions we have an effect on God's temperament? That by sinning we can evoke disappointment or even wrath? This would mean that we hold a power over God, and, therefore, that he is not omnipotent. Again, it seems a bit presumptuous of a fairly insignificant creature such as humans to believe they have power over the God that created the Universe and everything in it.
| Tags || God |
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Ebooks
Recently, Sony came out with an ebook reader to very little fanfare. They seem to be targeting the device to the casual reader, but, because there seems to be no advantage to buying an expensive ebook reader over buying inexpensive paper books, that are just as portable and easy-to-read, this does not seem like a smart course of action. Only a librophile who reads volumes upon volumes would be tempted to buy this device. It would save him money in the long run because, even though the reader would be a costly initial expense, he would save money on the quantity of books he bought. (Theoretically the books would be cheaper; the publishers would be able to pass along the savings from not having to print, bind, and ship along to the consumer.) However, there seems to be another market (besides the librophiles) who would benefit from the Sony Reader: public schools and college students buying textbooks.
Public schools could save large amounts of money on ebooks, even if they had to supply all their students with ebook readers (which is a cost they could feasibly pass on to parents of students). Having to replace worn or outdated books gets expensive. And public schools order literally tons of books, so any small money-saving endeavor could save a school thousands over the course of a few years. School districts could save millions in the course of ten years.
College students could also greatly benefit from this device, if coupled with certain services. I've spent hundreds of dollars on textbooks from which I only read a few chapters. Many professors have little regard for how much textbooks cost, and instead focus on the information they provide. So, they end up mixing and matching several chapters from a textbook here and a couple essays from a textbook there to construct their lesson plan for the semester. So, I might end up spending $50 on a textbook that I only read a fifth of. If given the chance, I would rather only pay a fifth of the money for the fifth that book that contains the particular information the professor wants me to read for the class. Hell, I'd probably even pay more than that, just so I don't have to buy the whole book and waste money. This is something that ebooks could do.
Sony (or a textbook publishing house, or anybody else for that matter) could set up an iTunesesque service that would allow a user to download content from textbooks. The beauty is that this service could not only sell books as a whole (as in buying a whole CD from iTunes), but they could sell the book in chapters as well (like buying one song from an album). Of course, just like iTunes, the added-up cost of buying all the chapters of a book individually could equal more that just buying the book itself, so if a person did want the whole thing, they could get it at a cheaper price. But the individual chapter prices would be inflated, and people would still be willing to pay because it's cheaper for them in the long-run.
The only problem that I could see with this is that university bookstores would have a hissyfit because they wouldn't be able to buy back students' used books and then sell them back to them at inflated prices. But who cares; fuck the bookstores. They've been ripping off poor college kids like me for decades. I could care less.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Dad Lost in Space
What was that show I used to watch? It was the one about the girl whose father was an astronaut lost in space. Somehow the girl had come to posses a glowing orb, a plastic ball with flashing lights inside, through which her father spoke to her. And listened. For some reason, no one was supposed to know that her father was still alive. So, his daughter was the only person the astronaut dad would talk to.
He never complained of running out of oxygen in the deep of space or the unbearable loneliness of some strange alien planet. He talked to his daughter, gave her advice, and listened to her problems. It was a ridiculous premise, of course. Who would ever want to have their father stripped of all his earthly, physical trappings and encased in a ball sitting by their bedside to converse and console only them?
Ridiculous. This was, of course, back when I was a young boy, before my own father was lost in space. I never found a glowing orb, or a way to communicate with him.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Monday, January 09, 2006
Saturday, January 07, 2006
Friday, January 06, 2006
Googleverse
If Robert X. Cringley's predictions are correct, Google may be poised to revolutionized the television advertising industry (and possibly take over the universe).
Cringley stops with Google used to give individually tailored advertising to tv watchers / consumers. But why stop there? Suppose that Google notices that you've been searching for "Three's Company" or "John Ritter and Joyce Dewitt". Instead of playing an infomercial or the local news, they could substitute in an episode of that zany seventies classic.
Or suppose that Google could actually receive data about the shows you're watching (via Nielsen Ratings technology), then they wouldn't just have to use data from searches you've made. They could collect information on the shows you watch consistently, the shows you catch every now-and-then, which episodes of a series you've watched (and missed), the channels you stay on, the channels you flip by, and the channels that you don't watch at all. Then, whenever you complain about there being "nothing good on tv," you could switch to a Google channel (a la Google Video) and watch reruns of your favorite shows, catch up on episodes you've missed, or watch similarly themed shows or shows with the same actors / writers / producers.
Of course all of this is a trip through my imagination and based soley on speculation. Most of it would be probably much harder and costly to execute than I think. But all of it is possible, if not plausible.
| Tags || Google | television |