Ketherian's Notebook

Cory Doctorow: Free(konomic) E-books from Locus Magazine, September 2007

I've long had the opinion that offering something for free does not decrease the number of sales, but does increase the number of people who will read your product. It is the best kind of advertizing. I am one of the very quirky ones who will read long passages of text on a computer screen without being (too) distracted by other tasks (...ooh shiny!). Still, it seems that very few publishers are willing to change to this new marketing model (one where their product is their marketing copy and their money-maker). Granted it is a new idea, and it does not guarantee any increase of sales for the current item. If the item isn't popular (good, interesting, place descriptor here) having it available for free won't increase it's popularity nor will it increase the sales of the item.

Publishers have long been bastions of culture and education; and now the market is changing. It is a sad fact that large entrenched media marketers  see change as a bad thing. Perhaps this is, only time will tell; regardless though, the publishers that don't change to promote this new idea may  quickly find themselves with fewer sales because of it.

And I'm not just saying this because I want a Sony reader. 

Slashdot pointed out this pair of essays. I'm a SF fan myself, and I find myself agreeing with Charlie Stross's essay. (The summary for those who don't want to read it - is that, currently, space colonization is neither feasable nor possible, nor is it even realistic. To do it at all - travel (and the means to safely communicate as well as send live cargo) would have to be unbelievably cheap.)

Treasure tables pointed me to a great article on ars lundi Plot vs Premise: Running Crime Games. It's pretty short, but I liked the article enough to add it to my bloglines. There was a great article on this topic from a while back; but now all I can find is this great book on the SJG site. Which isn't such a bad idea.

If you're like me (and already collecting background images from NASA,
National Geographic and Wikipedia's picture of the day) here's 17 more that might interst you from Wired. Steam-driven Dreams: The wonderously whimsical workld of Steampunk.

And here's three more good ones from Boing Boing today:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/125711439/what_steampunk_means.html
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/125713460/good_copy_bad_copy_s.html
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/125823586/john_heilemann_in_ny.html

Yeah, I can see myself getting a lot done tonight. ;)

Surprise soda. At last - they're making a soda that will always suit my mood!

Sausage and Apple Pancakes. A great breakfast for Dad!

The RSS subtitle for this article says it all: Everyone agrees that something needs to be done about Manhattan traffic, but nobody wants to have to pay for it.

A secret peak inside the new bay bridge is provided (by way of Boing Boing) by Telsar logistics on their site. The pictures are amazing.

And speaking of pictures...
The maps from the Voages Extraordinaires is a site with the scans of the maps that were included in the original editions of Jules Verne's novels. Amazing stuff. Thanks Boing Boing.

Writing tools.
The french company Hamelin (oxford) is making digital notebooks and agendas. Write in the notebook with a special pen and synch it to your computer.(thanks diyplanner.com)

Heat Transfer and Cooking by Burr Zimmerman. A fascinating article on the chemistry of cooking.

Recipes
Rougaille beef A great use of leftover meat (yes, at our house we do, occasionally, have leftover meat).
Stuffed Mushrooms (top 3 recipes)

• bacon, garlic, oregano, and cheese
• Garlic, and ricotta
• Crab , onions, horseradish, worcestershire and cream cheese

Turkey curry on Flatbread.

Slashdotted

• A new global memory card standard - called the Multiple Interface Card (miCard)
• In the over-hyped category, Slashdot reports that the iPhone release date is June 29. Sheesh. With all the commercials we've seen on this you'd think it was out all readly. For the tech-savvy, check out Wherefore Art Though iPhone SDK?

I'm playing catchup today... here's the links from the past few days.

Writing
I Don't know what to write... (from diyplanner.com)

http://www.creativity-portal.com/prompts/imagination.prompt.html
http://sundayscribblings.blogspot.com/
http://community.livejournal.com/embodiment/tag/seven+for+seven
And of course:
http://www.rtqe.net/ObliqueStrategies/Acquire.html#download

Technology
The surface story continues: (from slashdot, and Ars Technica).

Roleplaying.
Rumor-mongering continues about the release of 4E..

To be read:
I-Spy. A master class in online shopping (lifehacker source)
Steam Punk Magazine #2
The NYTimes (May 31) has an article titled Comedy Business Turns to the Web (by Laura M Holson) which features a link to the FunnyOrDie.com website where "the Landlord" was initially posted. Interesting article. Apparently there's a sequel to the Landlord - Good Cop, Baby Cop. Don't know if it's up yet.

To be downloaded:
Allocate your money in envelopes. (lifehacker source)

To be done:
How to: Maintain threaded view in Thunderbird (lifehacker source)
Worldwide Adventure Writing Month Begins Now! (treasure tables)

Recipes
Casserole of Beef in red wine. While it's not the season for slow-braised dishes, this one is guaranteed to please.
Minced beef cobbler. Sheppard's pie has a thousand possible variations. Here then is one more.

Worth listening to (does that make it listen-worthy?)

• The Open Culture sight article from way back (February 8th) links to sources to listen to Orson Well's famous recording of War of the worlds. Well with listening to. While Open culture isn't really a podcast - I've subscribed to its RSS feed in Bloglines under that heading. The blog is all about the podcasts that the Open culture site finds and links to. They are a library, of sorts, that regularly updates their catalog.
• Open source sex. No I've not listened to it yet, but the blurbs seem interesting, and with that title -- well, I'll be saving this one for after dinner.
• Heroes has its own podcast. Go figure. It seems to be episode specific and features the voices of the cast members as well as citing stuff from the forum and the blogs. This is one TV show that is totally wired to the web. (Ug. That was a bit of social jargon I didn't need to see myself write.)
• The Jazz Vinyl Podcast. Old vinyl records played as a podcast. Good quality MP3s the website lists the tracks and other "liner notes". There's an associated blog available too. http:\\jazzvinyl.blogspot.com, I'm definitely subscribing to this one as I love old Jazz!
• 60 minutes has a podcast (who knew)? At least now I know where to go if I miss a report. http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/60minutes/main3415.shtml has all their up to date articles (available to be read, exported or watched). and http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/06/utility/main706903.shtml seems to be the general list of RSS feeds for the podcasts, downloading, iTunes or checking the archive (the first link).

As an aside - I'm subscribed the del.icio.us link rss feed for "podcasts". Each times Bloglines updates there's a good 50 of them showing up. This is more links than RPGS (which averages at about 25 an update)!

Roleplaying

• D&D Counters. A great collection of free images to print & use at your game. Got it from my rss of RPG links and added it to my own bookmarks.

In the humorous yet painful category:

• Boing Boing today pointed out LOLCODE - LOLCats meets programming. And I quote: "programming using the strange, ungrammatical argot of the LOLCats mem." I'll spare the programmers who read this site the example. But check out the link if you're perversely curious.
• Global nerdy posted a fascinating comparison entitled "Cyberwar ain't what it use to be". It compares terms from Cyberpunk stores to "similar" real world scenarios. It makes for interesting reading. With a name like Global Nerdy you know it's so going on my bloglines daily tally for a while. If anyone reminds me (in a week or so) I'll even review it.

Thus ends the links of the day

Yesterday at work a co-worker told me the following little story:

At an interview she was asked if she was an expert with Adobe FrameMaker. She said no. She'd used the product for 3 years, but didn't consider herself an expert. When asked to explain - she said she worked with someone who was an expert. If the interviewers met this person, they wouldn't consider themselves to be "experts" either.

That other person was me.
And I've been using Adobe FrameMaker for 10 years now.

The story made me feel pretty good as I rarely consider myself to be an expert in anything. My SO told me to work it. If I'm an expert, I should make my knowledge work for me somehow. I feel inspired to write, but am now searching for a topic. FrameMaker is a fairly esoteric product that I learned for work.

I'm weird (yes, the folks that know me already know that) in that I read manuals. Cover to cover - often before playing with the product to which they pertain. Ages ago O'Reilly began a series called "The Missing Manual". They'd write the standard user guide they thought the product lacked. I'm tempted to write something similar, but there's already a couple on the market written by people certified with the product.

This one is going to take some thought.