| Thursday,
February 12, 2009 I'm actually writing this at 2330
Wednesday. I have errands in the morning, but I should be able to get this
up to date at some point. By then the column should be posted at
www.chaosmanorreviews.com .
Yesterday's Wall Street Journal ran an interesting article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123431293649170767.html .
The story does tempt one to the old sentence of Outlawry: "You are no
longer under the protection of the laws. Whatever is done to you is no
crime, and no one may be charged with any crime for doing you harm, taking
your property, or damaging your goods, nor may you seek recompense in the
courts." Free Enterprise and human perversity would see to the rest. No
bounty necessary.
There is
considerable Mail.
===============
Fred Reed bows out.
<http://www.fredoneverything.net/TheEnd.shtml>
-- Roland Dobbins
We will all miss him.
==============
“This is a first, unfortunately.”
<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/12/science/space/12satellite.html>
--- Roland Dobbins
Subject: The Russians were 25 years ahead of us in
the space race!
Doctor Pournelle,
Who knew, the Russians had satellites in the 1930s:
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id
=D969L6DO2&show_article=1&catnum=0
Ryan Brown
Richard C. Hoagland, former science advisor to Walter Cronkite, says this
is a cover story, and the odds are trillions to one against it being true.
He said so on the Coast to Coast radios show last night.
============
The Stimulus Bill continues: no one has read it, few know what is in it,
and it continues like a juggernaut.
============
From the Authors Guild:
On Monday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveiled
Amazon's Kindle 2 e-book reading device at the Morgan Library in New York.
Most of the changes from the first version of the Kindle are incremental
improvements: the new Kindle is lighter and thinner, for example, and
Amazon eliminated the scroll wheel. One update, however, is wholly new:
Amazon has added a "Text to Speech" function that reads the e-book aloud
through the use of special software.
This presents a significant challenge to the
publishing industry. Audiobooks surpassed $1 billion in sales in 2007;
e-book sales are just a small fraction of that. While the audio quality of
the Kindle 2, judging from Amazon's promotional materials, is best
described as serviceable, it's far better than the text-to-speech audio of
just a few years ago. We expect this software to improve rapidly.
We're studying this matter closely and will
report back to you. In the meantime, we recommend that if you haven't yet
granted your e-book rights to backlist or other titles, this isn't the
time to start. If you have a new book contract and are negotiating your
e-book rights, make sure Amazon's use of those rights is part of the
dialog. Publishers certainly could contractually prohibit Amazon from
adding audio functionality to its e-books without authorization, and
Amazon could comply by adding a software tag that would prohibit its
machine from creating an audio version of a book unless Amazon has
acquired the appropriate rights. Until this issue is worked out, Amazon
may be undermining your audio market as it exploits your e-books.
Bundling e-books and audio books has been
discussed for a long time in the industry. It's a good idea, but it
shouldn't be accomplished by fiat by an e-book distributor.<snip>
Given the mechanical nature of the "reading" voice, I cannot think this a
ral danger to audio book sales. Perhaps one day it will be, but even Apple's
"Victoria" and other extremely good computer generated voices based on human
physiology -- Apple certainly led the world in such software the last time I
look at it -- even the best in the world will be wearying after a few pages.
As an aid to the handicapped this is a boon, but those who read for
enjoyment will prefer the actual audio book. I suspect I will lose few audio
book sales to electronic text to speech generators.
================
While we are on that theme:
'We still honestly have no idea what is legal to
sell, but we cannot simply discard a wealth of our culture’s nineteenth
and twentieth children’s literature over this.'
<http://overlawyered.com/2009/02/cpsia-and-vintage-books/>
-- Roland Dobbins
=================
Meanwhile there is news that California Republicans have reached a deal
to reward Democrats by taking California from the highest taxed state in the
nation to an even higher level, adding about a thousand bucks to each
Californian's tax bill. What there won't be is any cut in the salaries and
pensions of our masters, the teachers and state employees. The economy
begins to look like India before recent changes sparked growth. The only
safe job is a government job. I leave the implications of this as an
exercise for the readers.
==============
And there is this:
Subject: Not so toxic assets at bargain prices
Jerry,
The story about toxic asset pricing caught my
attention because of something I heard this morning on CNBC. One of the
guests mentioned that a friend of his had just bought a pool of mortgages.
They were conforming mortgages to borrowers with good FICO scores, and all
were performing loans (current on payments). His price: 14 cents on the
dollar!
Since this sounds like a non-toxic asset, and was
priced so low, I'm not surprised that Treasury is struggling to figure out
how to handle the toxic stuff. I can only conclude that the fear side of
the equation still significantly outweighs the greed side. If that is the
case, I wonder how much good tax cuts would do at this point, e.g., people
are a lot more worried about future losses than they are about taxes on
future profits.
CP, Connecticut
At 14 cents on the dollar, this has to be a very good deal, particularly
with performing mortgages; after all you can afford to let them cut payments
in half and still be above water, assuming the valuations make any sense. If
it's all real, that's a killing. Of course if it is a killing the government
will come take it away as being contrary to the new public policies. I hope
that latter statement is not true, but what I am hearing from Washington
leaves me in confusion.
At the same time, I am no fan of Rosa Brooks, but today's column was
interesting:
http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/
la-oe-brooks12-2009feb12,0,7143520.column
=====================
I do not usually make a practice of including the mail in View, but once
again:
Subj: Saving the Newspapers: why micropayments don't
work - and what might
http://www.freedom-to-tinker.com/blog/dgr/future
-news-were-lucky-they-havent-tried-macropayments
>>People hate [micropayments]. The niggling
feeling of being charged a marginal amount for each little thing you do
exacts a psychological cost that often suffices to undermine the
pleasure of the good or service you receive on an a la carte basis.
That's why monthly gym memberships, pay-one-price amusement parks, and
subscription services like Netflix or, come to think of it, regular
cable are popular, even when a la carte options would be (financially)
cheaper for consumers.<<
So what to do instead? How about ... syndication?
>>If struggling news outlets were really
bold—and grimly realistic about how little they have to lose, from a
business point of view—they might decide to seek revenue at the ISP
level. The plan: Begin segmenting site visitors by ISP, and charge ISPs
for content. Under this plan, if your ISP has paid the news syndicate,
you get to see the news. If you try to visit one of the participating
sites and your ISP has not paid the syndicate, then you see a different
page, possibly a page that urges you to call your ISP and demand access
to the syndicated content.<<
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
The subject is quite important to me, for obvious reasons. I once thought
pay per click was a great idea and championed Millicent, but that never
happened so I built this place on the Public Radio model, and I tend to nag
readers to subscribe whenever I hear KUSC do a fund raising pledge drive. It
seems to work -- not spectacularly well, but it does work. No one has to
pay, which builds readership, and some find it worth supporting, which
brings me an income. (If you haven't figured it out, KUSC is just ending its
Winter 2009 pledge drive...) Incidentally, I agree that I could make it
easier to do a regular subscription, particularly those who aren't PayPal
users, and it's on my list of things to get done.
In any event micropayments didn't work, but Amazon appears to be trying
it again. It's not an experiment that appeals to me. The Public Radio model
has worked well enough, and I'll continue that.
For platinum subscription:
Patron Subscription:
And yet one more item: the end of England?
what is the world coming to?
http://www.reuters.com/article
/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE51B3ZN20090212
Arrested and kept in jail OVERNIGHT!! I used to use
a fence and convenient cypress tree to climb on top of the garage so I
could read in peace. (My younger sisters never figured out how I got up
there.) I had no supervision, no harness, and apparently no overly
interfering neighbors. You'd think that a simple explanation by the bishop
would be sufficient.
R, Rose
Apparently England has become a nanny state. And it can happen here.
==================
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