What's the Matter With Kids (and Gadgets) Today?

I'm never sure if the themes I find in my reading come to me from the outside world, or if my subliminal, half-formed thoughts cherry-pick articles and ideas. Whoever is responsible for it, I've been finding some interesting articles about gadgets, the Internet, and the way people use them and are, perhaps, used by them.

Last week I was intrigued by Book review: You Are Not a Gadget, by Jaron Lanier. The reviewer and the author whose book is reviewed are both fascinating. From the review:

....He discusses how pack-like attacks arise on the Web wherever there is an opportunity for "consequence-free, transient anonymity." The topic hardly matters: "Jihadi chat looks just like poodle chat."

He describes the sad, stressful lives of young people who "must manage their online reputations constantly." He makes the point that the free use of everything on the Web leads to endless mashups, except for the one thing legally protected from being mashed-up: ads, making advertising the one thing on the Internet that can be "owned."

....The preface says he is grateful for the "real human eyes" that will pass over the following pages, and for the "tiny minority" of humanity that still reads books. Yes, Jaron, we are still here. We few, we happy few.

Jaron Lanier's slim volume intrigues me, with chapter titles like The Noosphere Is Just Another Name For Everyone's Inner Troll, but much of what's in his new book he has already discussed in a long essay, One-Half of a Manifesto. Those of us on a budget may read it there for free. This "read it for free" aspect is of concern to him, not in terms of lost revenue, but in the way blogs and rss feeds can make everything appear to be "one book," by quoting without attribution. Nothing I read by choice does that, and I never do that intentionally, because I love footnotes, hyperlinks, and all scholarly reference techniques. However, I do monitor a Pocahontas County website where this is the norm. It's tangentially related to my job, and it offers an education in all types of bad Internet behavior, including plenty of anonymous trolls.

While Lanier's You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto book looks interesting, so does the Washington Post's reviewer, Ellen Ullman, a former software engineer...the author of "Close to the Machine" and "The Bug: A Novel." Maybe it was her wry "Yes, Jaron, we are still here" that got me, but I wanted to know more about her.

She has eleven essays archived at Salon.com, and a number of on-line interviews, including What's Bugging Ellen Ullman? A conversation with the author of "Close to the Machine," and "The Bug: A Novel", where she suggests some things computer science students might want to learn:

...I think if you could somehow teach students to understand that Linux or Windows or Java or C++ are just current implementations of old ideas, and to understand that what's new has roots in long-standing ideas that have gone through permutations. Computing is not a brand-new profession. It's a generation or two old by now. It has a history. I really would have people understand the history of computing much better. I mean a detailed survey of the different operating environments as they came and went over time, what they were good at, and what they were not good at. These ideas are getting lost.

The Red Tape Chronicles is also fretting this month about Internet users and their gadgets, in Why so much FAIL in the digital world?

There are many valid defenses for technology. It's just a tool, of course -- the Internet doesn't kill brains, people kill brains. Obviously, a tool that allows people to find virtually any fact ever known within a few seconds can help make people a lot smarter.

Even [Michelle] Weil, the Technostress author, is quick to say that technology is not the problem: "The problem is the way people use technology, and the expectations they have for it," she said.

People have come to depend too much on gadgets, and fail to plan for the logical possibility that they will occasionally break down....Meanwhile, too much alcohol, too much chocolate cake, too much exercise--all these things can be bad for people, just like too much digital exposure....All those bad habits existed before the Web and continue to exist in spite of the Web. It's fair to ask, then, where the fault lies for "The Dumbest Generation" -- with overexposure to digital media, or with adults who don't force the kids to turn off the laptops and listen once in a while.

The book Red Tape cutter Bob Sullivan mentions, The Dumbest Generation, by Mark Bauerlein, asks the novel question, "What's the matter with kids today?" The answer is MySpace and Facebook.

According to recent reports from government agencies, foundations, survey firms, and scholarly institutions, most young people in the United States neither read literature (or fully know how), work reliably (just ask employers), visit cultural institutions (of any sort), nor vote (most can't even understand a simple ballot). They cannot explain basic scientific methods, recount foundations of American history, or name any of their local political representatives. What do they happen to excel at is--each other. They spend unbelievable amounts of time electronically passing stories, pictures, tunes, and texts back and forth, savoring the thrill of peer attention and dwelling in a world of puerile banter and coarse images.

Anyone who thinks this is mere intergenerational grousing, the time-worn tradition of an older generation wagging its finger at a younger one, should think again....

I recently taught for a semester in a local middle school, and I met many kids who had all these vices and deficiencies. I've also met adults of my generation who fit the description. Wouldn't it be wonderful if no one were ever lazy, and everyone availed themselves of all the opportunities life presented them? I certainly don't have the answers--I have my own laziness to wrestle. If you're interested, The Dumbest Generation Web presence has articles, reviews, and links to Mark Bauerlein's other books, as well as videos, presumably for those who don't read easily.

Instructional Videos For the Very Impatient

I have a prejudice against instructional videos, partly because when I want to know something, I want to know it right away, and on my terms. For me, it's more satisfying and quicker to flip through a book than to fast-forward through a DVD or videotape. Likewise, on the Internet, I can read faster than video can download and play, at least on my connection and hardware. Don't even get me started on Drupal how-to's--so many of them are video-only, when searchable text would be so much more useful.

However, some things are best demonstrated, not explained. There are amazing free music lesson videos on Youtube, and I've seen some really helpful animations of chemistry concepts. In the interest of being more open-minded, I clicked on the knitting video above, found at Crazy for Cast-Ons, Part 2, which is the follow-up to Crazy for Cast-Ons (Part 1): The Old Norwegian and Some "Tail Tips."

For me, this is a really great video--"Helpful Knitting Tips from Knitting Expert Eunny Jang," on a series called "Knitting Daily TV." It moves quickly, so I don't get impatient, and it's well-produced, so you can see what her hands are doing. I've tried lots of cast-on methods, although I usually revert to the first one I learned, which is, well, idiosyncratic. I do, however, often want a provisional cast-on, so that I can start knitting "in the middle" of a project, and I'm not entirely satisfied with the methods I've been using. I'm excited to try all of these provisional cast-ons.

My Crochet Potholder Inheritance

The deep snow has deep-sixed sorting and moving stuff from the old house, but while the weather was still conducive to line-drying, I sorted and washed a collection of linens from my grandmother's house. My mom had put them away in a closet in 1964, and I moved them from my mom's house in 1996, and hadn't unboxed them since.

Quite a few things are badly stained, either through use or poor storage, but I found these inspiring crocheted potholders in almost-new condition. I remember the green and white ones (or potholders like them) from my grandma's kitchen.

These potholders and the dozens of doilies and pillowcase edgings are probably what triggered my recent crochet-jones. By the way, these potholders are the work of my post-card collecting grandma, Florence Williamson Hunt.

Introducing the Book!

If I had to guess which single-author blog I follow would have the most entertaining discussion of Apple's iPad, Winken de Worde: books, early modern culture, post-modern reading would not have been my first suggestion. Yet her Quick iPad Roundup was a delight, and also pointed me to Introducing the iCodex.

With the iCodex, people can now store multiple items in one, easy-to-use package. A user could, for example, enjoy both cooking recipes and psalms, or mappa mundi and instructions on marital relations. Since the iCodex's pages are bound together in an easy-to-turn format, things stored at the end of an iCodex are as easy to access as the beginning.

She includes a link to this medieval help-desk skit is in Norwegian, with English subtitles.

It must be an interesting time to be a researcher in early books, what with Early Modern Mash-Ups and the most influential book history tools of the decade.

To My Valentine, 1909

Feb. 13, 6 PM, 1909. To Miss Florence Williamson, Prescott, Iowa: "Dear Florence, I rec'd your pretty card was glad to hear that you were having such a good time. I am putting in my time in the same old way. Lovingly, Susie"

DRM, Price Points, Licenses, and Copyright

This collection of copyright-related articles concerns Digital Rights Management (DRM). Personally, I won't buy DRM-protected books, music, or movies, especially if the DRM interferes with my ability to protect the content I've purchased by periodically backing it up to another device. DRM kept me from using the iTunes store, although I have a Mac mini and I like the iTunes software--I ripped all my traditional instrumental CD's to my Mac, and now I have my musical library in a searchable, cross-referenced format. (I can find all six versions of "The Blackbird" set dance, and play them consecutively to compare styles.)

I'm even less likely to buy DRM-protected books, given the variety of DRM's and incompatible formats in the marketplace. Plus, the eBook price point doesn't make sense to me. Why should I pay as much for a DRM'ed data file as a new print book? If I'm patient, I can find a used hardcover for less than half the price of an eBook I can only read on an approved device.

Making books available electronically has such marvelous potential to connect people to knowledge and ideas--it's sad that the endeavor is thoroughly bogged down in the intellectual property quagmire.

• How to Destroy the Book, by Cory Doctorow. (Dec 14, 2009)

  The anti-copyright activists have no respect for our copyright and our books. They say that when you buy an ebook or an audiobook that's delivered digitally, you are demoted from an owner to a licensor. From a reader to a mere user. These thieves deliver our digital books and our audiobooks wrapped in license agreements and technologies that might as well be designed to destroy the emotional connection that readers have with their books.

• Some Kindle books have secret caps on the number of times you can download them.

  It turns out that there's an undocumented restriction on Kindle books -- if you download them "too many" (where "too many" is a secret number) times to your Kindle or iPhone or whatever, you run out of downloads and can't get copies anymore.

• Kindle's DRM Rears Its Ugly Head...And It IS Ugly. A Kindle user discovers the how many downloads is too many for his book collection.
• Amazon vs. Apple: What Should E-Book Prices Be?:

  The iPad is exciting not as a way to sell or read books as they currently exist but as a tool for reinventing them as multimedia. The book angle also helps generate good press, since journalists are desperate for any evidence that writing will pay in the future. Apple doesn't need to maximize book sales. It simply needs to keep publishers happy enough to maintain an impressive sounding inventory of titles while waiting for entirely new forms of publishing to develop. After all, as Steve Jobs famously put it, "people don't read anymore."

• The Amazon-Macmillan book saga heralds publishing's progress

  It will still be years before e-book technology matures and a sustainable business model emerges for the publishing industry. In the meantime, you'll hear lots of moaning and groaning about how the quality of writing and editing will decline, browsing for books will become a lost art, authors and their agents will be forced into poverty, and consumers will get hosed. Don't believe any of it for a minute.

  While markets have their flaws, over the long run they are good at executing these technological transformations. My guess is that in the not-so-distant future, best-selling authors such as John Grisham and Malcolm Gladwell -- along with unknown authors peddling their first books -- will publish their own works, contracting with independent editors and marketers and selling directly to consumers as much as possible. Other authors will turn to smaller, more specialized publishing houses that will offer smaller advances but bigger royalties and will be built, as they once were, around great editors....

  ...But at the end of the process, there will be fewer people who will be paid higher incomes to produce a wider array of products at lower prices. There's a word for that -- progress -- and it's exciting to see it unfold right in front of us.

• Kindle, iPad, MacMillan, and the Death of a Business Model:

  What Apple and MacMillan and the others are doing is trying to preserve their existing business model by forcing the price of e-books to be high enough to not cut too badly into the physical book market. What Bezos and Amazon are doing is trying to cut the price of e-books to encourage adoption.

  Who is going to win? Bet on Bezos. The mainstream publishers can hold on for a while, based on reputation and while e-readers aren't widely available; there's still some prestige to being published by a reputable publisher like MacMillan. But eventually, some publisher will realize that a book that would have sold for $29.95 in a physical edition can be sold for the cost of the royalty, plus a small markup for production and administration. Our $29.95 novel would sell instead for $3.95. When that happens, except for coffee table books and an occasional print-on-demand hard copy, the physical book is dead.

  This weekend kerfuffle is really the death throes of a business model--traditional book publishers trying to preserve their traditional publishing methods for a little longer.

Wringing More Cash From Holmes and Watson

I'm still reading copyright issues articles, and the collection keeps on growing. You could call this set "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Public Domain." If you shop for ereaders and ebooks, you'll find that they offer a few free books from the public domain, so that you can test out file formats, your download process, your software or your hardware. Every vendor and every website I've visited has included at least one of A. Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories or books. The on-line community seems to see Sherlock Holmes literature as an archetypal public domain offering. That's why I was surprised to learn that intellectual property rights turmoil still surrounds the Great Detective. See these articles:

• Elementary My Dear Watson....It's Called The Public Domain... Or Is It? From Tech Dirt, prompted by the release of the latest Sherlock Holmes movie.
• For the Heirs to Holmes, a Tangled Web. The New York Times summarizes the issues.
• NY Times Takes Up The Case Of Sherlock Holmes And The Lost Public Domain... But Gets It Wrong. Tech Dirt takes issue with the Grey Lady's explanation.

If people can be paid for their work, that's great. If their families benefit from their work, I'm for that. When descendants who never laid eyes on the artist keep work from the public domain, I'm less sympathetic, and when corporations do the grabbing, my sympathy runs dry.

Wobbly Pot Holders--Pleasures of a New Skill

After moving to the new house this past fall, I noticed my entire collection of potholders was pretty shabby. (I still have them--my Mom and I made them together, and I just can't seem to toss them....) However, Golden Apples has posted dozens of double knitting projects, including some truly inspiring double-knit cotton yarn potholders. I've been meaning to master double knitting, and in November, I hauled out some left-over cotton-wool blend yarn that I thought would have good insulating properties, and I turned to the Golden Apples' double knitting tutorial index to get going.

The directions were great, but the yarn was uncooperative. It had a history of unsatisfactory results, as the cardigans I made from it had all the droopy bagginess of cotton, coupled with wool's unfortunate tendency to pill. After a few false starts, I began to think of the true purpose of potholders--to give the novice fiber artist a vaguely useful first project. I thought of all the wobbly potholders knitted by little girls out of Grandma's yarn leftovers, and I realized I needed to be a novice at something once more.

I needed to crochet these potholders. My Great Aunt Cora taught me to crochet when I was 8, and in 1987, in a fit of February depression, I bought Maggie Righetti's Crocheting in Plain English and holed up in my Tacky Park garret until I'd used up all my leftover yarn on a cute hexagon motif afghan. (Easier on the liver than a drinking binge, and I used the afghan for years.) However, I had secret skill deficits--I couldn't crochet a plain square piece of fabric. I could crochet dandy button bands onto a knitted cardigan, and I could make motifs that started at the center, but I was helpless when a foundation chain was called for. What's more, my flat rectangles gained or lost stitches at the ends of rows, and I had no idea how it happened.

Clearly, I needed to take this obnoxious yarn and crochet square, flat potholders. I tried plain and fancy stitches, but I finally settled on single crochet, worked into the "back loop" only, which gives these cute little ridges, yet seems firm and thick enough to make a good potholder. With all the stitch testing, false starts, and lost stitches (Where did they go?) I began to wear out the yarn, so I just went ahead and finished the "rectangle," flawed though it was. Then I crocheted another rectangle, much like the first, perhaps a little less wobbly at the edges. I crocheted them together around the borders, which concealed some of the lost or gained stitches, and added a little shell border, which definitely looks better made in crochet thread than in this bulky pink yarn.

The next project will look better. I'm beginning to understand where to put the crochet hook at the beginnings and ends of rows. My place mats have the same number of stitches on every row, and their sides are almost parallel. It's really fun to explore something new. I love wobbly pot holders!

Snowflakes--"Gem Bestrewn Realm"

In all the years I worked in science, microscopy was my very favorite thing, so I was excited to find this timely video on a collection of early photomicrographs: Winter Forecast: Art to Blanket Region.

When it comes to photography, a Wilson Bentley image can be described much like his favorite subject, the snowflake: Each is one of a kind. After all, the Vermont farmer was the first to ever photograph one....At the age of 19, "Snowflake" Bentley jury-rigged a microscope to a bulky bellows camera and took the first-ever photograph of a snowflake....Bentley saw his microphotographs as more than scientific contribution. In a 1910 article published in the journal Technical World, he wrote, "Here is a gem bestrewn realm of nature possessing the charm of mystery, of the unknown, sure richly to reward the investigator."

I don't know what the kids are calling them these days, but when I was a member of the American Microscopical Society, we called them "photomicrographs," not "microphotographs." I found this wonderful article via /.

My Linux Desktop--Compositing or Composting?

Whenever I figure out how to do something with Linux, or with other open source software I use, like the Gimp or Drupal, I write out what I did and post it here so I'll be able to find it when I (inevitably) have the same problem again. I have assumed that most blog readers skip these posts, so I was really surprised this week when I got a lovely email from a homesick West Virginian Linux expert in the Greater Washington Metropolitan Area. Hi, Andy and Tricia! If you're dreaming about a drive through Pocahontas County today, you'd better have really good imaginary snow tires!

By the way, I'm still fiddling with my computer. I've had Kubuntu 9.10 installed for almost a week now, and it solves the problems I was having with Lenny--mostly, incompatibility with new software I wanted to try--Calibre, Miro, Openoffice 3.x, and the latest greatest Web browsers.

Of course, whenever you try to change something in Linux-land, something else you didn't expect starts to cause problems. (Perhaps I should say "presents challenges." Doesn't sound so whine-y.) Some of this I chalked up to changes in the 4.3.5 version of the KDE desktop. However, as I poked around with the settings, I began to suspect that "something wasn't quite right." The "System Settings Desktop" menu informed me that "Compositing has been disabled." Once I realized it wasn't talking about mulch, I had to learn about Compositing Window Managers. Now, for the most part, desk-top compositing is eye-candy, and I can do very well without it. However, I needed to know "why" is was disabled, and couldn't be enabled. I also had some issues with embedded videos crashing something somewhere. Restarting Firefox usually fixed it, but a couple of times it took a reboot.

I found these two forum threads helpful:

• Kubuntu Way Slower than Slackware-current on Pentium 4 Laptop
• Desktop Effects - help!

These discussions made me think I had incompatibility between my video chip set, whatever driver the Kubuntu installer had picked out for me, and, perhaps, Xorg. Poking around in the "System Applications Menu," for information, I opened the "Hardware Drivers" program, which told me that there was a proprietary driver, "ATI/AMD proprietary Driver FGLRX graphics driver" that might work better than the open source version already in use. I installed it, restarted the computer (as directed), and looked with horror at a badly messed up display. I was able to shutdown -r now, and the second restart cleared up all the problems. I'm playing with the eye-candy settings now, and I haven't yet been able to make Firefox and Miro crash by playing formerly problematic embedded videos.

The lack of the right video card driver for this computer may well have been the root of my Debian Lenny problems, too.

Knitting Again, With Yarns from the Reagan Administration

2008 and 2009 were years of limited fiber fun for me. Building the new house and working several part-time jobs caused a time squeeze and cut into my blogging energy as well. I'm sure anyone who ever read my blog for knitting trivia has long since given up on me. But no matter how involved I get in other things, eventually I always get back into the textile game.

I had assembled a collection of yarn scraps to make these scrappy socks several years ago. This winter, when I was organizing my new closets, the bag turned up, and I remembered the color motif I'd intended for the socks. It seemed like the perfect project to restart my fiber mojo, especially because, in our nice new house, it is possible, even pleasurable, to pad around the floor in a pair of bulky socks.

These socks are made from crunchy, faux-homespun "hippy-girl" worsted weight wools, left over from other projects or bought from yarn-store sale bins during the Reagan administration. (Those were rough years for the hippy-girl market, and I took advantage of that.)

By the end of the Reagan administration, the shiny novelty yarns were also hitting the sale bins, and that's when I acquired this slubby, slippery rayon yarn. I've tried for years to find something useful to do with these rayons, but they are really impractical, and they look busy and unattractive in texture stitches or lace knitting. I knitted this pink rayon into a garter stitch scarf a couple of weeks ago.

Books, E-Books, and Theft--Very Confusing

My collection of articles on copyright issues, the public domain, open source materials, and digital rights management (DRM) continues to spill over here from my work Website. Here are some discussions of "digital book piracy," as opposed to the offline pirates at the library.

Sherman Alexie has been very vocal about electronic formats for books, but I'm not sure I understand his position. Clearly, he wants to retain ownership of his works, because he derives a decent living from their sale. I can't object to that. We all want to live, and we all would prefer meaningful work. But that's a copyright issue--ebooks are subject to the same copyright laws as print books. He doesn't want his books available in digital format, but several of them are available--his publisher made that decision, just as the publisher chose cover art, fonts, formats, and all the other production details. Is he unhappy with his publisher? Maybe so--many authors are.

On the one hand, he's worried that ereaders and ebooks are "elitist," too expensive for poor kids like the one he used to be. On the other hand, he's worried about book stores being driven out of business, and book stores were too expensive for the kid I used to be (and the old lady I am now--I seldom buy a new book, and the copyrighted ebooks are too expensive for me to consider. I'm a loyal customer of Project Gutenberg.).

I don't even understand his testimonial about print books: " And all of my senses-sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste--come into play when I think and read about books. Books are tactile and eccentric..." I've always been a scrounger of odd books at the back of the library, or at the estate sale, or the used book store, and the books I've enjoyed the most have not always been a delight for the senses of smell and taste. My EZReader's copies of Dickens smell much better than the print copies, and they are easier to read, as I can control the page contrast and the font size and shape. Maybe Mr. Alexie will think differently when he reaches that age where all the typefaces get so small.

Most of the intellectual property I have produced belongs to the universities, the government, or the research institutes who payed me a salary while I produced it. This is probably why I like the Open Source ideas and products so much, and feel that the Internet should be more like a free library than like a cable TV channel. And whether it's in print or in electronic form, it's always possible to Steal This Book. (Google Books will let you read the first 45 pages for free, but if you want to read the rest, you'll have to buy it from one of the vendors they list. Ironic, no?)

Here are some discussions of book piracy, ebooks, and a bit about digital rights management:

• A post from the MobileRead forum: Author Sherman Alexie Wants to Punch You in the Face:

  At a panel of authors speaking mainly to independent booksellers, Sherman Alexie, the National Book Award-winning author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, said he refused to allow his novels to be made available in digital form. He called the expensive reading devices "elitist" and declared that when he saw a woman sitting on the plane with a Kindle on his flight to New York, "I wanted to hit her."

  ....[W]hen given a chance to correct himself on his own blog, the only thing he apologizes for is the idea of hitting a woman; "I should have edited myself. I should have said, "I saw a man on the airplane reading a Kindle and I wanted to hit him." In this way, my joke becomes about my true object of fear, distrust, and anger---the Kindle---and not about the gender of the person reading the Kindle."

• Later, Sherman Alexie Clarifies "Elitist" Charges:

  People are eager to portray me as being anti-technology, but that's not the case at all. I think the iPod is as vital as the fork and wheel. So I'm not even sure why I have this strange, subterranean fear and loathing of the Kindle and its kind....I rose out of poverty and incredible social dysfunction because of books. And all of my senses-sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste--come into play when I think and read about books. Books are tactile and eccentric. An eBook will always be a gorgeous but anonymous box. It will also be just a tool--perhaps an amazing and useful tool--but I don't want it to replace the book. And I'm worried that many people don't care about the book itself, and see the eBook as a replacement. And I'm worried that Amazon and other eBook distributors will completely replace bookstores....face-to-face interaction will become more and more rare. Sure, the Internet can launch careers, but there is a loss of intimacy that should be acknowledged and mourned.

• And later still: Digital piracy hits the e-book industry:

  "I'd be really worried if I were Stephen King or James Patterson or a really big bestseller that when their books become completely digitized, how easy it's going to be to pirate them," said novelist and poet Sherman Alexie on Stephen Colbert's show last month.

  "With the open-source culture on the Internet, the idea of ownership -- of artistic ownership -- goes away," Alexie added. "It terrifies me."

  ....However, some evidence suggests that authors' and publishers' claims of damage from illegal piracy may be overstated. Recent statistics have shown that consumers who purchase an e-reader buy more books than those who stick with traditional bound volumes. Amazon reports that Kindle owners buy, on average, 3.1 times as many books on the site as other customers.

  Ana Maria Allessi, publisher for Harper Media at HarperCollins, told CNN, "we have to be vigilant in our punishment ... but much more attractive is to simply make the technology better, legally." E-book technology offers so many positives for both the author and the consumer that any revenue lost to piracy may just be a necessary evil, she said. "Consumers who invest in one of these dedicated e-book readers tend to load it up and read more," said Allessi. "And what's wrong with that?"

• E-Book Piracy: The Publishing Industry's Next Epic Saga?

  While publishing e-books protected by DRM seems like a no-brainer solution to piracy, the idea has faced criticism from within the publishing industry and from consumers. First, publishers are weary of reports that the DRM technology used in the Kindle and the Sony Reader has been hacked, says Nick Bogaty, an expert in DRM technology for Adobe. Second, consumers are hesitant to buy digital books with inflexible DRM that ties an e-book to a limited number of e-readers.

  Critics say that the two providers of DRM-protected e-books, Amazon and Adobe, are stunting the e-book industry's progress. For instance, Amazon's Kindle uses its own DRM-restricted AZW e-book format. People who purchase an e-book on their Kindle cannot transfer it for reading on another, competing e-book reader from a different company.

  DRM issues get thornier when device makers, such as Amazon, start negotiating exclusive e-publishing rights for their product. Amazon signed a deal with best-selling business writer Stephen R. Covey to publish several of his books, including The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and Principle-Centered Leadership, exclusively for the Kindle. The company has also negotiated exclusive rights for Kindle e-books from author Stephen King and for a biography of First Lady Michelle Obama.

  The idea of exclusive e-book rights tied to devices seems as annoying as being allowed to play a particular new CD only on a certain company's CD players. But Ian Fried, the vice president of Amazon Kindle, has stated that Kindle consumers don't mind its DRM. That could change, however, as a predicted flood of new, rival e-readers hit the market in 2010, and Kindle owners think about jumping ship--only to discover that they can't take their e-books with them. Remember the backlash against DRM-protected content in Apple's iTunes store?

  Bogaty points out that Adobe, whose DRM technology is used by Sony and Barnes & Noble, is yielding to critics who say that its antipiracy technology is too restrictive. Adobe is loosening the grip of its DRM, allowing users to share e-books with friends and to read books on up to 12 different devices (6 desktop and 6 handheld).

Linux Woes--Lenny to Kubuntu in 48 Hours

Almost a year ago, I bragged about how smoothly the upgrade from Debian Etch (old stable) to Lenny (new stable) went. Only a few weeks later, the motherboard and hard drive went up in smoke. Because I grew up steeped in the works of the Brothers Grimm, I knew I had somehow caused this by being cocky. (cf. "Rumpelstiltskin;" "The Brave Little Tailor")

A sadder but wiser girl, I replaced the computer and installed Lenny (stable) from a netinstall CD image (via Debian.org) and everything went smoothly, with one exception. When I used the "ctrl-alt-F1" action to switch between tty consoles, all I got was a blank screen with a floating message from my monitor that the settings were not optimal. "ctrl-alt-F7" sent me back to the console running Xorg, and all the pretty stuff. I poked around the Debian forums a bit, but because I didn't really understand the problem, I didn't know what search terms to use. I eventually just learned to live without the tty consoles, although I really missed them.

Lately, though, I began to wish I had a newer version of OpenOffice, because I'm teaching a class in spreadsheets and word processing. I had Calibre, the dandy open source ebook management program, backported from sid (Debian unstable), but it only "sorta" worked, and Iceweasel (Debian version of Firefox) was choking for me pretty often. When the Lenny version of Miro crashed every time I tried to use it, I thought I'd upgrade to testing (Squeeze) or maybe unstable (Sid). (For a recent discussion, see What do you prefer for your desktop: Lenny, Squeeze or Sid?)

First, I backed up my data files. This reminded me how crummy my data backup procedures are. Here's the procedure:

1. Whenever I'm working on a Really Important file, I ftp a copy to the Mac mini (currently in the living room where we're watching it in lieu of a TV), which machine saves it to the 1 terabyte external hard drive. (No, I still haven't set up a better system. Perhaps now is the time....) If it's a work-related file I send it to the work-related Mac Book Pro the same way.
2. Periodically, I copy my data files to the Mac mini's external drive. Sometimes I use ftp (excruciatingly slow and painful), sometimes I copy the files to an external USB drive, carry the drive to another computer, plug in the drive, and copy the files over.
3. Periodically, I copy the Mac mini's external hard drive files to the hard drive in my Linux box by one of these awkward procedures. Thus, I have two or three copies of my data files scattered around the house.
4. If it's important, not huge, and not in some way confidential, I upload it to my web site, my work website, or here. (See Linux and Open Source for examples of things I don't want to misplace.)

I should fix this mess--I say that every time I have a problem, or do an upgrade. I could get an external USB hard drive and back up my Linux installation; I could set up my LAN to work more smoothly, I could set up an automated backup procedure that didn't rely on whim.... That should be my computer project for this spring.

The length of this post must tell you that my upgrade from Lenny (stable) to Squeeze (testing) did not go smoothly. In fact, I'm sitting here typing in Emacs on a spanking new Kubuntu 9.10 installation. I hope that in a few weeks or months, I'll be able to move back over to a working version of Debian, but right now, I seem to be out of luck, and I don't yet know why. Here's a rundown of my problems.

1. I "googled around" for known problems and suggestions for the upgrade. I didn't see any generalized "Lenny-to-Squeeze angst," and I found the suggestion to upgrade the installer software first, and to use a "safe-upgrade" option, followed by a reboot, followed by a "full-upgrade." So, I updated my /etc/apt/sources.list to replace "lenny" with "squeeze," and started the process. Updating the installer programs and the aptitude safe-upgrade procedures showed no apparent problems, so I rebooted, and entered aptitude full-upgrade command.
2. At the end of the upgrade process, I got messages that lots of programs could not be loaded. Many of them were associated with the KDE desktop. This thread from late December 2009 Failed to upgrade from Lenny to Squeeze. [SOLVED] on Debian User Forums points to problems with KDE in Squeeze. I thought that might be the problem. But, Gnome's still in there, so I rebooted, and got as far as the Gnome display manager (gdm). However, the computer wouldn't accept input from the mouse or keyboard.

3. I found this relevant forum thread: keyboard problem with xdm and kdm. Of particular interest is this observation:

   When the keyboard doesn't work in xdm or kdm, even ctrl+alt+F1 doesn't respond....I think it might be related to the radeon driver, which seems quite unstable; when I work after a startx, everything works fine, as long as I don't work too much with the console. But if I switch to the console a lot and do a lot of work on the console, finally, when going back to X, my X ends up not responding to the keyboard nor to the mouse.

   As it happens, I have the same Radeon video chipset. A helpful forum responder pointed me to the appropriate proprietary driver. I don't know yet if I need this--Kubuntu 9.10 seems to be working well. I'll have to find out more about the driver eventually....

4. Because I had no input hardware working, I declared the update project hosed, and downloaded the January 29, 2009 netinstall disk for Squeeze (amd64). The text-based installer wouldn't come up at all, and there was something seriously wrong with the graphical installer, too. It failed during the disk partitioning step, so anything that might have been usable on the hard drive was hosed.

5. The only way to get Sid is through the upgrade path, and, for now, the same is true for Squeeze. So, I downloaded the Lenny netinstall disk image, burned it to a CD, and installed Lenny from scratch. It seemed to work, but the tty consoles were once again, unavailable. I wondered if that might be related to the video chipset driver, or perhaps to the Xorg installation. I hypothesized that my problem might have to do with the Lenny kernel, or the version of Xorg, so I decided to upgrade to Squeeze once more.

6. This time, because all the failing KDE stuff wasn't there, I saw my Xorg-related stuff failed to update. I had no working Xwindow programs, just a console window. I found these relevant forum threads:

   • Blocked packages during upgrade Lenny to Squeeze:

     [i]t appeared that the sticking point for udev and older kernels is linked to the Squeeze libdrm2 package, which is depending on the drm (direct rendering manager) built into kernels >= 2.6.29. Since xorg, udev and hal are also linked to libdrm2, the whole upgrade process gets broken. Once you have a newer kernel, the upgrade process should work.

   • Lenny will not autoconfigure X suggests ways to examine the failure of the Xorg installation.

   • SMXI.org--A set of scripts that may be helpful if (more likely when) I have to troubleshoot this problem again:

     smxi is an interactive script designed to help people maintain their systems. It supports Debian (Stable, Testing, and Sid) and true Debian based distros (sidux, AntiX, Mepis). It does not support Ubuntu based distros because there are too many differences between Debian and Ubuntu.

   • Here are some more things to try if I get Ctrl-Alt-F1 = Black,blank screen? instead of a tty console.

7. At this point, I suspected my graphics card driver was not working properly, I wasn't alone in having problems upgrading the Debian Xorg packages, and I needed a Linux machine before too long. I found this advice from a network administrator in Prague (city of my ancestors, the very ones who instilled in me the certainty that boasting is always punished by ill fortune): Putting new X.org version on Debian stable (lenny).

   Of course, there is a catch--new computers have graphic cards that lenny simply cannot cope with anymore. And if you want new drivers, you need new xorg version. There are no official backports. So you are faced with installing xorg from testing (squeeze), but this is a fairly large-scale operation: your libc6 package and other base libraries will be upgraded, your keyboard/console configuration will change, etc. Especially the library upgrade is troublesome, since in order to stay binary-compatible across the whole department, we would need to install libc6 etc. from squeeze on *all* our machines. It is not very likely significant breakage of these packages would go through to testing, but there are risks and overall it adds significant overhead to the task.

   Thankfully, there is a neat alternative solution--add Ubuntu to the repository cauldron! Ubuntu Jaunty is very similar to Debian Lenny package-wise, and in fact not even libc upgrade is necessary. Only a fairly isolated set of xorg-related packages will be upgraded, which seems ideal for the purpose.

   Perhaps my problem is compatibility with my newer machine. If the Ubuntu repositories have fresher drivers and x-org packages, why not use Ubuntu (or in my case, Kubuntu, because I need several KDE programs for my specialized projects) instead of Debian, at least until an upgrade path becomes available.

8. I downloaded the Kubuntu 9.10 disk image and installed it. X-org seems to be working fine and the tty-consoles are there and behaving just as they should. I found it quite easy to change all the little things I didn't like about Ubuntu (the way it handles root, the behavior of the terminal windows), and the latest, greatest KDE versions of my favorite programs are very nice.

Really Big Things

The Onion surprised me with another tea-spilled-in-the-keyboard moment with Science Channel Refuses To Dumb Down Science Any Further.

SILVER SPRING, MD—Frustrated by continued demands from viewers for more awesome and extreme programming, Science Channel president Clark Bunting told reporters Tuesday that his cable network was "completely incapable" of watering down science any further than it already had.

"Look, we've tried, we really have, but it's simply not possible to set the bar any lower," said a visibly exhausted Bunting, adding that he "could not in good conscience" make science any more mindless or insultingly juvenile. "We already have a show called Really Big Things, which is just ridiculous if you think about it, and one called Heavy Metal Taskforce, which I guess deals with science on some distant level, though I don't know what it is. Plus, there's Punkin Chunkin." "Punkin Chunkin, for Christ's sake," added Bunting, referring to the popular program in which contestants launch oversized pumpkins into the air using catapults. "What more do you people want?"

It's just what I've been imagining all these years.

Apple iPad--Early Reviews

The iPad? Really, Mr. Jobs? It doesn't look absorbent at all, and don't the better products have wings? When I heard the name for Apple's new, extra-large iPod Touch (the iPhone without the phone), I thought it was a joke, but not only is Apple really calling it the iPad, there is a competing claim on that goofy name: Adobe responds to iPad's lack of Flash, Fujitsu consulting lawyers over iPad name .

Fujitsu says it owns the "iPad" name. The company sold an iPad handset in 2002, filed for a trademark in 2003, and said it is consulting lawyers over the matter.

Here's the product review that best answered my questions. I found both these videos at Dvorak Uncensored.

Librarians as Offline Pirates

Earlier this week, I had to report to the local government on the historic preservation project that has me in such close association with the Reverent William T. Price and family. Part of that project has sent me reading up on copyright issues and the public domain. I even wrote a little report on it: Pocahontas County Historic Preservation Project: A Draft of Digitization Policies.

Join that with my recent interest in ebook readers and you'll see why everywhere I look, I find more to read about copyright laws, digital rights management (DRM), and intellectual property theft. This week Slashdot pointed me to this amusing analysis: Offline Book "Lending" Costs U.S. Publishers Nearly $1 Trillion

Hot on the heels of the story in Publisher's Weekly that "publishers could be losing out on as much $3 billion to online book piracy" comes a sudden realization of a much larger threat to the viability of the book industry. Apparently, over 2 billion books were "loaned" last year by a cabal of organizations found in nearly every American city and town. Using the same advanced projective mathematics used in the study cited by Publishers Weekly, Go To Hellman has computed that publishers could be losing sales opportunities totaling over $100 Billion per year, losses which extend back to at least the year 2000. These lost sales dwarf the online piracy reported yesterday, and indeed, even the global book publishing business itself.

From what we've been able to piece together, the book "lending" takes place in "libraries". On entering one of these dens, patrons may view a dazzling array of books, periodicals, even CDs and DVDs, all available to anyone willing to disclose valuable personal information in exchange for a "card". But there is an ominous silence pervading these ersatz sanctuaries, enforced by the stern demeanor of staff and the glares of other patrons. Although there's no admission charge and it doesn't cost anything to borrow a book, there's always the threat of an onerous overdue bill for the hapless borrower who forgets to continue the cycle of not paying for copyrighted material.

The slashdot story comments were also amusing:

In related news it has been discovered that the contents of textbooks, which often sell for $200 or more, are largely made up of information and ideas developed by previous authors. The previous textbook authors are starting to complain that they aren't getting any royalties from new textbooks and are now calling new textbook authors "seagoing murdering thieves" (pirates). Others are wondering why books mostly inspired by previous works, have more than a hundred year copyright, when the Constitution only authorizes copyrights for limited times, not a trillion years.

Martin Luther King Day

Here's an hour-long Martin Luther King Day program: Democracy Now, January 18, 2010.

Today is the federal holiday that honors Dr. Martin Luther King....While Dr. King is primarily remembered as a civil rights leader, he also championed the cause of the poor and organized the Poor People's Campaign to address issues of economic justice. Dr. King was also a fierce critic of US foreign policy and the Vietnam War. We play his "Beyond Vietnam" speech, which he delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967, as well as his last speech, "I Have Been to the Mountain Top." that he gave on April 3, 1968, the night before he was assassinated.

I'm not sure if I ever heard the "Beyond Vietnam" speech, and it's been a long time since I heard the famous "I have Been to the Mountain Top" except in sound bites. I was glad to be reminded of this.

A Peek at My Scanning Project

I've been scanning materials from the Pocahontas County Historical Society archives since this past summer, and the last few days, I've been working on an annual report for the project. Most of the scans are hard to read handwriting, but there are a few photographs. This is Susan A. Price, daughter of my old pal, William T. Price, sometime after she graduated from the Womens' Medical College of Baltimore in 1903. The photo was taken in Marlinton, perhaps in her sister's home, which is now houses the Historical Society's museum. She served as a physician in several mental hospitals, and lived and worked for many years in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she was avidly interested in historical preservation of that city.

Gotta love the outfit--especially those elbow-length kid gloves. Doesn't she look like the cat that ate the canary? Here's another photo taken the same day, showing more detail of her dress, and a more contemplative expression. I suspect that if I had that outfit, I too would read with those gloves on. In fact, I probably wouldn't take off the hat.

DIY Book Scanner--Piracy or Not?

For the past 18 months I've been working on a digitization project for local history materials. (Hence my unhealthy co-dependent relationship with the Reverend William T. Price.) That's how I came to follow Digitization Blog's RSS feed, and discover Wired Magazine's article: DIY Book Scanners Turn Your Books Into Bytes.

For nearly two years, Daniel Reetz dreamed of a book scanner that could crunch textbooks and spit out digital files he could then read on his PC.

Book scanners, like the ones Google is using in its Google Books project, run into thousands of dollars, putting them out of the reach of a graduate student like Reetz. But in January, when textbook prices for the semester were listed, Reetz decided he would make a book scanner that would cost a fraction of commercially available products....

"The hardware is ridiculously simple as long as you are not demanding archival quality," he says. "A dumpster full of building materials, really cheap cameras and outrageous textbook prices was all I needed to do it."

Reetz went on to upload a 79-step how-to guide for building a book scanner (.pdf). The guide has sparked more than 400 comments. It has also spawned a website, DIYbookscanner.org, where more than 50 independent book scanners spread across countries such as Indonesia, Russia and Britain have contributed hardware refinements and software programs....

For details on the "how-to" of it, you can visit DIY Book Scanning news and forum, or download the 79-step how-to guide for building a book scanner (.pdf). The Wired article focuses more on the "whys" and "why nots" of do-it-yourself digitization.

Reetz says the DIY book-scanning forum isn't about distributing pirated content, but he can see the temptation. "My project was founded in angry desperation," he says. "It was a watershed moment when I realized getting an 8-megapixel Canon camera was cheaper than buying a bunch of textbooks."

As adjunct faculty at a couple of colleges, I sometimes teach science, math and computer classes, and I can tell you the cost of textbooks will make your hair stand on end (even at the intro level, where economies of scale could keep expenses in check). The schools won't let the students see the ISBN numbers of the required texts, to prevent them from shopping online for second-hand books, and they even forbid cell-phones in the campus bookstores, lest price-conscious students photograph shrink-wrapped book covers. Patently unfair practices like these seem designed to encourage piracy.

So are Reetz and the builders of the DIY scanner pirates? That would depend on who you talk to, says Pamela Samuelson, a professor at University of California at Berkeley, who specializes in digital-copyright law. Trade publishers are almost certain to cry copyright infringement, she says, though it may not necessarily be the case.

....If you scan a book that you have already purchased, it is "fine, and fair use," she says. "Personal-use copying should be deemed to be fair, unless there is a demonstrable showing of harm to the market for the copyright at work," says Samuelson. But not so individual users who already own the book....For publishers, though, the growth of the DIY scanning community could hurt. Publishers today sell digital versions to customers who already own hardcover or paperback versions of the same book.

"You cannot look at this idea from the perspective of whether the publisher can make extra money," says Samuelson. "Publishers would love it if you can't resell books either, but that's not going to happen."

Call of the Tame

Via Slashdot, I read Soviet Scientist Turns Foxes Into Puppies, where I found these links to documentary excerpts. I don't know what brought these breeding experiments into the news--most of the related stories I found are at least a few years old. However, it was news to me, and offers some fascinating suggestions about how domestic animals came to be that way. Here's the abstract of a review article, Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment, by Lyudmila Trut (1999):

Abstract: At an experimental farm in Novosibirsk, Siberia, geneticists have been working for four decades to turn foxes into dogs. They are not trying to create the next pet craze. Instead, author Trut and her predecessors hope to explain why domesticated animals such as pigs, cattle and dogs are so different from their wild ancestors. Selective breeding alone cannot explain all the differences. Trut's mentor, the eminent Russian geneticist Dmitri Belyaev, thought that the answers lay in the process of domestication itself, which might have dramatically changed wolves' appearance and behavior even in the absence of selective breeding. To test his hypothesis, Belyaev and his successors at the Institute have been breeding another canine species, silver foxes, for a single trait: friendliness toward people. Although no one would mistake them for dogs, the Siberian foxes appear to be on the same overall evolutionary path--a route that other domesticated animals also may have followed while coming in from the wild.

You can download the complete article: Early Canid Domestication: The Farm-Fox Experiment (pdf file). It's well worth reading, and not painfully technical. (That's my evaluation, but I've been told I'm a painfully technical kind of gal, so YMMV.)

A 2006 New York Times article describes some related research on rats: Nice Rats, Nasty Rats: Maybe It's All in the Genes.

Extinctions Inside Us

I've had this article sitting on my "to blog" list for a while: Bugs Inside: What Happens When the Microbes That Keep Us Healthy Disappear? The human body has more microbial than human cells, but this rich diversity of micro-helpers that has evolved along with us is undergoing a rapid shift--one that may have very macro health consequences. At my last "real" job at The Institute for Genomic Research (Now known as J. Craig Venter Institute, because that is the boss's name, and he's not a bashful fellow) I wrote some grants to sequence microbial ecosystems. It was too early in the microbial genome sequencing game for those proposals to fly, but now several organizations are doing just that. It's been 11 years since I left, so I guess I was right not to stick around waiting for it to happen, but I'm feeling a little envious of the folks who are getting to do that work now.

Sea water microbes, oil well flora, rumin ecosystems, and human "normal flora"--it's a way to get a look at bacteria in non-homogeneous culture, and characterize "bugs" that can't be cultured individually. Of course, the normal flora of humans are of particular interest.

Having evolved along with the human species, most of the miniscule beasties that live in and on us are actually helping to keep us healthy, just as our well-being promotes theirs. In fact, some researchers think of our bodies as superorganisms, rather than one organism teeming with hordes of subordinate invertebrates....

With rapid changes in sanitation, medicine and lifestyle in the past century, some of these indigenous species are facing decline, displacement and possibly even extinction. In many of the world's larger ecosystems, scientists can predict what might happen when one of the central species is lost, but in the human microbial environment—which is still largely uncharacterized—most of these rapid changes are not yet understood. "This is the next frontier and has real significance for human health, public health and medicine," says Betsy Foxman, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Michigan (U.M.) School of Public Health in Ann Arbor.

Meanwhile, each new generation in developed countries comes into the world with fewer of these native populations. "They're actually missing some component of their microbiota that they've evolved to have," Foxman says.

Happy (Belated) Public Domain Day

Between my consumer's interest in ebooks and my work on digitizing local history materials, I read quite a bit about copyright issues. This article on Public Domain Day really brought home to me how much modern copyright law locks away from the reading public:

What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2010? Under the law that existed until 1978 . . . Works from 1953.

Current US law extends copyright protections for 70 years from the date of the author's death. (Corporate "works-for-hire" are copyrighted for 95 years.) But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years (an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years). Under those laws, works published in 1953 would be passing into the public domain on January 1, 2010.

This Center for the Study of the Public Domain (CSPD) article mentions many movies and musical compositions that would be in the public domain by now, but it was the list of books that really gave me a jolt:

• Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March
• Ray Bradbury's dystopian novelFahrenheit 451
• C.S. Lewis'sThe Silver Chair
• J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories
• James Baldwin's Go Tell It On the Mountain

Even more surprising to me is this tidbit:

All of these works are famous--that is why we included them here. And the authors of famous and commercially successful works would probably renew the copyright for a second term of 28 years. But we know from the Copyright Office that 85% of authors did not renew their copyrights (for books, the number is even higher--93% did not renew), since most works exhaust their commercial value very quickly. That means that under the law that existed until 1978, up to 85% of all copyrighted works from 1981 would be entering the public domain on January 1, 2010.

The Center for the Study of the Public Domain has several informative Web pages on related issues. Orphan works represent the public domain issue that troubles me the most. as the CSPD explains:

These works are still presumably under copyright...but they are commercially unavailable and the copyright owner cannot be found. They probably comprise the majority of the record of 20th century culture (one study indicates that only 2 percent of works between 55 and 75 years old continue to retain commercial value). The default response of archivists, libraries, film restorers, historians, artists, scholars, educators, publishers, and others is to avoid using copyrighted works unless they are clearly in the public domain. As a result, orphan works are not used in new creative efforts or made available to the public due to uncertainty over their copyright status, even when there is no longer anyone claiming copyright ownership, or the owner no longer has any objection to such use. The costs here are huge: needlessly disintegrating films just when technology would allow for their preservation, prohibitive costs for libraries, incomplete and spotted histories, thwarted scholarship, digital libraries put on hold, delays to publication. In the cases where the work is truly an orphan work, those costs are tragic because they are completely unnecessary: no one is benefiting from the continued copyright protected over these works, while the entire public loses the ability to adapt, transform, preserve, digitize, republish and otherwise make new and valuable uses of them.

I Join the Electronic Book Revolution--Sort Of

I bought an Astak EZ Reader Pocket Pro a couple of months ago, and I'm really pleased with it, although I haven't yet explored all its features. I had been wishing for an ebook reader for a couple of years, and I opined on them back in May. If only there were a way, I whined, to read electronic copies of Project Gutenberg books comfortably, without a backlit computer screen. Thousands of books that would never get mildewed, or lose their pages, or take up shelf space, in any font size I desire. Because most of the gadget reviewers are young men who don't imagine they'll ever have vision problems, or otherwise get old, cranky or cash-strapped, I'm offering a product review by "A Woman of a Certain Age."

The E-Ink reading experience seems very natural to me, and after the first two or three pages of Wuthering Heights, I had completely forgotten that I wasn't reading a regular book. In fact, if I had been holding my moldy old paperback with the tiny, tiny print, I would have been much more aware of the unfriendly format. My eyeballs are middle-aged, and being able to adjust the font size and contrast is wonderful. I stayed up late to follow Cathy and Heathcliff to the bitter end, without the eye fatigue that comes from reading too long on a computer screen. (I didn't remember how much house-keeping information Emily Bronte included--what they ate, how they cooked it, what it took to keep the kitchen clean....really interesting. Also, everybody seemed to have a simmering case of tuberculosis, with realistic, unromantic symptoms.)

My device came with a 1 GB SD card, loaded with "300 Free eBooks," although I think that was a special, introductory offer. I bought a 4 GB card, and started loading it up with the complete works of every 19th century author I fancy. Dickens, Trollope, Thackeray, George Eliot, the Brontes, Henry James--bookcases full, and there's still loads of room on the SD card.

It also turns out this is a great way to read knitting patterns. I often have to rewrite knitting patterns on 3x5 index cards to keep with my knitting. It's just as easy to type them and copy them over to the E-Ink device, where I can make the font as HUGE as I like, whenever I need it.

The most advertised E-Ink readers (Kindle and Sony, for example) are designed to sell digitally locked up, copyrighted books (DRM books) for what I consider high prices. They even charge the customer money to make Project Gutenberg books available in their proprietary formats.

In September, the Astak EZ Reader Pocket Pro came on the market for $200. (And it was available in RED!) It's a little Linux computer that can display 21 non-DRM'ed file formats. I may never buy DRM'ed ebooks, but if I decide to, the EZReader can display ADE-encrypted PDF and ePub books, and there are lots of books available in those formats. In addition to the company website, there's a careful and detailed look at the Astak Pocket PRO, provided by a company spokesman.

Here are some features that convinced me that I would really like this device, instead of the many others on the market. (Also, it comes in RED.)

• E-Ink technology, with eight levels of grey scale (better display of pictures or illustrations than earlier devices)
• Displays these DRM-free formats: PDF, TXT, PDB, DOC, HTML, FB2, LIT, MP3, EPUB, PRC, WOL, CHM, PPT, TIF, PNG, GIF, RAR, ZIP, DJVU, JPG, BMP
• Adobe Digital Editions firmware update lets you buy copy-protected eBooks in PDF and ePub formats.
• a user-replaceable rechargeable battery (Sony and Kindle devices are done for when their battery won't charge anymore--have to send them back to the factory for servicing)
• an SD card that supports up to 16GB
• three levels of font size and different font choices; also you can read in portrait or landscape mode, which is useful if you go with a very large font
• mp3 player mode which can be used simultaneously with reading mode
• Text-To-Speech... meaning it can read to you and automatically advances pages
• bookmarking capability
• Accessories in the box include crush-resistant case with magnetic clasp, ear buds, AC charger, USB cable, and wrist leash. (The pricier devices require you to buy these separately.)

What's Cooking, Princess?

The new house is all the things we hoped it would be--wonderfully warm, easily cleaned, with plenty of closets and cabinets--but we're all having a little trouble adjusting to the new space. Princess is still looking for that perfectly cat-sized hiding place.

I hope this picture doesn't suggest the Fatal Attraction bunny to you. In November, we moved the canned goods from the old house to the new cellar, and Princess had to inspect the canner. Although the size was reasonable, it didn't remain long enough on the kitchen floor for her purposes. The rocking chair seat will have to serve until something better comes along.

Our New 1959 Tractor

With all the new house excitement, I never mentioned that we traded in our lovely 1946 Ford tractor for this new 1959 Massey Ferguson model. Adorable and smooth-running as the Ford was, its low gear was much too fast for our steep hillsides. It was great on level ground, but we built a house on the only patch of level ground we had. The new tractor also has a sweet sound, and it can go really, really slow.

Alexander Hamilton

Writer and star of the Broadway musical In the Heights, Lin-Manuel Miranda performs "The Hamilton Mixtape" at the White House Evening of Poetry, Music, and the Spoken Word on May 12, 2009. Accompanied by Alex Lacamoire.

I'm not sure where I first saw this, but it's so cool, I thought I should file it here where I can find it again, and you can see it if you haven't already.

What Would Eleanor Roosevelt Knit?

What would Eleanor Roosevelt knit? Mittens, it turns out. Knitty, the online knitting magazine, features Mittens from Mrs Roosevelt, including an interview with Mary Ann Colopy, a seasonal park ranger at the Roosevelt/Vanderbilt National Historic Site in Hyde Park, New York. She describes some manuscript knitting patterns found among Mrs. Roosevelt's papers at her work site, and shares what she knows about Mrs. Roosevelt's knitting history.

Franklin Habit, Knitty regular, tested and rewrote the directions, which produce mittens just like the ones my mom and grandma used to knit. Neither fancy, time-consuming, nor expensive to produce, they are the sort of mittens you just use until they wear out.

Ms Colopy says of Mrs. Roosevelt:

Eleanor's knitting was something she did for herself, to feel active even when sitting. She would ask other knitters for patterns, and share patterns with other knitters. But outside of the world of women producing garments for their families, the patterns and artifacts were not appreciated. And this is still true in many ways for knitters. Knitting is a folk art, passed from hand to hand. Unlike many textiles -- such as lace, quilts, weaving, and samplers -- it has not received academic attention until very recently and has not been appreciated as a craft.

A Garden of New Year's Wishes

A little iambic pentameter for the New Year:

May the New Year be like a garden fair
With flowers of joy, and free from weeds of care;
Good fortune, as the smiling sun to bless
Your every effort with complete success.

This card was sent to Florence Williamson at her parents' home near Williamson, Iowa in honor of the 1910 New Year, postmarked Snyder, Oklahoma, Dec. 23, 1909. The message says Hello, Florence! Here is wishing you a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year. We are having zero weather with snow for several days. We are all well & hope this will find you all the same. With love and best wishes, 1909, Theresa Wiginton, Snyder, Okla.

Every Good Wish for a Happy New Year

There's no legible postmark on this card, so I don't know which new year it celebrated, but it is addressed to Florence Williamson, and it says: We wish you many pleasures for the coming year. May you find the ---? Well, good luck and coma and see us. We are all well. Went to a lecture last night. Tell Jim the house is still here. J. M. W.

Good Luck With Your Zeppelin in the New Year

Children flying a zeppelin festooned with pink forget-me-not garlands and giant four-leafed clovers--I think this is the strangest post-card my grandma ever got, mailed by her friend Agnes Moore from Iowa City December 23, 1908. (I don't know if Grandma and Agnes found it odd or not.) Agnes wrote ""Hello Florence, How are you? I'm just fine. Excuse poor writing." (This because the card is so heavily embossed that there's almost no writable surface available.) Agnes includes her new address at "15 E. Washington St., Iowa City, Ia."

A Merry Christmas, 1909, Prescott, Iowa

Another card from Florence Williamson's album: Dec. 22, 1909, "Wish you Merry Xmas and Happy New Year. E.V."

Snow Princess

Most of the time, I think a cat's-eye view of the world is an advantage, but with her chin six inches from the ground and the snow 30 inches deep, it's no wonder Princess is ready to come back in the house after one short trip off the porch. Even a winter-wooly coat is no help with snow like this.

Snowy Saturday Morning

By mid-day on Saturday, we had hip-deep snow on the ground. Really pretty, provided you don't need to go out!