Will the Kindle fire up or get blown away?

Before we dive in; I am compelled to declare my bias. My room just happens to be a place where books go and die. If by some unimaginable feat bordering on serendipity cum fate all these books were to be suddenly compressed into a electronic book version of the ipod – part of my life I suspect would also give way to the atmosphere like camphor.

I’ve be lost.

I mention this so that you will know the prejudice with which I celebrate and rue the inevitability of the onset of digitization in its various forms -a la kindle, ipad et al all have one thing in common; they’re compelling – not only in the medium; but as a business model they CANNOT fail and I don’t doubt for one moment the paperback book will go the way of the Dodo bird very much in the way the advent of the ipod did in the CD along with driving a stake into the music industry.

 

The reason why I say the transition is cut and dried is simple – digital books represent the clearest form of one to one marketing / its the equivalent of Maglev marketing – frictionless – there is no need for human administrators, along cutting down trees, bleaching paper, setting printing presses, warehousing, managing physical inventory, trucking and making sure someone arranges those books on the shelf for you and me – digitalization just simplifies the entire supply chain and can deliver the goodies almost anywhere on earth as quickly and cheaply as e-mail or downloading porn.

 

This historic shift will not only radically transform the publishing industry; but it will also alter the way we read and make sense of the world – for the time being digital books are exactly just that – books, that are really not so different to the type set variety once churned out by the Guttenberg press – but slowly and surely at some point – they will begin to morph into something that govt’s need to control in the name of whatever. 

I could be wrong. No one today can foresee the final outcome unless you happen to be a reincarnation of Nostradamus – but judging by what’s on the tap these days – the future for the Kindle genre may not be as rosy as it’s so often depicted – most people don’t realize digitalization of books imposes rigidity and inflexibility; unlike your home computer they dont nearly offer you any scope for improvisation – its just a one way street – this may change with time and even prove me wrong – whole communities may even spring out from the fertile electronic cacophony and what you will probably end up with is the same set pieces we see today – instead of the net being perpetually fingered as les enfants terrible – it will be the kindle (not the current version but maybe the V.3 type sometime in 5 years time) and following along its wake it will bring with it the same set of dichotomies that we are so accustommed too - are newspapers the gold standard of credibility?  Or will the Kindle just remain a disgenious way of seeding lies and disinformation on a mass production scale –no one knows.

 

My main gripe about one way street devices like Kindle is unlike home computers – I AM GIVING AWAY TOO MUCH OF MYSELF TO SOME CENTRAL REPOSITORY – the idea of smacks of paranoia; but it holds  true as one reason why the internet is so hard to control is its conceptually everything that the Kindle isn’t  – reading material for one can be blacklisted or even made to disappear surreptitiously very much in the way blog aggregators these days decide what you and I should read – sure its all done in a subtle way; a little is taken away at a time that ensures what you will eventually end up with is something that has never changed - unless of course you happen to like me and kick up a big fuss, then that resets a button somewhere in your brain and you simply say: “hey this is not right!” – my point is this afternoon – is the right to read is optional with the home computer, but with new devices such as Kindle, you don’t nearly have the same level of flexibility to read what you want; you only think you do -neither can you beat the system; unlike the home computer where you can shalom through the whole apparatus of centralization and still get your daily reads like a ninja with the help of a few skeleton key codes -  with closed platforms such as the Kindle, you stand as much chance of breaking into Fort Knox; it’s the direct opposite of an open platform - and the very embodiment of what I call information centralization – here sovietization is not only possible but the condition makes it almost ideal for bent folk to further their mind control agenda – that’s why the Communist Chinese are so passionate about technology like Kindle – it’s a boon to them as they don’t ever need to hire stadium loads of cyber troopers – all they need to do is control the source and viola -everything just falls perfectly into place.

 

So far I have attempted to foresee the digital future in purely biased dystopian terms. There is also a moral dimension here that suggest just like the home computer somethings may not change with the advent of the Kindle, for where the written word proliferates it doesn’t always hold true knowledge is power that inures goodness – the Gutenberg may have made  possible wide distribution of Montaigne and extended the remit of philosophy to give rise to chemistry and some say even physics but it also allowed Shakespeare’s, The Merchant of Venice to perpetuate the stereotypical image of the money grabbing Jew – thus entrenching hate and prejudice on a mass production scale – the same holds true many years later when the same technology allowed Mein Kampf to be widely distributed and had the press not existed then it’s arguable whether man would even have needed to go through that great diffusion of energy called the Second world war – my point is the written word is can either be perdition or salvation; good or bad; worthy or nonsense but one thing remains patently certain come what may – digitization in the form of the kindle may only represent the first baby steps of what is to come – somewhere in the crèche of tinkerers another version that guarantees further scope for digital convergence is in the wings – then it will open another window and another will follow in it’s path – each can either amplify the goodness in all of us but nonetheless like the ubiquitous home computer – it too can also be a diabolical tool - my point is its foolish to believe Kindle can change the status quo ante; then again I could be wrong – and that’s simply the cue for censorship to step right in – or the creation of some fake site (I rather not mention) that just gives you that illicit thrill of the opposition rub; yet feeding you shit that you would never ever read in the first place – trust me, we may or may not come full circle with the Kindle; but one thing is certain – the right to read will prevail.

The perverse effect of the one way street kindle reading experience may actually alleviate real reading habit very much in the way; the more aggregators and fake blog sites try their very best to steer you this way and that; at some point, it can only heighten the cognitive dissonance, that something is amiss and that feeling of estrangement can only guarantee the survival of hype and spin free reading; along with spawning a community of readers who will never settle for anything less except the very real, like black truffles, acid free paper and fountain pens, they will all find their happy niches – as for the hype and spin reads; you go your way and we go ours – the way I see it; it’s no loss to me.

 

Happy Reading

 

Darkness 2010 (I am sorry for the many mistakes, I wrote this real fast and I have to get off the train now, so do feel free to correct and fill in the blanks) – The Brotherhood Press 2010.

 

“I don’t know how the French or Russians read; really I don’t - All I know is in Singapore there are two types of readers – the first reads what everyone is reading; so they think like everyone else and even behave exactly like the next person – the second who are fewer in numbers prefer the real stuff where one calls a spade a spade. They like clear answers and conclusions, but I don’t think, I write like that at all. I could be because I am not very expressive and since I was trained as an engineer, I have absolutely no skill in wordsmithing. But what I do is I write things as I see it and if possible I always plan to leave a question mark at the end of every essay – I think that’s good as it opens every possibility for the reader to draw his own conclusion; but there is one thing I dont do – I do not play God – I have never ever in my life said, you should read this or that or avoid this or even that – even now as I write this, I am aware there are certain sites there that are fake; they exist only for one reason to establish command and control over the collective consciousness – but do you notice, I even ask many of our readers to visit those sites – why? Because once they have this idea in their mind, it is not so different from planting a seed – it will germinate and when they see it unfolding exactly in the way that I have postulated – they will say Bingo! He wasn’t a crazy guy after all. I think all regular Brother press readers understand that openness – in France you call it de Profundis; here we just call it respect.” 

A conversation recently captured by an e-bot crawler in the Phi Beta Kappa thread on the 24/02/10 – The Brotherhood Press 2010  

N.B MESSAGE BY MISSY DOTTY:  DO BOOKMARK THIS SITE, IF SOME OF YOU CLAIM, YOU ARE MISSING OUT, BOOKMARK IT, THAT WAY WHEN WE DECIDE TO TAKE OFF SOMEWHERE ELSE, AT LEAST YOU CAN FOLLOW US ON THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO CONT READING SOME OF OUR STUFF . BOOKMARK, IT AS WHEN THEY TAKE OFF, AS THEY DO, AT LEAST, YOU WILL HAVE A LINK, DO IT NOW!– ANOTHER GOOD REASON TO BOOKMARK THIS SITE IS THIS HAS HAPPENED  RECENTLY – http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/11/daily-sg-11-jan-2010/#comment-7611 , THE BP HAS BARRED ALL FUTURE ESSAYS TO BE POSTED BY THE SINGAPORE DAILY. I DID ASK BABY DARKNESS ABOUT THIS AND THIS IS WHAT HE HAD TO SAY, ” There are two ways to read, one is you let someone spoon feed you like a baby. The second is you choose what and how you want to eat.  Remember, if your body is a temple. Your mind has to be the altar piece; it’s the linchpin that makes possible the grand idea of La Convivencia with you and your community, spirit, mind and perhaps 7 million other things- without this one thing, the power to choose, you are simply a cactus on a window sill! 

So understand this little rich girl, there is reading and there is reading, there is a world of difference, if you dont even bother to argue with the belief, you are what you eat. Then you would have absolutely no problem understanding – why, you are most definitely without a shadow of doubt what you read and dont read.

You can certainly categorize what I write, but you have no right to judge ……that was what Singaporedaily did - a broad line has to be drawn, otherwise, dont be surprise, if someone decides its card blanche to give you and me the mushroom treatment, “feed you shit and keep you in the dark.” So this has nothing to do with Anime 3 and her rubberband brigade. I value her readership and support, but this is a bigger sphere we are dealing with here – so this is where I will draw the line…it will hurt…like that other fake site, Temasek review that kept faking doss attacks; but how could they let the real wolf out without first planting the idea in peoples mind, “if it can happen to me, it will also happen to you,” Think about it – they cried wolf – we helped, but this time, I am not going to stick my neck out for no one…its everyman for himself….I dont even care, if the whole house catches fire…call it tough love, but if you aren’t a hard man, then you shouldn’t be in the ring and that’s the only way to deal with people who cry wolf, its all here, the explanation

http://singaporedaily.net/2010/01/12/daily-sg-12-jan-2010/#comment-7618 - dont worry dotty, the readers will eventually pick up the scent…they always do, you just wait and see, dont ever sweat the small stuff, life is too short – Darkness 2010……”Missy Dotty