Jan 19

If you're new here, you may want to register as a member of this blog and check out the first post! As member you can comment, participate, and share. Enjoy! Subscribe

I remember taking a “purity test” back when we were all on livejournal spilling our guts and taking quizzes to find out which Muppet I am most like. I don’t remember being told that I was the purest thing around. I really wondered how perverse that made me. I still don’t feel pure, but upon recent thought, I’m not even sure I know what it is.

Perverse is defined as being turned away from what is good: improper, corrupt, and wrongheaded.

Don’t we all feel this way sometimes?

In fact, it feels like it is all over the place these days. A search on Google News for “perverse” in the last day of news turned up over a thousand results. The commonality of something isn’t a reason to claim appropriateness, but it doesn’t bring any clarity. It is tough to make our own judgment calls in this type of climate. Here, though, it can be a blessing to grow older, as experience brings more and more things to compare and ponder. In my head I do have a rule of thumb.

Perversion is what has hurt you as it will probably hurt someone else; it is what your mind may accept but your heart rejects.

Easy nuff?

But…you see it and you know something or someone that is perverse, deeply perverse. You think, I’ve thought that, I’ve fantasized that, but I’ve not actually acted on it. This is of course bothersome. Are we not all perverse?

I’ve thought up a litmus test:
Be alone. Feel alone. Now add what you are questioning. If it hurts, it’s perverse. If it interrupts, you have some more thinking to do. If it enhances, embrace it.

Thoughts?

[ , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ]
Jan 06

Looking for a great moment of traveler’s glory? Always forgetting your books at home? Look no further than Amazon’s Kindle, the new electronic book reader.

The good: Excellent high-contrast screen does a great job of simulating a printed page; large library of tens of thousands of e-books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs via Amazon’s familiar online store; built-in free wireless “Whispernet” data network–no PC needed; built-in keyboard for notes; SD card expansion slot; compatible with Windows and Mac machines.
- CNET.com Review

Now has come the days where technology might begin to actually save you time and money, instead of just claiming to do so. The Kindle is a one of a kind book reader that begins to have the consumer in mind. With access to web content and a selection of over 90,000 reasonably priced (less than most print copies) books and periodicals, it’s a device that has the ability to actually change the way we do things. Look at the review and you can purchase it here.

So where are gadgets now?

They are here to serve you, more than ever, but also here to serve the companies that make them as well. Herein lies the problem, corporate self-interest instead of corporate cooperation. It seems they often times ignore the very things that make their products popular; openness, ease of use, and social development. In an age of social networking, products sometimes emerge out of openness. Like the mp3 player and the ever popular iPod, which were forced to keep some part of their wares open to what made them big in the first place. Even so, the iTunes Store purposely holds your hand and requires certain things for certain content. This is a fine line and as I await my new Nokia N810 Internet Tablet, I hope the open-source software surrounding Linux leaves me free. I’m still stuck trying to re-manage the GPS as they try to lock me into a $130 subscription for full use of the service. It is though, my first big step in going Web 2.0. Goodbye locally based software! Woe is me. Woe is us.

The direction products move as we enter this age of Web 2.0 will be worth watching. 2008 is the year to watch. The Consumer Electronic Show (CES) upon us (coverage here), now is a better time than ever to begin this topic on JustinFenwick.Net

How are you interacting, making this technology yours? Do you think we will win or is it the companies’ game? In other words, are we going to feel stuck in Apple land, Amazon land, Google land, or Microsoft land instead of our own, a land of shared standards and content?

Turn your iPod into a book reader
1) iPod as ebook reader
2) Read Ebooks on Your iPod with Ebook to Images

[ , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ]