- Textbooks Up Their Game. The Wall Street Journal looks at the evolving world of the textbook market and the role that e-book volumes will play in it.
The iPad does seem better suited to the textbook market than most other e-readers, if only for its versatility. But I can’t see app-ready editions of textbooks having much widespread appeal (beyond the student who already owns an iPad) or impact, unless the price of Apple’s reader and/or the books comes down significantly. Students are unlikely to pay $69.99 (much less $84.99) for a book they can’t re-sell and that, once the iPad stops working or needs to be replaced, is gone too.
- Daleks voted the greatest sci-fi monsters of all time. It’s a weird list. The original poll was for “Monsters, Supernatural Beings & Fantasy Creatures,” which means picks like Aslan makes more sense — although a CGI lion with the voice of Liam Neeson is a little monstrous, too — but Pilot from Farscape?
- Real or not, I think I can live without J.D. Salinger’s toilet.
- Deconstructing the Twikie. Surprisingly, this hasn’t been done by Cockeyed.com. [via]
- And finally, I’ve really been enjoying Zach Handlen’s Star Trek: The Next Generation recaps:
It can be difficult to convincingly show love in fiction, because the experience of falling for someone is both highly personal and curiously universal; the details and shared moments are what give the feeling texture, but the rush and elation of it are things that we all share. So you’ve got to find some way to make the small moments appear distinct and honest so that the big moments feel earned.
publishing
Thursday various
- So now it’s not “what the founding fathers meant” but “what the mid-nineteeth-century fathers meant”? Look, Iowa GOP, it seems to me that, if the best you can come up with is a version of a constitutional amendment that was never actually ratified, you’re grasping at straws. [via]
- Bloomsbury will e-publish a one-million-page Churchill archive. I’m imagining some lonely archivist shouting, “But it’s one million and one pages!” and being told to quietly get rid of the offending page. But that’s probably just me.
- “Carpe diem” doesn’t mean “seize the day“? Man, Robin Williams was a terrible teacher! [via]
- Man, more rejection letters should be like this. (Conversely, less of them should be like this.)
- And finally, first this, now this. I have got to start riding the subway more often!
Wednesday various
- I know Terry Gilliam’s been having trouble getting films made, but has it come to this: he’s directing webcasts?
But I kid. It looks like an interesting if unusual idea for a concert series, pairing directors and bands, and I might just check next Thursday’s webcast out if I have a chance.
- E-books article drinking game. [via]
- It’s actually been months since I’ve played Plants vs. Zombies, but I thought this was interesting: Michael Jackson Estate Forces ‘Plants vs. Zombies’ Update. Yeah, I can see how an undead Jackson might not sit so well with them. [via]
- Speaking of zombies, Night of the Living Wonks [via]
Looking at the state of international relations theory, one quickly realizes the absence of consensus about the best way to think about global politics. There are multiple paradigms that attempt to explain international relations, and each has a different take on how political actors can be expected to respond to the living dead.
- And finally, baby moose in a sprinkler. Honestly, too cute for words. [via]
Wednesday various
- I have to say, Todd VanDerWerff does make the death throes of ‘Til Death sound much more interesting than it probably was:
This was television made by consummate professionals who were pretty sure no one was ever going to see it, and it was somehow gloriously awful and compellingly watchable all at once.
He does, of course, stop short of saying the sitcom ever got good.
- Susan Orlean’s tale of editorial alphabet soup sounds perfectly believable to me. [via]
- Jon Stewart: “We’ve redefined success…and still failed.“
- It’s not particularly reassuring to realize that BP’s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is more than rule than the exception: More oil spilled in Nigeria “every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico” [via
- And finally, two Doctor Who links: Oscar the Grouch: Time Lord [via] and wanna buy a TARDIS?
Wednesday various
- Stieg Larsson is turning out to be an incredibly prolific dead man.
- Scientists have created software that can recognize sarcasm. Now if we could just figure out a way to transfer that ability to more people… [via]
- Whatever your feelings about deaf culture and cochlear implants — personally, I sympathize, but I still believe deafness is a disability — it’s hard not to be a little moved by this video of an eight-month-old deaf baby hearing sound for the first time. [via] And that child later would grow up to be…Iron Baby.
- And finally, Lorne Michaels on being Canadian and comedic [via]:
“I think that Canadians have an incredible reverence for authority and regard for authority, and I think one of the healthy ways that it’s challenged is through questioning it, through the polite hostility of comedy. It’s allowed. It’s not encouraged, but it’s definitely allowed, and you stand very little chance of being shot.â€