There are a few people that don't think that Amazon's Kindle is such a great thing. There is a sort of primal fear that people get when you talk about taking away their books. Images of book burnings and dystopian societies where knowledge is forbidden spring to mind. Empty dusty bookshelves and unemployed librarians fill our nightmares. Without paper books, this sacred thing, there is no knowledge, no freedom to pursue that knowledge. Since man started calling himself civilized, he, or she, has measured that level of civilization by the ability to read. From scribblings on walls to rolled scrolls filling Ancient Roman Libraries. The greatest tragedy of the ancient world some may say was the burning of the library in Alexandria. As time wore on christian monks began duplicating books, spreading and sharing, and even stealing, knowledge throughout the world. We imported much of our mathematics from the Middle Eastern world. Once the printing press took hold, slowly, knowledge became accessible to the comman folk. Literacy, over the centuries started to become a concern for nation states. Today, many nations measure their wealth not only in treasures, but in overall literacy rates as well. With all of that history, all that humankind has strived to pass on, it is no great suprise that people fear the loss of the book. What the Amazon Kindle brings to the reading world is the distribution of literature on a level which we have never imagined. While eReading devices have been around for more than a decade, even in the same price range, they have never achieved the fame which the Kindle has. This portable library offers a promise. Imagine all of the classics of literature, encyclopedias, and dictionaries in every language distributed throughout the world. Imagine the affect that type of exposure to reading materials will have on literacy rates in all nations. The concept of the laptop, in a truly portable form has only existed for about 15 years. Only in a moderately affordable form for about 5 years. Imagine when someone takes the initiative to launch a one Kindle per child initiative. Preloaded with all the knowledge of the world. The Amazon Kindle may come and go. But the future of reading, of knowledge, is here. later, -junc

It has been ages since I've posted here. I updated the adverts today. Switched from Google to Amazon because Google wouldn't stop listing WoW Gold Farming crap. I will think of something to post later. For now, here are some comics to read: http://www.questionablecontent.net/ http://www.penny-arcade.com/ http://bunny.frozenreality.co.uk/ http://xkcd.com/ http://dilbert.com/ later, -junc

Okay, so it is time for a real update. A real post of some sort. But, first, more technical crap. I disabled the must register to post thing, but kept the ability to register. This will make it easier to track the size of my "community". As far as the spam thing goes, since comments go to moderation first it is not such a big deal. I also enabled akismet, the wordpress anti-spam thingy, so hopefully that will help. Anyway. I have a few projects going on at the moment. The top of the list is occupied by the Keptosh Novel. Years in development, things finally seem to be coming together. I'm trying to work with the Weekend Novelist approach. Most of the plot development was spent in Dramatica, specifically with The Writer's DreamKit. I recommend the book and software if you have trouble getting a plot into a decent outline (if outlining is your thing). The Novel template included with The Writer's DreamKit is worth the $35.00 (buy it from Amazon, not the publishers site). The Dramatica Book (which is also available in an older edition for free online) is pretty decent for working out character archtypes. All in all though the whole Dramatica thing is just a fancy version of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. Maybe even a dumbed down version, I've never read his book. All of that stuff means nothing if I don't start writing though. That is what the Weekend Novelist is for though, It provides a pretty decent 52 week program for writing a novel. I recently purchased the second edition of that book and so far I'm a little disappointed. I haven't read through it all yet so I won't slam it yet. Hey, this is getting pretty long, so I will wrap things up. My other big project of the moment is trying to learn 3DS Max. Summer quarter I am taking a C++ class and a time management/study habits class. I'm pretty excited about both of those. later, -junc