Seven Generational Ruminations

The Kindle seems like a pseudo-green technology, in that you can buy books w/o it involving the destruction of trees to make paper and without it involving the oil to drive the book on a truck to your door. It's also an example of the digitization of our cultural assets, a digitization of the lifeblood of our humanity. And it also appears to be an extremely convenient gadget, akin to the iPod but instead of purposed for music the Kindle is purposed for written material.

Nineteen Eighty-Four author: George Orwell asin: 0452284236

1984 asin: B00007KQA3

Kindle: Amazon's New Wireless Reading Device asin: B000FI73MA

The Internet and Podcasting was supposed to create a widely level playing ground. Anybody with an ability to record and produce digital audio or video could set up shop as a podcaster. Armed with a small set of digital media production tools, and a web site, one could produce their own equivalent to a radio program, air their own ideas, and stand on their own virtual soapbox and tell the world whatever is on their mind. The iTunes service makes it real easy at the consumer end of the spectrum.