From dial-up to DSL. Wow. The difference is terrific. One key area it helps is in uploading the revised pages of the website. Revising the pages doesn’t take long, just swapping out the images and links, but the upload through GoDaddy’s FTP client was a pain on dial-up, largely because the thing reads the C drive of my computer. Well, fat lot of good that does since the IW files are on a second HD in the E partion. It loads the car for a trip to Montana, then I get to unload and pack for Florida. This is one area the old free Angelfire site has it all over GoDaddy by a mile. But you get what you pay for... errr. My last revision of the main page took 50-75% of the time it did on dial-up. So, that excuse is gone. Have no fear, I haven’t completely joined the future however as I’m still using the cranky old Sony. It’s cool becauce I can look at the browser/OS stats on the page hits and see exactly how many times this machine has been there. Anybody else using Win98/Firefox 2.0? Didn’t think so.

Eventually, I’ll upgrade to a new desktop and have more horsepower, etc., out of a desire (gaming) to as well as out of self-defense. Barring any EMPs or big CMEs, the march of technology is inexorable. Old systems will be shed like dead skin cells as information is delivered by more advanced methods.

Like e-readers.

It’s a topic we’ve discussed before and will no doubt kicked around again. Just as music downloads have impacted that industry, cutting into CD sales dramatically. Just look at the “Music” department at B&N. Remember when CDs filled most of the displays? Now, they cling to the wall like Deckard at the end of Blade Runner, broken fingers and all. There’s no music industry equivalent of Roy Batty to have a last minute change of heart. No, the download Nexus-6 is poised to stomp Deckard’s last good digits and send him to the streets below with a wet finality. DVDs and Blu-Ray are right behind music as sales across the industry show. Want an indication? Disney is catching tremendous flak in the UK now because they want to release Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland on DVD/Blu-Ray three months after its theatrical debut which has movie house owners howling. Why? They want the sales while there’s still a buzz around the film. Theatres fear the move will kill their already thin take from the film, but the Mouse claims most films do the vast majority of their theatrical business in eight weeks or so thus theater traffic will have dropped off well before their proposed release. Netflix rentals and broadband delivery of film content is cutting deeply into the sales of physical media and the producers are trying to hold onto that slice of the pie as long as they can. It’s impacting production decisions as well. Despite their strong sales, the Stargate SG-1direct-to-DVD movies The Ark of Truth and Continuum will likely be the last produced because MGM after having greenlit scripts for further SG-1 and Atlantis films had second thoughts seeing the drop in DVD sales across the industry. Films cost a lot to make.

So do books.

That’s where I think the eReader’s impact will be the largest. Think of everything going into the production of a book. Paper, printing, shipping, warehousing stock, returns, crediting stripped copies. Advertising, if any. Maybe a little for the author. If a publisher can cut or even eliminate those costs, its profits are maximized. Heck, they can take more risks with the material they select as well. If producing a downloadable book costs a fraction of what a print version, a publisher can roll the dice on Space Hobbits versus the Repitilians as it needs to move fewer units to recoup the investment. Here’s a link to John Scalzi’s blog offering his opinion on the recent dustup between Amazon and MacMillan over the pricing of e-books. It’s a little ex post facto now, but this is indicative of what we’re going to see as e-readers like nook and Kindle grow in acceptance and spread throughout the reading public.

Also from over the e-transom, a bit about the latest book in the plague of literary classics being updated with zombies, sea monsters, and vampires. My money's still on the train.
 
And here’s a link to a Guardian article on George R.R. Martin’s progress on A Dance with Dragons. And a link to his Not A Blog with more links to articles on several sites announcing the fact HBO has greenlit the A Game of Thrones series. Winter is
coming...

...next Spring. Here’s hoping the excitement will get his creative juices flowing and we’ll see ADwD during the interim.

(Thanks to Mary Anne, Julie, and Robert for the links.)