reading

Having just read The Information: A History, a Theory, a Flood on my Kindle DX, I am irked by something I noted in this Kindle ebook and The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind - namely, the footnotes aren't linked or permitted to be seen unless I'm willing to scroll to the end of the book. For someone who likes to know the sources, this makes these eBooks burdensome when compared to the print versions.

And it isn't as if the footnotes could not be linked through the technology being used. I don't know who is responsible for this slothful use of technology in publishing, but I'd really appreciate it if someone spoke slowly to whoever is allowing these books with unlinked footnotes to pass through. It's horrid.

I realize that the vast majority of people probably don't look at the footnotes, though they probably should - just as the Wikipedia requires citation, so do honest and good works of research. My tendency to read those sorts of books is not really relevant: What is relevant is that the authors in both of the above cases went through the trouble of offering footnotes for we readers and in the publishing process they were stepped on without a thought. Is it that the publishing companies don't respect the work of the authors or is it that the publishing companies don't respect the want and need for their readers to follow up on interesting tendrils of thought and exploration that come of footnotes? I do not know. But I do know that I often use footnotes to form my reading list - so if I can't immediately see the citation in its context, that is lost. And who loses? Clearly I do - but so does the entire publishing industry.

It's time for the eBook publishing industry to use the technology to allow for better use of the eBooks. In this case, James Gleick's awesome research is all but spit on - and it's his in depth research that makes his books so worthwhile.

It's broken. Fix it.

The curse of the writer is not to be read - be it an obscure blog on the Internet or in a letter to the editor of a newspaper or even a simple fax. To sit and write anything while trying to convey ideas, information and emotion takes not just an effort but a hope that someone will understand what the writer is trying to convey.

The simpler things can be conveyed through a small amount of words - enough so that they can suffer the textual limitations of a Twitter update or a Facebook status update. The more complicated things take a bit more.

Yesterday, I went to a bookstore in Clearwater, Florida. A Borders. Walking through the doors, the scent of literacy teased at my nose and mind and soon I was lost - for one, looking for a copy of Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent - someone close to me wanted a copy. There were none to be had in the store, which didn't surprise me that much: either it was sold out or it wasn't carried.

Wandering, I inhaled titles. When it came to Latin America, I found it amusing how little there was - but there was still much more than I have seen in bookstores in Trinidad and Tobago. In the computer area, there was more of the same acronyms in their continuous juxtapositioning to find meaning. Perhaps late at night new books are formed of acronyms imagined in this area. Science was littered with pre-science: pre-algebra, pre-this and yes... pre-that. Business? Not much of a selection when one considers the recent changes in the global economy. Fiction? Some of interest. Science fiction? Some of interest.... the list goes on.

Magazines? Plenty of magazines. 4 Linux related magazines, including the Linux Journal. Some automotive stuff, but nothing that had context for me.

Nothing that would compel me to buy something.

I went 'off the grid' for about a week, and it is a bit funny where I chose to do it - in Ottawa, Canada. I had made a pact with myself and a few close friends that I would not write on my websites during the time I was gone. Let's take stock - I went to a far more developed country than Trinidad and Tobago and went off the grid. Most people try to do the reverse, to come to the developing world citing tourism and going off the grid.

What can I say? I've never been accused of normality.

On the way, I saw Georgia Popplewell of Caribbean Free Radio on the plane to Houston, Texas. She said she would follow me on the blog, and I quipped as I passed, "No you won't...". She couldn't. She can't. You can't. It's all written down in a journal, by hand, with a few diagrams and doodles obtained for the price of coffee in Canada.

So, aside from not writing on websites, I put myself on a free writing exercise where I actually filled a 200 page journal by hand in 5 days. I allowed myself to take lots of pictures, but I did not post them until I was back in Trinidad. They are some good pictures if you want to check them out. I needed to break away from dealing with land ownership issues, family issues, and being pulled in a thousand directions by the forces of Life that sometimes seem to conspire against us.

Here's a hint: When you think Life is conspiring against you, its time to go off the grid.