The RepRap Project

Science fiction is quickly becoming fact thanks to the desktop manufacturing RepRap project. For some time authors such as Cory Doctorow have been spinning tales about technology that allows individuals to cheaply manufacture items they design (or whose design they download for free, purchase, or steal). Doctorow's short stories "Printcrime" and "After the Siege" (see my discussion of the stories) go into great detail about the trouble we could get into when such technology becomes commonplace. For now, let's just bask in the shiny, new hope for a better tomorrow and the really cool technology.

How does the RepRap work? Using the desktop printer as a model, the RepRap "prints" layered pieces of plastic that can be assembled into a finished product. The use of metal and other materials are also under development so that more complex parts, such as circuits, can be manufactured.

One of the neat things about the RepRap project, is that their current milestone goal is to ensure that the RepRap can manufacture itself. Users who can ante the 400 Euros for raw material costs will be able to use the RepRap to build a copy of itself. The project intends to give the design for self-replication away for free using an open source model.

Kindle sci-fi and fantasy bestsellers

We had a request to follow up on what's happening with the Amazon Kindle's spec fiction bestseller lists. It is three months to the day I posted about the front runners at the Kindle's launch, so it seems like a good time take another look.

In science fiction, classics continue to dominate the top sellers, with Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five occupying the number one slot, and Orwell's 1984 right behind at second. In November these two classics rated in the top 300 of overall Kindle sales, and both have now moved up to around the top 200 in Kindle sales. Video game tie-ins have given way to the newest military SF by Nebula winner Elizabeth Moon, and yet another science fiction classic, Brave New World.

In fantasy, Gregory Maguire's Wicked continues to hold its own near the top of the bestseller list. Wicked has fallen from #1 to #2 in fantasy, and has fallen from the top 150 to the top 250 in Kindle's overall sales. Number three in fantasy is World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks, and number four is Gaiman's Stardust.

Here's an interesting piece of zeitgeist: the stunning success of the Dresden Files series on the spec fiction Kindle bestseller lists. Author Jim Butcher's Storm Front occupies the number 4 slot in science fiction and the number 5 slot in fantasy. Not only that, his White Night: A Novel of the Dresden Files is number one in fantasy. Not too shabby.

In horror, King continues to dominate, with three of the top five bestsellers. King's novels alternate with books by Kim Harrison.

Instant asynchrony

I've really been thinking about letter writing lately. Maybe it was writing holiday cards, or maybe it was listening too many times to "From My Own True Love (Lost at Sea)," a song in which the Decemberists keen "Mr. Postman, do you have a letter for me?" The Decemberists' tune brought back memories of listening to "Please Mr. Postman-" the version by the Carpenters my parents used to play when I was just a tater tot. I remember really connecting with that song, because when you're three years old, mail addressed in your name is a really big deal. I used to long along with Karen for someone to seal a message in an envelope, mark it with my name, and send it through mysterious channels to reach my front door. Magic. Slow motion conversations.

Now that I'm old enough to send and receive letters, I mostly use email. Sure, the delivery system is different (email has no yucky envelopes to lick) but letter delivery technology has a history of changing with the times- think back to the Pony Express (later replaced by the First Transcontinental Telegraph), or the pneumatic tubes that delivered mail twice daily in Paris. What interests me about the modern letter isn't just the technology used to deliver it, but the persistence of the letter through the dozens of way we now have to communicate.

Telephone, fax, mobile phone, SMS, chat room, message board, instant message, sites that allow users to share photos and video, blogging, online games, voice chat, and video chat. We have the technology to talk to each other across great distances face-to-face, real time, and to call each other anytime, anywhere. So why is so much of modern communication conducted as letters, albeit mailed electronically?

Email offers us instant asynchronous communication, and gives us the power to control the pace of our slow-motion conversations. Recipients can take as long as they want to reply to an email- hours, days, even weeks or months. But they also have the possibility to reply within seconds- which gives email superpowers that the guys running the Pony Express never dreamed of. I have written email to my husband while he is sitting in the same room with me. Why would I do that? The power of asynchronous communication is all about time- the summary of my research on feline nutrition may not be best communicated to my husband while he's battling the final board of his favorite video game. You might decide to email a colleague a few feet from your desk. Let my husband- and your colleague- get to your email when they have time to process it.

Asynchronous forms of conversation also leave a record- whether we're blogging, posting to a message board, or sending an email, it's pretty easy to re-read what we've written and how others have responded. The likelihood of finding a record of a conversation is in direct proportion to the asynchronism of the form of communication. I can pull up an email from 2004 with a few keystrokes. I can scroll back and re-read something a friend has written in an instant message window. Although it's certainly possible (and a little creepy) to record a telephone conversation, the content of a conversation isn't very searchable unless I keep written records correlating each conversation to its specific content.

The speed of interpersonal (and business) communication has an effect on our artistic expression. The epistolary narrative of Dracula was born in an era when people kept in touch by writing letters that took a long time to reach the recipient. Bob Newhart developed his famous stand-up routine (and later running TV gag) of one-ended phone conversations when it became possible to telephone people across incredible distances. The mobile phone has become a staple of modern action movies, to show the hero receiving critical information in the nick of time.

How is the instant asynchrony of the ubiquitous email affecting artistic expression?

Wicked #1 on Kindle's Fantasy Bestseller List

My last two posts (The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and Kindling the revolution of reading) are meeting up on on Amazon's Kindle Bestseller list. Maguire's Wicked has been the number one seller in the fantasy section of the Kindle store for at least the past two days. Today it rates #136 on the Kindle's overall Bestseller list.

Three of the top five leaders in science fiction are sf video game tie-ins (Halo and Mass Effect). The remaining top five include Slaughterhouse Five (Vonnegut, #2) and 1984 (Orwell, #3). Horror is topped by King's Song of Susannah.

What's interesting to me is that Wicked scores in the Kindle Store's overall top 150. The two sf classics are in the top 300. The King book at the top of horror comes in at only #640 overall.

I'll be keeping my eye on how these trends develop.

Kindling the revolution of reading

The largest bookstore in the world has announced its own eBook reader, the Amazon Kindle. More than just a device, the Kindle is supported by a huge (and growing) catalog of eBook titles, and by the Whispernet wireless network. Amazon pays your Whispernet connection, allowing you to free wireless shopping and downloading of for-purchase content. Oh, and they threw in free wireless access to Wikipedia, too.

My first glance at the Kindle gave me a tickle in my stomach- I had the sense this was more than a cool gadget, it was a glimpse at the future of how writers get content to readers. Newsweek enthusiastically agreed with me about the Kindle's potential, and as I read Steven Levy's "The Future of Reading" I got more and more excited. Projecting from current trends in blogging and digital media, Levy envisions a future when the book is liberated from its cover. The possibilities are intriguing, and many of them point at changing the role of the author.

Imagine a book that could be instantly updated or corrected- or revised by the author based on reader feedback. Levy predicts serialized novelization (alla Dickens and King's Green Mile)- except that readers would be able to interact with the author in between installments. This situation would create a collaborative environment where the author is no longer master of the universe, but guide through a participatory adventure.

Levy also extrapolates the role of the Kindle's digital annotation system. If readers can upload and share their annotations overlaid on the text of a book, annotations become a forum for disagreeing with the author, whether for fun, or to pose serious political protest. And one of my thoughts based on this model, what about using annotations to create derivative works of art (kind of like playing The Wizard of Oz to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon) or as a new form of fan fiction?

In one more possible affront to the omnipotence of the author, Levy points out that the Kindle is always connected, always online and ready to connect to other books (not to mention Wikipedia). So if the reader questions something the author wrote, or simply wants a different perspective from another writer, he is just a few seconds' download away from having another author's take at his fingertips.

Will the Kindle ignite a brave new world of authorship and publishing? I can't wait to find out.

Digital Rights Management

I was sitting in an Italian movie theater waiting for the show to start. The lights dimmed, parents shushed their kids, and teenagers giggled and played with the lighted screens of their cell phones. A community service announcement played before the main feature. Were they warning citizens against the dangers of drunk driving? Child abuse? Second hand smoke? Nope, it was a warning about the punishment that awaited criminals who downloaded free music from the internet. Larger than life black letters on red flashed across the screen, showing an astronomic fine and jail sentence for anyone who dared illegally download music.

My husband burst out laughing. It was more embarrassing than going to the movies with a kid who has to pee before the opening credits.

Why did he laugh? Because we'd never met anyone in the country who had legally purchased a song online. Everyone illegally downloaded ripped music. We asked an audiophile Italian friend how to repair one of our scratched CDs and he couldn't understand our problem- why not just download the songs from the damaged CD for free, then burn a new CD?

I don't mean to be rough on Italians- many other nationalities- including Americans- steal from artists, record companies, movie studios, and publishers by downloading illegally uploaded content. Honest folks like me pay for each and every one of their eBooks, digital audio and video files, and games. I don't mind paying for something I want to read or listen to- but I do mind DRM.

Digital Rights Management cripples digital content so that the publisher, movie studio, or record company dictate how I can use it. When I pay for my content, it comes shackled with a DRM- which means the eBook I can read on my Palm may not work on my husband's pocket PC. The song I bought from iTunes will work on my computer or on an iPod, but it will not play on an MP3 player not manufactured by Apple. I may burn the song onto a CD- but only for a limited number of times.

That's right- people who illegally pirate music can burn it to a CD, listen to it on their iPod, on their MP3 player, listen to it on their computer, and do whatever the heck they want with it. But since I paid for it fair and square, I have restricted use of my purchase. Does that sound fair to you?

Probably not- and the Free Software Foundation, consumer advocacy groups, and many artists don't think it's fair, either. Before we're too hard on the big bad entertainment industry, we should remember they're like overweight, out of shape old men who've gone red in the face trying to jog up the hill of technology. They know they need to keep up with the trends, but they're worried about losing money in the process. They are terrified someone to whom they sell a copy of a song, or a book, will put it up online and distribute it FOR FREE (shudder, possible heart failure).

Hmm. That seems to be happening anyway, doesn't it?

The reality is, that DRM makes the digital entertainment we buy harder and less fun to use. It restricts how we enjoy it. It punishes the people who are honest and does nothing to halt dishonesty.

If you think this is a small issue- think again. Norway, France, Germany, and Denmark are bucking against Apple's iTunes store. Their objection? The DRM. European consumer advocacy groups complain Apple's DRM is creating a monopoly for its iPod brand of music player. And, um, that's exactly what Apple's DRM is doing.

Science fiction writers like Cory Doctorow explore the role DRM may play in our future. For now, I'd just like to listen to my favorite Cibo Matto song when I'm out and about with my Palm.

eBook Library

How would you feel about a library where you the book you wanted to read was never checked out, you could keep it as long as you liked, and never had to return it?

The University of Virginia has made this dream a reality with their Electronic Text Center. Anyone from anywhere in the world can access over 2,000 titles to read in HTML or eBook format (Palm Reader and Microsoft Reader). According to the site, millions of copies have been downloaded by people in over 100 different countries.

The eBook library contains titles in the public domain- in other words, old stuff. Are you too hip for old stuff? What if you get the urge to read (or re-read) Alice in Wonderland, Around the World in Eighty Days, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz? You could rediscover the fun of a Sherlock Holmes mystery, or read that Shakespearian play that always embarrasses you when friends assume you know it. Books I've mentioned recently available at the eBook library include Frankenstein and Dracula. There are some gems in these 2000+ titles just waiting to be downloaded or read online.

But what if you want to read something written since the advent of TV dinners? Electronic library models, such as that used by Fictionwise solve this problem by allowing donors to purchase eBook copies that membered patrons may borrow for a short period of time. You don't have to return your copy or worry about fines- but the book will no longer be legible after the due date.

The Digital Content Revolution

If you had ever moved 3,000 books, a huge CD collection, and all your favorite DVDs and video games to a dozen different apartments (and moved all those books and CDs overseas) you'd still not be half as excited as I am about digital content. Now instead of paperbacks, I buy eBooks (and eBook magazines) from fictionwise.com. I buy my music from iTunes or eMusic. I download movies, TV, and other video content from iTunes and XBox Live (I can download demos and playable video games from XBox Live, too). I can even get digital audio books in English (audible.com) or French (audible.fr). I'd say I've fully embraced the digital lifestyle- and I'm loving it.

The first, most obvious advantage to digital media is that piles of books no longer threaten to topple as I walk through our house, and I don't have to spend needless hours of my life dusting jewel cases. The idea that I can "pack" the majority of our book and music collection on a pair of USB drives the next time we move, lets me smile when my husband buys another album instead of nervously wringing my hands.

But what if you only own a moderate amount of media, and have the good sense to stay put in one place? What can the digital content revolution do for you?

Advantage number one: it can get your stuff to you instantly. Forget waiting for a package to arrive in the mail, forget hopping in the car and driving to the bookstore or music store (are there still brick and mortar CD shops?), forget walking a couple blocks to the video store. Digital content, whether purchased or rented, is available instantly. The only possible delay is waiting for a long movie to download, but someday even that will be accomplished in the blink of an eye.

Advantage number two: you can watch TV programs and movies when it fits into your schedule. You no longer have to rearrange your life to catch Battlestar Galactica. Just subscribe to the series on iTunes.

Advantage number three: digital media is often less expensive than than physical media. I've saved money by going digital.

Advantage number four: you'll have embraced the digital content revolution, and the content you buy today will be compatible with the devices of the future.

Advantage number five: in March I talked about what creative solutions can be found to take it easy on the environment. The digital content revolution is an overlooked green shopping choice. If you order a DVD from an online retailer, the DVD has to arrive at the seller's warehouse. It's shrink wrapped, invoiced, boxed, shipped. A DVD purchased at the store has to be transported to a warehouse, then distributed to local merchants. You have to get in the car and go get it, then bring it home. Let's face it, you'll probably take it home in a plastic shopping bag. Oh- and don't forget that a factory had to stamp out the DVD, the accompanying full color booklet, the coupons and special offers you don't want stuck inside the case, the shrink wrap over the case, and the case, itself.

Environmental impact of the digital download: electricity needed to run the server where the content is stored, and the computer in your house.

It's a lot of fun being part of the digital content revolution. So far I've managed to participate without rioting in the streets- not that battles over digital rights haven't taken place in court rooms, caused international conflicts, or spawned grassroots protests. In fact, understanding DRM (digital rights management) is crucial to understanding the revolutionary new way we read books, listen to music, and watch TV. I'll discuss DRM and other aspects of the digital lifestyle in upcoming posts.

Carried Away

Ready for a tale of international intrigue, death, and rock 'n roll? Let's talk about Noir Desir.

When my husband and I moved to Italy, a friend introduced us to Manu Chao. His ethnic and cultural description on Wikipedia is enough to make your head spin. Manu Chao and his music are a mix of many Mediterranean cultures, and he's popular with the European liberal/communist intellectual crowd. Politics aside, he's a great musician, and he can make your knees melt when he plays the guitar. This brings me to the song that has literally carried me away, a song by French rock band, Noir Desir, in which Manu Chao is guest guitarist. It's no surprise that Noir Desir and Manu Chao teamed up. Noir Desir champions a similar European leftist agenda, anti-globilization, sticking it to the man (even when the man was the president of their record label, whom they defamed in person at one of their concerts).

The song that was the result of collaboration by Noir Desir and Manu Chao is called "Le vent nous portera." Translated, the track literally means: the wind will carry us away. The first time I heard this song I was struck by its wild, vibrant power. But the first listen is nothing. About the fourth or fifth time I heard "Le vent nous portera" on a warm spring night with the windows open and the house dark and otherwise silent, the guitar riffs and drum beats had wormed their way into my blood, infected me with the fever that is this song.

Now, to get this album, my husband had to import the CD (des Visages des Figures) from France (coincidentally the album was released in Europe on the infamous September 11, 2001). Des Visages des Figures is a great album with some fantastic tracks ("A l'envers à l'endroit" is another of my favorites), but something about "Le vent nous portera" catches the harsh passion of life and death. It is as though the springtime of new life and regeneration looks into the heart of death, rot, and decay from which it arises and does an impassioned dance in honor of the circle of life.

When we moved from Italy to New York, this album got left behind- temporarily. The temporary loss of our music collection has been eased by the digital music phenomenon. Between Rhapsody, iTunes, and emusic, we can find pretty much any track we crave- but not "Le vent nous portera." In fact, I couldn't find des Visages des Figures in any music store or American online store or digital music service.

Why is this album unavailable? I've got one theory- Noir Desir has been more or less blackballed outside France because its lead singer and lyricist, Bertrand Cantat, brutally murdered his lover, Marie Trigninant. The couple were in Lithuania, and when injuries from Cantat's beating resulted in Trigninant's death several days later, the local government convicted Cantat of murder and put him away for eight years. Though Lithuania eventually agreed to Cantat's transfer to a French prison, the sentence stuck, and Noir Desir's reputation went down the toilet. It was impossible to mention the band without the murder.

When the first warm days of spring rolled around this year, the old craving for "Le vent nous portera" gnawed at me. I broke down and imported it from France- the only country I've found still willing to sell it. Weeks passed, the CD didn't arrive. Delirium tremors began. We wrote to Amazon France, and they graciously resent our order. Then, yesterday, a knock at the door. My cheerful, smiling postman held out a cardboard box from foreign lands, unaware of the dark, exciting mystery it contained.