The Pirate’s Dilemma tells the story of how youth culture drives innovation and is changing the way the world works. It offers understanding and insight for a time when piracy is just another business model, the remix is our most powerful marketing tool and anyone with a computer is capable of reaching more people than a multi-national corporation.
Silicon Valley is a fascinating place. It’s a world center for innovation and technology, full of wickedly smart and ambitious people. A video called The Secret History of Silicon Valley is essential watching if you’re curious about how it all started.
…World War II set the stage for the creation and explosive growth of Silicon Valley, and the role of Frederick Terman and Stanford in working with government agencies (including the CIA and the National Security Agency)…
These same geniuses figured out that you could use ordinary tinfoil as plane chaff during WWII, and read Russia’s air defense network from radar signals bounced off of their own ICBM launches and the even the moon!
Unfortunately the folks from Google that put these tech talks up on YouTube don’t want me to show the video to you here. You have to click the link to see the video on YouTube.
As an internet-addicted millennial, I’m well aware that the printed word is dying. Our generation is going to be the death of printed magazines and newspapers. I haven’t read a newspaper in years, but thanks to Google News, Digg, Reddit, NowPublic and others; I’m still as informed as I was when I used to keep scrapbooks full of newspaper clippings.
But what I didn’t know is that books are already toast. Steve Jobs recently told the New York Times his opinion on Amazon’s Kindle electronic book reader.
“It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore,” he said. “Forty percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
Ouch.
Truth is, I’ve been thinking about writing a book this year. I was approached by a publisher last year, did the prep work, and they pulled out after they found another author that had already written a book on a similar subject. After that experience I was thinking of self publishing in print or an ebook. Now I’m wondering if I shouldn’t record video and sell DVDs instead.
My experience on commandN has really convinced me that video is the most compelling medium. I’ve often wondered when writing on my blog, why I don’t just turn on the webcam that comes built into my computer, and tell you what I’m thinking instead. I’ve been a writer for over a decade, and a blogger for 9 years. But I’m starting to wonder: if no one is reading books anymore, then how long until we don’t read at all anymore? When does recording and playing video become such a commodity that the printed word becomes a novelty? Good or bad, I think that day is coming soon. My early adopter gene tells me I need to switch my style up to stay ahead of the curve.
I love this song, I just can’t hear it enough times. A short, simple folksy tale of lost love and growing older. What more can you ask for? It should be no surprise that The Superfantastics come from east coast Canada’s music city, Halifax. Yet another great find from the CBC Radio 3 podcast, which I recommend all my music loving friends subscribe to.