I am now blogging regularly at http://luke.gedeon.name.

I almost forgot about this site until a friend asked me about it today. So if you have stopped by trying to find me, try looking at my new site.

Oh, I see! You are not a left-wing liberal like me. That means you must be a right-wing fundamentalist. You believe there is only one God and trace your beliefs back to Moses. I guess that means you are a Mohammedan or at least a semi-Mohammedan. What? You say that you do not believe what Mohammed taught? But there are obvious similarities. Both Christians and Muslims believe in the supernatural, creation, and a single deity. Both trace back to common teachers, like Jesus and Moses. Both traditions have opposed the same things throughout the years, things like Greek Mythology, Secularism, Jews and even Russia. How could two groups be so similar and claim to be different?

Ok, I will stop before I get myself shot.......... You know how those fundamentalists are........ Ok, I am done now, but I hope you get my point. People do not fit into nice, neat little packages, and you certainly cannot split humanity into two opposing groups. The sooner we learn that lesson the better. Each person is unique in genetics and also in beliefs. We group ourselves based on common ancestors and on common beliefs, but that does not guarantee that apparent similarities are actually real.

One common tactic of debate is to build a straw-man? The straw-man looks similar to your opponent but is rather easily beat to pieces. By describing another person’s view for them and getting it almost right, it is easy to include some small inaccuracies (half-truths = whole lies), and then attack those areas. The problem is that, to anyone familiar with formal debate, straw-men are fairly obvious. Using them, makes you appear quite foolish. It is almost cliché now but few people realize the importance of seeking first to understand before trying to be understood.

Using a straw-man attack is very tempting. Straw-men do not move and cannot hit back. But, I doubt that many people even realize they are doing this. I wonder how many times someone has said, “talking to you is like talking to a brick wall” without realizing that they were not speaking to the person at all. If you do not understand the person you are talking at, they will recognize it and ignore you. You then are only talking about, and to, a straw-man that has beliefs and feeling that you think are similar to the person you really want to communicate with.

Even if your only goal is to wax eloquent, and not really have a real conversation, I encourage you to beware straw-men, stereotypes, and over generalizations. They make you look quite silly.

Of course, if you ask her about RSS you might get a blank stare. If you describe it to her, she would probably tell you she uses something similar called Bloglines. But that’s ok. Point is, she uses it, and it makes her life easier. We have about 16 blogs in the extended family. RSS helps her keep up. 

It took me less than 30 minutes to set-up Bloglines and Wordpress accounts and show her how to use them. And the rest is history. RSS is on its way to mainstream, even if the Scoble family is still a bit technologically backwards :)

http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/2006/02/22/blog-herald-doesnt-understand-why-full-text-feeds-work/

Wow, the iPage idea has generated a lot of discussion! Less than a year ago I distributed some printouts from the eInk website here at Thomas Nelson and had a hard time finding anyone who was interested. Now it seems to be an idea whose time has come. I have had many discussions and read several blogs on the topic recently. Here is my reply to several questions about the iPage idea.

Durability: I have dropped and otherwise abused my Samsung phone many times and it is still working. Quality technology can be built. Also with technology like eInk's flexible display instead of glass and hard plastics, the iPage will be incredible durable.

Keyboard Vs. Stylus: USB technology makes it simple to plug in other input and storage devices in addition to connecting to the internet. Also there is a new device that can project a keyboard onto any flat surface make portable keyboards even more portable.

Smell and feel: This can be bound into a traditional book binding complete with the smell of fresh ink.

Price: This is a cool idea, but you have to remember that there are two very different types of product that can come out of this technology. One is a full feature PDA with all the bells and whistles the other is a simple book, read only, 2 buttons to flip pages, limited storage, black and white, small trim, cannot brake it, and really cheap. It is the low end that will for some people replace books. The other can go after the laptop and PDA market. If you can keep these ideas separate I think you will start to see how very possible this is.

Browse-ability: A big part of what sells a book is a quick look at the cover, author-bio, and a quick scan through the pages. You should never judge a book by its cover, but most people do. This same method of scanning can be replicated with electronic media also. Amazon does not seem to be having difficultly selling books. Bookstores could even feature wall-size displays of book covers that you could touch to display the contents.

Protecting current investment: Wouldn't be neat if a recycling company could be authorized to trade printed books for electronic copies? Or maybe this could be done by some other organizations that are interested in preserving books in printed form, or both. You could scan them the first time if they are not already in electronic form then trade, possibly for a minimal fee.

Intellectual property rights without annoying or offending the customer: see my iTales proposal.

Here are a few of the blogs that inspired this post:
http://markhorne.blogspot.com/2005/12/ipage-anyone.html http://deepkeel.com/2005/12/12/182 http://george.sudarkoff.com/2005/12/electronic_book.html http://www.iampowered.com/archives/2005/12/22/the_future_of_traditional_book_1.php http://nickciske.com/blog/2006/01/31/why-ebooks-are-complimentary-not-revolutionary/

Most people really do believe that they are smart but then let certain types of problems cause brain freeze. I see this often with people who are using a computer. People who are much smarter and more knowledgeable than I am, think that I must be a genius because I actually take the time to think through problems they assume they cannot solve. Next time you run into a problem you think is over your head, pray and then follow the advice in this article.