The Ayatollah faction is still alive and well in Washington despite some scandal-related setbacks, and in fact a proposal is even floating around for a V-Chip to protect young minds from wicked videos and other menaces on the Net, not just on TV. I wonder if the proposed bill from Arkansas Democrat Sen. Mark Pryor, or similar laws, might affect e-books in some way, at least those with images. And can e-writers still be evil in text? DearAuthor, which discusses all kinds of romance books, steamers included, might want to chew over this one.
Speaking of library or filter fodder, I’ve just read of the forthcoming DVD release of complete issues of Playboy magazine published in the 1950s. I’ll be curious if public libraries in the States and elsewhere go for this. I hope so. Playboy published not just photos of the usual pin-ups, along with Marilyn Monroe shots, but also fiction by the likes of John Steinbeck, Jack Kerouac and Ray Bradbury, as well its share of distinguished nonfiction. In the same article, the New York Times mentions a Rolling Stone DVD collection.
Also of interest today:
—Laser printer particle researcher fires back at HP, from Engadget. So if you do a lot of printing, will you get cancer? Just what are the implications for people who download lots of PDFs to be turned into paper books and other printouts? Or those for people working around print on demand gizmos—which, in the form of the Expresso Machine, is the topic of an excellent if:book posting without any mention of the cancer issue? I’m just raising questions here, nothing more. Still, I doubt that e-books, as displayed on screens, can cause lung cancer. Update: See eSchool News.
—Nokia adds Microsoft’s PlayReady DRM to upcoming devices, another Engadget item. Already Nokia offers the Rhapsody service as an option for the N770 and N88. So if they’re gonna deal with the devils, how about e-books, too–deals with Adobe and Mobipocket, the latter of whose software already runs on some Nokia cellphones?
—How much is that novel in the window?, a Smith Magazine post about novelist Michael Thomas Ford, who is requesting $1 a word from readers to get them to appreciate the value of art and also to raise money for less fortunate writers. “If you donate $1,” he says in his FAQ, “I write one word. If you donate $10, I write ten words. If you donate $100, I write a hundred words.” OK, TeleBloggers, who do you think? A valuable cause or just egotism?
(Image is Creative Commons licensed and from Antoon, via Flickr.)
$1/word is just a bad model. I know a lot of magazines base their payment on a per word basis, but I don’t suspect readers know if paying by the word is a good model or not. It will not create the sort of good will that other models (like donate as much as you want and I’ll release the novel as soon as it hits $1,000 or whatever) will.