Book and other piracy -- research needed

Research needed

Publishers need more research (and more nuanced research) about the impact of book piracy in order to have a more informed perspective on how to approach it.

People pirate for many reasons. Some do it simply for the love of pirating. Some people amass large collections of movies and music and books that they may never watch, listen to, or read. Others pirate because they feel they simply can't afford to pay. These types of pirates are probably the hardest to convert into paying customers.

Novelty Seeking research

Novelty seeking

is one of four aspects that Dr. Cloninger and many other psychologists propose as the basic bricks of normal temperament, the other three being avoidance of harm, reward dependence and persistence. All four humors are thought to be attributable in good part to one's genetic makeup -- the predisposition that one is dealt at birth. They are the aspects of human nature that mark one person as a pessimistic worrywart, another as an outgoing team player.

Temperament remains fairly stable throughout life, Dr. Cloninger said, which means the shy and anxious boy is likely to be the shy and anxious grandfather, though psychiatric drugs, intense counseling or life-changing experiences can modify some aspects of temperament.

Any one person may have a mixture of varying degrees of the four temperamental dimensions. For example, a novelty seeker may have a low quotient of harm avoidance, not fretting over dangers real or imagined; a high level of persistence, and a high level of reward dependence, and so cares about making some sort of impact or statement.

Such an individual could serve as a poster person for achievement, the type with the self-confidence, optimism and originality to do something brilliant in life, assuming his or her great temperament was combined with great talent.

Alternatively, a novelty seeker who is low in reward dependence and low in harm avoidance may care little for friends or society and end up an aloof alcoholic.

London in 1825

London 1825
Population: 1,335,000

While the British Empire was flung around the globe bringing in immense wealth for a small portion of England, London, was largely a slum in 1825.
And crime was rampant. Not until four years after the city reached the record for being the most populous in the world did government activate a full time police force.

Information relevant to the London De Quincey described in 1821, and Pierce Egan in Life in London.

Writing ... typing ... keyboarding

What we lost in the switch

I contemplate the differences between writing tools -- Scrivener vs. Microsoft Word vs. this little Moveable Type box -- because I do notice a difference in what come out of them. Scrivener, a James Fallows favorite, makes it easy to break up your writing into tidy compartments that sit in a sidebar on the left side of your screen. In the first few months I tried it out. But I found it made my writing too choppy, as I refined each section without reference to the whole. There is something about the never-ending scroll of the Word document that I like, and not just because I bought into the Kerouac mythology. (OK, it is because I bought into the Kerouac mythology.)

I still worry about this, but I find it so difficult now to take the time to write things longhand.

data loss

I am trying to understand the phenomenon of decay of information that could be seen as data loss, although this is not how the term is defined by Wikipedia (data loss). It is not an intentional or accidental loss or destruction of data. What I am thinking of is more like the loss that occurs when a digital music file is saved in a lower bit rate or when an analogue sound gets clipped in the process of digitizing.
I suspect that the same is true of information and especially of ideas. The process of encoding them in a way that enables them to be disseminated on the web--or that encourages their dissemination--requires a loss of complexity or detail. The sharp edges get knocked off, and the parts that require more processing are left out.
The result is a flattening of experience, dulling of senses and of the intellect. It leaves one satisfied, in a way, and yet empty, in another way. In a world of ubiquitous information one seeks more information, one seeks something new, not predigested, not already worn down.

The Airport and J. G. Ballard

Going somewhere? AIRPORTS By J.G. Ballard
[The Observer 14/9/97]

at an airport such as Heathrow the individual is defined, not by the tangible ground mortgaged into his soul for the next 40 years, but the indeterminate flicker of flight numbers trembling on an annunciator screen. We are no longer citizens with civic obligations, but passengers for whom all destinations are theoretically open, our lightness of baggage mandated by the system. Airports have become a new kind of discontinuous city, whose vast populations, measured by annual passenger throughputs, are entirely transient, purposeful and, for the most part, happy. An easy camaraderie rules the departure lounges, along with the virtual abolition of nationality - whether we are Scots or Japanese is far less important than where we are going. I've long suspected that people are only truly happy and aware of a real purpose to their lives when they hand over their tickets at the check-in.

Airports are a number of things to Ballard. The individual is intransit, defined not by nationality, or possessions, but by "the indeterminate flicker of flight numbers". But airports are also the "discontinuous city," the city of the transient, the deracinated. Here, Ballard believes, people are "truly happy."

But here one is also the observer of the crowds who flow forever and who are always just passersby. They are never neighbours, or property owners, or people with some claim to anonymity or privacy. They are by definition random and unpredictable. Specific types or events or attitudes or experiences cannot be anticipated. The passengers offer the spectator the possibility of new experience. 

Ballard also likes the newness, what Koolhaas would call the generic quality of airports: 

I welcome its transience, alienation and discontinuities, and its unashamed response to the pressures of speed, disposibility and the instant impulse. Here, under the flight paths of Heathrow, everything is designed for the next five minutes. Its centrepiece, and for me the most inspiring in England today, is Michael Manser's superb Heathrow Hilton, near Terminal Four. Its vast atrium resembles a planetarium in the way that it salutes the skies above its roof.

"Transcience" and "alienation" are its hallmarks. But it is exactly these things which make it the perfect site for the type of experience Ballard praises. He wants experience removed from context, pure and without compliations. Or, if there are complications, they are ones which the observer can remove himself from, pass on, become oneself transient. Like De Quincey in his opium trance recalling his ability to "draw from opium" an escape from sad or disturbing scenes. For the observer in the airport, the generic space is its own opium. 

Small Piece of a very large photo

40 Gigapixel Panaoramic Image Is The World’s Largest Indoor Photo

Strahov Monastery Panorama by Jeffrey Martin

Præteriens enim, et videns simulacra vestra, inveni et aram in qua scriptum erat: Ignoto Deo. Quod ergo ignorantes colitis, hoc ego annuntio vobis. (Acts 17: 23)

[For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To the Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.]

The web, large image, image of an inscription in a dead language, referring to an inscription in another dead language--somewhat ironic.

William Gibson on Twitter

deeply convinced of the merits of Twitter: “It’s the only social-media tool I ever use. The incredible simplicity of the thing strips away all the culture-building, the nation-building that comes with Facebook. Facebook feels like living in a mall; Twitter is like living in the street. You can bump into anyone. Nothing is guaranteed to be pleasant, [although] one can customize one’s experience.

“I wind up with something that is like an ever-changing 24-hour magic magazine, with a constant stream of novel, if pointless, information, which sounds like it could be lethal for a novelist, so I try to keep that in mind.”