Something from the Anorak_Girl

I realise I'm known as a bit of a geek, and that my love of Sci-Fi may possibly make me seem somewhat odd. And while I've always been a fan of Star Trek, especially The Next Generation, I didn't really get into the later spin-offs. I tried with DS9, but couldn't get to grips with a stationary story line - it was almost as if they'd copied Babylon 5. Almost. And with a better budget, so it probably doesn't look quite so 80's dated right now. I wouldn't know, I couldn't get into it. I never even gave Enterprise a chance, because I had other things on my mind when it came out. Babies and stuff. But I did rather enjoy Voyager - this may have had something to do with being one of the very few people on the planet who didn't find Janeway annoying. I liked her - she was spunky!

But it would appear that I didn't get into Voyager quite as well as I'd thought, because I've just discovered, while browsing through my Radio Times (no, I never did send that letter off) that there's a character called Annorax in it!

Oh, come on! You can not be serious! You've called a character Annorax, and you expect me not to laugh!

You know what I think? I think it's an hommage to all the fans over the years, without whom Star Trek would have been nothing.

Paper Books vs. Ebooks

My most recent copy of PC Pro arrived a week or so ago, with a review and discussion of eBook readers. These devices have come on a long way, and while I may be happy to carry a goodly handful of eBooks on my phone for reading when I stumble into boredom, I can understand that a tiny little 2" screen isn't going to be the screen of choice for most discerning readers.

However, the technology seems to be truly amazing, with some of the devices conserving energy by using the battery only when actually changing a page for the next one. The size of the screens is much closer to that of a real paperback than my phone or even my Palm will ever be. It's got to be said, though, that I love to have a bookcase worth of books with me all the time.

On the other hand, I completely understand those who hate these devices with a fiery passion - I too, love the feel and smell of books, even new ones. I love the paper as it moves against my fingers, and I really like to be able to see illustrations as they were intended. And comics - no eBook reader will ever be able to display comics for me with anything approaching the original experience. That's going to be a big no-no.

But we're not here to bellyache about eBook readers - I'm down with both arguments (sorry, I'm not down, I'm entirely sympathetic with). What I'm here to grumble about is the price of eBooks. After all, for me, a book is mostly about the story.

I don't know why I still find myself surprised that the price of an eBook is completely over the top in comparison to purchasing, with all the attendant costs, a physical book.

This morning I got one of my bi-weekly email from Fictionwise, promoting their latest offerings. This week, due to the excitement building for the forthcoming release of Twilight, a film of a book about vampires, they're pushing The Twilight Saga. The first book, Twilight, is on sale at Fictionwise for the princely sum of $10.99 (£6.74, according to my currency conversion gadget on Google), but you can get the same book, in paper this time, at Amazon, for £2.95 (or if you need to shop in the US, Amazon.com has it for $6.04). Sure, to qualify for free postage on your book, you'll need to work out how to spend a whole extra £2.05, but there - you might as well buy the second book in the series, New Moon, for £3.98 to bump up your total. So, for 19p more than the cost of one eBook, you get two actual books. Books you can feel.

And here's the lovely part. The part which always puts me off buying eBooks. If you don't like the stories you've just bought, you can do one of many things.

1. You can give the book to your pre-teen daughter and see if she likes it. Failing that...
2. You can sell the book on eBay. Nobody bidding? OK...
3. There are charity shops always looking for newer books. Hell, they'll take pretty much anything!

With an eBook, even if it's not a secure format restricted to a single device, giving your book away or selling it on seems to be considered tantamount to major fraud! Let's compare and contrast...

This is written inside a paperback.
"This paperback is sold suject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers consend in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser."

And at the beginning of an eBook.
"NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorised person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and imprisonment."

Wow! There you have it. Legally I am allowed to loan out my paperback, sell it on eBay, or give it away, as long as I don't mess with the cover it came with. OK, this might be a problem for those Blue Peter sticky-back-plastic-o-philes out there, but for the rest of us, we're not that distructive, so with the exception of a bit of bending, possibly a rip or two, the cover's going to be the same.

And what if I actually enjoy a book? Just this morning, during a discussion about the forthcoming Brideshead Revisited film, I confessed that I'd never read the book, so the English teacher to whom I was chatting said, "Come up to the English department - you can borrow a copy, we've loads up there." If I read a book and enjoy it, I can press it upon my brother, and he can enjoy it too. If I read an eBook, legally I'm not allowed to "loan" him a copy of the book. Technically, I probably will.

I suspect that eBooks will remain a niche option until publishers become a whole lot more sensible about pricing. And I don't even want to start on the DRM problem - I've bought a book I dislike, and now I can't even sell it on to recover some of the costs? Poo!

What Would YOU Do?

I got into work this morning, to find the usual bunch of interesting things on my desks - notes telling me that people aren't using the computer rooms at certain times (emails? Anyone?), broken headphones etc. This morning, however, there was a new item. Not an unusual one, by any means. A digital camera, with a post-it note stuck on with this message.

"Please please can you empty this camera when you get a minute - no rush. Thank you v. much."

So, on receipt of a note like that, what would be your first thought?

Mine was "It's not bloody rocket science!" as I navigated through the menus to the Format option. And then, a nano-second after I'd pressed the Yes button, "Oh, I wonder if they meant that I should save the pictures somewhere else?"

So I went off to try and find the owner of the camera, and ascertain exactly what it was they had expected of me. Please note that the post-it wasn't even signed, so I had trouble working out who was the legitimate owner of the camera. Sadly, on locating the owner, she confirmed to me that she had, very much, wanted me to transfer the pictures (probably the last pictures taken of her grandmother, enjoying her 100th birthday celebrations with the whole family, who subsequently died last week, or something) to somewhere safe, thus preserving them forever.

Colour me feeling really guilty right now. :-(

There's just too much out there.

Do you ever, in your wanderings round the internets, think to yourself that there's a small possibility that there's just too much stuff out there?

This question occurred to me last night, as I logged into a social networking site, and was presented with the blurb from the site, which is obviously intended to enthuse potential new users into signing up, and using this site, instead of one of the, oh-god-how-many other sites.

For me, however, being greeted with "We've got so much content that if you started watching when you were a baby, and watched all day, every day, you'd be dead before you could watch it all." And THIS is designed to encourage us to use the site? Instead I'm filled with an overwhelming sense of despair, from the knowledge that I will NEVER, ever reach the end of it.

There's a world, literally a whole world, of stuff on the internet, and I'm afraid I don't have time in my whole life to see it all. What if I miss something in which I might have been interested because it's not in my list of things which I know interest me. How will I know if I have an interest in bacon related lol-cats (insert topic of choice here) if I don't know it exists?

So that's my main concern. But then there are the subsidiary worries - should I be outside getting more fresh air? Will I die, hunched like a wizened homunculus* over my steaming keyboard, as I try to experience everything the web has to offer? Should I be trying to get a life, meeting real people?

I have signed up for very few, it has to be said, social networking sites. I did jump onto the FriendsReunited site when it first came up, but Facebook and Bebo (and their many copycats) have passed me by. I find it perplexing that people who haven't got the first clue about how to make their print jobs come out can work with the bewildering array of options available on Facebook and the others. And then I think I may be spending too much time worrying about social networking, because isn't that where people go if they want to find incriminating evidence against you?

I've also failed completely to be sucked into the wonder of the MMORPG, content to remain in the last few years of the dark ages (or 20th Century, as we have come to call it), playing only Tomb Raider, and actually enjoying the story. I've tried (very hard, you understand) to watch my nephew play World of Warcraft, but after enjoying the scenery for about 5 minutes, I found the game play rather repetitive. You run around and kill things. You can do quests, a piece of knowlege which filled me with hope for a few seconds, until I realised the the quests all seem to involve running round and killing things. Sure, the graphics are pretty good (better if your machine doesn't run like cold treacle, I gather), and the environment is lovely to look at. The characters seem pretty flat, though, and any point of the game (are you working towards anything specific?) escapes me completely. I think I will have to consider myself a bit of a MMORPG luddite.

What else am I missing out on, due to the sheer volume of stuff?

*Thanks, Lois McMaster Bujold, for a lovely phrase. I can't remember which book it comes from, but it's definitely from the Vorkosigan universe.

Letter to the Radio Times

I've just got to write to the Radio Times and complain. I never do - I grind my teeth in fury, and the letters remain unwritten. I whine and bellow at my family, and still those letters remain unwritten. But this time it's different.

I'm Fed-Up with the RT giving away the bloody plot all the time. This is what it's all about. You know how they have a page with their "Choices" at the start of each day, where they recommend a handful of programs for your consideration? Here they tell you a little bit about each of their chosen programs, trying to whet your appetite and encourage you to watch the program. I like to have my appetite whetted, and avidly read about my favourite program, in the hope of tantalising myself, increasing the frisson of excitement and the sense of anticipation prior to watching the show. I don't know if it makes watching the show better, but that's the way I like to do it. So far, so reasonable, you may say. It's not as if they're telling you what happens - you don't get details of the dénouement, or anything quite that crass.

Well no, except for the use of one small word.

Tragedy. Such a small word (and even smaller when used as Tragic). But a whole world of meaning. My heart sinks whenever I read of "x y z with tragic results." or "tragedy occurs during the birthday celebrations..." In fact, I was mistaken - there's not a world of meaning in the word - it means death. Plain and simple - someone's going to die.

So that new season of my favourite series, for which I've been waiting since the end of the last season has arrived. In this case it's Spooks. Sure, they gave us the silly "Yoof Spooks" during the summer (which wasn't quite as bad as many people would have you believe), but I was waiting for the real Spooks. Actually, RT didn't use the word tragic, they used the phrase "a final scene which will make you gasp!" or something like that. In addition to which, they introduced a new fit man (in the magazine), and you just know that something ghastly is going to happen to the lovely Adam (played by the equally charming Rupert Penry-Jones). So instead of watching the show with bated breath, you're trying to work out when/how the inevitable tragedy (oh, there's that word again) will occur.

Really, Radio Times needs to think a lot more carefully about the reviews written. It's time you stopped giving away the plots.

Leaving Stuff on the Train

As every week brings new stories of civil servants leaving disks, usb keys and laptops in inappropriate places, I don't know about you, but I'm getting a whole lot pissed off about this. No, that's not what it is, I'm getting frustrated and perplexed.

The latest story to cross my path was in our local free newspaper, and talks about a chap who was actually fined £2500 for leaving some important documents on the train. It turns out that he'd inadvertently picked up these documents as he was leaving work, whilst scooping up his paper to read on the train journey home. So far, so sympathetic. Fair do's, it was a mistake. So the guy realises he's made this phenomenal blunder, and decides to take the documents back to work in the morning. Again, I'm with him at this point. Genuine mistake, guv, was just about to put the back, no harm done.

But this is where it becomes perplexing. He's realised his error, and he's working on correcting it. He's on his way back to work the next morning, with the documents, and he manages to leave them on the train. What? How has he NOT got these things handcuffed to his wrist, knowing that there will be all sorts of shenanigans on his return to the office when it's discovered that he has lost them?

I get pissy with my girls when they manage to lose things. Here I am, assuming that at 9 and 10, they should be able to look after their own stuff - I mean, if it's important to them, they mustn't assume that I'll just replace it when they lose it. Don't you think? It's not as if their stuff is important to anyone else, but since it's important to them, surely it's not much to ask them to take care of it. Actually, the 10 year old does fairly well, despite being a little daffy, and since we don't use the train that often, we've not had THAT much loss yet. But this chap in the paper is 38 years old, for crying out loud.

So, am I the only one who's beginning to wonder if there isn't something a little more sinister going on than just plain carelessness? Maybe the £2500 fine is a drop in the ocean compared with what he's getting from the opposition for delivering these "lost" documents into their grubby little mitts. It just seems to me that there is SO much publicity about these so called losses, that people MUST be aware of what they are carrying, and therefore, they're either incompetent to the point of stupidity, or they're working for the enemy.

"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action."