On The Cutting Edge

I’m feeling good, stoked in fact, on the cutting edge. This week I filled out my forms and uploaded my publishers’ Oilspill dotcom files to Kindle. Today I entered the Star Trek dimension – beam me up Scotty!

Only a few weeks ago, I saw a Star Trek Next Generation episode in which (Lt. Commander) Geordi La Forge, the engineer, was preparing to travel to a convention on Reiser (surpassed Hawaii back in the 22nd Century for most popular business convention destination). He told Data (the android) that he planned a few days vacation and recounted the books he had uploaded as he tapped his pad (a Staff Fleet-issued 24th century Kindle).

So I am stoked. It is not often that a Trekkie can reach out where no person has gone before (well, a few hundred thousand perhaps) and enter into that technological plane.

I believe in the e-book. There is no justification for us to cut down forests and then wonder about global warming. The transportation of books, the warehouse, the garbage generated from paper and ink, and all the other related resources that could be saved if we all went wireless.

I do, however, have to admit that I don’t own a Kindle. Furthermore, even if I did (and the male techno-envy part of my ego wants one), I think I would have a hard time completely relinquishing the written book. Touch, smell, even looking at the collections on my shelf as they passively collect dust, these sensory experiences are all part of an overall experience beyond the screen.

But I am excited, even if slightly hypocritically so, that Oilspill dotcom is now available from Kindle. It’s nice to be a part of the future. Now I’m going home to curl up with a good hardback book, The Accidental Billionaires, which I’ve just purchased. I can’t wait to hear that virgin book spine crack!

By the way: did you know that the iPhone has Kindle accessibility too? Not only that, but let’s say you were reading a book on Kindle, for the sake of argument - Oilspill dotcom - and had stopped on a specific page. Then later on that day you had decided to access it via your iPhone, the phone would ask if you wanted to pick up where you left while reading on the Kindle. Cool – Capt. Kirk never had that kind of accessibility!

Good Writing,
Alon

http://www.alonshalev.com/