Media

Film, Format, Fiascos, and the Future

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People hated "The Last Airbender" for many reasons.  I'm not going to argue any of them, as I've seen it (with Rifftrax) and it was mind-numbingly bad in a way that actually beat my incredibly low expectations.  But among the things people say about the film adaption of the beloved franchise – the hate of the actors, the plot, the acting, the direction, the story, the intermittent attacks of slow-mo -  there's one thing I rarely hear brought up.

Why a film anyway?  I mean let's assume that you have some driving reason to turn "Avatar: The Last Airbender" into some other media form, why a film?

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Those Powerful Christmas Gifts

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(Some of this was covered in a past podcast, but I wanted to revisit the idea).

What do the Kindle, the iPad, and Smartphones have in common with Gift Cards?

If you answered "flat and I'm sick of hearing of them as gift options" you're close, but I think you're missing the larger picture.  Though I too nearly burnt out on Kindlepadphone news over Christmas, despite my high news-capacity (news is mental jello to me), I believe there is something important about the sales of the Kindle, iPad, and Smartphones over the holiday.  In fact, I think there's a trend here that is worth exploring as it's going to affect technology use, and sales, and any jobs related to them.

We've all heard how Amazon's Kindle sales have been awesome. (I did my part in contributing to them as you saw).  Of course it seems that iPads are selling like crazy(at least in estimates) and have been doing well since the beginning.  Smartphones appear to be hot gifts.  So what is this trend beyond "technical stuff sells" that I'm all worked up over?

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The Amazon Kindle 3G: A Review

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PROS:

  • The screen is easy on the eyes.
  • Very easy to use and buy books.
  • A nice amount of extra features.
  • Man is it easy to get and read books.
  • There's promising experiments and software that hint at future improvements.
  • BOOKS!  OH GODS, THE BOOKS!

CONS:

  •  . . . I'll get back to you

SUMMARY: If you're a heavy reader the Kindle is a space, money, and time-saving device you should consider – even if you have a device that supports Kindle software.

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