I read a lot. It's not an overstatement or hyperbole . I scan at least two papers everyday: my local daily paper, the Post-Gazette , and The Financial Times, plus the International Herald Tribune online. I subscribe to Time, The Advocate and Smithsonian, and PC World, not to mention the TV Guide. I'm also considering adding Computer Shopper (a free subscription) and Wired to the mix.
Books, hardback books are sort of an obsession with me. You can check out my collection at LibraryThing. I would rather have hardbacks over paperback, if given the choice. Ironic, since two of the three books on my reading shelf at the moment are just that. Lea's Book of Rules for the World and Sweet Jesus, I Hate Bill O'Reilly. And, The Anarchist in the Library, rounds out the three as the only hardback. Political satire, lesbian satire and alt tech essays and analysis. Yeah I'm odd, and I like it that way. That, and I'm not really happy unless I know I have a book in the mail on its way to me .
On the net I'm a daily visitor to Cnet's News.com, the socio-pop-tech blog BoingBoing, theBBC's news sections, and I hit Digg every few hours. Add to that the hours spent reading the lastest in net design and CSS tricks, IE workarounds, and the dissection and admiration of other peoples sites - I damn near OD on tech. And that dosn't even take into consideration the pod and vodcasts, like Crankygeeks, that I consume like the fat kid in Willy Wonka, drowning in a river of geeky goodness.
All of this is why I'm working on feedfarm. Need to consolidate just a tad! Now back on topic...
The latest bit of consumed text is a piece in the Wall Street Journal , courtesy of a link in Digg. Hollywood's Take on the Internet Often Favors Fun Over Fact. Not that its anything even remotely near a shock. But damn, as society advances, and it's near impossible not to touch a computer, let alone use the net, Hollywood takes us for fools.
Its not flashy and immersive (well not the way they think or the way we would like), it can't suck in your thoughts, or suck out your mind or your soul for that matter, and half the time it doesn't even work. But the bright lights hit it and it becomes either the savior of man or his down fall. As a geek I have issues with all of this. Sigh, but Hollywood doesn't even try, Matrix aside. Enough of the rant, since the article , which I recommend, takes the same point and dose it better - why re-hash?
But I will say this: Hackers may be hokey but I have it on DVD, and there is part of me that wishes that tech and tech world really was that fun. And this was the film that started my long term love affare with, the now disbanded, Orbital. Opening credits on the plane - woo!
No matter what, even if the tech was wrong, the attitude was right. The little guy with the right skills can take down the arrogant even if they have the money and the power. Information should be, yearns to be, and will always - in the end - find a way to be free. That you can't stop the trends, growth, and the developement of technology. Good or bad, it is here and it will be used. The Conscience of a Hacker (a.k.a. The Hacker Manifesto) :
... We explore... and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge... and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias... and you call us criminals. You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it's for our own good, yet we're the criminals ...
So, I'm an idealist on the realm of things cyber. I may not be the most skilled, or even the most well read about this or any other topic, but I believe in it, and am open to what it has to offer and teach me. The written word was meant to be consumed, known and used, in any form it takes, paper preference aside.
Maybe, as one friend said, he should just call me Tron - if I only had a lightcycle!