What will this entail in the Kindle age? Perhaps we should adopt the model of game hunters, removing all the flesh and pulpy bits and mounting the skin. Amazon should sell dust jackets.

Daily visits are useless though, since I mostly post weekly or at most twice a week

—-
Yes, good sparks sprinkled
Amidst epic posts at times
Ribbon-esque enough.

And at other times:

Start with Pascal quote:
For this post I have no time
To make it shorter.

—-
“I am the sum total of the books I’ve read.”

This reminded me of a ,ghazal sung by Hariharan:

Main khayaal hoon kisi aur ka
Mujhe sochta koi aur hai
Sar-e-aaina mera aks hai
Pas-e-aaina koi aur hai

My rough translation:

I am the thought of someone else
I am thought of by someone else
In front of the mirror is my reflection
Behind the mirror is someone else.

@jeremy I wouldn’t call this ‘winzipification’ of ideas in the sense you and I have discussed. I am not compressing a bigger thought, but sharing a small ‘seed’ thought that (hopefully) can grow into many different bigger thoughts in different thinkers’ minds.

@pradheep Would digital ‘display’ book covers work? or would they be too direct/obvious?

Sure, a shorter length ‘ribbon’ like this, thrown in every once in a while does add flavor to the farm

But no, it isn’t just quantity of comments that I look for. I suppose I mainly look to ‘elevate the discourse.’ One meaty comment is worth 10 “good job!” content-free comments. And there is of course the fact that some ideas just take much longer to explore than others.

16 syllables. I have no talent in that range I think.

Regarding book covers: Just as there are skins for laptops, ipods, etc., I think that saran-wrap style kindle-skins (skindles?) may be the answer, certainly a lot less trouble than temporary tattoos on the forearm.

Keep up the short work!

@John: So the Japanese find even the minor ostentation of book covers tasteless? That shouldn’t surprise me, but it does. How do intellectual poseurs show off in Japan? Or are they lynched if they even try?

@otoburb @Erik @manju: am thinking of product-testing the short format through August, and making it a regular size if I am able to sustain it without sliding into fluff. But epic-size posts will continue . But yeah, slippery slope to be wary of. 5-day Test cricket didn’t think one-day cricket would come to dominate it, and one-dayers didn’t think Twenty20 games would cannibalize them.

@carlo … do you mean geolocal social browsing (eg. bluetooth range) or just general social browsing (twitter etc.) online? As Ed points out, long-range signaling is thriving. It is <50 feet that is suffering.

@irv I think a lot of entrepreneurs will try that bluetooth-range inter-Kindle social dynamics thing, but I suspect most will fail for being too direct. Social signaling works (I think) when the signal has a primary purpose that has nothing to do with signaling. A book cover is primarily meant for buyer selection. A Lexus is primarily a car. University-logo emblazoned t-shirts/hats are primarily clothing. Signals for the sake of signals are too overt to work I think, since they would defeat the purpose by signaling a subtext of social desperation. Indirect signals via other activities like games might work. Starbucks using a bluetooth scheme to run a “most books read at this location” rankings list, that displays on a board and wins free coffees. I suspect I’d win in my local Starbucks, but there are a few regulars who’d come close. I’ve never spoken to them, but I see them often, with books. And lately, Kindles.

@sharath Hmm… hadn’t thought of the “conversations that didn’t happen” effect. No thoughts on that yet. But would you really approach a stranger reading a Kindle and ask “What are you reading?” the way you would feel comfortable doing with a friend? Covers provide an opening…

@ed Do you know if there is any known correlation between digital degrees-of-freedom distance and physical distance once work/school cohorts disperse? Increasingly though, my social graph proximal neighborhood is filling up with people I’ve never met physically.

Sinking feeling – if books were to just disappear! Haven’t had a chance to see the Kindle yet, but it fits into the Tamil “kindle”…it is a teaser for someone who has grown up with paper books

Liked your short format…but don’t make it a habit!

Thanks!

What about conversations that did not take place by people put off by the book cover ?

So then its quite possible that some conversations will be triggered simply because strangers now don’t know what you are reading. At least in the early few years of kindle

Generally enjoy your blog !

The sharing aspects of bluetooth technology turned out to be a privacy and hacking nightmare, but there’s a reason why they were initially popular. Whattaya think?

btw: I am not yet 50 years old and I remember being taught to use a sliderule. After civilization is destroyed by the great EMP god, people like me will rule!

I really like your short format.