New Internet Land Rush?

ICANN has kept a tight reign on top-level-domain names (they are at the end of a domain name - things like .com, .net, .biz, etc.). Now they are mulling over* the idea of opening these TLD's up completely. This means we could soon see the long awaited .sucks TLD (think of the possibilities!), not to mention .xxx (which I have always favored contra the ridiculous and futile protests of tech-ignorant social conservatives).

So if you missed out on the .com cybersquatting boom, this might be your chance.

* The article is confusing because it confuses domain names and top-level domain names, which are different things. Unintentionally humorous (to geeks like me) quote: Hundreds of new domain names could be created by the end of the year, rising to thousands in the future.

Distraction Device

More on One-Laptop-Per-Child with some academic research showing it's worse than a waste of time and money - it could actually harm the kids who get it!

Let me take this opportunity to pile on OLPC even more. One of their fund-raising mechanisms was called "Give one, get one" or "Get one, give one". Something like that, with the emphasis on "get one". The way it worked was If I paid for two, one would be sent to the poor kid with a bright shining smile in some far-away country. Then I would not only get the warm feeling inside from my own wonderful do-goodery, but I would also get my very own OLPC PC! This perfectly sums up everything that is wrong with America and American charity. I do something that someone tells me is charitable, noble, and self-sacrificial, and then I get a shiny new toy. The really funny thing about this is that I'm certain all the geeks and semi-geeks who participated in this program unboxed the thing, played with it for an hour, and then left it in a corner. Now it's covered with pizza delivery boxes, iPhone 2.0 packaging materials*, and a couple of issues of Computer Gaming World.

* Or will be, after July 11th.

OLPC 2G2BT

The One Laptop Per Child initiative has not lived up to the dreams of its progenitors. I am grateful for failures like this. And to think they wanted to make 150 million of these useless toys. I am a skeptic concerning technology in education, but more like a rabid reactionary when it comes to shipping computers to countries plagued by food riots.

iPhone 2 Breaking News

The hype, insanity, and idolatry surrounding the iPhone always amazes me, but I keep having to add a few extra ticks to my amazement meter. Check out this article in Forbes (yes Forbes) about mysterious pallets at an Apple warehouse. It even comes with an impossible-to-parody slideshow. Stop the presses: we may have found where Apple is storing the new iPhone.

For me, this sums up everything that is wrong about America.

Software Suggests Evolution

It would be difficult to overestimate my contempt for stories like this: someone writes a program that purports to explain how the capacity for religious belief evolved. Here is my favorite part:

The model assumes, in other words, that a small number of people have a genetic predisposition to communicate unverifiable information to others.

The researchers ought to have had a lot of personal experience with that.

Judas Revisionism Revisionism

The carnival surrounding the the translation of the Gospel of Judas a couple of years back now has turned into a farce. Turns out even the fake Gnostic gospel bearing his name isn't really very positive toward the man. National Geographic and the agenda-drive scholars on the project made basic errors. Devastating recap here.

CreateSpace vs. Lulu

While pursuing my self-publishing adventures, I have done some research into the various options for getting a book professionally printed. A whirlwind of creative destruction is just revving up to tear through publishing, so it's a fun time to have a manuscript in hand.

Publish-on-demand is a big driver of these changes. Instead of keeping stacks and stack of books in a warehouse, ready to ship out to bookstores, a manufacturer just prints off a single book when an order comes in. This works great for virtual bookstores like Amazon. On the internet, two of the biggest players are Lulu and CreateSpace (a subsidiary of Amazon). I've used both services, so this post will be an effort to compare the two.

Characteristic	Description	Lulu	CreateSpace
Cost	If you want to print more than about three books, CreateSpace is the hands-down winner. The wholesale cost for my book (~250 pages) is $4.15 at CreateSpace, and $9.50 at Lulu. You can get volume breaks at Lulu, but the quotes they gave me were not impressive.		X
Time	Lulu's turnaround time is much better than CreateSpace's. CreateSpace has an approval process that takes at least a day. Plus shipping is slower.	X
Shipping	Lulu seems to print and ship a little faster. Their shipping costs are much lower (they offer a Media Mail option). However, once a CreateSpace book is in the Amazon system, you can take advantage of free shipping and Amazon Prime. I'll give them both a nod here.	X	X
Revisions	Because CreateSpace requires a proof for every revision, Lulu is more practical if you are rev'ing something a lot. Plus the high shipping means at least $10 for every turn of the crank at CreateSpace.	X
Amazon	Since CreateSpace is owned by Amazon, it's free to get an ISBN and get your book into the Amazon system. Also, as I said before, all of Amazon's great shipping deals apply. This is an astonishing thing - to be able to get a book into the greatest book distrubtion system in the world for nothing.		X
Distribution	Lulu has other distribution systems that I don't really care about. Consequently, I have not investigated them. Lulu charges $300, though, to get it into Amazon or any other system.	X
Profitibility	This is a labor of love for me, so I don't care about the money. But if I did, CreateSpace is a much better deal. For the same retail price, the author keeps a lot more of the dough.		X
Quality	This is close, but I would give this one to Lulu. The CreateSpace books are not as uniform, in size or cover registration. It's not a big deal and you would never know unless you had a stack of them in front of you. None of the CreateSpace books have been bad, but I just noticed the minor inconsistencies.	X
Cover Options	Lulu offers softcover, hardcover, and spiral bound (great for reports or editor's manuscripts). CreateSpace only has trade paperback.	X

Bottom line: I am using CreateSpace. I think Lulu would be great for a business user who has lots of really low-volume kinds of books (reports, etc.).