An Unlikely Ambassador

With that being said 15 minutes ago Lucy and I ordered a Kindle eBook reader for my birthday. Why the flip-flop?

Well, my own situation is that I live overseas and am beholden to the Launceston City Library for all of my reading. Every bit of information that I get about life at home is delivered electronically, and read from a backlit computer screen. Any books I want to read can be downloaded, but again read from either my iPhone, or laptop. A sea change began to occur in my mind as I discussed the idea of a Kindle with my Brother during that video chat. I have a significant number of PDFs that are manuals, and documents that I keep as a library on my computer, and having them in a kindle would be useful. Since I cannot get access to new release books, or anything not available here in Tasmania unless I purchase it in the USA and ship it here, it is actually far easier to purchase a book for $9.99 and read it digitally. With the price of the global Kindle now below $200, I found it had now reached the tipping point where its usefulness for me outweighed my reluctance in adopting new gadgetry.

As soon as I let go of the idea of a kindle being a replacement for the book, and just a very well designed delivery method for significant digital content I validated its place in my library.

I don't expect, or want eBooks to takeover from print books. There will always be a place for printed books, but having a digital alternative is an important step for publishing to take. It is simpler, more economical ( the device pays for itself after the purchase of 11 new release books) and addresses the issue of reading increasing amounts of digital content on a screen that is far easier on the eyes.

The price of $9.99 for a brand new eBook halves the cost of purchasing by more than 50% (if you buy new). According to this post the author makes just over half the amount of royalties on $10 that he would on the price of a $26. You pay significantly less, but the Author doesn't get his percentage cut by the same ratio. This could be good, as more sales are possible. I think that this will make eBooks a good option for Authors who want an alternative to using large publishing houses. This fact of access to a larger audience has more implications than I can figure in a blog post but it clearly could have massive implications for the publishing industry.

As of this moment the Kindle I have ordered is on backorder. It hasn't even been made yet due to a massive demand. Clearly I am not the only one who thinks the tipping point for this technology has been reached. I caution those of you who love reading not to think this is a negative turn, it only makes books and writing more accessible.

I'll keep you posted to the arrival of this device. This is the first gadget I've bought in Australia, and it will be a much appreciated care package from my culture.

Matt

Living in Tasmania can be quite insular. Some of the meat we have access to is from farms we can see just down the road. This is a huge difference to living in the states where there is only the smallest percentage of traditional farms providing beef, chicken, or pork for sale.

Regardless of a local option here in Tas, we still get a majority of our meat from factory farms on the mainland.

I recently read a book called "Eating Animals" by Jonathan Safron Foer. The book is written by a new father investigating the state of the meat industry in the USA. He is not a vegetarian at the time he begins this process, but by the end he is. He doesn't intend to make a case against eating meat, but inevitably the more you peer inside the way that 99% of the meat we purchase is produced, you can't help but lose taste for it. I expected it would be about how cruel the industry is, and I wasn't especially surprised on this front. What was reinforced however, were the other effects of this industry on our health. It was so much worse than I could have imagined.

I love chicken, I love steak, I love pork. However after reading this book - I know that by eating meat produced this way I am advocating it - and I don't want to do that.

The modern meat chicken has a life span of 40 days and in order to reach slaughter weight in the shortest amount of time it is genetically modified, pumped full of hormones, and force fed a series of antibiotics. Why does this matter to the people that eat this meat?

Oversight.

From what I've read the cycle seems to work like this. As a consumer you want to pay as little as possible for meat, and you want a lot of it. In order to supply the demand these highly efficient systems have been developed. The factory farm can do it cheaper and more efficiently so they become the single biggest producer and their market share is virtually total. To sustain this relationship the producers have at their disposal massive financial resources to lobby, and to even write the laws that govern their own industry. Effectively the whim of the consumer ends up being the final say in this industry, there is no leadership in this closed loop. Nobody can step in and say "wait a minute, look at the effect of this industry on the health of our nation" - it propels itself and all the power rests in the decisions made at the consumer level.

How scary is that?

There is really no big bad corporation that is trying to kill you, there is merely an industry that does exactly what consumers want - and uses every resource it can to sustain it.

If there was an alternative that cost a little bit more, but wasn't forcing you to take these kinds of health risks you would probably do it. Realistically though for must of us, there isn't that option. We don't live next to a farmer that raises beef cattle, pigs, or chickens anymore, its all or nothing. If you eat meat from the grocery store, it is produced in this way.

If this industry is to change, we either pay higher prices for a better alternative or we buy less of whats available. There are options.