Sarah at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books will be speaking at O’Reilly Tools of Change conference on changes in the publishing industry. She asked her readers what she should include, what their concerns were, and what they wanted publishers to know and boy howdy did they respond. BSTB is not a blog with retiring violets for readers. The comments are thoughtful, smart, funny, and I hope that the publishing PTB are paying attention.

Not surprisingly, they bring up every issue I have heard librarians grumbling about as well. One thing that I realized as I read the comments was that people do realize and are concerned with the same issues that we are and for the same reasons. I have occasionally felt like we (librarians) are talking to ourselves in an empty room, but this makes me think the room may be the crush of the Season. It gives me hope that the publishing industry can still choose to listen and respond better than the music industry when faced with similar issues.

–Jane, her bookshelves thank her for buying a Kindle

I am not sure about other people, but I immediately thought of the paper sheet that Badger shows to Mal, Zoe, and Jayne with an alert for a “rogue vessel, classification ‘Firefly’… spotted pulling illegal salvage on a derelict transport.”

–Jane, wheel never stops turnin’

Here is a picture with my sister, Jennifer, myself, and our Band Director, Mr. Johnson.

It is funny how fast time goes by, but how gathering with old friends makes years seem like yesterday.

–Jane, very, very blessed to have been a Band Nerd

First, perhaps I should explain something to those of you who may live outside of Texas. There is one thing that rules high school: football. Football and all things related. High School band, whatever it was where you lived, is serious business in Texas. We practiced as much, and often more, than the football team. We received more standing ovations than our team did and they went to the playoffs almost every year. We gave sweat and tears to our field. You have to love something a heck of a lot to practice it in 100 degree heat on an asphalt lot.

So band was not something we just did. It was something we breathed in High School.

Mr. Johnson shepherded us from a fairly crappy band into something great. A band that won awards nationally. It was amazing to be a part of that transformation. Mr. Johnson taught me some lessons I will never forget.

Mr. J taught me how to win. He taught me that winning was hard work involving hours of toil, sometimes heartache, for one shiny moment. I learned that in order to be good, I also had to be on a good team. To be on a good team, I had to help people around me be better. In band, you are only as good as your worst player, and to be really great, you have to lift up those around you and be willing to learn from others. Teamwork was winning together.

Mr. J also taught me how to lose. One year, we went to a competition and gave it everything. We were, in our minds, far and above, finally good enough to break into the top ten finalists. We knew it. Felt it. But when the results came down and we had failed, according to the judges, I was angry, incensed. Mr. J though, he said he was proud of us. That we had never been better. That we had done our best and THAT was the best part of the day. Then, I only felt bitterness at something denied, but now, with years behind that memory, I know that I learned that day how to accept failure when your best is not good enough. Mr. Johnson taught me to be humble and feel blessed by my opportunities, regardless of the outcomes. I did not appreciate it then, but I surely do now.

Mr. J also taught me that adults in my life truly cared about me. He did, truly, deeply care about his students. I will never forget the day I sorely disappointed him in a way I have never disappointed another adult growing up. I still think about that day and I hope he knows that it was the folly of youth that made me reckless. Later, it was his anger that made me rethink my choices. What a fool is youth!

Lastly, the most important thing I learned: how to fold pants properly. This may seem frivolous, but I assure you, it is not. As a girl, I did not have occasion to fold dress pants as a kid. Why would I when I could so much better show off in a skirt? In band, the seam on your pants is critical. It is a uniform because you are all supposed to be uniform. A wrinkled uniform, an unruly plume, a step out of line, these are all things you strive to banish. For the first few weeks every year, Mr. J would patiently stand up at the front of the group and demonstrate how to fold pants.

Put the seams together at the cuffs. Tuck under your chin. Grab the seams farther down the pants, towards the waist, with your fingers and flip. Place carefully on the hanger and clip them in. All the while making sure the seams are all lined up.

I never fail to remember those demonstrations every time I fold pants. I also remember the “I don’t want to hear that you forgot ‘fill in the blank’ “ discussions we had every Friday before loading the buses. If you left something behind, it was your fault, your responsibility. And for those of you doubting, A missing “fill in the blank” let everyone down. Your failure impacted everyone.

Band made me a better person. The people I am still friends with in high school were all in band. Mr. Johnson taught me a lot about life. Things I never appreciated until I had some years past high school behind me. I am blessed that during that time in my life, I was shepherded by a caring and Christian man.

Mr. J has been directing bands for 27 years. He is retiring this year. I hope he knows that he is well loved and has impacted more lives than most of us could dare to hope for.

–Jane, Thank You Mr. Johnson for everything you do

This year, I surprised myself with the amount of books read: Sixty! I can only attest to the escape they gave me from diapers and dishes and I promise I never let the Bairn fend for himself while I read. Well, not long anyway.

This was the year of the series. I reread a few goodies (Harry Potter and Outlander) and scorched through some new ones. In fact, I would hazard to say the majority of the list are books in a series.

Here is my list. Enjoy and please consider keeping track yourself and sharing your literary finds at the end of 2010.

Total Books Read – 60
Most Books Read in One Month – 9 in August
Least Books Read in One Month – 1 in November
Average Books Per Month – 5

Best Book Read (hands down no contest!) – World War Z by Max Brooks. Zombies with a real world twist. I loved, loved, loved this book. Everyone should read it.

Best Second (or third!) Round Read – Castle of the Wolf by Sandra Schwab. I read this for the 3rd or 4th time and I have to say that it just never gets old to read such a great gothic romance!

Book that surprised me by not being as ridiculous as I thought the premise sounded: Kiss of Fire by Deborah Cooke. Shape-shifting dragons and star-fated romance. Sounds all kinds of terrible, I know, but I assure this series is fabulous!

If you want to know which books were bad, they will not appear on this list. Taking Nancy Pearl’s advice, I refuse to waste precious time on bad books. I give them about 50-100 pages and then move on. I did throw a few down in disgust, but I have blocked them from my mind and thus this list. This list is, therefore, books that were good enough to be finished, savored, enjoyed, and, some of them, read again next year.

January – 3
Stone of Tears – Terry Goodkind
Blood of the Fold – Terry Goodkind
Temple of the Wind – Terry Goodkind

February – 2
Voyager – Diana Gabladon
Soul of the Fire – Terry Goodkind

March – 3
Faith of the Fallen – Terry Goodkind
Lie By Moonlight – Amanda Quick
For My Lady’s Heart – Laura Kinsale

April – 4
Pillars of Creation – Terry Goodkind
The Red Scarf – Kate Furnivall
Mr. Darcy’s Diary – Amanda Grange
Naked Empire – Terry Goodkind

May – 6
In the Shadow of the Ark – Anne Provoost
Castle of the Wolf – Sandra Schwab
The Hidden Heart – Laura Kinsale
The Black Knave – Patricia Potter
Fountain of Dreams – Josie Litton
Mr. Knightly’s Diary – Amanda Grange

June – 8
Chainfire – Terry Goodkind
The High King’s Tomb – Kristen Britian
World War Z – Max Brooks
Captain Wentworth’s Diary – Amanda Grange
The Demon’s Librarian – Lillith Saintcrow
Twilight – Stephanie Meyer
Mouse Guard: Fall 1152 – David Petersen
Her Man of Affairs – Elizabeth Mansfield

July – 8
Phantom – Terry Goodkind
Before Midnight – Cameron Dokey
Love is Hell – Marr, Westerfeld, Larbalestier, Zevin, Stolrz
Peter and Max – Bill Willingham
The Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 2: The Burning Bridge – John Flanagan
The Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 3: The Icebound Land – John Flanagan
Confessor – Terry Goodkind
Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall – Bill Willingham

August – 9
The Graveyard Book – Neil Gaiman
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – J. K. Rowling
The Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 4: The Battle for Skandia – John Flanagan
The Ranger’s Apprentice, Book 5: The Sorcerer in the North – John Flanagan
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – J. K. Rowling
Kiss of Fire – Deborah Cooke
Kiss of Fury – Deborah Cooke
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – J. K. Rowling

September – 8
Kiss of Fate – Deborah Cooke
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo – Stieg Larsson
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – J. K. Rowling
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince – J. K. Rowling
Halfway to the Grave – Jeaniene Frost
One Foot in the Grave – Jeaniene Frost
At Grave’s End – Jeaniene Frost
Tribes – Seth Godin

October – 4
The Starfish and the Spider – Brafman and Beckstrom
Crowdsourcing – Jeff Howe
Ready for Responsibility – Dr. Bob Barnes
The Wisdom of Crowds – James Surowiecki

November – 1
Fool’s Puzzle – Earlene Fowler

December – 4
The Girl Who Played With Fire – Stieg Larsson
Irish Chain – Earlene Fowler
Shiver – Maggie Stifvater
Wikinomics – Don Tapscott

–Jane, thinks life without books would be a terrible life indeed

I think I may have failed at my job of influencing Mr. Rochester for the good when this morning he informed me that he did not know who Cory Doctorow or Lawrence Lessig were, though he admitted that Lessig sounded familiar. *sigh* I read part of Doctorow’s speech given recently, “How to Destroy the Book.” His description of Book People made my insides melt in that way they do when you realize that these words are about you in the most visceral way possible.

We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books. We treasure books we inherit from our parents, and we cherish the idea of passing those books on to our children. Indeed, how many of us started reading with a beloved book that belonged to one of our parents? We force worthy books on our friends, and we insist that they read them. We even feel a weird kinship for the people we see on buses or airplanes reading our books, the books that we claim. If anyone tries to take away our books—some oppressive government, some censor gone off the rails—we would defend them with everything that we have. We know our tribespeople when we visit their homes because every wall is lined with books. There are teetering piles of books beside the bed and on the floor; there are masses of swollen paperbacks in the bathroom. Our books are us. They are our outboard memory banks and they contain the moral, intellectual, and imaginative influences that make us the people we are today.

The whole speech is amazing and should be a rallying cry, especially given all the news lately surrounding monoliths and their inability to see the writing on their tombstones, in the way that Scrooge saw his tombstone and then had the opportunity to change.

The truth is the music industry, the publishing houses, companies who make proprietary software (or anything), and traditional phone companies are now looking at their graves and they face the same choice that Ebenezer faced: to continue to be miserly, unloved, and bitter or they can choose to open up, be generous, and realize that they have to give and let go to grow, live, and thrive.

–Jane, God bless us, every one!

Right.

This is a great plan guys. Really. I assure you that the people that switched over to ebooks are not going to plunk down $30 for a huge book when a couple months (or some Internet searching) will get them the same book as an ebook for $10 (or free). I also assure you that a large number of the people who used to buy hardbacks now have ereaders.

I am sorry that your publishing structure is threatened by technology. Please learn to move on and adjust your company strategy or you will go drown in your own bad decisions. Pulled under by that 10 pound tome no one really wants to buy anymore.

The Smart Bitches, as always, have the best response.

For the record, I still buy some hardbacks, but not to read and only for authors I really love. I collect them for my shelf and there are very few I am willing to do that for anymore.

–Jane, no longer shackled to paper

I am thankful for many things, but here is a picture of two of the big things. I took this while we were camping last week.

–Jane, loves her boys

Jason Calacanis: But for the leadership [of Comcast and AT&T], gosh how do you sleep at night knowing that you want to take something that’s been so valuable to so many. You don’t need to corrupt this, I mean you are making a lot of money already, last time I saw Comcast, Verizon and AT&T are crushing it, I mean how much more money do you DBs need to make? F you guys, greedy bastards. Really, I mean what..[ph] No, seriously these greedy mother effers (1:34:02) are going to, now they will start like oh, by the way, yeah, which level of internet service did you want, or do you, oh you haven’t subscribed to the voice over IP channel, we will get you HBO and VOIP and oh, there’s an extra fee for gaming packets and oh, you are a level 57…

Patrick Norton: It’s so scumbaggy. That’s the problem. It’s Internet – it’s the ‘Internet large ISPs Right to Take You Anyway They Can’ Act. That’s what this is all about. This is about AT&T wanting to be able to restrict VOIP access. It’s about Comcast wanting to rake it in on crushing P2P and other traffic they find annoying like video traffic. And what it comes down to is that in many cases they don’t deliver the level of service they want or they feel they are incapable of delivering a level of service the customers think they have paid for. You’ve got 16 megabits except we only want to give it to you when you are downloading one webpage at a time. Not for video, not for software downloads, certainly not for peer-to-peer. And you look at what’s going on and it’s really depressing. I mean how much money is AT&T spending on technical economists – I love that name. Well, if people actually really want to have this level of service 24×7 for downloads they would need to be equivalent of corporate account and that’s a $400 a month fee. We can’t afford to do this.

I liked that Patrick Norton pointed out that many people turn to the Internet to fill gaps in the services provided by Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T. The Rochester house used to have Comcast everything and we got tired of being fleeced by them while being provided a sub-par service. We now have TiVo and no cable. Sadly,we still have Comcast Internet because there is not other alternative in our area that doe not require a phone line.

If you would like more information on Net Neutrality and the oxymoronic named Internet Freedom Act, please do some research. Here are some places to start.

Save the Internet: you can send a letter to your rep

What is Net Neutrality?

Daily Show on Net Neutrality (from 2006! This issue is not new!)

Internet Freedom Act (official govt. page where you can indicate your support or not)

Also, the above act should not be confused with a similar bill, the Internet Freedom Preservation Act, which does support net neutrality. Net neutrality needs a better name so that ordinary people know what it means.

–Jane, the Internet should be an equal playing field

I bought Inara about 4 years ago because I needed something small to take to conferences and she has served me very well. I was running Windows XP on my system. Somewhere in there, I had some issues and had to partition the hard drive and install a second instance of Windows. From then on, things went down hill. There was increasing slowness, the CMOS battery died on me, and bootup and shut down time was like pulling teeth.

Mr. R has been wanting me to try Linux and I have considered going open source but that was such a big step; I was not sure I was ready. I love technology, but I hate coding. HATE. IT. It requires more patience and rational thinking than I believe I possess. I just want someone else to build the guts and GUI and let me play with it and teach other people how to play. I know what I want, but I want someone else to build it.

This is the general reason why I have resisted Linux, but I kept hearing how fabulous Ubuntu was and really, my computer was in the throes – the I might throw it out the window throes.

I read this Tom’s Hardware article and took the plunge. I installed Ubuntu with a clean wipe. No partitions. No more Windows. No more pain. Mr. Rochester changed my CMOS battery (I think this bothered him more than me) and it was like I got a brand new computer.

Ubuntu has been a dream. Ubuntu comes with email, Open Office, Rythymbox, and a slew of other useful stuff. If I want more programs, I simply look at a list and click “Install” and it magically appears, for free. FREE. Need a program for screen shots with editing? Free. Need a compressor? Free. Need a flickr uploader? Click. Install. Need a program to convert all those pesky MP4 files from iTunes into a usable format? No problem. The Software Center makes installing plugins and getting other programs simple and does not require me mucking around in the /root and remembering what to type when, in what order.

The one thing I have not done yet is try to sinc my iPod shuffle with Rhythmbox. I have read articles on people’s various success with this. I only use it for podcasts and I figured if it did not work, I can use one of our other three computers for that.

Now I wonder what held me back. We will always have a PC with Windows in this house; we are gamers after all with triple the amount of computers and consoles as adults in the house, but I think my laptops will always run Linux from now on.

If you have hesitated to run a Linux machine, if you have a computer that needs to be freed from Windows, or if you simply can not afford the overpriced software on a Windows or Apple machine, I recommend taking the plunge. Install Ubuntu and never look back.

–Jane, all hail open source computing