How Long?

How long before you can buy the entire Library of Congress collection or every Amazon book on a disk? What about the all the music on iTunes? Every movie or television program ever made in any language all the time. In a relatively short period of time¹, these will all fit on a single memory stick. And that memory stick will eventually cost just a few dollars. And once someone buys it is only a short time before these media are available on the internet (pirated). It's like that Qwest commercial. What will it be like to have instant access everywhere to everything for free?

Next: The Future Just Happened by Michael Lewis

Next: The Future Just Happened by Michael Lewis.

Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination by Robert Jourdain

Music, The Brain, And Ecstasy: How Music Captures Our Imagination by Robert Jourdain. Our topic is Music. Our next meeting is 8/14/08.

Next: The Future Just Happened by Michael Lewis

Next: The Future Just Happened by Michael Lewis.

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach.

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande

Complications: A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande.

Send by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe

Send by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe.

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande

Better: A Surgeon's Notes on Performance by Atul Gawande.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century by Thomas L. Friedman.

The Art of Deception : Controlling the Human Element of Security by Kevin D. Mitnick, William L. Simon

The Art of Deception : Controlling the Human Element of Security.

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner.

This was a great book, I've always been interested in economics but this is less of an economics book and more of a story about how to look at things in a different way. It is definitely written so that an economics background is not required, in fact I was disappointed that there was so little technical detail, but the stories more than make up for that. I finished it in just about one sitting, a great read.

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach

Fresh Styles for the Web Designers (Eye Candy From the Underground) by Curt Cloninger

He's Scared, She's Scared (Understanding the Hidden Fears That Sabotage Your Relationships) by Steven Carter and Julia Sokol

The Demon Haunted World by Dr. Carl Sagan

An interesting subject, skepticism, but unfortunately the book is a loosely tied together collection of magazine articles, and somewhat dated (pyramid power, UFO's).

Calculated Bets (Computers, Gampling, and Mathematical Modeling to Win) by Steven Skiena