(Roughly) Daily

Posts Tagged ‘radio news

What’s Past is Prologue: The Future of the Book…

A guest post from Scenarios and Strategy (almanac entry added)…

“Special Glasses for Reading in Bed” source: Nationaal Archief

Much breath is being spent by the Chattering Classes predicting, debating, and otherwise worrying over the fates of the book, journalism, and publishing at large– broadly speaking: the creation, dissemination, storage, and use of knowledge itself.  Lots of jargon, a wealth of acronyms, and liberal use of facile analogies and constructs– it’s all a little dizzying.

Happily, Tim Carmody has ridden to the rescue. While he has mooted his own manifesto for the future of the book (eminently worth a read), his most recent contribution to the Science and Technology section of The Atlantic blog, is just what one needs in a Babel-like time such as this– some context.  In “10 Reading Revolutions Before E-Books,” that’s precisely what he provides as he recounts, for example, the move from rolled scroll to folded codex, the replacement of papyrus by parchment (and then paper), the shift from vertical to horizontal writing/reading, back to vertical…

It’s fascinating; it’s illuminating… and it’s a terrifically useful reminder that writing, reading– communicating– and the forms in which they’re done have always been in flux: “10 Reading Revolutions Before E-Books.”

As we pine for those iPads, we might recall that it was on this date in 1920 that radio station 8MK (later WBL, then WWJ) in Detroit became the first U.S. broadcaster to air regularly-scheduled newscasts.  The station, founded by the Scripps family and housed in their Detroit News headquarters, had gone on air 11 days earlier; then, after a period of testing, inaugurated its service with election returns.

Memoir of 8MK’s first employee (source)

News you can lose!…

From PR Gnus, an illustration of what one can do with the digital equivalent of scissors and some tape:  NPR News, remixed:

They’re all amusing, but one might start with, say, #90…  (TotH to our friends at Laughing Squid)

As we choose our thank-you gifts, we might recall that it was on this date in 1970 that the first true Heavy Metal rock album appeared– the eponymously-titled Black Sabbath.  (The band– which introduced the world to Ozzy Osbourne– had originally been called Earth, but changed it’s name to avoid confusion with another band playing under that name; they chose “Black Sabbath” in homage to a Boris Karloff horror film.)

“the worst of the counterculture on a plastic platter”
– Robert Christgau, Village Voice

Your correspondent is off to realms currently under a communications-inhibiting blanket of snow and ice.  Thus these missives may be sporadic for the next week or so… with apologies in advance for any interruptions in service, he notes that readers will have curling (and the rest of the Olympics) to amuse them during any such interstice.