Vissa saker får sådana konsekvenser i den skönlitterära världen att det blir ett före och ett efter. Jag kommer alldeles strax till det senaste exemplet på något som omvälvt storyvärlden, men låt mig först säga lite om hur stort det här är.

Omkring 1300-talet kom något som skulle få en sådan effekt. Då grundades nämligen vad som med en väldigt lös definition kunde kallas polisyrket. Själva yrket förvandlades och förändrades ända in i 1900-talet när i stort sett alla moderna länder började få liknande polisstyrkor, men redan från början har en sak varit konstant: det här är några figurer som man kan kontakta när man har problem med brott och/eller kriminella. Man behöver inte längre ta tag i sådana problem själv. Det här har som sagt varit något hyfsat konstant sedan 1300-talet, och möjligen ännu tidigare, om man räknar med de stadsvakter som har funnits sedan de första städerna bildades.

Under 1800-talet när det moderna polisyrket fick mer stadga började författare skildra polisernas yrkesliv. De första regelrätta deckarna dök exempelvis upp i mitten på 1800-talet. Folk fick alltmer förtroende för polisen, delvis därför att polisens metoder förbättrades (faktiskt inspirerat av berättelserna om Sherlock Holmes). Man började kalla på polisen snarare än att duellera, och skönlitteraturen förändrades för evigt. När filmen kom fanns det här med från början.

Ändå skriver folk fortfarande om hjälten som måste göra sina hjältemod på egen hand – gå in i det hemska huset, möta skurkarna obeväpnad, hitta skatten – men det är i stort sett omöjligt att skriva sådana historier utan att ta upp den här centrala frågan:

Varför låter han/hon inte polisen ta hand om det här?

Titta på alla bra filmer, på alla bra böcker, och på alla bra pjäser som har med brott och/eller brottslingar att göra. Man måste, som författare, ha ett svar på frågan “Varför låter han/hon inte polisen ta hand om det här?”

Här har det naturligtvis uppstått ett par olika modeller för hur man besvarar frågan, och dem tänkte jag inte ta upp här, för det räcker med att konstatera att du troligen inte tar ett verk som handlar om brott och/eller brottslingar på allvar om inte den centrala frågan besvaras på ett tillfredsställande sätt.

Nu har en ny sådan central fråga uppstått. Den begränsar sig inte till skönlitteratur om brott, utan finns i alla typer av skönlitteratur.

Frågan lyder så här:

Varför använder han/hon inte mobiltelefonen?

Man hade kanske kunnat tro att nästa steg skulle vara datorerna, men än så länge finns det inga sådana tecken. Internet och datorer behandlas än så länge som en ny arena eller möjligen som en ny genre, inte som något som finns med i varenda story. Mobiltelefoner däremot har förändrat folks beteende. Förr var man tvungen att ta sig till en plats för att skicka ett meddelande (telefonkiosk, polisstationen, telegrafstationen). Numera är det en baggis att få i stort sett vem som helst på tråden i stort sett när som helst. Det är ju därför som huvudpersoner så ofta har urladdade telefoner eller dålig täckning.

Och jag pratar heller inte om enbart telefonsamtal. Jag pratar om att ha Wikipedia i luren. Eller Google Maps. Eller Amazon. Det finns snart inte någon information som man behöver vänta på eller ta sig fysiskt till (även om man såklart inte vet vad man inte vet, d.v.s vad man borde ta reda på).

Strunta i om det här är överdrivet teknikförhärligande eller inte. Det här är något som är svårt att bortse ifrån när man skriver, hädanefter. Hur ska någon kunna plädera okunskap eller ens kunna låta bli att få reda på saker när det står på sin tilltänktas Facebooksida att hon/han gillar Ferrari-bilar eller att ta mysiga skogspromenader? Det här är inte bara en fråga om privatliv, som vissa filosofer funderar på, utan en fråga om hur skönlitteraturen kommer att se ut de närmaste 50 åren, eller ännu mer. Hur länge till kan roman- och novellvärlden stå emot trycket från de som dagligen lever i mobilen? Min gissning är att rätt många författare inte skriver om det här, för att det fortfarande inte är en naturlig del av deras eget liv. En del författare jag möter i mitt dagliga liv gör inte ens en koll på Google för att kolla vad andra har skrivit om deras favoritämne, men kommer de att överleva i det nya klimatet? Det blir spännande att se.

It’s Thanksgiving, which means we are in full holiday shopping swing.  I just wasted a lot of my work day because Amazon has some killer deals all week.  They are calling it Great Black Friday Deals, and they aren’t kidding.  You can find some amazing discounts there.  I picked up I am Legend for $2.00.  That’s what I’m talking about!  I also picked up some new accessories for my cell phone, a case for it and a headset for calls.

Now, I have the shopping bug!  I’ve already been to this site to buy some swaddling blankets.  They had great deals on aden + anais muslin wraps, which are phenomenal for helping a baby sleep long.  Now, I’m on the hunt for some other toys for my nieces and nephews, and I found some good deals here.  They have a great selection on Playmobil toys.  But instead of buying for just myself and family, I need to take care of my wife too.  I was thinking of getting her some Indian jewelry.  She rarely asks for anything special, but I know she really likes bangles and chandelier style earrings.

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Sometimes life is just plain odd… but this little oddity made me laugh.

Ben is a little terrified, as I am sure we all have been at some point, of the strange associations that the Amazon “other people who purchased this also bought…” tool recommends. Whereas we are all familiar with the strange things this tool throws up, such as people who buy books about fluffy bunnies also enjoy reading books about a boating in the south of France (I made that one up…), the suggestion today was a little odder.

As Ben happily browsed Amazon’s well-stocked shelves, he was informed that other people looking at the same item had also had a tendency towards buying the rather ominously named ”Flexi Crevice Tool”. Good god, he though, what could this terrifying item be? A strange and intimate sex toy? Perhaps a flexible tool for performing an enema? I must be honest, us dirty minded souls went through a whole host of possibilities.

Until, that is, we looked at the product. A useful little attachment for a Dyson. Now – who woulda thought?!

Dyson Flexi Crevice Tool (Ooh eh?!)

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Are you ready Nook? I hope so, because Amazon is ready to get it on. Amazon announced today that a new firmware update will bring the world’s most popular e-reader (at the moment) a boosted battery life of 85% more. According to Amazon, 85% more battery with 3G on equates to a full week of ON time. Before the update is applied, Kindles only lasted 4 days with 3G on. With 3G off, the Kindle will operate for two weeks.

These e-reader wars are getting interesting. I’m digging this new firmware update. Alas, competition can only make everything better in the long run. I’d say in about 3-4 years, an e-reader would look very attractive given that the price drops to $100 – $150 and the battery can run for weeks or even a month.

Amazon

Take a look at our new Kindle TV commercial, airing on national television. It was the winning video in the Your Amazon Ad Contest held this past summer. The creative directors are Angela Kohler and Ithyle Griffiths of Los Angeles and the star and singer/songwriter in the spot is actress Annie Little.

“We received an e-mail about the contest two weeks after Ithyle and I bought Kindles; I’m stupid for my Kindle…I love it,” said Kohler. “We were in the airport and everyone was asking about it, so, on a plane from Japan to Thailand we brainstormed ideas and sketched out little stories that our character could fall into following different literary genres. We scribbled out pictures on napkins and made a flipbook, putting the little scenes in different orders.”

Seen on: Amazon.

The Weight Loss Miracle. http://bit.ly/52iaDi

White-hot consumer demand for the new Nook e-book reader is proving to be a mixed blessing for Barnes & Noble (s bks). Sold-out pre-orders for the device were a rare bit of good news in an otherwise gloomy fiscal second-quarter report issued today, but chasing demand for the Nook is forcing the bookseller to hike its investment in manufacturing. Regardless, executives at the book retailer think the e-book game is one that Barnes & Noble can win, thanks to its size and market power.

In the near term, Barnes & Noble, along with other marketers of e-book readers, faces a serious hardware production bottleneck. The Nook, like Amazon’s (s amzn) Kindle, Sony’s (s sne) Reader and the upcoming device from Plastic Logic, is assembled by Prime View International of Taiwan, which controls the E-Ink technology used in nearly all electronic paper displays.

Increasing production of the Nook, therefore, is not simply a matter of Barnes & Noble sending a bigger purchase order. It must compete for displays and manufacturing capacity with Amazon, Sony and others, all of which are experiencing similar spikes in consumer demand for their e-book readers. Securing a bigger share of those finite resources could mean an increased cost-per-unit for Barnes & Noble.

Company executives on a conference call to discuss the latest results declined to say by how much they’re boosting Nook production but stressed that the increased investment reflects more than just the higher manufacturing costs. “It’s a whole capital investment in the market opportunity,” president William Lynch said. “It’s the content acquisition, it’s the people, it’s the in-store marketing. It’s everything.”

Despite the problems meeting demand, Barnes & Noble executives remain extremely bullish on the e-book and e-book reader category (for a more in-depth look at the company’s prospects in the space, see our GigaOM Pro report, How Barnes & Noble Can Avoid Getting Netflixed, sub. req’d). “This will be a multibillion-dollar business for Barnes & Noble,” CEO Stephen Riggio said. That’s partly due to the many barriers to entry facing new players, he said, among them content acquisition and aggregation costs, rights management, synchronizing products across multiple sales platforms and other challenges. “Digital content is going to be a much-less fragmented business than selling [physical] books,” Riggio said. In essence, when it comes to e-books, size matters.

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I’ve been recently crushing on Stop Motion videos and last night I was fascinated by this Amazon Kindle TV ad. I thought it was cute and happy without being obnoxious.

It almost made me want a Kindle until I remembered this music video.

Maybe I’m being a bit crazy, but they’re a bit too similar. One is obviously higher budget than the other one, but I believe that in this case there’s beauty in simplicity.

To get it, go to this amazon link.

Click the “Enter Your Code” button and enter this code: MP34FREE

The credit is good for anything in the Amazon mp3 store until 11/30/09 at 11:59 PM PST.

Then check out GammaSquad because it’s awesome.  CLICK IT.

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Bei Amazon gibt es zurzeit diverse DVD-Aktionen:

Legt einfach die gewünschten Produkte in den Warenkorb!

TV-Serien ab 9,97€

———————————–

3 Serien-Box-Sets für 30 EUR

—————————————-

Blockbuster und Evergreen-DVDs je 6,97 EUR

At this point, I have to admit, I have a new Internet entertainment obsession: Amazon.com. Yes, I know your first reaction would likely be, “who doesn’t?” Well this is a little different from what you would expect and it even does not require the spending of money.

What started it:

A co-worker shared a link on Facebook posted by another co-worker regarding some particularly hilarious Amazon customer reviews. These reviews were of the (apparently now famous/infamous) Mountain Men’s Three Wolf Moon Shirt:

The Mountain Men’s Three Wolf Moon Short Sleeve Tee:

http://www.amazon.com/Mountain-Mens-Three-Short-Sleeve/product-reviews/B002HJ377A/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Let me first warn you. Before you start perusing the reviews you might be advised upon doing so, the next two to three hours of your day just might be spent. Starting with the first one: “This item has wolves on it which makes it intrinsically sweet and worth 5 stars by itself, but once I tried it on, that’s when the magic happened . . .”

I was hooked. I could not stop.

Upon doing some additional binging (no – we don’t “Googel” here) on the web, I discovered this has become quite the internet meme while remaining somewhat underreported. It turns out, the Wolf Moon T-shirt is one of the most popular of this phenom but not the only one.

Numerous references are made to the “Tuscan Whole Milk” customer review page (I know – ordering milk online?)

The Tuscan Whole Milk Reviews
(Heavily popular and well-referenced across the web)
http://www.amazon.com/Tuscan-Whole-Milk-Gallon-128/product-reviews/B00032G1S0

What further amazes me is the fact these are allowed to stay posted. And that’s where the creativity lies. Amazon’s customer review policy only targets the removal of negative and inciddiery reviews that are not directly target at the product itself. Although, many times, this is put to the test and in some of what I read, pretty much this policy has been violated (see Bil Keane below.)

Some reviews are not nearly a bizarre as the product that is beiong reviewed. Did you know Amazon sold Uranium Ore?

http://www.amazon.com/Uranium-Ore/product-reviews/B000796XXM/

Are you in the market for some BIC Pens? Why go to the local Walgreens when you can order from Amazon and – get the inside scoop from customer reviews!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B000JTOYLS/

“Very good if you need to write on paper!”

And where else can you get literary perspectives of the King James Bible with varying degrees of intellect:
http://www.amazon.com/Boldtext-Pew-Bible-James-Version/product-reviews/0834003473/

Then we come to the Family Circus Reviews: Someone has serious issues with Bil Keane.

http://www.amazon.com/I-Had-Frightmare-Bil-Keane/product-reviews/0449146154/

http://www.amazon.com/What-Does-This-Say-Keane/product-reviews/0345470303/

And as for the shirt? Yes, I did order one. I mean – who could resist with such stellar reviews!

Amazon (s amzn) has released a series of software upgrades that make its Kindle eReader even more useful. The new software upgrades allow for more efficient management of wireless connectivity as it boosts the total battery charge to about seven days from four days, even with the wireless turned on. That’s a roughly 85 percent boost…not bad! In addition, the upgrade brings native PDF support to the 6-inch Kindles without first converting the file into a Kindle-readable format. You can simply email PDFs to your Kindle email address or move them to Kindle via the USB connection. Now that should make it easier for you to subscribe to and read all the research on GigaOM Pro on your Kindle

now available on kindle/amazon!

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VIDEO: Preparing for Hyper Inflation

People (including lawyers cross-examining me as an expert witness) ask “How do you know that?” Or sometimes they will ask “How do you know you’re right?” My answer is that it’s not just me, there has been plenty of material written, interviews broadcast on Radio, TV and Internet, books written, including some pretty highbrow stuff that told me chapter and verse what Wall Street was doing.

In a nutshell they were draining every penny they could out of homeowners and investors.And now they have increased their power by consolidating even more, this time with access to our depository bank accounts which were never intended to be piggy banks for speculation on Wall Street.

Since I began studying and analyzing the mortgage meltdown and the growth in the use of derivatives and hedges on derivatives, combining that information with legal research, litigation experience and business experience, it was pretty much black and white. And every bit of it was completely consistent with tactics dating back to before the 1929 crash. It was also completely consistent with my own exposure to Wall Street as a securities analyst, investment banker, and institutional salesman for retail brokerage houses.

Then there is the fact that nobody in more than 30 months has challenged my conclusions directly or indirectly with any analysis, facts, or interpretation that would give me pause. The only thing I see, somewhat sparsely I might add, is the occasional planted article, comment or interview where some shill is pushing ideological buttons in order to make this a matter of class or age warfare.

So bottom line — I will accept any challenge from a person who is knowledgeable in the details of securitization of residential mortgage loans, how Wall Street works, how loan underwriting is intended to work (and how it did work during the roaring 2000’s), the legal aspects of recordation of transfer of interests in real property, the industry standards for appraisal, underwriting, origination and transfer of loans and all the other topics raised on this blog.

There is plenty on the internet and in the bookstore about this subject. Give me a site and I’ll go read it. Right now, all I have seen even from some rotten decisions by ideologically motivated judges is that they will find any procedural gambit to hang their hat on to avoid the inescapable consequence of all this — the invalidation of all those mortgages and notes and the extinguishment of the obligation.