Haunted Screens

The new Zune revisionism (it doesn't suck)

Sounds crazy, I know, but I've been playing with this 8 GB Zune that Microsoft's PR folks gave me . . .

 . . . and I like it. It's not just the built-in FM radio, which is a blast to have, or the sheer contrarian perversity of carrying one around in an iPod world; it's the quality of . . . and here's where it gets weird . . . it's the quality of design. Yes! Microsoft design! Both the hardware and the software! Is it really true, or is this just that pesky brain tumor kicking in again?

I like the 8 GB Zune's feel, paticularly it's alternative to the iPod wheel,  the big third eye in its middle I call the "stroke" button (instead of twirling it like a wheel, you rub it up and down like, whatever), and the user interface has a distinctive look and feel that doesn't suck at all. But the killer app, I think, is the Zune Marketplace, which is more Rhapsody than iTunes Store. Indeed, there's no division between the "store" and the "player." It's all one app.

A Book Publishing Fairy Tale

Back in May, we ran a story on Leinad Zeraus' self-published techno-thriller, Daemon, that was making a bit of a splash in Silicon Valley circles. Josh McHugh wrote that the book managed to garner some serious cred without benefit of a publisher. The author, who's real name is Daniel Suarez, and who works as an IT consultant in L.A., used the print-on-demand service Lightning Source and sold copies on Amazon. Pretty cool.

But now comes news from Suarez, who just wrote me this email:

In the 30 days following the article, sales went from 1200 to 3500 -- at which point numerous major publishing companies began contacting us. Two weeks ago, Dutton made a very persuasive offer for Daemon and its sequel, and they will be doing a broad release of Daemon in January, 2009 in hard cover. Likewise, foreign rights sales have been brisk.

I just got an advance copy of the new hardcover. He's publishing under his own name this time. And the quotes on the back, from people like Stewart Brand, John Robb, and Craig Newmark are pretty sweet. This story embodies the transitional phase in publishing we're going through right now, where mainstream New York publishers are playing catch-up with what's going on out there in the long-tail world. Another example is the New York Times bestseller, The Shack, a self-published Christian novel. I'll let Daniel Suarez have the last word:

I want to thank you guys again for the article, and while it's true we didn't actually need a major publisher . . .  the ability to reach a much broader audience here and abroad is definitely where a major publisher shines. Print-on-demand was pivotal in helping us to prove the market potential for Daemon to the majors and served as a great stepping stone in our case. I'm certain this pattern will become more common as the technology gains acceptance.

Will there be garlic fries in heaven? [Pt. 1]

I arrived late to garlic fries, and like all converts have become obsessed and intolerant. My first taste came in Napa, sitting at a picnic table in St. Helena, during one of my many trips to visit the Wired home office in San Francisco. My first thought was, "How come I've never seen these before?"It turns out, nobody outside the Bay Area, or at least Northern California, has seen these before.They are that rarest of birds, a  regional classic, unknown abroad, and under-appreciated at home.

Back in the 60s and 70s, sociologists told us that regional differences would be erased by late capitalism's homogenized corporate culture. Fast f00d would erase local cuisine, bad TV and top 40 would smother local cultural expressions . . . even regional accents would be washed away.

Well, anyone who spends any time on the road knows this was and is a very stupid idea. Wherever I go, people talk different, eat different, listen to different music on the radio, and, I swear,  think different, too. I just got back from some time in rural northwest Georgia, a wonderfully rich, and thoroughly foreign country. Even cosmopolitan centers like San Francisco and New York City are two distinct cultures separated by a common language.

Take garlic fries.

I owe Michael Chabon an apology

It's rare that a reviewer gets to make amends, but last year I wrote a very short review of The Yiddish Policeman's Union, and I'd like to belatedly correct something. Because of space issues, I cut the review in half  at the last minute, leaving the wrong impression. It was dumb. The  blurb read:

Kavalier & Clay fans will delight in the alternate universe of this novel, in which Jews flee fascism to Alaska. But the narrow, Raymond Chandler-esque plot may disappoint.

As a matter of fact, I loved the hard-boiled, Chandler-esque plot. I was only trying to advise a certain kind of Wired reader, the kind who loved Kavalier and Clay for it's comic-book milieu, not to expect the same kind of geeky satisfactions. That's called over-thinking. In the original review, I went on to describe the novel's jewel-like form and extraordinary originality, but we trimmed that out.

So let me say it here: Chabon is a genius, and Yiddish Policeman's Union is a classic. The paperback edition just hit stores . . . without a glowing blurb from Wired. Sorry about that.

Oh what a lovely cyber war!

Russia kicked off its new war against Georgia by launching a preliminary cyberattack against various Georgian government sites – the digital equivalent of the long artillery barrages that traditionally preceded all-out ground assaults. Only this time, botnets and Denial of Service attacks replaced howitzers and exploding shot. Last September, Wired ran a three-piece package on cyber-warfare that accused Russia of sponsoring a cyberattack on Estonia in May, 2007. We predicted more to come, though not everyone agreed with us.

In fact, our own web site's defense blog, Danger Room, hosted by my colleague and NY office mate, Noah Shachtman (who knows a lot more about this stuff than I ever will) was unwilling to blame the Kremlin or treat the Estonian incident as anything more than the work of some overeager hackers.

There was no smoking gun,  so in several posts, Danger Room cast repeated aspersions on the "Blame Russia" position. Nevermind that our reporter actually went to Tallinn and Moscow to investigate. My position was that we are a magazine,not a court of law, and if it quacks like a duck...

We also emphasized that this early assault was merely a harbinger of worse to come. Well, I wonder how Danger Room and the New York Times (who also pooh-poohed the Estonia attacks last year) feel about it now. They've both been taking the current situation much more seriously, here and here.

UPDATE: Noah has his reaction online now. Check it out at the Danger Room.

If Marc Cuban was a jockey

[Posted by Dan Roth]

Saw in the recent Blood-Horse (the what? You don't read the definitive guide to thoroughbred breeding and racing?) that Halsey Minor, founder of CNET is talking about buying Hialeah Park, a decaying, one-time temple of horse racing located outside Miami. Minor made his fortune taking CNET public in 1996 (CBS recently bought the company for $1.8 billion). Now he wants to get into professional sports, and like his dot-com billionaire peer Marc Cuban, he’s not afraid to openly pick on the old-timers in the industry he’s busting into...

How not to invest in the iPhone

[Post by Daniel Roth]

One of the first things I do when starting a story is to sign up for automated alerts anytime the company I'm following is mentioned in an SEC filing. The most entertaining ones are always from pink-sheet companies--the lightly traded firms that are the crazy-man-living-under-the-overpass of public companies.

A bizarre one showed up the other day connected to Android, Google's imminent mobile OS, which I wrote about in June. A company called Almadoro Minerals  (soon to be renamed TapSlide) was filing an 8K -- a notice of some material change to the company -- and for some reason talking about Android. Now I'm no minerals expert, but it doesn't seem like you can pull up iron ore or whatever through great Java programming. But what do I know?