Envelope / Develope

Microsoft just announced that the digital library they launched when eBooks were in vogue is closing the service, with a whimper and a small print saying that they will reimburse the buyers (which if you don't know, some of them already lost their devices and books). For me, besides the physical act of discovering and buying a book, it has a network effect starting to unfold: I read the book and post about it I recommend the book to my friends and sometimes they borrowed it from me (SOME friends, not any...) sometimes I write small ideas or thoughts spurred by ideas presented in the book I hope that my kids will enjoy some of the books I bought With an eBook, the problem seems to be that the usage period is your lifetime or the lifetime of the service ( the minimum of them). Yes, you may be able to borrow your book to friends, for limited periods and you can copy and paste, in case you need some content from it. But the bottom limit is that you are paying for a period of ...

Or read the small print before you buy  I am in the same cohort of adults as you, probably: with limited time for vacations, I am planning almost every day for seeing, sucking up scenery, tasting food or wines or having fun in a memorable way. Rarely there is a moment where playing by the ear is on my schedule. Often times I am forced to improvise as my plans are totally screwed by inevitable mishaps. And here comes one of my reality encounters with what is a map in our days and how different than reality it is.One hand driving, one eye on map and one eye recording the imagery, brain where are you ? In today over-scanned/over-visited/over-blogged/over-you-tubed world to be driven in a dangerous or unknown place by the technology seems like a dystopian event. And still, that happened to me. Garmin has an interesting policy regarding their own GPS devices - the maps are free for LI(F)E. What is not known, but hidden in the bottom of the license agreement, is that the l...