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| So Amazon.com is limiting the Kindle text-to-speech function on their e-books. They're caving against pressure even though it's legal. An article I read mentioned that there's an untapped market here.
Well, I'm interested in getting into the business because I like reading aloud and I'm good at it.
So I have a couple of questions for anyone who is blind or dyslexic:
1. What are the top 5 books you want on audio?
2. What do you think would be a fair price to pay for a CD or digital version of the book you want?
And now a question to anybody who might know:
What's the copyright law for creating audio books for profit?
Signed - Elempi
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| I checked out my own blog and it showed up thus:
ISTP - The Mechanics "The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generally prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts.
"The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters."
I'm actually INFP. The typealyzer can't access any of my protected posts, so it can't possibly be accurate about (to me) the most crucial stuff.
This ISTP analysis is patently wrong about me.
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| Barack Obama means well and thinks what he offers is good for America. Same goes for John McCain. At least, we hope so. Problem is, the Democrats' "fairness", whether they admit it or not, is socialist redistribution of wealth. And so they tax and tax to support their domestic social agendas. Meanwhile, the Republicans tax the stuffing out of us for all the global interventions they plan, such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and so forth.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Constitution gets swept further under the rug of "what seems best for now". Problem is, the U.S. Constitution is the law of the land. It is to be obeyed, not reinterpreted to what we want it to mean.
We need to get back to it.
If you don't like what the two parties are offering either, there's finally a real alternative: the Constitution Party.
Check it out at: http://www.constitutionparty.com
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| Apparently this guy wrote a book that well over 80% of the crowd at his
talk had read. I didn't. I left early to make it to an open
mike poetry reading which I'm glad I did. At any rate, I caught a
few interesting bits and pieces from this guy, some of which I agreed
with, others I didn't.
- People get interested in writing because there's something not quite right in our lives.
Well, that makes sense. I personally got interested in writing
because I experienced its power first hand when I wrote a composition
in 5th grade that I next found in my parents' possession - apparently
it was provocative; I had just been telling the truth, but it was truth
my parents didn't want known. The fact is that the truth I was
revealing in that composition was that there was something not quite
right in my own family's life. So I guess I agree with him on
this one.
- One cannot just be reasonable. Logic may be accurate 100%
of the time (as long as one starts with true premises), but it doesn't
persuade. People are persuaded emotionally, not logically.
That's why story is so powerful.
I agree with this one. Although logic is indeed 100% accurate
when used correctly, a lot of people refuse to accept the results of
logic regardless of its accuracy. So yes.
- Hinduism is a particularly dramatic religion.
He gave examples for this, having to do with rituals Hindus perform and
seem to believe actually makes a difference in their daily lives.
No doubt it makes a difference of some sort, but I have to wonder what
sort.
- Martel's question in his book was, "What would it like to have
faith?" The initial act of faith is non-reasonable. He
started living this question out and studied three different
faiths: Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. Among his conclusions
were:
- The religious person explores life in a more engaged way than a non-religious person.
- The three religions in question have in common faith, but are distinct in that Christianity is about love; Islam is about unity; and Hinduism is about divinity.
A couple things here. First, when he says that "faith is
non-reasonable", I think he's just plain wrong, and it's because of a
lack of understanding. Faith is about trust, and trust always has
an object. To have Christian faith is to trust God; to trust God
is to believe what He said in His Word, the Bible. To believe
what God said is to acknowledge that what God said is true. Truth
may be ascertained by means of evidence. Evidence is gained by
applying the Word to one's life and testing it. Once you've
tested it and fiind that it does indeed play out exactly how God said
it does, your faith grows, because you trust God more than you did at
first. Heck, it's the same with fellow human beings; except that
God's the only one we can always trust, 100% of the time.
Second, what he means by Christianity is about love, Islam about unity,
and Hinduism about divinity, it's that these are the concepts that are
at the core of religious practice for these three religions. For
Christians it's all about love: "Love God and your neighbor as
yourself" is the Greatest Commandment. For Islam, it's unity - we
all believe the same thing and pray at the same time every day.
For Hindus it's being in contact with the divine in a very hands-on
way. Now, these are what each religion strives for but fails to
achieve; but the striving is important. I guess I'll credit
Martel for this one. He seems to be onto something.
- He considers it arrogant for one religion to contend that its way is the only way.
Now this is just plain wrong, and it's the one thing that he, claiming
to be Christian, apparently fails to understand about his own claimed
faith. Jesus said "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no-one
comes to the father but by me." Now, if Martel has a problem with
triumphalism and doesn't care for the brash "We're better than you"
aspects of each religion, I can agree with him; but if he's suggesting
that Islam and Hinduism are alternate and equally valid ways to God,
no. Plain and simple.
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| I found the program for the play. Playwright Deborah Brevoort did
an outstanding job. The setting is the open heath outside of
Lockerbie, and it's night. Madeline and Bill Livingston, American
from New Jersey, have flown to Scotland in hopes of finding resolution
for the loss of their then 19 year old son in the tragedy of Pan Am
Flight 103. The names chosen for these two ring true: her
nickname if Maddie, and she is mad with grief. His name is Bill
and he's the one paying the debt on his own unexpressed grief, as well
as the debt on her over-expressed grief and inability to function in
any other way. She's out on the heath looking for something -
anything - of their son. He's trying to keep an even keel amid
her madness. A few of the women of Lockerbie come out on the
heath and meet Bill and Maddie. The American State Department has
rights to the "evidence" aboard the flight, and the George Jones, the
State officer, has orders to burn all the clothing because it's
contaminated. The women of Lockerbie want the clothes, as emblems
to assuage their own grief, and they're meeting out on the heath to
come up with some kind of plan to get the clothes out of the secure
site. Desires and needs meet up with each other, but so do the
loves and hates, and there are moments of raw unadulterated emotion as
Maddie expresses her hate for Bill, and one of the women of Lockerbie
(the strongest of them no less) expresses her hatred for Americans and
Maddie in particular as representative of them. Powerful.
The actors and actresses, all college age, were tremendous. It's
worth seeing if you can find it in your area. Very moving and
poignant. I promise you that the resolution within the play is
worth the viewing. But I'm not going to tell you what it is. 
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