Margaret Atwood on Changes in Publishing

Here is a very interesting talk by Margaret Atwood on how authors are being affected by the technological changes in publishing. She's a very witty and insightful speaker, so it's worth a look.

Me New Telly

I'm noticing with advancing years a certain resistance to change. This is new to me. In my youth I embraced anything new with unseemly abandon, but these days I view the acquisition of new technology with a jaundiced weariness.

Why does this happen? Maybe it's because we have gone through so many disappointments over the years, the prospect of getting our hopes up over the latest gismo is too much to bear. But like it not we all have to move with the times get with it sooner or later.

Me telly's been very reliable. Can't remember when we bought it exactly but it must be ten years at least, and it has served us well in that time. But lately the colour's been fading, and with a square screen it's the wrong shape for most films which are always in letterbox format. You end up with an unfocused background shot and two anonymous actors chopped off either side of the screen. So Mr P and I trotted along to the sales to see what else was on offer.

Hasn't technology moved on in 10+ years? Walking into Comet you're faced with a wall of flat screens, wafer thin and sharp as a pin. After much humming and hawing we plumped for the Sony 40", on at practically half price. They even threw in delivery. Not bad.
It arrived yesterday and was remarkably simple to set up. We celebrated by watching Burn After Reading, a Coen Brothers' comedy with George Clooney and Brad Pitt. My darkened living room felt just like the movies. I've a feeling I'll be doing a lot more tv viewing from now on.

What's happening to all my gadgets?

The planets must be in a peculiar alignment or something. Did Nostradamus predict this? Everything technological seems to be crashing out on me this month.
The laptop is only just back from the shop where it had to get its ego stroked for the second time this year. Even so it still goes into a massive sulk whenever it has to download an update - which seems to happen far more often than strictly necessary if you ask me.
The dvd player gave us a turn the other night, unilaterally deciding to self-check while recording an episode of my favourite sitcom. OK it hasn't repeated this bizarre behaviour but I get the feeling it's biding its time.
Then last night the sky box finally gave up the ghost. To be honest I'm not too bothered, we'd been debating whether to say F***Off to the Murdoch empire for a long time but never got around to doing it. Now this has forced our hand and we'll get a freeview box instead.
But I'm anxiously wondering what's next on the techno meltdown.

Still, on the plus side my spanking new Mac is sitting under the Christmas tree waiting for me to excitedly switch on come the Big Day. Hopefully it won't give me any problems...