Tag Archives: threat

Article: Mali – The Ahmed Baba Institute

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The link below is to an article that reports on the Islamist threat to Mali’s historically important library of ancient manuscripts at Timbuktu’s Ahmed Baba Institute.

For more visit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/20/mali-literary-treasures-battle-survival

Article: Ebook Readers & Flying – Is There Really A Threat?

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The link below is to an article that looks at the threat posed by Ebook Readers to Planes while flying.

For more visit:
http://www.teleread.com/ereaders/do-e-readers-really-present-a-threat-to-airplanes/

Book Review: Currently Reading – Print is Dead, by Jeff Gomez

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I have been reading ‘Print is Dead – Books in our Digital Age,’ by Jeff Gomez. Having just read chapter two, ‘Us and Them,’ I must say that his point in that chapter is well made. The demise in traditional book sales has not been because ebooks have taken the world by storm – at least not at this stage – but because other areas of the digital world have. Generations of younger people have turned away from books in all their forms and have sought entertainment in other things, such as the Internet and video games, to name just a couple. It is reading itself that is being passed by, so the advent of the ebook is not that which is killing off the traditional book and by extension the bookseller/bookshop, but rather ‘dumber’ forms of entertainment.

Books will always be around in one form or another (at least I believe that), whether they remain as prolific as they now are is quite another thing, it is the habit of reading that may fall away dramatically and cause books to be cast aside – at least in the wider community. I think there will always be a group or community of diehard book readers, who eventually will have ebooks as their primary source of books and reading material. There are those who will not be lost entirely to less intellectual forms of entertainment, though perhaps some of these other forms of entertainment may play a role in the ‘reading’ of the future in the digital world (linked to videos, etc). Reading is a great skill that is being lost and the medium for ideas through the ages faces its greatest threat from a lack of it.

The next chapter, ‘newspapers are no longer news,’ deals with newspapers as a source of news and book reviews, or rather, how they are rapidly loosing their ascendency to online applications and tools. In a world that is rapidly changing and access to news as it happens online, newspapers are becoming a too infrequently updated source of news and information. Online access to news and events as they happen are so readily accessible, that the traditional source of news is fading away. As for book reviews, the avenues of discussion about books on the web via social networking, Blogs and the like, opens the opportunity for all to join the discussion. Book reviews in newspapers, like movie reviews, are opportunities for the reviewers to pontificate and/or push their own views onto a public unable to respond – online however the avenues of discussion are legion and varied. All may be involved – or not at all. The decision as to how one may be involved is left to the individual, which also translates to news stories in a similar manner. Interaction with the news and books has never been so simple and as rich an experience.

See also:
http://www.dontcallhome.com/books.html (Website of Jeff Gomez)
Podcast (Excerpts from the Book)
Google Books
Amazon

Changing the World: December 1 – AIDS Prevention and Treatment

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Today’s suggestion is probably one that most people wouldn’t think a great deal about these days. In the Western World, the issue of AIDS is probably somewhat on the backburner so to speak, though that would depend on the community you live within or deal with on a daily basis.

Though AIDS remains a major health threat in Western countries, the real frontline is in the Third World, where entire countries are under serious threat from AIDS/HIV and/or the consequences of the disease on the economy, the community, the family, etc.

So helping to prevent AIDS and to assist in the provision of treatment for AIDS/HIV, as well as caring for those left in it’s wake are all very important.

Some web sites with valuable information:

www.unaids.org

www.aids.net.au

www.afao.org.au

A response to reading ‘365 Ways to Change the World,’ by Michael Norton