Books and Beyond

I saw this book last month in Kinokuniya Plasa Senayan, wondered why the cover is just the same as The Catcher in the Rhye. Then I knew why, it’s written by the same J.D. Salinger. Boy how I want to meet this man. Love the Catcher so much, and so I bought this.

It’s not as enjoyable as the Catcher, with all the long sentences, long (and many times, very very long) paragraphs, so much commas. But if you love Salinger, you would want to read this.

The story is about Franny and Zooey Glass, who are siblings. Franny a student and Zooey an actor. Though super intelligent (were panellists in radio talkshow when they’re kids), they are real freaks and they realize that. They were exposed to eastern religions, thanks to their brothers Seymour (died on suicide) and Buddy (a professional writer who became a hermit) who drilled them  odds things when they’re young.

From the conversations of Zooey and Bessie (the mother), Zooey and Franny, and Franny and Zooey, you will know how broken the family is. Franny is bitter about her college and things around it. Zooey is bitter about acting and things around it, about his brothers Seymour and Buddy who he thinks responsible for what he and Franny had become. Bessie is bitter about how her kids have become (still bitter about deaths of her two kids, one by suicide and the other by freak accident at war). Well, it’s so real.

Someone in the internet wrote that Salinger’s short stories (Nine Stories, I think that’s the title of the book) are better than the Catcher, so I might buy that one also. Later.

Chris Anderson learned that in the web culture (and then in every other things), when so many things are supplied demands follow. I think it’s like Say’s Law "Supply creates its own demand" (although this Say’s Law has its different interpretations).

The title "The Long Tail" comes from the shape of the curve (this book used Rhapsody.com’s sales) with volume (of sales, etc) in the Y-axis and inventory in X-axis. In the left side where the hits are, sales are high. That’s the head. And the tail is in the right side where all the non-hits when combined are bigger than the hits.

In case of Rhapsody and iTunes, musics are offered not in the same way as the traditional shelves in music stores. They are downloadable, cheap in storage, many non-hits are offered, many obscure songs are there, and everybody from everywhere can buy, and it turns out that the non-hits have buyers.

So it’s a big change from the traditional hit-driven market to niche (non-hit) market. All niche producers (who are empowered by many technologies which are cheap now) can compete with all the big companies and may have customers. Not just in music an movies sold in the net, but the long tail phenomenon can be observed in many other things, as Chis Anderson studied. Many interesting stories, a good read.

It is a story of life of Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple Computer, who single-handedly created the Apple I and the famous Apple II. He’s also inventor of many other less-known amazing things.

Steve Jobs may be more popular, but I think I like Steve Wozniak more. I just like him a lot by reading this book. I believe he is really a kind, honest man. And of course, he’s a genius, brilliant man.

The story starts from his childhood time, when his father (worked in secret projects for US government)  taught him a lot about engineering things, making him understand how things work. He was champions to many science projects in school. The story ends in present time, where he spends his time doing charity works although still officially is an employee of Apple Computer.

His knowledge about electronic circuits, his experiments, his works etc has changed the computer world forever. While working at Hewlet-Packard (making calculators), he joined a group of people who interested in computer things and so he came up with the idea of building a computer called the Apple I, but it was the Apple II that gained huge success. Apple Computer, the company which he co-founded with Steve Jobs and some other friends, went public and became a huge company and so he got rich very rich.

Steve Wozniak is the one who changed the looks of computers. Back then, computers are strange machines with panels and switches, without keyboards and monitors.

I really enjoy reading this book. It’s amazing to learn how things have changed so fast in about 20 years in the computer world, how an inventor like Steve Wozniak thinks (he described the logic behind some of his inventions).