The Linux Action Show! has its own wikipedia page.  (Though it could use a little love.)

This makes sense.  The Linux Action Show! rocks the house.

But there are many, many other wikipedia pages that do not exist.  The absence of these pages on our global, intertube-based hitchicker’s guide makes me cry a little each night.

Here is a quick list of just a few of those pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Lunduke

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_is_Tasty

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_Broadcasting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Fisher(podcaster)

Here’s the thing.  I would feel weird writing any of these pages myself

However I have no problem at all putting out the call for you crazy kids to write these pages!  :)

</subtlehint>

I’ve always been a big fan of eBook readers.  And I’ve been pretty vocal about the Kindle being my favorite of the bunch.

For me it’s the combination of the thumb keyboard and the free wireless data that makes the Kindle so compelling.

The one limiting factor, in my mind, has been the inability to develop and distribute custom applications (and games).

That’s all changing, now that the Kindle Software Development Kit (or “KDK” for short) is available in Beta form.

Of course, the very second I heard this was going to be made available, I hopped on over to the KDK website and signed myself up.  Shortly thereafter I had my account approved and I was off and running.

(Amazon is being selective right now about who gets access to the KDK.  Which makes sense as it is still in Beta.  This will, I am sure, open up a great deal later on.)

I’m not sure how much I can publicly talk about, or if I can show screenshots, etc. (if it turns out Amazon is okay with me “spilling beans” and “lifting the curtain a bit”, you can be sure I will here on my blog) but, in the meantime, here’s a quick synopsis of what you can already publicly find out:

• Applications are written in Java.
• A Kindle Simulator is included to test your Kindle apps.
• Developers keep 70% of the sale price of each application sold.
• Applications can be sold as a one time purchase, or on a monthly subscription model.

That last tidbit is pretty cool (and something that the various other mobile device “App Stores” don’t currently offer).  The ability to provide applications (and “Active Content”) as a monthly subscription opens up a lot of possibilities for developers and publishers.

Now, I know what many of you are thinking: What software can you possibly make on a Kindle?  The e-Ink screen has a slow re-draw rate.  And the built-in wireless is pretty slow (by WiFi standards).  And there’s no built-in camera, GPS, etc..  So what can you create?

All I can say, right now, is this: I have ideas.  And, I bet if you think for a bit about what you can do with a custom application on a device like this (battery life measured in weeks, keyboard, wireless, great screen for reading), you’ll think of a few ideas yourself.

So, am I making software for the Kindle?  Yes.  You bet.  Abso-freaking-lutely.

And, hopefully, I’ll be able to talk more about it and chronicle my progress here.

In the mean-time, I’ve gone ahead and published this very blog to the Kindle Store.  So, now you can follow me from your Kindle (if you are so lucky as to have one).

So… I’ve got a comic book I’m going to start self publishing via Amazon’s Create Space.

Create Space offers some great quality full-color prints.  Which allows me to create a really nice looking comic that is print-on-demand.

So far, so good.

But I’m having a hard time figuring out pricing, and I’d love your guys’ input.

If I put out a 40-page, full-color comic… I can do so for $8.95 and make a (small) profit.

Or I can put out a 40-page black and white version for $5.95 and make a similar profit.

But, while being in black-and-white wouldn’t kill this comic… it’s not how I intended for it to be read.

Plus, $5.95 is still higher than your standard single-issue comic that you typically get from the news stands.

On the other hand, many indie publishers charge between 8 and 10 bucks per issue for 40-pagers…

So here’s what I’m leaning towards:

$8.95 for a full-color (inside and out) high-quality print.

$3.95 for a DRM-free digital copy (PDF and CBZ).

Thoughts?

(And, yes, I’ll post a sample soon so you can see what the comic is like for your selves.)

You may recall the announcement, about two weeks back, that RadicalCodex, etc. are changing from commercial and closed source — to donation driven and open source.

I wanted to take a minute to give everyone a quick update on what’s happened since then, and what still needs to happen.

First up, let’s talk about the donations so far:

There have been two.

Granted, I expected the number to be low initially as I have not really pushed donations yet… plus the project is still young.  Even so… only two?  Doesn’t fill me with a large amount of optimism (considering the fact that several thousand extra people grabbed RadicalCodex after the change-over to be free and donation-driven).

Those two people who donated?  Awesome people.  Dare I say… some of the most awesome ever.

On the development front:

There were a few bits of code used in RadicalCodex (which is the application I’m focusing on first) that could not be released open source (licensed code).  So I spent some time this weekend factoring those bits out and replacing them with open source friendly code.

Also, while I’m at it, I’m updating the book cover view to use OpenGL.  Which was the plan from the very beginning, and this is a perfect chance to do it (as I’m doing so much refactoring anyway).

This work will probably take another week or so before it’s done.  But, once it’s done, that opens up a lot of cool possibilities (both in terms of usability and display quality… plus just general eye candy).

The bug tracking database is online… and I’m only letting a very small number of people use it for the moment.  Why, you ask?  Because I don’t want any bug reports or feature requests until the next revision is out.

That’s about the gist of it for now.  I’m hoping that once the next rev of RadicalCodex is out (which will likely be a “2.0″) that donations will start picking up.

Now that the Linux Action Show is 3 years old… I thought now would be a good time to take a look back at the last few years and see just how far things have come (and how the mere existence of the Linux Action Show has changed the face of Linux and podcasting… for ever).

According to Wikipedia, the very first episode ever was June 10, 2006.

This is false.  The first show was, in fact, recorded on June 6, 2006.

This is, of course, just another example of Wikipedia attempting to rob us of our accomplishments and contributions to the world.  Those 4 days… they are precious.

Here’s a few other tidbits that are, suspiciously, absent form the Linux Action Show Wikipedia article:

• The first episode was recorded with yours truley riding a lion.  That I had just tamed that morning.  With my voice.
• We’re pretty sure Chris killed a guy once… simply by being too awesome all the time.

Other examples of extremely important things that Wikipedia seeks to erradicate from the globe, simply because of their relation to Jupiter Broadcasting: “Gadook” and “Foundational Beer“.

To list out the ways in which the big show impacted Linux itself… is not physically possible.  MySQL databases simply cannot hold that many characters.

I’ll sum all of that up with this:

“Dear all of the internet and the universe.  You are welcome.  Sincerely, Bryan.”

Which brings me to the topic of “Linux Podcasting”.  Turns out… we’ve had a little impact there as well.  Oh!  I have an idea!  Time for a bulleted list of how we impacted a few shows!

• The Linux Link Tech Show has existed for many years.  But, prior, to being inspired by the Linux Action Show… they were known simply as “The Waffle Discussion Hour with Pat”.
• Lug Radio, upon hearing our first episode, immediately disbanded and ceased production.  Their leader, Jono Bacon, is quoted as saying, “I think the hosts of the Linux Action Show are super-duper attractive and it’s really weird how much I talk about that fact to everyone I meet.  Like… I talk about it way too much.”
• FLOSS Weekly, feeling the threat of competition, have decided to cut down on the amount of time per episode they talk about MacOS X (down to 93% from 95%).
• You know you’ve hit the big time when entire shows are created for no other purpose than to talk about how pretty you are (*cough* Linux Cranks and Linux Outlaws *cough*).

We’ll be showing everyone how it is done tomorrow (the 6th) at 4pm (PST.

To recap:

NICE.