space shifting
“Space shifting for personal use is OK.” This statement positions the home-made book scanner enclave. The relevant factor is the increasing dispersion of reformatting as a component of the self-publishing momentum. The interesting concept here is “space shifting”. Is this a euphemism for alternative device display or displaced output to paper? Certainly both.
mfa
The University of Iowa Center for the Book now offers an MFA graduate degree. This program degree has long been proposed and now it is suddenly approved. There is also a latent opportunity since the UICB operates without imagining that there is any money and as other academic programs are contracting, we may be in line for facility left-overs.
multitask
Have you noticed that particularly focused manual activity will silence your conversation with others and even cause involuntary clenching of the tongue? This suggests multitasking between simultaneous activities has a deeply embedded supervision.
Such evolutionary supervision could extend to all kinds of multitasking. While driving and phoning with the radio on, we may actually be toggling between these sources, momentarily attentive to only one. The toggling itself is the real multitasking. Many on-line activities individually also exercise this toggling. A keyword search or an email list or blog thread involves as much deletion and decisive disregard as selective attention. This management of attention may be advancing as a skill of multitasking while efficiencies of comprehension diminish.
Another factor arises if deliberate simplification of content becomes a goal of traffic engineering, broadcasting and conversation.