learnandteachonline.com

Nice personal piece on watching portable video by David Carr in The New York Times.

"With the new iPod, I could start at the beginning of the series and view "Lost" at my leisure. The average episode lasts 44 minutes, about the length of my commute. Watching "Lost" on the bus next to a large man working his way through a crinkly bag of nuts is a deeply satisfying media experience. Goodbye crinkly nut man. Hello Claire and John Locke. (It is a bonus that the man can't see the image from the side, as hard as he tries.)

"So this is how we end up alone together. We share a coffee shop, but we are all on wireless laptops. The subway is a symphony of earplugged silence while the family trip has become a time when the kids watch DVD's in the back of the minivan. The water cooler, that nexus of chatter about the show last night, might go silent as we create disparate, customized media environments."

Nice writing. Is this the sort of thing we'll miss if traditional newspapers go away? Nope. Why should it matter how the words are delivered? There's equally polished work on the web, and there will be even more when more people are doing it for a living.