I tried to keep them alive, really I did. As of this very morning I still had subscriptions to a number of them, wonderful fascinating magazines with well written and thoughtful, useful content.
My subscriptions included:
Analog, a source of great short science fiction.
BBC Music, even comes with a "free" CD each month.
Touchstone, "Mere Christianity"
Outside, a magazine of outdoor activity.
World, a conservative look at world news.
In the past I subscribed to many more, Scientific American, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Asimov's, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Bicycling, US News and World Report, Newsweek and many more.
This morning I had a stack of renewal notices from Analog, Touchstone and some others and I started thinking about renewing them. It was then I finally realized that the magazine is dead. I have several months of all of my magazines sitting unread. They sat decoratively on the coffee table (a table whose sole function is supporting piles of unread magazines, never coffee though) gathering dust. After careful consideration I gathered up the stack of unread magazines, and with sadness in my heart I tossed them into the recycling bin, along with the renewal notices.
I don't read magazines, instead I read blogs, that is just the way it is. The trees need not die for me to read good solid science content, the mail trucks need not roll down the road carrying their corpses so I can find out the latest in theological discussions.
The paper magazine is dead, along with the paper newspaper and the network news on TV, long live the blog. This does not make me happy, but reality is reality. I can no longer justify supporting magazines now that it has finally become clear to me that I simply do not read them any more.
I suppose books are next, though so far I've avoided getting Kindle from Amazon, I have in the past read books on a Palm device with great pleasure, up until it died on me. Now I can still read those books on my computer but that is rather limiting. Still, I don't doubt that fairly soon paper books will be a novelty.
My subscriptions included:
Analog, a source of great short science fiction.
BBC Music, even comes with a "free" CD each month.
Touchstone, "Mere Christianity"
Outside, a magazine of outdoor activity.
World, a conservative look at world news.
In the past I subscribed to many more, Scientific American, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Asimov's, Fantasy and Science Fiction, Bicycling, US News and World Report, Newsweek and many more.
This morning I had a stack of renewal notices from Analog, Touchstone and some others and I started thinking about renewing them. It was then I finally realized that the magazine is dead. I have several months of all of my magazines sitting unread. They sat decoratively on the coffee table (a table whose sole function is supporting piles of unread magazines, never coffee though) gathering dust. After careful consideration I gathered up the stack of unread magazines, and with sadness in my heart I tossed them into the recycling bin, along with the renewal notices.
I don't read magazines, instead I read blogs, that is just the way it is. The trees need not die for me to read good solid science content, the mail trucks need not roll down the road carrying their corpses so I can find out the latest in theological discussions.
The paper magazine is dead, along with the paper newspaper and the network news on TV, long live the blog. This does not make me happy, but reality is reality. I can no longer justify supporting magazines now that it has finally become clear to me that I simply do not read them any more.
I suppose books are next, though so far I've avoided getting Kindle from Amazon, I have in the past read books on a Palm device with great pleasure, up until it died on me. Now I can still read those books on my computer but that is rather limiting. Still, I don't doubt that fairly soon paper books will be a novelty.
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