Magazines

I don't subscribe to as many magazines as I used to.Once, several years ago, we took an inventory, and we had fifteen of them coming in more-or-less every month. I've pared that some, and now we have about eight. I frequently look for more -- I'd like something that talks about applications of artificial intelligence, or gives information about medical practice (anything from how to optimize the functioning of the medical office to how do you keep up with findings in your field(s) of interest). No luck on either,but I like to hope. Until then --

MIT's Tech Review is the most likely to have an article that interests me, but about the least likely to have more than two or three of interest. The Economist is very likely to have an intriguing article (it helps that except for the two or three 'big pieces' in the back, the articles are normally about two or three columns, maximum); it has so much material that even when I skip two thirds of the issue, I still feel satisfied that I've gotten something out of it. American Scholar is an oddball, because the articles really are written for people smarter than me, but every so often they have one that is written down to my level, or is so good that it's worth puzzling out, even if I do have to read verrrryyy slowly. (Its from the Phi Beta Kappa society, of which I am certainly not a member; one of the trivia from our Williamsburg jaunt was that PBK was started at Williamsburg.)

Some magazines started coming as part of school fund-raisers. I like Real Simple, which I think of as 'Martha Stewart-less Living'; its aimed at women, but much of the information is generally useful. Family Handyman and Kiplinger also come our way via a school fund drive; I don't really care for FH, since their idea of 'simple construction' or 'simple repair' has gotten progressively more involved over the years; it may be simple from professional standards, but for me, the classic weekend warrior, it can be tough stuff. Kiplinger is a money management magazine that always manages to have something of interest -- I find myself folding pages over 'to reread some day', pretty often.

We also get CSO magazine and Health Management Technology, which are both freebie mags aimed at enterprise security and medical tools and practices, and we just started Inspired House, a house designs mag, which is good, though not at good as I thought it would be.

The last actual magazine we get also came into the house via a school fund raiser -- Wired Magazine. I slot that as conceptually similar to Tech Review, because the odds are good that it will have at least one article that is interesting, even though you do have to work your way past the breathless prose to find it. Wired's aimed, I think, at the 22-30 market; people who think that upgrading to new pda's, phones, and pc's should happen routinely, and who can easily see themselves building a thirty foot robot in their basement ( even if they don't have a basement, and wouldn't if they did). Sort of the Huck Finn view of the world -- I could (build the robot/reprogram my TV's remote control/digitize all my photographs/bone up on Linux) but instead I think I'll take a nap.

This issue has a couple of (predictably breathless) articles - one, about how the Yahoo! site will become the nexus of all forms of video information, totally searchable, infinitely retrievable. And there's an interview with Jon Stewart which is funny and has some interesting insights into the future of television.

Whuff....I'm tired. Think I'll go take a nap.