New Kindle

I'm sure this is old news, but Amazon's site is lauding the new and improved Kindle. It's not really a surprise, since they were mighty quick to drop the Kindle's price on the heels of the iPad's bid for a piece of the ereader pie, and the third generation was being whispered about over the last few months. But it does mean that my parents may well become Kindle owners.

Allegedly the 3G is now truly global wireless, and indeed the coverage map is pretty convincing, although I will be interested to see feedback from users in Canada and Australia. The thing also has smokin' battery life (a month!), and is smaller and lighter than the previous version and packs more storage, all of which make Kindle ownership considerably more attractive. Alas, attractive is definitely in the eye of the beholder, because the look of the thing is relatively unchanged--personally, I don't much care for it, but it's not a substantial complaint. And it comes in black, so if the white one reminded you too much of school computers in the 1980's, your prayers have been answered.

Do I regret my Opus? No. Proprietary format is a real pisser for me--and I don't often find myself wanting ebooks where Amazon is the only or the cheapest option. My major complaint is the number of books I want to read that aren't available in any ebook format (philosophy books are hard to come by, but the ereader will do nothing to round out my steady diet of mysteries, because every mystery you ever wanted is an ebook). And Kobo's app provides a very similar experience to the Kindle app for Android--you can go from complete ignorance of a book's existence to reading it in less than 5 minutes, without a computer. All with the added benefit that I can read it on almost any ereader I want.

But my objections are those of an eensy beensy segment of the population (the ones who chuckled over Shifter's Random Geek Thought). The Kindle is a force to be reckoned with, for sure. I hope they put the new ones in Target so we can get a good look at them. And I can't wait to see the reviews....

Muerto

Before any of our IR's explore the links, I'll warn you that the stuff you'll find ranges from a nice desert landscape that you could bring home to mom to certain leather accessories that your boss might not want you perusing on company time. Just so's you know.

This is one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. On my recent trip to Arizona, friends and I went to get henna tattoos at a studio in Phoenix. The place is full of art, but I saw this as soon as I walked in and couldn't stop looking at it. It's this amazing fusion, with the edge of tattoo style and the smiling satire of Mexican/southwestern calavera art. What you may not see immediately is that it is leather, carved and colored by hand. The piece seems a little flat in the photo, partly because the original has such amazing texture. The colors are gorgeous--rich and vibrant. It was a privilege to get an up-close look at it. I love the tattoo details--the swallows, the roses, even the ocean, which reminds me of Japanese tattoos. And the contrast between the living and dead, the color and the black and white, is a favorite theme of mine.

I got to meet the artist, Marco Antonio Turrubiartes, and I'm sure I conveyed my appreciation poorly and with a lot of repetition of the words "cool" and "gorgeous," like someone with an 8th grade education, but he was very gracious. Dude has an etsy shop, and as far as I'm concerned, he's destined for stardom.

If I could draw

If I could draw I'd try a web comic strip about Adam, Eve, and God, only with Adam played by a hacker. I can see a picture of Adam looking out on the Garden of Eden, turning to The Lord, and saying "Meh." I can also see him looking out at the first sunset, turning to Eve, and saying "Nice graphics." I think the possibilities are endless. It's such a good idea, in fact, that I'm worried that it's already been done and that perhaps the only reason I thought of it is that I saw it, years ago, and forgot it but the idea stayed floating around my subconscious until it popped back out now. I don't have the heart to Google it - let me dream that I had an inspiration. It's kind of sad, though, that when you have a good idea you (or at least I) always have to wonder if it was someone else's thought that I snarfed without realizing it.

Random geek thought

I think the reason computer geeks sometimes prefer fantasy to reality is that fantasy is open-source.

And if you get that, you're either a geek or you've been reading too much of T&S.

A bit more on Strange and Norrell

First, several of our dear IR's all of whom happen to be related to me, pointed out that they TOLD me to read MS&DN just years ago and I ignored them. I must accept that this is true. The thing is, I ignored them all the way to the point of forgetting they ever said anything, so now I publically apologize, to all of our other scads of readers, to these others for forgetting to credit them with the recommendation as well.

Second, I am now three discs into it and I think that this is one of the first books that I believe may actually be better on tape than on paper. The narrator is doing such a great job with the inflections, right down to the right tone for the very lengthy and involved footnotes, that I can't imagine reading it anywhere near as well as he is speaking it. Of course, as I've never actually read from print myself, this is speculative claim at best. But I'm making it anyway.

Blogs aren't peer reviewed, isn't that handy :o)