Kindle
Guys sorry for gushing but I really feel I must write about my favouritest gadget evar.
I fucking love the Kindle. I want to have Kindle babies with my Kindle.
When I was a kid and a teen, I was a voracious reader. I would get through a book a week - there were just so many of those Hardy Boys novels. Then - wham - I discovered tinternet in college and that was the end of that. I'd stay up surfing until I got really tired and then I'd crawl into bed and go straight to sleep.
This had gotten so ridic that until about 5 years ago, I was getting through only 1 or 2 books A YEAR. Since there was loads of stuff that I wanted to read, I just wasn't making progress at all. I would order lots of Amazon and they're just sit there. So I made myself devote more time to books, and increased my rate slightly to 4-5 per year.
Then, back in January, people were talking about Kindles coming down in price and I yoinked one from the American site. Even with shipping, once you converted worthless dollars into expensive Eurobucks, it was a steal - I got the unit (ex shipping) for 105 euro. I tinkered with it, and it sat there. I occasionally read a page.
Enter China. In April, I was over in China and North Korea for two weeks, and I didn't want to have to bring shitloads of books which are very bulky and heavy in luggage. We'd be travelling far and wide and I didn't fancy having to lug it all around, so I got Miriam to spot me a whole load of illegally downloaded ebooks (I'll buy real ones next time! I swear!) and off I set.
OMG the Kindle is deadly! On the plane, I flew through hundreds of pages like it wasn't a thing. I did a thing that I do with real books too - I read two books at the same time, alternating between them as the mood took me. By the end of the holiday, I'd finished 3 whole books. In only two weeks. Even when I was a kid I didn't read that fast.
Incidentally, the books I read were Delete by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, which is about how the Internet never forgets and this is a Really Bad Thing. It was academic and full of padding. Next was Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander, which I loved - I found myself, Therese or one of you guys on every page. Finally there was SuperFreakonomics, the sequel, and a worthy one.
Today, though, I discovered the joys of the audio book. I was driving to work and tried to get my Kindle to read that shit out to me in its woman computery voice. I love it! I got through 19 pages of the book on each leg of the journey. At this rate, I'll be finished another book in only another week.
I think it's very interesting to watch the generation gap on this one. The best thing about the Kindle is the way the screen looks like paper in a book, not at all like a normal computer screen. You could be forgiven, if you were a bit of a newbie, for not even realising that it was a computer screen and could be animated. I told my ma about it last time I was around and she said she hates reading things on screens and prefers paper. I know the Kindle looks like paper anyway, but I don't object to reading things on screens at all anyway - I must be tuned to it. At one extreme, you have people like me who'd read everything on a screen if they could, and at the other, the dad of the boss of a small company I worked for back in 1998. Each day, he'd select his new mails on the screen, and Print Them Out. Once he'd eliminated the penis spam and glanced through the rest, he'd Throw Them In The Bin. Jesus wept.
I rather like living in the 21st century.
Kindle heart!
I fucking love the Kindle. I want to have Kindle babies with my Kindle.
When I was a kid and a teen, I was a voracious reader. I would get through a book a week - there were just so many of those Hardy Boys novels. Then - wham - I discovered tinternet in college and that was the end of that. I'd stay up surfing until I got really tired and then I'd crawl into bed and go straight to sleep.
This had gotten so ridic that until about 5 years ago, I was getting through only 1 or 2 books A YEAR. Since there was loads of stuff that I wanted to read, I just wasn't making progress at all. I would order lots of Amazon and they're just sit there. So I made myself devote more time to books, and increased my rate slightly to 4-5 per year.
Then, back in January, people were talking about Kindles coming down in price and I yoinked one from the American site. Even with shipping, once you converted worthless dollars into expensive Eurobucks, it was a steal - I got the unit (ex shipping) for 105 euro. I tinkered with it, and it sat there. I occasionally read a page.
Enter China. In April, I was over in China and North Korea for two weeks, and I didn't want to have to bring shitloads of books which are very bulky and heavy in luggage. We'd be travelling far and wide and I didn't fancy having to lug it all around, so I got Miriam to spot me a whole load of illegally downloaded ebooks (I'll buy real ones next time! I swear!) and off I set.
OMG the Kindle is deadly! On the plane, I flew through hundreds of pages like it wasn't a thing. I did a thing that I do with real books too - I read two books at the same time, alternating between them as the mood took me. By the end of the holiday, I'd finished 3 whole books. In only two weeks. Even when I was a kid I didn't read that fast.
Incidentally, the books I read were Delete by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, which is about how the Internet never forgets and this is a Really Bad Thing. It was academic and full of padding. Next was Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander, which I loved - I found myself, Therese or one of you guys on every page. Finally there was SuperFreakonomics, the sequel, and a worthy one.
Today, though, I discovered the joys of the audio book. I was driving to work and tried to get my Kindle to read that shit out to me in its woman computery voice. I love it! I got through 19 pages of the book on each leg of the journey. At this rate, I'll be finished another book in only another week.
I think it's very interesting to watch the generation gap on this one. The best thing about the Kindle is the way the screen looks like paper in a book, not at all like a normal computer screen. You could be forgiven, if you were a bit of a newbie, for not even realising that it was a computer screen and could be animated. I told my ma about it last time I was around and she said she hates reading things on screens and prefers paper. I know the Kindle looks like paper anyway, but I don't object to reading things on screens at all anyway - I must be tuned to it. At one extreme, you have people like me who'd read everything on a screen if they could, and at the other, the dad of the boss of a small company I worked for back in 1998. Each day, he'd select his new mails on the screen, and Print Them Out. Once he'd eliminated the penis spam and glanced through the rest, he'd Throw Them In The Bin. Jesus wept.
I rather like living in the 21st century.
Kindle heart!