RE: The Poop on the Kindle
I love the title of this thread. From what I've been hearing about the Kindle, it perfectly expresses the appropriate consumer reaction to it. http://idiotgrrl.livejournal.com/ Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:06:43 -0700 Subject: Re: The Poop on the Kindle From: jwilliams4...@gmail.com To: brin-l@mccmedia.com On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 9:16 PM, Doug Pensingerbrig...@zo.com wrote: They talked about the whispernet in the instructions I've read so far, but I didn't realize exactly what it was. Before I got the thing I assumed that downloading was via the computer/net. Silly me. I just downloaded a book and it seemed to load pretty quickly. The default is to download over the cell network (I don't like to call it by the saccharine whispernet), but you can choose to download book files to your computer and then transfer to the kindle via USB. Is there any free content? There are free books available on amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/s/qid=1248584530/ref=sr_st?rs=154606011page=1rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133141011%2Cn%3A154606011bbn=154606011sort=price There are other sources as well, just google free kindle books The instructions said there was some sort of pdf translation software but implied that it wasn't free and that it didn't always work right. It also said something about being able to load your own documents. The Kindle DX can display PDF files -- just hook the USB cable to a computer, and the Kindle DX shows up as a MSC device. You can drag book files, PDF files, etc. I believe the Kindle 2 allows you to transfer PDF files from the computer vias USB after filtering through a translation program. Or you can pay a fee for Amazon to translate the PDF file and download it to the Kindle 2 over the cell network. But I'm not positive about any of that (one reason I got the DX was so I did not have to bother with that) ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: The Poop on the Kindle
Doug Pensinger asked: So who has a Kindle (I know someone mentioned them before), how do you like it and what do you read on it? I just got one today and am attempting to download the NY Times (free 14 day trial) right now. It seems like it's taking a long time... I have one; I've had it since February. I'm sold on it. I just took a trip and read three book and several of the Hugo nominated short works and it's all in a small, easy to carry device. I've purchased several novels from Amazon and sent numerous Gutenberg (and other free source) books to Amazon for conversion and they get them back in less than an hour. A couple of drawbacks: The SF and fantasy books I like have maps, sometimes a lot of maps. It is easy to thumb back to the maps, but it is a slow process. Also, in Robert Charles Wilson's Justin Comstock: A Tale of 22nd-Century American, there are a lot of comments. I checked at a bookstore and in the hardback version, all the comments are footnoted at the bottom of the respective page. In the Kindle version, all the footnotes are at the back of the book with no reference to which page on which it was referenced. So, there are some bugs to work out, but I think that is a publisher formatting issue, not a Kindle issue. But overall, I love it. About Amazon deleting 1984 and Animal Farm from people's devices, not a big deal to me. I agree with most that they should not have done it, but I think this was a onetime bad decision and they won't even think of doing it again. About your problem with the NY Times, I can't say. I've not subscribed to any magazines or newpapers. George A ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: The Poop on the Kindle
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 5:08 AM, Pat Mathews mathew...@msn.com wrote: I love the title of this thread. From what I've been hearing about the Kindle, it perfectly expresses the appropriate consumer reaction to it. Sounded like a Dr. Seuss book to me... Nick ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
Gary Nunn wrote: Warehouse 13 - After two episodes, I'm not impressed or hooked yet, but I'll give it a few more episodes. I got a kick out of the first episode and I think that it might have staying power. Certainly it is yet another monster of the week program (albeit substitute gadget/oddity for monster), but it is playful and fun. I really like the bits of steampunk in the Warehouse itself. Certainly there are some fun things in thinking about such a crazy project that it would bring such (later in life) enemies as Thomas Edison and Nicolai Tesla together to build such a bizarre facility... There are neat hints that a deeper through-storyline is building and with Jane Espenson helming I've got a feeling that we can expect the show to cross a few boundaries that we might think are set in stone in the formula even though we've only seen a few episodes thus far. I guess most importantly is that it plays very well in a duo with Eureka (which thanks to the magic of Hulu end up scheduled on the same nights for me) and I think its good to have more science is awesome in television, even if it is pseudo-science as most of Warehouse 13 appears. Speaking of science is awesome on television, please tell me that you all are watching Better Off Ted? It's like The Office meets Eureka (with a dash of Arrested Development and a dash of Pushing Daisies); it's a fun comedy about (RD) middle management at a mega-science corporation, Veridian Dynamics, that builds crazy things like weaponized pumpkins and hover shoes. It's definitely the funniest program with two major show-stealing characters that happen to be scientists that I've seen. The last few episodes rolling are on Hulu and the premise is gentle enough that you should be able to pick it up pretty quickly. Currently the show is on the back half (6 eps) of Season 1, which I believe is also doubling as the front half leading into Season 2. -- --Max Battcher-- http://worldmaker.net ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Max Battcherm...@worldmaker.net wrote: Speaking of science is awesome on television, please tell me that you all are watching Better Off Ted? It's like The Office meets Eureka (with a dash of Arrested Development and a dash of Pushing Daisies); it's a fun comedy about (RD) middle management at a mega-science corporation, Veridian Dynamics, that builds crazy things like weaponized pumpkins and hover shoes. It's definitely the funniest program with two major show-stealing characters that happen to be scientists that I've seen. Better Off Ted is the best new comedy I've seen in a long time. I particularly enjoy the Veridian Dynamics commercials. My favorite episode was the one where they installed new sensors for detecting if people were in the room, and they could not detect black people, so they had to hire minimum-wage white guys to follow the black guys around the building. ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Torchwood: Children of Earth
On John Williams wrote: Better Off Ted is the best new comedy I've seen in a long time. I particularly enjoy the Veridian Dynamics commercials. My favorite episode was the one where they installed new sensors for detecting if people were in the room, and they could not detect black people, so they had to hire minimum-wage white guys to follow the black guys around the building. Just watched it. Hilarious! Thanks... Doug ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Was Moore's Law Inevitable?
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/07/was_moores_law.php It is quite a long article, but worth the time to read, I think. It does not have an abstract, but here is a partial summary from near the end: The first thing to notice is that all these examples demonstrate the effects of scaling down, or working with the small. In this microcosmic realm energy is not very important. We don't see exponential improvement in efforts to scale up, to keep getting bigger, skyscrapers and space stations. Airplanes aren't getting bigger, flying faster, and more fuel efficient at an exponential rate. Gordon Moore jokes that if the technology of air travel experienced the same kind of progress as Intel chips, a modern day commercial aircraft would cost $500, circle the earth in 20 minutes, and only use five gallons of fuel for the trip. However, the plane would only be the size of a shoebox! We don't see a Moore's Law-type of progress at work while scaling up because energy needs scale up just as fast, and energy is a major limited constraint, unlike information. So our entire new economy is built around technologies that scale down well -- photons, electrons, bits, pixels, frequencies, and genes. As these inventions miniaturize, they reach closer to bare atoms, raw bits, and the essence of matter and information. And so the fixed and inevitable path of their progress derives from this elemental essence. The second thing to notice about this set of examples is the narrow range of slopes, or doubling time (in months). The particular power being optimized in these technologies is doubling between 8 and 30 months. Everyone of them is getting twice as better every year or two no matter the technology. What's up with that? Engineer Mark Kryder's explanation is that this twice as better every two years is an artifact of corporate structure where most of these inventions happen. It just takes 1-2 years of calendar time to conceive, design, prototype, test, manufacture and market a new improvement, and while a 5- or 10-fold increase is very difficult to achieve, almost any engineer can deliver a factor of two. Voila! Twice as better every two years. Engineers unleashed equals Moore's Law. But, as mentioned earlier, we see engineers unleashed in other departments of the technium without the appearance of exponential growth. And in fact not every aspect of semiconductor extrapolation resolves into a handy law. Moore recalls that in a 1975 speech he forecasted the expected growth of other attributes of silicon chips just to demonstrate how ridiculous it is to extrapolate exponentials. Extrapolating the maximum size of the wafer of silicon used to grow the chips (which was increasing as fast of the number of components) he calculated would yield a nearly 2-meter (6-foot) diameter crystal by 2000, which just seemed unlikely. That did not happen; they reached 300 mm (1 foot). ___ http://mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
