Kindle 3 in NZ

A few thoughts on the Kindle 3

• The eInk screen is amazing to read from, after reading 4 book on the device and reading until 2am in the morning there is no eyestrain unlike when I use an active display such as my netbook or cellphones.
• Books load quickly after the first time, when they appear to be indexed.
• The kindle store works well and with your credit card details linked to your account can be bought with only a couple of clicks.
• The purchased books arrive very quickly over both wifi and 3G.
• Also books purchased directly from there website arrive next time you connect the kindle to a network.
• The battery life is impressive on the first charge I've read 5 or so books before getting a battery warning, should last 8 or 9 books by the time it's had a couple more charges.
• Battery life is a function of page turns, so appears to decrease as you increase text size and spacing. But leaving it in suspend for a week has little or no effect.
• It's highly impressive to switch the device off and have the kindle render a graphic on the display and leave there while it's 'off'.
• The text is very clean and easy to read.
• The device is quite small about the size of a midsized paper back and incredible light!
• The size and weight make it alot easier to hold than an iPad for reading.
• The refresh rate when turning pages is quite acceptable, if you hit page advance when you reach the bottom of the page it should have refreshed by the time your eye reach the top.
• You can change the font, spacing and orientation of the text.
• The 3G makes is easy to buy a book and start reading it pretty much anywhere.
• The downside is it makes it a little too easy to buy a book that catches your eye, and with the purchase only requiring a click or two could easily get out of control.
• There are a lot of free ebooks in the correct formate available from third parties such as baen, including some complete series, which helps make the device even more valuable

• The webbrowser is rather basic though usable, a 5 way pad is not the best way to browse the web.
• The music player is completely basic, no gui just plays stuff in order in the background, the built in speakers are of reasonable quality.
• The book reader as usual is the standard robotic voice, and won't make audio books obsolete any time soon.
• The books seem to have US$2 surcharge on them to cover the cost of sending them Internationally via 3G, this applies both when buying via 3G or Wifi, which as far as data charges go is a complete rip off!
• Book prices are in US$ so while the books are still cheaper than a normal priced paperback they're not incredibly so (NZ$17 for the most expensive I've bought)
• While the book range is decent I've run into a number of books that are not to be sold in NZ

Overall I'm very happy with the device I just wish the book prices were in NZ dollars and didn't have the US$2 surcharge!

Quote

And so from nothing our universe begins.
In a single blinding pulse, a moment of glory much too swift and expansive for any form of words, the singularity assumes heavenly dimensions, space beyond conception.

-- Bill Bryson - A Short History of Nearly Everything

Having decided to read a more non-fiction I've started off deciding to finish the above book. It's an awesome book and I'm greatly looking forward to finishing it this time, now that I've got a hardcopy in hand.

I've also decided for now to read/finish off a couple of other non-fiction works, Collapse by Jared Diamond, and The Origin of the Species by Darwin (often referred to as one of the most beautifully written scientific works).

Still I'm looking for other decent scientific or semi-scientific non-fiction so if you have any suggestions please make them!

To quote:

Metaplanetary by Tony Daniel:

I repeat for all prospective despots, kings, saviors, democratic freedom fighters, and the like: Frequent rummage sales . You never know but you might pick up the secret of universal domination at one, and at a sweet price.

God Delusion Again

Yes yes, of course the troubles in Northern Ireland are political. There really has been economic and political oppression of one group by another, and it goes back centuries. There really are genuine grievances and injustices, and these seem to have little to do with religion; except that - and this is important and widely overlooked - without religion there would be no labels by which to decide whom to oppress and whom to avenge.

Does any one else think this is a load of bollocks? They simply would have come up with a new label of some form or another.

Any way apart from that I thought the sections on memes, the origins of religion, religion as a by product and cargo cults to be interesting and well written. Possibly because these sections had more of an academic or scientific focus rather than being directly part of the authors argument against religion, and as a result somewhat more factual rather than heavily opinionated unlike many of his other sections.

Sound and Fury, Signifying ...?

An interesting little article by the SF Author Richard K Morgan, on the angst and some of the other issues in SF & Fantasy. It was written as a guest editorial for an SF anthology, but was never used as consider somewhat too negative. Any way he's decided to stick it up on his website and it's an interesting read and those of you interested in SF & Fantasy or writing little bits may find it worth reading.


Sound and Fury, Signifying ...?

...
Here's a quote:

"[T]hey're really a bunch of self-righteous condescending arrogant little pricks who are more than happy to ignore history and scientific facts when it suites [sic] them ... a bunch of goddammed fucking militant, humorless, and annoying asshats for whom beatings are way too good."
...
Trawl back through the short history of SF and you can see the exact same bitching and lekking oneupmanship set loose time and time again. New Wave writers lambast and laugh at their predecessors from the so-called Golden Age. Individual authors ally or square up to each other with ludicrous intensity. Lots of furious lit. crit. goes flying this way and that. Splat! Pow! Blood on the dancefloor. Oh, but the times, they are a-changing -- here comes the hard-SF revival to "take back" the genre, to barricade themselves in the genre cabin with their technophilic faith and new frontier spirit and hold off the weirdos for a while. Then cyberpunk kicks down the door all over again, proclaims itself dangerous and subversive (but over here, in this corner, some New Wave purists scoff).
...

Looking for somehing to Read?

If your looking for some decent fiction/SF then might be worth having a look at this list of Current SF authors, fav books for 2007 and what they're looking forward too in 2008!


Fantasy Book Critic: Fantasy Book Critic’s 2007 Review/2008 Preview: A Writer’s Perspective