E Books

Over the past few days I've been looking at various means of expanding my library without choking up the house with bookshelves. Enamoured as I am with the sheer pleasure of handling words on good old low tech paper, I've got to thinking that my addiction for the printed word might need some modification. Whilst a good book is like a solid single malt, a good meal or a fine wine, there is something to be said for more workaday reading (Classed in my eyes like a reasonable plonk, a solid bacon butty, or a Jamesons) reduced in its physical bookshelf size.

My reading rate has been clocked around the 1200 Words per minute rate on average, although my typing remains at a lowly 15 words per minute max, despite all efforts to teach myself touch typing. This means I read. A lot. Always have done, from pulp Sci-Fi to Camus, Kafka and Voltaire and all stations in between. Including technical manuals. My parents were always critical of this need to read, but the more I got scolded, the more I wanted to curl up with whatever I happen to be reading in a cosy little corner. As a child I used to read underneath the blankets with a torch, hiding in the back seat of the car in the garage, while walking the dog, in bed, wherever. To me, part of heaven is an entire library all to myself with no chucking out time.

Ergo, one of the things I've been considering is a E-reader like a Kindle or similar for general leisure time reading. There's something called a Kobo which I found interesting, and a whole bunch of other E-readers from the petite and basic to Netbook size, many of them with their own web browsers built in. The only real issue is catalogue and flexibility. The last thing I want is a 'content incompatible' type warning when loading a pdf or similar from outside the e-readers host catalogue. If Barnes and Noble have what I want, but Amazon don't, I want to be able to read content from multiple suppliers. As an aside, I find all these 'locked down' formats a big turn off, I mean what's the point of buying something you can't port across to another media for your own private use? Whoever comes up with the closest thing to a multi-format reader may find a ready market in me. Expandable content is also a must, so I can dump stuff I'm really not interested in onto an SD card or via a Mini USB link to make room for others.

Thinking aloud, the text to speech thing I'm not interested in. I can read, so why the hell do I want anyone else to do it for me? Audio books are only for in the car on long road trips, which I'm not doing at the moment. Don't listen to Radio in the car, and have my own music (Mainly prog rock to classical) on a 4Gb data key. This is probably why the latest pop thing (Whatever recycled pap that currently is) kind of passes me by.

Replaceable batteries are also a plus, as the last thing I want is my workaday reading list rendered inaccessible because the e-reader battery has gone down quicker than a cheap hooker on payday, forcing repurchase of a whole new e reader (and catalogue of text). Electronics fail for various reasons, and catch you out even with the best possible backup and restore policies. Something which runs off a replaceable cell phone battery might be a good idea. A capacity of 1100mA sounds more than sufficient. If one can adequately power an ageing Nokia 6310i cell phone after nine years, then maybe I should be looking for one with that kind of option.

Despite my initial resistance to the idea, a quick arithmetical exercise quickly persuades me that an e-reader may be an economical proposition. Book shelves cost to build and fill, never mind the actual cost of the book itself. Say if I want to buy three months reading, say around twenty or so volumes, I need a new half bookcase a year. That's not including all the technical magazines and periodicals I like to browse for various snippets. Cost can ramp up into well over two hundred bucks a quarter just to feed my general reading addiction. That's even with bi-weekly visits to the library for one off reads. A couple of hundred for an e-reader followed by 3-5 bucks per download soon drops the average price of my word fix.

Although there's still a good deal of information sifting to be done based on portability, durability and sheer basic functionality, I found this list a good basic guide.

In praise of.....

Now it's not often I write to praise someone without having to see them buried, but today I am looking at the blessings count tick rapidly upwards with a "How the hell did I get this lucky?" grin on my face.

It's difficult sometimes to encapsulate the enormity of someone else's achievement when very few can understand the precise ramifications. Only those who have ever laboured over thankless tasks can envisage what a simple step can mean, not for one person, but for an entire family.

Just over a week ago, a seven year old boy finally began to read. Yeah, okay, fine, you might say, what is so momentous about that? Reading isn't such a big deal, I do it all the time, so what's new? Yawn. Spare us the hyperbole, Bill.

All right. Here's the story. The details are obscured for reasons of confidentiality, but one of the key players is my own very clever wife, Mrs S, who runs a modest personal tutoring service.

Several months ago, Mrs S was engaged to help with the reading for a low literacy family. Specifically for the youngest of the clan, who has been very slow in coming to read, and as a by product had a lot of poorly directed energy. In short, he was driving his Mother, Father, and two other siblings to distraction. His siblings were falling behind in school because their seven year old little brother was diverting their attention from their studies, his Mother was constantly chiding him, and his Father had become too exasperated with his tantrums to help, so the only attention the little boy got was when he misbehaved. The vicious circle of bad behaviour attention seeking was becoming established with all the attendant strains on the rest of the family.

Other tutors had been hired, but none had been able to crack the attention deficit. The parents relationship was becoming ever more strained. They had run out of ideas.

So what has happened? What has a little boy learning to read got to do with it? Read on, and all will become plain. The boy didn't want to read. He only liked the pictures in comics and ignored the text. It was not that he couldn't, it was that he wouldn't. Subsequently, without enough to engage his own innate intelligence he became bored stiff, and took out that boredom on the rest of his family. There hangs the key to this tale.

Without learning to read, as an adult he would be doomed to remain at the bottom of the job pile, forever scratching a living in low status jobs and squandering his talents. Perhaps he might drift into substance abuse or dealing. Without the ability to search for information he would never know the revelation of a new idea, gleaned from his own study. In short, his bright spark of intelligence would be wasted, and no doubt pissed on by others whose only status comes from bullying those they see as lesser souls. All through his young life his mother and father would struggle, and grieve that they had somehow 'failed' their child. Perhaps the strain on their relationship would cause a split, forever screwing up the lives of his two older siblings. Who can forsee these outcomes? Yet the likelihood is that they would not be happy ones.

Bringing up children, especially not your own, can easily become a destruction test of any relationship. When you are helplessly struggling against the riptide of a disruptive child, it's even worse.

A couple of months ago, Mrs S was hired to visit twice a week. She began by reading to the boy, which didn't work. He was distracted and wouldn't pay attention. She talked to him about reading. "Books are boring!" He would protest. Reading was seen by him as something unmanly, which was why his mother could not read to him, and because he was too disruptive, his father would not try. So Mrs S engaged with him, talking to him about what he thought he knew and how he saw the world. At no time did she ever directly challenge his beliefs, because then, in the words of his mother, the 'shutters would go up' and the cause would be lost. She recounted these long rambling conversations with me, and even I could see the massive obstacles to the boys future. She told me of her frustrations, what tactics she'd used and how they had failed, until a few days ago, when she finally found a book that engaged the boys interest enough to get him to sit still for five minutes and simply listen. What the book was doesn't matter, as what will engage and enervate one will simply bore another. Suffice it to say, it took Mrs S four weeks of exploring bookshops and the Library to find the right combination. Once he had listened, he wanted to find out for himself. Once he began to hunt and peck through the streams of words, his reading acuity progressed rapidly.

A week ago, she pried overt permission for the boy to read in bed. According to his Mother, he began to read himself to sleep. The dogs, ever the barometer of the household, began to greet Mrs S like an old friend and pack member whenever she arrived for a her bi-weekly tutoring session, not barking when she arrived, but milling around with wagging tails before settling. Previously they had always barked in those short, choppy 'stranger coming' barks that dogs use when they are anxious or perturbed.

Last night, Mrs S told me triumphantly, for the first time, a father read his son a bedtime story. The boys father had wanted to do this for a long time but his son had always pushed him away with his bad behaviour. Now the Father sat down at the end of the day because his son insisted, begged even. "Read to me Daddy." So the Father did. Today his Mother read to him in front of Mrs S. Also for the first time. Then the boy began to read, and later sat still and listened attentively while others read to him. He has discovered the pleasures of narrative.

In this I think my wife has done something remarkable that may save a life, help prevent a break up, and perhaps even give better futures to not one, but three children. Just by getting one disruptive boy to read.

For this alone I believe my wife is worthy of praise. I am glad to say without even a trace of irony, "All hail Mrs S!"

I count myself truly fortunate to be married to her.

A fridge magnet or an attitude

It's too sunny a day to bother with how crap things are in the UK, or the war of words on who rules the climate. So today, this fridge magnet can be considered a summation of my attitude to the outside world;

I hasten to add that the picture is most definitely not a self portrait. I'm not as pretty as that.

Today is to be spent basking in sunshine and reading a Jim Butcher novel. One of the Harry Dresden series. It's rather good.

Anger management

"Bill, you're doing it again!" Said Mrs S rather sharply.
"What?" I rejoindered.
"You're angry. Your eyes are angry and you're grinding your teeth."
"Am I? Oh." I replied, much mollified.
"Step away from the keyboard hon, or do some proper writing. Short stories. Do some funny stuff for sale. Talk to that Agent about the test screenplay you sent him. And stay off that Daily Telegraph site, I'm sure they only write things in a way designed to wind people up." She knows how to pound the lesson home does my wife.

Thus, bowing to the greater intelligence and counsel of my much better half, that is precisely what I'm doing. The world can go to hell in a handbasket without my input for a few days. I'm sure no-one really cares what I think anyway.

Real life demands my more immediate attention.

Readers Digest no more?

Doctors and Dentists waiting rooms may never be the same again. Unsolicited prize draw entries may no longer sleet through your letterbox. At least in the UK. The UK Readers Digest has filed for Bankruptcy protection. It is a shame, because of the amusing items said organ was able to provide to take your mind off that impending much-dreaded rectal examination or root canal.

However, the business model that supported said publication is failing because they haven't really moved with the changing markets. There are web sites, but they're mostly just web front ends with paywalls to the content which has been demonstrated not to be the most profitable way to make money online. Some kind of content licensing agreement to other web sites might help their cashflow. Ebook downloads via Amazon, and subscriber only author read content advertised by carefully selected Youtube clips suitable for iPhone and other electronic media. Interactive flash games like Sudoku and crosswords paid for by advertising. The print copy could still be subsidised by the online stuff.

Of course they'd have to downsize anyway because Internet content requires a smaller staff overhead, but at least the good old Readers Digest would survive, which is what a lot of businesses in the UK aren't doing right now.

Just my five cents worth.

Rediscovering G K Chesterton

As anyone who has read my rabid rambling nonsense since 2005 will know, I'm quite a fan of the writings of Rudyard Kipling. His complete works once helped me keep my sanity during a prolonged and life threatening illness. Yet I feel my literary education is far from complete. Up until recently I had never read the following poem by G K Chesterton, which seems particularly appropriate in light of the political situation in the UK and increasingly throughout all the western nations;

They have given us into the hand of new unhappy lords,
Lords without anger or honour, who dare not carry their swords.
They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes;
They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies.
And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs,
Their doors are shut in the evening; and they know no songs.

Upon reading those words I feel a strangely prescient chill.

Robert William Wood, Physicist.

Was lurking on the Wattsupwiththat comment thread, having a read of all the comments and trying to understand the implications of the articles when my attention was taken by a name and a web reference. The name was of an American Physicist, Robert William Wood; quite famous in the early 20th century for being a fakebuster extraordinary. A sort of early 20th century cross between Richard Feynman and James Randi.

One of his most famous exposures was exposing the inventor of 'N-Rays' Blondlet, but in another experiment, written up in 1909, held the following passage;

The following article was published in the Philosophical
Magazine in 1909 (Vol. 17, pp. 319−320): XXIV.
Note on the Theory of the Greenhouse By Professor R. W. Wood (Communicated by the Author)
THERE appears to be a widespread belief that the comparatively high temperature produced within a closed space covered with glass, and exposed to solar radiation, results from a transformation of wave−length, that is, that the heat waves from the sun, which are able to penetrate the glass, fall upon the walls of the enclosure and raise its temperature: the heat energy is re−emitted by the walls in the form of much longer waves, which are unable to penetrate the glass, the greenhouse acting as a radiation trap. I have always felt some doubt as to whether this action played any very large part in the elevation of temperature. It appeared much more probable that the part played by the glass was the prevention of the escape of the warm air heated by the ground within the enclosure. If we open the doors of a greenhouse on a cold and windy day, the trapping of radiation appears to lose much of its efficacy.

Which led me to this academic conversation between a person calling him (Or her) self 'Tadchem' and a gentleman by the name of Edward Green. The key phrase being; "A CO2 molecule doesn't know up from down."

Now forgive me for being terribly thick if my understanding of the physics is imperfect, but this would mean that any reflection of electromagnetic radiation of sunlight by CO2 molecules (Or any 'greenhouse gas') would go all over the place, (Mostly sideways or back into space) not just reflected down to the surface of the Earth. Once past the frequency saturation point of any molecule, the net effect would surely be for any such gases to reflect as much energy from the Earth's atmosphere as they absorb. Result; no net warming effect. Huzzah! We're saved! We're not all going to boil to death!

Man made Climate Change is averted. Good grief Moriarty. Stick another steak on that Barbecue and fill up the pickup. I've suddenly gone all warm and fuzzy.

You know what I really love about Canada?

You can read anything you want. There are no censorious book burners here (Well, not locally). You can find anything providing it is of sufficient literary merit. The librarians make no comment on your choices, as they seem to understand why you need to read, and read widely.

There is enlightenment in reading a broad spectrum of material, from Das Kapital to Mein Kampf, from the Torah to the Koran and from Shakespeare to Graphic Novels. All are grist to the mill of my paltry intellect. You know what the great thing really is? The best thing of all? You are left to draw your own conclusions. There is no tutting, no tacit or overt disapproval at your choice of reading here. No one to 'tell' you their interpretation. Discussion perhaps, like when I took the time to watch some of Leni Riefenstahl's ground breaking film work on DVD. "Great camera work" I believe was one remark. The content (About the 1934 rally of the Nazi party) did not seem to faze anyone. They even have a statement inside the front door, declaring that the library is a 'freedom to read' area.

Those who work in our local library seem to be above all things, bibliophiles, lovers of the printed word; and as such are worthy of praise. The reason I am pleased is because I happened upon a copy of the collected poems of Robert Service, and also the works of Damon Runyon. This blog may become a little literary for the next month or so.

Atlas is busy shrugging

About half way through Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged'. It's a tremedously frustrating experience because I keep wanting to scream at certain characters "Grow up you dumbass!" Normally speaking I can read for three to four hours at a stretch without coming up for air, but although I'm enjoying the prose, I have to stop reading every half hour. My anger reaction at the stupidity of certain characters is that strong.

From the UK I see news that the latest budget is all about the economic seppuku of the current administration. Oh dearie me. Denis Healey tried 'soaking the rich' back in the mid to late 1970's. Didn't work then. Won't work now. Why don't people learn from the mistakes of the past? Are they brain dead or something?

Sidebar addition

Have been reading a UK blog callled 'And there was me thinking' by the erudite mummylonglegs. Sterling stuff. Well worth reading.

Giving out a rocket

From the lunatic asylum on the other side of the Atlantic comes this utter nonsense. A Professor Gerard DeGroot thinks America should scrap space exploration because of the abortive launch of the NASA CO2 measuring satellite earlier this week. He makes the case like so many luddites before him, and a pretty poor one at that; that the money spent on space exploration would be better spent here on Earth. I quote his article directly.

During a recent radio programme, a Nasa astronaut asked me how the American people might react if the next man on the moon were Chinese. I replied with a question: "why are Americans so insecure?" If the Chinese want that worthless rock, so be it.

I would ask the following by way of a reply; why is Professor DeGroot so anti-american? He decries the Ares space exploration program as proposed by Ex-US President George Bush, and does not suggest how the money spent on space exploration might otherwise be utilised, apart from a woolly reference to poverty and famine taken from an Eisenhower quote which was more about the waste of warfare than the exploration of space.

I would counter Professor DeGroots arguments thus; The US Space programme and NASA is not just about America. It provides employment for skilled Engineers and Technicians, both directly and indirectly. The information they generate and the technologies (GPS, Satellite communications to name but two) give employment indirectly to many others. Without it, the USA would not have risen to be a world superpower, both economic and military, and would the rest of the Western Democratic nations have enjoyed the economic well being without the energy and drive Americans put into the race to the moon? The space race generated, and still does generate economic activity and yes, wealth. It is one area where Government spending really does have a measurable economic effect. Or would we rather go back to the last ten years where most of the Western economies were overinflated by the rising price of housing and bankers selling nebulous products of 'risk'?

Professor DeGroot is listed as a historian. A Historian with a book to plug. So what is his book about? "The Magnificent Madness of the American Lunar Quest". I do so hope that he received no remuneration whatsoever for what was an unsubstantiated diatribe. We only need books like his to remind us why we should be taking the greatest leap of faith of all.

To conclude; in these straitened financial days, where the economy is formed from so many interlaced and fragile layers, we need hope and change. We need hope that this planet is not all there is. We need change from the anti-scientific small mindedness that keeps our species chained to this spinning ball of mostly molten rock. We need a focus to drive us out to our rightful place among the stars, or drown in the squalor of an overcrowded world. Without that goal, what have we to look forward to apart from perhaps forced Eugenics programmes to reduce the population? Take your pick. Explore the cosmos and take risks in doing so, or mandatory euthanasia when you are no longer a worthwhile economic unit? No pressure.....

What drives people to....

What drives certain people to write ascerbic comments in or 'correct' library books? I'd dearly love to know. More than once my reading pleasure has been soured by some pompous moron who thinks they have the God-given to foist their own narrow minded little world view upon others. To them I address the following remarks; come on, this is public property, not yours to deface as you see fit. This behaviour is analagous to fly tipping, or taking an open air crap in the middle of a public park; what can only be described as an anti-social act of moronic vandalism.

To those who would justify such behaviour I would address the additional remarks; if it is okay for someone to write "I don't know why anyone would want to read this BS" upon the flyleaf of one of Tom Clancy's lesser known works, does that make it okay for others to write "This guy should have been impeached" on the flyleaf of Bill Clinton's autobiography? For my part, my own opinion is that neither is acceptable, and that the perpetrators of such public defacement and their apologists should be publicly buggered, hung, drawn, quartered, guillotined and gassed, just to make certain. The same goes for those who burn books. Any and all of them. I don't care which book it is that they have burned, to destroy the written word is a sin against a greater humanity and perhaps even God himself.

Shocked visitor:Gosh. That's a bit extreme Mr Sticker. Would you care to outline the rationalisation for your rather extreme views?

No problem. A book in a public lending library is in it's own way a repository of knowledge, however slight, open to all to read for their own edification or damnation. To me all books are equal. From pulp romances to major scientific works. They all contain, in whatever measure, some tiny essence of a civilisation. In any library that I had control over, I would keep copies of Mein Kampf and Das Kapital alongside the comic prose of P J O'Rourke for public perusal because by said juxtaposition those entering the library could see first hand what utter cobblers was written in the works of Marx and Hitler, then have a chuckle courtesy of P J to recover their sanity. I would even go so far as to have copies of the Bible, Talmud, Koran and all the holy books ever written on the same shelves so that those with a mind to do so could immerse themselves in the writings of all religions in a kind of 'contrast and compare' exercise, and thus become a more spritually enriched and perhaps enlightened human being.

Shocked visitor: Errr, that's all very well Bill, but why the extreme penalty?

To enlarge; To burn books is to destroy knowledge. Knowledge, both technical and otherwise forms the building blocks of civilisation and thus by various proxies protects us all from barbarity and the prospect of living in mud huts. To destroy knowledge is therefore a treason against both society and the greater aspirations of man, even if that aspiration is only for the latest forty inch plasma screen to watch a perfectly good fight turn into an Ice Hockey game. All written knowledge is therefore crucial to our well being, and should be sacrosanct against all violation. Including pompous, arrogant, jumped-up myopic cretins who scrawl on things that do not belong to them.

Shocked visitor: Well, that's all very lucid Bill, but if a library book is public property, then I, as a member of the public, am perfectly at liberty to make my views known if I disapprove of a books content.

You don't get it do you. Can I phrase my argument thus; If you don't like something, no-one is forcing you to read, listen to, or watch it. This is the basis of free speech, which is one of the very lynchpins of Democracy. The right of an individual to speak or write freely without some arrogant little tit behaving like the spoilt kid in the playground who will leap up and down screaming until everyone pays them their undivided attention is central to the whole principal of liberty, which ironically the spoilt child screaming is actually abusing to the detriment of others.

Shocked visitor: Even so; even a spoilt child should be heard.

Look pal, we can go round in circles with you asking dumb variations of the same stupid question, and me giving the same answer from a different angle so that some slight meaning might drip feed into that lump of turgid underused mush you call a brain. My point is that everyone should have a say, just don't annoy the hell out of me by defacing library books, got that!

Shocked visitor: Sorry. OW!

And don't do it again!