Kindle 2

I rediscovered pleasure reading recently. I'd never stopped reading, but for a time I had drifted away from reading books for entertainment and had only allowed myself the time for stuff with a practical angle. Mostly, this meant reading books about programming, or robotics, or Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), or what have you.

A few weeks ago, a pair of books arrived in the mail unbidden. Not totally unbidden of course--they were old additions to my wishlist on Bookins--but still, unexpectedly. One of the books was Self-Made Man and looked far too interesting to set aside, even though I didn't really have any of that elusive 'time to spare' stuff lying around. That weekend, when I probably should have been 'doing stuff' (ideally, 'doing useful stuff, productively'), I read it.

I loved it.

More than that, I loved the experience of reading it. It's a fascinating book--you'll enjoy reading it too--but I loved reading it for a couple reasons that really shouldn't contribute, but do. First there was just the joy of procrastination. Never let anyone tell you that they don't enjoy procrastinating, if they didn't, they wouldn't be doing it. Second there is a definite sense of accomplishment when the last page is turned and the book is finished. Placing a just-read book on a shelf in your home is like placing a trophy in a display case. Yes, from now on it will just collect dust, but every time you look at it you'll be reminded of the experience.

When we moved to Santa Cruz, we moved to a smaller apartment, and many of my books were sold in our yard sale. On some level that was easy to do. I'm not materialistic, I'm not a hoarder, and having strangers give me money for the privilege of reducing my clutter is a delightful pairing. On another, more sentimental level, it was hard. Although I rarely reread books, having them line my shelves was a reminder of the books I've read--the works that I've loved (books that I merely 'liked' tend to make their way out of my home rather quickly). Irregardless of the occasional pangs, it was necessary, and I don't have regrets.

Finally, I come to the topic of this post. I bought a Kindle 2. I'm still not sure why, but maybe I'll figure it out as I write. Compared to Book, it's ... well it's really expensive is what it is. But if you can swallow the $360 price tag, then it's pretty nice. Being able to adjust the text size is great, as is the ability to read without either holding the book or wedging it open somehow. The eInk display is very legible in all sorts of lighting, and it's no heavier than most paperbacks. On the downside, it's a little too big to slide into a coat pocket, and way too expensive to not worry about it getting lost, damaged or stolen. Back to the plus-side, it has free (lifetime?) wireless, a web-browser and built in Wikipedia shortcuts. I'll save some money on books, since ebook prices are cheaper than dead-tree versions, but I don't have any delusions about recouping the device's price tag that way. Having books instantly delivered is ridiculously cool. But perhaps its biggest plus side isn't going to be realized for another year or so.

Next time I move, I'll get to keep my books. I think that alone was enough to make me click, "Confirm Purchase."

I also have some hope that it will allow Katrina be more comfortable when reading, thus allowing her to read more. Furthermore, I hope that just owning the Kindle will push me to read more full books, and spend proportionally less time surfing the web. Either of those alone would probably have been enough to seal the deal. As is, I'm considering buying a second one.

But probably won't. $360. Sheesh.

The past never existed -- it's purely a fantasy of your mind. In fact, you didn't really just read this.

Time will tell. She's a gossip, really.

Genetics and natural selection are Nature's programmers and design team, respectively. They're awful at their jobs. After four billion years, they still can't make animals that will reliably flush a toilet in a public restroom.

I used to think I would stay young and fit forever. I realize that's not possible now, but at least I will always stay young.

Another Craigslist Post

Face it. Your clothes have been scattered all over your room for the last year -- no matter how many more New Year's resolutions you make, you're not going to start hanging them up now.

So why not break down and just get a cardboard box to shove them all in? Even better, a bunch of boxes! You could put some of the smaller boxes in a bigger box, and the whole thing would start to look pretty slick. Organized, even.

But wait! Instead of cardboard boxes you could do it up right and build the whole thing out of wood... maybe add some little metal handles and paint a wicked flaming skull and crossbones on the side. Bitchin'.

Or you could skip all that carpentry shit (Damn, man, what'd you do to your thumb?) and go straight to airbrushing a half-naked chick on the side of this FREE dresser.

Call 530-750-1000 (or email) to lay claim to this awesome stack of boxes in a bigger box.

Dimensions: 24" x 14" x 41"

I don't have a picture handy for the blog, but did for the Craigslist post and the picture was part of the punchline -- it's a little girl's dresser.

Woot inspired

Let there be Light!

Now you no longer have to live like a Caveman, squatting in the darkness and groping your way to the fridge by the feeble light of your cellphone. With this powerful 3-bulb floor lamp, you'll take one giant step up the evolutionary ladder and you too will start enjoying the most wondrous invention since fire.

Features:

• Three separate switches! Giving you 2^3 = 8 possible lighting configurations!
• Swivel heads! Great for chasing cockroaches around your apartment without ever leaving your easy-chair!
• Rugged construction! We haven't killed this thing yet, and I doubt you'll be able to, either!

All for the low, low price of absolutely free*!

Call 530-750-1000 or email!

* No, we won't pay for your gas to come out here.

The lamp's already gone, but I enjoyed writing that far too much to just let it wither and die in Craigslist's database.

"It is a fearful thing to love what death can touch."
-Unknown


The worry that arises when contemplating my own mortality is dwarfed by the true fear that the comes when considering the mortality of those that I love.

I rediscovered a genre today. Interactive fiction. That is, text-adventures, like the games Infocom used to make. You know, Infocom. Zork.

. . .

If you're seriously trying to tell me you've never even heard of Zork, how the hell did you find my Blog?

What do you mean you don't even know me? Get the hell out of here! Sheesh, can't even blog in private these days.

Anyways, if you already know what I'm talking about, check out this. It's pretty good, and it's online so you don't have to mess around with a downloading an interpreter. If you really don't know what I'm talking about and are still here reading, then still go there. You type what you want to do. Keep your sentences real simple, a couple of words long -- you're dealing with computers and they're dumb as rocks. Think verb noun level of simple and you'll do alright.

The written word is an amazing thing. Play with it.

It's Veteran's day weekend, and we're spending our three days poking around Yosemite and are spending our two nights at a perfect little hostel called the Yosemite Bug. It's off of highway 140 nearish to the park, and I can't recommend the place enough. It's picturesque, quiet, friendly, and at least in the off season, pretty cheap. Great food and a warm fire at the lodge, complete with a lovable dog and cat wandering the premises. Every so often the dog, Yin Yang, will roll over on his back and patiently wait for his belly to be rubbed. The cat's taken a more direct approach and just hopped straight into our laps. Careful, like Pfeiffer, she drools when she very happy.

Tomorrow, we'll be heading into Yosemite park and doing some day hiking. We haven't chosen a particular trail yet, but last time we were here with my brother we hiked up past Vernal falls on the Mist trail. It's autumn right now, so the waterfalls aren't likely to be so extrodinary as then -- maybe this time we'll see what other bits of spectacular this place can offer up besides flowing or falling rivers. Half dome is an unlikely destination as the ladder has already been taken down for the year. Climbing to the very top isn't necessary to make it an amazing hike, of course, but it's far less climatic to end the trip at the Saddle.

Enough writing for now. Heading to bed and will decide our destination in the morning.

I've started using Skype for my long distance telephony. Skype's a VoIP service, similar to Vonage except that they're more PC centric, charge per minute instead of monthly, and don't advertise nearly so much. So far, I like it -- good voice quality, and cheap -- which are just about the only things I care about for outgoing long distance calls.

But here's an interesting thought about Skype -- I think it's going to lead to an explosion of Nigerian 419 style scams, except voice-based and coming out of India instead of Nigeria. Like Nigeria, India has an exhange rate that will make any sucessful scammer into a millionaire. Unlike Nigeria, it has a large population with fluency in English and training in how to "close a sale" provided by all the corperate call centers there. Skype's network in particular will be appealing for scammers because of the low cost, excellent sound quality (sounds professional) and virtually untappable network.

Hope I'm wrong.

There's a great website that I peruse often called Engadget. There's not much to it, they collect and summarize news stories about tech stuff, including about robots. Their schtick for the robot section is that they're trying to warn off the upcoming doom caused by the rise of the machines -- didn'cha see the Terminator movies? Ain't it plain to see that it's comin'? Better treat 'em nice while they're still weak and incapable of dominating us all.

Today I got a firm reminder of just how much power the 'bots on display here have, and just how quickly the reins can be yanked from our hands -- maybe the Engadget schtick isn't such a comedy bit after all. One of the bots, "Tommy" was meekly making its way through the tunnel when it went went stark raving mad. It floored the throttle and kept it there, accelerating out of the tunnel, swerving to miss a stack of tires and finally crashing into the barrier wall at a angle, going somewhere in the range of 45-60 miles per hour. Two people standing one the far side of the wall barely got clear before the 'bot hit it and pushed it inwards by about a meter.

On a more technical level, the people next to me had a good guess as to what had happened -- the inertial navigation system was giving bad or no data, and when the bot lost GPS signal it thought it wasn't moving. It increased the throttle to try to start moving... and increased it some more, and more... confident that it wasn't moving at all as it barrelled towards the wall.

The hardware of a robot senses the world around it -- vision, velocity, position, pressure, whatever. The software tries to mold that data into a coherent and true model of the world around it. When that vision is warped, or when its model is drastically askew, the result isn't what we should call a "bug".

It's lunacy.

My blurry little friend is back and is running laps around the perimeter of the car's cabin. I'm pretty sure he wants my head

Yike! As I was tapping away at my previous entry, I saw a white blur come running along the windowsill of the partially opened window beside me. It's now a closed window, and I just saw the blur again go past and heard the patter of it's little feet on the leather of the roof behind me. It is, lest you think I'm about to be abducted by aliens, a rather mouse-sized and distinctly mouse shaped blur which I talking about here. I'm certainly glad I had the back window zipped up. As much as I have no ingrained fear of our rodent kin, I wouldn't care to wake up in the middle of the night with one doing an Irish jig on my head.

...

Not as though there's anything wrong with Irish jigs, mind you.

I've been trying to sleep in my car for this night. The logic went something along the lines of, "Why pay for a campsite when all I'm using it as is a place to be asleep for 8 hours and then leave?" A bigger cheapskate you'd be hard to find.

So after poking around the Silverlake campground for a few minutes, I drove back out and went looking for a quite place to park and snooze. In this quest I turned off onto a dirt road that's a, what was it again? Forest Adventure Area, I believe it was. There's nothing quite like heading down a bumpy, rocky dirt road in a car with the ground clearance of approximately the width of my pinky. Seeing full sized 4x4 pickups strolling around confidently, I'm never quite sure whether I should puff up with pride at my macho go-anywhere anyhow chutzpah, or whether I should cringe down in my seat with shame at my obviously impotent off-roading smarts. The answer should probably depend on if I'm in the process of asking for help getting unstuck or not.