Category Archives: Tech

books, Tech

Probably one of the best definitions of what a book is, that I’ve ever read.

Cool Tool: Five Good eBooks

1) A book (even without its paper pages) is a long argument that coheres as a whole, and whose argument or story is made by integrating well-selected parts.
From Kevin Kelly, one of the founders of The Well (The WELL was an early, influential, and pioneering outpost in what later came to be called cyberspace.), an editor of Whole Earth Review 9and actin publisher after Stewart Brand left), and one of the founding editors of Wired magazine, among other things (for those who don’t know who he is). This is from his Cool Tools blog which is about Cool Tools for everyday living–sorta a continuance of the Whole Earth Review.
Check out the blog, and his other stuff.

Health, Tech

Steroids for your brain?

Drugs to build up that mental muscle – Los Angeles Times
From the article:
“If there were drugs that actually made you smarter, good Lord, I have no doubt that their use would become epidemic,” Yesalis said. “Just think what it would do to anybody’s career in about any area. There are not too many occupations where it’s really good to be dumb.”
Could be the start of Timothy Leary’s “SMI²LE” (a succinct summary of his pre-transhumanist agenda: SM (Space Migration) + I² (intelligence increase) + LE (Life extension).).

General, Tech

We’ve Got Big Balls

An interesting article from Natural History magazine, about perfect stone balls found in Costa Rica, in the 1950’s. The article is by an archeologist’s wife, and details the discovery, and explorations of these objects. I like that the article is from a non-scientist’s point of view, which gives us more insight into the process, than we may have had otherwise.
I’d like to know if anything else has been discovered about these in the intervening years.

Art, Health, Politics, Tech

Algae Power

Algae Balloons
A different approach to powering your home, than my previous nuclear battery one, over at Geoff Manaugh’sBLDGBLOG. Growing algae in balloons, in a way that makes it produce mucho H2. Some beautiful renderings of the project (it’s an urban design project in Iceland), and some commentary from Geoff about how depressing it is that we go to these lengths to, basically, just keep on doing what we’re already doing, instead of trying to change the fundamentals of our society.
Growing algae to produce power is an interesting concept, but really it’s useless without designing communities that use less energy. People just don’t seem to believe in frugality any more, and that’s what we need to return to.
And, no I’m not a hippy, preaching back to the land, and such, because, damnit, I love my tech, and my Schtufff, but with 6 billion people (is that right) on this planet, we really need to figure something out, don’t we?

books, Tech

Another thought on the Kindle (and E-Readers in general)

This post from Neil Gaiman’s Journal (Thanks from the future…) reminded me of another point against e-readers in general. When you buy and e-book, what happens to author’s signings, autographs, etc. I know most people don’t care, but many do, and that physical interaction with the author does have meaning. Yes I remember from the Times article–the first in my series on E-Readers (strange I didn’t mean for it to go there, but there you have it.)–that there might be more interaction in general, but all electronic, or from a distance.
So while authors may like the e-book idea for this reason, since it’s easier on them (although I think many do enjoy meeting their fans, and interacting with them (Wil Wheaton for example)), it’s a lousy deal for fans.

books, General, Tech

Bookeen – Cybook ePaper – the eBook reading device

CybookBookeen – Cybook ePaper – the eBook reading device
This e-book reader is much nicer looking, can read non-DRMed e-books (as well as DRMed ones), and a little cheaper than the Kindle. Still too expensive for my tastes, but it is more in the right direction.
(Three years of development and the Kindle is all Amazon could come up with, when they have models like this, and the Sony e-book reader? Wow.)

(Got this from the comments on Cory Doctorow’s article trashing the Kindle, over on BoingBoing.)

books, General, Tech

Amazon: Reinventing the Book | Newsweek.com

Amazon: Reinventing the Book | Newsweek.com
This is a great article (7 pages, so be prepared to spend some time on it.) on the future of the physical/paper book vs the electronic book. It’s mainly about Amazon’s new Kindle, but delves deeper into what reading may look like in 20-50 years, with books, and reader, and writers being interconnected.
It all sounds wonderful (to some people anyways), and I would love to be able to store a couple hundred books in a space the size of a single paperback (and wouldn’t my wife love that 😀 ), but while the price of the books are o.k. ($9.99 or less)(on second thought, maybe that is too expensive since you can get a paperback for $7.99 and the cost of digitizing a book is much less than that, $2-$4 may be a better price range here), I can’t bring myself to pay $400 for the reader, when I can get a laptop for that price. I think when the price of the reader drops to something like $99 (or even less), it may be more palatable to readers (myself included).
There’s, also the whole DRM encumberment going on which I find very absurd. If I buy a book, I’d like to be able to lend it to someone else, just like I can now, and maybe that’s the best argument for paper books right there.
Via Slashdot (Some good comments there, by the way)