Csquared Thoughts

Facebook

I was originally reluctant to join Facebook, but have actually become quite the addict. I'm connected with family, friends from high school and college, former co-workers, friends in the religious community, and public figures whose work I admire. It's a really impressive networking environment.

Just wish they wouldn't keep changing the user experience all the time.

buying out-of-print books

Something the other day made me think about the process of buying out-of-print books.

When you wanted an out-of-print book in the 1980s, unless you had a good used book dealer nearby, you would send a letter (U.S. mail) to a used book company telling them what you wanted. They would check their network, and if a copy was available they would send you a letter with the condition and price. If you said you wanted it, they would try to get it, if another dealer hadn't gotten it first.

Today, with Amazon and Alibris and all, it's a whole lot more simple and straightforward.

One place where the internet and the Web has really made things easier.

hangin' with vegetarians

Remember those times when you hung out with a group of people you really liked, even though you didn't really feel you were part of that group? I remember that feeling from the food co-op people in my Claremont days in the 1970s. I respected their practices and their values, even though I didn't fully adopt them myself.

Today one can have that experience on-line as well as in person. That's how I feel about the vegetarian group on Yahoo! groups. They are a very positive and friendly bunch of people, and they accept me as part of the group, even though I'm not a vegetarian. There are those militant, intolerant, obnoxious vegetarians out there, but such attitudes are not condoned on vegetarian_group.

Members share thoughts, ideas, and experiences as well as recipes, and everyone is welcome as long as they keep it positive. My occasional recipe contributions are welcomed just like anyone else's.

There's lots of good reasons to become vegetarian, both from a health perspective and from an ecological and sustainability perspective. I continue to look at and think about those issues and will no doubt continue to bore you here with my Hamlet-like indecision.

But the nice thing is that whatever I decide or don't decide I will be welcome at vegetarian_group.

generational differences

When my sister-in-law and nephew were here visiting, I wondered whether our nephew was going to bring his laptop and if I was going to need to give him the encryption code to our wireless router. I needn't have been concerned. He's 18. He doesn't do email. He sends text messages.

I did it...I apologize...I couldn't resist

I recently stated that I would not join Facebook. I joined Facebook.

I had had several requests from friends and family to join. And there are a couple public personalities whose most current information is on Facebook. So I joined. Having joined, I was amazed at how many friends and family were already there. Not to mention one interesting six-degrees-of-separation experience.

GIven my reversal, I make three promises.

1. If you want to know what I'm thinking, this is still the place. There may be links from Facebook to here, but not the other way around.

2. I will not invite anyone who is not already Facebook member to join.

3. I will not open a Twitter account.

I promise.

Microsoft: the company we love to hate

1. Windows Vista doesn't ship with the older version of Windows help, so you can't see the help for older programs. But you can download the older help system. It's less than a megabyte. Under 1 Meg! And they couldn't include it with Vista as shipped?

2. There's an option in Vista to turn off the monitor after a set period of idle time. Nice feature. But it doesn't work when you use the built-in photo screen saver. I recently downloaded a third-party screen saver, as I had long suspected that the Vista version was not showing all my photos in the designated folder. The monitor shut-off feature works with the third-party product!

I will not Twitter

Nor will I do Facebook.

The popularity of Twitter and Facebook is amazing. Not only are they used by individuals, but by magazines, corporations, radio stations, and television shows.

As for myself, if you want to know what I'm thinking, this is the place. The only place.

I'll hope you'll keep visiting.

Britannica vs Wikipedia

I told myself a few months back that I was going to swear off Wikipedia and use Encyclopedia Britannica. I bought and installed the 2009 Britannica DVD.

Guess what? I keep looking up things in Britannica and coming up empty. In yesterday's entry, I was looking for information on the musical Chicago, on which Britannica had nothing, but on which Wikipedia had a complete article. I was trying to find some information on the novelist Edith Wharton, for whom Britannica had a brief article, but for whom Wikipedia had a complete bibliography.

There are questions about Wikipedia's credibility and certainly some articles are highly biased or have inaccuracies. But Britannica is not perfect. Some years ago I read an article that said the entry on Easter Island was signed TH. Turns out TH was Thor Heyerdahl, whose beliefs on South Pacific migrations certainly don't reflect the mainstream.

Britannica is trying to complete with Wikipedia by allowing a wider range of volunteer contributors to its Web edition. Interesting Boston Globe article on this.

We'll see how it all pans out. 

 

a Kindle for Christmas, after all

I've written about the Amazon Kindle a couple of times. The first time, I discussed the debate within me between my techie self, really wanting a Kindle, and my literary self, appreciating the the sensual pleasure of holding a real book in my hands.

When Terry and I were discussing what to get each other for Christmas, I told Terry I wasn't sure what I wanted. I didn't need anything else in the way of photographic equipment, and couldn't think of anything else I wanted. She said, "How about a Kindle?" I immediately responded, "Sure!"

At that time the Kindle was in a plentiful supply, after having been hard to get for quite a long time. By the time Terry ordered it, it was once again on backlog - 11 to 13 weeks, as I wrote about. That would have pushed my Kindle's arrival into February. (We found out much later that this sudden depletion in the supply of Kindles was Oprah's fault. But then, isn't everything?) So Terry asked me what I wanted that she could have for me on Christmas Day. I told her a pasta attachment for my KitchenAid. More on that later, I'm sure.

Terry hadn't had an Amazon account before. She opened one specifically to get me my Kindle. While the Kindle was out of stock, she kept getting emails from Amazon telling her about how many books, magazines, newspapers, and blogs were now available for the Kindle. Now Terry doesn't take kindly to such teasing, and she emailed Amazon saying, in essence, "I don't care what's available for the Kindle if I can't get one. Just ship me my d*mn Kindle!"

I don't know if that correspondence had any effect, or if her place in line just came up earlier than expected, but she got a shipping notification on the Kindle about ten days before Christmas. It arrived on the 23rd, and was there for me to open (along with my KitchenAid pasta attachment), Christmas Day.

I'm pleased. It is very much what I was expecting. And if I put it in its holder, it feels very much like a book in my hands.

Getting a book is impressive. You click the button on the Amazon Web site to order the book you want, and it's delivered to your Kindle via cell phone signal. Amazon claims anywhere from under a minute to two minutes delivery time, depending on what you're looking at on their site. I ordered two books at two different times, and it actually took ten or fifteen minutes each for them to show up. But it was Christmas Day, and I'm sure there were a lot of other new Kindle users like me ordering books for their new Kindles. I'm guessing I'll find future delivery faster. And in any case, the process is still pretty darn impressive. You can also order books directly from your Kindle when you're not near your computer. I haven't tried that yet.

It's not perfect. One book I'm reading has footnotes, and I haven't found a good way to get to the note in the back of the book and then back to the original page. It only displays black & white and shades of gray, and maps and diagrams are sometimes hard to read. You certainly wouldn't use it for an art book or a graphic novel. (That may change in future models, I would think.) But for your normal book that you're reading while sitting on the bed in the evening or while on a plane flight, it's really great. And if you get tired of reading one book and want to go to another, you just go to the home page and select the new book.

It also has a copy of the Oxford American Dictionary included. You can scroll to the line in question and see a list of definitions for the words on that line. You can then select the full dictionary entry for a word if you like. The dictionary has fewer words than I would expect, but still a neat feature.

The Kindle is a really cool device. I love it! I'm looking forward to getting a lot of use out of it. And getting back to being a regular reader of books (who actually makes it all the way through the book!).