Intermittence - Chris Carlson’s self-indulgent corner of the web

Fuzzy Bugs

In Uncategorized on 2 June 2009 with 2 comments

I found these on my front door last Friday. Isn’t he a handsome little bug?

Too Good to Pass Up

In Music on 12 May 2009 tagged cheap, classical, Music with 1 comment

My collection of classical music is meager. Not for long…

Many thanks to Jason Kottke.

Kindling

In Technology on 3 May 2009 tagged kindle, reading with 3 comments

I’m the proud new owner of an Amazon Kindle (thanks, Mom!) and I’m happy to say that it’s prompted a rediscovery of the pleasure of reading. I’ve found myself picking it up whenever I have a few minutes, and just falling into a novel. I’ve read more in the past three days than in the month preceding, and I’m excited to read more. It’s good.

There are plenty of review that go on and on about Amazon holding your content hostage, and if you buy a Kindle with the intention of only ever using it standalone (that is, not ever hooking it up to you computer), then that could be a real issue. However, I don’t see anything that would prevent me from making my own backups of purchased and downloaded e-books. Additionally, the variety of e-book formats understood by the device means that literally anybody with a hankering to do so could publish a book that the Kindle could read. You’re hardly locked into only getting your reading material from Amazon.

My one peeve is the lack of integrated PDF compatibility, though lots of bright people are working on ways to fix that. I’m going to do a bit of experimentation myself, and see how difficult it is to get fully-formatted copies working.

More to follow…