Tuesday
- I mentioned the Sony Reader yesterday. I bought a Sony PRS-505
model some time back and have read a half dozen books on it now.
Generally I'd have to say that it is as advertised, the print is
legible and the navigation reasonable, it's as readable as a paperback,
slightly less so that a true hardback in the small print, but you can change the font size. There is a small pause when
paging - but one quickly becomes accustomed to it.
I haven't bought anything in the electronic book line, yet, but Sony and Google have something going
on, and there is an interface that looks a bit like iTunes you can use.
I have downloaded books from Project Gutenberg
and find that the Epub format pages much quicker than PDF's, and
is much much smaller, kilobytes rather than megabytes. The *.mobi
format doesn't seem to be supported, but *.txt works OK.
For Wisdoms' Daughter I had to go to the Australian site and get it in a text format. The digital version of She and Allan
came from the main United States site, and was in a very readable Epub
format. The Australian site seems to have a somewhat different
selection, and no Epub - this may be a consequence of the countries different
Intellectual Property & Copyright laws.
A comparison between the digital Epub on a Sony, and my grandfathers'
1934 Doubleday & Doran print edition (hardback) of Kiplings' Captains Courageous- and the print is actually better than is shown on this JPEG image-
The default "s" or small font size is more that of a paperback font, but quite legible.
The "m" for medium font size is slightly larger than the hardback.
In this Epub I note "him"
in is not italized in the ebook, but is in the hardback. I don't
know if it's an Epub limitation or a choice/oversight of the book
conversion editor.
I thought about getting a Kindle, but have an aversion to another web-connected expense....
Monday 15 June 2009
Monday
- back down in Ventura. I'm construction manager on a small job and had
to get there at 7, so was up and out the door by 5 a.m. It's nice
weather in Ventura right now, the marine layer is back, and we even had
a sprinkling of rain. Not enough to stop the job, but it did wet the
streets for a few minutes.
Another book, read in the last couple of weeks was Book #27,Wisdoms' Daughter, by H. Rider Haggard. This is the prequel to She, or technically, to She & Allan, since that predates She.
Anyway, it takes place in Egypt about two thousand years ago and tells
of Ayeshas' early life, up to when she steps into the flame. It's not
particularly engrossing, indeed it serves to lessen the mystery of
Ayesha. I've linked above to the Amazon.com web page for the Kindle but
the version I read was free, from Project Gutenberg, downloaded to
my Sony Reader 505 in text format.
Chronologically ordered we have
Wisdoms' Daughter
She & Alan
She
Ayesha
There is a two thousand year gap between (1) and (2), plenty of room
for an enterprising author to add some stories. A point that
Haggard alluded to was that Ayesha was essentially frozen,
psychologically, in the emotional state she was in at the time she
became immortal.
Sunday 14 June_2009
Sunday
- Book #25
was Nova,
by Samuel R. Delany. This is an older, but still interesting, book.
Book #26 was
The
Jennifer Morgue, by Charles Stross. Enjoyable fantasy, though
I suspect it will not age nearly as well as Delany's Nova above.
Most of the weekend was spent working on a friends float for a parade
on the Fourth of July- a pirate ship. It's build on an old plywood boat, which
in turn
is placed on an old boat trailer. The trailer needed some work -
straightening and welding doublers to the tongue, re-greasing the
bearings and getting the lights in running order. It needs to be
inspected and re-registered by the DMV, so it needed to be done this
weekend.
I'll be towing it,
with the Explorer from Lancaster to Cayucos (and back), so I spent some time get the fluids changed in the Ford,
and having a Drawtite hitch (2" receiver) attached, and fixing some damage
to the air scoop up at the transmission cooler. I had bought a used scoop
from a junk yard, but it turned out to be for the stock Explorer, too small
the towing package version that I have, so I finally bent some sheet metal
and fixed the damage up.
I damaged the air scoop in 2006, on my way to the beach for the 4th of July, so it's about time for a fix.
