shark bytes

John Siracusa's recent Ars Technica article on e-books gives me a convenient jumping-off point for some of my own experiences with (and random thoughts about) e-books.

I bought my first book from Peanut Press, as it then was, just over nine years ago. (2000-01-30, according to the bookshelf.) I bought my most recent ones from Fictionwise (who now own eReader, formerly Palm Digital Media, formerly Peanut Press) just a few minutes ago. I've generally stuck with the Peanut/Palm/eReader format, mostly because I like their reader software's better than other options (Mobipocket Reader on Palm OS or Stanza on the iPod). I've read them on everything from a Palm V (with a whole 2MB of memory and a zippy 16MHz processor) to an iPod touch, and even my oldest book is still usable on the newest hardware without needing anything more than a copy of the eReader software and the name/credit card used to lock the file. (Mobipocket's DRM requires you to reauthorize each file for each new device. Lame.)

Why do I read e-books on such a small screen? (The Palm V: 160x160 grayscale. The TX and iPod: 320x480 color.) Simply put, because it's always there. (I was amused by Siracusa's description of how he realized he'd switched, since the first advantage he lists is "I was more likely to have my Palm with me than a book. When I had an opportunity to read during the day, my Palm was there, and a paper book, had I been in the middle of one, would not have been." Yeah, that.) Sure, the Kindle has a bigger screen. Sure, a physical book never needs recharging. Neither of them is small enough to hang off of my belt, and the paper book is not guaranteed to be the one I've just decided I want to re-read; in fact, it's almost certainly not going to be.

I tend to read e-books as a supplement to (rather than a substitute for) paper books. (I own several books in mass-market and e-book, or even the three-fer of hardcover, mass-market, and e-book.) Because it's always handy, I can easily read a few pages while waiting for (or riding on) a bus or train, or in line at a store; I can read longer stretches over a meal or while relaxing on the futon. Because of the often interrupted nature of the read, this is particularly suited for re-reading certain types of books: episodic novels, short story or essay collections, or books I've previously read are all easier to "keep state" for in my head between times. Even so, I can and have read full novels first as e-books before even touching paper editions; I've also sometimes alternated between the two. (I read Victory Conditions, the final book in Elizabeth Moon's "Vatta's War" series, partially from the library hardcover and partially from the e-book; I'd usually read up to a chapter break to make the switch easier, but not always.)

One issue with different reader programs on the iPod is the scroll/page dilemma. eReader is very much a page-flip oriented program, and that's the paradigm I'm used to. (I also use the -c option to less.) Other programs like Stanza or Bookshelf can scroll in page increments, but it's still scrolling, and for memory management both of them need to "chunk" the book leading to either delays at chapter breaks (Stanza) or ugly seams at semi-random intervals (Bookshelf). Because eReader's doing the chunking by page, it's never an issue except for the first time I open a book (or change the font size/layout/etc) which will force the program to repaginate. Since it can do that faster than I can read, if I'm at the beginning of the book it's mostly unnoticeable; if I'm farther in, I just have to wait a bit for it to catch up. This was also the case on the Palm, but the faster processor on the iPod seems to help shorten the time. (I haven't done a side-by-side comparison or anything.)

I still need to get back to work on the toolchain I started work on that would convert non-DRMed Baen e-books from HTML to "PML" (originally Peanut Markup Language) and then stuff them into an eReader format PDB file.

Some wishlist items for the iPhone/iPod touch version of eReader:

More font choices. I bought both of the font packs for the Palm version, and I'd love to be able to use something other than Georgia (reasonable), Helvetica (not bad), or Marker Felt (WTF?) and have more size choices as well. Some of my gripe is with Apple; why didn't they put Gill Sans on there? Even so, having Verdana (which is on the iPod) as an additional option would be nice.

Smarter download behavior. Why doesn't it say "hey, you have a book by this title already, do you really want to download it again?" Even being smart enough to say "this seems to be a duplicate, keep or delete?" after the download would be useful, and easier to implement.

Metadata editing. The oldest e-books don't have the proper metadata fields, so they don't show the author's name; other books have mistakes (like "Evans, Lawrence Watt" instead of "Watt-Evans, Lawrence"). I might be able to fix the files if they're not DRMed, but many of them are. The app should at least let me override the file's own data.

Bigger targets for small links. Hitting the hotlink for one of Pratchett's footnotes is a frustrating exercise in fingerpoking. The Palm's stylus worked much better for this sort of thing. The app could have a minimum target area, or even just add a "follow link" button to the pop-up for "find in dictionary" etc if there's a hotlink within the selection.

Over the past few months, I've been using an iPod touch (2nd gen) as a replacement for my previous PDA, a Palm TX. It has been a generally positive transition, though there are things the TX can do that the iPod can't or that worked better on the TX.

I've been using it both long enough and intensely enough to get past the initial adjustment period; I've stopped trying to hit buttons that don't exist, and operations like "turning it on" (which is really just unlocking the screen) are now second nature.

I'd been using some kind of Palm OS PDA since the 1999-vintage Palm V (which replaced an HP 200LX). I ran through a series of Palm OS units until the TX, which is the last Palm OS PDA (and most likely the last PDA of any sort) that Palm will make. I never went for a Palm OS phone, because I don't like having everything tied in to one device (and often one network); the same thing has kept me away from the iPhone. (If they start selling unlocked ones in the US, I'll reconsider. No, third party unlocks don't count.)

( A comparison of various aspects of the TX and the iPod touch )
Conclusion: All in all, the iPod touch is a respectable PDA replacement for the Palm TX. There are still areas that could stand improvement (Calendar, and to a lesser extent Mail, are the big culprits) and the major missing feature of Bluetooth support, but those are outweighed by all kinds of other advantages. It also lets me leave the iPod classic at home (except for long trips), since I can use the iPod touch for day-to-day listening.

2008 brought a couple of new (or in one case, "new in English") boardgame releases which have become two of my favorite games.

These are Agricola and Battlestar Galactica. ("Wait, what? A nearly pure Euro and a licensed-property Ameritrash design?" Yes.)

I'll talk about Agricola later. For now, suffice it to say that it redeems the worker placement mechanic from my dislike of Caylus, and it's good enough that I'll play it in preference to Power Grid.

BSG, though? With the right group, I'll play that before I play Agricola. (Tonight at pandemonium_bks I played both, but BSG first.)

The basic game design is a semi-cooperative, reminiscent of Shadows over Camelot with loyalty cards that mark you as either a "good guy" (human/loyal knight) or "bad guy" (Cylon/traitor), and there are hand cards with values from 1 to 5 in both games. However, that's about where the similarities end.

SoC's quests are pretty basic repeat-card plays, where you have to play 2 pair (Black Knight), a full house (Lancelot's Armor), a 1-5 straight (Saxon/Pict wars), or just a bunch of cards in a tug-of-war (Holy Grail/Excalibur). Very little is hidden, the quests themselves are fairly unthematic in their play, and there's often an incentive to lose a quest to end the game if you have enough of a lead to win without it.

With BSG, on the other hand, the theme is deeply embedded. The characters all have advantages and disadvantages based on their roles in the show; the bad things that will happen are based on events from the early part of the series (the miniseries, S1, and the early part of S2, I believe; I've actually only watched through S1 so far so no spoilers, please). There are two titles, President and Admiral, which can shift around through various events (elections, declarations of martial law, sending the current admiral to the Brig, one of them revealing themselves as a Cylon).

Each turn, after the player has taken their action(s), a crisis card is revealed and resolved. Some will involve a decision made by the current player, or the President, or the Admiral; others will just give the players a skill check, to pass or to fail. Some cards have both, where you have to decide whether to try for the skill check (which might be "gain a resource if you win, lose a lot if you fail") or the known quantity (often a certain loss, but less than a failed skill check result would cost).

[ETA: There are also Cylon attack crisis cards, which add some number of Cylon ships, some civilian ships that need defending, and (usually) a Viper or two to the space around Galactica. Cylon ships can shoot up civilians (usually costing population), Vipers (of which there are a limited number), or Galactica; there are also ships that land boarding parties if they get to the Viper launch spaces.]

The skill check is the central mechanic; most crisis cards involve one, and some actions (electing a new President, getting out of the Brig) require them as well. There are five types of cards (Leadership, Tactics, Piloting, Engineering, Politics) and each type has two different card abilities (a "weak" one on the 1 or 2 value cards and a "strong" one on the 3-5 cards). When played into a skill check, depending on the nature of the check, some colors will be positive; others will be negative. Piloting doesn't help you conserve water; political savvy won't rescue a downed pilot. The cards are played face down, along with two random cards to muddy the waters, then all are shuffled and totalled up. Did that 5 piloting come in from the Destiny Deck, or did Boomer toss it in instead of the Tactics card that would have helped?

The paranoia factor is increased at the halfway point, where an additional set of loyalty cards are dealt out. The Admiral was human before, or at least he thought he was; maybe he was just programmed to think that....

Unlike SoC, there will always be at least one (3-4 player) or two (5-6 player) Cylon cards dealt out by the end of the game. There are many ways for a hidden Cylon to screw things up, and when it finally becomes useful to reveal themselves they get an extra ability to cause damage on their way out the airlock (unless they were in the Brig at the time).

If any of the four resources (food, fuel, morale, population) reaches 0, the humans lose. If Galactica takes enough damage, the humans lose. If a boarding party manages to vent the air out of the ship, the humans lose. If they manage to jump enough times, they win.

Most of the games are close enough that the humans are within a turn or two of winning when they lose, or a turn or two of losing when they win...but it's not just randomness that causes it. (If it were, the game would be much faster and called "rock paper scissors" or "flip a coin".)

It's critical that you get good player interaction for this game; it's almost a very light RPG built into a boardgame. "He's a Cylon! Why else would we have failed that check?" "Why are you calling me a Cylon, you frakkin' toaster? You could have tossed in a bad card yourself."

BSG has already climbed well up the BoardGameGeek ranking charts; it's currently at 32 (Settlers of Catan is 38th; the top three are Agricola, Puerto Rico, and Power Grid).

1. Concorde (Frédéric Beniada, Michel Fraile) is a giant coffee table book (the sort that could be used as a coffee table); it's both heavy on the photos and just plain heavy.

The text content is fairly good, though for folks who've already read other books on Concorde there's little new in it. (There's also not too much of the text; maybe the equivalent of a handful of Neal Stephenson infodumps, if you don't count the photo captions.) Since the book's a translation from the French, it focuses more on the French contributions to the aircraft's design, construction, and operation than English-language books on the subject often do. (It still doesn't go in the direction of Donald Pevsner's speculation about Concorde's retirement, which I find rather believable.)

The photos are plentiful, large, and very impressive. This isn't necessarily a book to own, but if you're interested in Concorde and have it available in your local library system it's worth reading.

Rereads (which I'll keep in a separate numbering sequence):
RR1: The Phoenix Guards, Steven Brust (mmpb)
First in the Khaavren Romance series, set in the same world as the Vlad Taltos books. I suspect a large proportion, possibly even a majority, of my flist already reads Brust.

RR2: Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson (eReader)
The mere existence of this book (even without considering the Baroque Cycle) is one of the best arguments for e-books I've seen. Big huge tree-killer that you almost need a wheelbarrow to move around, or a set of bits that fit inside your 115g iPod touch? The words are the same....

Upcoming: You're Stepping on My Cloak and Dagger and Why Does Popcorn Cost So Much at the Movies?

I periodically decide that I should post more often. Usually this lasts for a week or so, and then fades off as I run out of ideas on what to post about. Since I don't have a cat, I can't even fall back on catblogging, or taping bacon to the cat, or whatever. (Pun intended.)

Maybe if I try for periodic posts on one or more topics, I can keep up some momentum.
( obligatory poll inside )

Looks like there might be more people in line right now than voted at all in this precinct in the unopposed special election for state Senate in 2007. Impressive.

ETA 1029: Voted, at the office now. Took about 20 minutes, but the lines were quite a bit shorter when we left than they were when we arrived.

When you see this, post in your own journal with your favorite quote from The Princess Bride. Preferably not "As you wish" or the Inigo Montoya speech. (via sweetmmeblue)

Man in Black: "Why are you smiling?"
Inigo: "I know something you don't know."
Man in Black: "And what is that?"
Inigo: "I am not left-handed."

I think TPB is possibly the most quotable movie ever, in that almost every single speaking part has at least one memorable quote. (I'm not sure the mother has any really quotable lines, but she's the only exception I can think of.)

From an LA Times article about the aftermath of the DHL/Airborne Express merger:

"And that's the problem in our nation's capital. It's not just the Bush administration, and it's not just the Democratic Congress. It's that everyone in Washington says whatever it takes to get elected or to score the political point of the day," said McCain, who has served 26 years in Congress.

Mighty fine words coming from the guy whose campaign manager got $185,000 to lobby for the deal on behalf of DHL.

For whatever reason, it felt like Friday was the most programming-heavy day of the con; this made me very happy I'd taken the day off so I could get to more of it, but threw off my general feeling of the pace of a three[1]-day convention. (It also made me sad that folks who couldn't take Friday off were missing such a significant chunk of the con. The programming during Arisia's extension into Monday didn't seem like nearly as big a loss for those who couldn't be there.) The upshot of all of this is that Saturday, normally the day with the most going on programming-wise at a three-day con, got me to one panel and one event. (OTOH, lots of good hallway/lobby conversations ensued.)

Saturday started with a serendipitous breakfast meeting with enegim, D. (WINOLJ), Bob Devney, Michael Devney, and SFRevu's Ernest Lilley. That got the day off to a nice start with the informal Buffet Panel. (Among the topics: this discussion of McCain's citizenship status; there's an argument, that will probably never see a court, that he was caught in a corner case of citizenship law at the time of his birth and retroactively naturalized by a 1937 statute.)

1100: "Why Don’t We Do it in the Reformation?: Underutilized Historical Eras in Spec Fic"

I didn't take nearly as many notes for this one as I did for Friday's If Free Electronic Texts Are Good Promotion, What’s Piracy?, but did take some. Having finally had time to read through (most of) the comments on sartorias's Bittercon post on the topic (176 at last count[2]), I have to agree that the online discussion was more generally fruitful than the panel. (The topic may just lend itself better to a medium that encourages multiple discussion threads and more time available to think about responses.)

The high visibility of alt-hist in the genre as a whole seemed to weight the discussion somewhat toward that are. The general consensus seemed to be that there was too much WW II and too much American Civil War, with everything else underused to a greater or lesser extent.

Farah Mendlesohn (fjm) asked why the Spanish Civil War gets no love, especially since changing that would be one way to get a very different, or nonexistent, WW II.

Carolyn Ives Gilman (see? I'm not confusing Glenn Grant, Gavin Grant, Greer Gilman, and Carolyn Ives Gilman this year!) said that she thought wars were overused because war results in a much more stripped-down view of society (as depicted in fiction). James Cambias said that he didn't think that was as true for historical fiction as for AH.

Mendlesohn suggested (Readercon 20 Guest of Honor) Elizabeth Hand's Mortal Love as a "travelogue with a tourist of 19th Century England". Walter H. Hunt asked her if it was "like de Tocqueville"; her response: "at times, very much like that."

John Crowley mentioned Paul Parks's (?) four book "Roumania" series, but wondered if you had to know the real European background to appreciate them. Hunt said "if you don't, then what? Is that why nobody writes in these settings?" [ckd: see also Cambias's comment, later]

Gilman noted that there are fads and fashions among professional historians, also. Some eras and/or areas become more popular than others.

Mendlesohn recommended James Morrow's The Last Witchfinder, then suggested that the problem with many eras in Britain was "boring kings" and that there wasn't enough historical fiction set in Birmingham [ckd: or possibly even anywhere but London, really].

She then mentioned the earlier US civil rights era (running from the 1890s through the 1920s and 1940s) as being underused [ckd: I'd say it's also very very underappreciated in general]. I think there was some discussion at that point of some reasons it's less well known, mostly that those pushing for it tended to be socialists (or at least seen as such/associating with such) and therefore significantly de-emphasized in history class. Hunt said that John Dos Passos's USA covers this era. [ckd: also probably worth reading as a stylistic influence on writers from Brunner to Haldeman. I should read it....]

Hunt then made some comment about the naval portions of the French and Indian War being "all different" (from something), which I didn't note down any details of, but obviously thought interesting enough to note at the time. Anyone who does remember and could refresh my memory would be appreciated.

James Cambias noted that fiction set in a particular setting tends to attract more fiction in the same setting. [ckd: This of course leads to the problem of an author doing "research" by reading fiction and therefore getting it wrong.]

There was some audience discussion/questions, including such various bits as a mention of the blast furnace being invented in monasteries, but lost when Henry VIII destroyed them; Slavic history (Mendlesohn asked how many people know when the US invaded Russia, and was happy to see so many hands go up); and a question about "why not more English Civil War fiction?" Mendlesohn's reply to the last was that there was plenty of it in the UK, much of which still takes sides.

Ekaterina Sedia made a point that's similar to one made in the Bittercon discussion: "There are no unused eras, just overused time/place/people combinations."

Cambias closed out with a possibly telling point: using an obscure period means that you have to do a lot of research work for the few people who do know/care, but that for the majority of readers it's likely to be just as new to them as a completely fictional background.

My congoing day then wandered off into various trips through the Book Shop, hallway conversations, a dinner run, James Cambias's card game Bone Wars, the Kirk Poland Bad Prose competition, more Bone Wars, and then some sleep.

[1] As already mentioned, I didn't go to the con Thursday evening, so my experience was of a three-day con with an early Friday start.

[2] The second sentence of sartorias's post starts with "I don't know how much interest this one will raise--"; I think we have the answer, and the answer is "a whole heck of a lot".

I guess the folks in the Google offices in London haven't worked on this too much yet.

The Greenwich foot tunnel is completely unknown to it; the Google Maps directions send you for a 2.5 hour, 7.2 mile walk that goes through the Rotherhithe Tunnel, instead.

Crossing farther downstream, one would probably use the Woolwich Ferry when operating, or the Woolwich Foot Tunnel just to its east. Naturally, Google Maps sends you back to our old pal the Rotherhithe tunnel...12 miles, for a 4 hour walk!

Further upstream, it does know about the Millennium Bridge (as well as the pedestrian walkway down Peter's Hill), but doesn't use the Golden Jubilee Bridges (aka the New Hungerford Footbridges).

Another round of the song letter meme. This time, whumpdotcom gave me "K". My zealousness in rating songs means that I can trivially generate a list of 5-star songs that start with K, then trim it down to the following:

"Kind & Generous", Natalie Merchant. While not my favorite of her work ("Wonder" still takes the crown there), it's probably my favorite track from Ophelia (edging out "Break Your Heart" and "Life Is Sweet"). It's the kind of song that's become a cliché to be played at graduations and the like, but at least in this case the lyrics actually bear out the intended resonance (unlike the all too common playing of "Every Breath You Take" at weddings).

"Kiss From A Rose", Seal. I have several versions of this in my iTunes library. The acoustic version from the Best Of 1991-2004 bonus disc is my favorite; it brings the song's emotional core down to just his voice, without the somewhat more bombastic delivery of his "regular" version. I'm not actually sure why "a kiss from a rose on the grave" is such a good thing to sing about, though.

I'm sure I've mentioned (once or twice) my love of cover songs. Even so, the fact that the remaining three songs are all cover versions seems a bit excessive, even by my standards....

"King Of Pain", Alanis Morissette (Police cover). This is another acoustic track (from her MTV Unplugged album), which is also unsurprising given my preference for those. I still like the original (and "King Of Suede", for that matter), but her enunciation is a bit clearer than Sting's is and the song really needs understandable lyrics for its full power. That said, the end bit where she sings it as "Queen Of Pain" bugs me. I'm not sure why.

"King Of The Road", The Proclaimers (Roger Miller cover). I have no idea why this song works so well for me with a Scottish accent; it just does. The video's available here if you want to see for yourself.

"Knockin' On Heaven's Door", Warren Zevon (Bob Dylan cover). Because of the circumstances surrounding The Wind, it's possibly the most poignant version of the song ever recorded. A dying man singing this song? A dying Warren Zevon singing this song? Open up. Open up.

Suzanne Vega has a great blog post up over on the NYT's website, about "Luka", being labeled a "two-hit wonder", and more. Highly recommended.

(via libertango)

I'm at Penguicon, finally. (Traffic, bletch.)

If you're also here and want to leave contact info, comments are screened.

hr_macgirl and I voted in the Massachusetts primary at just before 1800, and were ballots #612 and #613 at our polling location, which was busy but not packed; there were empty booths, of about a dozen total (I think; I didn't count). For the uncontested special election [ETA: last May] to fill our vacant state Senate seat, we were #22 and #23...and voted sometime around 1830-1900.

As unenrolled voters, we got to choose which party ballot to take, and both of us took D ballots. As we were walking to the booths, we heard the staff say "we need more Democratic ballots".

Through the wonders of TiVo, hr_macgirl and I watched the season finale on Monday night.

My thoughts on the season just past: ( Spoilers included )

Whee!

1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your current favorite song, or your favorite kind of sandwich, maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not.
2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.
3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.
4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in your own post.
5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.

yhlee asked:
( some questions (with answers) )

I like that this one is self-tagging, since I really dislike the whole concept of "tagging" people to respond.

We're installing a new version of some software at work, and have to have a name for the installation. The current version is named "charles", because it was originally installed on the systems in our building on Charles Street; those machines have since moved to our new building and its spiffy data center.

So, ( inspired by the rules of a card game ) how we named it.

The Saturday 1100 panel:

"The Door Dilated," Needless Exposition Contracted: Heinlein as Narrative Innovator.
James L. Cambias, F. Brett Cox, Daniel P. Dern (L), Fred Lerner, Tom Purdom
Robert A. Heinlein was the first sf author to regularly write about the future as though the reader already lived there. From our current perspective it may be hard to imagine just how radical an innovation this was. We celebrate the centenary of his birth by examining the profound influence he's had on the art of sf storytelling.

Since this was on Saturday morning, it was exactly on RAH's 100th birthday. (That weekend being Readercon and CONvergence andthe Heinlein Centennial...making one wish for trilocation.) As one of the many folks who grew up reading Heinlein (library shelves, rocket ship stickers on the spines, the whole bit) I thought it'd be interesting to delve into the ways he made his writing so unobtrusive, almost a style of having no apparent style.

[These are reconstructions by memory based on notes. I apologize in advance for any mistakes, and nothing here (even if in quotes) should be assumed to be an exact or even inexact version of what someone said without checking it with them. Comments of the form [ckd: bracketed text] are my own glosses, comments, or snarky bits.]

( my notes on the panel )

This was an interesting panel for me because Heinlein, particularly the juveniles, has always been a comfort read for me. (At one point during my college years, I was sick and very lethargic, and re-read Starman Jones because it was one of the few Heinlein juveniles I could get from the campus library, which was much easier to get to than the Boston Public Library.) I find Heinlein's technique so smooth as to be un-noticed, which seems like one of those things that's incredibly hard to make it look so easy. The panelists made understanding it look so easy....

Here's the first of my panel reports from this year's Readercon. This was the first panel I made it to, starting at 1600 on Friday.

Smooth and Lumpy Expanded Universes.
Michael Cisco, James Alan Gardner (L), Yves Meynard, Ian Randal Strock, Rick Wilber.
There are convincing and unconvincing ways for a writer to build on a created world. The introduction of the Bene Tleilax in Dune Messiah strikes many readers as an off-note, because it's inconceivable that the organization wouldn't have been mentioned in the original novel. In contrast, the Order of the Phoenix fit beautifully into J. K. Rowling's world. Isaac Asimov spent the last years of his career relentlessly expanding and merging his created universes, with controversial results. What other examples stand out? What are some of the tricks of the trade?

I generally enjoy the interconnections between books, whether they be major (closely linked but with different protagonists) or minor (a quick name-check or historical reference).

[These are reconstructions by memory based on notes. I apologize in advance for any mistakes, and nothing here (even if in quotes) should be assumed to be an exact or even inexact version of what someone said without checking it with them. Comments of the form [ckd: bracketed text] are my own glosses, comments, or snarky bits.]

( my notes on the panel )

Fun panel. I was interested in the way the discussion hit both technique and what for lack of a better word I'll call "mode", the distinction between fact-based and tone-based worldviews. I'm a sucker for inter-book connections ( the cameo appearance of a couple of characters from Michael Flynn's In the Country of the Blind in his later Firestar, for example), so I was hoping for more examples and fewer tricks of the trade, not that I actually need more books on my to-be-read pile.