Spontaneous Derivation

Oprah loves the Kindle:

This summer, Oprah received a gift that she says changed her life. “It’s absolutely my new favorite favorite thing in the world,” she says.

(I tend to say the same thing, only rather more fervently. I and my Kindle are still quite happy, by the way, and rocketing onwards towards celebrating our half-year anniversary. We’re still newlyweds, after all.)

And now you can also receive $50 off the Kindle. Put the Kindle in your cart, and when you checkout, use OPRAHWINFREY as the promotion code. Here’s the Kindle Amazon page.

This offer expires November 1st. Yes, it really does.

1. When you balance your budget¹ in Squirrel² , your Amazon purchases end up in a category by themselves.

2. Your last $100 purchase was free. This was because you had four $25 Amazon Visa Cashback bonus gift certificates to use.³

3. Your Amazon friend describes the employee discount program to you. You would run it out in less than two months.

4. The subscription fee for Amazon Prime still dwarfs the amount of shipping you pay in emergencies (friend’s kids’ birthdays⁴, Christmas, the next George R.R. Martin book⁵, Christmas, ah, Christmas) so technically you save money with it.

5. The birthday presents you send to your friends’ kids merit the question “Why does Aunt AJ always send gifts wrapped in green paper?” or worse, “Why do Aunt AJ’s presents always arrive in those smiling cardboard boxes?”

6. You get lost in your own local grocery store because you buy all your groceries from Amazon in bulk. You even buy perishables (not in bulk).⁶

7. Someone mentions a book they liked to you, and perhaps even let you read a bit of it. You thank them, and then in the next five minutes you have your own copy in your Kindle. This happens a lot.⁷

8. You have run up a big Kindle tab (if Amazon kept tabs) with increased impulse buys. And it’s still cheaper than last year, even if you buy all the new Kindle editions at more or less $10 each.⁸

9. You have a blog that discusses an Amazon service/product in detail (Kindle, anyone?) and also for some reason answer customer service-style questions over email from folks.

10. You are writing a list like this. Or you’re nodding your head along with every other item.

    Welcome to the world of Addicted to Amazon. Your local stores probably miss you.⁹

1. Better than what the government’s doing. [↩]
2. Well, it’s okay so far, and it’s cheap, and it’s better than most free finance applications out there, and I need to budget, so y’know…. [↩]
3. Not that they’re hard to get, but I rack them up pretty quickly. Very quickly, so sayeth an Amazon friend of mine. [↩]
4. I really, really don’t remember these very well. [↩]
5. For some reason I never know in enough time. [↩]
6. Amazon Fresh; I pick it up on the Seattle side and walk to the ferry. Weirdly, it’s actually better than what I pick from the local grocery store myself. Probably because I suck at choosing tomatoes. [↩]
7. The Geography of Bliss, Free Range Chickens, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, Jitterbug Perfume, My Stroke of Insight, RailsSpace [↩]
8. So you’ve been buying from Amazon a bit much in previous years, too…. [↩]
9. Wal*mart likely doesn’t count. [↩]

Why, then the world’s mine oyster,
Which I with Kindle will open.¹

My Kindle is many things: a library, a blog reader, a literary critique aide, and a pre-paid minute-by-minute hit of Twitter.²

One thing it is not, however, is a great browser for the web in general. The refresh rates for the very readable electronic paper, used by the Kindle and Sony Reader, are still too low for interaction with the web. You aren’t going to see videos and you won’t be playing games, and you need much patience to load many sites since most of them aren’t considerate enough to provide mobile interfaces—including this one (and that’s a little sad, which is why I’m thinking of reloading the current theme³ to be something rather simpler).

However, given that the Kindle is really for reading and not so much for browsing, I haven’t minded. But I much prefer to read on my Kindle than the screen, if only because I don’t feel like stabbing my eyes out after hours of intense reading.

Enter Instapaper, whose default interface is already geared towards mobile browsers.

On Instapaper

Instapaper is different kind of bookmarking service. It neither stores bookmarks efficiently/indefinitely, like del.icio.us; and neither is it socially-orientated, like StumbleUpon. Instead, it keeps track of sites you’d like to read later and, when you’ve later read it, marks it off as read.

There’s a Read Later shortcut bookmarklet you can use so that a simple click will send the current website you’re looking at to your Instapaper inbox. The bookmarklet supports most modern browsers including the Big Three—Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari.

While I’m browsing the web—doing interactive stuff, Stumbling, commenting on blogs, and mucking around with my website—if I run across something that merits in-depth reading, I send it to Instapaper. Many sites, especially news sites, including a “print” link to a printer-friendly version of the article, which also happens to be mobile-friendly. That’s what I send to Instapaper whenever possible.⁴

You can’t always use that print link however. There’s currently a small trend to restrict print-friendly pages to the web via Javascript—keeping up the website and ad views at the cost of the user experience. That’s what Instapaper’s Text link at the side of each article is for; it renders a text-only version for you.

Sometimes you’ll accidentally click on something you didn’t want to read just yet, or the Text link will have a temporary hiccup; Instapaper keeps an archive of what you’ve read at the bottom of the page:

Instapaper, of course, can also be used for your normal browsing experience.

Instapaper on the Kindle

And now, a gallery of using Instapaper in the Kindle’s web browser.

Instapaper home on the Kindle. For a faster experience, I turn off images. They aren’t going to matter most of the time, unless you’re looking at really depressing stock market graphs. Which I could do without.

The New York Times lets you access the print versions of their articles from anywhere, and it’s fairly nice.

Most blogs don’t have entry print versions, so I use Instapaper’s Text link instead. It does quite well, although I’m starting to really hate websites that think that using “font-size: 75%;” as the default text size is a good idea.

The same site without the benefit of Instapaper’s text-ifying. Also takes minutes to load, even without images. In the end, the thing is also 200 Kindle screens long

Instapaper and Kindle: I Wouldn’t Survive Election ‘08 Without Them

1. I really do love virtual train wrecks.
2. Nothing is boring when you can watch the slapfight between the pundit blogs afterwards.
3. There’s also nothing like watching shared misery across hundreds of websites, even if you are also one of the miserable.

And now, if you’ll pardon me, I’ve got a lot of reading to do….

1. With apologies to Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor, 2.2.3-4, Pistol to Falstaff. [↩]
2. Through the mobile interface of Twitter, http://m.twitter.com/ , which works well with the Kindle’s web browser. [↩]
3. [↩]
4. Spontaneous Derivation has such a link at the bottom of every article or page. It’s infinitely better than simply providing a print media stylesheet, since the browser doesn’t have to download the HTML code for all those columns, rows, ads, special widgets, Javascript, and other junk that isn’t going to appear. This matters over a mobile data plan—or a slow e-paper interface. [↩]

Ever since I got my Kindle I’ve been re-buying my library (at least, where applicable), so I’ve started clearing out the books from my actual library to donate to the local library. I tend to treat my books kindly, and recently I’ve bought the hardbacks whenever possible. I also have a bunch of ARCs¹ that I’ve accumulated and since bought, and I need to figure out what to do with them. I can’t legally sell them.

Right now, it’s very odd to look at my shelves and realize how much space is taken up by my physical books. There are a lot of dead trees represented here.

A small sampling of things I’ve rebought on my Kindle whose physical presences are getting donated to my library, or donated to doctor’s offices or wherever:

1. Advanced Reading Copy [↩]

This may interest people who know me from my meta-blogging (blogging about blogging) days. And maybe other folks who want to keep going but are at a loss as to how to keep going. I can’t really answer that for everybody, but I can tell you how I started doing the serious blogging again.

I think the way to really fall in love with something is to look deeply into the matter. My stint as a meta-blogger was a cool way to do this, as I contemplated the whys and hows of blogging, beyond the technical (although the technical did help) and into the more nebulous realm of generating great content. I looked at others in the field of meta-blogging and beyond to bloggers in other fields (like John Scalzi). I experimented with different blogging methodologies and different ways of promotion and all that.

I learned that blogging isn’t shallow. Not if you want to do it well and sustain a certain level of quality. And, of course, you have to really love the process and beat of blogging; if you don’t have that, you can’t do it. (And that’s not a bad thing at all.)

And then I stopped blogging about blogging. I was tired of it. In its own way, the niche is crowded with great bloggers and the subject is too narrow to specialize well—or at least all the niches are well-taken. I didn’t know it at the time, but I needed something less regimented, more flexible, and just fun. And at the same time not so without structure that the net was too wide.

Plus I’m into the re-inventing yourself business.

Anyways, I got a Kindle, loved it, still do, you know how it is if you’ve read this blog for a little while. Around the same time I started to love science fiction and fantasy in strangely deep ways, and I wanted to learn more about that. So, la, the best way to learn about something, where I’m concerned anyways, is to research the heck out of it and write it up for other people. Obviously S∂ needed to swim in that direction.

And while SF/F is a field chock-full of blogs, there’s so much stuff here that anybody could simply keep going. The field changes far more often than that of the meta-blogging world; having a history that goes back more than a couple decades does that. You can review books or movies (and they never end), write about themes and lists, play off from the huge number of other posts in the arena. You can even write SF/F if you so desire (and my little writer heart so desires to, except that it’s still afraid). I also create eBooks; for some reason, the ability to create a product outside of just my blog is inspirational all by itself.

Plus the writers are so freaking accessible in SF/F. You can read their blogs and stuff. They become people. The better blogs are by fun people, and that rubs off on you. Suddenly I felt like I could blog about other things than just my blog’s main theme, so long as I could write in an entertaining/elucidating fashion, so long as I could think about what I wrote instead of just writing random stuff. Not that it’s bad to write random stuff, but the best blogs have “thinky” posts amongst the lighter fare.

I learned another important thing, which is based on running, actually. Blog a lot. Or at least that’s what works for me; it’s easier for me to keep blogging if I blog every day than if I just blog once in a while, just like it’s easier for me to run if I keep running instead of slowing down for walks. Blogging often keeps my brain cells going, keeps me researching, keeps me inspired. It helps that I have a tendency to want to entertain others, for if I’ve learned anything about the web, it’s that despite the plethora of stuff out there, it’s too easy to get bored.

Combine the need to blog a lot with a field that’s freaking huge and insanely informally friendly. That’s fireworks right there.

From John Scalzi’s A Month of Writers—well, actually, just reading John Scalzi’s blog in general—I learned that you can generate a ton more material by writing about people, not just treatises on techniques or thoughts about your day or your writing. Helps if said people are outside your circle of friends, too, and if there are a lot of them related to your field who have blogs—oh look! SF/F! It’s also interesting to research other folks, because people are so different from one another. Yes, that’s kind of Captain Obvious level thinking, but you don’t see that in most blogs.

And then—I dropped the more obvious blogger networking tools. StumbleUpon I keep around, of course, because it’s so darn useful; same for Twitter, which is also utterly fascinating to watch; but I no longer think of them as solely or even mostly promotion for my blog. And EntreCard? BlogLog? Stuff that’s purely for networking purposes? For me, they got in the way (and yet for others, they inspire; again, this is not a one-size-fits-all entry). I’m glad they’re gone, and their absence gives me more time to write and interact (and I do need that time).

So at the moment, I blog for the love of my Kindle and science fiction and fantasy. I blog for the love of entertaining and removing as many moments of boredom as I can for people who are interested in what I write about. I blog because I love to blog. The amount of love is at such a level that I’ve put aside writing for blogging and feel but a faint twinge of guilt. Which is not so bad, since I get to explore the field and read like crazy and analyze like mad—and still write, after all.

Blogging makes me happy. Sometimes it drives me nuts, but far less often than it used to.

I guess my advice for people who’d like to keep blogging is: experiment and figure out what you love and don’t be afraid if it takes like months or years to figure it out. And just don’t worry about promotion—but interact with others in your field in many, many ways.

S∂ is nearing its first birthday. My blog already outlasted most blogs out there when it reached the three-month mark. And I love it very much.

Everyone knows the Kindle doesn’t have backlighting. (Readers like the Kindle and the Sony eReader that use electronic ink don’t.) And I’m glad it doesn’t, because I spend all day staring into backlit screens, and that is not something you want to do for hours on end.

Glare!

So what to do in ill-lit situations? Get a book light, obviously.

Ah, but which one? For the Kindle’s screen, as matte as it is, has one problem that most paper doesn’t: glare, if your light’s at the wrong angle.

No big deal; that just means you need to get one with a REALLY flexible neck.

Like the Mighty Bright XtraFlex2.

Runs on 3 AAA batteries (not included), and features two very bright LED bulbs (and, through the love that is being LED lights, use little power and last nigh forever). You can choose to have both on, or just one on, depending on how much light you need. And you can position and angle the head perfectly to avoid glare at just about any angle you hold your Kindle.

Witness these pictures below the cut:

Continue reading “By the Light of My Mighty Bright: A Perfect Kindle Book Light”

The Kindle was essentially a blind date.

A friend of mine dared me to, basically. During month-long bout of reliably late ferries and thus painfully extended commutes, and after some trepidation as I looked over little pictures of a very un-iPod-cool device, I bought one.

Even so, it seemed stupid at the time. An eBook reader can never replace a real book—a real book can be read anywhere, and the feel of turning real pages could never be aped by any eBook reader, much less something as homely and clumsy-looking as the Kindle.

At least I could return it if I didn’t like it.

The Kindle made a bizarre first entrance.

Photography: robertnelson

Oh, so that’s how it is, I thought when I unpacked the Amazon box to reveal this “book” box. It was large enough to hold almost all of a deluxe hardcover version of George R.R. Martin’s A Storm of Swords. Obviously an attempt to say “I am just like a real book, but I can be more than that.”

I was beguiled anyways, as I opened the mammoth thing and revealed the little Kindle inside (with its USB cable, cute power adapter, and little manual). Introductions were thankfully brief; just plug the Kindle in and go. There was a little tutorial manual in it as well. If only all our life partners came with little manuals on them.

The e-ink was surprisingly readable. There was no backlighting, nor did I expect it from the Kindle (I know other eBook readers have it), but the page was easy on my eyes, which I need badly. I was downing extra Advil while reading the Hugo novels on my laptop, let me tell you.

After downloading a sample and then buying a book online (The Omnivore’s Dilemma), uploading some of the free Tor e-books, and even emailing word documents to it (I was a 2008 Hugo voter, so I got in on the electronic versions of the Hugo novel nominees), I was satisfied with our first date. I put my Kindle to sleep.

Photography: jblyberg

The e-ink shifted into a picture from the classic huge coffee table art book, Audubon’s Birds of America.

Oh, hell no, I thought, but another part of me thought, Oh, hey cool. That’s some smart thinking on their part.

At first, I wanted my Kindle to dress in snazzier clothes, something other than the dour, default cover it came with. Something slinky, like the ones from M-Edge. Really expensive, though, and they had problems (black markings on my pure white Kindle? Perish the thought!). Fortunately, I found out just how valuable the original cover was.

But once I understood the physical side of my Kindle a bit more, at least that part of our relationship went smoothly. I never read my Kindle without its prim little black/gray-lined cover. I didn’t know if our relationship would move past this casual stage.

I’m not quite sure when I started seeing my Kindle as more than something to read. Certainly real books can be read, and also used as stacking material, paperweights, and (especially with tomes from J.K. Rowling, George R.R. Martin, and of course the great J.R.R. Tolkien himself) defensive weaponry. A Kindle would be hard-pressed to fulfill those extra functions.

But my Kindle could save notes and bookmarks. My Kindle indexed my books front and back so I could search them (handy when I started reading anthologies and collections). My Kindle let me buy more content for it, with as many free samples (which are much longer than what they let you have on almost any website) as the Kindle could fit. And after adding an 8GB Transcend SD card, no more worries about fitting more content on my Kindle.

My Kindle didn’t stop there, though. I could email PDF, HTML, Word docs to my Kindle’s email address and have them converted for free, then either download them and upload to the Kindle via USB, or whispernet them directly to the Kindle for 10 cents. My Kindle could read non-DRM MobiPocket files, so I could take advantage of random free eBooks.

But it was the FeedBooks Download Guide that showed me there were interesting things you could do with Mobipocket (and other e-book-specific formats like ePub, as opposed to plain HTML, PDF, or RTF). The Guide, itself an eBook, was hyperlinked like all get-out, including links to the web where the Kindle could download Mobipocket files to itself for free.

If you’d asked me how alluring an iPod for books could be, the week before I met my Kindle, I would have shrugged and told you that books are not anywhere near as ephemeral as music.

But it’s not about replicating the physical book experience. It never was, any more than digital music is about replicating the physical CD/tapes/vinyl experience.

It’s about enhancing interaction with the content.

And so I fell to learning how to make eBooks myself for my Kindle. I should have realized that I’d fallen at this point.

I knew I loved my Kindle when, one fine Saturday morning, I woke up and it lay beside me, displaying a picture of Jane Austen, and still charged enough to spend a quiet, absorbed weekend on the island, reading in quaint coffee shops and restaurants.

I knew I loved my Kindle when I spent a night writing perl scripts to massage 325 short stories from the SciFiction archives and blast them through the Amazon converter and into my Kindle (complete with a primitive table of contents).

I knew I loved my Kindle when I went through lengths to translate a long, hyperlinked work just for my Kindle.

I even learned a few extra functions for my Kindle. For instance, it finds restaurants and gas stations via GPS. And it tells the time. These are very important functions that a real book doesn’t give you. Although I find that I miss the spider-killing function. Perhaps the Kindle 2.0 can come with a small laser beam cutter.

The Kindle isn’t perfect. I can’t really think of many devices that are, even the iPhone. And perhaps it’s less perfect than it should realistically be.

But damn it. I love my Kindle. I use it for books and, well, to feed a bit of a geek scripting fetish when I figure out how to massage gobs of content into Kindle-readable form. I don’t use it as a PDA.

In light of what it’s done for my reading, the Kindle is very lovely indeed.