My birthday present to myself arrived yesterday: the new Barnes & Noble "nook" ebook reader.

As you probably know, ebooks and ebook readers have been a hobby of mine for a while now. I'm rather passionate about ebooks. So of course I had to get a nook to see how it stacks up.


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Analog Man in the Digital Age
-or-
The Engineer's Dilemma

Being a Somewhat Rambling Musing on the Information Age

We live in an interesting time. We have come out of the Industrial Age and into the Information Age. More and more the world is connected digitally, but paradoxically, people feel more lost than ever ( Read more... )

Finally got around to finishing Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates. Great stuff.

I'm following it up by reading What is Man by Mark Twain. Also great stuff, philosophy in the style (and at the level) of the classic Greeks.

The best humorists are also philosophers.
Or maybe it's the other way 'round.

Maine was fun. I gave Judy her Christmas presents early (an iMac and iPod Nano) and transferred all her stuff over to the new machine on Wednesday night.

Then Thursday morning, I baked a pie (for the first time) totally from scratch.
It came out pretty good, the crust was nice and flaky and the pie was not too sweet without being tart.


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Following in Sony's footsteps, Amazon has just launched their "Kindle" device.

Like the Sony Reader, the Amazon Kindle uses an electronic paper display.

Here's a comparison of the two:

Sony ReaderAmazon Kindle
Price$299.99$399.00
Screen6" 8-grayscale 600x800 E-ink6" 4-grayscale 600x800 E-ink
Storage256MB?256MB
ExpansionSD cardSD card
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From Sony's site:

What are some of the most important changes between the PRS-500 and the PRS505?

1. The PRS-505 has a new screen that has a faster refresh than the PRS-500's screen and is also a bit lighter. The new screen also supports 8 shades of gray vs. 4 on the PRS-500.
2. The User interface is much improved with:
   • Page turn buttons moved the right ( Read more... )

Sony announced an updated version of their eBook Reader (PRS-505)!


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So here we go again - Amazon is getting ready to launch its own eBook reader.

The good: they are Amazon, and it is an eBook reader

The bad: preliminary pictures show a clunky design with a full querty keyboard, and the projected price will be over $400.


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It's nice out today.

A nice day for sitting outside and reading the new Harry Potter book.


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