Ebooks

It's general assumed that books are better than tv/movies, especially since it sounds so superior to say so. Although of course tv/movies have some advantages, other than just being easier to consume.

One of which is it is way easier to remember who characters are. Look at a show like heroes which has a large collection of characters who come and go over the course of years. Yet even if a viewer can't remember all the details of the character, when the viewer sees the character's face they'll generally remember who the character is. Compare that with a long book or series of books. There are plenty of books that can be read over a much shorter period of time and yet give the reader trouble remember which minor character is which.

I think this is a simple matter of people being better at remembering faces than names (especially when authors (I'm looking at you Robert Jordan) pick unpronounceable names, or in the case of say lord of the rings when two characters have very similar names).

I think this is one area where ebooks could improve upon normal books (heresy, I know). The obvious approach is to make character names links that take you to a page describing who they are. But much better would be to give faces to each character and display them, maybe on the opposing page if the ebook has two screens, or even over the name or something along those lines (I'm thinking more along the lines of an ipad display than a kindle display). I know part of the point of books is to let the imagination fill things in, but the face doesn't have to be a photo, it could be a sufficiently generic drawing (similar to what often appears on a book cover) that it would help the memory, but not limit the imagination. Heck for LoTR just a red eye over Sauron and a white cloak over Saruman would be super helpful. Ok, the white cloak would get confusing when Gandalf takes over as the white wizard, but you get the idea.

And about half of Snow Crash could have "more sumerian mythology, just move along" written across it. Ok, maybe that one is taking it too far.

On what I initial thought was an unrelated comment, but now realize is actually rather related. I tried reading a comic book on my phone (dr horrible) and comics seem like the perfect format for reading on a phone. For those times when you want to read, rather than watch video, but don't want to strain your eyes reading on a phone, comics get across the info and have some reading, but small amounts of large text are no problem to read on a small backlit screen.

Oh, just noticed that the first part of this post is describing comic books. So I guess the conclusion is that we should give up books for reading comics on our phones... Not really where I intended to go with this.

The Dragon Reborn

I recently finished The Dragon Reborn which is part of the wheel of time series. It now strikes me that the title is a bit odd, since this book is almost entirely about everyone but the dragon. Weird, anyway, good book although I'd claim not as good as the previous two.

Moving

Holly crap I'm moving again! Yet again solidifying AEPi as my most stable home since middle school.

I started writing up my giant rant about the insanity of how Avalon at Creekside sets their prices (take the average of some nicer apartment buildings, see how over priced the apartment is then divide that by 4, why 4, cause that's the formula - that's the super short version) but decided I'd spare you. I had discussed the idea of "the worst they can do is say no" with a friend recently. But this experience taught me the worst they can do is give such an insane explanation and pitifully small offer ($9 off) that you get mad and end up leaving.

Anyway I found a place about 5 minutes away that's cheaper and bigger and has an AC and is more recently renovated. So I'm excited about that, but not so excited about putting all my stuff in boxes again.

Life

Wow, it's been a while since I posted about my life. I feel like I've noticed a general drop in blog use. I wonder if that's a change in the situation or the observer. I also wonder if twitter really is just enough that it removes people's need to write full blog posts.

Anyway, since the summer I've been working on a chip at work that had/has a very tight schedule and the part with the most focus is the part I am working on. Unfortunately I've discovered that the harder I work the more mindless downtime (aka TV) I require so when I'm low on time I often end up killing the bit I have with TV. Luckily some of my friends in the area are also into watching tv and playing games so I can actually combine that recovery time with being social which is awesome.

That long stretch of work was split up by several intense spouts of having fun. I visited home for Thanksgiving. I visited Santa Barbara where I hung out with my Uncle and his family which was a nice get away as always. Over winter break I went skiing at Sunday River with college friends. The skiing and seeing friends was a great time. It was also nice because I went from a nervous skiing n00b to, well still a beginner, but comfortable getting out there and enjoying it. Finished up that trip with my first Russian New Years and attempt at cross country skiing. I think I'd need to try cross country again before claiming that I really get it.

There was a one day trip to Tahoe for skiing in there. Good time, but I had my first encounter with moguls and wore myself out since I had no idea what to do. Also took a bit of a hard fall. I thought I was going through a connector between trails I had done before so built up some speed before getting to it. Upon entering it and realizing it was so narrow I couldn't slow down I realized I hadn't seen this bit of trail before and had to fall into a pile of snow. That's the only time I've left blood on the snow (just a bit of nose bleed, nothing serious).

March was a lull at work which worked out well since a lot happened that month. My parents came to visit and we headed down to carmel for an extended weekend. It was great to see my parents and hang out in a nice area. Kayaking in Monterey Bay was very cool. The next weekend was my brother's bachelor party. We met up in Denver and headed to the mountains for two solid days of skiing. Then Sunday night hit the town. The next weekend some college friends visited and it was great to see them.

Most recently I'm getting ready to change apartments. This seems like a good point to switch to a new post.

That was a big span of time, so I left out seeing someone or some major event - sorry.