Fewer Doctors, More eBooks

Imagine how many eBooks the New Brunswick government could buy with
the salary of just one doctor. :)

Celsius 211, e-books Arrive at the New Brunswick Library

411 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at witch books burn
according to Ray Bradburry's Fahrenheit 411. Yet, here in New
Brunswick, although the provincially run library system is presumably
buying fewer inflammable books, the money isn't being diverted away to
mind controlling television (there is no equivalent to TV Ontario or
Télé-Quebec out here, although cable subscribers have access to both).

No, money is being diverted to ebooks that, ironically for Ray
Bradbury fans, can be read on a wall (aka gigantic TV connected to a
computer).

Despite being behind the innovation curb, Ottawa and Calgary, for
example, have had e-libraries for a while, I'm not sure the library is
quite ready for the masses. There are plenty of compatibility issues
and selection is quite limited, especially in French (a third of New
Brunswick's 750,000 people are French speaking).

But for Anglos that are computer savvy, even in this paper producing
province, the NB e-library makes a lot of sense. This is still, after
all, a rural province where 1 in 2 live in a rural area, far from any
library with much selection. As any citizen in New Brunswick can
request that a physical, burnable book, be shipped to their local
branch (from an other branch), there should be some fuel savings (take
that Alberta).

(Screen capture of my first e-Library book)

To ebook or not to ebook

Paper is a relatively cheap way to read stuff. The infrastructure is already there (paper mills, printers, roads, trucks, book stores, lamps, garbage collection, land fill sites), so the marginal cost of an additional  paper book is relatively low.

For many book publishers, the infrastructure to publish and distribute ebooks isn't there yet. So, counterintuitively, the marginal cost of each ebook is relatively high.

From a reader's point of view, here are the advantages of ebooks:

-They don't take up space.

-You can buy an ebook anywhere (and I mean anywhere), any time.

-Popular English language books and classics are easy to find.

-Moving forwards, "out of print" books will still be for sale and available. 

-Price comparison is easy (Kindle Store, iBookstore, Kobobooks, Fictionwise), you don't need to factor in shipping, just the sales tax (Kindle doesn't charge it to Canadians).

-They sometimes cost less than a paper book.

-Easy to transport. You can have your entire library in your pocket.

-No paper cuts, dust, or horrible glue smell.

Advantages of a paper book.

-More selection (especially non-English).

-You can give it away.

-You can show it off (when you are reading it and when you put it on your shelf).

-You can trade it.

-You can loose it without feeling too bad (unlike a $200 Kindle or a $550 iPad)

-You can damage it without feeling too bad (when drinking, eating, using it at the beach or in the bathroom).

-You don't need any special equipment (not an advantage if you already have an iPhone).

-Absolutely no glare.

-Some people think they like the smell and feel of paper books (I don't, in fact, I hate it).
-Many people collect books without finishing them. They may loose that collection joy in the digital format. (This is a pretty week advantage if you ask me, but I've read it in so many forums that it must be true).

-Books don't run out of battery.

I'm an ebook convert. I have the following iOS ereader apps on my iPhone: Kobo, iBooks, Stanza and Kindle. I also read books on my computer, on my laptop and on my TV.

I'm deeply allergic to dust and I move, way, way to often. I also live in a small apartment.

But the number 1 reason I love ebooks is I hate throwing book out. I just can't. It is literally painful for me to do so. My electronic books I can keep for ever!

Ereading options:

Stores: Kindle, Kobo, Finctionwise, jelis.ca, iBookstore.

Devices: iPod touch ($200), Kobo ($150), Kindle ($205 plus tax when shipped to Canada), Sony eReader ($200), Kindle DX ($350), iPad ($550), iPhone ($800), Android based smartphone (HTC: $500). Nook from Barnes and Noble, only in the USA ($150 for wifi only, $200 for wifi with 3G).

I know way too much about ebooks, so if you have any questions about ebooks, please leave them in the comments. I'll respond within 24 hours.

Read This Before Father's Day

Shit My Dad says is a really good book. It's not quite the laugh per 140 characters of the author's 1.3 million follower Tweet Stream, but the long set-ups make the punchlines that much more funny.

If you like laughing and have/had a dad, I recommend this book.

Stop Global Warming: Move to a Green Metropolis

David Owen, in his book, Green Metropolis, argues convincingly that living in a compact city is the most effective way to prevent global warming.

I'm reading the book on my iPhone, my laptop and my desktop thanks to the Kindle store (link on the left; Disclosure: I make a small commission if you buy something from Amazon.com immediately after clicking on the link). The digital download is fast and easy and Amazon.com, although prices are in US dollars, doesn't charge sale tax (Kobobooks.com does). You can download the book to all your devices without paying extra.

People seem to care about global warming, but are they really ready to do something about it? So save the planet, move to New York City, Montreal or Vancouver (and buy digital books).

As Owen mentions in his book, New York City isn't a hippie environmental paradise. There is plenty of waist. And, although local nuclear and imported hydro are major sources, gas and coal are also used to power the city. But even if you drive a Prius and have solar panels on your bungalow, you will never match the typical New Yorker who, when not walking, takes the subway to and from his smallish apartment.

Obviously, if the New Yorker spends his vacation on the other side of the world instead of in his backyard mowing the lawn and fixing the deck, he'll probably end up matching the carbon foot print of the Vermonter. But if he spends it in Vermont, he wins (and so does the planet). So if you live in Vermont, you better be employed servicing New York tourists. Otherwise, global warming is your fault.

A Tale of Two Cities p3

of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.

   All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures -- the creatures of this chronicle among the rest -- along the roads that lay before them.

A Tale of Two Cities p2

which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood.

   France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrels of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous.
   In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of "the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mall was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:" after which the mall was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty

A Tale of Two Cities

THE PERIOD

   IT WAS the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way -- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
   There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever.
   It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy- five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and- twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America:

NYTimes: Reading Underground

I almost miss my long commutes. So when do people in Moncton read? ;-)

From The New York Times:

Reading Underground

Even if they are wedged into a corner, pressed against strangers, New
York's subway riders still manage to read. And they read just about
everything.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/nyregion/06reading.html

Get The New York Times on your iPhone for free by visiting http://itunes.com/apps/nytimes

Envoyé depuis mon iPhone / Sent from my iPhone.

War And Peace in My Pocket

My library.

As you know, War and Peace is a big book. Well, now you can carry it
in your jeans pocket. No need for an expensive iPhone either. A simple
$200 iPod touch will do.

When I'm standing in line at Tim Horton's, er, café snob, this is what
I'm reading.

Thanks Apple, Stanza and Project Gutenberg (and the dead authors of
these books).

Most Britons have lied about the books they read

http://mobile.reuters.com/mobile/m/FullArticle/p.rdt/CODD/noddlyEnoughNews_uUSTRE5244MG20090305

2,3 million Brits have lied about reading Dreams of My Father (margin
of error, 1 million people).

Thankfully, I can tell the truth about reading two of the top 9:
Dreams of My Father and War and Peace.

Both are excrutiatingly boring. So the question should have been "what
books have you lied about finishing?".

Because I have read both. Finished? Not so much. Although in my
defence, I already knew the ending of Obama's book (spoiler alert: he
lives hapil
y ever after).

My excuse in the case of War and Peace is that I'm not gay. And by the
way, you'd think a book set in Russia with that kind of title would
have a freeking war in it? Or a least a sword fight or KGB
assasinations.

If you do want to read a book about leaders and war and peace, try
Paris 1919, by Canadian (insert name here).

That book was given to George Bush by Paul Martin. I wonder if George
W. lied about reading it.

Envoyé depuis mon iPhone / Sent from my iPhone.