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Time seems to be moving faster now that i am employed. It looks like doing stuff every day gets the flow of time to move better. I like this aspect of working in every part of my life other than the part where I don't see the kids as much. That being said, Q is now realizing that I am not around as much and I am therefore more desirable to be around. So I at least got that going for me.
With all the changes in technology going on and how much reading I am doing to get myself up to speed with this new job, the topic of books is on my mind. Therefore today's 20 Question Tuesday is about books.
Thanks this week go to Dr Clean, Capt McArmypants, esq., Dr John P, (wow, many a higher education degree giving questions... buncha nerds!), and some other guy. Onto the questions!
1. How many books do you own?
I have never really counted them up. Surely over a hundred books are in the house, but we have purged many a book from the domicile over the years. "How many books have I EVER owned?" is a much different question.
2. Have you read all of them? If not how many do you have the you have not read? If you read them 40 hours a week, how long would it take to finish them?
Nope, let me also clear up that some of the books in the house are books from Wifey's and my college days , so they are pretty dense informational tombs that are difficult to wade through. It could take nigh on forever to read all of them
3. Do you really like the new readers? There just seems to be something about holding a book that makes it more satisfying.
There is something very necessary to me about the tactile issue of turning a page of a book and the weight of a book and the smell of the paper etc..., however, traveling with one of those readers seems much more convienient. For example, I had a business trip a while ago where I bought one of Naomi Novik's Temeraire books. Not literature by any means. Well fast forward 6 hours of flying time later and the book is over and I am left with nothing else to read for the rest of my 2 day trip. One of the readers would either have more books on it or have the ability to get more books easily.
4. Do you think that e-readers make it harder to jump to the end of a mystery to see “who done it?”
Not especially. I think if one wants to deal with spoilers, one will find a way to do it rather expediently.
5. Are there some books that just don’t “translate” to the e-readers?
I am not sure, because I do not have an e-reader yet. I would imagine that choose your own adventure books might be an issue...
6. What do you do with all the shelves in the library/study if all your books are electronic?
I would put a closet in the room and call it a bedroom. Resale baby!
7. Should e-readers come with a “scratch and sniff” musty card to give you a better reading experience when tackling classics?
There is actually another issue with e-readers that I think needs to be addressed before the musty smell. That is issue of pretentiousness. Sure having an e-reader already gives one the air of pretension, but the person reading the device has to verbally let people know what hipster clap-trap he is reading in order for we, non-e-readers, to know what hipster douche-baggery he is reading.
8. Are you going to get an iPad or wait till it comes with “wings”?
I don't think the iPad offers much more than other devices. It is not as large as a tablet PC, but not small enough to be pocketable. It does not have e-ink for reading, but it is supposedly a platform for reading books. It is kind of a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none.
9. Egon Spangler stated in Ghostbusters that "Print is Dead". How do you respond this....I mean he is a freakin Ghostbuster that should some water, I would imagine!?
I think that the print industry might be dealing with some dead issues, but print itself will never die. There are just too many intangibles associated with reading a book that readers will neer replicate. Therefore I say unto you, that the publishing industry is dying, but print-on-demand is about to boom.
10. Bookstore or Library?
Bookstore. I cannot, and I mean cannot stand the cellophane dust jacket covers that every library puts on their hardbacks... It really drives me insane listening to the slight crackle and pop of the over slick translucent surface creaking with every page turn and repositioning of my fingers. I seriously hate that sound.
11. So a few years ago, I see this lady on CNN complaining about Math books being 20 years old as an example of how broken her school system is. What up with that, has math changed somehow?....For clarification, I wish to direct your focus to the "old math book" complaint not the nigh irrefutable argument that whatever school system she was talking about was broken.
To be truthful there is always a bunch of stuff happening on math that is making it new again, however those new things are happening at the edges of math where tensor sets and convex hull reside. Where you have to do a LaPlace transform on a Lagrange function to get the Eigen values associated with the Dirichlet turning point and shit like that. Math is not a stagnant field, and it has never been. That being said, the most recently generated stuff that is being taught in high school is from the 1900's and 1930's at latest. So, other than updating the word problems with more current technologies and diverse names, math texts are not really in need of updating.
12. Like the Books on Tape much?
Not especially, although I have been getting into podcasts as of late.
13. More overblown author: J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown?
Hmmm... I could go either way on this one for different reasons, but I am going to go with Dan Brown. Most of his cache is associated with creating fictional stories that revolve around touchy religious subjects. Illuminatic Papal succession, Gnostic Jesus Marriage, and Freemasonic crap are the marketing engine that drives his very formulaic page-turners. The Davinci Code would not have been nearly as popular (and definitely not a crappy Tom Hanks movie) if detractors didn't detract the background flimsy arguments so much.
14. Best book(s) you have ever read.
18. Can you take an ebook to a book signing? How would that work?
That is a very good question... I will have to pose this question to an author some day.
19. Is the book always better than the movie?
Nope, not always. There are many movies out there that I have seen where I did not read the book. There are literary purists out there who will cry foul at this, but I would not read the book because of the time investment associated with reading a book, but I have 100 to 200 minutes that I can kill.
20. What are you reading right now?
This very second? The words that I am typing across the screen, but I am sure you are talking about what books I am in the middle of at the moment. I am in the middle of 2 books
Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows for my worklife and Dark Lady's Chosen by Gail Martin for funsies
To recap:
I am reading 2 books and remembering none.... that ain't good
I need to line up another interviewee... any volunteers
Little Man's breathing has been raggedy lately
My sleep has been shoddy lately
Same with my sinuses
They have been incredibly shoddy lately
The sun has finally come back out for a few days
That has been nice
Out of town guests this weekend
Great, now I have to clean the toilets
I hate having to hit the "send and receive" button on my work email
I will be getting business cards soon
And implementing the first project soonish
I need some music/podcasts to listen to here at work
And headphones
Listening to a myriad of conversations right now
With all the changes in technology going on and how much reading I am doing to get myself up to speed with this new job, the topic of books is on my mind. Therefore today's 20 Question Tuesday is about books.
Thanks this week go to Dr Clean, Capt McArmypants, esq., Dr John P, (wow, many a higher education degree giving questions... buncha nerds!), and some other guy. Onto the questions!
1. How many books do you own?
I have never really counted them up. Surely over a hundred books are in the house, but we have purged many a book from the domicile over the years. "How many books have I EVER owned?" is a much different question.
2. Have you read all of them? If not how many do you have the you have not read? If you read them 40 hours a week, how long would it take to finish them?
Nope, let me also clear up that some of the books in the house are books from Wifey's and my college days , so they are pretty dense informational tombs that are difficult to wade through. It could take nigh on forever to read all of them
3. Do you really like the new readers? There just seems to be something about holding a book that makes it more satisfying.
There is something very necessary to me about the tactile issue of turning a page of a book and the weight of a book and the smell of the paper etc..., however, traveling with one of those readers seems much more convienient. For example, I had a business trip a while ago where I bought one of Naomi Novik's Temeraire books. Not literature by any means. Well fast forward 6 hours of flying time later and the book is over and I am left with nothing else to read for the rest of my 2 day trip. One of the readers would either have more books on it or have the ability to get more books easily.
4. Do you think that e-readers make it harder to jump to the end of a mystery to see “who done it?”
Not especially. I think if one wants to deal with spoilers, one will find a way to do it rather expediently.
5. Are there some books that just don’t “translate” to the e-readers?
I am not sure, because I do not have an e-reader yet. I would imagine that choose your own adventure books might be an issue...
6. What do you do with all the shelves in the library/study if all your books are electronic?
I would put a closet in the room and call it a bedroom. Resale baby!
7. Should e-readers come with a “scratch and sniff” musty card to give you a better reading experience when tackling classics?
There is actually another issue with e-readers that I think needs to be addressed before the musty smell. That is issue of pretentiousness. Sure having an e-reader already gives one the air of pretension, but the person reading the device has to verbally let people know what hipster clap-trap he is reading in order for we, non-e-readers, to know what hipster douche-baggery he is reading.
8. Are you going to get an iPad or wait till it comes with “wings”?
I don't think the iPad offers much more than other devices. It is not as large as a tablet PC, but not small enough to be pocketable. It does not have e-ink for reading, but it is supposedly a platform for reading books. It is kind of a jack-of-all-trades, but master of none.
9. Egon Spangler stated in Ghostbusters that "Print is Dead". How do you respond this....I mean he is a freakin Ghostbuster that should some water, I would imagine!?
I think that the print industry might be dealing with some dead issues, but print itself will never die. There are just too many intangibles associated with reading a book that readers will neer replicate. Therefore I say unto you, that the publishing industry is dying, but print-on-demand is about to boom.
10. Bookstore or Library?
Bookstore. I cannot, and I mean cannot stand the cellophane dust jacket covers that every library puts on their hardbacks... It really drives me insane listening to the slight crackle and pop of the over slick translucent surface creaking with every page turn and repositioning of my fingers. I seriously hate that sound.
11. So a few years ago, I see this lady on CNN complaining about Math books being 20 years old as an example of how broken her school system is. What up with that, has math changed somehow?....For clarification, I wish to direct your focus to the "old math book" complaint not the nigh irrefutable argument that whatever school system she was talking about was broken.
To be truthful there is always a bunch of stuff happening on math that is making it new again, however those new things are happening at the edges of math where tensor sets and convex hull reside. Where you have to do a LaPlace transform on a Lagrange function to get the Eigen values associated with the Dirichlet turning point and shit like that. Math is not a stagnant field, and it has never been. That being said, the most recently generated stuff that is being taught in high school is from the 1900's and 1930's at latest. So, other than updating the word problems with more current technologies and diverse names, math texts are not really in need of updating.
12. Like the Books on Tape much?
Not especially, although I have been getting into podcasts as of late.
13. More overblown author: J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown?
Hmmm... I could go either way on this one for different reasons, but I am going to go with Dan Brown. Most of his cache is associated with creating fictional stories that revolve around touchy religious subjects. Illuminatic Papal succession, Gnostic Jesus Marriage, and Freemasonic crap are the marketing engine that drives his very formulaic page-turners. The Davinci Code would not have been nearly as popular (and definitely not a crappy Tom Hanks movie) if detractors didn't detract the background flimsy arguments so much.
14. Best book(s) you have ever read.
Classics that you have to read in High School: Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Genre Creators: Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
Recent: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
15. I can still pick up and read a 100 year old book...in another 100 years would I be able to use a Kindle?
Genre Creators: Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
Recent: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
15. I can still pick up and read a 100 year old book...in another 100 years would I be able to use a Kindle?
Like I said before, there will always be some kind of print media around. It will not be as abundant as before, but it will be there. I am sure that, barring some kind of technological collapse and complete societal failing, that most of our digital media will survive in some way, shape, or form.
16. Do you prefer paperbacks or hardcover?
16. Do you prefer paperbacks or hardcover?
Hardcover
17. If you could get any first edition printing what would it be?
The Bible, and then I would sell it and live off the proceeds. Thank you God!17. If you could get any first edition printing what would it be?
18. Can you take an ebook to a book signing? How would that work?
That is a very good question... I will have to pose this question to an author some day.
19. Is the book always better than the movie?
Nope, not always. There are many movies out there that I have seen where I did not read the book. There are literary purists out there who will cry foul at this, but I would not read the book because of the time investment associated with reading a book, but I have 100 to 200 minutes that I can kill.
20. What are you reading right now?
This very second? The words that I am typing across the screen, but I am sure you are talking about what books I am in the middle of at the moment. I am in the middle of 2 books
Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows for my worklife and Dark Lady's Chosen by Gail Martin for funsies
To recap:
I am reading 2 books and remembering none.... that ain't good
I need to line up another interviewee... any volunteers
Little Man's breathing has been raggedy lately
My sleep has been shoddy lately
Same with my sinuses
They have been incredibly shoddy lately
The sun has finally come back out for a few days
That has been nice
Out of town guests this weekend
Great, now I have to clean the toilets
I hate having to hit the "send and receive" button on my work email
I will be getting business cards soon
And implementing the first project soonish
I need some music/podcasts to listen to here at work
And headphones
Listening to a myriad of conversations right now
Labels: 20 Questions
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