In Which I Review My Barnes & Noble Nook

Sadly, I'm doing this review for free. If Barnes & Noble want to send me a designer cover for my nook, I will accept it. Until then, this is how I think of my nook:





As I am only an honorary geek, I'm not going into the specs. I don't like those pesky details. However, I love pretty much everything about this ereader. I love the size and weight, for starters. I have actually damaged my neck joints in the past from lugging around Tom Clancy paperbacks. Cross my heart. (This is why our sensible ancestors published larger books in multiple volumes. I have an Everyman edition of The Three Musketeers from c.1908, and the two slim hardbacks are delightful. Unlike the special editions the thickness and weight of cinder blocks that Barnes & Noble publishes.*)

The design of the nook is not merely easy to use, it's addictive. It's fun to turn the pages with the buttons on the sides, and it's fun to add bookmarks and then go back to them. And yes, I have finished reading several whole books on mine. I don't just punch shiny buttons, honestly.

Now I am not really any booksellers target demographic because I prefer dead authors to living ones. (Except Adrian Plass. And Mel Gilden.) So most books that I want to own are either public domain or will be in the next few years. This works great for an ereader- I can download free electronic stacks of books that would smother me in the non-electronic world. So, for me, the selection available is almost perfect. If I just wanted to keep up with the latest bestsellers, I'd be paying less than for physical books, but I'd still be paying out.




One thing I'll have to report on later is the interaction of the nook with the Barnes & Noble website. See, you have to get access to wifi to register the nook at the B &N site, only after which you can download free screen savers and such. I live in Possum Crossing, so there are very few wifi sites in my neighborhood. But I am eager to get rid of the default screen saver, consisting of those creepy writer pictures that Barnes & Noble uses on its shopping bags and to decorate the cafes.

Husband: That looks like Erma Bombeck on your nook. Except... it's a guy. An old guy who looks like Erma Bombeck.

Me: That's Kurt Vonnegut.

So no real drawbacks, and unlimited bookworm bliss is about how I'd sum up.

*Now Barnes & Noble won't want to send me any freebies. Now you know how committed I am to bringing my readers the unvarnished truth.

Eagle Eyes

I've recently discovered the BBC Program Churches: How to Read Them. In one part, the host, Richard Taylor, mentions that there is a lot of cryptic animal sculpture and art in medieval churches that can be better understood with a trip to medieval 'bestiaries'. These are medieval books about animals, filled with allegorical stories, fables and myths about animals to help teach us important lessons.

Fortunately for me, a quick search turned up The Medieval Bestiary, a valuable and extensive online resource filled with these stories, image galleries, and even links to original manuscripts.

These bestiaries naturally bring to my mind these Character Sketches, published by the IBLP; neither is very concerned with actual science, but as animal-based life lessons, have some value.

The artwork is likewise entertaining, though apparently, medieval artists didn't always have National Geographic photos of exotic creatures to work from, so their interpretations of animals are wonderfully bonkers.

To my mind, these stories are wonderful, and can still be useful tools for education, but while doing so, it's incredibly important to point out that these stories are almost entirely fictional, and should encourage further research, into both actual science, and ancient history.

I Bet You All Are Wondering, Who Is This Young Unknown...

Now that sufficient time has elapsed since the announcement of a new contributor, and anticipation has reached it's highest pitch, I feel it is time to emerge from the shadows and introduce myself. Hi. I am "Portia", and I will be posting here from time to time, as other factors allow- which means so much time will elapse between my posts that you will forget my very existence. Then you will be blindsided by huge, dense posts that will cause your eyes to glaze over.

Stay tuned for Jane Austen, a nook review, and stuff about robots.

Ford Shrugged

Here is a great piece on some of the different metaphysical assumptions made by varying camps of libertarians. This explains somewhat why, given that their language appears common, the ideas contained therein are not.

Enjoy.

Ignore this bit, it's introspective

I can never tell which bloggo to post on, this one isn't supposed to be a comedy one, but I guess I can't help disguising my bile as humor.

Scattershot Justice

I was pondering whilst driving earlier today, and began considering the practice of 'shotgun' justice, in which some poor bastard is assaulted with numerous charges, ranging from 'misdemeanor looking at a policeman' to 'felony possession of a deadly weapon with intent to sell it to a guy who might use it in the commission of a federal crime in Zimbabwe' in an effort to make sure that something, anything, might stick.It's not difficult to see the attractiveness of this stratagem, because we know evil-doers are slippery little fish and we hate them*, but the truth is, this is an incredibly vindictive, hateful, and despicable practice**.

Let me elaborate.

If you place a sniveling, home-burning, little rapist murderer into a school-bus full of 4th graders***, and given a choice of weapons with which to dispatch the blighter, what sort of weapon would you choose?

If you chose a shotgun, then you are either incredibly stupid, or a horribly insensitive clod, because you just shot a handful of kids in the face in your effort to eviscerate the aforementioned sinner.

The Magic School Bus of Death

What's my point, you ask, slightly bewildered? I'll tell you, after I take another swig from this bottle.

Ahhh.

Ok, so my point is, in the words of Blackstone: "Better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer,".

The truth of this statement is, of course, debatable, but the reasonableness is unassailable. If a terrorist took refuge in a hospital, no reasonable man would drop a tactical nuke on the roof.

Harry Blackstone

There are plenty of reasons to ignore this, (notably in war)**** but in all honesty, it takes a remarkably insensitive person to damn the innocent in an effort to crush the guilty.

With that said, the main problem with scattershot justice is one of hitting innocent bystanders with stray pellets. The other problem, is that vindictive police or prosecutors are free to use stray pellets on a whim to pursue personal vendettas.

Just one example of our misguided efforts to legislate ourselves into oblivion would be drunk driving, as reckless driving and killing people is presumably already illegal.***** Drunk drivers are a problem, no doubt, but standard laws are already sufficient in this regard.

Drunk driving laws serve several purposes:

1. Raises awareness that it's bad (little more than a TV commercial)

2. Severely punishes people for relatively minor infractions.

3. Tacks on another penalty on top of an already existing one.

4. Puts innocent people in jail.

5. Generates publicity for Billy Joel.

Enough to get raped in prison

Laws which prohibit open containers of alcohol in vehicles are even worse.

I'm not trying to defend drunken slobs, certainly not the worthless scum who ran over your baby a year ago, but simply making new crimes for which to punish him, is simply unreasonable.

This concept applies to Al Capone as well, that famous example of legal ingenuity also becomes an example of a horrible legal environment in which any persnickety bugger with a badge or persistent DA can put anyone in jail at any moment no matter what.

I agree wholeheartedly that some offenses are particularly awful, and the desire to 'get that guy' can be overwhelming. But poor Justice should never be kicked to the curb and bloodied just because someone is really hurt or angry; thanks to our penchant to over-legislate, our nightmarish legal landscape is fast becoming impossible to navigate, we are all criminals, and the government is free to prosecute the everliving dookie out of any citizen it (dis)likes.

~~

If you found this rant interesting, inflammatory, defamatory, derogatory, negatory, or own the rights to any images (which I stole), jokes, footnotes, etc. contained in this post (which I probably stole), then I guess you can fill out the proper form and send it to one of our committees dedicated to helping me evade capture by the Federal Marshals hot on my trail.

Also, I'm not a lawyer, this post is unlikely to help you in any sort of court case, unless it's directed against me.

~~

* Boy, do we hate them!

** By otherwise nice people.

*** Not a good idea, but I saw it in a movie once.

**** Or video games.

***** In most states.

Yeaarr

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Visualizing infinity