The Kindle Fire, Amazon’s heavily promoted tablet, is less than a blazing success with many of its early users. The most disgruntled are packing the device up and firing it back to the retailer.
A few of their many complaints: there is no external volume control. The off switch is easy to hit by accident. Web pages take a long time to load. There is no privacy on the device; a spouse or child who picks it up will instantly know everything you have been doing. The touch screen is frequently hesitant and sometimes downright balky.
All the individual grievances — recorded on Amazon’s own Web site — received a measure of confirmation last week when Jakob Nielsen, a usability expert, denounced the Fire, saying it offered “a disappointingly poor” experience. For users whose fingers are not as slender as toothpicks, he warned, the screen could be particularly frustrating to manipulate.
…All this would be enough to send some products directly to the graveyard where the Apple Newton, the Edsel, New Coke and McDonald’s Arch Deluxe languish. But as a range of retailers and tech firms could tell you, it would be foolish to underestimate Amazon.
The answer, as far as I’m concerned, to the question in the title is the same as in the Joan Jett song I borrowed it from: “Yeah! Oh yeah! Oh yeah!”
Before I begin, like I said before, I already know all the reasons I shouldn’t have slurped down another cup of Amazon’s Kool-Aid. And my answer is the same as it was when I was debating whether to buy a Kindle Fire or wait for the iPad 3 to buy my first tablet device.
And on, and on. Substitute any other company for Amazon or Apple, any company whose products I use or come into contact with in the course of a day, and all of the above could still be said. Sometimes it’s hard to avoid connection with any of the above transgressions. Sometimes it’s not even a choice. When I ride the bus, do I know where the fuel comes from? BP? Exxon? Likewise, with the goods I purchase that have been hauled from one place to another. When I buy clothes for myself or my kids, can I always be certain of the conditions in which they were created? Can I avoid be “tainted” by goods and services through association, voluntary or otherwise? Well, maybe, but my guess is it would become a full time job, and I’ve already got one of those. The best I can do is the best I can to change the above in other aspects of my life. My hands will never be “clean.” Best I can do is wash them regularly.
As for the rest, whether or not to drink the Kool-Aid depends on whether I like the flavor. I know that the products I’m buying come with some limitations, and by the time I reach the point of purchase, I’ve already decided whether I can live with the limitations, because they outweigh the features I do want. The bottom line for me when it comes to the Kindle Fire is simple: Does it do what I need it to do? And maybe a little bit more?
Well, I ended up getting the Kindle Touch, sans 3G.
As someone who watched bothmovies about the West Memphis Three several times, and read the book about the case, this is fantastic news.
Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin, collectively known as the West Memphis Three, have been in prison since 1993 for the murders of 8-year-old boys Christopher Byers, Steve Branch and James Michael Moore. On August 19, 2011, they have been freed. A live stream of the WM3 public hearing in Jonesboro, AK is below.
The West Memphis Three’s sentences have been converted to 18 years with credit for time served, as well as 10 years SIS (suspended imposition of sentence), which is like parole without the restrictions. The WM3 just have to stay out of legal trouble for the next ten years to avoid returning to prison.
As you read this, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley, Jr. and Jason Baldwin are being freed. The convictions of the West Memphis Three were not overturned. Instead, they agreed to what is called an Alford plea.
I walked in the door minutes ago, looked over the hubby’s shoulder, saw the headline and was stunned. It’s probably one of the best endings to this chapter of a long story that almost certainly isn’t over yet.
I’ve written before about how much I’ve enjoyed my Kindle 3 since I got it, and that was only after one week of using it. I’ve always carried reading material with me, and the Kindle 3 has made it a lot easier to carry all I reading material I want. And I’ve been using Instapaper’s Kindle feature to grab articles online for reading during my commute home. Who knew it would help me keep up with my blog reading and news reading?
What more could I as for? Well, as I said in my earlier post on the Kindle, there were a couple of things I wanted to ask for. And they were important enough to keep me from buying a Kindle for a while, until the combination of the price and capability of reading the Mobipocket were enough to get me over any reservations I had before.
Now, it looks like Amazon is addressing two of my earlier concerns.
Yet, it took of like wildfire across the web. And that’s what’s really interesting about it. Not that someone took the time to create and publish it, but that it was so readily believed by so many people, and what that says about conservatism.
A closer read suggests that what’s being called a hoax, is actually a parody. And a damn good one at that. I’m not saying that conservatives have become a parody of themselves, when a parody it taken for fact and rocketed around world before anyone realized what it was, that says a lot in and of itself.
I mean, "John Boehner" "said" some pretty incredible things in that "interview."
Congressman John Boehner revealed his thoughts on the US unprecedented economic crisis in an interview with Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone. Taibbi was granted access to Boehner while preparing to cover the 2 year anniversarry of the angry town halls. Boehner stuck to Republican party talking points until Taibbi during a coffee break asked Boehner about today’s young people. Boehner, apparently unaware he was still on record unleashed a speech straight out of Atlas Shrugged. What follow are the excerpts distributed by Rolling Stone
Boehner: "Can’t pay your student loan? Face it your parents were lazy and you couldn’t afford college. The world needs ditch diggers and you were born into a family of them. Can’t pay your mortgage? Your house was too expensive and you couldn’t afford it. Your taxes going up too much? That’s what you get for electing a democrat president. Never had a job after you got a degree? You learned nothing in school and you’re lazy. I didn’t get to be a congressman by watching jersey shore or playing xbox. You think there’s no jobs for you?There used to be. There was when I was your age. You don’t have fee time because you have to work all days of the week for 16 hours a day and you don’t get paid hourly? Thank the unions. They made decent jobs so out of price range of the average American company that they can’t hire anymore people and the works’ gotta get done. These unions… I tell you they won’t be happy till no one in America has a job. And health care? Don’t get me started on health care- doctors study their entire lives and they barely make enough to live and yet Obama, who had his entire life handed to him on a silver plate wants to cut their pay. You know that’s gonna do? Increase costs- the average persons going to have to work even harder just to see a doctor. "
Not that John Boehner actually advocated 16 hour workdays, or longed for the "good old days" before the 8-hour workday. (And Boehner couldn’t have been yearning for the America he grew up in, when union membership was 30%, the top marginal tax rate for the wealthy was 90%, the federal government undertook a huge public works project called the interstate highway system, and the Republican president was a staunch supporter of Social Security, unemployment benefits, and labor laws. Not when his party is so close to snuffing it out.)
The legislation is sponsored by Sen. Debra Plowman, R-Hampden, and backed by Gov. Paul LePage. Both believe high school-age students should be allowed to work longer hours and more often during the school year.
Opponents said the proposal would dial back child-labor protections enacted in 1991 to prevent employers from pressuring minors into working longer hours. They also worried the proposal would shift emphasis from education and school-sponsored, extra-curricular activities.
Currently, 16- and 17-year-olds can work a maximum of 20 hours per week when school is in session. On school days, students can work a maximum of four hours a day and no later than 10 p.m.
Plowman’s bill would increase the weekly limit by 12 hours, from 20 to 32 hours. It would also allow minors to work six-hour days, up until 11 p.m.
"We have no other restrictions on any other things they do, They can play sports 32 hours-a-week. They can watch TV 32 hours-a-week. They can skateboard 32 hours-a-week," says Republican state Sen. Debra Plowman. Plowman sees no good reason why teenagers shouldn’t be able to work thirty-two hours-a-week too.
Plowman is sponsoring a bill that would let them do just that. It would also allow teens to work six hours in a given day, instead of four, and permit them to stay on the job an hour later in the evening—to 11:00 on school nights and midnight on weekends.
"By making it permissive, then the kids who do need to save for college, who do need to have more income, for whatever reason, can learn how to balance earlier than most kids do the need to work and the need to get good grades," she says.
When little Aiden toddled up our daughter Johanna and asked to play with her Elmo ball, he was, admittedly, very sweet and polite. I think his exact words were, "Have a ball, peas [sic]?" And I’m sure you were very proud of him for using his manners.
To be sure, I was equally proud when Johanna yelled, "No! Looter!" right in his looter face, and then only marginally less proud when she sort of shoved him.
The thing is, in this family we take the philosophies of Ayn Rand seriously. We conspicuously reward ourselves for our own hard work, we never give to charity, and we only pay our taxes very, very begrudgingly.
Since the day Johanna was born, we’ve worked to indoctrinate her into the truth of Objectivism. Every night we read to her from the illustrated, unabridged edition of Atlas Shrugged—glossing over all the hardcore sex parts, mind you, but dwelling pretty thoroughly on the stuff about being proud of what you’ve earned and not letting James Taggart-types bring you down. For a long time we were convinced that our efforts to free her mind were for naught, but recently, as we’ve started socializing her a little bit, we’ve been delighted to find that she is completely antipathetic to the concept of sharing. As parents, we couldn’t have asked for a better daughter.
That’s why, when Johanna then began berating your son, accusing him of trying to coerce from her a moral sanction of his theft of the fruit of her labor, in as many words, I kind of egged her on. Even when Aiden started crying.
I watched the Oscars last night, for what has to be at least the 30th time, because I’ve watched them every year since I was old enough to see movies and care about them. That would have been 1981. If I go back far enough, I can probably just remember the 12 year old, or nearly-12-year-old boy sitting in a darkened family room in Augusta, GA, watching as much as I could before it was time for me to go to bed.
Honestly, I don’t remember much about that 1981 Oscars broadcast. I don’t remember the speeches. I didn’t remember who Oscars won in 1981, until I looked it up. But I remember that 12-year-old boy, and more than that — much more, really — I remember his dreams.
I can’t remember why I suggested to Parker that he and I read the the Harry Potter books together. I’m sure it was in part because I wanted to continue to encourage in him a love of reading. That’s why Parker and I read together every night that it’s my turn with him at bedtime.
Being an avid reader myself, it’s something I want for both my sons — not just to be well-read, but to develop a love of reading for reading’s sake. In my life, I’ve found it makes learning a lot easier, but makes the world a bigger and more fascinating place, by extending learning throughout life.
Hell, the years I’ve spent since college could be considered a very long independent study program, based on what I’ve read. (Add what I’ve written about what I’ve read, and I’m convinced I could almost qualify for some kind of advanced degree.)
But that’s not the reason I recommended the Harry Potter books.
As you can tell from the widget in this post, I’m now 10,153 words into the mystery novel I decided to work on this time around. I rounded that corner last night, and managed to meet yesterday’s goal of 10,002 words. Of course, every day there’s a new goal. I’ve got to write at least 1,667 words a day to meet the goal of producing a manuscript of at least 50,000 words by the end of the month. (more…)
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
To build without tearing down. I like that idea. That is, I still like that idea.
Well, I did it. After waiting about four years, and musing about it earlier this month, in the middle of last week I ordered a Kindle 3. I opted for the Wi-Fi, because I didn’t (and still don’t) feel the need for a 3g device.
It arrived a week ago, Friday, and I’ve been enjoying it since then. Though it’s barely been more than a week, I don’t think it’s too early for me to say I’m completely happy with my purchase. And after a recent trip to Borders, I was even more certain that I made the right decision.
In keeping with the western-themed title of Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders, allow me to set the scene: It’s well past high noon, and as the dust settles the economy lies bleeding. Looks like it’s all over but the dyin’ and the buryin’. But wait! Here come the "young guns" galloping into the scene. But have they come to save the day, or finish the job.
That depends on what they’re packin’, and it ain’t a first aid kit. It looks like their same old ammo used the first time around.
A few things become clear upon picking up Young Guns: A New Generation of Conservative Leaders, the new book by Republican House members Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy. First, "young" is apparently a relative term in the GOP. Second, a better title might have been, Half-Cocked: Old Ideas From a "New" Generation of Conservative Leaders. And finally, half-cocked though they may be, these "young" guns are not shooting blanks. Their "ammunition" is as old as they are but still quite deadly. And we have the economy to prove it.
Maybe good things do come to those who wait. At least I hope so, because I’ve been waiting a while now. Back in April 2006, I was coveting the Sony Reader. A little over a year later, Amazon introduced the Kindle, and again I started craving that one.
It’s been four years since I started craving an e-book reader. In the interim, since then there’s been a deluge of options (with even more to come), each of which caused me to put off buying one until (a) I could make up my mind, (b) something more affordable came on the market, and (c) something with more of the features I wanted became available.
Well, I think I’m closer to making up my mind, now that a new version of an old reader seems to meet my other criteria.
Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as “A People’s History of the United States,” inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling. He was 87.
His daughter, Myla Kabat-Zinn of Lexington, said he suffered a heart attack.
“He’s made an amazing contribution to American intellectual and moral culture,” Noam Chomsky, the left-wing activist and MIT professor, said tonight. “He’s changed the conscience of America in a highly constructive way. I really can’t think of anyone I can compare him to in this respect.”
Chomsky added that Dr. Zinn’s writings “simply changed perspective and understanding for a whole generation. He opened up approaches to history that were novel and highly significant. Both by his actions, and his writings for 50 years, he played a powerful role in helping and in many ways inspiring the Civil rights movement and the anti-war movement.”
For Dr. Zinn, activism was a natural extension of the revisionist brand of history he taught. “A People’s History of the United States” (1980), his best-known book, had for its heroes not the Founding Fathers — many of them slaveholders and deeply attached to the status quo, as Dr. Zinn was quick to point out — but rather the farmers of Shays’ Rebellion and union organizers of the 1930s.
I spent yesterday at home with the boys. (We all had the day off, but the hubby had to work.) It was a busy day, but I took the time to snap this picture of Parker reading to Dylan, partly because it was just such a cute picture, and partly because it made me hopeful that I’m succeeding at something I wanted to accomplish as a parent.
Mike Elk couldn’t have been more right in his thinking about what Martin Luther King, Jr. would have thought of the Teabaggers, Birthers, etc. He would have seen that those faces that at first glance seem twisted in anger are really twisted in pain. He would recognize those faces as well as the source of the fear and anger distorting them.
It’s not about adopting their politics, compromising our own, or even tolerating their tactics. It’s about reclaiming “We” — The same “We” that Dr. King and civil rights workers sang about, and that I remember singing about myself in church, on the occasions when we sang “We Shall Overcome.”
One of the most disturbing things abut Lagouranis’ book is that over and over again he expresses concern — and makes a convincing case — that many of the people picked up and exposed to our "enhanced interrogation techniques were merely petty criminals at best, or at worst completely innocent of any crime or violence.
The more I hear or read about Michelle Obama, the more I like her. The latest news about poetry night at the White House, and her reasons for holding it, are just one more reason.
First lady Michelle Obama says the White House is a place where people should feel free to speak their minds. To that end, she and President Obama welcomed actors, poets and writers to the East Room on Tuesday.
The Obamas hosted a night of poetry reading and the spoken word featuring James Earl Jones, Esperanza Spalding and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The night also included musical interludes, modern poetry and excerpts from Shakespeare.
Mrs. Obama says the administration wants to make the White House available to everyone. She also wants performers to share their experiences.
The White House is a place where people should feel free to speak their minds? I don’t know if Mrs. Obama had this particular story in mind, but somewhere Eartha Kitt — who spoke her mind to another First Lady, regarding the Vietnam War, and suffered CIA surveillance and the Johnson administration’s attempt to destroy her career as a result — is smiling.
OK. I plead guilty to this When I got my iPhone 4, I gave Parker my old iPhone 3G (with parental controls in place, phone service deactivated, everything restored to factory settings, history wiped clean, and internet access and the App Store on lockdown) to play games on, etc. But does that make me a “Scrooge”? Puh-leeze. An eight-year-old needs the latest iPhone?
It’s happening again. I’m getting that “I’ve got a book in me, if I can make time to write it,” feeling. Of course, that “if” is the big, and the deciding, factor.
It’s not that I don’t trust the guy, and maybe the whole Weinergate thing has me a little gun shy, but am I the only who thinks Obama tweeting for himself may not be the best idea?
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