Observations on the Barnes and Noble Nook

I have more than a dozen books and several dozen technical PDF books on my Nook at this time. I’ve been using the product for about a month.

If you are considering buying a Nook here are some things to think about:

• Barnes and Noble isn’t doing a good job making store employees into Nook evangelists. At my local store in Chattanooga they could care less about Nooks or Nook accessories.
• Barnes and Noble keeps promising different dates for Nook and Nook items to be carried in stores. I’ve been waiting to look at and touch covers for my Nook for 60 days. This is frustrating.
• Nook software continues to improve. The last update took me to version 1.20. Pages turn more “naturally” now and the Nook itself powers up and down a bit quicker.
• Sometimes while holding the Nook, pages change by themselves or the color navigation screen lights up and kicks me out of my book. This is due to oversensitivity of the controls.

Buying books is a fairly simple process but there are not enough technical books available yet for the Nook. Additionally, I’m used to Amazon’s web site telling me about the kind of books I want to buy. Barnes and Noble’s site keeps pushing garbage I don’t want to read. It is insulting to be directed towards Twilight novels when I am absolutely not and never will be a part of the demographic that wants to read about glittery morally upright vampires who enjoy dating humans and attending high school prom even though they are hundreds of years old.

The only constant in the universe is change

When I was about 14, I had an earth sciences teacher whose name, I believe, was Mr. Privett. I liked Mr. Privett because he took pains to keep the class engaged and because I am, in my heart, a complete nerd. Mr. Privett was a nerd too. He loved science and he cared about his students and their welfare. Near the end of our class year he put the class in a big chair circle and made us go around the room and talk like we were in an AA meeting. One of the things we were supposed to talk about was our positive qualities. I said “adaptability” and to this day, I still believe in the answer I gave more than two decades ago.

Aging is an unnecessary disease process and I will fight it as hard as I am able. For many people, at least from my perspective, part of giving up on life and accepting the inevitability of death is a slow process whereby one stops accepting and embracing new technologies. This rejection of the new and insistence on resisting the inevitable change that is part of being human is usually counterproductive. I have never felt inclined to say anything remotely approaching “that’s how we’ve always done it” when arguing for any given process, policy or procedure. In my experience such an argument almost always comes out of the mouth of a self-serving idiot who wants to force me to follow his or her way of doing things primarily due to intellectual laziness.

Technology is a stronger social force than “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Those who refuse to see that become obsolescent despite their best efforts. They grow old and are ignored, marginalized and pushed further and further from the center of things.

And that is why I asked for a Nook for Christmas. I love books but I am also of the mind that they are a dying technology. Paper is on its way out, at least as far as the technorati are concerned. Knowledge will no longer live between hardbound covers. No, it now spins on hard drive platters and flits across radio waves to land on your NAND. I must embrace the idea that my beloved paper tomes with their lovely smell and their wonderful weight will no longer be the way I collect and organize information.

I’ve been absorbing data, knowledge and information from screens since about 1977 or so but I’ve never read a book on a screen until recently. I started with an author I knew would be easily digestible, Stephen King. His new novel, Under the Dome, served as a good introduction to the world of E Ink. Having now digested 828 pages of delicious and often chilling pulp, I can report that I found the experience of reading a novel using the Nook quite pleasurable. With a few caveats, of course. I’ve never had to recharge a book before. I’ve never accidentally turned a page before and become confused about how to go backwards or forwards to get back to where I used to be. Nook and Kindle are infant technologies but they are developed enough that I will be moving my library from paper to electrons and reporting on the pros and cons of doing so.

Meanwhile, go buy Under the Dome. It’s well worth a few lazy hours in your favorite recliner. Buy a Nook or Kindle while you’re at it because the only constant in the universe is change. E-books are here to stay, and they are Mr. Privett approved.

do good design by David B. Berman

Coca-cola is one of the unhealthiest most overhyped products on the planet. I get that. But why is author David Berman complaining about the prevalence and location of Coke ads he saw on his overseas trips? Yes, Alfred Nobel invented dynamite and Albert Einstein understood the potential of the atomic bomb. Who is the author to posit that they probably both died with heavy hearts as a result? Do Good Design is full of these sort of asides and assumptions that everyone in the world wants to get rid of consumerism and sexually suggestive ads because that is the only correct moral path. Maybe the author is on to something but presentation is everything and I was not impressed.

An example. “Tragically, the Nazi party and its use of the swastika represents perhaps the most effective branding campaign of the 20th century. Hitler’s part re-purposed this famous symbol. The swastika has been used for thousands of years by various cultures. Sadly, none of them chose to trademark it.”

Do what now? Is the author really suggesting that Hindus should somehow have laid claim to the symbol and then risen up against Hitler’s subsequent use of it? How does this apply to morally upright design in the 21st century? To say that I don’t get it would be an understatement.

The only part of the book that actually tells you how to “do good” is the final chapter – the “do good” pledge.

Here are the steps as translated into English by the reviewer:

1) When you spread memes, make sure they are morally upright.
2) Make sure you yourself live in a morally upright way.
3) Tithe. At least ten percent of your lifeblood should be put back into making the world a better place.

Nothing to see here people. Move along. This book might be of interest to moral crusaders who also happen to be graphic artists, marketing mavens or otherwise employed in the advertising industry but probably won’t pique anyone else’s interest.

Cauldron by Jack McDevitt

I love tales of space exploration. I grew up dreaming about exploring the stars. It was natural to me to pick up Cauldron when I read the back cover. I turned the pages and read the entire novel but I wasn’t really pulled along by author force of will. Jack McDevitt made me work at it, and that isn’t a formula for success. Characters were boring and I never really felt like I got to know anyone much less like them. There were no “heros” in Cauldron. Not the kind I could relate to in any case. Some of the alien societies were initially interesting and then turned out to be really pointless. I thought we were going somewhere that turned out to be a dead end several times during the novel.

The best ideas in the book are only hinted at while the most boring details (a space pilot turned real estate agent, fund raising events) are explored in great detail to the detriment of the reader’s enjoyment. I wanted to like Cauldron but in the end it was a letdown. I wouldn’t recommend purchasing it to anyone but the most dedicated Jack McDevitt fans. One other note: this is the third in a trilogy. Amazon.com reviews indicate the other two novels in the series are much better but I haven’t read them yet (the book doesn’t make very clear that it is the end of a trilogy on the cover).

America’s Last Days by Douglas McKinnon

REVIEWER’S NOTE: This review contains reveals plot twists, although I doubt that will take away any reader’s enjoyment of the novel.

America’s Last Days has a highly interesting premise that I find wholly plausible. In times of increasingly bitter partisanship in Washington, the only thing that keeps us from being embroiled in a second civil war is the fact that we’re soft. If the power ever does go out, all bets are off. That’s what kept me engrossed in this book. It really could happen. All it would take is a dedicated core group of motivated, intelligent insiders.

Author Douglas MacKinnon loses points for uninspiring character development and dialog. His characters feel like they might be based on real people, but they speak in ways I cannot imagine real people speaking.

Lots of people will hate America’s Last Days or love it based on their own political viewpoints. That makes it likely that more than half of this book’s reviews will be highly biased and based not on readability but on personal enjoyment. There is certainly nothing wrong with that.

Readers who classify themselves as progressives or left leaning will probably not feel good about this novel. Readers who classify themselves as classical liberals or right leaning or libertarian will probably enjoy the book immensely.

One of the most contentious events in the novel will be the nuclear detonation near the end. Could such an event happen? Absolutely. In fact, I think such an event is quite likely in the next 50 years. Whether the device will be triggered by homegrown groups is not certain, but there are plenty of separatist movements inside this country, and there always have been homegrown separatists hiding among us. None of them has been as competent as the 1776 Command or the country would already have split asunder.

There are many useful historical tidbits scattered throughout the book that you may not have picked up in school. These relate primarily to the Civil War.

I can heartily recommend America’s Last Days, both as an entertaining read, and a thought provoking statement about one potential future the United States is facing. An apropos novel about uncertain times written in uncertain times.