-
07 May 2008
Wed, 07 May 2008 15:53:15 GMTLittle Brother
New novel from Cory Doctorow (link). Definitely enjoyable, but there’s something about his novels that seems funny: it’s like reading blogs except it’s a long, coherent text. I do like this book, don’t get me wrong, but it bothers me how campy it is, sort of like a maelstrom of all the big ideas to have passed through the collective attention of blog-land. It’s just weird, makes me roll my eyes a lot. Might also have to do that this book is classed as young adult, but I don’t think so: put a 23 year old in place of a 17 year old as the main character and I don’t think that would change the book that much.
I read it all through my web browser. I’ve taken to reading books on the laptop lately. It’s awkward to hold, and can be less comfortable than curling up with a book, but the sheer availability of books off the internet is very nice. You can crank up the text size (when reading lots I like the text at 20pts or so, which I hope doesn’t mean I’m going blind) and scroll through.
You just leave the browser window open when not reading, at the proper spot. cmd-tab works great for finding where you just were if you lose your place, just pull two or three words out of your short term memory and in all likelihood they’ll take you back to the exact spot. Compare that with your page slipping away and having to slowly go through and try to find where your thumb ought to go.
I’ve always felt I read slowly, but trying to read faster has never worked for me. I like to take my time really. I’ve had Rescue Time running for about a week now (more on the disturbing amount of time I spend on my computer if I ever get the guts to confront that topic), and it says I’ve spent 6 hours on craphound.com. My calculations are that the book (excluding pre– and post–ambles) is 110,062 words, so that by 6 by 60 (hours and minute) is 305 wpm.
Wikipedia says this is on the high side of average, so I can’t be that slow, but also that people who train their speed–reading technique can get up to 800. But training my reading ability for speed seems questionable—reading is for fun, why mess with it and turn it into some kind of optimized algorithm? I wouldn’t want to turn it into something not fun for the ability to do lots more of it.
I actually read all but the first few chapters of the book yesterday in a conscious effort at productive procrastination (I need to be doing schoolwork, semester ends next week and I’m not ahead by any means). But here I am writing this silly post and still not doing my stuff. Ouch.
-
27 August 2005
Sat, 27 Aug 2005 11:07:00 GMTCryptonomicon
Neal Stephenson
I’m really starting to love Neal Stephenson. Cryptonomicon is definitely as good as Snow Crash, which I loved also. It’s the longest book I’ve read in awhile, at 900 some pages, but I also read it faster then anything else – I started it monday night and was done by thursday morning.
-
01 August 2005
Mon, 01 Aug 2005 22:21:00 GMTSnow Crash
Neal Stephenson
Sweet novel by Neal Stephenson. Set in the near future, the US has fallen into a collection of corporations controlling everything from Suburbia and Religion to Pizza Delivery. The Metaverse becomes the global vessel for person to person interaction, and Hiro, the main character knows his shit about the metaverse. But when Da5id, Hiro’s close friend and co-conspirating hacker is infected with a deadly virus after watching a virtual video, Hiro knows something big is happening.
-
Also somewhat recently
