I’m very frustrated with Microsoft Reader. I wanted to start reading The Subtle Knife, book two of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy, today. My little Pocket PC would not cooperate. First, MS Reader would just give me errors. Uninstalling, reinstalling, reactivating — nothing worked. Eventually, the device wound up getting stuck in such a way that I could not reset it, no way, no how. I’ve got it going again, after flipping the “last-ditch” switch that wipes the memory completely, restoring it to factory defaults. I’ve got it working again, but really I shouldn’t have to spend more than an hour just trying to get to the point where I can read a book. Back to paper, dang it.
Category: books
Dark Materials
This article in the Times today got me kind of interested in Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy. Here’s an interview with him at Powells.com that’s pretty interesting.
good books
LoTR
The Very Secret Diaries of various Lord of the Rings characters. Very funny.
random stuff
Random stuff:
Some interesting comic-book related blogging can be found here.
The Old Issue, by Rudyard Kipling.
My friend Gene’s Absolut RPI shirt.
The Modern Word
I just discovered an interesting book site, The Modern Word, while looking for information about Jorge Luis Borges. Some great Borges quotes there:
“There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.”
“The history of the universe…is the handwriting produced by a minor god in order to communicate with a Demon.”
“To die for a religion is easier than to live it absolutely.”
Just great, great, stuff.
Dad
I’ve been trying to do what I can to help my Dad, who has very poor vision, get started with the new computer he got at Christmas. For a while, I’ve had the idea that I should find him a couple of good large-print computer books. I went looking today, but it turns out that apparently no one has ever printed a computer book in large print. At least, that’s the way it seems, doing a search on “large print computer” or “large print Windows” on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The only thing I’ve found is a large print computer dictionary, which might be helpful, but not much.
William Gibson
Stumbled across William Gibson’s web site tonight. Pretty cool. And he’s got a new book coming out! I remember reading, and loving, Neuromancer when it first came out. I’ve read most of his other books, and they’re all pretty nice, too, especially The Difference Engine. The front page of the site looks a little like it was designed by Dave McKean.