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- “Screensaver” View
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- Page from Stephen King’s Kindle Exclusive, “UR”
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- Some of the Kindle 2’s Buttons
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- The Five Directions are North, South, East, West, and Down
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- Top Profile View, Power Slide Switch and Headphone Jack
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- Shiny, Metallic Surface
Just got my Kindle 2 from Amazon.com today: my first, after not having been at all curious about the first Kindle.
To summarize some of the points of this Kindle:
- About the size of a larger paperback book, but very thin. Comfortable fit in my hand, but maybe not for people with smaller hands.
- Screen is very nice, easy on the eyes, refreshes at an acceptable rate for reading books (but not for anything else). All of my friends try to touch the screen. No, it is not an iPhone – it does not have touchscreen. 8 colors of grey.
- Has a number of buttons, but they feel a little cheap and are hard to press. I’m pretty sure I’ll break one of them.
- The Kindle Whispernet is solid – it’s almost too easy to buy books (the device came preconfigured and directly connected to my Amazon.com credit card).
- Long battery life, but battery is not removable (unlike Kindle 1).
- No expandable memory storage (unlike Kindle 1).
- Thin, but also large. Too much wasted white space, but looks okay overall.
- Can’t flip through the pages like a real book. Actually forces you to read.
- Has a web browser! But pretty bad – web browsers need much faster refresh.
- Text-to-speech is terrible. They should have just left this out. Low volume, robotic quality, very slow.
- Can upload documents to it through e-mail (10 cents each) or for free via included USB cable.
- Can upload PDFs to it after conversion with software such as PocketMobi.
- $359 for the Kindle only. Books are a few dollars cheaper than their normal prices, except for the $3 Stephen King exclusive, UR. Should probably also get a case for it, which is around $30. Definitely not cheap for a book reader.
Altogether, the Kindle is nice for reading, but it’s not one of the multifunction devices that we’ve gotten accustomed to. Get it if you normally carry your paperback novels but want an eletronic alternative that can download books anytime, (just about) anywhere. (People in the Midwest don’t fare so well with coverage – See Coverage Map).
The Kindle 2 is not “cool” and “hip” technology. It draws curiosity, but usually because people are thinking, “what the heck is that giant white thing?” I can upload my class readings onto it, but I’ll more likely return it or gift it.
XKCD:Kindle
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Lamps, Part I
I went through first semester of my senior year without a lamp – my previous one was broken and I’ve long given up on building management’s ability to fulfill my needs. (Missing standing lamp, creaking pipes, wheezing heating, etc.). Instead, I’ve been either using my computer – as both a light source as well as a word processor.
The lack of a lamp finally bothered me enough that I began looking for one. Katherine solved this problem by getting me a lamp, image below:
Verilux Modern Deluxe Full Spectrum Lamp, Brushed Steel
I now have the Verilux Modern Deluxe Full Spectrum Lamp in Brushed Steel. Not only is it an attractive, well constructed lamp, but it also provides a full range of visible light that supposedly enhances your wakefulness and ability to see. I was never too much of a lamp snob, but this one works great.
My main question, though, is “why are lamps so expensive?” A lamp is a rather simple piece of technology – a power source connected to a light with a switch. I remember my dad showing me how to make simple electric circuits, and they were as a capable as a lamp, albeit with a smaller power supply and light source. There are even how-to guides for homemade lamps, such as: HowStuffWorks Lamp Guide.
Those people familiar with the Boston area have probably seen the upscale lamp store Neena’s – their brightly lit stores are filled with all shapes and sizes of lamps, generally in the triple-digit dollar range but sometimes in the thousands. An example is the Bolo Table Lamp, shown below.
BOLO table, $590 $470 (on sale)
The most expensive lamp ever sold was the Tiffany Lotus Lamp, which fetched $2.8 million.
Tiffany Lotus Lamp, $2,807,500
It’s not that I don’t understand why the prices are so high – lamps are a functional as well as aesthetic piece of furniture art, and for the same reason that handbags and shoes fetch thousands of dollars, lamps cost as much or more. They probably last longer and stay fashionable for longer than clothing and accessories as well. But as a student who just needs a table lamp for light…geez.
Best of all, however, is the rip-off Tiffany Lotus Lamp, available at your local Sam’s Club for under $130:
Sam's Club Tiffany Style Lotus Lamp, $127.72