The update

[roadrunnertwice]

Electromagnetic Pulse

I spent Saturday in a room with a hanging model of Deep Space 9 listening to nerds talk about Blue Öyster Cult, Eva Tanguay, and disco. It was completely awesome.

Anyway, I learned about the EMP Pop Conference two years ago and have been wanting to attend ever since. This year, I was finally in town and at loose ends, so I bussed up to Seattle for one of the (what, four?) days it was running.

A good time was had, and it reminded me of how much I used to enjoy being a scholar. I think that if I ever become one again, I will be a great deal better at it than I was.

Grains

I've decided to give up wheat for a while -- maybe a week or three -- to see if it has any unexpected effects on the old meat machine. (I have a few suspicions, so it's time to gather some data.) And wow that's a lot of stuff I can't eat. I do not envy the gluten-intolerant.

Weaker

So the other day at work, Meg put The Weakerthans on the stereo, and she mentioned that John K. Samson used to play bass and sing in Propagandhi. And I was like, WHAT? But no, really. You'd think that racking up about 50 playthroughs of "Gifts" and 45 of "Plea From a Cat Named Virtue" (according to iTunes) would be enough to clue me in before now, but apparently not.

The Device From N.O.K.I.A.

So I got a new computer. It's 6 inches wide and runs Debian Linux; cost about a hundred bucks. I blame tor.com and b_zedan.

Aaaaaand reverse! Okay, so I keep ending up with all these free ebooks, novellas, short stories, and articles; they just kind of fall into my lap. You know how it is: things get linked on Livejournal, Boing Boing makes some noise when an SF writer slaps a CC license on their book, Shadow Unit keeps dropping an episode every two weeks, stories roll in by the half-dozen, &cetera. And then I signed up for that Tor.com newsletter, I was suddenly getting a novel in my inbox every week, and I realized that I had somehow arrived at that vaunted point in The Future where an e-book reader made sense. Not as a way to buy new books (the market is still a swamp, plus I have a policy of not paying actual, real-life money for data with DRM on it), but as a way to access the reams of text I have hanging around without sitting at the computer for even more hours than I already do. It's not like I haven't read a few books at my desk before, but the novelty wears off fast, and I'd rather be reading them on lunch break/the bus/the couch/other traditional paperback venues.

Thus, I went shopping for e-book readers! They all cost like $400 and are extremely finicky about file types. So, maybe in another four years. In the meantime, Brenna said that she reads stuff (and doodles, and surfs the web) on a Nokia 770, and I thought that sounded like a pretty good idea, especially since I was able to get one for $102 (+ shipping) on eBay.

So yeah, thing is pretty neat. FBReader is a slick little program, and the fact that it has wi-fi and a legit web browser (Opera core in a stripped-down UI) makes it much more useful to have around that I'd expected. (You're in Tacoma and need to know which bus will get you to Olympia on a Sunday -- quick, what do you do?) And it runs ScummVM, which means I can finally get around to playing Monkey Island and Sam and Max, right from the comfort of my own bus seat. And the default interface color is a ridiculous bubbly orange, which I can't help but get behind.

But mostly, it's just nice to finally be in the future and be able to carry a shelf full of paperbacks around in my back pocket.

(Following convention, I've named it Literate Thrush. Mostly because I enjoy hitting "OK" when my laptop's Bluetooth manager tells me THRUSH wants to connect to my public folder.)

Comments

[b-zedan.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you're liking it! Having a mobile is a lifesaver with public transit.

You'll find that eventually you will build up a map of where there is wi-fi, where you need to stand (no, just a yard this way) to catch enough of the edge to link in and get what you need. It's weird.

Prepare to be constantly asked if it's an iPhone though.

[roadrunnertwice]

It's really more of a theyPhone, innit?

Wi-fi spider-sense, awesome. What I really want, though, is to always know where magnetic north is. Would solve so many of my problems.

[b-zedan.livejournal.com]

Do—do compasses not do that?

Actually, I do always carry one in my bag.

[roadrunnertwice]

Well, to get more specific, I want that without having to constantly look at a compass like a dork. (I saw some compasses today that snap onto your watch band. My first thought was "Oh, awesome!" My second thought was "I would get beaten up within fifteen minutes." Though I bet I could replace the watch with a compass without looking too insane...)

What I was thinking of was this article in Wired about various sensory hacks -- one of the relevant experiments involved fitting a guy with a device that constantly reported north via touch. Turned him into a cyborg version of those birds that can sense the magnetic field in their bones and blood. After a week or two, he said that his sense of where he was had gotten so intense that he could practically see a tiny map in the corner of his vision, like the HUD in a video game.

I want that.

Re: Actually, I do always carry one in my bag.

[b-zedan.livejournal.com]

That would be boss. My mind map is shit.

[gyladia.livejournal.com]

I use my Nintendo DS (with an R4), so it's more expensive but I use it for a lot of different things now so it's worth it to me.