Coming soon...Adventures in Firenze!

The Amazon Kindle - Some more thoughts...

As you can tell I am rather infatuated with this device! Yes, the Ipad v Kindle debate rages on the Internet forums. Yes the ipad is more technologically savvy. Yes the ipad can do much much more. But if it's an ebook reader you are after (and not a computer) - then the Kindle is the best out there. Oh yeah, for pure reading pleasure, for pure ease from eye-strain. For pure battery life. It is the best. Some people argue that it's user-interface is clunky. That it is not as 'techy' or 'cool' or 'savvy' as the ipad or even the SonyReader...but I think the user interface actually encourages a more thoughtful approach to your reading. It actually encourages you to SLOW DOWN. Nothing is instant. Nothing is of short pleasures. It encourages (how can I put it) you to get to know it. You build a relationship with it (not sexual) and it gets to know you.

You might think that I am being a bit of a freak. Maybe I am. Do I care? No. I have a cool burgundy red cover for it (£50.99 - expensive? Yes!) (with built in night-light - perfect for middle of the night readings of Bram Stokers Dracooooola), and as I stroll with it, on a sunny Saturday morning - it between my thumb and forefinger, towards my regular cafe haunt, I feel like I have real power in my finger tips. Knowledge is power. A veritable library of Alexandria. Oh! How Ptolemy would have swooned. Oh! How Montaigne would have marvelled at it. Oh! How Douglas Adam's would have said: "told you so". It really is that wonderful you know. 375 million years ago in the Devonian Epoch, our fishy ancestors crawled out of the shallow waters and stuck their heads out of the waters - and peered through the mist to look at the stars! - And now, here we are, 375 million years later - Homo Sapiens, and Me - A Wasim Shafi...goggle-eyed, and madly in love, with an ebook reader...

The universe is strange.

To live is amazing.

To be able to read is a miracle

And the Kindle...my new best friend!

Hahaha.

Misanthrope&Proud.com

The Amazon Kindle (Generation 3) - Some Thoughts of Mine

My Kindle experience has been one of liberation.

Liberation from the irksome knowledge that I have hundreds of books that I still need to read - but due to the fact that I can't be bothered to dig them out, or don't know where they are, I can't get myself to read them. When one has so many book choices - which one does one read? The sheer 'not being able to decide' factor makes me innactive and stuns me into a psychological zone of bamboozled no action...the sheer weight of the task before me is so awesome in size and scope...so the books just sit there, gathering dust, waiting...waiting for the day when I will have the courage to brave the dust and the cobwebs, brave the 'falling over' of the piles of books...and pick one out - and read it...ignoring all the others looking at me imploringly - my babies.

...and then along comes the AmazonKindle ebook reader...my total number of books on the kindle now number over a thousand...and I feel much better.

Here is a little device that fits nicely in the palm of my hand, lithe, thin, light...and yet, underneath the bonnet there lyeth a formidable technological miracle. I can now read all those books and when I get bored with one, and feel like another that is less demanding, I can instantly bring up another. I have put them in folders marked 'currently reading', 'to read next', 'to read after next' and 'science' and 'others' (not very imaginative I know - but it does the trick). I can notarise them (write notes on the pages like I normally do) and the Kindle has a built in dictionary for those oh so difficult words.

I love it. It encourages me to read more - and that is the only thing I have to say about it!

The perfect camera - a personal view

The perfect camera is the camera that makes you want to go out and take pictures.

It has little or less to do with technical aspects and more to do with feelings

What use is a technically superior camera if it doesn't make you want to go out and take pictures?

So, the perfect camera for you, is the one that; when you hold it in your hand - you want to run out and take pictures.

If a camera can do that, if it can move your legs no matter sun or rain, if it can make you put on your coat in the dead of winter, or the dead of night - then no amount of pixel peeping or observing 100% magnifications will make a difference.

...remember, the perfect camera is swung about the heart, not the neck.