Anything But Computers

http://nocomputers.blogspot.com/

Here's where you'll find what's on my mind at the moment. Bookmark it. I also have several other blogs, most of which you'll find if you click on the about me link.

jeff

The iPhone, The iPod Touch, and Electronic Books of the Future

For years I have been trying to find a way to read ebooks and actually enjoy reading them.

It occurred to me a couple days ago that the iPod Touch and the iPhone are hints of the future.

What started me thinking on that was seeing people flipping album covers just dragging their finger across the iPod Touch in the Cover Flow view.

The touch action was very much like the way I flip pages in a book or magazine.

So... imagine that you have a iBook Touch 12 inches wide & 9 inches tall (nothing magic about those particular numbers). Imagine it has display density of 200 dots per inch, which is what the iPod Nano has.

Further, imagine that when you turn it on you see an image of a book... possibly the one you have been reading, open to a particular page... you see a two page view. It is a psuedo 3D image. You can drag with your finger to flip pages.

Drag across the "edge" of the book to rapidly zoom back and forth through the book, just like you do with a real book.

The 200 DPI image makes it easy to read. The fast processor flips pages rapidly.

You have a catalog of all your eBooks. I imagine it being like a visit to a library.

I'm ready.

Dreams and Dashiell Hammett's "The Glass Key"

More regarding my re-reading of Dashiell Hammett...

Working my way through "Dashiell Hammett: Five Complete Novels"...

The novel "The Glass Key" is very sublty based on dreams.

The title is a key that appears in a dream to one of the characters.  This is revealed by her (the character in question) in the last scene of the novel;  her and the main character of the book had revealed to each other somewhat earlier in the book that each had a dream shortly after they met,  but she reveals in the final scene that she had left out some details and added to her earlier recount of the dream.

The Dreams Summarized:

1. Ned's dream:  he and the Senator's daughter are fishing in a mountain stream.  He catches a brightly colored trout,  but she throws it back in the water.

2. Her dream (as she first told it): They are walking in the woods.  They come to a house and knock on the door.. there is no answer... they look in the window & there's food on a table inside.  Knock again no answer. Try opening the door... no luck.
  She remembers that people typically hide a key under the doormat... she looks and there it is. They unlock the door and open it... the floor inside is covered with snakes that start coming toward the door.  Close the door.  They climb onto he roof... he leans down unlocks the door & pushes it open... the snakes come out & go into the woods.  They go inside and eat the food.  It's really good.
  (AS SHE TOLD IT ON LAST PAGE OF NOVEL): [same up to finding the key] It is a glass key.  Turning the lock is difficult... it turns and unlocks,  but the key shatters.  She opens the door... the snakes rush her... she is covered with snakes.  She wakes up screaming.

So... the story of the novel has been about gangsters pushing politicians around, about speakeasys, about gangsters beating people up.  About murders.  About lying and cheating and lowlifes of all varieties.  But the last few paragraphs reveal that the whole book is a metaphor for human existence.

Essence is that in reality, we are all besieged by snakes in life (of life?).  That we have beauty in hand and throw it away.  That dreams tell us something about our life.  That while life may be a floor of snakes, if we work at it we may overcome it. That dreams tell us what we need to work on.

New York Times to End Charges on Web Site - Including archives

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/18/business/media/18times.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

> In addition to opening the entire site to all readers, The Times will
> also make available its archives from 1987 to the present without
> charge, as well as those from 1851 to 1922, which are in the public
> domain.

Thoughts on Dashiell Hammett

I recently started re-reading Dashiell Hammett...

Dashiell Hammett - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "'[Hammett] took murder out of the Venetian vase and dropped it into the alley... [He] gave murder back to the kind of people who do it for a reason, not just to provide a corpse; and with means at hand, not with handwrought dueling pistols, curare, and tropical fish.' Raymond Chandler, in The Simple Art of Murder"

The surprise was that "The Maltese Falcon" still reads well after having read it and seen it so many times. Even in spite of Sam Spade being a sexist bum, he comes across as a sympathetic character. Now I'm ready to go back to the movie... I'm thinking the novel was used word for word in most of the movie, & I'd like to check that.