For the Sony the strengths include touch screen, larger screen (at least the Daily edition has a 7″ screen), built-in case, and two memory slots.

For Kindle the strengths include two newly introduced word games, the most intuitive interface, best annotation, fastest page turn, clearest screen, Audible compatibility, read to me, and best battery life.

For nook the strengths include the games (sudoku and chess), the ability to read stuff in the store, the in store technical support, and all the promotion stuff. You get free books once a week. You get articles and short stories downloaded in the store. You get cafe stuff.

Looking at the key features, first is content.  Kindle wins half credit because Amazon has the best selection at the lowest prices. It loses half credit because it’s the only one without library support.

If library support is a major point, and you want to maximize your flexibility, your best best is to buy the Nook, but never  buy books from B&N. Use Borders instead.  Even though they all use ePub, B&N uses a proprietary DRM scheme, so it’s not cross compatible.  You can read Borders books on the Kobo, the Sony, and the nook, but you can only read B&N books on the nook.  I’m only discussing dedicated devices, not apps. So get the nook and then fill it up with books from Borders.

For annotations, the Kindle is the best. Sony doesn’t let you tie a note to a particular paragraph, only to a page. Nook doesn’t let you put a bookmark on a particular screen (just the top of a page, and pages can run multiple screens), some books can’t accept annotation (you can’t know which until you try), and the interface is clunky.  Kindle lets you highlight, bookmark a screen, and tie notes to a particular line. Rather than having the gray background that Sony and nook uses for highlighting, Kindle surrounds the text with a box.

For page turns, I ran them side by side, and the speed, in order from fastest to slowest, is Kindle, Sony, nook. Nook will actually post a wait message if you try to flip too many pages at once. Neither Sony nor Kindle will do that. Nook is far slower than either of the others on opening a book as well.

For interface, it’s a toss up between Kindle and Sony. Kindle has an intuitive interface, and buttons large enough to be invisible while reading. When you want to dog ear a page, you click the corner.  Sony can get a bit odd with highlighting, and I find I overdo a few times. Stop one character shy of where you want to be and your fine.  Dog earring is hidden in a menu option.  But you can stroke your finger across the page to turn it and you can choose which gesture –> or <– turns the next page.  Nook is a touch screen…kind of.  The actual content area isn’t a touch screen, the bottom little screen that keeps turning off is.  So you’re navigating like you would with the Kindle controller while dealing with the decreased accuracy of the touch screen.  You can configure how long the thing should stay on, but that’s a trade off between battery life and convenience.

When buying an item in the store, Kindle buys it and that’s it. If it’s a mistake, just click a button for a refund.  Sony asks you to log in to your account. Nook goes through this confirmation thing and then has a little OK you have to hit, and if you don’t notice it, the screen it’s hiding on turns off.

For clarity, the best is Kindle. Nook just doesn’t look quite as crisp, but it comes in second.  Sony has the problem of the glare caused by the touch screen.

For storage, Sony wins.  You can put an SD card and a Pro Duo card in, both at the same time, and it allows you to organize your books into collections.  Nook allows for a mini SD card (smaller, but more expensive than a regular SD). It does not allow for organizing the content into folders.  If you’re good at keeping track, or if you use a service like Goodreads, this is the second. Kindle has discontinued the use of a storage card, so it comes in third.  It does allow you to organize your content.  For built-in memory, it’s Kindle, nook, Sony.

For the fun factor nook wins.  It has the games. It has the bright color display. It lets you easily customize your screen saver and background. Kindle comes in second with the word games and social networking capabilities. Sony doesn’t even have speakers.

To me, the Kindle is the best of breed.

When you sign up for Internet access, you choose dial-up, DSL, cable.  Maybe you add boost.  Maybe you get a high-speed router.  That’s where the “choice of vehicles” comes into play.  Now, imagine you just bought a beautiful new Ferrari and you want to take it on the road.

It refuses to go over 10 miles an hour.

So you call the support line.  “This car won’t go.  What’s wrong?”

“Where are you trying to go?”

“To see a friend in Boston.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.  Your friend didn’t pay our ‘go fast’ fee, so you can only drive to them very slowly.”

“That’s not the point of buying a high-speed car.”

“I’m sorry. Perhaps you could pick a different destination?”

“Sigh. Okay. I’ll try Walden Pond.”

“Oooo.  Walden Pond didn’t pay the ‘go fast’ fee either.  You might hit 7 mph to them if you’re lucky though.”

“Well, where can I get to quickly?”

“Let’s see.  In your area there are five strip malls and 17 pornography locations that have paid our ‘go fast’ fee.”

“So porn or shopping. That’s it?”

“Well did you really think the PTA would be willing to pay just so you could get to your kid’s school faster?  That’s not going to happen.”

There’s how net neutrality is like car shopping.

Schools aren’t going to be able to pay the high speed fees just so your kids can get to the assignments they’re supposed to download.  Libraries aren’t going to pay so you can find the book you want faster.  Bloggers? Nope.  Podcasters? Definitely not.  Your local little league?  Best put up a pot of coffee before even trying to hit the site. Where will your high speed Internet provider actually take you at high speed?  Porn sites and online shopping.

You will need either a flash drive that you don’t mind erasing (I used a 1 gig drive for this a few weeks ago and that was fine) or a hard drive enclosure available at most computer stores. Desktop hard drives and laptop hard drives aren’t the same size, so get the right one. Netbook hard drives are typically the same size as laptop hard drives.  If you have any doubts, don’t bother bringing the whole machine to the store for advice.  You can bring just the drive once you’ve taken it out, a process I’ll explain further down. You will also need access to a functional machine and a place to copy the data too, such as an external hard drive.

I prefer the flash drive method only because I almost always have a spare one of those around, and they can be reused afterward.  This is good if the OS is corrupted, and you need to reinstall it.

First, go to PenDriveLinux.com. Download and run Universal USB Installer and follow the prompts to get a flash drive that boots Linux. This will erase your flash drive as part of installing the OS. You can use any distro of Linux, but I favor Ubuntu, and the rest of this tutorial will assume you have chosen Ubuntu.

Now, on the non-working machine, plug in the flash drive that you just installed Linux to and turn on the machine.  Watch to see where it says “Press F– for Bios” or something similar.  Different machines have a different function key to get into that, and slightly different wording.  Hit that key. You don’t get much time, so if you must, turn the machine off and on again to try again.

Once you’re in the bios, go to where it lets you choose boot order and set USB above hard drive.  Save and restart.

Now you’ll be in Linux.  Go to the terminal (click on Applications->Accessories->Terminal).

You won’t want to write to the Windows drive as that might damage it further, just read from it.

Type

sudo fdisk -l

This shows you the list of partitions on your PC.  You can find the partition you want by the size.  If you haven’t partitioned your drive, the one you want is the biggest.

Now make a place to mount this to by typing

sudo mkdir -p /media/windows

Please keep in mind that Linux is case sensitive.

sudo mount -t ntfs -o nls=utf8,umask=0222 {drive} /media/windows
where {drive} is the name of your hard drive (typically something like /dev/hd1)

and then mount it

If you have an old drive, formatted in fat, not ntfs (the fdisk command will show you which your drive is if you’re not certain) use

sudo mount -t vfat -o iocharset=utf8,umask=000 {drive} /media/windows

Now if you look at your files, you will see a folder called /media/windows with all of the data from your Windows hard drive on it.

Plug in an external hard drive, and Ubuntu will mount it automatically.  You can copy all the files you need from /media/windows to that drive. Just drag and drop the same as in Windows.  It might take a while.

The enclosure method can be a little more expensive  but a lot easier.  Open the computer.  The hard drive on a desktop is in the rack over by the CD or DVD drive.  The hard drive on a laptop is usually over by the side.  Grab a screwdriver and remove it.

Open the enclosure. Slide the drive in.  Attach the drive to the enclosure by plugging the ports in (this is just a matter of clicking things in and it’ll be obvious when you see it, so don’t worry).  The drive is now an external hard drive, and can be plugged into the USB port of any machine.  Even if the boot sector of the hard drive is destroyed and the drive won’t start, it can often be read once it’s a secondary drive, and again, you can get your data off.

Yes, this does let it live as an external drive, but once it starts dying, I wouldn’t trust it not to go all to way to unreadable, so be certain to get your important information off.

Good luck.

The mirror, however, was still glorious and we didn’t want to let that go, so we contacted our expert on all matters wood. He said the mirror must be attached to the dresser with stakes of wood and screws (it was) and that we should detach the screws from the dresser, not the mirror, and set the mirror aside. He also warned me to have someone hold the mirror, and I didn’t think of that.  I’m bad about doing this stuff alone.

The mirror came off, the new dresser arrived and we assembled it, and then he came over to do the magic of putting the old mirror on the new dresser.  The way the mirror had been mounted, two beams of wood ran down the center line. This always made for a wobbly mirror.  Bill pulled those off, grabbed another bit of wood, and ran three lines evenly spaced, along the back. This is far more stable.

Rather than just joining the center line, it’s attached to the supports on the top and center.  Again, far more stable than the old arrangement.

He used a very clever trick when he wanted to line up the holes on the wood to the back of the mirror for the new holes.  He put screws in until they barely protruded, ran a pencil along the tips, then lined up the wood to the dresser and banged the tips of the screws to leave dots on the mirror back.  Instant guide.  Those kinds of techniques always amuse me. Watching a master craftsman at work is always fascinating.

That’s always struck me as wrong.  Plenty of space-facing science fiction storiess  involve humans evolving on a variety of world, and cross breeding.  Think about this.  Cows evolved on the same planet, and in roughly the same conditions, as wasps, and look how different they are.  There is no chance of a wasp and a cow eloping in Vegas and giving birth to a winged cow with a stinger.

The trick, it seems, is not accuracy but verisimilitude–the illusion of reality.  Sharron finally gave me the perfect example, albeit with non-fiction.

Before the fatal Challenger accident, a group of scientists working for NASA deduced that, given the weather conditions predicted for the intended launch date and the configuration of the space shuttle, the ship wouldn’t hold up. They called in management and presented their findings.

Were their facts correct? Perfectly, as history has shown.

Were they convincing?  No, and that’s why the launch proceeded as scheduled.

Readers know what they think they know.  If the facts presented in a story seem wrong, readers won’t accept it, even if those facts are correct in every detail.  If the facts in a story are wrong, readers will go along with with it gladly, if they are presented in a convincing manner.

A story is alchemy–a mix of science and magic, and to succeed, it has to run closer to the magic.

Normal ice packs are poorly shaped to drape over your forehead.  I thought a tube would be much better.  So, I knit this (you can click to enlarge).

It works up quickly, and does a good job of things.

To knit this you’ll need DK weight cotton yarn, 50 grams should be enough. Mine is in Pima and it took half a skein. The color, Put the Lime in the Coconut is a club color, so won’t be available generally for six months.  It’s somewhere between cool drink on a summer day and army camouflage.

Size 6 needles suited to knit a small diameter in the round. I used dpns.

A one gallon storage bag, like a Ziploc.

Water.

Cast on twenty stitches.

Knit ten rows garter stitch flat.

Knit into the front and back of every stitch, giving you 40 stitches.

Now you switch to knitting in the round. I have to admit to wanting to scratch a double knitting itch here, so I just went with that, and stayed on two straight needles.  Knit the first stitch, move the yarn to the front. Slip the next stitch.  Do this until the end of the row.  You will have slipped the last stitch.  Now on the next row, you do the same thing, starting with a knit.  You knit half the stitches on one row and the other half on the other row, alternating stitches. Check every so often to see if you’ve inadvertently joined both sides, and if you have, drop the stitch to right below the join, then pick it up again correctly.  If you prefer, divide the stitches up 10-10-20 on dpns, or 20-20 on 2 circs or do a magic loop with 20 on either side and just go around that way.  I know sock knitters will want to do 10-20-10, but that’ll mess things up at the end.  You’ll ultimately need to have that tube open while you work.  Double knitting won’t take this all the way to the end.

Once you have an inch or so, fill the bag with enough water to make a tube of ice about the size of the knit sack and lay it in the freezer so that it will form the shape you want.  I used the little door tray.

Continue knitting until your piece, when lightly stretched, is about the same size as your bag.  By now, unless you’re a really fast knitter, the bag should be reasonably well frozen, at least enough to be sure of the shape.

If you’ve been double knitting, now is the time to start knitting in the round with the break up as above.  Insert the ice into the sack and go around and around until you’ve covered it and, when you hold it closed, it’s the way you want it to be.

You’re going to do something like a three needle bind off now.  If you’re using dpns, combine the stitches from the first and the second so you have a 20-20 break.

Knit the first stitch on one needle together with the first stitch on the other.  Do the same with the next stitch on each needle.  DO NOT PULL THE FIRST STITCH OVER THE SECOND.  We’re not actually binding off.  Keep doing this until you have 20 stitches and you’ve closed the tube around the ice bag.

Return to working back and forth for ten rows of garter stitch and bind off. Weave in ends and enjoy.

Since I was home for this I decided to replace the old shower curtain and toilet bowl seat.  $20.  An hour of work.  Nothing huge, just the first ingredient in the stone soup.

Then Sharron decided we should get new carpeting too.  Why not? It needed it.  Toss the chicken in the soup.  Oh, and we’d been planning on getting new kitchen chairs since forever, so lets do that too.  Carrots chopped and added. I’ve been moving everything into the living room for the last week, and yesterday the carpet came and so did the chairs.  I thought the soup was nice and boiled, and we could sit and eat. After all, I’ve sold a novel and I’m waiting for the edits to start.  Having some nice soup beforehand is rather pleasant.

But wait. Sharron decided the foyer bookcase doesn’t go well with the new carpet, so out it went, and since we were getting rid of that we could replace that really old one.  It seemed to me we might was well also replace the dresser with the broken drawer (we overstuffed it–it was the hand knit socks that pushed it over the edge).  Parsley, celery, and noodles to go in the soup.

The final soup seasoning?  Now Sharron wants to paint. I’m hosed.

Thus, I’m launching For Love of Reading, a general book review website with a bit of a twist.  I’m going to link every book to at least one more related book, not through some computer aggregate trick (you know, the ones that say “since you liked Twilight, you might also like motor oil”) but links put together with human intelligence and with the reason for the link explained.  The goal is to help recreate the serendipity of finding, not just the great book that happens to bubble up in the aggregate matches, but the one that might not hit that radar.

I’ve got a team of reviewers lined up.  The first review is up on the site.  Please check out this new website and enjoy.

Breakfast.

Breakfast is about sex, because you can have it hot.  You might have a bagel, or a donut, which can be seen as containing erotic imagery.

Breakfast is about politics. You might buck the popular trend towards watching your cholesterol and eat 6 eggs.  Your coffee comes from some country, and that country has laws, and elected officials, and international relationships, and then there’s the FDA watching over your salmon.  Why, you’re practically voting with your orange juice.

Shoes.

Some people see shoes as a kind of sex fetish, so they are linked to sex.

Cobblers have to pay taxes on the sale of their shoes–and shoe manufacture is influenced by labor laws–thus making pumps political.

They’re both wrong.  Everything is about spinning.

Think about the world without spinners. Politicians would have to attend debates wearing nothing but plastic bags.  That just can’t look good.

The navy wouldn’t be able to keep its boats (manned by bag-clad sailors) in port.  The ropes they use are spun and braided.

Religions depend on spinning. You can’t pull a burka off a tree, like it’s some kind of acorn. You can’t weld a yarmulke. You can’t carve priestly vestments on a lathe.

Doctors rely on spinners for everything from gauze to suturs.  Even synthetics must be spun.  And aren’t they sewing people together?

Without spinning we wouldn’t have teddy bears, wedding gowns, shag rugs, or red carpets.

Forget sex and politics–it’s all about the spinning.

This is a favorite pattern.  If I were told I had to knit the same sock pattern a hundred times, this would be it.  I’m not sure I’d even mind.  They’re fun and fast and beautiful when they are finished.  They were the first beaded thing I ever knit, back when I was first learning to knit socks and had no idea what size 6/0 or 8/0 seed beads were, or what those numbers meant (they refer to a close approximation of how many beads fit into an inch, so 11/0 is about half the size of 5.0) , and it was a lot of fun to go back, years later, to try them again.

This is the Joe Van Gogh roving from Stitch and Sip all spun up and almost ready to knit.

It’ll be actually ready to knit when it dries.  I soaked it to set the twist.

I’ll actually be ready to knit it, when I clear my needles some, which I expect will happen in March of 2017.