Reading "Good" Books

Has anyone ever reached adulthood without having been presented with a list of books that "everyone" should read?

Wait!!

Come on back, I'm not going to bore you with another such list.  Maybe later, but it will be well marked, and it is likely to be a list of favorite books, rather than ones that I think are important enough to deserve attention.

My first experience with a book I thought I should read was Moby Dick. I ended up with copy while I was in school, and I tried starting it several times.  I couldn't get past the first hundred pages.  It was just too boring.  It was only years later, when I downloaded a free copy for Kindle that I finally got through it.

In many ways, Moby Dick is almost more like a documentary essay on whaling than what I think of as a novel.  It is only towards the end that the story really takes off and moves quickly towards the end.  When you finish it, you may remember as an exciting story, but it is really only the last quarter of the book that is exciting.

Then, I thought that I ought to read some Dickens.  Back in school somewhere I read A Tale of Two Cities, and I thought I would move on to David Copperfield...especially since I had moved into the Copperfield neighbor and I was surrounded by streets with names taken from the book.

David Copperfield was even worse than Moby Dick.  I still have never finished it.  Eventually, I moved on to Bleak House.

I was watching QI, a BBC TV show, and they mentioned the case on which Bleak House is based...supposedly.

Now, Bleak House turned out to be much more up my alley.  Some of it told by the very modest Esther, who turns out to be the daughter of someone very famous.  If you haven't read it, go get it for free on Amazon and read it.  It is well worth the time.

At the moment, I have one of these "important" books on my tablet and another waiting in the wings.  What I cannot figure out is why I chose to read Walden first.  So far, it is not too bad, though it is rather slow, as one might expect from a book that is basically philosophy with a small bit of autobiography thrown in.

The one in the wings is important to me, and I am told important to America, Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations.  From an early age, I have been told that this is the book that lays out the concepts of capitalism that are at the foundation of American business.

I believe that in the 21st Century capitalism has basically run off the rails, though I think that it started to stray from the true philosophy of capitalism with the first Robber Barons, the industrialists who amassed huge fortunes by exploiting their employees.

Unfortunately, I do not have the foundation to back up that thought, and that is why I mean to start with Adam Smith.  I want to know what his concepts were before I start really talking about how modern capitalism has strayed from the true faith.

One last thing...these types of books are often boring and hard to get through.  The books I have mentioned here were not written for a man born in the midst of the 20th Century and raised on TV.  I find I have to read something else to keep me sane.  At the moment that is a collection of short stories about Lord Peter Wimsey.  I love these stories and have read a fair number of them.  They come out of the same period as Agatha Christie's novels and the works of P.G. Wodehouse, another favorite of mine.

Kindle...apps

Today's rant is about Kindle Apps.  Maybe I should call it a ramble, though there will be a bit of ranting.

Today's subject is Kindle Apps.  I have never used the Kindle App for iOS…I don't do Apple.  So, I cannot comment on that.  I do have a fair amount of experience with the Kindle App for Android, and frankly, I like it.  My problem is that I don't really like Android.  I would prefer to use Windows 10 Mobile, but that is for a different rant.

So, I like the Kindle App for Android.  It has lots of nice customization settings, and I can make it look the way I like.  Now, it even connects with Goodreads, which is where I keep track of what I am reading from year to year.

The problem arises, because I prefer to use my Dell Venue 8 Pro for reading.  I don't read on my phone, which is Android.

Up until recently, there was a Kindle App for Windows that you could get through the Windows Store.  It worked a lot like the Android app, and I liked it.  When I did not like the Windows app was when it did not work the Android app. 

In the Windows app, there was a strange glitch where it would open, but in a tiny ribbon down the center of the screen.  If you rotate the tablet and let the app reconfigure itself in landscape mode, then the problem goes away, including when you rotate back to portrait mode.

Now, above you may have noted the "Up until recently," and yes, Amazon pulled the app from the store and you can no longer get it.  This leaves Windows PCs with only one choice, the Kindle for PC app.

The Kindle for PC app sucks.

There is no other way to say it.  It is terrible, and it lacks important features, like Collections and Documents.  But it's biggest failing is the simple fact that it is clearly designed for desktop PCs with monitors in landscape mode, which means…and this is important…at least to me…

It sucks hard when used on a tablet, especially an 8-9" tablet

This may sound odd, but one thing is clear to me.  The Android Kindle app is designed for reading.  Kindle for PC is not.  I should specify that when I say the Android Kindle app is designed for reading, I mean, not only that reading is its primary purpose, but that reading is the only thing that the app does well.  The app is terrible for managing your collection of books, though it does have the slightly useful feature called Collections.  Which as I stated, all Windows Kindle apps, both new and old do not have.

I am not sure exactly what the Kindle for PC app is intended for.  You can read in it, but it clearly was not designed for that, and yet it really isn't any better for managing your books.

I believe that the real problem is that Amazon doesn't care about PC users.  They do not see a PC as a good way to read books, and they have put no time into figuring out how to make reading on your PC an enjoyable experience.  If they had, the Kindle for PC app would be better.

However, I did find a solution to one problem.  Above I mentioned a feature called Documents.  The Kindle app can read several formats of documents.  If you have the Kindle for Android app, and you connect it to your Amazon account, you can go to amazon.com and you can manage your devices.  That is, you can look at a list of all the Kindle devices you have, whether they be actual Kindles, or a device with the Kindle app. 

I even have a couple extra devices, because Samsung installed Kindle on my phone, and I installed it as well.  Actually, I have 10 at this moment, and I have disabled a couple and plan to do a few more.  But, there's more…

Android Kindle devices get an email address.

Yep, usually your Amazon account name at kindle.com.  Now, here is the interesting part, and I do not know how many of you know this.  If you send an email to that address, and you attach a file, then that file gets added to your digital content under Documents, and assuming that the file is one that Kindle can read, you can use the app to open it…but only on the Android app (and maybe actual Kindle devices and iOS, not sure about those).

You cannot access Documents on Kindle for PC.  I have that directly from an Amazon Support Tech, after waiting a very long time while he checked.

That is the end of my Rant/Ramble about Kindle…apps.

Next, I am going to talk about something that Amazon left out of all the Kindle apps, management.

Whose Live Anyway?

I was a big fan of the show Whose Line is it Anyway?  Now, for those who do not remember, the show started off on BBC radio, and then moved to the TV.  Clive Anderson was the host of the British TV show, and there were a variety of guests, all of whom were improvisational comedians.  Clive would take suggestions from the audience and then the guests who improvise little scenes based on the suggestions.  The comedians were a mix of British and Americans.

When the British version went off the air, it was brought to the US by Drew Carey, who acted as the host, and again with a variety of guest comedians.

And now…..

Whose Live Anyway?

A travelling show, featuring two of the staples of the TV shows, Ryan Stiles and Greg Proops, and two other performers who, at least they claim, appeared on the show.  They didn't say which one.

However, who is in it is not really all that important, though the familiar faces make it easy to believe that the show will be good.

Was it, you ask?

Yes.

90 minutes of Improv, and good improv.

They did take audience suggestions, and one of the funnier things was the comedians trying to make out what the audience was shouting.  I think it got too much, because towards the end, Greg Proops came right out to the front of the stage and tried getting suggestions from specific audience members in the first few rows.  Greg had his anti-heckler hat on and while not being rude, at one point, after a man yelled something from the back of the audience, he looked up…

"I'm not talking to you Mr. White Male Privilege."

And he followed it up with a hand gesture of a mouth closing.

Probably the funniest bit was the pose-able comedian bit.  They brought up two audience members, and then improvised a scene about two artists at the Pecan Street Festival.  Few outside of Austin are going to know that the Pecan Street Festival is a local arts festival that happens on Sixth Street, which used to be named Pecan Street.  The two ladies had to move the comedians about, since they stood completely still unless their arms were moved…and their legs.  It led to lots of hilarious poses.

They did a piece where they made two audience members provide sound effects.  Jeff B. Davis improvised a song for an audience member whose son called her a demon unicorn.  They also did a bit called "New Choice" that I had never seen before, where two comedians did a scene and at random a third would say "New Choice" and that meant that the actor who said the previous line had to come up with a line with a different choice.  It worked very well.

Before the show, they gave about 20 people in the audience strips of paper and pens and asked them to write down a line of dialogue on the paper.  They then collected the paper, and improvised a skit, while randomly pulling out and reading a line from a strip.  This was hilarious, because in virtually all cases, the lines on the strips had nothing to do with what they had been improvising, which meant that the skit kept making abrupt turns.

Unfortunately, there are only two more dates in this Tour, and they are in Las Vegas next weekend, but if you get a chance, I can highly recommend Whose Live Anyway.

Two Convertibles

So, I have lured you in with a lie.  Okay, not really, but I will not be talking about cars.

And now it's time for....

Khatru's Education Corner

When the all knowing, all seeing, all bullshitting, Khatru explains....stuff.

Today's...that is, today in this post, not today, as in the modern day...convertible cars are still out there, but not today...you get the idea, let's move on.

One of the biggest segments of the computer industry is 2-in-1s.  Now, for anyone who does not know, a 2-in-1 is a lightweight PC that can be used as both a tablet and a laptop.  Every Microsoft Surface sold since the beginning of time is a 2-in-1.

No wait, that's not true either, because now you can buy the Surface Studio...and soon, the Surface laptop...but before that...

Wow, confusing isn't it?  But, I don't mind, so you shouldn't either.

Starting with the original Surface and Surface RT, and moving forward thru the Surface Book, they were all 2-in-1s.  In case you haven't seen a Surface or Surface Pro, they are tablets, but with a very thin keyboard that can be detached or folded around to the back of the keyboard.

Now, today that is one of the two types of 2-in-1s, what I would call a detachable.  They come with a keyboard that can be detached, so that you can use the screen as a tablet.  These tend to range from 10" to 13"

The other 2-in-1 cannot be detached, but the keyboard can be folded back behind the screen.  The Lenovo Yoga was one of the first, but Lenovo has muddied that water by using the Yoga name for a rather large series of devices running both Windows and Android.

A little over a year ago, I bought a detachable, an ASUS Transformer Book T200A.

As you can see, the screen comes off and the base has a full size keyboard, which is why I chose it.

I have been living with it for a year, and it is not too bad.  I can use the keyboard, which is always a problem on smaller devices.  I is a big Khatru, and the hands is big.  But the Asus does pretty well in that department and I can write on the Asus without any real problems.

It is only 64GB, with only about half that remaining at the moment with very little other than Windows and Office installed, but the Transformer Book has a surprise.  The keyboard unit has a slot for a 7mm hard drive, so at the moment, I have 500GB in the keyboard, and plenty of space for videos, etc.  This is really one of the big selling points for the T200A.

On the downside, the whole thing is plastic-ky and feels a bit cheap.  The keyboard unit has a fair amount of flex, though nothing has broken in a year.  Also, it is bit heavy, especially with a hard drive in it.

The tablet unit has a microUSB port, a miniHDMI port, and an SD slot, and the base has a network card, and a USB slot on each side.

Overall, I've been pretty happy with it.

A month or two back, my wife bought a Dell Inspiron 11 (3168).

The color is off in this picture (which is from the Dell website).  The blue is much darker and a lot less shiny.  This week, my wife decided she did not want it.  It has been frustrating her in various ways, including a WiFi problem that I cannot fix.

It will connect to any WiFi network, except the one in our house.  Every other device I own works on the network, but not this Inspiron.  So, for now it is powering my TV.

The Inspiron 11 is a contortionist, in that the screen folds back and will lie flat along the back of the screen.  In this mode it makes for a rather heavy large tablet.  I tried it out for a few days, and already found several problems, albeit minor ones.

The Inspiron 11 is hard to open, and virtually impossible to open one handed.  The keyboard base part of the unit is longer than the screen, so there is nothing to slip a finger under to get purchase to pry the sides apart.  It is a fairly sleek unit when closed, but each time you open it...annoyance.

The unit is very lightweight, which is good, but the keyboard base is light enough that any tap on the screen causes the whole unit to rock, which again is a small annoyance, but noticeable.

By comparison, my Asus, which is the same size, but a bit heavier is rock solid when I tap on the screen, and even more so since I added the hard drive in the base.

I have not tried out many ultraportables, so I am not sure if this is a problem with all very light laptops or 2-in-1s, so it is possible that the Asus is better than average, rather than the Inspiron being worse.

Immediately upon receiving it, my wife discovered the at the power button is in a very inconvenient place.  It is on the right side of the keyboard, just at the front corner.  Invariably, when you pick it up, you turn it on as well.  I have a similar problem with the placement of the power button on my Samsung S7 Edge smartphone, and I feel like neither Samsung nor Microsoft did enough testing before finalizing the design.

The only other problem with the Dell is that the blue plastic makes it look a little childish, sort of like it was a PC designed for 1st graders.  It isn't quite that bad, but I feel like they rather missed the mark if they were trying to make it hip and exciting.

So, there you have it, two 11.5" 2-in-1s.  Very different in design and execution, but that just shows off the diversity in the segment.

Good Intentions

Well, I had intended to write something today.

But, things don't always go as planned and I find myself wanting to write, but not having a subject for today.  Actually, I have a few things written, but they need editing before I post them.  I might have worked on that, but it got late.

So, this is just by way of saying that I haven't forgotten my blog again, but I have nothing profound to expound upon at this moment.

Hopefully, I will see all of my readers next week.

Returning to the Scene of the Crime

And what do I do now?

I have been gone so long that I wonder if anyone will remember me.  I even considered starting a new blog, but I decided that I did not want to lose the long history of posts that no one reads.  They may not mean much...well, anything...to anyone else, but they are important to me.

Dolt 45 is perched in the White House.

We have both The Grand Tour and Top Gear on the air at the same time.

Burgers are still being made and consumed...okay, that is more for Hold the Onions, but still.

Lately, I have been playing No Man's Sky and I am sure I can find a few things to say about that.

Today I watched a video...or at least part of it, of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, but with the soundtrack replaced by the Daft Punk music for Tron: Legacy.  It actually worked, and so, tonight's movie selection is The Wrath of Khan, the best of the Star Trek movies, at least in my opinion.

So, if anyone is out there, welcome back.

Oh Jeremy, What have you done?

So, unless you live under a rock, you know that Jeremy Clarkson, one of the hosts of Top Gear was fired today.  What you may not know is that this is one of my favorite shows.  I have watched all of them.

I don't really like Jeremy Clarkson, but I love watching him act like an idiot.  I love watching someone who thinks they are always right, and is in fact almost always wrong.  Jeremy Clarkson is a little like Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory. He has the same problem with separating his own opinion from the truth.

I will not defend Jeremy Clarkson.  If the personality he displays on the show is any indication, then he is an enormous ass.  He yelled at one of his producers.  Well, that surprises me not at all.  I have a feeling that he yells at a lot of people.  But, he crossed a line when he escalated it to physical violence.  That is unacceptable in a way that even the racial slurs…or at least supposed racial slurs are not.  He was justly fired and I applaud the BBC for firing the star of the biggest show in the world.  He deserved it, and you did the right thing.

But what now?

Over on Jalopnik there are about a dozen articles about Clarkson and Top Gear, and it all got me thinking.

First, a Bold Statement.

The more that the BBC or Jeremy Clarkson attempt to recreate Top Gear as it was, the more likely they are to fail.

Jeremy Clarkson carried Top Gear.  He wasn't the sole reason for its success, but he was vital to that success.  I cannot imagine that anyone can fill his shoes.  Now, I should be clear.  I mean that I do not think anyone can come in to Top Gear and play the role of Jeremy Clarkson.  If the host changes, the show changes.  If the BBC tries to plug in someone else and keep the show as it is, it will fail.

On the other hand, I do not think that Top Gear is going to work anywhere else.  Even if someone hires all three hosts, I think that there will need to be changes.  If they try to hire all three and try to do the same things, it will fail.

One of the things that brings me to that decision is that I think that Top Gear was getting old.  The three hosts have been more like caricatures of themselves for the last three or four series, with Jeremy really leading the pack.  The moment that Jeremy drove into the camp with a cow strapped to the top of his Camaro, I felt that Top Gear crossed a line, and it has kept pushing out from there. 

So, while this was an unfortunate way for Top Gear to change, I do not think that Top Gear would have gone on unchanged for long.

So, I have droned on long enough for now, but I leave you with two questions, which I shall try to answer in the near future.

What shall become of Top Gear?

What shall become of Jeremy Clarkson?