Of Mobile Reading and Other Things

Few weeks ago I blogged about e-reading and until now I am still bugged by the thought of buying a good e-book reader.

As usual, I scoured the web for mobile (e-) reading technologies. Good thing, wiki has a list. So it is time for me to visit the malls and check the items in cybergates.

Before arriving to the point of buying an e-book reader, I explored first the possibility of efficient mobile reading with the technologies I have now. I tried my laptop and I concluded that it is only good as a repository of my e-books and for home reading. Ivan (my laptop) has an Adobe Digital Edition. This software proved its worth for e-reading as long as you’re not in transit or mobile. In mobile mode, I guess E71 can already serve the purpose. I tried reading books using Adobe Reader installed in my E71 (I call her as Bisetta Dutt – or Bisetta or Bessie in short, in honor of Time Odyssey character). I encounter one problem in reading through Bessie, the screen size. The fonts of the e-book are too small and can easily strain my eyes. Zooming-in on the document gives another problem, the left and right scrolling while you are reading through the line, another eye-straining activity. These methods are not efficient for me. I need something that I can bring (which I cannot do with my laptop) and I can read well (which I cannot do using E71) through the document. So, I really need to buy an e-book reader.

By right now, I have around 60 e-books lined up to be read. Some of them will take me days to finish, others months to comprehend and much years to completely understand.

Hopefully, by the end of this year, I can buy a good e-book reader.


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Physicists are going gaga in detecting Higgs-Boson. This mysterious particle is really hard to catch.

On life, more and more biologists believe that RNA started life here on earth and not the set of DNA, RNA and proteins. Viroids can tell a lot.

In astronomy, Kepler is in the lime light. We are engaged to look for other planets beyond Sol.
Mathematics, I haven’t checked the latest developments yet in this field. I am stuck with Gregori Perelman’s case.


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Projects (based on my progress bars), I am sluggish. I am not sure what will be my net progress when I lag for months and move only for few days.

On one hand, we are close to finish our project here in the office. Hopefully we can hit it before the deadline.

Ayn Rand

"I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine." - Ayn Rand

E-reading

At last I already have a copy of Adobe Digital Edition and currently using it.

It's good e-library for e-reading. I was telling most of my friends to migrate to e-books to exploit and enrich the digital ecosystem and capabilities.

Here I am now, exploiting e-reading with the use of Adobe Digital Edition. It is indeed a useful tool to read digitally.

The Library



The Bookshelf/shelves


The Book


The Reading Mode (Two-Page)



The Reading Mode (Zoom-In)


You can insert bookmark/s.


There are still a lot of things to be improved in e-books softwares or managers, like insertion of notes, highlighting, and relink/referencing.

But, I guess this is a good start already. And for me, it is time to migrate to ebooks.

Powerful reading!

Of Limacon and Other Things

I am currently constructing two blogsites. One site will tell the stories of my physical travel in the physical world, some call it as travelblog. The other site will recount the experiences my salivary glands and villis as well as the magic of culinary thoughts.

URL of my Travel Blog: Enterprise by Jonathan Archer

URL of my Food Blog: Neelix's Kitchen

For now I have not written additional articles for these sites. By next week, I will try to fill these up but that will depend on my schedule.

Also, here is the laundry list of the articles I am planning to write for this blog for the remaining of weeks of this month.

1. Space: The Mathematical One – exposition of my understanding of the concept of abstract space. How much do I know about abstract space, about topology and even the mathematics of complex space?
2. Don’t you know it’s Physics – this is an assessment of which physics concept I had lost from my mind after a long hiatus in my scientific exploration. I will try to revisit my understanding of Newtonian mechanics, Thermodynamics, Electrodynamics, Quantum Physics and other subfields of General Physics? As of now, I cannot remember the general forms of the Laws of Electromagnetisms.
3. Limacon Experience – Can I still remember the mathematical form of a limacon? In a month I have to check which aspect of calculus had tarnished in my mind.
4. Beyond Textbooks – here is the most difficult part. I need to re-expose myself on the advance topics of mathematics and physics. In mathematics, I need to reread anything about Bayesian mathematics and nonlinear mathematics. In physics, tensor and spinors must be re-introduced in my mind. Tensor is very important for me to fully comprehend the mathematics behind cosmological physics.
5. Is it complex? – Complex systems and evolutionary physics are the two new interests of my mind. A little exposition on these topics will suffice for this year.
6. A conversation with Darwin – need to update myself about Darwinian evolution and new approaches in modern biology.

Of course, I will also post random topics intermittently aside from the major topics above, ranging from mundane experiences of daily life, to coffee induced analysis of everyday scenarios, to deep philosophical realization.

Also, I have to focus on the reviews of the following materials:

1. Star Trek: Enterprise – Finished watching it few months ago but I had never wrote anything about it.
2. Star Trek: Voyager – Same case with Enterprise.
3. Stargate SG-1 – I have to do an exposition about for some certain points that I found so interesting.
4. Richard Dawkins: Ancetor’s Tale – I have understood several points but as of now I lost much of my understanding. I did not pay attention when I read this book. I have to reread it before I can produce a good exposition.

I also need to finish reading the following books:

1. Richard Dawkins: Selfish Genes – started to read few chapters and in the process of finishing it this month.
2. Leonard Susskind: Cosmis Landscape – bought this book last July and I have only read few pages.
3. Don’t you have time to think? – Letters of Richard Feynman. This one is still in mint condition. Never been touched.
4. Stephen Jay Gould: The Panda’s Thumb – Read three essays and currently on hold.
5. Isaac Asimov: The Universe – second hand pocket book about the universe. This one has not been touched also.

This month, I am also targeting to get the following books:

1. Benoit Mandelbrot: Misbehavior of Markets
2. John Maynard Smith: Theory of Games and Evolution
3. Sigmund Freud: Sexuality and Psychology of Love
4. Richard Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker
   

So many things to do, so many books to read, so many problems to solve, before I can fully catch up.

I am wishing myself to completely finish my catching-up period.

Technorati Tags: books, homeokinetics, evolution, game theory, limacon, math, physics, reviews, tv series

White's Trilogy

Do you really want to know the real landscape of a queer life? I recommend you to read Edmund White.

White understands the intricate weaving of the fabric of queer life. His trilogy had exposed the intertwining myriad faces of queer people. Capturing the core philosophy of queer life in expository novel is a dangerous task because it may misrepresent the whole queer populace. On one hand, White was able to give his readers a firm and stable understanding of queer life, without compromising the elements of a good novel. And this is the reason why he is first in the list of my LGBT readings.

He speaks of beauty and elegance of young queer life, the treacherous hide-seek of the adulthood, the joy of exploration, the tears of the queer eyes, the mute pain of queer heart, the love and affection of the four arms of two men, desire, sex, infidelity, honesty, the mirth of skirmishing the bodies of men, the reciprocation and non-reciprocation, confusion and stability, the tremendous responsibilities of a queer person both personal and social, and the melancholy and sadness of knowing that all of your queer friends are one by one retreating from the stage and knowing that in the end, it is you, and only you who will carry the lifelong memories of joy, love, anger, pain and hate. He summed up the full landscape of queer life in three books and one will be surprised that a queer life is as same as the life of the so called “normal” people.

White showed that we are just like anyone. We have family. We know pain. We know love. We are not less than any human being.

White’s Trilogy:

A Boy’s Own Story

The Beautiful Room is Empty

Farewell Symphony