jameswharris

Physical Bookshelves versus Kindle Library

By James Wallace Harris, Monday, January 5, 2015

I’m in a buying quandary. Is it better to own a hardback or a digital book? This particular problem arose just now because I’m wondering how to acquire Ada’s Algorithm by James Essinger, a new book about Ada Lovelace. At Amazon it’s $12.99 for the Kindle edition, and $19.41 for the hardback. I’d save $6.42 by buying the digital book – that’s a good bit for a retired person. But since I routinely buy used hardback books for $3-5, I’d could save even more if I wait. But then Mr. Essinger would earn no royalty. In fact, while reading about Ada’s Algorithm I see that he also wrote Jacquard’s Web, which I immediately bought just now for $4 (1 cent for the book, $3.99 for shipping). If I waited I could eventually get the same deal on the book about Ada Lovelace.

However, there is more to my buying decision than price. In the long run – defined as rest of my life – is it better to own a hardback or ebook? Which format is easier to read? Which format is easier to review? Which format is easier to reference and look stuff up? Which format is easier to lend to friends? Once I start thinking about all these other factors, my brain begins begging for a nap.

I love holding a hardback book. I love their dust jackets. But I don’t like owning a lot of possessions. I often cull my old books and give them to the Friends of the Library after I’ve read them, so buying the hardback doesn’t mean owning it for life. One advantage of buying the Kindle edition at Amazon is I own it without having to shelve and store it. In other words, Kindle books don’t weigh heavy on my sense of possessions, and thus I have them as long as Amazon remains in business, which if I’m lucky, is for the rest of my life.

If Kindle books were as exactly usable as hardbacks I think I would always buy the Kindle edition. Unfortunately, they aren’t – at least not at this moment. Hardbacks are far more user friendly when it comes to flipping around the book, and reading randomly. Hardbacks are nicer to lend to friends, and use for reference. Kindle books are easier to hold. Kindle books are easier to copy quotes from. And I can find a Kindle book faster. And it’s a snap to search for a keyword.

I really wish Amazon would put some major effort into making managing my digital library more fun and useful. I own a whole lot of Kindle books I’ve forgotten that I own. Kindle books would be more appealing for collecting if we had better library management tools.

Man, my brain is really begging for a nap now. If Ada’s Algorithm had been $7.99 for the Kindle, I would have bought it immediately, and not even thought about writing this essay. Mr. Essiinger would have gotten paid, and I would be reading. Instead, I’ll wait for Jacquard’s Web to show up in the mail. In other words, price will determine what kind of book I buy. Next Christmas when I’m going through my old Wish List items at Amazon, I’ll see Ada’s Algorithm and if there’s a cheap hardback, order it. I ordered four or five books that way this Christmas when I was reviewing my Wish List for things to tell my wife what I want Santa Claus to bring me. Hell, I don’t mind when Santa has to pay new hardback prices. I wish I had gotten Santa to get me the Ada book this Christmas.

That said, I do wish I had digital copies of all the books I’ve ever read or owned. I often give away books and later want to look at them again. Publishers want to raise ebook prices. That’s their prerogative. As long as I can get used hardbacks for $3-5, then that’s the price that makes my decision. I’d be willing to pay two or three dollars more for ebooks, so the author gets paid, but not two or three times as much.

Finally, if I wait long enough, I see the ebook edition of books I want in the Kindle Daily Deal or Bookbub for $1.99. At that price I often buy books I’ve read just to have a copy for my digital library. Someday I don’t think I’ll have bookshelves or own hardback books, and it might even happen before I die. (Yes, it’s always about me.)

JWH

2014 Year in Reading

By James Wallace Harris, Thursday, January 1, 2015

Since 1983 I’ve kept a log of books read, noting the title, author and the date I finished the book. Over the years this has proved very rewarding and useful. This year I switched from using an old notebook to using the spreadsheet in Google docs because it allows me to search and order my list in different ways. The spreadsheet also allowed me to add some new columns of information to collect – year published, type, and the format of the book I read. I wish I had started this log with the first book I ever read on my own back in grade school, whatever that was. I think it was a Scholastic abridgement of Up Periscope by Robb White. In the early 1970s I kept a similar log for 18 months, when I dropped out of college and read 479 books. I wish I had that list now. The older I get the more I wish I had systematically documented my life.

This year I read 67 books, up from 52 in 2013, 49 in 2012, 58 in 2011, which was my last big reading year. I thought I might read over 100 books this year since 2014 was my first full year of retirement. I know many bookworms that do read 100, 200 and even more books a year. I don’t think I’ll ever be that kind of bookworm. I’m guessing between 50-75 books is the most I can digest in one year.

I believe this year I read more nonfiction books than in past years, with 29 out of the 67, and more new books, 26 of the 67 were published in 2013 and 2014, which was my reading goal from 2013. My complete list of books read in 2014 is at the bottom of the essay. In the past I’ve listed my top five favorites, but this year I read so many great books I’m listening my top ten.

Favorite Novels Read in 2014

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
Stoner by John Williams
House Rules by Jodi Picoult
Possession by A. S. Byatt
Timescape by Gregory Benford
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Summertime by J. M. Coetzee
Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Favorite Nonfiction Books Read in 2014

Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty
The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin
Time Reborn by Lee Smolin
The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch
The Innovators by Walter Isaacson
The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin
Short Night of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan
How Jesus Became God by Bart D. Ehrman
Hellhound on his Trail by Hampton Sides
Factory Man by Beth Macy

That doesn’t mean the other 47 books were bad, but these were the standouts. Every year I try to read one large 19th century classic. This year I read The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James. It was very good, but not great. I also like to read old forgotten science fiction novels, and the two I picked this year, Goslings by J. D. Beresford and Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman both dealt with imagining societies of women without men. Both were engaging reads, but on the esoteric side. I only recommend them to historians of feminism and science fiction. But both were big fun to me.

I also like rereading science fiction novels I first discovered as a teen to see how they hold up. Two of my favorites from the 1960s were Nova by Samuel R. Delany and Dimension of Miracles by Robert Sheckley. Both from 1968. I still like them, and even admire them, but the tides of time are eroding their once beautiful beaches.

As an experiment, I read one book, Timescape by Gregory Benford, and then a week later listened to it, which I wrote about in “Printed Book v. Audio Book.” The experience only validated what I’ve known for years, and that is I get far more out of fiction when I listen than when I read with my eyes.

Novel and Nonfiction of the Year

I wish the Capote novel wasn’t always overshadowed by the Audrey Hepburn film. I love the movie, but the novella is on much higher plane of existence than the movie. I didn’t discover that until this year. When I image searched on “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” all the pictures were from the movie. Even when I added “paperback” – Audrey’s beautiful face dominates. Listening to the Michael C. Hall narration of Capote’s story brought the story to life far differently from my own reading year’s ago. I’m such a poor reader of fiction that I should always leave the job to experts. I did find this old Signet paperback cover that helps forget Audrey’s, but it’s still not a cover the book deserves.

The reason why I picked Capital in the Twenty-First Century is because it’s a magnificent work of history, literary commentary and economic insight. It’s also a very significant book everyone should read.

Reading Log for 2014

Title	Author	Pub.	Finished	F/NF	Format
The Beginning of Infinity	David Deutsch	2011	Jan 11	NF	Audio
The Master	Colm Tobin	2004	Jan 16	F	Audio
The Portrait of a Lady	Henry James	1881	Feb 01	F	Audio
Difficult Men	Brett Martin	2013	Feb 06	NF	Audio
The Goldfinch	Donna Tartt	2013	Feb 06	F	Kindle
Citizen of the Galaxy	Robert A. Heinlein	1957	Feb 10	F	Audio
David and Goliath	Malcolm Gladwell	2013	Feb 13	NF	Library HB
Dawn	Octavia Butler	1987	Feb 13	F	Audio
The Trouble With Physics	Lee Smolin	2006	Feb 21	NF	Audio
The Bully Pulpit	Doris Kearns Goodwin	2013	Mar 08	NF	Audio
Keep the Aspidistra Flying	George Orwell	1936	Mar 09	F	Audio
House Rules	Jodi Picoult	2010	Mar 20	F	Audio
Short Night of the Shadow Catcher	Timothy Egan	2012	Mar 28	NF	Library HB
Time Reborn	Lee Smolin	2013	Mar 28	NF	Audio
The Major of MacDougal Street	Dave Van Ronk	2006	Apr 01	NF	Audio
Ava Gardner: The Secret Conversation	Peter Evans	2013	Apr 06	NF	Library HB
Die Empty	Todd Henry	2013	Apr 08	NF	Audio
Brittle Innings	Michael Bishop	1994	Apr 10	F	Hardback
In the Heart of the Sea	Nathaniel Philbrick	2000	Apr 18	NF	Audio
Accelerando	Charles Stross	2005	Apr 29	F	Audio
The Robots of Dawn	Isaac Asimov	1983	May 06	F	Audio
Goslings	J. D. Beresford	1913	May 10	F	Audio
All Flesh is Grass	Clifford Simak	1965	May 11	F	Paperback
Odds Against Tomorrow	Nathaniel Rich	2013	May 17	F	Audio
On Looking	Alexandra Horowitz	2013	Jun 03	NF	Audio
The Martian	Andy Weir	2014	Jun 09	F	Library HB
Possession	A. S. Byatt	1990	Jun 11	F	Audio
Robert A. Heinlein – volume 2	William H. Patterson	2014	Jun 23	NF	Hardback
Survivors	Terry Nation	1976	Jun 28	F	Trade PB
How Jesus Became God	Bart D. Ehrman	2014	Jul 07	NF	Library HB
Capital in the Twenty-First Century	Thomas Piketty	2014	Jul 17	NF	Audio
Did Jesus Exist?	Bart D. Ehrman	2012	Jul 19	NF	Library HB
The Bell Jar	Sylvia Plath	1963	Aug 03	F	Trade PB
Herland	Charlotte Perkins Gilman	1915	Aug 08	F	Audio
Factory Man	Beth Macy	2014	Aug 20	NF	Audio
The Postman	David Brin	1985	Aug 21	F	Library HB
Wide Sargasso Sea	Jean Rhys	1966	Aug 25	F	Trade PB
Ancillary Justice	Ann Leckie	2013	Aug 26	F	Audio
Breakfast at Tiffany’s	Truman Capote	1958	Aug 27	F	Audio
The Second Machine Age	Brynjolfsson & McAfee	2014	Sep 04	NF	Audio
Lock In	John Scalzi	2014	Sep 08	F	Audio
Dimension of Miracles	Robert Sheckley	1968	Sep 10	F	Audio
The Everything Store: Jeff Bazos	Brad Stone	2013	Sep 13	NF	Library HB
Stoner	John Williams	1965	Sep 15	F	Audio
The Perks of Being a Wallflower	Stephen Chbosky	1999	Sep 18	F	Audio
The Death of Ivan Ilyich	Leo Tolstoy	1886	Sep 19	F	Audio
Home is the Sailor	Robin Lee Graham	1983	Sep 25	NF	Library HB
A Separate Peace	John Knowles	1959	Oct 03	F	Trade PB
My Life in Middlemarch	Rebecca Mead	2014	Oct 07	NF	Audio
Hellhound on His Trail	Hampton Sides	2009	Oct 09	NF	Library HB
Fire and Rain	David Browne	2011	Oct 13	NF	Audio
Hieroglyph	Finn & Kramer	2014	Oct 21	F	Audio
The Collapse of Western Civilization	Oreskes & Conway	2014	Oct 31	NF	Kindle
The End of the World	Martin H. Greenberg	2010	Nov 06	F	Audio
The Five Elements of Effective Thinking	Burger & Starbird	2012	Nov 10	NF	Audio
Disgrace	J. M. Coetzee	1999	Nov 10	F	Trade PB
Nova	Samuel R. Delany	1968	Nov 14	F	Hardback
The Shallows	Nicholas Carr	2010	Nov 19	NF	Audio
Summertime	J. M. Coetzee	2010	Nov 26	F	Hardback
Life After Life	Kate Atkinson	2013	Nov 29	F	Audio
The Innovators	Walter Isaacson	2014	Dec 02	NF	Library HB
The Glass Cage	Nicholas Carr	2014	Dec 05	NF	Audio
Timescape	Gregory Benford	1980	Dec 13	F	Library PB
The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain	Barbara Strauch	2010	Dec 16	NF	Audio
Timescape	Gregory Benford	1980	Dec 22	F	Audio
Daring	Gail Sheehy	2014	Dec 26	NF	Library HB
Everything I Never Told You	Celeste Ng	2014	Dec 31	F	Audio

Plans for 2015

I want to continue reading even more nonfiction and newer books. Like I wrote the other day, I’m ready to leave the 20th century behind. My goal is to read two-thirds nonfiction next year, with most of them published in 2014 and 2015.

JWH

Leaving the 20th Century Behind

By James Wallace Harris, Monday, December 29, 2014

I assume anyone choosing to read this essay remembers the 20th century, and that young people aren’t my targeted audience. Gen X (1965-1979) and Millennials (1980-2000) can remember last century, and I’m sure they have their own objects of nostalgia, although I find it hard to picture people in their forties getting all weepy over punk tunes, claiming, “Hey, they’re playing our song!” Gen X’ers and Y’ers are closer to their past, but it’s quickly becoming old like mine.

The other night I was checking out TCM and Warner Archive Instant, and realized I was prowling through the same old decades, looking for the same old favorites movies and movie stars, and wondered if it wasn’t time I got back to the 21st century. Trying to find a great Pre-Code flick or a gritty 1950s western that I haven’t seen is getting harder and harder. What I’ve discovered in my late night TV watching is I can choose to dig around the 20th century, or I can look for something new.

When I go the new route I’m often uplifted by an influx of current data about reality. I know I’m addicted to the past, yet I also know I get the best intellectual rushes from taking in reports from the event horizons of things going on now. I’m both a news junky, and a nostalgia addict, but I’m slowly discovering that keeping up with what’s new is healthier for my aging brain.

If you grew up in the 1950s and 1960s like I did, 2015 sounds like the far future. Most of my fellow baby boomers (1946-1964) identify more with the 20th century than the 21st. I’m not sure that’s good. We’re well into the 21st century now, and I think it’s time we leave the 20th century behind. Few people actually live in the pop culture moment. The old live in the past, and the young have so many choices that they experience the moment in an asynchronous consumption that is so diverse that it’s hard to imagine them identifying themselves as any particular generation. I guess they are the Net generation – because of Internet and Broadband networks – but the net connects them to everything. They can call up a 1965 TV show as easily as a 2014 show, which gives their pop culture content a timeless quality.

Back in my youth, baby boomers tended to watch the same few TV channels live, and listened to the same AM radio stations, and went to the same movies. This synced us up in ways that young people growing up today can’t understand. Boomers in the now tune into classic rock, watch nostalgia TV and collect DVDs of all our old favorite movies and television shows. For Christmas I got my wife a subscription to Spotify, and she immediately made playlists of her favorite 1960s and 1970s music.

Isn’t it time we left the 20th century behind? I don’t know about you, but nostalgia starting to run thin.

Among friends my age, the closest we sync with the present pop culture is with movies. Many of my friends go to one or two movies a week, and this gives us something to share. When it comes to music, we’re all living in our own isolated headphone space. There is some sharing of TV, but it’s few and far between. Sports is the one pop culture experience where millions focus on the same event at the same time, young and old. Unfortunately, for me, I’m not a sport fan, so I feel out of the loop there.

As a TV watcher, I stick primarily to PBS for live shows, and that syncs me mostly to my fellow baby boomers. I have a lot of friends who love NPR, and of all my friends who still watch the nightly news, we’re to a person watching NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Of course, the conservative people I know, stick to Fox News. As a group, baby boomers, whether liberal or conservative, are not that adventuresome when it comes to taking in new data. Neither NBC, PBS or Fox is cutting edge 21st century.

It’s only when I read new books and magazines do I get a feeling I’m living in the 21st century. When I’m reading about attacks on string theory, news of exoplanet discoveries, or the politics of wealth inequality, do I feel like I’m close to current. Reading the news feeds of Zite, Flipboard and News360, as well as digital magazines on Next Issue and Zinio, makes me feel like I’m actually keeping up with the present. And it’s documentaries on PBS and Netflix streaming that give me a sense of what’s really happening around the world now. Nightly news shows relentlessly show the same type of news stories so over the long haul of time nothing really feels new. Politics and weather disasters never seem to change, they’re so 20th century. It’s only stories about science and technology breakthroughs do I feel I’m actually hearing about current news, and feel I’m in the 21st century. Hell, the details from the Middle East seem like the same stories I read in The Bible.

When I buy used books, I ignore any nonfiction before the year 2000, and I’m getting to I don’t like anything published before 2010. And in some ways, I feel the same about fiction. I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s loving the old movies of the 1930s and 1940s, and for many years I loved film history up until the year 2000. More and more I want to see movies that are less than a year old. I was an English major in college, and have always loved books from 1800-1950, but even that taste is changing. I still love the 19th century, but now I often prefer it seen through 21st century eyes, like Elizabeth Gilbert’s The Signature of All Things.

In other words, if I look at the past, I want to be with a fresh perspective, with modern eyes. We can’t escape the legacy of the past, but we can avoid rigidly being frozen in old perspectives of reality. The 21st century is upon us, and I believe we need to pay attention.

JWH

Do Internet Ads Work On You?

By James Wallace Harris, Friday, December 19, 2014

This morning I found out that the legendary programming magazine, Dr. Dobbs will be ending its 38 year run at the end of 2014. The main reason for their failure is dwindling internet ad revenue. For years magazines have been failing because of competition from the internet, and many magazines have gone web only publishing. Now, we’re seeing that model for publishing failing too.

People using the internet want everything to be free, and they ignore ads. If we won’t subscribe and won’t click on ads, how will publishers pay for their online presence? When I read about Dr. Dobbs, I went researching internet advertising, and the first article I went to read, “A Dangerous Question: Does Internet Advertising Work at All?” at The Atlantic. Ironically, it required me to click four times to fight off pop-up and slide up ads. Reading on the internet now means a constant fight with avoiding ads, and even more, avoiding the temptation of click-bait seductions.

If you look a The Atlantic page, how many ads do you see? I had to consciously make an effort to count them because my brain has been conditioned to tune them out. All banner ads at the top of web pages are invisible to me, as are on-page ads. The only way they can get my attention is to block my reading and force me to read an ad. And some sites force us to watch a video. Most nice sites let us skip ads or close the pop-ups. Others don’t. If I see how many seconds I have to wait, and if it’s over ten, I close the window and give up.

I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one that does this.

The question becomes: What happens to the internet when ad-supported revenue fails to pay for web publishing? Will all sites put up paywalls and require subscriptions?

Google makes billions off of ads, but then everyone uses Google. If I am going to respond to an ad, it’s most likely from how I see them used in search results. In fact, if I’m going to buy anything I’m going to do a Google search first to research my purchase. For most things, I make my buying decisions by customer reviews at Amazon, or sites like Angie’s List.

Maybe I am atypical. Are there millions of people out there clicking away on ads? Are there enough of these people that can finance the free web? I don’t know. I do know there’s a frenzy of ad bombardment going on, and it seems like most of the sites I do visit are escalating their efforts to get my attention. This is damn annoying. Makes me want to go back to print magazines. Actually, I subscribe to Next Issue. I get 140 magazines for $15 a month. Sure it has ads, but they are easily ignored, and they are generally more beautiful.

The reason why most of my television watching is via Netflix streaming is because I don’t have to watch ads. I pay Spotify $10 a month so I don’t have to hear ads. And it annoys the hell out of me that I’m paying more for my movie ticket and force to watch ads. One reason I got tired of DVDs was because they were forcing me to watch previews and ads.

Time is an extremely important commodity in life, and ads waste a lot of our precious time. And sadly, 99.99% of all the ads I do end up watching have no relationship to what I want or need. I can’t really believe advertising is an effective means to acquire customers, but obviously I’m wrong. TV, radio, the internet, magazines, newspapers, sports, etc. are all ad driven businesses.

Yet, I’m not sure if they work on me. Do they work on you?

What if science tells advertisers exactly the best way to connect with potential customers that’s highly efficient. Will all inefficient forms of advertising disappear? Companies have known since the 19th century that most of their advertising dollars are wasted, but they’ve never been sure which dollars were well spent. What happens if they do find out?

JWH

By 2020 Robots Will Be Able to Do Most People’s Jobs

By James Wallace Harris, Wednesday, December 17, 2014

People commonly accept that robots are replacing humans at manual labor, but think they will never replace us at mental labor, believing that our brain power and creativity are exclusive to biological beings. Think again. Watch this video from Jeremy Howard, it will be worth the twenty minutes it will cost you. It’s one of the most impactful TED Talks I’ve seen.

What Howard is reporting on is machine learning, especially Deep Learning. Humans could never program machines to think, but what if machines learn to think through interaction with reality – like we do?

But just before I watched that TED Talk, I came across this article, “It’s Happening: Robots May Be The Creative Artists of the Future” over at MakeUseOf. Brad Merrill reviews robots that write essays, compose music, paints pictures and learning to see. Here’s the thing, up till now, we think of robots as doing physical tasks that are programmed by humans. We picture humans minds analyzing all the possible steps in the task, and then creating algorithms in a computer language to get the computers to do jobs we don’t want to do. But could we ever tell a computer to, “Compose me a melody!” without defining all the steps?

The example Jeremy Howard gives of machine learning, is Arthur Samuel teaching a computer to play checkers. Instead of programming all the possible moves and game strategy, Samuel programmed the computer to play checkers against itself and to learn the game through experience – he programmed a learning method. That was a long time ago. We’re now teaching computers to see, by giving them millions of photographs to analyze, and then helping them to learn the common names for distinctive objects they detect. Sort of like what we do with kids when they point to a dog.

What has kept robots in factories doing grunt work is they can’t see and hear like we do, or understand language and talk like people. What’s happening in computer science right now is they can get computers to do each of these things separately, and are close to getting machines that can combine all these human like abilities into one system. How many humans will McDonalds hire to take orders when they have a machine that listens and talks to customers and works 24x7x365 with no breaks? As Howard points out, 80% of the workforce in most industrialized countries are service workers. What happens when machines can do service work cheaper than humans?

Corporations are out to make money. If they can find any way to do something cheaper, they will, and one of the biggest way to eliminate overhead is to get rid of humans. Greed is the driving force of our economy and politics. We will not stop or outlaw automation. Over at io9, they offer, “12 Reasons Robots Will Always Have An Advantage Over Humans.”

Now, I’m not even saying we should stop all of this. I doubt we could anyway. I’m saying we need to learn to adapt to living with machines. A good example is playing chess. Machines can already beat humans, so why keep playing chess? But what if you combined humans and chess machines, to play as teams against other teams, who will win? Read “The Chess Master and the Computer” by Garry Kasparov over at The New York Review of Books. In a 2005 free for all match, it wasn’t Grand Masters with supercomputers that won, but two so-so human amateur players using three regular computers. As Howard points out, humans without medical experience are using Deep Learning programs to analyze medical scans and diagnose cancers as well or better than experienced doctors.

When Jeremy Howard talks about Deep Learning algorithms, I wished I had a machine that could read the internet for me and process thousands of articles to help me write essays. So I could say to my computer, “Find me 12 computer programs that paint artistically and links to their artwork.” That way I wouldn’t have to do all the grunt work with Google myself. For example, it should find Harold Cohen’s AI artist, AARON. I found that with a little effort, but who else is working in this area around the world? Finding that out would take a good bit of work which I’d like to offload.

Imagine the science fiction novel I could write with the aid of an intelligent machine. I think we’re getting close to when computers can be research assistants, yet in five or ten years, they won’t need us at all, and could write their own science fiction novels. Will computer programs win the Hugo Award for best novel someday? And after that, a human and machine co-authors might write a more thrilling novel of wonder.

JWH