Less than useful

Procrastinating a bit from some contract work I need to get done tonight.

I’d seen Amazon Kindles in person a few times, and was absolutely blown away by the quality and legibility of the text on the screen.  I didn’t get to spend that much time with them though to really get a feel for the features.  I didn’t like how a lot of the device’s real-estate was used up by a keyboard though.

Today I spent a while with the Sony eReaders, and was surprised to find that they don’t look or feel nearly as nice as the Kindle.  They looked great in their press-shots and sounded vastly superior to me, but they felt quite cheap comparatively.  When these things are supposed to recreate the “experience of reading a book,” which detractors keep bringing up, it’s apparently a really big deal.

Speaking of e-book readers in general, the ability to change text-size I think is a killer feature.  However one thing I noticed on the Sony readers, and really disliked, was that they wouldn’t justify or typeset the text particularly well.  It’s especially obvious at larger font sizes. I don’t know whether the Kindle does this either, but it seems like it’d be a great feature to further enhance legibility.  Maybe most people don’t notice this sort of thing though.

It does make me think though that I really don’t want to be an early adopter in this instance, and it’s steeled my resolve to get through all the physical books I’ve acquired over the years before I invest in something that will be obsolete in a few months…

I’d been meaning to write about Avatar for some time since I’d seen it, as none of the reviews/articles/criticisms I’d seen on it quite captured my thoughts.  Now this Macleans article, by Brian D. Johnson, captures them far more succinctly than I could manage: Why Haven’t You Seen Avatar Yet?

The only thing I’d really like to add is to chastise people who are reading so deeply into what is really such a superficial movie.  The plot is so thin, the characters are so shallow, you’re just seeing what you want to see, or ‘jumping at shadows’ so to speak.  Despite the lack of depth, the movie still manages to be an awe-inspiring experience.  It’s really okay to just watch it with an open … or possibly empty mind.