Bureaucratic Nightmare

I had one of those days where I couldn't do anything right. Many things went wrong, but suffice it to say that I realized I ordered my used copy of Hammer's German Grammar and Usage in German instead of English (i.e. all of the notes on how the language works are in German) and it just got worse from there. I was really excited to go to my math class, until I wandered into a bureaucratic nightmare.

It turns out, at this particular Community College, if you make a mistake on a form, you have to get an entirely new form and fill the whole thing out again, instead of just crossing it out and rewriting it. Perhaps there is some reason for it that I do not know, but this policy seems absolutely insane. Anyway, having a visual processing issue, I often mix up numbers and letters when I write them down. I reversed two of the numbers in one of the pieces on the form. So, I was told very snootily, that I had to go back and get a new "add form" and it was unlikely that I would be able to get into the class. Seriously? Anyway, I talked to the professor who was very nice and said he was happy to get me a new "add form" but this still does not explain the "no cross-outs" policy. Bureaucracy sucks.

Update 02/11/11: I woke up this morning (after sleeping in) and the world looked a little brighter. Even better, when I went down to check the mail for my math book (which has not yet arrived), I found that my German book arrived-- and it's in English! Apparently the words "German Edition" (I bought a cheap used copy) just meant that the book was a descriptive German grammar, and all of the explanations are in English. I breathed a sigh of relief and cackled gleefully at having purchased a perfectly clean used edition for less than a quarter of the new price.

Eyestrain, iPads, and e-Readers

I cannot understand the phenomenon of the Apple iPad. Many of the places that I go, my first instance was when I got stuck waiting for Jury Duty, I notice people over the age of 60 with iPads. Although I understand the benefits of an easy-to-use, portable computer, I simply cannot understand why I primarily see this crowd reading books on their iPads. I am sure that enhanced e-books are awesome, but I cannot imagine why someone would want to read off an LCD screen, and this is particularly important tho those of the age group I see most often with iPads.

vs.

Having a visual processing disorder, I try to avoid reading off of LCD screens. I print a lot of articles into PDF with programs like PDF creator and read them on my kindle. When I work on this blog, read the New York Times, etc.,  I wear a set of computer glasses with a particular color and lens that relaxes the eyes (recommended by my neurologist). I definitely understand the desire to have a computer one can stash in one's purse or messenger bag, but I can check my email on my cellphone or my Kindle DX (and without the $15 per month of the iPad for 3G which is free on the Kindle DX) and I have an 11" laptop that is much more powerful and much less expensive than the flashy iPad.

The lack of e-Ink in something which one uses for reading boggles the mind. I know that the iPad was designed for much more than reading, but most of the people I see (and this is obviously anecdotal evidence) use it primarily for reading. Even more confusing is the Nook Color by Barnes & Noble, which is a dedicated e-Reader with an LCD display. An article on KindleWorld explains that people are claiming research has been done to show that LCDs are not as hard on the eyes as originally thought, but I cannot imagine that this is true, given my own personal experience.

According to KindleWorld, there will be a new "KinTablet," in which Amazon is the e-Reader with Android technology and creating a tablet. I guess this is not surprising is the tablet is the way of the future, but according to the same article on KindleWorld, most e-Books are still bought by those with dedicated e-Readers, and the there has been a recent upsurge in sales.

A Bibliophile's Review of the Kindle DX

I have had my wonderful Kindle DX for a year now. It was a wonderful and incredibly useful gift from a close family friend. I think that is ample time to explore the benefits of the Kindle and also to demonstrate that owning an eReader is not going over to the dark side.

My Kindle DX

As I have mentioned before, I have a visual processing disorder, so reading off of anything (and especially a computer screen) for any length of time is difficult. Unfortunately, like at any university, many of my classes required supplementary readings that were held by online reserves, and had to be read either on a computer screen or by printing them out. Although I read many of them on paper, printing at school, as well as my own printing (with the cost of ink/toner) was expensive. Both of the two doctors who I consulted recommended the Kindle DX to me, because of the e-ink screen and because font size and word spacing are easily changeable, as well as the reading aloud function.

I was very skeptical, at first, of the idea of an electronic reader. I am a serious bibliophile (as presumably anyone can guess from the bookshelf at the top of my blog and my reading list). I love the feel of books in my hands, the tactile sensation of turning the pages and hearing the distinctive sounds of the paper. I love new books, so shiny and perfect one hardly wants to open them. I ordered a copy of Immanuel Kant's Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals that releases the distinctive smell of jasmine soap upon opening. I also love used books, a little worn or with an inscription by the previous owner. For one birthday, my parents bought me a copy of Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow from the mid 1890s, with a beautiful sky-blue leather cover and accents of gold leaf, a little worn on the spine with use.

However, when I received my Kindle DX, I was almost immediately won over. The device itself is sleek and lightweight (and the new graphite ones are actually even sleeker). I can carry 3,500 books and documents. While I was at school, I no longer had to print, I could do my electronic reserve reading right on my Kindle [1]. Furthermore, I could download any PDF from Jstor or any of the wonderful electronic journal archives for research or pleasure reading and read them or save them for a later date. There are also a ton of free books on Amazon and Project Gutenberg (mobi documents) for the kindle, which can be annotated the same way that a traditional kindle document can.

I also found that writing my thesis, the Kindle was a real lifesaver. One of the primary texts that I used was Plato's Laws. I read the Laws in English, and then read selected sections I needed in the Greek. Much of the time I needed to refer to specific passages that all used the same word or phrase and sometimes either calculate the frequency of those phrases or discuss their placement in the text. Although I used the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae for much of the searching, I also used the kindle search function in the English version in order to expedite certain processes as well as to contain vast annotations on particular passages.

I do have a number of criticisms of the kindle, some of which Amazon has addressed and fixed.
Concerns that Amazon has recently fixed:

1. No Organization-- The newest software update that I downloaded allows for collections of books, which means that I can organize the books in any way I choose. This is a huge help given how many ebooks I have.
2. No Zoom-- The newest software update also includes a zoom for PDF documents, which is very helpful.

Concerns Amazon still need to fix:

1. No way to refer to page numbers from the print edition. I was lucky with Plato, because Plato scholars refer to Stephanus pagination, rather than page numbers from any particular edition. However, this can be a serious issue when writing academic papers. It usually means that one has to check a print edition of the library as well and then cross-reference, which is really lame. It also provides a difficulty in citing pages for class discussion, which is part of why the kindle experimentation program at universities was not a raging success (my school included).
2. No way to borrow books. This is truly unfortunate. I lend print copies of my books to my friends all the time, and my mother and I frequently both read a book. I don't want to have to lend someone my kindle, because that is lending a portion of my library and it keeps all of my notes. 
3. The TERRIBLE pronunciation of times and sometimes problematic inflection of the reader. I know, it's difficult to get a computer to pronounce things properly. When I was taking a Thucydides course where we were focusing intently on Book I (in Greek), I would listen to the rest of the book (in English) while I was cooking or cleaning to provide context. I often had to go over and check the text because I could not understand the names and place names to which she was referring (I usually listened to the female voice).
4. Problematic edition differences. According to an Amazon representative that I talked to once, publishing companies put out their own version of the kindle books rather than Amazon doing it themselves. I understand this principle. However, I cannot understand the lack of standards between different publishers. One of my favorite features of the kindle is linked footnotes, and a lot of books just have endnotes in the back instead of the linked footnotes. It seems like it would be easy to have across-the-board standards for the different companies.

Overall, the kindle is awesome. I now only have to lug one book and a kindle on a trip, instead of taking 3-4 books with me. I love my kindle so much that I bought a second one off a friend (who got it as a gift and was not a fan) and gave it to my mom, who also loves it.

If anyone is interested, the case I have is also awesome.

Update 02/14/11: There are new updates for the kindle. The first two problems (page numbers from the print editions and borrowing books) have now been fixed, although the former has only been solved on certain kindle books and only for the newest editions of the Kindle 6". I discuss this in a recent blogpost. The borrowing books feature is also questionable. The book leaves your kindle and moves to the other person's kindle for either 2 or 3 weeks, and then it returns. Each book can only be lent once. As a person who lends out a lot of books and who is loaned a lot of books, this system seems pretty ridiculous. However, it's better than nothing.

Endnotes

1. For anyone interested, any documents that have been scanned with facing pages can be split into two separate documents with your pdf reader/editor program and then merged by alternate pages with PDFsam. This takes a few minutes, but if you do it once a week or so with all of the electronic reserve documents, it really helps. I got this tip from a friend.

Trying Not to Procrastinate

I have wasted a lot of time this summer. A lot of the time I think I am looking for direction. I was always a self-starter, but I had a lot of trouble finishing projects. Part of this comes from my visual processing disorder [1],which make it difficult to take in visual input for any period of time without taking adequate breaks.[2] Earlier this summer, however, my self-starter instinct seemed to have died. I constantly put books down after a few minute or pages, I spend hours watching inane television instead of getting to the books and articles I desperately wanted to read, I always came back to the same set of flashcards because I never used them consistently enough to lodge the words in my memory, etc.

When Cerinthus was here I was in the worst of my rut. I spent a large amount of time downloading books off the internet when I should have been spending time with him or even just reading one of the books I had downloaded. Then, to make matters worse, I came down with a horrible flu, which made me feel like I was looking at the world through a thick veil of incomprehension and I could not concentrate on anything.

It seems that I have finally managed to turn things around. Yesterday was my first day back at the gym. Finally I finished the first book on my reading list, Oswyn Murray's Early Greece. I plan on starting my next book tomorrow. On Saturday I proctor my next exam, so I need something to keep me occupied. I found The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100-480 B.C. by Jeffery Hurwit in my garage today; it is one of the many books I still have not managed to unpack and bring upstairs. Since I plan to expand the second chapter of my thesis based on some encouraging data in Early Greece, I thought that Hurwit's book might provide even more fodder for my rewriting.






While I was reading Early Greece, I became so excited by different piece of Greek history that I had missed in my attempt to balance the academics of school and my personal life and health that I blogged about it. I have written two installments so far, Greek History Review #1 and #2 and my plan is to finish my third installment tomorrow which will be able to be found at my Platonic Psychology blog. I find that it is easier to remember the facts that I read when I write about them and I am more likely to put pen to paper (or in this case, finger to keyboard) when my writing is "published," insofar as blogging is publishing. I especially like it when I can add awesome pictures (see Greek History Review #2).

Endnotes

1.  Basic information about visual processing disorders can be found at LDonline.
2. For this reason, visual processing difficulties are often confused with ADHD.