December 15, 2007

Two vlogs about my Amazon Kindle.

1. First, I review the Amazon Kindle and compare it to books, audiobooks, and the Rocket Book.



2. The second vlog is not a review but a quiz, consisting of readings from the various books I've loaded into the Kindle. You can guess the titles.

12 comments:

rhhardin said...

Location is one of Cicero's suggested memory aids. Anyway I think Cicero. Probably De Oratore. Anyway it was one of those little Loeb Library books.

If it's already in a computer, though, you ought to be able to grep (``find'') for the word or phrase you want, and find anything much more reliably.

Ann Althouse said...

You can do a search in the Kindle. (You don't load the books into your computer. You keep them at Amazon.) But I think having things in your brain is much better.

George M. Spencer said...

In Cold Blood, Brave New World, the Pollard book on eating, Reeve's bio of Kennedy, Slaughterhouse?

Here's another...

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all....

Ann Althouse said...

Very good: "Pollard" ... name slightly off. Wrong book about Kennedy.

Ron said...

Slightly off topic, I have to say, I find your vlogs interesting and compelling, sometimes even more than your posts...I don't me that harshly, it's just what the mind fills in for one thing compared to another... The Kindle looks really cool.

George M. Spencer said...

Then it's something by Wm. Manchester, so adoring is the tone.

Gotta go...need to help some boys sneak into a zombie movie!!!!!!

Mortimer Brezny said...

Why is it called a Kindle rather than a Bundle?

rhhardin said...

Ah, it is Cicero, but Quintilian has the memorable exposition on places (``topics'') as a memory aid, both referencing Simonides.

Quintilian XI ii 11 ff

wonder if it's online YES! here

saves a lot of typing.

david leaner said...

Quintilian: "memory may be improved by cultivation,"

fondly fogged over by time, and enhanced by self-deception?

Thanks for the citation and good tutorial. Will try to keep it on the straight and narrow, but it's such a cramped path of objective truthiness. Is Google today's Virgil?

reader_iam said...

I'm not interested enough to go back and figure out on which thread this comment belongs. It's the one--or ones--in which people were noting the "blogger XX" phenomenon. Anyway, I came over just to say that I'm wondering if it has (speculating that it might have) something to do with Blogger's new OpenID feature. Or not. Whatever.

/OT, and also of my interest.

Chip Ahoy said...

The recto/verso, top/bottom, front/back text-placement-within-a-book memory technique is useful, yes, but not foolproof. I've wasted time searching for something I knew was in the upper right side near the halfway point, only at length to find it some place far from there. Pictures are good anchors too, if they're placed near the appropriate text. But best of all, if you happen to think of it and if you use it before it fades, is to make a note of the page number.

Location association is a well-known memory technique. One book I read suggested associating a list of things to be remembered with a mental tour of some familiar place, but it's especially facile when associated with something ridiculous -- easier to recall. Your take on it, recalling the book you listened to when you made a long drive, associating chapters with scenes viewed from the car, reminds me of the emotional association we make with music -- what was happening in our lives generally when a song was popular. I hope I'm not off base here, I had difficulty hearing everything you said so I filled in the blanks with what I wanted you to say.

The Kindle seems to be almost there. Needs a slide-out keypad.

Can you solve a crossword on the thing?
Can you print from it?
Will it ever show pictures?

RHodnett said...

The passage that starts about 4 minutes into the 2nd vlog is from the first chapter of The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam. I always liked the chapter's last sentence:

Since it was cold and there were no taxis, Kennedy gave [Robert] Lovett his own car and driver, having failed to give him State, Defense, or Treasury.