ase

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance is available in electronic format, and I want something to read on the train, so I'm looking at ereaders. Are there overwhelming reasons to go with a Kindle Touch over a Nook Simple Touch? Available free / cheap books, breadth / depth of compatible file formats, convenience of downloading internet content, marginal non-reading bonus features? I'm leaning toward the Nook. I'm also eying the Sony ereader in reflexive anti-crowd attitude, but I'm not buying without trying.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Crossposts: http://ase.livejournal.com/593207.html

Amazon has the new Lady Gaga album for 99 cents. If that's an accident, I'm not asking too closely.

Yesterday I made it to Maker Faire, an inspired conflagration of "look what I made!": computer hackers, crafters, robots, steampunk, etc. I made it three hours before overload set in.

Friday night I watched Sleepless and Seattle. My conflicting yet keenly felt feelings on rom-com and romantic dramas were quickly set aside for angst over my reinvention of early '90s hair. Oops?

Thanks to Roommate #3, I've also subjected myself to parts of two episodes of Time Jam: Valerian & Laureline. When he got bored with that he switched to Stargate. My roommates, they are geeks too.

My LJ paid account expired last week. I'm not sure I'm going to re-up; I'm using LJ very differently from how I used it in 2002 (!). Some of that, I'd like to think, is a reflection of growing maturity, and learning from other people's experiences.

What's the next big thing? We've done usenet, chat rooms, mailing lists, instant messaging, myspace, LJ, and other blogging services. Facebook is an establishment. LinkedIn is on an upswing. Everywhere I turn someone's updating their Twitter feed. Some communication platforms have found a niche; some are on the long tail. A few are... further along. Different platforms have had different strengths and weaknesses: mailing lists are a great way to blast lots of people at once, LJ encouraged mixing the significant and the minutia, facebook had critical mass. Where are the fannish zeitgeists going next? For a while, everyone was on LJ, or had a blog with an LJ feed. The diaspora seems to be going to Dreamwidth and AO3 for the fangirls, with some FB for the sci-fi club scene.

So. Where are people hanging out online, and where are you all going next?

Current Mood: thoughtful
Crossposts: http://ase.livejournal.com/570013.html

This weekend's San Francisco Groupon is $10 for $20 at Green Apple Books. Green Apple is awesome: the first time I went there, I browsed the store for 45 minutes, but didn't find the science fiction section. "One of those bookstores," I thought, sighing for absent yellowing paperbacks, "well, it's pretty cool even so." On my way out, I noticed a sign: Mysteries, Science Fiction, CDs, Graphic Novels in the Annex. Two storefronts down, I found more books.

So if you live in San Francisco, heads up. Or for that SF bibliophile in your life. (Disclosure: usually not this shameless, but my birthday is coming up next month. Cough.)