Away with printed words. Or at least, words printed with ink on hundreds of pages.
I have a Kindle now, and it is awesome. It looks so much like paper that you will find it hard to believe at first. I thought someone had stuck a piece of paper on the screen at first. And if you read longer titles it will also be lighter to hold, very good for lounging with. In fact, superior to paper-backs for lounging. And it allows you to keep one hand free to...hold a coffee cup, of course.
The selection of Kindle titles is not as complete as I'd like (quality fiction seems most lacking) but this will only get better with time. Browsing titles, thinking "Hey, I'd really like to read that", and then having a copy of the book 5-10 seconds later is an amazing experience. And after, say, 10-15 books it pays for itself. I already bought 12 titles for it...
Anyway, go get one. It's the way of the future. The way of the future.
The way of the future...
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label reading. Show all posts
Friday, November 19, 2010
Wednesday, June 02, 2010
Where to Think and Read
I wrote a little message on facebook about how infuriating it is to be around people whispering in a library. Maybe more annoying than people talking at a normal volume. I've actually been thinking about thinking environments and reading for a little while. My thinking is something like this.
Libraries, dead quiet ones, mostly make me quite tired and bored. At least university libraries do, because they're generally populated by tired and bored students, who contribute to an ambiance of tired boredom. This is occasionally interspersed with whispering, which as I say sends me into a rage. Maybe it's because we can't help but try to pick up on what's being said.
On the other hand I had a really good time spending all day reading at the city-hall library in Hong Kong, and the National Library of Taiwan is brilliant. I should also spend more time at the State Library here in Brisbane.
A cafe can be good for thinking and reading non-fiction, stuff like Malcolm Gladwell or Nassim Taleb. I recently finished Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, and I've been dipping into What the Dog Saw. Cafes can be noisy, but so long as the noise is a hum of conversation, I find it stimulating rather than distracting. A good place where you can come across an interesting idea, then put down the book for a minute or two to digest it.
I can only read novels at home when it's quiet. Even music can be distracting, as it may be of a different mood to the scene in the novel. It's the same with philosophy, at least the more lyrical stuff.
Strangely enough, none of the above seems to apply when I'm reading something in Chinese, possibly because it requires so much concentration that it seems to block out everything else around me.
And thinking, for me, is still best done whilst going for a walk. I wonder if these things apply to most people?
Libraries, dead quiet ones, mostly make me quite tired and bored. At least university libraries do, because they're generally populated by tired and bored students, who contribute to an ambiance of tired boredom. This is occasionally interspersed with whispering, which as I say sends me into a rage. Maybe it's because we can't help but try to pick up on what's being said.
On the other hand I had a really good time spending all day reading at the city-hall library in Hong Kong, and the National Library of Taiwan is brilliant. I should also spend more time at the State Library here in Brisbane.
A cafe can be good for thinking and reading non-fiction, stuff like Malcolm Gladwell or Nassim Taleb. I recently finished Fooled by Randomness and The Black Swan, and I've been dipping into What the Dog Saw. Cafes can be noisy, but so long as the noise is a hum of conversation, I find it stimulating rather than distracting. A good place where you can come across an interesting idea, then put down the book for a minute or two to digest it.
I can only read novels at home when it's quiet. Even music can be distracting, as it may be of a different mood to the scene in the novel. It's the same with philosophy, at least the more lyrical stuff.
Strangely enough, none of the above seems to apply when I'm reading something in Chinese, possibly because it requires so much concentration that it seems to block out everything else around me.
And thinking, for me, is still best done whilst going for a walk. I wonder if these things apply to most people?
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
A Most Brilliant Apparatus
My flatmate recently lent me a spare reading stand. It's strange how such a seemingly small thing can be so marvelous in its operation. For the first time ever I can sit down with a drink in one hand, relaxed, head leaning on my other hand, whilst still being able to read a book held upright. Particularly if you're reading a physically heavy book- like the textbook in the photo- it makes life much more pleasant.
It might be implicit in this posting, or the gap between this and the last post: nothing too exciting has been happening for the past month or so, though I have been reading more than I think I ever have before at any time in my life. I'll probably write a bit about that soon, but I'd like to make sure I have something to say before I do.
One thing that has been on my mind, that I'm quite sure of, is the way in which philosophy these days is often treated as not much more than an extension of fashion, and taken not much more seriously (maybe less seriously) than any other type of fashion. There is a view that there is no 'correct' philosophy, that each viewpoint is just as valid as the other. Now, this might be true of clothes, but I don't think we should be so casual when dealing with how we live our lives.
If I can figure out a way of writing about this in a non-academic, straightforward manner, I might start doing more posts on the subject. Because I feel that it is certain philosophical trends that are quite prevalent within academia who are responsible for philosophy's nosedive into unbearable pretentiousness and irrelevance.
Monday, June 23, 2008
A Problematic Education
It's almost exam time, and I'm in a bad mood about that, which is nothing new. What is new is that I know exactly what is wrong with this batch of exams, or more broadly, the system they're a part of. Perhaps if I recount what I'll be tested on, the reader may begin to deduce a pattern.
My exams are for newspaper reading (where we have yet to read an actual newspaper), focused reading (where we read about pandas and compassion and disabilities), oral Chinese (where we talk about repairing bikes, ordering food, and virus protection software), 'reading' reading (where we read selected opinion pieces from newspaper textbooks), listening (where we are tested on 5-10 second dialogue snippets filled with peculiar oddities from the Beijing topolect, and 5-10 minute vignettes about ordering virus protection software, repairing pandas, and compassionate disabilities), and audio-visual class (where we will be tested on 5-10 minute dialogues from films, with a focus on the Beijing topolect).
My biggest complaint is that preparing and passing the above exams is extremely time-consuming, and yet seems to produce very little advancement in language profiency. I think that's most likely because the context is so boring that it's rather forgettable, ba-doom-tish.
On the other hand when I'm just reading BBC articles, Lao She's Cat Country, The True Story of Ah Q, video game magazines, and so on, I find that I'm able to recall all the new stuff I learn without really having to review the stuff. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that the reviewing happens naturally.
My conclusion, reached at after a year studying in China, is that I'm never taking any more specialised 'language classes', be it in Australia or overseas. I was discussing all this with my friend Plato this evening and in the process, I showed him some of the articles I'd written for class. He checked them with great interest, and noted that many of the 'corrections' made by my teacher were in fact unnecessary; I'd written something in an idiomatic, natural way, only to have it simplified or made into something unnatural. Furthermore, I showed Plato our textbooks and he was disgusted with the fact that they were in fact full of grammatical errors or improper usage of words.
So I ask the question, what the hell is up with the 'Chinese for Foreigners' education system in China? Who writes these things, what are their qualifications, and what are their real goals? This is probably overly paranoid of me, but I partly suspect the more official programs (such as the universities) don't really want their foreign students to get too proficient, especially in the more political vocabulary. After all, an incisive critical essay can be quite effective.
Though, they shouldn't worry about that with me, not just yet anyway. I've got about all the literay finesse in Chinese of a steroid-raging lemur attempting the 8 legged essay in the midst of a mardi gras parade. Or something like that. And, as the comments in a recent philosophy essay I just recieved pointed out, my English writing skills aren't that good either.
Ah well, always good to be humbled and what not.
My exams are for newspaper reading (where we have yet to read an actual newspaper), focused reading (where we read about pandas and compassion and disabilities), oral Chinese (where we talk about repairing bikes, ordering food, and virus protection software), 'reading' reading (where we read selected opinion pieces from newspaper textbooks), listening (where we are tested on 5-10 second dialogue snippets filled with peculiar oddities from the Beijing topolect, and 5-10 minute vignettes about ordering virus protection software, repairing pandas, and compassionate disabilities), and audio-visual class (where we will be tested on 5-10 minute dialogues from films, with a focus on the Beijing topolect).
My biggest complaint is that preparing and passing the above exams is extremely time-consuming, and yet seems to produce very little advancement in language profiency. I think that's most likely because the context is so boring that it's rather forgettable, ba-doom-tish.
On the other hand when I'm just reading BBC articles, Lao She's Cat Country, The True Story of Ah Q, video game magazines, and so on, I find that I'm able to recall all the new stuff I learn without really having to review the stuff. Or maybe it's more accurate to say that the reviewing happens naturally.
My conclusion, reached at after a year studying in China, is that I'm never taking any more specialised 'language classes', be it in Australia or overseas. I was discussing all this with my friend Plato this evening and in the process, I showed him some of the articles I'd written for class. He checked them with great interest, and noted that many of the 'corrections' made by my teacher were in fact unnecessary; I'd written something in an idiomatic, natural way, only to have it simplified or made into something unnatural. Furthermore, I showed Plato our textbooks and he was disgusted with the fact that they were in fact full of grammatical errors or improper usage of words.
So I ask the question, what the hell is up with the 'Chinese for Foreigners' education system in China? Who writes these things, what are their qualifications, and what are their real goals? This is probably overly paranoid of me, but I partly suspect the more official programs (such as the universities) don't really want their foreign students to get too proficient, especially in the more political vocabulary. After all, an incisive critical essay can be quite effective.
Though, they shouldn't worry about that with me, not just yet anyway. I've got about all the literay finesse in Chinese of a steroid-raging lemur attempting the 8 legged essay in the midst of a mardi gras parade. Or something like that. And, as the comments in a recent philosophy essay I just recieved pointed out, my English writing skills aren't that good either.
Ah well, always good to be humbled and what not.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Recent Reading
Just finished Empire of the Sun by J.G Ballard. Brilliant. The second world war through the eyes of a young British boy, growing up around the Great Rivers of Asia. The tone and sense of war throughout this semi-autobiographical account is seperate from what we've heard from the European and African theatres of war. There is a paragraph very early on in the book which I feel sums up the message and theme of the novel best.
"Jim had no doubt which was real. The real war was everything he had seen for himself since the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the old battlegrounds at Hungjao and Lunghua where the bones of the unburied dead rose to the suface of the paddy fields each spring. Real war was the thousands of Chinese refugees dying of cholera in the sealed stockades of Pootung, and the bloody heads of communist soldiers mounted on pikes along the Bund. In a real war no one knew which side he was on, and there were no flags or commentators or winners. In a real war there were no enemies."
Now reading The Maths Gene by Keith Devlin, Difficulties with Girls by Kingsley Amis and a Concise History of China by J.A.G Roberts.
The Maths Gene is a fascinating theory about the interconnection of language and mathemathics. I don't want to do wrong to Devlin by attempting to sum it up before I understand or have read it all, but it's very entertaining to read, and he has a nice flowing, informative writing style.
Difficulties with Girls is an interesting read, partly because the edition I picked up second hand was missing the dust jacket, so I haven't actually read any blurb of it. It's a very fun way of reading a book, as it happens, and I recommend trying it at least once if you haven't. It's quite like flicking to a movie on television which you have no idea about; there is joy in the unexpected. Of course your chances of enjoyment are increased when you know the author is brilliant, like Amis.
The history of China by Roberts is unfortunately more styled as reference material, presented from the perspective of a bored lecturer in the subject. I wanted to get something opinionated and biased and entertaining; this is not it. It is, however, filled almost to the brim of it's 300 odd pages with facts, which are actually very interesting in spite of the dull writing style. Perhaps he has crammed too much in such a small space, with not enough space to ellaborate on the interesting subjects. Apparently Open Empire by Valerie Hansen is what I should be getting next.
Just bought From Rice to Riches by Jan Hutcheon, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci and The Gate of Heavenly Peace, both by Jonathan D. Spence.
Now that university is over for the time being I finally have the chance to get some proper reading done.
And finally, I'm looking into this technorati thing too.
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"Jim had no doubt which was real. The real war was everything he had seen for himself since the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, the old battlegrounds at Hungjao and Lunghua where the bones of the unburied dead rose to the suface of the paddy fields each spring. Real war was the thousands of Chinese refugees dying of cholera in the sealed stockades of Pootung, and the bloody heads of communist soldiers mounted on pikes along the Bund. In a real war no one knew which side he was on, and there were no flags or commentators or winners. In a real war there were no enemies."
Now reading The Maths Gene by Keith Devlin, Difficulties with Girls by Kingsley Amis and a Concise History of China by J.A.G Roberts.
The Maths Gene is a fascinating theory about the interconnection of language and mathemathics. I don't want to do wrong to Devlin by attempting to sum it up before I understand or have read it all, but it's very entertaining to read, and he has a nice flowing, informative writing style.
Difficulties with Girls is an interesting read, partly because the edition I picked up second hand was missing the dust jacket, so I haven't actually read any blurb of it. It's a very fun way of reading a book, as it happens, and I recommend trying it at least once if you haven't. It's quite like flicking to a movie on television which you have no idea about; there is joy in the unexpected. Of course your chances of enjoyment are increased when you know the author is brilliant, like Amis.
The history of China by Roberts is unfortunately more styled as reference material, presented from the perspective of a bored lecturer in the subject. I wanted to get something opinionated and biased and entertaining; this is not it. It is, however, filled almost to the brim of it's 300 odd pages with facts, which are actually very interesting in spite of the dull writing style. Perhaps he has crammed too much in such a small space, with not enough space to ellaborate on the interesting subjects. Apparently Open Empire by Valerie Hansen is what I should be getting next.
Just bought From Rice to Riches by Jan Hutcheon, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci and The Gate of Heavenly Peace, both by Jonathan D. Spence.
Now that university is over for the time being I finally have the chance to get some proper reading done.
And finally, I'm looking into this technorati thing too.
Technorati Profile
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