Posts tagged ‘books’
Book suggestions
April 10th, 2013 at 8:48 pm by Dr. Drang
Have you ever found yourself in a library, knowing that there was a book you wanted to check out but unable to remember what it was? If you have a smartphone of any kind, there’s really no excuse for that sort of lapse. As far as I know, every kind of smartphone has one or…
A snowy day
March 5th, 2013 at 10:06 pm by Dr. Drang
It began snowing around 9:00 this morning, and by the time I left work the snow was thick enough to swallow all the sound. The few cars that drove past my office were like those silent futuristic vehicles in science fiction movies—just a low whoosh when they went past. As I brushed the snow off…
Bell Labs and Marvel Comics
December 10th, 2012 at 8:52 am by Dr. Drang
I’ve just finished reading Sean Howe’s Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. This comes just a week or so after reading Jon Gertner’s The Idea Factory: Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation. It’s possible that I would’ve wanted to compare the two even if I’d read them months apart; reading one right after…
Scrolling or paging?
November 4th, 2012 at 10:54 pm by Dr. Drang
The new version of iBooks allows you to read books in a continuous scroll instead of page by page. This has, surprisingly, set off an argument on which is the better way to read an ebook. As best I can tell, the debate started with Dmitri Fadeyev’s post in favor of scrolling. This was followed…
Less paper
May 21st, 2012 at 11:31 pm by Dr. Drang
I’m a pretty big fan of paper. There’s nothing more portable than a pad of paper and nothing more flexible for input than a pen or pencil. And when I need to review the design of a machine or a building, no screen can compare to laying out several D-sized drawings on a conference room…
Lester del Rey and Star Wars
April 22nd, 2011 at 11:17 pm by Dr. Drang
Unlike seemingly everyone who writes—either professionally or as an amateur—about computers and programming, I am not a fan of Star Wars. I saw the original movie back in ’77, didn’t think much of it, and basically ignored the rest of the series until my wife and I, on a rare kid-free evening with nothing better…
No doubt
January 15th, 2011 at 9:06 pm by Dr. Drang
When I went into my office Monday morning this episode of ABC Radio National’s The Science Show was sitting in iTunes, waiting to be synced. I do like The Science Show, but during the winter, when I’m not commuting by bicycle, the time I spend listening to podcasts is shortened and many episodes get the…
