I say yes, you say no, OR People are Strange
Comments
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Hoping I have the right link. Should be stories as to how well things are going for Pres. Obama and us.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/five-years-later#
Jackie
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Yes, Mods, thank you for RL's reinstatement. Juliaanna - thank you too for writing that letter. I was just talking with my friend from Portland and she said they did something like that for the baby elephants at the Portland Zoo. She seemed to remember something about people voting after a committee chose the final possible names. She wasn't sure, but her comment on "Athena" was "What a great name, so strong!"
I found these links on the Portland Zoo cubs:
http://www.oregonzoo.org/news/2013/09/pride-zoo-african-lion-neka-gives-birth-three-cubs
https://www.facebook.com/oregonzoo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CarDZwPAgjU&feature=youtu.be -
Juliaana, that was a great idea! I will lend my voice to the chorus as well. I think it would be a wonderful way to remember our Athena and to give the cub a beautiful and meaningful name!
L
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And now for a string of interesting stuff ...
Speaking of name-calling ....
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Word.
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I vote YES to name a lion cub Athena!! Not the Portland Zoo, but hey, a cub is a cub.
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From The New Yorker:
September 17, 2013What Does It Mean to Own a Book?
Posted by Ian CrouchWhy do we buy books? Well, until very recently, there were few other ways to get them. We could go to a library, or borrow them from people we knew. Otherwise, we had to buy them. And, until recently, buying them meant buying objects, the sturdy real things, and keeping them somewhere—neatly in bookshelves, dangerously in basements, or resignedly in boxes left unpacked from the last move. E-books made ownership easier but less sure. Hold up your Kindle or your tablet or your smart phone and give it a shake; they’re in there somewhere—or else in the cloud. Technology made some purchases unnecessary; publishers couldn’t squeeze us for Milton or Dickens anymore since they’re available for free online. The Kindle has a lending program, with which you can let someone borrow one of your books for fourteen days (hurry along, borrowers of “War and Peace”). But mostly, and unlike with music or movies or digital journalism, to consume books we still buy them and then get to keep them.The founders of Oyster, a handsomely designed new app for the iPhone and iPod Touch, are hoping that people are looking for a new way to get access to books. The app, which takes its name from a line in “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (“the world’s mine oyster,” spoken, incidentally, by a thief), currently gives users access to more than a hundred thousand titles for a monthly fee of just under ten bucks. (Netflix for books, as it’s been called.) Users tap a book to read it instantly, and can store up to ten downloads at a time to read offline. Oyster also offers recommendations based on previous selections, and allows users to share what they’ve been reading on social media. (You can also turn off the social features and read privately.) Right now you need an invitation to join, but Oyster will be expanding both how many people can use it and the number of available books, and the founders say that they plan to release a version for iPad later this fall.
Since it doesn’t require individual purchases, Oyster encourages browsing. As with Netflix’s Watch Instantly service, chances are good that on Oyster you won’t find the exact book you’ve been wanting to read—but you will be steered toward others that you’d considered and forgotten in the past, or something new that catches your eye. (Oyster’s current recommendation algorithm still needs a little tweaking; many of the “related” books that accompany James Salter’s “A Sport and a Pastime,” for instance, are about baseball.) The service is less useful for readers who aren’t looking for recommendations and who know exactly what they want to read. For now, most of the thousands of books in their library are older, backlist titles. Oyster currently has deals with HarperCollins and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, among others, but it will be interesting to see if, and how quickly, other major houses sign on. If this new model gains wide acceptance, either through Oyster or whatever follows on its heels, it will raise big business questions for the industry. The most pressing: What will happen to publishers and, especially, writers, if sales get replaced by what are, in effect, streams? And what might happen to local libraries, many of which already face declining use and strained budgets?
Meanwhile, a few notes on the reading experience. Until a tablet version is available, the first question for some potential users is whether they want to read a book on the small screen of a smartphone. Oyster’s founders have played up what could be seen as a limitation, emphasizing that the app encourages reading in the minor moments of life that we normally give over to fiddling idly on our mobile phones. Night readers, and especially co-sleepers, are likely to approve—a glowing phone held a few inches from your face becomes both the book and the flashlight of those late-night reading adventures from childhood, and leaves one’s companion undisturbed. The interface itself is thoughtfully designed—browsing is simple, the five typeface options are each appealing. Unlike with Apple’s iBooks app, which serves as a bridge between paper and digital reading by animating the turning of pages, Oyster uses a straightforward and more modern up/down scroll method. One feature, which is both clever and a little unsettling: at the bottom of the page, along with noting the number of pages remaining in a chapter, it will offer an estimate about how many minutes you have to go.
There are, however, areas that need improvement: the table of contents in many books are rather haphazardly arranged; there is no way to scroll quickly through a book with the side slider, meaning that you have to go back to the table of contents to jump ahead; and most frustrating, there’s no way to mark up a text by highlighting, dropping bookmarks, or composing notes.
This last complaint raises a more fundamental question about what Oyster is, and circles back to the notion of why we own books in the first place. When we borrow books, we’re expected to return them in the condition we received them. It would be rude to mark up your friend’s book with a pen, and basically illegal to do it to a library book. If Oyster is more like a lender than a seller, we shouldn’t expect to have complete ownership over the books we read on it.
But this kind of interaction with a book, jumping in and out without leaving a mark, feels rather fleeting. One of the reasons that we spend the money to own a book, then, is that we get to do whatever we want with it. The 1972 revision of Mortimer Adler’s “How to Read a Book,” written with Charles Van Doren (of quiz-show infamy), lays out a rousing case for a kind of rough and thorough possession of what we read:
When you buy a book, you establish a property right in it, just as you do in clothes or furniture when you buy and pay for them. But the act of purchase is actually only the prelude to possession in the case of a book. Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself, and the best way to make yourself a part of it—which comes to the same thing—is by writing in it.
All e-book reading feels a little disconnected to the habitual pen-in-hand reader, but some kind of digital marker, at least, gives a user fixed points of reference, a few colorful buoys in what would otherwise be a uniformly blank sea of words. It is hard enough to recall the particulars of books as it is, and reading without an aid to memory, for me at least, makes for an anxious experience. For now, Oyster may simply be a reminder that there is no single right way to consume books in this age of many options—it seems very likely that a hybrid model of print, e-books, and “streamed” books will serve most readers for years to come.
-----------------------------------End.
My comments - Interesting read. I like to own physical books because I like to see them. Their presence reminds me of their contents. They smell like dreams and knowledge and the world and history. They whisper to me when I look at them (OK, no, I am ...not schizophrenic ... metaphorically, people!). E-readers are convenient for vacations, but there is nothing like having a physical book on the bookshelf where you can look at it. And -- MARKING IN BOOKS??? SACRILEGE!L -
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Interesting about the book apps. I was -- not so much since my stroke, an avid, avid reader. I had books everywhere and could and would have one open and reading while stirring spaghetti sauce or whatever I was cooking. Unfortunatly age and medical insults have cancelled the multi-tasking I once did with great ease.
Books to me were rather comforting, transporting me to scores of places around the globe and giving me often the ability to share the work of wonderful professions or have the most marvelous vacations. To my way of thinking, books like so many other things we love just feel right when they are around. Something of an extension of yourself, something that is a constant no matter what ups and downs may be gracing your life or doorstep at any given time.
As well, since each second on the clock is a brand new unit in time, often, something that you didn't quite feel or read with great clarity, upon the next reading can present you with remarkable insight and extreme deep feelings as some of the subtle passages that had slight blurs at some points before become astoundingly real. Books to me were friends. They never let me down and I knew always they were something I could consistently count on. One of my biggest favorites ( the pictures were divine ) was " Gone With The Wind". I often read many ( and I still have this one in my possession ) that were certainly not light reading. I had to get special dispensation to purchase this book " The Mask of Sanity ". The author if memory serves was Herman Checkly or very close. His widow had the book rights and had to approve the sale. I admit it is a very, very deep book and there were parts that eluded me, but a good much of the material ( things I very much felt I needed to know at the time ) seemed to have been easy enough to understand.
Sad if our libraries go out of business.
Loved totally both of your graphics RL and very much so am strongly in favor of the Zoo hopefully naming one of their cubs Athena. What a wonderful tribute to both...the cub and Athena.
Jackie
spell checker in the greater Antilles or somewhere. If anyone sees it, please send it home. Lost without it.
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Thank you Moderators, for making sure retiredlibby got home safely.
BLUE - another garden winner. SO beautiful.
We are getting out 2nd night in a row of frost. Spent all day bringing in houseplants, repotting some that seem to get so big in the summer sun. As I had Christmas Cactus blooming in MAY, kinda wonder what they'l do this year. Apple Blossum amarylis is my favorite colour, fun to watch SUCH a huge gorgeous flower come out of a rather funny looking bulb.
Another vote, for ATHENA, for the cub. Thanks SO MUCH for thinking of this.
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Scary idea here but points out a big problem
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Welcome back, RL, and I'm sorry you were gone briefly.
Cancer's quite enough to deal with. We surely do not need mean girls swooping down to drop their little word piles on our windshields.
In other news, Sampson has trained me to scratch his butt on demand. Such a smart boy!
E
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And here is a pretty thing to take to bed.
Good night, all.
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RL -- So happy you're back with us! I'm with you about books -- frankly, I like the "feel" of a book in my hands, and I like to leaf back through the pages to easily check on something I think I might have missed. I got a Kobo (like a Kindle) a couple of years ago as a gift, and I hated it -- too heavy, too finickety, having to charge it while in the middle of a chapter. ugh! I cannot wax poetic about books; I just know I prefer them!
Oh, and another sacrilege -- dog ears
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Jackie - John Fugelsang, such a smart and gorgeous liberal. Agreed - they've lost their credibility, over and over and over.
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RL - what a gorgeous scene, wonder who painted it. Lovely in the pm or AM.
Books, ah, books, my best friends. Seriously. Used book stores are my favorite places, I always find a book "jumps" into my hands and introduces me to a new favourite writer. Mostly older, many women, and there used to be an imprint The Dial Press - and anything I find with that along the spine becomes a new BFF. I read much more than I watch TV - PBS, Masterpiece - strangely removed from the zeitgeist on this one, never watched a "reality show" as it's not my reality
So good to be on Medicare ( older) and able to CHOOSE what I want to do, when I want to do it. Got such a giggle reading E telling us Sampson has got her trained. Speaking of Medicare, hope everyone knows it's Open Enrollment Oct, Nov til 12/7.
Found out a friend has Part D with no copay for generics - my BCBS "deductible" went from $95 to $250. last year, my bad, I didn't read the fine print, and copays even on Tier 1 generics ( $6 a month) PLUS about a $40. monthly premium. My math is awful, but there's gotta be a better way...
Joy of being in a Blue State, there is a program (SHINE) Senior Health Information Network Education - so I've got a lovely woman doing all the work for all of us - and we meet individually for good advice. YEAH, BLUE!
Speaking of Blue - hope you are doing well, more info about turtle? Blue skies today - perfect Fall. Pumpkins on my vine are turning bright orange now - not many, they're from last years seeds...I call it my Mystery Garden, never know what's going to take seed and grow. Love it.
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Oh Linda I am with you - love my books - hated my Kobo (got them to take it back and give me a full refund after two months) finicky didn't begin to describe it - I couldn't download and neither could the "techies" at Indigo!
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My husband bought me a KindleFire for our anniversary. I've used it for internet access, I've used it for my email, I've used it to play games. I've never used it to read a book.
One of these days, I will. Mary
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I like both real books and the e-reader in my iPhone and mini iPad. The electronic ones are good for travelling (note to self: remember to bring more than one charger) and for reading at night but a real book has all the nostalgia of earlier days. My friends and I share real books at our weekly pub meeting.
If a great long list of things against the President starts with one that is completely false, is it worth reading the rest of the list?
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I just love my Kindle Fire! Like Mary said, you can both acccess the Internet and read books. I'm reading several right now. I can just switch back and forth, depending on my mood. If I remember to charge it at night it goes all day no problem. Down side is if I DON'T remember and have to charge it in the morning. With Aromasin brain, that does happen sometimes. Trying to make Kindle charging just another routine like brushing my teeth. Don't think I could ever adapt to carrying around books again.
Just wanted to add that I can change/adjust the font on my Kindle. With my aging eyes that is very helpful.
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Well, I do have Kindle and Nook and Kobo on my iPad, as well as the OverDrive Media console with which I can get e-books from the library. I have done that when I wanted to read a book in a hurry. I have also bought a couple books and have them on my iPad, but I really MUCH prefer paper books. I am a printed word junkie, so I will read whatever there is to read in whatever format it comes.
Lassie, in answer to your question, probably not. If the first item is false, then the rest are automatically suspect. It depends on where the list is published - a reliable place, or a place known to disseminate falsehoods? If it is the latter, you might want to read it for amusements sake to see what they have made up. If it is the former, you might want to read it and correct their mistakes. But ... I probably wouldn't waste my time.
L -
Lassie definitely not worth reading, but I do get a giggle when I see how easily some believe what they want to believe. If the man picks his nose, there will be headlines!
Sunny, it's a wee green water turtle. I will take pics.
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Little Philip is getting big!
Wendel with a tummy bug under his blanket and big sister sitting on top of him.
Mr. T! Ray didn't like the name popeye.
And just a glimpse of things I used to do with my very capable hands.
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As someone who started piano lessons at the age of 5, and eventually taught piano and organ, I am well-acquainted with the phrase "practice makes perfect". But here's the thing: when you do something over and over and over again, say, about 40 or so times, and keep getting the same result, OR when you do something that you are 99% sure is going to fail, PLUS all of this repetition and utter "dumbness" is costing you and your country a whole lot of money........well, a good musician recognizes the folly of practicing the same way each time and still performing badly. Basically, you're just flushing your parents' hard-earned money for lessons down the loo. Call it stupidity; call it disrespect. The result is the same.
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Italian cat??????? This means something in Italian...hahahahahaaa!
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I've been wondering-if the Republicans succeed, and Obamacare is repealed, how much money will they(the Republicans) have wasted of private companies' money? Money those companies have spent to implement Obamacare? I'm guessing millions and millions of dollars will have been wasted if we have to go back to the way things used to be.
Mary
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Re books...I never thought I would be a fan of e books but here I am. I have the iPad mini and easily download books from the library. All free. iPad fits easily in my purse and I can take lots of book anywhere with me.
ETA: I am an enthusiastic supporter of naming a cub after Athena AND the return of HL.
I especially like the ability to change the size of print and alter the lighting based on the environment I am in. Love it! -
Hi ladies. SOOOOO glad you are back Libby!!
I LOVE my Kindle. I have an older version, but I ALWAYS have it with me. I never run out of something to read, as if I finish a book I can just buy a new one over the air - and if I screw up and try to buy one that I've already purchased, Amazon tells me and doesn't let me buy it again. Since I cannot TELL you how many times I have (in the past) purchased books that I already read, that has been a big plus for me. At first I really missed real books. I missed the smell the feel, the whole reading experience - (and like you marking or turning a corner was sacrilege!!), but not as much anymore. I will say, though, that I have the app on my phone and never ever use it. I'm OK with the larger kindle with e-ink, but I don't want light shining in my eyes the whole time I'm reading a book. When my old kindle breaks, I will probably check out and buy a new version, but - well, we'll see.
As for the defunding of the ACA - they want to break it before people have a chance to realize how much they like it - at least that's my opinion.
We went and signed all my retirement papers yesterday, so I guess it's really real. I haven't told my boss, yet, nor my co-workers. I'll tell them next week. I want some time to cuddle with the idea and make sure I realio trulio want to do it. Well - yes, I do, more can realio trulio be able to afford it!!!
Oh yes!!! Let's do whatever it takes to name a cub after Athena. She would have loved it, I'm sure.
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I read books from our library on overdrive, but find it less satisfactory than real books. At first I bought a few but then I couldn't share them with anyone and I think that is one of the real joys of books. Being able to say you have to read this-and then walk over to the bookshelf, take it and hand it to your friend/daughter and say-here.
This summer I was thinking about it, my daughter has a Kobo Glow and she loves it because she does a lot of international travel for work. 14 hour flights demand a light portable library that she can add to in an instant. The screen is great, but there is still the thought that you can't share. But what if I bought a Kobo and bought books that I wanted and then every 4-6 months we trade? Not as good as the ability to share books that you have actually purchased whether they are paper books or ebooks. Some day I think the issue of who owns our ebook, emusic purchases.
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