Archive for July, 2009
Friday, July 31st, 2009
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-31
Why you shouldn't update Instapaper on your iPhone to version 2.1: http://rickyopaterny.com/shorturl/insta #
Nicholson Baker re Kindle: "Where were sharp black letters laid out like lacquered chopsticks on a clean tablecloth?" http://bit.ly/2gEfg3 #
I guess I'm slow, but I just realized that the Kindle doesn't actually reproduce the looks, layouts, or even fonts of printed books. Boo! [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Friday, July 31st, 2009
PW reviews Nabokov’s The Original of Laura
Publisher’s Weekly has the first review of Valdimir Nabokov’s last book, The Original of Laura. The magazine calls the book a “very unfinished work [that] reads largely like an outline.” What’s most interesting and exciting is how the book will look:
Knopf is publishing the book in an intriguing form: Nabokov’s handwritten index cards are reproduced [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009
A knockout show at the Met
Jed Perl, writing in The New Republic, calls the current show at the Met of drawing in the middle ages “a knockout.” I can’t wait to see it.
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Response to Amazon removing books from users’ Kindles
David Ulin writes in the LA Times about Amazon’s latest: “The issue, in other words, isn’t that Amazon has erased material from people’s Kindles, or de-ranked gay and lesbian writers, but that it can. This is the problem with the digitized canon and the electronic frontier: It’s mutable to the point of being vulnerable.”
[...]
1 Comment » - Posted in Books, General, Technology by Rick
Monday, July 27th, 2009
Jonathan Lethem’s used books for sale
Jonathan Lethem has opened a used bookstore in Blue Hill, Maine, called Red Hand.
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Sunday, July 26th, 2009
Don’t update your iPhone’s Instapaper to version 2.1
As many of you know, one of my favorite iPhone applications is Instapaper. I use it to read pretty much anything I don’t want to read when I find it on my computer—generally long essays from the New Yorker, Atlantic, and New York Review of Books. Unfortunately, the latest version of Instapaper Free is simply [...]
7 Comments » - Posted in General, Technology by Rick
Saturday, July 25th, 2009
Enable emoji on your iPhone
Somehow, there’s still an application available in Apple’s App Store that lets you enable emoji, those Japanese smileys and other icons, on your iPhone. Instructions are available on Just Another iPhone Blog.
No Comments » - Posted in General, Technology by Rick
Friday, July 24th, 2009
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-24
This Red Mango place is awful. Who wants to go get some ice cream? #
Forget the GPS watch, I want one of these: http://www.sleeptracker.com/features.html #
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Saturday, July 18th, 2009
Can you text while driving? Of course not!
This Flash game on NYTimes.com simulates the effect of texting while driving. It’s pretty much impossible to maintain sufficient concentration on driving and changing lanes unexpectedly. Unfortunately, most people who text while drive don’t ever realize that because they’re never in an accident, despite texting, until they are.
No Comments » - Posted in General, Technology by Rick
Friday, July 17th, 2009
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-17
Any other auction sites that people use now that eBay has moved to more fixed price listings? #
"… the main thing you need as a writer is a sense of certainty that you won’t be interrupted." –Roxanna Robinson in today's NYT #
One thing fiction does is that it fosters the belief that what's possible in [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Friday, July 17th, 2009
Timothy McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: Dave Eggers’ Dates.
I recently read his new book, Zeitoun, and wanted to note here that Dave Eggers is doing a few events in the Bay Area. Make it out if you can.
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Friday, July 17th, 2009
The NewsHour on the future of publishing
Yesterday on the NewsHour Ray Suarez discussed the future of the book publishing business and its handling of e-books with Jonathan Karp of Hachette’s Twelve, one of my favorite imprints. Karp likens the publishing business to gambling, but what business isn’t like gambling? I found his analogy between the Kindle and the Walkman to be [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Technology by Rick
Monday, July 13th, 2009
How to read large PDFs—books, articles, etc.—on your iPhone
In the past, I’ve tried emailing large PDFs to myself to read using the iPhone’s native PDF viewer. Unfortunately, it’s extremely slow with any sort of large file, so reading books is out of the question. I also tried importing PDFs of books into Stanza. However, the files tend to lose all formatting and line [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Technology by Rick
Monday, July 13th, 2009
Pirates, superheroes, and more
826 National has published a catalog of the products it sells at the writing centers’ storefronts: Essentially Odd: A Catalog of Products Created For and Sold At the 826 National Stores. It is awesome.
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Technology by Rick
Monday, July 13th, 2009
Why health care is so expensive
A couple weeks ago I finally got around to reading Atul Gawande’s excellent New Yorker essay on why health care costs vary so wildly throughout the country. His conclusion—that this variance results from whether doctors approach their profession as a business or as a commitment to caring for patients—is so simple that many seem to [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General by Rick
Monday, July 13th, 2009
McSweeney’s Internet Tendency: The Confirmation Hearing of Sonia Sotomayor, If the Hearing Were Held In Front of the 1977 Kansas City Royals Instead of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Today’s McSweeney’s piece is especially relevant given that former Yankees and Mets pitcher David Cone will be testifying at Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings.
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Monday, July 13th, 2009
Habitats – For a Writer, a Home With a Hideout – NYTimes.com
Today’s New York Times profiles novelist Roxana Robinson. I can’t agree more about the need to have times and spaces where you know you won’t be interrupted.
Ms. Robinson, whose works include an acclaimed biography of the painter Georgia O’Keeffe and most recently the novel “Cost,” realizes that in choosing the unprepossessing small room over the [...]
No Comments » - Posted in Books, General, Technology by Rick
Friday, July 10th, 2009
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-10
Finally, college athletes might get paid: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/04/sports/04ncaa.html #
Saw Food Inc. the other day, a decent piece of propaganda. The part on Monsanto is excellent. #
Come on, Roger! #
Free is not the future: http://bit.ly/5Ocgw #
Hoping to finish reading Zeitoun today. #
Google to introduce an operating system to challenge Windows? http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/technology/companies/08operate.html #
"Not everyone wants all their news [...]
No Comments » - Posted in General by Rick
Friday, July 3rd, 2009
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-07-03
I timed my run last night to arrive at Three Lives & Co. just before 8:30 closing to pick up Bruno Schulz's stories, but they closed early! #
How great a song is "Back to the Old House" by the Smiths? Really, really great. #
Has anyone used Google Street View to help them write about a [...]
