This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter). Comments here or emails to me at abulsme@abulsme.com are encouraged... or follow me on twitter as @abulsme.
|
 Author: Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward
Original Publication: 1974
Started: 2011 Jan 19
Finished: 2011 Feb 5
Format: Kindle
5862 locations / 18 days
326 locations/day
Once again writing these years after reading the book. Perhaps I’ll catch up someday. Ha!
Well, in any case, this is the classic Woodward and Bernstein narrative of their watergate investigations. More than two years later, my main memory of this is being disappointed that it ended before the resignation, so didn’t take the story the whole way. Yes, I know they did another book that covered the last days of the Nixon presidency, but I still wished this just continued.
I have a vague memory of thinking that while the events themselves were interesting and of course are historically important, than the actual tone of the writing was a bit dry and “this happened, then this happened, then this happened” for my taste. But it has been a long time since I read it, so who knows.
I’ve been toying with giving a star rating or some such when I do these things, but realize I actually have a better measure of how much I enjoy a book, and it is already listed above. When I am really into a book, I make time to read. I read in the spare moments during the day. A minute here or there whenever I catch a chance, and I end up choosing to read instead of watching TV or even instead of sleeping sometimes. I end up reading it faster. Not in terms of how fast I actually read while I’m sitting with the book, but in terms of how much I read per day. Meanwhile, for books I am NOT enjoying, I end up forcing myself to read a little every once in awhile, but don’t actually seek out time to read, so those go much more slowly.
Of course, this is also effected by how much free time I have. Although there are exceptions, in recent years this has been relatively steady, so I’ll just ignore it at the moment. :-)
And yes, this is also somewhat determined by the “difficulty” of the reading. A light fiction book is going to “flow” better than a dense textbook. But I think that also matches up with my enjoyment. The dense textbook may well provide me with valuable information, but I’m not sure “enjoy” would be the right word to describe my interaction with it.
With physical books, if you look at pages, that is of course a measure that depends on the size of the pages, the size of the print, if there are photos or illustrations, etc, etc, etc. But if I’m reading on a Kindle, most of that is abstracted out by the “location”. And look there above, I already have locations per day. With my patterns of reading (one book at a time, always finish any book I start), this is a good measure, at least for books I read on Kindle.
So, for All the President’s Men, I give an enjoyment score of:
326
As context, here is where this fits with the last 10 books I’ve reviewed (in order by score):
- 723 – Shadow of the Hegemon (F)
- 695 – Shadow Puppets (F)
- 656 – Fatal System Error (NF)
- 647 – War of Gifts (F)
- 614 – Shadow of the Giant (F)
- 446 – First Meetings (F)
- 326 – All the President’s Men (NF)
- NA - Nurtureshock (NF) [Physical 25.8 p/d]
- NA - 9 Ways to Bring Out the Best in You and Your Child [Physical 14.9 p/d]
- NA – Agile Project Management with Scrum (NF) [Physical 9.06 p/d]
So yeah, I guess I wasn’t all that excited by it compared to the last few things I’d read previously.
Finally, my usual two Kindle adoption graphs…
% of the last 20 books I reviewed that are now available on Kindle:
% of the last 20 books I read that I actually read on Kindle:
(I bought my Kindle when the first ratio hit 50%. I’ve said before that I’ll do these charts until the ratios get to 90% or so.)
 Author: Orson Scott Card
Original Publication: 2007
Started: 2011 Jan 18
Finished: 2011 Jan 19
Format: Kindle
1294 locations / 2 days
647 locations/day
I continue my tradition of writing “quick” reviews of books over a year after I read them… uh, almost two years after I read them. Oops. Anyway, I guess this has value as it leaves in my head only what is fundamentally memorable about a book, not just the initial impressions.
So on Orson Scott Card’s War of Gifts, basically my memory at first blush was really weak:
- It is yet another in the Ender series. #10 in publication order.
- It is not a full novel. Maybe a novella? Really not much more than a short story.
- It has a Christmas theme.
That is about all that persisted in my memory all this time, so I reviewed the Wikipedia page to refresh my memory.
It really is an oddball little Christmas story that doesn’t fit in all that well with the rest of the series. It is like when your favorite hard rocking band comes out with a Christmas album. Some kind of effect. You end up thinking “Uh, OK. But what??”
In the end it wasn’t a bad little short story. It just seemed out of place.
The five second plot summary is that a student who is fairly religious arrives at battle school, where overt religious expression is forbidden as divisive. Hijinks then ensure over the Chirstmas season as various groups try to express their religious beliefs in various ways. Finally, Ender comes in and plays diplomat and resolves the situation.
The end.
If you are trying to be a completist and read all the Ender books, by all means this needs to be part of that. Otherwise though, I’d probably skip this.
OK, as has been my pattern, with each review, a couple of graphs regarding Kindle coverage:
% of the last 20 books I reviewed that are now available on Kindle:
% of the last 20 books I read that I actually read on Kindle:
(I bought my Kindle when the first ratio hit 50%. I’ve said before that I’ll do these charts until the ratios get to 90% or so.)
 Author: Joseph Menn
Original Publication: 2010 Oct 26
Started: 2011 Jan 12
Finished: 2011 Jan 18
Format: Kindle
4589 locations / 7 days
656 locations/day
So yeah, yeah, first I’ll just get it out of the way. I am writing this review over a year and a half after I read the book. Oops. Oh well. That’s just the way it is sometimes. Way behind. You know what that’s like.
Anyway, this is a book that looks at some aspects of internet crime, specifically spending a lot of time on DDOS attacks, defending against them, and some messy battles involving internet gambling sites, but also expanding to include some thoughts on “cyberwarfare” between governments and some on identity theft.
I remember the biggest impression I left the book with at the time was basically “Wow, really, there are REAL criminals and bad guys doing this kind of stuff?” I have to admit, that while I was vaguely aware of that fact, my overall impression of this sort of thing was that it was a bunch of small time folks, doing annoying stuff from their home computers. Not really the “organized crime” sort of picture that this book paints.
Of course that makes perfect sense though. If there is money to be made by scamming people or whatnot, and it can be more easily done via the internet, sure, there may be small timers out there, but why the hell wouldn’t it get organized and big? And since we’re talking about illegal and unethical acts for the most part, obviously that is going to take on the flavor of organized crime, and all of the sorts of things that implies in terms of violence and threats of violence getting added to the mix.
The book itself was an interesting detective story following the process of tracking down some of these crimes and tracking down who was actually doing what, and in some cases trying to actually move toward prosecutions and arrests, including dealing with corruption in Russia and other obstacles.
It was a good read. I don’t have the expertise to really understand how representative the types of stories outlined here really are, but it was interesting and disturbing. Worth the read if you are curious about this sort of thing.
Finally, in the past I’ve separately done posts with charts on what portions of my recent reviewed books were available on Kindle, and what portion of my recently read books were actually read on Kindle. Going forward I will just include that at the end of my review posts. So here goes.
% of the last 20 books I reviewed that are now available on Kindle:
% of the last 20 books I read that I actually read on Kindle:
(I bought my Kindle when the first ratio hit 50%. I’ve said before that I’ll do these charts until the ratios get to 90% or so.)
OK, in the past I’ve just done the percentage of the last 20 Books I’ve read that are available on Kindle. Of course, I have really done these calculations after I post the reviews of the books, not right after I’ve read them, and right now, I’m way behind. At this point there are 13 books I’ve finished reading that I haven’t yet posted my thoughts on. Oops. Also, this has been all about what percentage of the books were available on Kindle. Now that I actually have one, another relevant stat is how many I’ve actually read on the Kindle. So, two charts…
First, percentage of the last 20 books I have REVIEWED that are currently AVAILABLE on Kindle (so this doesn’t include the 13 books I have read but haven’t yet reviewed) – This is now at 70%.
Next, the percentage of the last 20 books I have READ that I actually READ on the Kindle (this does include the 13 books I have read but have not yet reviewed) – This is now at 65%.
By the way, I think I’ll discontinue posting about these charts when/if each hits 90%.
So, the latest update. The newest book of the last 20 I read was not available on Kindle, while the one that fell off had been, so the ratio falls from 70% to 65%, with 13 of the last 20 available on Kindle. For reference:
1 – NO – 9 Ways to Bring Out the Best in You and Your Child
2 – YES – Shadow of the Hegemon
3 – NO – The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
4 – YES – Ender’s Shadow
5 – YES – The Elegant Universe
6 – YES – Children of the Mind
7 – NO – Introduction to Algorithms
8 – YES – Xenocide
9 – YES – The Geography of Bliss
10 – YES – Speaker for the Dead
11 – NO – First Break all the Rules
12 – YES – Ender’s Game
13 – YES – Until the Sea Shall Free Them
14 – YES – Foucault’s Pendulum
15 – YES – Java The Complete Reference
16 – NO – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
17 – YES – The Audacity of Hope
18 – NO – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
19 – NO – Data Mining
20 – YES – The Children of Hurin
And there we are for the moment.
Yet another update of the percentage of the last 20 books I have read which are available on Kindle as of right after I wrote the post about Shadow of the Hegemon. That book was available on Kindle, the one that fell off the 20 was not, and none of the ones in between changed status, so the percentage goes up from 65% to 70%. For reference:
- YES – Shadow of the Hegemon
- NO – The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
- YES – Ender’s Shadow
- YES – The Elegant Universe
- YES – Children of the Mind
- NO – Introduction to Algorithms
- YES – Xenocide
- YES – The Geography of Bliss
- YES – Speaker for the Dead
- NO – First Break all the Rules
- YES – Ender’s Game
- YES – Until the Sea Shall Free Them
- YES – Foucoult’s Pendulum
- YES – Java The Complete Reference
- NO – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- YES – The Audacity of Hope
- NO – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- NO – Data Mining
- YES – The Children of Hurin
- YES – Dreams from my Father
So, yet another update of the percentage of the last 20 books I’ve read that are available on Kindle as of soon after I posted about The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. The book that fell off was not available, neither was the one I just added, and none of the ones in between changed status, so the metric stayed at 65%.
- NO – The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
- YES – Ender’s Shadow
- YES – The Elegant Universe
- YES – Children of the Mind
- NO – Introduction to Algorithms
- YES – Xenocide
- YES – The Geography of Bliss
- YES – Speaker for the Dead
- NO – First Break all the Rules
- YES – Ender’s Game
- YES – Until the Sea Shall Free Them
- YES – Foucoult’s Pendulum
- YES – Java The Complete Reference
- NO – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- YES – The Audacity of Hope
- NO – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- NO – Data Mining
- YES – The Children of Hurin
- YES – Dreams from my Father
- NO – The Odyssey
I’ll note as I have the last few times that other editions of The Odyssey are available on Kindle, just not the specific edition I read.
So, here we are with the Kindle Ratio (what proportion of the last 20 books I’ve read are available on Kindle) as of right after my post about Ender’s Shadow. The percentage goes up a bit because this last book was available, where as the one that dropped off was not. As mentioned, this metric is now biased by the fact that the way I pick books now prefers Kindle books. For those interested, the 20 books this was based on were:
- YES – Ender’s Shadow
- YES – The Elegant Universe
- YES – Children of the Mind
- NO – Introduction to Algorithms
- YES – Xenocide
- YES – The Geography of Bliss
- YES – Speaker for the Dead
- NO – First Break all the Rules
- YES – Ender’s Game
- YES – Until the Sea Shall Free Them
- YES – Foucoult’s Pendulum
- YES – Java The Complete Reference
- NO – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
- YES – The Audacity of Hope
- NO – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
- NO – Data Mining
- YES – The Children of Hurin
- YES – Dreams from my Father
- NO – The Odyssey
- NO – Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (Vol II)
I’ll note as I have the last few times that other editions of The Odyssey and the Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (Vol II) are available on Kindle, just not the specific editions I read.
As I have since December 2008, after I finish each book I read I’ve been calculating what percentage of the last 20 books I have read are available on Kindle. I’ve been doing this because I have said all along that once that ratio was greater than 50% I would “Officially want a Kindle”. Well, it seems that since the last time I looked at this in April, several of the 20 books in question that were not available on Kindle have become available. As of today we are at 55%. In other words, 11 out of the last 20 books I read are now available on Kindle. So it is time. I “officially want a Kindle”.
This does not however mean I will order one today. I am in the middle of a physical book right now, and the next book in line I also already have a physical copy of. And there are other items ahead of a Kindle in the spending priority list. But as of now, I do want one. :-)
I have also decided on the algorithm I will use to determine what to read next whenever I finish a book once I have a Kindle as well. But I will wait until I actually have one before describing it I guess, in case I change my mind. :-)
I will continue reporting this ratio until I actually have a Kindle and read the first book on it. After that I will stop.
So, after the last book I read the percentage of the last 20 books I have read that are available on Kindle returns to 45%. It had dropped to 40% previously. Now, a caveat to that number based on some additional investigation I did last time… there is at least one book in those 20 books, maybe more, where while the exact book I had is not available, a different edition of the same book is, which would raise this ratio a bit higher. But for consistency, I’ll be sticking to the method I have been using since I started tracking this, which is basically finding the exact book I read on Amazon, then seeing if they do or do not have the “this is also available on Kindle” banner. So… 45% for now.
I have of course been saying for over a year now that I will officially want a Kindle once this ratio goes over 50%. One reason I’m being somewhat conservative about this is that I fully intend that once I switch over to electronic books, I will NEVER BUY A PHYSICAL BOOK AGAIN… except if I have no choice because I need it for work or class or something or I am really really desperate to read something only available in physical form. Now, that isn’t saying I won’t read a physical book if I have one given to me, or if it is one I already own in physical form and want to read… but I will be strongly resistant to buying any more physical books once I make the switchover. So, I don’t want to make that switch prematurely.
Of course, while I have some bias to this device over others, so far none of the other dedicated e-readers have impressed me at all. Of course, my gadget lust right now is building rapidly for something else entirely. I probably won’t go there either in this first wave, but… since it is a device that will do e-reader stuff (including Kindle books as well as e-Books from other sources) but will also do all kinds of other things, it changes the whole evaluation equation in a way that is different than a dedicated e-reader. And yes, a dedicated device is optimized for that one specific thing (reading) and the multi-purpose device might sometimes be sub-optimal for that task (maybe), but… that is balanced by the other functionality. Although, really, if I had a multi-function device that I could also read books on, I think the amount of time spent actually doing such reading would be much less than on a dedicated device, because I’d simply be too tempted by the other functions…
We shall see. In the mean time, it sure is taking a long time to break the 50% barrier on this metric I chose. I’ve specifically not picked books to influence this ratio. I was hoping my number would have gone up faster.
|
|
} on 
