Product Reviews: iPhone and Kindle 2 (Follow-Up)


After much shopping and soul searching, I broke down on December 22 and bought an Apple iPhone. I have resisted Apple products mostly because I don't appreciate being called an illiterate heathen (or the equivalent) because I use Bill Gates products. I'll stick with Gates just because I hate being condescended to. At any rate, I went around and around on this. I knew I needed a smart phone because I wasn't likely to make enough money to hire an administrative assistant to maintain my calendar, and I found myself missing things in email just because it wasn't in my hand THAT INSTANT. Amazing how communication technologies can quickly change our expectations of what's possible.


The Apple Store people at Bridge Street Town Centre were nice, if a little cocky about their products (note my earlier statement). However, I had already shopped around for the Droid and the rest of the Verizon smart phones, and most of them drove me up the wall with their infant-finger-sized keys and lack of capability as compared to iPhone. So I relented. I had no contract with Verizon, and they had not fixed a texting issue I'd had for over a year, so they weren't on my happy list. The only gripe I'd heard about iPhone was that AT&T's coverage was sporadic--the current theme of Verizon's commercials. Otherwise, the product worked.

So I asked as many questions as I could while at the Apple Store, the primary one that came to my technical writer's mind being, "How big is the manual for this thing?" The sales dude rather smugly informed me that Apple had gone green/paperless, and that the entire tech manual was online. Great, I thought, until your internet is down. But nevertheless, I was reassured that the interface was intuitive and that I wouldn't need a manual for much. They handled transferring my phone number, had me set up that day, and shazaam! After taking the machine home and fiddling around with some buttons for a couple hours, I found that, in fact, everything the Apple had told me was true:

• The interface is intuitive...at least to someone who has worked with graphical user interfaces over the past several years. My father, barely comfortable with the internet, just said no. To do most of the things I wanted to do--call people, send text messages, add the Facebook app(short for application)--I could do by futzing around pushing buttons that seemed logical and, in fact, were. I consider this a testimony to the designers of the iPhone interface.
• The machine works.
• The apps cover a wide variety of interests and activities, and many of those apps are free.
• The bulk of what I've used my home computer and phone for--text messaging, emailing, and accessing Facebook.com--I can now do from one machine, nearly anywhere in the country.

My favorite "iPhone moment," the one that sold me on the product as an impressive tool, happened in Orlando, when I was scheduled to meet D2 for lunch at a place called The Ravenous Pig, a restaurant she'd raved about but I had never visited. I started by looking up the restaurant on the Yellow Pages app (free). The YP app had both the restaurant's phone number and a "Directions" key. When I pressed it, the machine asked if I wanted directions from my current location. I pressed "Yes," and a map was generated there on the screen. I was sincerely impressed.

Now this isn't to say I haven't had my "moments" with the iPhone. The least-attractive feature so far is the actual phone feature itself. I have the Leahy Ear, which means I'll be looking for a hearing aid in about 20 years. But even so, the sound quality on the phone is not great, and it took a little gratuitous fiddling with buttons and asking a few friends (no, I did NOT use the online help, more on that in a minute) to finally get the volume turned up. A minor annoyance, but still a practical issue, considering this is an iPhone.

Second, the online help is not easy or intuitive. It took awhile to find the correct set of keywords to get the answer to the question I wanted (e.g. "How do I get the music on my iPod onto my iPhone?").

Third, the tiny screen is nearly useless for a long stretch of web surfing. My buddy Doc did show me how to expand the screen, which is a pretty clever combination of using two fingers to "stretch" the image on the screen, but it was not immediately obvious.

Fourth, I've had a recurring problem with the Facebook app getting "stuck" on one screen and not returning to its "home page." The only way to clear the problem seems to be to make sure I exit the app FROM the home page. Otherwise, I have to delete the FB icon from my iPhone desktop, reset the phone, and reset some other things as well. Not a major issue, but an annoyance for a habitual FB user like me.

Fifth, by allowing me to transfer my iPod music to the iPhone, Apple has in essence left me with a useless piece of equipment. My buddy Dr. OZMG is having problems with her iPod and doesn't have an iPhone, so she might be the lucky recipient of the now-orphaned iPod.

But the bottom line is that iPhone has convinced me of the quality of Apple products. That won't turn me into an Apple snob. The home PC is due to be replaced, and I will probably still resist buying a Mac, but the iPhone has another fan. Buy it!

*

I've posted Kindle product reviews here and here, and I still keep getting requests from friends on Facebook asking what my impressions of the product are. Hopefully, these links help. However, I would say that I've had less time to read and use my Kindle than previously. Life has become a little too busy. I still like paper books and want my local Barnes & Noble to remain open. I canceled my monthly Wall Street Journal subscription, not due to any discontent with the product--it's a fine newspaper--but I just don't have the time to read it. Which is also why I don't read the Huntsville Times and didn't subscribe to any local papers in Northern Virginia or Orlando. Life is just too busy, and the internet provides quite enough information as it is. That said, the WSJ cost only $14.99/month for Mondays-Saturdays (no Sundays or advertisements), so it's a worthwhile addition to your Kindle if you've got the time and inclination to use it. And even with a Kindle app on my iPhone, I still prefer the original, with its bigger, non-backlit screen.

Bottom line, if you're a book geek who's not afraid of a little technology and wants to keep several volumes on hand while traveling, Kindle is still a good toy to have.

Follow-On to the Kindle Product Review

In Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson imagines his Mars explorers/settlers having something called a "lectern." The Kindle 2 reminded me a great deal of the lectern with its online library and ability to annotate particular passages. However, KSR's lectern included the following functions as well:

• Video and music downloads (iPod).
• Two-way video, voice, and text communication (video phone/cell phone/text messaging)
• Journal writing/recording. This would be of most use to me, as I go through a handwritten journal once ever couple months.
• Active artificial intelligence and search engine capability (Google). (Character John Boone's lectern was named Pauline. I've renamed my Kindle "Bart's Lectern," which seemed appropriate, if premature.)

So I must accept the fact that this $400 toy I bought, while cool and supremely capable for what it does today, will be supplanted and improved in the next ten years. The technophile in me is loving this stuff and realizes that Ray Kurzweil might in fact be right. The technophobe (or, more to the point, anthrophobe) in me wonders what sorts of wickedness the Kindle, lectern, or other such toy might be put to in the future. Interesting times.

Book Review: Liberty and Tyranny

Mark Levin is a very smart guy with a popular radio talk show, and he has written a very smart book about conservatism, Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto. Levin (his radio nicknames include "The Great One" and "F. Lee Levin," which was given to him by Rush Limbaugh, owing to his status as a lawyer and former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Attorney General. I have one gripe with Mr. Levin: his voice. He spends a great deal of his time on the radio yelling in a high-pitched, nasal tone that reminds me of some overzealous geek after one too many cocktails. And that's a pity, because like I said, Levin is a very smart guy, but his hysterics and histrionics often get in the way of an audience's enjoyment and understanding of the points he's trying to make. That's the bad news, if you decide to pick up his radio show as a regular habit (5-8 p.m. on WVNN 92.5 FM here in Huntsville). The good news is that none of that agitation is evident in this book.

What Levin has done in the space of 256 pages--more or less, I read the Kindle edition; more on that in a moment--is provide a primer the historical origins of contemporary conservatism and apply those principles to contemporary governance, covering issues ranging from national defense to environmentalism and immigration. And unlike a talk show, where the host can make assertions out of the blue and treat them as facts, Levin really is citing facts. About one fourth of the book is footnotes, citing his sources so you know he's not making things up. Nitpickers like me appreciate such things.

Levin's primary purpose is to provide his conservative fan base--and even non-conservative Americans with a direct contrast between liberal and conservative approaches to governing the country. To hammer his point home (which will no doubt irritate liberal readers), he dispenses with the word "liberal" early in the book, preferring instead to use the term "Statist." He isn't much nicer to neo-conservatives in the Republican Party, whom he refers to as "neo-Statists." And what, exactly, is a Statist? I will refer to the New Oxford American Dictionary, which is resident on the Kindle 2 (one of many advantages of an e-book):

statism, n. a political system in which the state has substantial centralized control over social and economic affairs.

In any case, Levin provides concise, non-hysterical examples of "Statist" approaches to governance, quotes American Founding Fathers on the issue at hand, and then adds his own explanation of the contemporary effects of liberal policies. It is an effective approach.

Another advantage of the Kindle is that you can highlight, underline, or "mark up" passages without feeling like you're screwing up your chances of reselling the item at the university bookstore. The machine also has a menu function that allows you to go back and reread all the passages you underlined or highlighted. So, for grins, here are the items that caught my attention in Levin's book:

Reason and science can explain the existence of matter, but they cannot explain why there is matter. They can explain the existence of the universe, but they cannot explain why there is a universe. They can explain the existence of nature and the law of physics, but they cannot explain why there is nature and the law of physics. They can explain the existence of life, but they cannot explain why there is life. They can explain the existence of consciousness, but they cannot explain why there is consciousness.
Science is a critical aspect of human existence, but it cannot address the spiritual nature of man. In this respect, science is a dead end around which the Atheist refuses to reason.

***

The Conservative may ask the following questions: If words [in the U.S. Constitution] and their meaning can be manipulated or ignored to advance the Statist's political and policy preferences, what then binds allegiance to the Statist's words [in judiciary precedents]?

***

Liberty and property go hand in hand. By dominating one the Statist dominates both, for if the individual cannot keep or dispose of the value he creates by his own intellectual and/or physical labor, he exists to serve the state.

***

If homeless people lack a place to live, it is not because of God's will or nature. it is because the rules of property are invoked and enforced to evict them, if necessary by force. (Quotation by Former Harvard University law professor Cass Sunstein and President Obama's pick to run the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs)

***

Of course the best way to stimulate the economy would be for the federal government to slash capital gains taxes, corporate income taxes, and individual income tax rates, thereby increasing liquidity available to individuals and businesses to make decisions about their own economic circumstances.

***

Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. (Quotation from F. A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom)

***

When the individual or even a large business makes a wrong decision, its impact is limited and more easily absorbed by the free market. However, when the Statist makes a wrong decision, its impact is far-reaching, for he uses the power of government to impose his decision on as many individuals and businesses as possible, which distorts the free market itself.

***

The waiting times for surgeries [in the United Kingdom] is a systemic disaster. Patients wait between one and two years to receive hip and knee replacement surgeries. Across specialties, one in seven patients waits more than a year for treatment. Children must travel to the United States to receive certain cancer treatments that are unavailable under Britain's health system.

***

A few well-placed political appointees and their bureaucratic support staff ration health-care resources and decide who gets treatment and who does not and, ultimately, who lives and who dies.

***

But the technology most despised by the Enviro-Statist is the automobile because it provides the individual with a tangible means to exercise his independence through mobility.

***

No society can withstand the unconditional mass migration of aliens from every corner of the earth. The preservation of the nation's territorial sovereignty, and the culture, language, mores, traditions, and customs that make possible a harmonious community of citizens, dictat that citizenship be granted only by the consent of the governed--not by the unilateral actions or demands of the alien--and then only to aliens who will throw off their allegiance to their former nation and society and pledge their allegiance to America.

***

Moreover, rather than Americanize aliens and use public and private institutions to inculcate them with the virtues of American culture, language, mores, history, traditions, and customs, the Statist is cultivating a cultural relativism in which the cultures from which the aliens fled are given equal accord with the American culture.

***

And most important, how can the alien comprehend the nation's founding principles and pledge allegiance to them if he cannot be sure of their intended meaning?

***

[T]he moral imperative of all public policy must be the preservation and improvement of American society. Similarly, the object of American foreign policy must be no different.

***

[F]oreign and domestic policy were supposed to serve the same end: the security of the people in their person and property.

***

Certainly America cannot export democracy everywhere simultaneously. For one thing, it is impractical. There are cultures and regimes that are not receptive to such overtures. Furthermore, the loss of American lives and the enormous financial costs in chasing such unrealistic ends would threaten the preservation and improvement of American society. It would demoralize the population and desensitize it to real threats that endanger the society.

***

The key is that these decisions must never be motivated by utopianism or imperialism but by actual circumstances requiring the defense of America against real threats.

***

The Conservative believes that unalienable rights attach to all human beings, but it is not necessarily the responsibility of the United States to enforce those rights.

***

The benchmark, again, is whether any specific path will serve the nation's best interests.

***

Terrorists, the earliest of whom were pirates, have never been considered equivalent to regular armed forces by any president up to now.

***

Republican administrations...more or less remain on the glide path set by Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. The latest and most stunning example is the trillions of dollars in various bailout schemes that President George W. Bush oversaw in the last months of his administration. When asked about it, he made this remarkable statement: "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."

***

Reject all treaties, entanglements, institutions, and enterprises that have as their purpose the supplantation of America's best interests, including its physical, cultural, economic, and military sovereignty, to an amorphous "global" interest.

***

The book's epilogue is a call to action for conservatives to get educated on what conservatism is, how to apply it in their daily lives, and get involved in the political process before the statist approach Levin decries becomes the law of the land.

If you've never heard Levin on the radio, read this book first. It'll give you a better appreciation of the man's intellect. If you have heard him and he annoys you, you'll find this book surprisingly free from hype and hoopla. If you've heard him on the radio and enjoy his antics, you might be in for a surprise: this is a calm, hysteria-free approach to conservatism that will probably have you looking for a copy of the Federalist Papers after you're done with it. That, in itself, is worth the read.

Product Review: Kindle 2

Revised April 11, 2009
The toy is now in residence--it arrived early: bonus! The first thing they tell you is that you need to charge it up (no surprise there). "It should take less than three hours." In fact, the yellow light by the charging port went from yellow to green in 2.5 hours. The machine comes with a for-dummies guide to get you started, followed by very extensive user manual built in. I read about half of it while it was leashed to the power cord.

The text is clear, easy to read, and adjustable. One important thing to do, if you want to buy things with it, is go to their "Manage Your Kindle" site first so you can attach a credit or debit card to the machine. Otherwise, your purchases are going nowhere! No charge for wireless access, though. Very cool!

There are several features about Kindle that I like. The machine itself includes a text-to-voice feature to read to you via the book speakers or earphones. The downside of this feature is that the voice is rather flat and quiet--rather like listening to an NPR news anchor with the sound down. Somewhere I read that I can switch the voice to female, and I might just do that. I should be grateful for the monotone, though: I bought Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny, and while I respect the man's mind, his voice is more than a little annoying. I presume it's possible to buy a "book on tape" and get the author's voice, but I'm not sure that's always a good thing. Anyhow, I can take this book on the road with me when I go on long road trips, which is a good thing.

The keyboard is a little small, but the entire package is about the size of a trade paperback, so it's hard to argue with that. The leather case (~$30 extra) includes a couple of metal clasps that attach directly to slots on the side of the machine, so it won't fall out easily.

I bought some political/philosophical books I've been wanting to read for awhile, as well as the Kindle version of Les Misérables, since it's about half the size of the dead-tree version. I used the search feature to locate and mark my place in the book, but this is NOT the same translation that I bought in the store--frustrating, since the image from the Kindle Store is the same one that's on my book cover. I do like the fact that the Kindle remembers where you were in the book next time you open it, so the "book mark" feature (a little icon at the upper right of the page that looks like a page dog-ear) isn't really necessary. You can also select and highlight various passages, which is good to have, since it saves me the trouble of trying to remember why I marked off a particular page--I'm a relentless marker and bender of books.

One thing I heard someone complaining about with the Kindle is that it's impossible to tell how much progress you've made in reading. If that's true with the original, Kindle 2 has rectified it by showing a progress bar and % done number at the bottom of the screen. When you leave the machine alone for 10 minutes, it switches over to its built-in screen saver--images of authors.

As an experiment--and to prove to my former reporter buddy that newspapers have the same quality electronically as in dead-tree form--I bought a subscription to the Wall Street Journal. Once you turn on the wireless "WhisperNet" internet access, the next day's subscription downloads to your machine. The subscription is cheap, $9.99 per month, but doesn't include Sundays. That's fine, even I need a break from the world occasionally. The machine will archive things for you until you delete them. During the purchase process, I noticed that Kindle offers a "download a sample" feature, which is similar to the previews they offer on Amazon.com.

As far as functionality goes, reading on Kindle is a wee bit different from reading paper books, obviously. The machine includes the following buttons:

• "Next page" buttons on either side, presumably to accommodate "righties" and "lefties."
• "Previous page" button to go backward.
• A "Home" button, which takes you to your list of downloaded purchases. Note: you can remove stuff from the machine and recover it from Amazon.com later, if you so choose--Amazon's server archives everything you buy.
• A "Menu" button, which is pretty self-explanatory. The menus are context-driven, depending on what screen you're on.
• A "Back" button, which takes you to the previous screen, just like the Back button on an internet browser.

Am I happy with my purchase? Sure! The content is the content--and the prices for books I've bought so far are ridiculously cheap (so far: Liberty and Tyranny, The Spirit of the Laws, Les Misérables, and The Wall Street Journal). Now I've got to figure out what to do with all the dogeared, marked-up dead-tree books in my apartment. Hm...

Potpourri XVI

I must put my DoD budget analysis on hold again. Dog ate my homework, what can I say?

I also owe Darlene the Science Cheerleader a blog on reviving the Office of Technology Assessment. In the meantime, you can check out Dar's original entry on this petition. You can also check here and here for my earlier entries on this topic. Given all the other silliness in Washington, a calm, sober group of analysts providing sage advice on science and technology issues sounds like a good idea.

Oh yeah, and I decided to spend my tax refund on a Kindle 2 with case. I'm expecting to take delivery on Monday. I'll write a product review once I've had a chance to work with the toy a bit.

This looks like something to write while drinking a glass or two of wine: a winery is holding a contest to write the blurb on the back of their latest label. The catch? The name of the wine is Rocket Science.

OpenNASA has a new posting on reinventing NASA.

7,000 uranium centrifuges in Iran, and so Obama wants to convene nuclear arms talks with them.

A Rasmussen Poll states that only 53% of Americans think capitalism is better than socialism.

An NSS blog on a Catch-22 in space development.

Fox News reports on NASA cost overruns.

The Pentagon played an economic war game recently--and the results were not promising.

President Obama's new science advisor talks about many issues with Science, including space and NASA.

This is an interesting site: you can track this guy's GPS position as he climbs Mt. Everest.