Snips and Snails and Puppy Dog Tales

Amazon and B&N both sent me emails today, telling me that I have a credit from some class action suit about ebooks. The B&N didn't list an amount, but Amazon's given me an almost $75 ($72.60) credit. WOOT! I don't expect B&N's to be much, as I only ever bought three or four ebooks from them, but I'm impressed at how much Amazon's is!

"Apple, Inc. (Apple) funded this credit to settle antitrust lawsuits brought by State Attorneys General and Class Plaintiffs about the price of electronic books (eBooks)."

In other news, I finished this season of Orange is the New Black. Generally I enjoyed it, though there were some very unrealistic and heavy-handed parts that made me frowny.

Related: I'm seriously considering canceling Netflix, as there's never usually much of anything I want to watch online there anymore. I thought I'd never survive without TV service, but the less I watch, the less I want to watch, I suppose. Sense8 is the only other original series from them I'd be interested in catching, and Orange is the New Black is over for another year.

When I returned home from work, my new Kindle was waiting at my door. Same with the previous Kindle: They just left it at the door, in a public walkway, where anyone could have just walked off with it without notice. Luckily no one did.

In the first moments of using it, I was very unhappy: None of my books had cover images and it was slow as hell to use. Turned out the slow part was the cause of and because of the lack of covers, and soon both issues were fixed. (It had to download 100+ covers, and apparently downloading so much made everything slow.)

My first reaction was that it was cool that it was so small.
My second reaction was that it would be a problem that it's so small.

Unfortunately small ereader means a small screen (duh). I like to keep the text big in an effort to go easy on my eyes, but just using the second largest text size (which is smaller than what I use on my iPad), and I get very little text per page. The largest size is bigger than I need -- luckily, as then you get just a tiny bit of text per page. It's just too bad the second largest is too small.

The other issue is that, unfortunately but understandably, the Kindle feels really, really cheap compared to my iPad. However, as one was $700+ and the other about $150, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. The touch screen doesn't work nearly so well (with the iPad, it's like you're moving it with your brain because it's so responsive), plus even when not downloading something, the Kindle is noticeably slow. Not like AOL dial up slow, but things like my computer, phone, and iPad respond instantly to a tap or a command, there's a slight delay on the Kindle. The delay plus the less responsive touch screen makes it frustrating to use.

Another issue is that it's all black and white. I know it's not reasonable, but I wish sellers would list things an item doesn't have -- like I wouldn't have bought that first Kindle if I had known it didn't have a touchscreen. Color only comes into play when looking at the covers/picking a new book, but it's depressing to not have it.

However, this is only my first day using it. I'm going to finish at least my current book on it (probably the next one as well) to give me a chance to get used to it. Maybe I'll stop noticing the issues. (And speaking of not noticing things, the built-in ads only bugged me once today, with that was with lots of use and playing around with it. I'm pretty sure they won't be an issue.)

Positives to it? It's smaller and lighter, though when using it at home, the iPad's size and weight aren't an issue (away from home is a different story). I can't really think of any other positives other than "It's cool" (though a lot less cool than it would be if it had color...).

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And on RP! Eeeee! I RPed all night and it was wonderful! I haven't RPed so long and with so many people since... I don't know, sometime back in WoW? Usually scenes with lots of people are rough, but mostly the group broke into smaller conversations with new people coming and going through the evening. I love playing a social butterfly character -- it makes it so easy to ICly meet new people and take part in scenes!

RP seems to go on all day and all night, so I think I'm going to be able to go back to playing daily. So happy! :D And oddly for a large group of RPers on a MMO, no one was bad! I think the worst RPer I encountered today was still at "pretty good" level.

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I'm loving the current book I'm reading, and the Kindle tells me I'll finish it in about three hours of reading (okay, cool feature there!), so in the next day or two I'll post the review for it. If I don't get to it before Monday, have a good long weekend, all! (Unless you're not in America. In that case, have a good normal weekend, all!)

I've found the only way I can enjoy watching SHIELD. I watch it like I used to "watch" TV: as background noise. Don't really listen to it, don't look at the TV.

Now and then I did pay more attention, and things were so unrealistic. Example: Annoying what's her face hacker was giving a briefing on whatever, sharing all the info she googled. She whined about her security cuff, left. One character said they were being really hard on her. Other responded that she lost their trust. First one: Well with this [briefing] she's come a long way towards earning it back.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over. She did ONE JOB, one basic task that is part of the job they hired her for, and that makes her even an inch more trustworthy? NO. NO IT DOES NOT.

All the dialogue was just so unbelievable too. What's his face, leading man McFighting Fighter said outright he wished the enemy was something he could fight instead of something he didn't understand -- so cliche! The more I listened to it, the more I heard how badly written it was.

I won't even comment on how unrealistic the episode's final action scene was. Gods above, how stupid and unrealistic.

So, I think I've finally given up on this show. I may continue to "watch" it, but I won't watch it.

The Walking Dead. I'd be so done with this show if I thought the change that happened this week was permanent. ( Cut for spoilers for this week's ep. )

I feel very disgruntled with TV at the moment.

Kindle: I've been going back and forth on getting one for years. I have an iPad that I do all my reading on, but it's very big. Taking it when I have to go somewhere is a pain -- it doesn't fit in my purse at all.

Someone who is no longer on my friends list (for unrelated reasons) told me a Kindle was basically no different than an iPad when it came to ebooks. I used that information as part of my decision-making for buying it. Unfortunately it was very, very wrong. I assume that former friend had no idea what an iPad was or what it does.

Kindles do not have a touchscreen*. iPads do. That's a massive difference. The Kindle controls are so clunky that I feel like I've gone back 20 years tech-wise. I know I shouldn't be surprised, since the Kindle cost about $90 and my iPad over $900**, but I wish I hadn't gone into it with the expectation that they were anything alike. (*You can buy a Kindle/touchpad hybrid, but the default Kindle does not. **First gen iPad. They're a lot cheaper now.)

It is a lot smaller though, which was one of the reasons I bought it. It's about the third of the size of my iPad, and could easily fit in a purse:

(Forgive the glare. Also, I have no idea what that line is on the iPad screen, but it's not a crack.)

So, I think I'm going to keep using my iPad for reading at home. It's just too nice and easy to use. But, when I have to take my reading with me, I'll grab the Kindle.

I should say, if one doesn't compare it to an iPad, it's a nice little device. It feels great to hold, it's tiny (yet a good size for reading from). I keep coming back to the limitations though. I could read from my iPad in the dark, but the Kindle has no backlighting. That same ex-friend said the Kindle is easier to read from (text clarity), but I find that's not at all the case. ...I keep trying to write about the positives of it, yet I keep coming back to the negatives.

Let's leave it at this: If you're trying to decide between an iPad and a Kindle, and money isn't an issue, get the iPad. If you want an ereader you don't have to pay hundreds for, get the Kindle (or some other dedicated ereader). If you're deciding based on features, the iPad. Ease of carrying around, the Kindle.

I just finished Curse of Chalion (Best Book EVER, seriously!), and I went to start the next one, Paladin of Souls, but I've been thwarted by my Kindle app. As an "ebook extra", there's a glossary of terms, characters, places, all that. That's fine and dandy, I don't need it but I can ignore it.

Problem is, every time one of the terms from the glossary appear in the book, it's a blue underlined link. Mind you, all the main characters' names, all the major places, all that is in the glossary, so I have a blue link in almost every sentence. It's amazingly distracting.

Is there a way to turn that off? home (in Kindle) -> info -> settings has only three options listed, and none relate to this.