The camera loves Tara [Lipinski] for some of the same reasons that the camera loved JonBenet Ramsey. That particular combination of woman and child is something you don’t see every day.

Maybe it creeps me out because it’s hard to argue against. Even though JonBenet Ramsey was six years old, that goddamn fucking awful child beauty pageant shit did its best to make her look like a fully-grown woman.

I feel like this is the type of minutia Tumblr is meant for. So, in an attempt to length this blog post a bit, let it be known that Haruki Murakami’s piece in the collection about his personal experience with running makes me never want to read any of his books. It’s probably the translation, but the prose and tone was equivalent to an 8th-grader’s autobiography.

The idea of our brains being rewired to acclimate to the internet probably isn’t a surprise to anyone who can’t go a few minutes without checking their e-mail or Twitter or Facebook or forum of choice. We (I say “we” since I’m one of these people) want everything as quickly as possible and without that constant flow of information we feel disconnected from the world. Even while reading this book, I probably checked my iPod Touch at an average rate of two times a chapter. (Yes, I carry around my iPod Touch because I’m too poor to want to pay $90/mo for an iPhone and I live in the city now and there’s always a hotspot nearby even if I’m not on campus.)

I had already read about a study cited in this book that revealed students did better on a reading comprehension quiz of a short essay when they were given a plain text version (or a paper version, I forget) as opposed to a version filled with hyperlinks. Clicking on a hyperlink has the effect of breaking your concentration and not allowing your brain to absorb the information in its entirety, even if it seems like you’re learning more by reading the content of the hyperlinks. The reason posited for this phenomenon is the limit of the brain for working memory. Possible long-term memory is practically infinite, but such retention is only attained after memories are allowed to be stored in the hippocampus for the required amount of time, which can apparently range from an a few minutes to years.

I was probably most intrigued when Carr went through history and talked about the effects of other technological advances on the workings of the mind. He writes about the invention of the book, the printing press, the clock, the phonograph, etc., citing reactions from prominent scientists and thinkers, and detailing where they were right and where they were wrong. It’s almost strange to think that a transition from handwriting to typewriters could have an effect on the content, tone, and structure of someone’s writing, but there are a few anecdotes mentioned that seem to suggest otherwise; one being that the flow of cursive lends itself to more meandering sentences compared to the staccato of a typewriter.

A theme running through all this discussion of technology and its effects on humanity as a whole and on an individual level is that there’s never any turning back (unless we bomb ourselves to hell, I guess). The internet is only becoming increasingly prominent in our lives and the trend in all likelihood will not reverse. When new forms of media were created, others were never done away with entirely. Newspapers didn’t kill books. Television didn’t kill the radio. The internet hasn’t killed anything yet, but it is the first technology that has been able to absorb and provide practically every form of communication the human race has created. And it has greatly affected every other form of media. Many magazines are now laid out more like webpages and there are television shows like Tosh.0 that live off YouTube clips.

But maybe it’s bullshit to worry about the internet-ization of our brains. It’s not like reading is an activity the human brain is particularly evolved for; a person needs to develop a love of reading, which in turn leads the brain to crave more of a similar stimulus. I feel as if I’ve had to work to get back into reading at length, or even watching full movies at home, but I like to think I’m almost there. And it does feel more satisfying to finish a book or watch a great film than it does to jump around reading blogs or watching 20 minute television show episodes. But is it efficient? When Carr posed this question to some very intelligent people, a number of them said they don’t even read books anymore because it’s just not worth the time and effort when the internet is so easily searchable — just Wikipedia it! Well, you probably indirectly Wikipedia it by googling it first.

I mean Google because there’s an entire chapter of this book dedicated to the search giant. The search giant that has attempted to get its fingers into every inch of the internet and subsequently our lives. They want to know everything and they want everything to be searchable. The ideas of Sergey Brin mentioned in The Shallows point to the idea of a massive internet cloud singularity in the future of humanity. Perhaps this is inevitable, considering the march of technological progress and the willingness of people to upload as much as possible. Just thinking about such a possibility reminds me of “The Last Question” by Isaac Asimov, one of the favorite short stories. Try to read it without being distracted by the rest of the internet.

As written about by Carr, a move toward such a future would be scarier than the idea of our brains just being overloaded with too much data and not developing enough deep knowledge, as it would basically end all individuality. Although the two are linked — if you’re not forming individual thoughts through personal reading and writing, then it’s all external, which basically means the internet going forward. Already, people on the internet group together around similar interests, e.g., politics or sabermetrics, developing thoughts and worldviews alongside each other virtually. Sure, have a predilection for such behavior, but the internet only exacerbates the narrowing of experience. Imagine such an echo chamber effect across the entire human race. Or maybe just watch episode 2 of the British television series Black Mirror.

Due to Hurricane Irene, though, my local Borders store lost power this weekend (I don’t know why they lost it 5 days after the hurricane), perhaps saving some quality books from being picked up. It certainly seems that way, judging by the haul I pulled today. The following picture is actually of all the books I’ve bought since the liquidation began, but the eight I bought today are on the top this pile (Free Darko’s Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball up).

Let’s run these down, shall we? I figure I should document this moment, as it might represent my last big physical book haul. By the time I finish my backlog — which includes at least a half-dozen books not pictured — a new Kindle could easily be priced under $99. But I guess I could always rip through a used bookstore at some later point.

Wonder Boys – I read The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay a year ago or so and absolutely loved it. Borders actually a few copies of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, but I settled on Wonder Boys due to it being an earlier work. I rather move chronologically, since I know I will read YPU eventually. Perhaps I should have bought both?

The Gun Seller – I recall @SpeedinUptoStop saying it was pretty good. And it’s written by Hugh Laurie! I couldn’t help myself.

An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England – This is a random one, but it’s due to having a random conversation with a girl in a dive bar about books. She recommended a few, but she particularly loved this book and I told her I’d read it. Even though I didn’t even ask her for her number and will most likely never see her again, I remain obligated to keep my word. It better not suck.

The Broom of the System – I’ve only read non-fiction from David Foster Wallace. His debut novel is probably a good place to start reading his fiction, right? Infinite Jest scares me.

A Confederacy of Dunces – A classic that someone recently reminded me to read.

The Four Fingers of Death – I remember @BenjaminBirdie going apeshit over its release, and while he’s prone to hyperbole, he usually has good taste (Die Hard > Die Hard with a Vengeance, though). Combine that with a cool cover and a science-fiction classification and I’m there.

Special Topics In Calamity Physics – Go ahead, make fun of me for buying a book somewhat based on its cover. I bought this book because I picked it up thinking it was a non-fiction book related to physics. Then I realized it was a novel and it was a Top Ten New York Times book selection and it was written by a woman (and she looked attractive on the back cover!). Considering I haven’t read many books by female authors, I figured this was a chance to stop being passively sexist. Wait, am I still being sexist by pointing out she’s attractive? Damn it.

The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball – I’ve read the first Free Darko book, which I felt focused too much on style over substance, but the guys can write, and this book appears to have much more actual content.

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004 – This was a bargain book, so with the 50% off on top of that it was cheaper than a Classic Single at Wendy’s. If there were any other years, I would have bought them. I’ve already ripped through this collection and it was wonderful.

Collapse – I’ve read Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I thought was extremely interesting and enlightening. I thought he drilled his point home over and over, though. Maybe I’m just too quick to accept things I read (I enjoyed The Tipping Point), but the hypotheses he laid out quickly made intuitive sense. Also, the title “Collapse” is timely. Because, you know, the economy.

Soccernomics - I’m not a soccer fan, but maybe this will help me get into it because it’s a scientific look the game across the globe.

The Best of The Best American Science Writing – I’m sure it’s just more of the awesomeness that is 2004 version. Not exactly the same series, but there is sometimes overlap. This series is probably more up my alley, anyway. The one that was science and nature had an article about birds. Fuck that noise.

The Only Game in Town – A collection of the best sportswriting from The New Yorker. Undoubtedly wonderful.

It took me longer to write this post than it took Roger Federer to win his fourth round U.S. Open match. I need to learn how to focus.

The most common types of earthquakes are those where two plates meet, as in California along the San Andreas Fault. As the plates push against each other, pressures build up until one or the other gives way. In general, the longer the interval between quakes, the greater the pent-up pressure and thus the greater the scope for a really big jolt. This is a particular worry for Tokyo, which Bill McGuire, a hazards specialist at University College London, describes as “the city waiting to die” (not a motto you will find on many tourism leaflets). Tokyo stands on the boundary of three tectonic plates in a country already well known for its seismic instability. In 1995, as you will remember, the city of Kobe, three hundred miles to the west, was struck by a magnitude 7.2 quake, which killed 6,394 people. The damage was estimated at $99 billion. But that was as nothing—well, as comparatively little—compared with what may await Tokyo.

Tokyo has already suffered one of the most devastating earthquakes in modern times. On September 1, 1923, just before noon, the city was hit by what is known as the Great Kanto quake—an event more than ten times more powerful than Kobe’s earthquake. Two hundred thousand people were killed. Since that time, Tokyo has been eerily quiet, so the strain beneath the surface has been building for eighty years. Eventually it is bound to snap. In 1923, Tokyo had a population of about three million. Today it is approaching thirty million. Nobody cares to guess how many people might die, but the potential economic cost has been put as high as $7 trillion.

The recent Japan earthquake and subsequent tsunami may have mostly spared Tokyo, but damn. I wonder if it counts as getting rid of that strain beneath the surface. If it does, I guess possibly $309 billion in damage and anywhere from 15,000 to 30,000 deaths is preferable to $7 trillion and hundreds of thousands of casualties.

The book is wonderful, by the way, even if it’s more of a relatively short science book (considering the breadth of topics covered) which explains our knowledge about the universe and how we came to realize such things, as opposed to a massive history tome like Europe: A History. Bryson is a very entertaining author who obviously did an insanely amount of research to put together the book.

I’m sure you’ve heard of Game of Thrones by now, considering there have been ads during baseball games, basketball games, and plenty of other television shows not featuring professional athletes. Going only by the commercials, one would think it’s possibly Lord of the Rings with sex thrown in, especially since Sean Bean stars in both. It’s closer to a re-imagined medieval political drama. I’ve heard The Sopranos + LOTR, but I really don’t get where the hell these people got The Sopranos from this series. I definitely think The Wire, Deadwood, and Rome would be better comparisons, considering the ensemble casts and power struggles — not that I’m qualified, considering I’ve never seen The Sopranos. But I don’t think I’m wrong when I assume the show focused greatly on Tony.

While Sean Bean is undoubtedly the central character of A Game of Thrones (the extra “A” means I’m talking about the book), there are way too many other important and powerful characters, signified by each chapter featuring one of eight narrative viewpoints. Not to mention that Sean Bean is as close to a traditional hero as you’ll see on TV nowadays, what with his old-fashioned honor and loyalty. Yeah ok, he has a bastard son, but it’s not like he’s a emotionless vigilante serial killer of other serial killers, an angry U.S. Marshal who likes to shoot people whenever he can, or a sarcastic animated secret agent who has an unhealthy relationship with his mother. Bean’s Eddard Stark is the character that gives some sort of noble center to the treacherous goings-on in the world of Westeros, the fictional continent where A Song of Ice and Fire takes place (that’s the name of the entire book series).

I had been hearing about the book series for a few years due to the nerd-filled places I frequent on the internet, but I never got around to reading the first book until last month. I figured I needed to prepare for the TV series premiere, even though I don’t subscribe to HBO. My plan was to possibly milk three free months out of FiOS like my parents seem to do once a year, and with the Optimum Online $69.95 triple-pack offer that came in the mail today, I might have my leverage. I won’t even need to lie!

I’d recommend everyone to read the books before watching the series, but that’s just my stock advice when it comes to these types of things. Reading before watching might be particularly helpful with A Game of Thrones, though, as it is lengthy and filled with so many characters and details that it’ll undoubtedly be tough to keep up if you jump right into the show. The book doesn’t have spectacular prose, and the world is misogynistic, but I’m not sure George R.R. Martin is. He might paint some female characters in a terrible light and describe some rough sex, but the ending of the book does feature the climax of a young woman finally coming into her own. Man, that sounded so wrong.

Anyway, the book is just what it sounds like — a struggle for the throne of Westeros. Of course, it’s only the beginning of an still-unfinished seven-part series, but many of the arcs are wrapped up while also laying the framework for the bigger battles that undoubtedly come in later books. There are betrayals and murders and twists and beheadings, but not all that much magic or supernatural forces if that’s what you’re worried about. Although, there is plenty of talk of dragons since they at one point actually existed in this alternate medieval world (if you’re a Japanophile, imagine them as mechs or gundams). And if you watched the following preview, you probably thought LOTR + zombies, instead of The Sopranos. So I would just like to drive the point home that this is basically Rome set in a Christopher Nolan-esque “grounded” fantasy world.

Then there’s Portal 2. By now you undoubtedly heard of how the cake in the original was a lie, but the puzzle-solving done in the first-person was what set Portal apart from just most games of the past few years. It was a short ride, but a shockingly inventive and entertaining one. After only an hour with its sequel, I’ve already experience much of the same, even if the puzzles so far are extremely simple to a veteran of the original. The same dry, but playful sense of humor pervades each game and the graphics are crisp on even middling PCs such as mine, due to the Source engine being immensely scalable, and most of the action taking place within fairly plain enclosed areas — testing chambers that have the aesthetic of a laboratory playground.

There’s not much of a point in me going on about Portal or its sequel at this point. You should have already played the first, and if you haven’t, ask someone who pre-ordered Portal 2 for a Steam copy. I’m off to play with my portal gun.

Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

This is the book that alerted regular fans to the idea of sabermetrics. Joe Morgan famously railed against it; nerds in their basements embraced it; Hollywood decided to make a movie out of it. This is not a stat-filled textbook, but a well-written, entertaining story about the Oakland Athletics of the late 90s and early 00s, featuring Billy Beane as the protagonist.

It starts off telling the tale of a can’t-miss prospect who ended up flaming out in the minors even though he possessed all the tools baseball scouts dream of — a cannon for an arm, a beautiful swing, blinding speed, and the body of a Greek god (he even dated all the prettiest girls in high school!). As a prep prospect, he was even more highly touted than Darryl Strawberry. The name of this player was Billy Beane. Yes, the guy that made it cool to look at stats in your mother’s basement was also the prototypical high school alpha male.

Beane wasn’t just a tremendous athlete; he was also an extremely bright kid, but one who didn’t quite put as much effort into school as he should have. Yet he still almost went to college instead of taking the money to play baseball. He regretted the decision later, but he still managed to work himself up to the top of the A’s organization as their GM. Once there, he decided he would change how things were run.

Moneyball delves into how Beane maximized his resources by selecting college players with great stats instead of high school players with great bodies. It harps on the importance of on-base percentage. It chronicles disagreements between Beane — and his sidekick Paul DePodesta with laptop in tow — and his scouts. It’s about a front office trying its best to discover inefficiencies in the market for baseball players, not about glorifying Billy Beane or a particular type of unathletic player. And while naysayers like to point at the playoff failures of those A’s teams as proof that it doesn’t work, winning 100 games isn’t an easy feat, and the baseball playoffs are as close to a crapshoot as sports come. Although, the next book in this post does shed some light on why “Moneyball” didn’t lead to a World Series title.

It’s been a few years since I read it, but Amazin’ Avenue has created a book club around it and I’m trying to keep up through online means, since I gave my copy to my cousin a year or so ago (I wonder if he ever read it). I would recommend following their posts if you want to pick up the book anytime soon. It’s where anyone interested in the “stathead” movement should begin their reading.

Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong

This book from Baseball Prospectus is for anyone who wants to look the baseball with a more critical eye. Most of the stats that populate the book are not very popular in the sabersphere nowadays, but the research and reasoning behind each chapter are still as relevant as ever. There’s the idea of a replacement player and how that is important to assessing a player’s true value, a method of comparing the competitiveness of different leagues (including the minors), a takedown of the perceived importance of the RBI, and plenty of other essential knowledge for any intelligent baseball fan.

There’s also a comparison of Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth and a look at how overpaid Alex Rodriguez is. There’s an argument for a return to the four-man rotation, something I’d love to see make a comeback. There’s a dismantling of the notion that managers actually make a significant difference. There’s even a section which slights how much Rickey Henderson’s stolen-base prowess increased his value as a player. Too much good stuff to lay out in this blog post.

My favorite chapter title has to be “Why Doesn’t Billy Beane’s Shit Work in the Playoffs?”, and it’s definitely one of the more enlightening chapters as well. It shows how the prevailing idea that pitching wins championships is actually somewhat true, that a great rotation has a positive correlation with success in the playoffs. For an example, look at how the Giants won the World Series this year. I guess this is where people who hate “Moneyball” would start reading the book.

Baseball Between the Numbers is just a perfect combination of good writing and good analysis. It doesn’t get too heavy with the stats, providing easy-to-understand charts when needed, and focusing more on the seemingly obvious conclusions which are arrived at after looking at the data, rather than the methodology. Yet everything is still explained enough so you know they are not just making things up nor manipulating the data to fit their agenda. It’s probably my favorite book out of the three which comprise this post.

The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball

This is the graduate course in sabermetrics. Do not read this book unless you like — or at the very least, understand — math. There are win expectancy matrices that take up multiple pages. All you have to do is look at Tom Tango’s website for The Book to realize that this is just pure analysis with little regard for enjoyable writing. The Book has, in addition to the usual Table of Contents, a list of the 140 tables in the textbook. That’s what The Book is — a textbook for managing a baseball game. The preface even says this is an attempt to rewrite “the [unwritten] book”.

The Book delves into platooning, the use of starters and relievers, pinch-hitting, sacrifice bunting, stealing bases, the intentional walk, lineup construction, and pretty much anything else that can be quantified. The authors use empirical data from multiple major league seasons to create their probability matrices and averages. If a math-averse person wanted to, they could just read the little boxes at the end of each section to see what “The Book” says on a specific topic without reading the details. An example would be:

Your three best hitters should bat somewhere in the #1, #2, and #4 slots. Your fourth- and fifth-best hitters should occupy the #3 and #5 slots. The #1 and #2 slots will have players with more walks than those in the #4 and #5 slots. From slot #6 through #9 put players in descending order of quality.

This flies in the face of the accepted wisdom of batting your best “overall” hitter 3rd, a fact which was gospel to me growing up.

As I said earlier, the stats mentioned in Baseball Between the Numbers aren’t exactly the darlings of the sabermetrics fan revolution nowadays. While the second book in this list talks about VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) and WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player), The Book uses WAR (Wins Above Replacement). The Book also goes into the creation and derivation of wOBA (weighted On-Base Average), which is an attempt to quantify each contribution from a hitter as accurately as possible. A stat like OPS (On-base Plus Slugging) weighs OBP (On-Base Percentage) and SLG (Slugging) equally, when OBP is about twice as important.

You must be getting the sense that this book is filled with acronyms and numbers and math. Not that Baseball Between the Numbers doesn’t have its hilarious acronyms, but it’s just not as heavy on the mathematical analysis. Or perhaps I just ignored many of the acronyms in Baseball Between the Numbers since no one uses them, even though the ideas behind them are sound.

The Book also explains the idea of WPA (Win Probability Added), which is tied to the probability matrices I mentioned earlier. Basically, this book is what spawned Fangraphs, which is why this is the book that has the popular acronyms. Baseball Prospectus is just not the sabermetric darling of the moment. While their analysis is better than Fangraphs’, most of it is behind a paywall which even I’ve never paid for (but I’ve been thinking about it lately).

So that’s what a degree in sabermetrics looks like. And once you take it, you won’t be able to stay away from websites like Beyond the Box Score, Fangraphs, Baseball-Reference (well, EVERY baseball fan knows this site), and The Book Blog. In addition to reading The Hardball Times website, you’ll order their Annual each year. Maybe you’ll even love the saber-tinted fantasy analysis at Roto Hardball.

Before I announce the winner here, I’m going to be totally honest. The first time around, I only put in the six people who had emailed me (only six people followed directions correctly!). I picked out @DonCheech. But I felt bad about this for two reasons: 1) His comment was by far the shortest, while many other people pleaded their case, and 2) I didn’t put in the other half of people that didn’t send me an email — I felt like maybe I should be lenient. So I picked again with all eleven commenters. And I picked out @DonCheech again. So there you go, the Mets gods wanted him to win.

Congrats!

This is the type of book teenagers be should reading, and I wish I read it a lot sooner myself. It covers everything from the spread of agriculture thousands of years ago to ancient European civilizations — and not just Ancient Greece or Rome — to the Enlightenment to the Partitions of Poland to the end of the Cold War (I just restated the subtitle of the book in a longer statement). And since it’s such an immense and comprehensive tome, it opens up the entire history of Europe to the reader, allowing them to discover which events or periods they find most interesting. In that way, it acts as a catalyst for more focused reading.

At least that’s the effect it’s had on me. I have already started on a Dostoevsky binge, kicking off with a quick re-read of Notes From Underground. I’ll then move on to the big guns: Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. Maybe I’ll read The Idiot in between those two, to maintain chronological order to appease the OCD aspect of my brain. I also have quite a bit more motivation to read through The Battle: A New History of Waterloo and the Memoirs of Napoleon’s Egyptian Expedition, 1798-1801, two gifts I received from a history buff. Most of all, I want to get through yet another massive tome, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which was another gift; I’m just not ready to read another 1000+ page book any time soon.

Getting back to Norman Davies’s impressive achievement, I would just like to share these awesome two paragraphs (WARNING: SPOILERS!!):

The collapse of the Soviet Empire is certainly ‘the greatest, and perhaps the most awful event’ of recent times. The speed of its collapse has exceeded all the other great landslides of European history — the dismemberment of the Spanish dominions, the partitions of Poland, the retreat of the Ottomans, the disintegration of Austria-Hungary. Yet it is hardly an event which calls for the historian to sit on the ruins of the Kremlin, like Gibbon in the Colosseum, or to write a requiem. For the Soviet Union was not a civilization that was once great. It was uniquely mean and mendacious even in its brief hour of triumph. It brought death and misery to more human beings than any other on record. It brought no good life either to its dominant Russian nationality or even to its ruling elite. It was massively destructive, not least of Russian culture. As many thoughtful Russians now admit, it was folly that should never have built in the first place. The sovereign nations of the ex-Soviet Union are picking up the pieces where they left off in 1918-22, when their initial flicker of independence was snuffed out by Lenin’s Red Army. Almost everyone agrees: ‘Russia, yes. But what sort of Russia?’

The most obvious factor the Soviet collapse is that it happened through natural causes. The Soviet Union was not, like ancient Rome, invaded by barbarians or, like the Polish Commonwealth, partitioned by rapacious neighbors, or, like the Habsburg Empire, overwhelmed by the strains of a great war. It was not, like the Nazi Reich, defeated in a fight to the death. It died because it had to, because the grotesque organs of its internal structure were incapable of providing the essentials of life. In a nuclear age, it could not, like its tsarist predecessor, solve its internal problems by expansion. Nor could it suck more benefit from the nations whom it had captured. It could not tolerate the partnership with China which once promised a global future for communism; it could not stand the oxygen of reform; so it imploded. It was struck down by the political equivalent of a coronary, more massive than anything that history affords.

Now that’s some beautiful writing, Jeff Pearlman.

If watching a team that was supposed to be a new dynasty piss away the admittedly disappointing primes of a couple of homegrown players isn’t enough, you can now read about another ultimately disappointing era in Mets history, and also a personal history of the franchise told by a man with a terrifying memory.

The Bad Guys Won! is exactly what that ridiculously long subtitle says. It consists of Jeff Pearlman utilizing his mediocre writing ability to describe the exploits of a Mets team that was actually great. It’s a fun enough read, but after reading an excerpt or two of Pearlman’s 1990′s Dallas Cowboys book, the 1986 Mets seem pretty tame in comparison. And to avoid getting stressed, make sure to order some cannabis products from sites like https://d8superstore.com. Read these CBD oil reviews to find high-quality cannabis products you can order online. 카지노 먹튀 offers a wide selection of casino games that may also help you de-stress.

Faith and Fear in Flushing is the book form of the blog named (surprise!) Faith and Fear in Flushing. Greg Prince really likes to write, and it shows in both his blog and book. He’s definitely also a huge dork, but hey, the guy knows his Mets. If you want an emotional and personal rundown of the Mets from their inception — well, a few years into their existence — to their frustrating present, it’s certainly a lot better than Wikipedia.

I want to give away these books to someone who might actually read and enjoy them. If you think you satisfy those two conditions, comment below and shoot me an email at cajolejuice@gmail.com. I’m not sure how long I’ll keep this raffle open, so just comment when you see this — no procrastination!

UPDATE: Well, it seems that both Amazin’ Avenue and Faith and Fear in Flushing have linked to this post. Thanks, guys! I didn’t even mean for people to prove that they deserved the books, but these comments are great. The downside is that I’m going to feel bad about randomly picking only one winner. And I think I’ll announce that one winner on Labor Day.

UPDATE 2: WINNER - Don Cheech!

I’ve been thinking about e-readers a lot lately. This may have something to do with Amazon greeting me with the above picture of its new Kindle every time I visit its site. And I’m not the only one influenced by Amazon–the new Kindle is the fastest-selling version of the e-reader. But doesn’t it seem as if the newest version of any product is always the one bought up the quickest?

Regardless, the $139 price tag is a big deal; just a year ago the Kindle was almost twice as expensive. I believe that this price drop has not been caused by competing e-readers, but by the iPad. Why would consumers buy a device that can only read books when they can get one of those fancy iPads that does everything (except support Flash) for only a couple of hundred dollars more? Yeah sure, consumers can be told that reading a novel on an LCD screen is not the same as browsing the internet or messing around with Excel spreadsheets at work, but many neither notice nor care although reading real books can be better for taking care of the eyes and you can learn more about this with eye care leadership services here. In response, ALL the e-reader manufacturers have had to compete with the Apple juggernaut. Who other than technophiles are going to be interested in the Kindle? And that same group of technophiles — at least the ones with money to burn — are definitely going to squeal over the iPad.

Perhaps Amazon is lowering the price of the Kindle because it’s following a razor and blades business model, selling its e-readers at a low price to generate a market for the Kindle Store. Whatever the reasons, e-readers are certainly reaching a mass-market price sooner than I expected. I’m just not sure they’ll ever reach mass consumption — until maybe flexible e-ink is widely available or some other unforeseen development, like people actually reading books more than their Facebook feed. A thin, flexible e-ink screen would be amazing. You could read the digital version of the New York Times, delivered to your flexible e-ink screen each morning; or flip over to your subscription of Wired or The Economist; or download the latest New York Post for a laugh. When you’re done, you can fold it up like a regular newspaper.

But if the technology were that advanced, wouldn’t it have a touch screen and enough processing power for the internet and streaming video and whatnot? It’d turn into an iPad-type device. Instead of reading novels or magazines above a 5th-grade level, they’d play Farmville 2024 and manage their fantasy teams. It boils down to how much people want to read, and I’m not sure that the average person wants to read at the expense of other entertainment.

I’m not above considering this trade-off, as I tried to allude to with my fantasy sports joke. I play video games, browse internet forums, IM people, and generally do a ton of shit other than read. An iPad device does appeal to me — just not at its current price point or level of functionality. At the moment, the Kindle is still much more enticing because it’s almost quarter of the price of Steve Jobs’ God tablet.

And, as I’ve said on here and on Twitter, I’m starting to hate all the crap I’m gathering. Books have been eating up my shelf space this year much quicker than Blu-rays, DVDs, and video games combined. I’ve really cut back on that latter group, but I’ve compensated with $25 or above mini shopping sprees on Amazon. An e-reader would eliminate a lot of future clutter, but I wouldn’t be able to lend my books to friends and, more importantly, I wouldn’t be able to exhibit them on a shelf in a vain attempt to make myself look intellectual, an impression unlikely to last if anyone looks down at my Judge Dredd or Family Guy DVDs.

For now, I think I can resist purchasing a Kindle. But once they’re selling for $99 and I’ve finished reading all of my physical books, I might just take the plunge. It’s the price point that got me to finally buy a PS2, and I remember feeling like an idiot for waiting so long.