Amazon Pricing Tactics

While the whole $9.99 Kindle book boycott has yet to be satisfactorily resolved, Amazon’s begun a new marketing tactic on the opposite side of things. Free e-books.

Nothing new, some of you say. While I don’t deny that this new phenomenon could have been occuring for a little while without my noticing, here are a few things that I don’t mean.

I don’t mean a ten cent copy of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith which was one of my very first Kindle purchases.

I don’t mean the books (such as The Wealth of Nations) whose copyrights are long expired and were offered for free on Project Gutenberg long before Amazon caught on.

I mean relatively recently published, popular books being offered for free: His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik, for example. Go on, look. It’s actually free.

Frankly I’m not terribly fond of the Temeraire books. I read His Majesty’s Dragon at the library not long after  it came out and never bothered to read the others. Nothing wrong with the books, not by any means (except, perhaps, a weak protagonist), I just didn’t feel compelled to read further.

Amazon is hoping others will disagree. While His Majesty’s Dragon is offered for free, all the later books in the series are listed at full price ($6.39, fairly standard for a book that’s available in paperback). Every other free e-book of this type offered, at least so far as I can tell, is also the first in a series.

Needless to say, I just went on a free-book-binge. Here are a few books that I ‘bought.’

Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson

Settling Accounts: Return Engagement by Harry Turtledove

Blood Engines by T.A. Pratt

For Love of Mother Not by Alan Dean Foster

Manifold: Time by Stephen Baxter

Elric: The Stealer of Souls by Michael Moorcock

Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham

Here are another couple that I didn’t ‘buy,’ for one reason or another.

His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik

Assassin’s Apprentice by Robin Hobb (I’ve read it, and recommend it for anyone seeking quality high fantasy)

Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning (didn’t strike me as something I might enjoy)

Let me know if you find any others and I’ll add them to the list (and my library!). While ’speculative fiction’ is all I’ve seen so far, I would be excited to learn of more traditional offerings as well.

P.S. I support the $9.99 boycott for mostly selfish reasons, along with the fact that when I bought my Kindle, all the e-books were $9.99 or below, and I seem to remember a pledge to that affect from Amazon.

Update:

I’ve found several more- it turns out that many of these are part of a special promotion by Random House which will last through October

Re: Dark Matter

Wired.com reports that a new class of black hole has been discovered. Read about it here: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/07/mediumblackhole/

While these black holes have not been reported as having the qualities I described in my previous post, it does go to show that there is much about these celestial objects we do not yet know. More importantly it demonstrates that there are whole categories of black hole that we have yet to detect.

I love being right, so I hope the French don’t retract their findings.

Dark Matter

I’ve finally gotten around to reading A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking which, in the third chapter, states that ‘dark matter’ is widely believed to be present both within, and in between, galaxies. Such matter has been scientifically detected only be alterations in the paths of nearby stars and galaxies.

It is impossible to prove a negative, but I would like to theorize that there is a simpler explanation- black holes. Black holes are known to exist and do not necessitate the creation of a new class of matter which, mysteriously, is undetectable. Why are black holes not the current explanation? Because we can detect black holes, which have been found both to emit radio waves, due to a high rotational velocity, and Hawking radiation, caused by quantum phenomena at the event horizon.

All that my theory requires is a different class of black hole. There is no known reason why a singularity must, by its very existence, spin at a rate high enough to emit electro-magnetic radiation. As for Hawking radiation, it has been theoretically proven but never been detected. Furthermore it is always possible that radiation is being emitted, but not detected, due to the background noise of the universe.

There is no place for dark matter in the particle predictions of quantum physics, thus a simpler explanation seemed in order.

On a side note, the recent Star Trek movie broke the laws of physics in more ways than I could keep track of. Not for small children trying to learn physics, though evidently computer science majors don’t mind much.

Self-Portraiture

The advent of cheap photography has led to an inconcievable number of people taking pictures of themselves. These pictures tend to be divided roughly into two catagories.

1. I am beautiful. Model poses, pursed lips, uncomfortable angles.

It looks rather silly.

2. I am silly. Making faces, funny poses, etc. Can also be construed to include many digitally edited shots.

Yes, you are.

Other than the photo editing (which is more easily construed as art, and who am I to define art?), I don’t particularly see the purpose of this ceaseless self portraiture. Do they want to see how their looks change over time? I doubt it. Plus, that would take one photo a day (or week, or month) not fifteen in a row.

The vast majority of these photos simply seem to be taken while bored. I want to make a face and see it. I have a camera. Boom.

Maybe this is just me. Maybe only I am dissatisfied enough with the way my face looks that I don’t particularly want it preserved unecessarily. It’s not that I don’t like it, but I’m not overly fond of it either. It’s just my face, not a work of art. If it was a work of art, I would demand a refund. The chin is wrong.

Still, when I need to know what I look like (rarely), I do have something I use. I would recommend it to all those amature self-portrait makers as well.

The mirror.

Making fun of Obama

I know I (almost) promised to do a post about my experience at the inauguration, but the more I reflect on it, the less interesting it was. I already posted the highlights of my own experience, and frankly, running (literally) around downtown DC trying to find the end of a line (and once finding the beginning instead) isn’t all that interesting. The speech was good though. If you didn’t watch it, look it up. It won’t be quoted for centuries, but it should last out the decade.

So now I can take advantage of the fact that we have a new government by getting my foot in the door early for making fun of it. The nation as a whole has reached a point where all its dreams have come true, now they just need to sit back and watch the magic happen.

But on his very first day in office, Obama did something I disapproved of. What he’s done with regards to federal jobs, pay, and appointments will prevent much ‘new blood’ from coming in, as well as the usual interchange between public and private sectors. The vast majority of the time, what he’s done is good. I know one person, however, who was considering taking a political appointment in the new administration, but now won’t because she wouldn’t be able to pay the bills with that pay. Money was an issue before, but now it is absolutely out of the question.

This will hopefully be fixed in the long term- a few appropriate loopholes in an otherwise good policy.

Also, here’s a quote (found on www.newyorktimes.com) which was somewhat unfortunate. Not a Bushism by any means, but rather clearly a politicians translation. The stimulus/infrastructure plan which it was used to defend, however, I approve of. Especially the bit about fixing the electric grid.

“We won’t just throw money at our problems; we’ll invest in what works.”

Inauguration 1

I will do a more detailed post on my inauguration experience later. I won’t promise it, but I’ll do it anyhow, I hope. A few highlights.

-Evidently I, in red hat and blue face-mask, appeared on TV at one point as a member of the crowd.

-Being in the part of the crowd where singing ‘Nananana, nananana. Hey, hey, hey. Goodbye,’ whenever Bush, Cheney or other old (how good it is to say it) administration member appeared on the screen originated.

-Being yelled at by policemen to stop running.

-I absolutely freaked out when the first shot of the 21 gun salute went off, because I was convinced that it was an assassination attempt.

Honest(l)y

For some reason the latest fad, both in the blogosphere and in Facebook notes (which is basically the shallow end of the blogosphere), is to offer to give honest answers to a series of set questions or, in some cases, any one question upon request from a given individual. Some of these are along the lines of ‘list seven wacky things about yourself,’ ‘twenty five things no one knows about you,’ or ‘ask me any one question through a private means (e-mail or PM) and get an honest answer.’

Here’s one example of the last one (because it’s the shortest type):

One chance
One honest answer
That’s all you get
You get to ask me one question (to my inbox)
Any question, anything, no matter how crazy it is
No catch
Just between me and you
No one else will ever know
But I DARE you to repost this
And see what people ask you

While this is all in good fun, all of these, the last in particular, strike me as odd. If I have a burning question I want to ask someone, I’ll ask it and expect an honest answer. Or, if I’m feeling cynical, I’ll expect them to believe that I think I’m getting an honest answer. So now I know I can ask you a question and get  what is labeled as an honest answer… what’s the difference?

Yes, there are some questions you wouldn’t normally ask, but might do so anomynously. This new method, however, offers no anomynimity. Maybe if you handed out the username and password to a disposable e-mail address by which they could send you messages, but that’s beginning to get too complicated.

So, for the record, anyone can ask me a question and expect an honest answer. And this post has nothing to do with it.

AI Object Recognition

Over the holidays I found myself reading great amounts of non-fiction. Among the books I read was ‘Physics of the Impossible’ by Michio Kaku. From that book I discovered that scientists are having trouble designing a robot which can manouver around a room due to difficulties in recognizing complex shapes. This is because the computer looks at the room as a series of straight lines and has great trouble with curves, or anything complex. An example the book gave of how slow progress is would be to compare the number of neurons required for a fly to do incredible loop-the-loops around a room to the huge amount of processing it takes for a robot move around on the floor of a furnished room. Clearly, although the fly processes far fewer bits of information, it is better suited for movement.

Why is this? Here’s my reasoning: the fly recognizes far less than scientists are assuming. Let’s move up the food chain a bit for an example. Birds will avoid eating moths with eyespots on their wings.

Consider that. You or I will look at a moth and will know that it is a moth, regardless of what spots it might have on its wings. If it is camouflaged into a tree or something else, we may not see it, but that is a seperate issue. Yet a bird will see the spots and fly away, avoiding the moth entirely. Why is this? The bird sees the spots and believes that the ‘eyes’ belong to a predator. Thus they avoid the moth. This is caused by a very simple object identification system.

Back to the fly. A fly will land on almost anything, even people, unless it is moving fast. It avoids anything which is moving fast- e.i. that could squash it. They’ve even been known to land on waiting frogs. They also don’t fly straight into any object, they slow and land on them, or go around.

This should be applicable to robot AI. It would be simple enough to scan the area to determine where obstacles are. There is no need to determine what they are, or even their exact shape. From there, as needed, the AI could be programmed to recognize certain things, such as chairs or coffee mugs, and be given instructions other than ‘avoid.’

Thoughts? Hopefully this is an example of where cross-disciplinary thinking can get you, but there may be a flaw in my reasoning.

Youtube Movies

Well, Youtube has a new fuction now- full length movie player. You can access this at http://www.youtube.com/movies. But know what I noticed as I looked through the available flicks? Not one familiar title.

Now, is there a problem with the fact that Youtube is helping promote indie movies? No, and in fact, it’s a wonderful development. A year from now I expect a film that had its humble beginnings on Youtube to win an Emmy, or whatever award is applicable. Maybe three years.

I doubt, however, that this new function will see wide use. After all, most people go looking for movies they already know the names of, not a random film to kill an hour or three with. Then again, with the amount of time some people spend on Youtube, perhaps this will be a more direct method of wasting time.

Car Theft

If your car is stolen in D.C. you don’t mind- there was traffic anyhow and the public transportation is fantastic.

If your car is stolen in NYC, you’re grateful.