bookofjoe

Kindle for iPhone and iPod touch — The wonder is not that it's not as readable, but that it's readable at all

To paraphrase Dr. Johnson.

Long story short: I read this morning in USA Today about Kindle's new free iPhone/iPod touch app, so I figured I'd check out whether it was TechnoDolt™-friendly.

Short answer: Yes.

I went to the App Store and downloaded the Kindle Reader app, then went to Amazon's Kindle Store.

I noodled around a bit, then decided to buy Zoë Heller's "Notes on a Scandal" to try the reader out on my iPod touch.

But wait — it got better.

When it came time to pay ($9.99) for the book I was offered, on the same screen, the option of reading a free sample before buying.

I love that, that Amazon would defer a chance to take my money in favor of letting me decide if the experience would be worth it or not.

That's why they're succeeding where others around them fail.

But I digress.

I opted for the free sample and it downloaded right into my Kindle App, for whenever I decide to read it.

Sweet.

Nicole Lee's cnet.com story has more details about the new App and how it compares to using the new Kindle.

Are the first cloned humans 9 years old, alive and well in Eastern Europe?

Long story short: That's what the doctor who created the three babies nine years ago says.

Why am I not reading this anywhere but here?

Note to the New York Times, Newsweek et al, who scoffed and sniffed at previous big news only to get burned by the Drudge Report and the National Enquirer: better get someone on it yesterday.

Because something seems unlikely doesn't mean it's not true.

Even if it's something you don't approve of.

An interview with Dr. Severino Antinori (below),

the Italian embryologist who claims to have performed the cloning of the three children, appears in today's issue of Oggi.

If your Italian's better than mine, you'll find the accompanying Oggi editorial of interest.

[via Stephen Bové]

Best appointment of the Obama Presidency: Zoo director to head Office of Personnel Management

True.

National Zoo Director John Berry has agreed to take the less challenging position as a favor to the President.

"Berry, a former assistant secretary in the Treasury Department and former director of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, has headed the zoo since 2005."

"'John Berry has a tremendous record of effective management in key public service roles,' Obama said in a statement."

You could look it up.

Ladder Bookshelf

Brilliant.

[via Milena]

Why bookofjoe is like Berkshire Hathaway

Last night while reading Warren Buffett's annual letter to shareholders, I happened on the following on page 24 in the "Acquisition Criteria" section: "We can promise complete confidentiality and a very fast answer — customarily within five minutes — as to whether we’re interested."

We're even better here: not only do I offer complete confidentiality but also I know within five seconds whether or not something interests me.

Sentence first, verdict afterward — worked fine then, even better now.

Of course, me knowing isn't the same as you finding out; for that, I invoke Buffett again, to wit: "Charlie [Munger] and I frequently get approached about acquisitions that don't come close to meeting our tests: We've found that if you advertise an interest in buying collies, a lot of people will call hoping to sell you their cocker spaniels. A line from a country song expresses our feeling... — If the phone don't ring, you'll know it's me."

Three-Face Wall Clock

One of my favorite sayings is, "A man with one watch always knows what time it is; a man with two is never sure."

This trifecta puts paid to the whole argument.

From the website:

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Three-Face Wall Clock

Separate black disks indicate hours, minutes and seconds and can be positioned on the wall as you like.

Hours disk: 7.5"Ø x 1.75"D.

Minutes disk: 9.5"Ø x 1.0"D.

Seconds disk: 11.5"Ø x 0.75"D.

Made in Italy of painted wood.

Three AA batteries included.

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$295.

Soundsuits — by Nick Cave

The New York Times called them "hirsute onesies."

Blake Gopnik, writing in the January 25, 2009 Washington Post, had this to say:

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Nick Cave, a 49-year-old artist who is chairman of the fashion department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,

doesn't make the kind of esoteric, virtually unsellable work of some of the conceptualists now showing in Chelsea.

Cave's pieces seem esoteric in a quite different way.

He's best known for what he calls 'Soundsuits': 'wearable sculptures,' or costumes, that enclose their wearers, hiding every trace of their identities.

For his second Jack Shainman exhibition, Cave has presented a new series of ultra-shaggy Soundsuits, made from garishly colored hair.

Anyone who wore one would look rather like Chewbacca the Wookiee, after an accident in a dye works. Other new suits are more form-fitting, sometimes looking as though they've been assembled out of crocheted pot-holders.

These tighter suits are then topped with huge "masks" that conceal a wearer's head and chest behind bizarre constructions of fake flowers, plastic birds or fragments of fabric.

There seem to be clear references, in all this work, to the body-hiding masks and costumes of certain African cultures.

But where those outfits reinforce a single cultural identity, Cave's seem meant to set their wearers free.

For anyone who, like Cave, grew up black in the United States, there might be something to be said for a new world

where every person could choose to look absolutely, unrecognizably different from everyone else.

One last, perhaps surprising note: A week into the show, Shainman had managed to sell a number of such apparently unsellable works."

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The Shainman show closed on February 7, 2009.

Cave's new show opens at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts on March 28, where it will remain through July 5, 2009.

Bubble Necklace

Glass, 20.5" long, designed by Marina and Susanna Sent, made in Italy.

$115.