E-Books v print

It's nearly a month since I last posted anything and nearly a week since we moved into our new home. Now that I have a decent broadband connection I hope to do more. The chaos here is beginning to recede. We now have hot water and the washing machine is working again - but not the television. Why does everything go wrong at once?

I have managed to get most of my German books onto the shelfs but we have dozens of boxes with other books, ornaments and I don't know what else. Books and internet are what matter to me. I find I can only read a few pages on the computer screen before my eyes start watering and there is something enjoyable about just holding a book. I have wondered about E-Books and using some sort of reader. That could be good for PDF files provided I don't want colour. E-Books are beginning to sell better than hardcover books.

Amazon: E-Books verkaufen sich besser als Hardcover-Ausgaben

Amazon verzeichnet steigende Verkäufe seines E-Book-Readers Kindle. Mittlerweile setze das Unternehmen mehr E-Books als Hardcover-Bücher ab, heißt es in einer Mitteilung.

 ZDNet.de

Paperless Democracy?

The FDP-Abgeordnete Jimmy Schulz may have broken the rules of the Bundestag by using an iPad instead of paper notes to when he made a speech last week. Apparently there is a rule to stop members using computers in parliamentary sessions. Doesn't make a lot of sense nowadays and if something like an iPad can give access to lots of other data it has to be preferable to lugging around heaps of paper files. I picked up the report on an Austrian site derStandard.at and you can read it for yourself http://derstandard.at/1276413681388/Deutschland-Streit-um-iPad-gestuetzte-Rede-im-Bundestag Some comments have been added and you might like to add a sentence or two with your opinion.

In case you are wondering why I'm not posting to this blog quite so often, it's because I'm still spending most spare moments decorating the house we are moving to in mid-July. And the garden is still a mess ... but I have made a start! While I was on derStandard.at I had a look at their garden page http://derstandard.at/r2215/Garten but they had nothing to help me with the basic tasks that need tackled now.

Unobserved

Should we all be able to communicate on the internet without what we write or say being observed? Chaos Computer Club is unhappy about Vorratsdatenspeicherung in Deutschland. For more on this and the text of an open letter to the German Justice Minister see http://www.ccc.de/de/updates/2010/offener-brief-leuti-schnarri