Fahrenheit 451

It took me a while to get this, but it was worth it. You probably know it or you probably need to find it out for yourself. I'm not asking you to take my word for it. I'm just saying it. And here it is.

BOOKS ARE NOT ABOUT WHAT THEY SEEM TO BE.

Maybe bad or mediocre books are. Not the great ones, though. You would think that books are about stories and plots and characters and complexity. They are all those things, but they are not about all those things the same way you and I are flesh and bones but are not about flesh and bones. If that's what we were about, we would be dead. Only corpses are flesh and bones about flesh and bones.

Books are words and pages and covers. The moment they truly get a chance to become something else, something more important is when somebody reads them. I guess this is the most important thing about Brandbury's novel. The same way nothing is worth speaking when no one is listening, there little to no sense in writing a truly great book if no one gets to read it.

But more than that, Fahrenhei 451  is not only a novel about a world without books, but - more than that - it is a novel about a world without the thing books stand for: critical thinking. I'll just end this with my favourite quote of the book.

“The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.  They’re Caesar’s praetorian guard, whispering as the parade roars down the avenue, ‘Remember, Caesar, thou art mortal.’ - Ray Brandbury

R.

P.S. Rzvn update.... soon!

rzvn update(s)

So yeah... this is going to be another one of those posts where I throw text at you and include a vlogbrothers video. Yup... good times.

Summer vacation has begun which means... another year of fun in the city. The city being bigger will surely help this year, but still... beyond a trip home at the end of the summer, I've got nothing particularly fun planned. There are a few thing which I will procrastinate doing and Fahrenheit 451, the book I will read. Here is a video about that (John speaks about the book somewhere in the second part of the video).

I love the idea that books become real only if you read them. I will try and blog about my experience reading this, but will most probably fail. 

Here are a few shots of Vienna at 4 a.m. to compensate for that. Enjoy!

You're thinking... 'escalators, no big deal'. Well... the thing is... They're NEVER unused.... except at 4 a.m. There was no one in one of the most crowded subway stations in Vienna, I felt like Robert Neville in I am Legend.

R

Amazon Kindle review

I've had this thing for a few months and I've been wanting to write a review of it since the day I got it, but at first I thought it was too soon to write a one and then I kept procrastinating. (Procrastinate is, by the way, my favourite word in the English language. It's a hobby of mine. Too bad you can't go pro. Imagine that... making a living by procrastinating things. But I digress...)

So here it is: my review of the Kindle. I intend to post this on Amazon as well, but I first want to give the 3 or 4 people who actually read this blog a preview of it.

The Kindle is a great product. I went pretty carefully through the pros and cons before choosing it and decided that it suits me (which, by the way, is the right thing to determine when buying a product.... not if it's the best or the most expensive thing out there, but whether it suits you. Coincidentally, this was the most expensive thing out there, but more about that later...). The thing that made me choose it was the design. Most e-readers out there have the same characteristics in terms of e-ink screens and battery life. What makes the difference is the design and the wireless capabilities.

I went for the keyboard version. Not because I have anything against touchscreens, but I am the proud owner of 10 greasy fingers. I really like to minimize the number of fingerprints on my screen. As everything else, the keyboard has its trade-offs. I ended up having a slightly heavier and larger device. I don't like it any less for it, but if this is something that might bother you, you should consider going for a lighter version.

Here are the reasons I'm glad I chose a book reader (as opposed to a tablet):

•  The weight. Say what you will, but when it comes to holding a device in your hand for longer than ten minutes, the weight of it will certainly be an issue. I learned that the hard way when I was working as a wedding photographer. You have no idea how sore you hand can get after dragging around 2-kilo camera. A book reader is much lighter than any tablet, admittedly because of a lot of technical things it does worse than the tablet. What should be kept in mind, though, is that a book reader is not a tablet and therefore should not perform as one.
• The screen. The e-ink screen is the best substitute for real paper I have yet stumbled upon. It's definitely much better than reading stuff on a computer screen. The backlight of any such device is a bit of a drag whenever reading anything longer than an e-mail.
• The battery. The people at Amazon state that the battery life of the Kindle is of a month (under certain conditions). This sounds waaay too good to be true, but you know what? It kind of is. Provided you don't turn the wireless on and you don't read (on average) more than 30 minutes a day, it might just last for a month. The most I got out of it was 3 weeks, which is not bad at all. I was really impressed by this.
• The wireless connection. The 3G version of the Kindle comes with a free 3G connection. You should know, however, that web browsing may be restricted in the country you live in. In Austria, I can only access Wikipedia and The Kindle Store using my 3G connection. If I can mange to find a hotspot I can browse away happily, but otherwise... no e-mail checking or anything. The local restrictions do not apply, for example, to Romania. I went home in March and I could surf without having to go war driving. Tablets also provide you with Internet connections, but they are not free. This feature is only available on the Kindle, as far as I know. The other readers go only as far as providing you a wifi connection for buying and downloading books.

At the end of it, the question to ask yourself when deciding whether to buy an e-book reader or a tablet is this: 'What do I want to use it for?'. You want to read books/newspapers/pdfs? Go for the reader. You want to surf the web, play Angry Birds and watch Youtube videos? You're going to need a tablet.

There also are few reasons why,out of the all the readers available out there, I chose the Kindle. Here are the most important:

• The design. As I said before, in terms of screen and battery life, all readers are pretty much the same. The things that sets them apart most is the design. What attracted me about the design of the Kindle were the previous and next buttons. I find the fact that the reader has a pair of the buttons on either side of the screen absolutely awesome. This allows you to effortlessly turn pages, regardless of the hand you're holding your Kindle in. This may sound dumb, but, of all the features the Kindle has, I find this one the most useful. It's something I use all the time and I think that being able to switch hands while reading without it affecting my reading experience is a must for all readers, although the Kindle is the only one that seems to have found such an elegant solution to this seemingly unimportant problem. The keyboard is also something I enjoy a lot. I use my Kindle as a dictionary as well. I comes with a pre-installed copy of Oxford Dictionary of English and The New American Oxford Dictionary. If you order it from amazon.de, they will also deliver a copy of Duden Deutsches Universalwörterbuch. Considering the prices of dictionaries out there (even the e-reader versions), this is nothing to turn your back at. The keyboard obviously comes in very hand when searching for the definition of a certain word.
• Kindle store. Just like the army of tablets and smartphones out there, whenever buying a device you also buy your way into a franchisee. You're going to need a place to buy apps and music for your device and, in the case of an e-reader.... books! I mean... being lighter and more compact than a book are certainly features I enjoy, but the one thing I enjoy most about it is the fact that virtually any book I may need is most likely just a few clicks away. Most of the major book store chains have their own readers (e.g. Barnes & Noble, thalia.at, etc.), but Amazon is the medium for me. They have an extensive catalogue of books both in English and German, a large part of which are free. Many also have discounted prices.

Well.... all in all, I'm really happy I got this and strongly recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading and goes through something like a book a month.

Until next time

R.

The Great Garsby (movie!)

I found out about this as I do about most stuff... by accident.

Apparently, they're making a new Gatsby movie. The thing I love most about movies that are based on books is that they don't come out as often as movies based on comic books do. (see Batman, Spiderman, The Avengers, etc.)

This means that the new movie will look NOTHING like the old one (yes, there already is a Gatsby movie... it came as a shock to me to). The story will probably be similar, of course. From what I can see from the trailer, the visual and the audio will be nothing short of amazing (which they should absolutely be, as Fitzgerald's novel relies a lot on the visual). The cast also makes perfect sense. I mean... DiCaprio as Gatsby? Score!

Also... I'm most definitely not a fan of Tobey Maguire. In retrospect, I believe he pretty much ruined the Spiderman movies in which he played. But.... Nick Carraway seems to fit him rather nicely. The release date for the movie is December 7 and, if you in anyway intend to see it, I strongly suggest you read the book and take a short look at John Green's videos about the book.

As for me.... Barring any unforeseen event, I will be there for the premiere.

Here's the trailer and one of Green's videos (it will hopefully be an incentive for you to read the book). Enjoy!

R over and out.

(yup... doing anything I can to avoid preparing for the finals....)

through the looking glass

No.... it's you who's through the looking glass.


I love that line. Does anyone know what movie it is from? It's a very nice reference a (now) very famous movie makes to a (then) very famous book. Anyway.. there's no looking glass in this photo, but there is some glass and you can look through it... hence the title.

The shot's not such a big deal... I was just doing some light tests and... it turns out you CAN use a beer bottle as a green filter. I don't know if a can would work, though. Get it? Can?..... (God that's a bad pun... nevertheless... it shall stay)

Here's to hoping I will post again soon :D

R

Irresistible subject

Candlefire… It’s just the way it always looks different.


 

This is just something born out of boredom, like many of my experiments are. The thing is… I miss blogging and would very much like to take it up again. And I will do it. I don’t have an Internet connection at home, but I won’t let that stop me. I’ll start off with a weekly post coming out every Monday at 7 a.m. No promises about the subjects of the posts. Will have to do a list, brain storming, get things rolling, snowballing… whatever. I already have a few ideas, but nothing set in stone. I am, therefore, open to suggestions.

Renoni Vice: How ‘bout you stop pretending people actually read your blog, for a start. That would really be something.

Yeah… glad to have her back. This reminds me. I have never actually explained her. It is a long story, which means it will be told in another post.

Renoni Vice: Yeah…. that’s not going to happen!

Alright… enough out of you, Renoni! I will be posting something on Monday and that’s the end of it. As it is the end of this post.

R over and out

short update

Quick rzvn update: I am sort of online. I will be using a kindle to post on blogger, which  is more inconveniet than you may think, but hey! At least I am online. I missed blogging. Short post today. Gotta run.

Will try and post more soon.


R