A Shot of Faith (to the Head): Be a Confident Believer in an Age of Cranky Atheists by Mitch Stokes

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A Shot of Faith (to the Head): Be a Confident Believer in an Age of Cranky Atheists

Summary: A readable look at the philosophy of reason and human inquiry.

A common frustration in arguing with someone about, well, anything, is the problem of different assumptions and conflicting foundational beliefs””especially when we aren’t even aware they are in conflict. I tend to want to address the underlying issues first, to distill them down to their fundamental essence. Mitch Stokes does exactly that in what is basically a layman’s summary of the work of well-known Notre Dame philosopher Alvin Plantinga.

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A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel

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A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic NovelI am a fan of Madeline L’Engle.  I re-read the whole five book Wrinkle in Time series last year and several of her young young adult books from the late 40s.  I have not read a lot of graphic novels but I am very tempted to buy this new A Wrinkle in Time graphic novel.

Think Christian had a very positive review of it this morning.  And Boing Boing was also favorable about the adaptation in a post last week.  LA Times did a nice article about it with some graphics of the pages.

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Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

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Peace Like a River

Reuben Land grew up believing in miracles. He is eleven, living in rural Minnesota in the 1960s with his father and two siblings, when his older brother Davey shoots and kills two neighborhood bullies breaking into the house at night. The day before his trial verdict, Davey escapes, and his family drives out in search of him””led by equal parts Holy Spirit and meandering intuition.

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Use Library to Get Whispersync Discounts

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This morning when I was writing up the review for Coraline I noticed that I was getting the discounted price for the Audible.com Audiobook instead of the regular price.  I had checked out Coraline through my library for kindle.  And Amazon, unlike all other formats puts a marker in your Kindle library.  That marker keeps … Read more

Dragon Ship (Theo Waitley #4) by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

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Dragon Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve MillerSummary: Theo Waitley is now a pilot, has found out that she is the brother of the Delm of Korval and is going on the first run with her new ship.

The most recent book in the Liaden Universe series was released last month. Dragon Ship is the fourth in the Theo Waitley subseries and the 17th overall (including stand alone novels).

You are either interested in series Science Fiction or you are not.  So this will be a short review.  This is the story of Theo’s first real long haul ship voyage with Bechimo, a sentient ship with Old Technology that the Department of the Interior wants to possess.

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Amazon Kindle Paperwhite Review

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The new Amazon Paperwhite Kindle is a very nice ereader.  Arguable, it is the best ereader on the market today.  I have only spend five days with it so far, but I have read portions of five books and completed two before writing this paperwhite review. (Note: I have since purchased my own Paperwhite and updated the review.)

The Light

Small Amount of Light Leakage with Kindle Paperwhite

The biggest new feature of the Paperwhite is its light.  Part of the point of eink ebook readers is that they do not have a backlight (light coming from the back of the screen shining out toward the reader) like LCD screens on a computer or tablet.  The backlight is a major cause of eyestrain. And among a small group of people, it is a major cause of insomnia.

The Paperwhite uses a different technology.  It has a clear strips of fiber optic light that shine down (away from the reader) toward the screen.  This should mean far less eye strain when you read at night with the light on.

The picture on the right is the light turned all the way up, reflecting off my jeans at night.  You can see there is some light that leaks out, but it is pretty minimal.

Very Even Light on the Kindle PaperwhiteThe light is also very even.  I have used a number of book lights and briefly tried out a Nook Glo. You can see on the picture on the left that the light is very even (again this picture was taken at night with very low light).  It is only the bottom that seems to have any light variation.

This past weekend when I was reading, it was very grey and gloomy.  I kept the light on much of the time, and was continually adjusting it trying to find the right amount of light.  On the whole I found that keeping the light a few notches lower than maximum was the most comfortable lighting for most of the time.  But the light is always just one click away, so it is very easy to change.

Using the light even at very low levels gives the illusion of a much whiter screen and greater contrast.  So the letter look much crisper than previous kindles.  With the light off it is possible to see a small improvement in the screen from previous Kindle models, but it is only a small improvement.

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The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffengger

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The Time Traveler's WifeSummary: The paradoxes of a science fiction time travel books wrapped in the tragic story of a romance.

A couple weeks ago someone asked me what my favorite book was.  I responded like I normally do and said I had two favorite memoirs of the last year (Surprised by Oxford and Jesus, My Father, The CIA and Me).  We had been talking about memoirs, so it made sense in the conversation.

In general I think of favorite books in categories.  How can you compare a theology book and a children’s book or a hard science fiction book and memoir?  Even when I post my books of the year lists, I have a separate fiction and non-fiction list.

But when I went home that night I was thinking through the question again and realized I do have a favorite fiction book.  It is Time Traveler’s Wife.

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Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson (Seth’s Review)

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Steve Jobs

This was an incredible, riveting biography. Isaacson does a phenomenal job bringing the story of Steve Jobs to life. For me there was a natural division in the story.

The “old history”–events prior to my own experience–was great fun to read, because I learned a lot about the tech world of software and hardware that was emerging in the 70s and 80s. The inception and early development of Apple, and the fact that Jobs was kicked out of his own company (and then brought back!), was fascinating.

The “contemporary history” began with events that I know personally. The trigger for that was Jobs’ involvement with Pixar, and culminating in Apple’s introduction of revolutionary portable devices (iPods, iPhones and iPads) and the major disruption of multiple industries (music, cell phones, the creation of a market for tablets out of thin air).

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Initial Impressions of the Kindle Paperwhite

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Kindle Paperwhite Unboxing

UPDATE: I also have a longer review.

I opened up (my friend’s) new Kindle Paperwhite this morning.

These are my very quick initial impressions. Even though I have seen the statistics about the size and weight, it is smaller than what I thought.  Essentially it is the exact same size as the Kindle 4 (Kindle Basic).

But also as soon as I picked it up I noticed that it feels much more solid.  It is heavier by 2 oz than the Kindle 4 (and one oz less than the Kindle with Keyboard).  The Kindle 4, which is what I primarily use, feels almost hollow when I hold it.  The Paperwhite feels like it is a solid object.  My guess is that much of that is battery.  The Paperwhite battery, with the light on, is supposed to last twice as long as the Kindle 4 with no light.

Visually, the screens do not seem much different. I took a couple of pictures outside in sunlight with the Paperwhite’s light off to show the difference.

Compare Paperwhite ScreenClick the picture to get the full size image. The blacks might be a little darker.  The fonts might be a bit clearer.  But there is not a lot of difference.

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