Technology

7/20/2005 04:40:00 p.m.

So I downloaded Accelerando, Charlie Stross' new novel, which is a collection of the Macx stories from the past few years. I grabbed it in Plucker format, and installed Plucker on my Palm M105 to read it. This is the first e-book I've ever read, and so far it's going well. The text size is just right, and in two days I've read 3% of the book, according to the little info-bar at the top of the "page".

It seems only appropriate, too, that I should choose this book as my introduction to e-books. The first chapter, which was once the short story "Lobsters" (which I read a year or so ago, on a plane), is jam-packed with references to the ever-accelerating rate of technological change. I'm enough of a geek to get some of the references, but I'm sure I'm missing others. (In fact, some enterprising geeks have apparently set up a wiki dedicated to Accelerando. I may have to go there later, and see what I missed. (For those that wonder, I think this is a great idea. I love books that are about ideas, and better still if the ideas are a continuous sleet that serves as background for interesting characters doing interesting things. Quite frankly, as long as I can semi-follow it, the weirder the better. One of these days I'll do a review of John Wright's Golden Age trilogy.)

Now: I think I have to mow the lawn. Then give my car insurance company their annual slice of my post-tax earnings. Then... maybe some writing, but more likely some more PHP.