Kinky Kindle

I love my Kindle.

It's light and one can read it anywhere, even in sunlight. One can read pdf-articles with it which is my main occupation. The battery runs for several weeks and it is fairly easy to use (keyboard is not very good but seldom needed). And what is most important, it is good for they eyes. The e-ink really works.

But I am beginning to hate my Kindle.

The reasons for loving it apply, but this is the second time the screen of my Kindle is frozen. It happened just like the last time - the screen saver (they are, by the way, very nice!) was on and I slid the power switch to get back to reading mode. And then it happened - part of Darwin's picture stayed, the lower part of the screen went blank and there you are - some flickering, no change. Tried every booting alternative there is - nada. I have to call to Amazon customer service again.

Don't get me wrong - Amazon customer service is very helpful.

They will probably send me another device. But in order to achieve that, you will have to call to their customer service in London. And calling from Finland to England is not too cheap. Then you have to pack your device and send that back to them and deal with Ups and arrange two meetings with them - to get the broken one and deliver the new one. Fine. But as this is the second time in three months, I am not too pleased. If the third device gets frozen within three months, I am going to ask my money back and stay with real, physical books which do not froze between readings.

Ps. Last record heard is Beirut: The Rip Tide

Ps. 2. The inevitable happened. I returned the Kindle to Amazon and bought a second-hand ipad. Let's see how it works.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy in Early Modern Philosophy: First Impressions

This almost 600-page handbook, edited by Desmond M. Clarke and Catherine Wilson, just came into my hands from the library. Here are some first impressions.

The cover.

The baroque garden is often used to illustrate Early Modern philosophy and indeed it is quite appropriate. Clever paths leading nowhere and tidy, immaculate labyrinths of thought. Very nice.

The content.

What struck me most was the interesting titles of most chapters. The vast scale of topics is hacked into small portions which often discuss the topic systematically and only the relevant philosophers are taken in. This book appears to be very readable and the text and general comfortability is of high standard.

Here's some chapters which are not too often seen in collections like this: The soul, ideas, aesthetics, hypotheses, Instruments of knowledge, Picturability and Mathematical Ideals of Knowledge, Realism and Relativism in Ethics, The Equality of Men and Women, Religious Toleration. Very nice.

All in all, one gets the feeling that this book is not only another of its kind and can be forgotten instead of, say, The Cambridge History of 17th Century Thought. There is some stuff here which clearly makes the picture more complete.

Writers.

Most writers are different from the earlier Cambridge history and Alan Nelson's Companion to Rationalism. There are many well-known writers plus some less familiar ones. As these are first impressions and I have not read a single article, I will say nothing of the quality of the articles. But I certainly would like to read them all and probably will. The price is about 100 euros, but this book looks like it is going to be valuable for a long time.

Ps.

I was delighted to find in Gabor Boros' article on passions some discussion of Leibniz's views on passions. To my knowledge, this is the first time (apart from my own sofar unpublished papers) that anyone has written about to any extend of this most interesting topic.

Last record heard: Steve Mason & Dennis Bovell: Ghosts Outside