Category Archives: Reviews

Ebooks and Audiobooks

I no longer wish to devote space to accumulating and storing physical books. As a former college professor I had more of them than most people, and tended to fill the house with bookcases and shelves. That made a certain sense in the pre-Internet years since I would often want to go back to them to look up things. But now I have more information at my fingertips than I ever had in those days, and I find it more convenient to just look up anything I need to know. And with Ebooks I can take my library with me anywhere I go. This means if I am sitting in a waiting room for a Doctor’s appointment (and at my age that happens often enough) I can just pull out my phone and open up a book. I always have at least one. Right now on my phone I have apps for Kindle, Google Play, Barnes & Noble Nook, Kobo Cantook (successor to Aldiko), Bookshop.org, and Calibre. As for devices other than my phone, I own a kindle, I once owned a Nook, and I will buy a Kobo reader when Trump is gone. Kobo is Canadian, and last time I looked Trump had put on a tariff that was twice what the device costs. And finally I have the Bookshop.org app and Calibre.

I started collecting Ebooks some years back, and at first the only option seemed to be buying them from large corporations. That has changed now, but I still have collections On Kindle, Google Play, Nook, and Kobo. I have all four because it seemed prudent to not put all my eggs in one basket. But now there are other options. One I like to use when possible is Bookshop.org. It is group of independent bookstores and I would rather support them than some giant corporation. And they seem to have all of the popular titles. Another similar site is Books-a-Million, which lets you order online and pick up at a local store if you need a physical book. Cantook and Calibre are both good for holding any miscellaneous Ebooks you have, and you can give them your Ebooks from the other sellers, though I have found that the native apps tend to work better. These days I rarely purchase books on Kindle, etc. But sometimes they have a special deals.

If you want to build your library, there are some good places to try. One is BookBub which will send you emails with deals on books. On any one e-mail you may not see anything you want, but I found that once or twice a month I did see books I wanted and at good prices. And Books-a-Million has 99 cent deals to check out. But if you want to get free books, you have several options. If you want a chance to read a popular Ebook but don’t need to own it, see what your local Library offers. Mine offers Hoopla which is good for Ebooks, Audiobooks, and streaming music. What you can find depends on what your library has in its collection, but my wife uses it almost daily for audiobooks. Then there are the works that have become part of the Public Domain. This varies somewhat by your country, but you might be surprised to learn how much is available. For Ebooks one of the biggest sites is Project Gutenberg. They follow US Copyright law for their collection, and they are a non-profit that can always use some support, so if you use them, give them a few Dollars or Euros. They tend to be the source for many or most other sites for Public Domain Ebooks They have over 75,000 free Ebooks. A newer site is Faded Page which is much smaller but focused on Canadian works. Standard Ebooks is a site that pulls from Project Gutenberg but does some additional formatting and is very easy to read online in your browser. For Audiobooks a good source is Open Culture, which advertises it has 1,000 free Audiobooks. We should also mention LibriVox, which also pulls from Project Gutenberg for its texts, but then turns them into Public Domain Audiobooks. They are always looking for volunteers who have a microphone and a computer to record Public Domain audiobooks. And last but not least the Internet Archive has tons of Ebooks and Audiobooks that are free.

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Battery and Charging Technology 20240128

It has become obvious to nearly everyone that we need to stop burning fossil fuels, and while that is all well and good, what takes their place? We have renewable energy sources that can provide electricity to run our vehicles and power our homes, but they tend to be intermittent. The Sun only shines half of the day, winds come and go, and the key technology we need to bridge the gap is battery technology. Fortunately there have been some important developments that provide good news on this front. Much of this comes from China which has no oil resources of its own is and is therefor incentivized push research into alternatives. And another country in a similar situation is Japan, which has the same incentives and has also done good work in this area. The United States, in contrast, is a major oil producer and as such has faced significant opposition to efforts to move to renewables.

One major area we need to look at is for automobiles. The share of new vehicles that are electric goes up each year, and they will be the largest share of new vehicles sooner than most people realize. In 2023, Norway had 90% of their sales be EVs in the first half of 2023. This figure includes both pure electric vehicles and hydrid-electric vehicles. In Germany the comparable figure was 35%, and in China 33% (https://fortune.com/2023/11/23/us-electric-vehicle-sales-2023-record/). Meanwhile, California and Washington have mandated that 100% of new vehicles be electric by 2035,. New Jersey has a similar mandate and I would expect other states will join in this. But the main obstacle to increased adoption is what is called “range anxiety”. For example, most electric cars right now have around a 300 mile top range on a full charge. And recharging can take up to an hour at a time. I do a trip each year from my home in Michigan to New England, where most of the family for both me and my wife live, and that is around 800 miles. So that would mean stopping at least twice going each way for up to an hour for a recharge. The solution has to be some combination of higher capacity batteries and quicker recharging times. Fortunately there is progress on both of these fronts.

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co, Ltd. (CATL)

This is the largest battery manufacturer in the world, and it is a Chinese company. For that reason, there are accusations in the US that they are a security concern. But the rest of the world is not likely to worry too much about that. What they have done technically is to improve the capacity and charging times of their batteries significantly. They now are shipping batteries that power a car for 400km (about 250 miles) on just a 10 minute charge. So for my trip each year I would spend 30 minutes recharging instead of two hours. That starts to look like a feasible plan. Or with a full charge, it could go 700km (435 miles). So I could get a full charge before leaving home, do a couple of 10 minute charges on the way, and be there with power to spare. That is totally doable. As a pair of senior citizens I can assure you we spend more time than that in the bathrooms as we go. These batteries are fairly conventional as rechargeables go, being Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LIP) in their chemistry. But what about other technologies?

Solid-State Batteries

One of the leaders with this technology is Toyota, which is the early leader in hybrid vehicles, which combine a gasoline (petrol) engine with batteries and electric motors. So they have probably more automotive experience with batteries than any manufacturer in the business, even though they are a bit later to the fully-electric vehicle market. Solid-state batteries can avoid using Lithium, which can be a safety issue, and they will be lighter and have a higher energy density. Because this is new technology, it may not appear in production for another 3-4 years, but Toyota claims they should be able to produce a car that will go 1200km (750 miles) on a 10 minute charge. Here is a look at Toyota’s plans: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a45942785/toyota-future-ev-battery-plans/.

Of course, Toyota is far from the only company researching this. Honda is the main competitor to Toyota in Hybrid vehicles, and they have plans for solid-state batteries as well: https://global.honda/en/tech/All-solid-state_battery_technology/. Chinese manufacturer NIO has a semi-solid state battery right now that can go 650 miles (1046 km) on a single charge.

It is worth noting that the idea of solid-state batteries is not all that new, as Michael Faraday first discovered them in the early 19th century. What is new is the technology to scale up the batteries into something that can power an automobile.

For as good look at how solid-state batteries work, here is an explanation from the Harvard University School of Engineering and Applied Sciences: https://seas.harvard.edu/news/2024/01/solid-state-battery-design-charges-minutes-lasts-thousands-cycles. And here is one from New Scientist: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2398896-what-are-solid-state-batteries-and-why-do-we-need-them. And here is Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_battery.

Other Technologies

BYD is a Chinese company that is the world’s largest EV producer. They employ a technology that is called the Blade battery. This is a variation on LIP technology that the company claims is safer, has a longer range, and a longer lifetime. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_battery.

Sodium-ion batteries are a coming thing as well. This is not surprising since Sodium and Lithium are in the same chemical family both being alkali metals. So they should have similar properties. But one advantage of sodium is that it is more abundant. So sodium-ion batteries should cost less, and unlike lithium produce no toxic by-products. The Swedish company Northvolt has made great progress in this area: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/nov/21/breakthrough-battery-from-sweden-may-cut-dependency-on-china.

Role for Government

The biggest problem is the lack of infrastructure around battery recharging, and that is where there is a role for government. In the US, which I am most familiar with, the government has in the past intervened to promote transportation innovations. In the 19th century, it was the promotion of railroads, which the government aided through substantial land grants. Then in the 20th century it was building the road network. Those things would not have happened if the government had not made those investments. I would suggest that there is a need now to build out the charging infrastructure at a speed and scale that the private sector cannot accomplish. That would solve the last problem preventing wide-spread adoption of Electric Vehicles. Companies are now producing, or will be shortly, the batteries we need. Right now, with my fuel-efficient car, it takes me two tanks of gasoline (petrol) to make my trip each year since I can go around 500 miles on a full tank. We should within the next few years have batteries that can exceed that range. What we lack is the charging infrastructure to make recharging as easy as refueling is now. The obstacle now is not technology, it is politics.

The other issue that should be a concern to some Americans is that all of the leading work on these vital technologies is happening in other countries. I’m less concerned about that because the problems we face are global, but I find it odd that some American politicians consider technology from China to be a security threat, yet seem to have no interest in developing the technology here.

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My Chromebook Experience

I was listening to Hacker Public Radio episode #3242, which was a lengthy look at Chromebooks by a couple of Linux folks, who were on the whole pretty happy with the experience. This may surprise some folks, but I was not surprised since I have been using one for over a year and have found it useful. Chromebooks have, at the heart, a Linux base, and you can do a lot with them. And the discussion went into things like installing emacs or doing audio and video production, and so on. But the is not my use case at all.

I have home network with several desktops, one of which belongs to my wife who uses it for her work. Although we have Wi-Fi for things like phones, tablets, and laptops, the desktops are all connected via ethernet to the router. And we also have a Drobo NAS box to handle backups (onsite; we also have Carbonite for offsite backup) and for mass storage of things like MP3 music files, videos, and photos. When I do audio production, such as recording my shows for HPR, I do that using Audacity on my Kubuntu 18.04 desktop machine, and I will happily continue to do that. So while I was enjoying the discussion of how you can do that on a Chromebook, frankly I will probably never do anything that interesting. I try to fit my tools to my purposes, and have no problem using multiple tools. I considered posting a comment on the show, but then I channeled my inner Ken Fallon and decided to record my own show in reply. Besides, HPR always needs more shows.

In 2014 I had purchased a Nexus 9 tablet with the idea of having something I could easily carry around and do things like read, check my email, and look things up. Basically things I could do on a phone, but just with a larger screen. But the thing with e-mail is that you have to type, and using the on-screen keyboard never got comfortable for me. I could do it, but it was work. I really wanted a keyboard. So I got a keyboard/case combination, which connected via Bluetooth. Sometimes. It was quite erratic, and tended to drive me nuts. Still it served my primary purpose. I took it with me on my trip to Ireland in 2015 and used it to keep my diary of the trip and similar things. And I took it with me for breakfast on Sunday mornings at a local restaurant. So, it was not excellent, but it was OK, and once I had bought it I kept using it.

Then it started to misbehave. While I was at breakfast at that local restaurant, it started to emit loud sounds kind of like a siren, which is embarrassing when you are out in public. And this happened again after rebooting. At some point I just had to face the fact that it was dying. I could have bought another tablet, but since I didn’t entirely enjoy the experience I decided to buy a Chromebook. So in June of 2019 I spent $309 USD to buy an Acer Chromebook. It has an Intel Celeron dual-core processor and 4GB of RAM, so it isn’t particularly powerful, but it is very light and easy to carry around. I can check my e-mail on it, and when my wife and I visited Europe in Fall, 2019, I used it to keep our travel diary as a Google Doc. I can install and run Android apps on it, and I use it every day to run a couple of Spanish learning apps because typing on a keyboard is much better than trying to do it on a phone screen. If I fold the screen and keyboard back, it behaves like a tablet. And I use it at least a couple of times a week for Zoom calls. It is great for that and easier than plugging in a camera and microphone on my desktop, since it has all of that equipment built in. And as a slim and light machine, it is great for taking on flights or other travel.

So it does a lot of good things for me. That said, it will never be my main computer., but that is fine since I have more powerful computers for other uses. But for something I can just grab-and-go, I am quite happy with it. If this one reaches EOL I will probably get another one. Mine is scheduled to receive updates through June of 2024, and right now I expect I will buy another when that happens.

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Review: Welcome to Night Vale

I recently discovered this podcast, though it is so popular I imagine many people reading this already know all about it. Night Vale is a fictional town located in the desert somewhere in the Southwestern United States, and the podcast is presented as a community radio broadcast of the goings on. So the format is that of a small-town radio presenting all of the usual community news, such as the PTA meetings, actions of the city council, high school sports reports, and so on. But this is a town where all conspiracy theories are true! Some of the descriptions I have seen are:

  • Lake Wobegone as seen through the eyes of Stephen King
  • NPR meets The Mothman Propechies

I am enjoying this immensely, and I think you should check it out and see if you might enjoy it as well. Each show is around 25 minutes in length, and they are released twice a month.

The web site for this podcast is http://commonplacebooks.com/welcome-to-night-vale/

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Monty Montgomery on Music Encoding

Monty Montgomery is perhaps best known as the main person behind the OGG audio and video formats. He is pretty knowledgable about these things, so when he says most people are asking for the wrong things, I think it is worth paying attention. He did a detailed write-up at http://people.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html. The title of the post is 24/192 Music Downloads…and why they make no sense.

Monty gives a lot of detail on what this all means, but let’s start with what we mean by 24/192. The 24 refers to 24-bit encoding, and the 192 is a reference to 192kHz frequency range.  So why are these both bad choices?

The 192kHz range goes beyond what human ears are capable of hearing. Despite what some people may believe, there are physiological limits to what any ear is capable of. You might think that worst-case, the extra frequencies are just wasted, but that is not all. Because your sound reproduction equipment does not have the same limitations as human ears do, the equipment will do its best to reproduce those sounds, and in so doing is likely to cause interactions that actually reduce the fidelity of the sounds you are capable of hearing. So instead of higher numbers making things better, they make things worse.

For the 24-bit, things are a little better. For the home user, going to 24-bit only wastes space by making files bigger, but does not reduce fidelity. There are special cases where using 24-bit recording in a studio while making the original recording could make sense, but the home user will probably never encounter those cases.

Monty’s bottom line is that 16-bit, 44.1kHz recording is as good as it gets, and this has been born out in controlled double-blind studies. You can read his article for the details (and you should if you are at all interested), but for the home user the result is clear: encode at 44.1kHz, 16-bit, and you will have the best recording you can hear.

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Miles to Dayton

I was reading The Lefsetz Letter the other day (see link on mysidebar; if you are not subscribed, his e-mail newsletter is the best thing around.) And Lefsetz starts talking about this band called Miles to Dayton. Now, when Lefsetz mentions something he always gives you a link to check it out yourself. Sometimes Spotify, sometimes YouTube, sometimes another service, but you always get a chance to hear it/see it for yourself and decide if you agree. I’ve heard since from a post by the band leader that Lefsetz got some it wrong (his wife is not fat, she is just coming back from pregnancy, and they aren’t really that old) but the central point is that this is not your typical contemporary band in appearance. And unlike all too many contemporary bands, these guys know how to play. After checking them out on YouTube, I noticed that my eMusic had just rolled over for another month, and found that they were available there. I purchased one of their albums (Pass It On, of course), and I’m digging it. Give them a chance, you might like them. They are also available on Spotify.

Miles to Dayton web site

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