Happy bookish birthdays (September 30) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 30) to…

• Truman Capote (In Cold Blood) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Elie Wiesel (Night) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Carol Fenner (Yolonda’s Genius) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Laura Esquivel (Like Water for Chocolate) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Nicola Griffith (Ammonite) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Jay Asher (13 Reasons Why) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Cecelia Ahern (Love, Rosie) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Téa Obreht (The Tiger’s Wife) (at AmazonSmile*)

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My current Amazon giveaway:

Beyond Curie: Four women in physics and their remarkable discoveries 1903 to 1963 (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

Giveaway:

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/b139e577ee333624

• Winner:Randomly selected after Giveaway has ended, up to 1 winners.
  Requirements for participation:
• Resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia
• 18+ years of age (or legal age)
• Follow Scott Calvin on Amazon

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Happy bookish birthdays (September 29) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 29) to…

• Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Don Quixote) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Elizabeth Gaskell (North and South) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Stan Berenstain (The Berenstain Bears) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Stuart M. Kaminsky (Bullet for a Star…Toby Peters #1) (at AmazonSmile*)

---

My current Amazon giveaway:

Beyond Curie: Four women in physics and their remarkable discoveries 1903 to 1963 (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

Giveaway:

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/b139e577ee333624

• Winner:Randomly selected after Giveaway has ended, up to 1 winners.
  Requirements for participation:
• Resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia
• 18+ years of age (or legal age)
• Follow Scott Calvin on Amazon

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Happy bookish birthdays (September 28) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 28) to…

• Kate Douglas Wiggins (Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Christopher Buckley (Thank You for Smoking) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Christina Hoff Sommers (The War Against Boys) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Piper Kerman (Orange Is the New Black) (at AmazonSmile*)

---

My current Amazon giveaway:

Beyond Curie: Four women in physics and their remarkable discoveries 1903 to 1963 (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

Giveaway:

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/b139e577ee333624

• Winner:Randomly selected after Giveaway has ended, up to 1 winners.
  Requirements for participation:
• Resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia
• 18+ years of age (or legal age)
• Follow Scott Calvin on Amazon

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Happy bookish birthdays (September 27) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 27) to…

• Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Bernard Waber (Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Grazia Deledda (Chiaroscuro) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Louis Auchincloss (Her Infinite Variety) (at AmazonSmile*)
• David Bishop (Operation Vampyr) (at AmazonSmile*)

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Happy bookish birthdays (September 26) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 26) to…

• Mark Haddon (The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night-Time) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Will Self (Umbrella) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Jane Smiley (A Thousand Acres (at AmazonSmile*)
• Joseph Furphy (AKA Tom Collins) (Such Is Life) (at AmazonSmile*)
• John Rankine (AKA Douglas R. Mason) (The Omega Worm) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Andy Adams (The Log of a Cowboy (at AmazonSmile*)
• George Santayana (The Sense of Beauty) (at AmazonSmile*)

---

My current Amazon giveaway:

Beyond Curie: Four women in physics and their remarkable discoveries 1903 to 1963 (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

Giveaway:

https://giveaway.amazon.com/p/b139e577ee333624

• Winner:Randomly selected after Giveaway has ended, up to 1 winners.
  Requirements for participation:
• Resident of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia
• 18+ years of age (or legal age)
• Follow Scott Calvin on Amazon

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Happy bookish birthdays (September 25) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 25) to…

• William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Shel Silverstein (Where the Sidewalk Ends) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Ron Rash (Serena) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Charles Maturin (Melmoth the Wanderer) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Lu Xun (Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk) (at AmazonSmile*)

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Happy bookish birthdays (September 24) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 24) to…

• F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Horace Walpole (The Castle of Otranto) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Jan Carew (Black Midas) (at AmazonSmile*)
• John Brunner (Stand on Zanzibar) (at AmazonSmile*)
• John Kessel (The Moon and the Other) (at AmazonSmile*)

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amaz on site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Happy bookish birthdays (September 23) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 23) to…

• William Holmes McGuffey (the McGuffey readers) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Mary Church Terrell (A Colored Woman in a White World) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Baroness Orczy (The Scarlet Pimpernel) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Mark Bego (musician biographies) (at Amazon Smile*)
• Peter David (Star Trek novels) (at AmazonSmile*)

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amaz on site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

AFD News: Alexa everywhere: cars, kitchens, clocks…and socks

AFD News: Alexa everywhere: cars, kitchens, clocks…and socks

September 22, 2018 (AFD News)

Pat Burlington

When Amazon recently announced a wide variety of new Alexa hardware, many people were surprised by items like the AmazonBasics Microwave 700W Works with Alexa (at AmazonSmile*). This was a very different approach from creating Smart Speakers. Here was a household device, already present in nearly 98% of USA homes. Amazon has introduced their device, hypothetically competing with companies which have been in this market for decades. What makes Amazon’s otherwise typical appliance stand out?

You can talk to it.

Not directly: this is an Alexa accessory. It doesn’t contain Alexa, it responds to Alexa. You won’t be able to ask your microwave to turn on your garage light or show you The Man in the High Castle. You ask it to cook, and it cooks.

This represents an important new category: people will buy something they might have bought anyway, and then use an Alexa-device to control it. It’s using the mundane to move people into the future (and for Jeff Bezos, that future is the Amazon universe).

While they didn’t feature it during the presentation, this writer thinks that the best example is the new Alexa socks, “Aleksocks”.

Just like the microwave, this doesn’t mean you’ll be speaking to your shoe a la Maxwell Smart. The socks have a heating and cooling element in them. You’ll be able to say to your Echo, “Alexa, my feet are cold”, and your socks will warm you up. Eventually, with the newly announced Alexa Hunches functionality, Alexa will be able to suggest that you might like your socks turned on, and perhaps do it automatically based on a reading from your Alexa-powered thermostat and your past preferences.

Amazon did not make Aleksocks available for pre-order, or provide a specific release date beyond “…in the coming months”.

While this may not be the wearable people thought Amazon would develop at some time, it is a move in that direction.

Note: this post is (an admittedly pretty subtle) joke. 🙂 Amazon did not announce Alexa-enabled socks at the recent event, which I wrote about here: Amazon’s Announce-A-Palooza 2018! I was just intrigued and amused by Amazon really diversifying the offerings, and tried to think of something a bit silly. If they do announce them at some point, though, I’ll undoubtedly remind you that I wrote this post. 😉

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amaz on site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

Happy bookish birthdays (September 22) to…

Happy bookish birthdays (September 22) to…

• Rosamunde Pilcher (The Shell Seekers) (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)
• Fay Weldon (The Life and Loves of a She-Devil) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Jo Beverley (Merely a Marriage) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Brian Keene (The Rising) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Ian Mortimer (The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England) (at AmazonSmile*)
• Elizabeth Bear (Shoggoths in Bloom) (at AmazonSmile*)

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amaz on site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy  Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.