Google Reader dies tomorrow. The king is dead, long live the pretenders
TidBits – The state of Google Reader Replacements
The Feed Reader Reviews: Feedl
The Feed Reader Reviews: Feedbin
The Feed Reader Reviews: Newsblur
http://readerisdead.com
iOS Readers
http://www.macstories.net/news/mr-reader-2-0-adds-support-for-feedly-feed-wrangler-fever-and-more/
Bye-bye, Google Reader: Alternative RSS solutions for Mac and iOS users
Just finished the third book, Lion in the Sun. Those Romans had it tough. These days the US Military is spending north of 20 billion plus on air conditioning for its troops!
The third book in the Warrior of Rome series – Lion of the Sun
In Mesopotamia, AD 260, Ballista faces yet another enemy, the man the Syrians call The Lion of the Sun, in this third novel in the ‘Warrior of Rome’ series. Betrayed by his most trusted adviser, Roman Emperor Valerian has been captured by the Sassanid barbarians. The shame of the vanquished beats down mercilessly like the desert sun as the frail old emperor prostrates himself before Sharpur, king of kings. Ballista looks on helplessly but vows under his breath to avenge those who have brought the empire to the brink of destruction with their treachery. But first he must decide what price he will pay for his own freedom. Only the fearless and only those whom the gods will spare from hell can now save the empire from a catastrophic ending. Ballista, the warrior of Rome, faces his greatest challenge yet
From Amazon:
Finished the second book in the Warrior of Rome Series – Kings of Kings, so naturally what should I do after that? .. read the third!
For this type of novel with a lot of maps at the start, I would be constantly referring to them when I read place names in the story, but with e-books it is not that easy.
I noticed this edition underlines latin terms, so you can click on it, and then easily return to where you were reading. Its not a bad method, but it leaves a lot to be desired.
What is needed is something like Apple’s dictionary definitions that pop up above what you are reading. Better yet, the ability in a pop up to see the maps at the start.
From Amazon
AD256 – the spectre of treachery hangs ominously over the Roman world. The sparks of Christian fervour have spread through the empire like wildfire, and the imperium is alive with the machinations of dangerous and powerful men.
All the while, Sassanid forces press forward relentlessly along the eastern frontier. The battle-bloodied general Ballista returns to the imperial court from the fallen city of Arete – only to find that there are those who would rather see him dead than alive.
Ballista is soon caught in a sinister web of intrigue and religious fanaticism . . . his courage and loyalty will be put to the ultimate test in the service of Rome and the emperor.
Just started reading fiction again. This time Hary Sidebottom’s Warror of Rome. I am learning more then I need to know about Roman military siege tactics …. love it. Should have it finished tomorrow, then only four more to go.
From his website:
The Warrior of Rome novels are set during the great crisis of the Roman empire in the mid-Third Century AD. The first three – Fire in the East, King of Kings, and Lion of the Sun – focus on the eastern half of the empire and on the war-torn borders with the rising power of Sassanid Persia. In the second three – The Caspian Gates, The Wolves of the North, and The Amber Road – the action shifts to the north; to the Black Sea and the client kingdoms of the Caucasus mountains, the Crimea and the steppes, and the great rivers that could be followed north to the Baltic.
Got this for $13 … good deal, even if I only use one or two.
Name Your Own Price Bundle 2.0
I have enrolled into an introductory statistics course from the University of Toronto Statistics: Making Sense of Data I am into the second week of it and have learnt the value of that old adage … “if it wasn’t for the last minute”
In addition to stats, the course gets you to use R to apply the theory in practice.
boxplot(LifeExp ~ Region, range = 0, border = rainbow(6), main = "Life Expectancies: Box Plot (all 6 regions)") 
R you listening? Don’t know what R is ? … see below
An interesting set of videos on R – http://www.twotorials.com
Christmas with the family was good … have a happy and peaceful new year.
No, it’s not my PC setup.
Just received my ScanSnap S1300i today. It took ten days for the order to reach me from Amazon USA. Not too bad! As I mentioned before at Officeworks the same scanner cost AUD$400, with postage from Amazon it only cost me $280!
I am very happy with the scanner. The one downside is the software comes on a CD. But most modern Macs do not have optical drives!
Fortunately you can download the software.
Other useful links:
Manual Downloads: ScanSnap S1300i
Compatibility Status With OS X v10.8 (Mountain Lion) ScanSnap S1300 / S1300i
Just purchased a Fujitsu S1300i ScanSnap scanner from Amazon USA.
Its a duplex scanner for text documents, i.e. Like a fax machine you put in the paper and it scans both sides and saves it to a PDF on your Mac. Better yet it can OCR the paper and you can add tags for latter searching.
This model is the portable version. The more expensive models are much bigger, but the postage is a killer.
This price from Amazon?
– $260.99 + shipping of $19.44 for a grand total of $280.43!
The price here in Australia? … well, it’s not on Fujitsu’s Australian site yet, despite being out for several months.
At Officeworks it is $399! … and the AUD is worth US 1.03 (although amazon only gave me 1 to 1)
Why is this so?
To make matter worse if I was an Americian I would get a full year of Evernote Premium chucked in for free.