Does it support flashplayer?
Does it support drag and drop USB loading?
—Ok, I’ve got some answers. Flash is moribund: it’s being replaced by html5. Adobe has withdrawn support for it and is going ALL HTML5, which will not affect those of us with websites, etc—because HTML5 is really a menage a trois of old HTML with a little new code, + CSS (that’s your proportional, scaling type that can increase or decrease size) + a new version of Javascript. The HD readers, both Nook and Kindle, will do HTML5. We here at Closed Circle will hardly notice, except to answer puzzled queries from people on Kindle wondering where their bookshelf went (it’s now a drawer called ‘favorites.’)
So if you’re looking for a Christmas present, consider if you want a full-web experience at your fingertips: Fire HD or a Nook HD can do it, but an iPad probably does it better. If you just want to read books, an older version Kindle or an older version Nook, not the flashy new ones, AND the newly available (for Americans) Kobo, which is an independent that takes ePub and most file formats without a fuss.
The readres that have color have a lit screen; and are probably HTML5 machines or halfway there. The ones with e-ink are readable under the same lighting you would use on a paper book, and are a lot easier to load ‘foreign’ files on.
Another stinger: Amazon has devised its own browser, Silk, which means the Fire HD will NOT run Firefox or IE, but it can display websites and run apps from the Amazon app store. The kicker is that Silk reports to Amazon what you’re viewing and what your browsing habits are. Nice, eh? And it tries to be predictive: it loads its buffer (I’m guessing) with what ‘experience’ says you’ll do next. How good are bots at figuring out what YOU’LL do? They’re not good about predicting me, based on my experience with, say, Netflix.
I have been using my new paperwhite kindle a lot over the last month, and it took me a while to get up to speed on the tap screen . kept tapping footnote links (reading a fascinating history book on Edward 1) and not knowing how to get back (stupid, there is a back button :D) so I will re-load the Foreigner special. one drawback is that the battery lasts a lot less time than my old first gen kindle, I suppose because of the light. amazon say it should last a month, based on half an hour’s reading a day! huh! that’s ridiculous, I’ve been reading all evening, and some of the night too, so I did have to charge it quite a lot.
now I have a funny question off topic … listening to the Pride of Chanur on the way home from Spain (3 days driving, oh my poor rear) I was jerked out of the story by this word pronounced boo-ey (meaning buoy) in the UK we say “boy” – do you really call it boo-ey in the US? very strange. it makes me laugh every time I hear it. Dina Pearlman has done an excellent job, she has a lovely voice.
Lol—yes, indeed, we call it a booey. If you say, while on the ferry, “Look, there’s a boy!” you’ll create a panic about a drowning youngster off the port bow… 😉
AFAIK, although battery technology is improving, all rechargables age and still have a cycling limit.
I presume you’re English? If the Germans have a habit of mashing words together, the English have a habit of losing bits and pieces of words, though still pretending they are there. I’m still trying to find “Lester” and “Wuster” on a map!
*Snicker* They’re in central Massachusetts somewhere. I grew up in one of the -buruhs on the other side of Wusteh (note the -h on the end! No self respecting local would put an R there!) Although you’ll have a lot better luck finding them on the map under Leicester and Worcester.
LOL, yes, it really is boo-ee in American standard pronunciation. Also the name of Jim Bowie, inventor of the Bowie knife and fighter at the Alamo, is boo-ee. However, David Bowie is still Boh-ee, with stress on the oh instead of the ee like in boy, and so Americans ask (some do) if the name is Boo-ee or Boh-ee when they see Bowie. Rest assured, if you’re now wondering and disquieted, an archer’s bow, a rainbow, a bow tie, and a ribbon bow are all boh; while to bow down, and the bough of a tree, are still baa-oo; and while we’re at it, bought and brought and ought are all still ending in -awt. See how simple it is! 🙄 :laugh: oh, but laugh has a broad aa or ae, like cat, ash, instead of ah or aw. We Americans seem to have decided that since buoy is spelled with that odd b-u-o-y, it must be boo-ee, which is admittedly very rare in English. Just to be contrary, perhaps, you do find some people who say Boh-ee.
Americans find a few things in British Received Pronunciation to be puzzling too. The ah versus aa/ae divide is strange to us, even to New Englanders who have the ah sound more than the rest of the country. The r-dropping isn’t too odd, just different. But sometimes the British syllable stress is NOT where Americans would expect it at all. A professor threw me (and the rest of the class) when I first heard “controversy” the British way, kun-TRAW-ver-see, rather than the American way, KON-truh-ver-see. It was, for both sides, controversial, though we agree almost entirely on how to pronounce that one. Brits tend to end it -syall, Americans, -shull.
Now that we have near-global mass media, though, we all get each other’s audio-video, and both sides are running into pronunciation and differing words, slang or standard, and expressions.
I’m generally good enough with the subtleties of US versus UK spelling and punctuation, and often, words, but I know to ask if something hits me that’s unfamiliar. There are all sorts of little things that someone would have to learn, living daily on one side of the Pond or the other. Likewise AU/NZ. But that’s all part of the fun of it.
Oh, and one possible reason we say boo-ee over here, for a buoy, is that it sounds very odd to us to hear there’s a boy bobbing up and down in the water. Shouldn’t he be careful of sharks? Haha. It tends to make us glance around for a second to find the life preserver (ring).
Hah, cheers!
thank you bluecatship … hahah it just sounds SO weird to me, nothing else is a surprise .. I just snigger to myself every time I hear it. well well. so glad it’s not a mistake!!!! of course the names are often pronounced a little differently to how I read them – I thought Pyanfar was Pie-anfar, with the emphasis on the first syllable. just wondering how Py will be pronounced when I get into the trilogy. 😀
Pie-an-far?
oh and we say life-buoy rather than life preserver .. so we rescue the boy floating in the water with another boy… 😀
think it might have something to do with the word buoyant -probably those frenchified words from the Normans again.
“Rescue the boy with another boy….” Some boys would be all for it. 🙂 (Though some might have a bit of trouble admitting it. Shy, or uptight.)
aha … done some research .. the french word for buoy in my big Collins Robert dictionary is Bouée, which is exactly how you americans are pronouncing it, so it looks like you are pronouncing the french word but spelling the english one. the OED says buoy comes from the spanish verb boyar, to float, which may be a rather old fashioned word, as it is in my huge spanish dictionary, but not in the fat paperback one, and boya means a buoy or a float (as in a fisherman’s nets) boyante means buoyant. so it looks as if it comes from the spanish, but where it gets that u from, I can’t see. to float in french is flotter. and buoyant in french is to be capable of floating as a literal translation. we do say to buoy up as in buoy up your hopes, in UK english, in french it is faire flotter. so it does seem to be from the spanish. funny that our old naval enemy gave us that word!
Perhaps it arrived with the Spanish Armada… 😉
we do have quite a lot of spanish and portuguese words – jamon = ham – mermelada = marmalade. after all there was much intermarriage between spanish and portuguese and english royal families from the middle ages onwards, so we have been allies as well as enemies.
Indeed, I’m descended from Edmund, 1st Duke of York, and Peter/Pedro I of Spain. That association, through Edward, the Black Prince, has an interesting story about how that “ruby” came to the crown jewels. But Peter, a Burgundian, has a line back to Prince Saint Vladimir I of Kiev. To whom “Boyar” meant something else indeed.
Not to mention the way-back Berengers, who spread their genes from the French coast to Spain, and words indeed would have floated between the houses and also via trade—what’s this thing, senor? —Mmmm. Haggis.
It’s PY-an-far. All but ONE of the readers have contacted me to find out how to pronounce something fairly important. Sigh.
oh dear 🙁 that’s a shame. I will try not to be niggling and correcting her every time she says it! the english language does trip one up with its different sounds for same spellings … 🙁
Bouée would be boo-ay or more likely, bway in French.
Bouyant, is, I *think* the French version for buoyant; as “bwee-yanh(t).” The T would only be there if whatever is floating or rising is (grammatically) feminine. Not, however, the lad aforementioned. 😉
Flotter (etc.) is our “float,” and back in Anglo-Norman times, “float” would’ve been essentially pronounced like “flott.”
Boyar, boyante, in Spanish, is just the Spanish versus French differences in language change.
Given that the English, French, and Spanish were all sailing around each other (and the Dutch and others) it’s no wonder they all borrowed the same couple of words and spoke them their own way. Whether the English borrowed buoy from the French or Spanish, I’m not sure. I’d tend to think they borrowed it from the French, but *when* it came into English probably determines that. Probably. During the Middle English period, more likely from French. During the early Modern English period, it could’ve been either one, given royal ties and rivalries, and yes, given that sailors bumped into each other and had to make repairs in port, or (ahem) raided each other’s ships as privateers or pirates. (Aarrr!)
—–
Pyanfar’s name, or Y in hani generally, wound up being a special case for me. It probably ought to be y- as in yellow or i as in machine, and Py would be pea instead of pie. But somehow, it got to be pie and pie-ahn-far, even so.
I also say Chanur and Chur as Tch instead of sh.
Hani speech, in my head, sounds like a lion or cougar speaking, lots of rumbles and spit-hiss-growls, but toss in a strong hint of a Saxon Old English accent and another liberal dose of a Scottish brogue.
So na Khym’s name ends up sounding like K-hh-y-mm, where the hh is the same kh/ch from Scottish loch, German Buch, Spanish reloj or jalapeño.
Hani a gets either an ah or an ae (cat) sound, to me, but usually ah. Hah-nee.
However, that’s just me, it’s not official. (I emailed long ago and *asked*, and CJC’s answers are on my site. — But what I have there guessing about letters or grammar is *not* official. I marked what she’d answered.)
—–
At least it’s not a big barrel marked Cry-Baby…. 😉
I believe I saw somewhere that Khym was mentioned as one of herself’s cats.
Link: Skip down to Pronunciation Key, then down to Pronunciation Notes, and you’ll see a section with Q and A where I’d asked CJC some years back.
http://www.shinyfiction.com/cherryh-fan/chanur/hani/hani-phonetics.html
no, there’s no bouyante in french in my dictionary, only flottante. the boyar/boya is all spanish except for bouée, which I think has to be boo-ay, as you suggest, sorry, my wrong with boo-ee! the OED gives no french origin either.
I too assumed Chanur was tch not sh, but I got to notice that less. I would have said hahnee, not honey. hadn’t thought of Khym as an aspirated kh, though CJ must have put the h there for a reason, when I think about it! :D.
What is it about software companies lately? It seems they have become more, “my way or the highway.”
I’ve had enough go-rounds with my laptop, some audio HW/SW problem I can’t solve, that I am likely going to get a Mac this week. (I’m not getting rid of the Win7 laptop, can’t.)
But today, iTunes on my laptop updated. Several good improvements, several things that I’m not sure yet are better or worse, but not any easier, just different. And a couple of things radically changed or removed that…it seems I’m not the only one ready to howl about. Lost part of my morning ditziness around with that, hunting up answers or workarounds, had some success, but basically, we’re stuck until/unless Apple listens to it’s customers and does a revision. Not necessarily likely.
Microsoft and Adobe sure aren’t listening lately either.
And LibreOffice and FileZilla also updated. I still see an interface redraw bug with FileZilla, but its real function is fine.
LibreOffice, I found, doesn’t have small caps. I had forgotten that until i needed it. What on earth? So I may be installing WordPerfect and ordering the upgrade. (MS Word since Office 2007 just annoys me, usability, especially for style sheets is bad. Besides, they charge too much.)
The thing with iTunes has me wondering if I’ll be truly any better off with a Mac again instead of plunking down for another Windows box, ugh, either way. All I know is, I miss Steve and Steve. But I’m enough fed up with Windows to want to try a Mac again. — I may do a test drive to see what I think with a little usage. I’m now not ready to jump in.
Ehhh, phooey. — So — I am going to take a break, read some, and likely write *longhand* in a (real paper) notebook, just to clear my frustrations some. — Got a couple of ideas I want to get down, screen or paper.
Lately, I really miss AppleWorks on my old IIe from so long ago. — I’ve been using computers for nearly 30 years, the web since 1993 or so, HTML and CSS since about 1997 — and they *still* can’t get some things we could do in the mid-90’s any easier, if at all. — Some things are vastly improved, it’s true. But some things just mystify me why software makers think those will be easier/simpler for people to use. Maddening. Crazy-making.
Oh well, it beats getting your fingers stuck in a manual typewriter. It’s better than an electric typewriter. Is it better than an old word processor, pre-GUI? Some days, I wonder.
Okay, enough grumbling, off to read and write!
Actually it was only CHA-nur, but after Leslie Fish wrote/sang The Pride of Chanur (sha-NOOR), I decided it was dialect, simple dialect. If you haven’t heard Leslie do it—google it up. 😉 There’s another, I think by Scott Merritt, called The Revenge of the Kif.
Well, dialect makes sense. It’s that sexy accent thing. 😆
There had to be some point where French people were “in between” the tch dj and sh zh stages, so that could be dialect preference (“it sounds better to us plains-folk”) and/or language change.
That reminds me: I think Tahar was some distance (planetside) from Chanur and Anify. I remember seeing Vrossaur or Vrossaru amid com-chatter during one of the battles with a comment they were from another part of Anuurn. — I’d wondered if the two were grammatical forms of the same clan name, since they’re amid hani speech without translation.
Hmm, wonder what all those hani and mahe and stishovite and kif are up to, not to mention the humans and the knnn, t’ca, and chi. ‘Cause I just know they’re *all* up to their noses in something. Several somethings….
Not that we’re eager or anything…..
Au contraire, mon ami. When they had that dust-up in the halls of the Chanur Estate, when Kara and Tahy Mahn tried to take Kohan down? Kahi Tahar was right there hoping to pick up the pieces! Tahar was a neighbor. (Around pp 196-197 in the “omnibus” Chanur Saga volume.)
I am just at that point Paul in the audiobook, but earlier on CJ says Tahar are from the south, so they must have made a special trip ….
Ineed it says they are “southern rivals”. I think we can safely assume the nearer the more likely they Kohan and Kahi are to be rivals. If they were very distant, 1) logistically and tactically spliting one’s strength between two distant estates would be weakening, and 2)what would have attracted them, with intervening nearby estates?
bcs-don’t go to Windows 8 unless you absolutely need the touch screen….
We have Win 8 in-house, just to maintain our upgrade path, but are ‘letting Mikey try it,’ as the commercial says, ie, letting somebody else have that pleasure. We see no reason to mess with Win 7 unless there is a bennie to be had, and what I am hearing (problems with Quickbooks, for starters, although I think QB has a patch) advise us that ‘Mikey’ is currently tearing his hair out.
iTunes 11, sigh. Looks to me like iTunes 11 hopped off the cookie sheet too early and will need more baking time, a revision, to get right what it should have before it was released.
Win7, sigh…. This morning, I was reminded why I’m less of a fan of Windows than my usual, “meh, it works, sort of” stance.
I think I’m indeed ordering a Mac this week. We’ll see what I come up with.
—–
Tahar, oh good, my memory’s not too far lacking there. You’d think I’d be sure, after several readings of the five books. I think I’m due for a reread anyway. I miss seeing it all play out in my head while reading.
I liked the Tahar crew and how things played out through the series.
I’m not sure why the Vrossaur / Vrossaru clan caught my eye, maybe the sound of it is the appeal. But somehow it felt like there could be a storyline there.