Some Clarity around Book Buying Rules

What is a reasonable book purchasing rule?

Is it when you have finished a book you can buy a new one? Or finished 2 or 3?

What about shelving space as a rule? If you have shelf space you can buy some? If you don’t have shelf space, you have to make it.

I used to have a rule that if I checked a book out more than 3 times from the library I could buy it because I was using it frequently for something.

I don’t buy fiction books, don’t read the mass-market entertainment writing really at all. The closest thing to that I have is contemporary political writing or what bookshops call Current Events. I also like buying books of essays, but the local library has me covered in that genre.

What about a rule based on how much you have to read? Let’s say you buy 5 books at a book sale, very good deals on all of them. Are you now bound to read all five before you buy another one?

Do digital books count here? What are the limits on non-paper books, or is that just not something to be concerned about?

I’m a Kindle user and I have a huge backlog of the 2.99 Kindle sale books that I might never make a dent in. I’m trying my best to do so in my spare time, but I find paper books to be a lot better for doing the work of writing.

Right now I'm in a book buying moratorium for a lot of reasons, mainly space. I'm trying to thin out my massive amount of books, only keeping those books that I use for reference or need for a project. 

Often I will download a PDF of a book, from a library or a less than legal site sometimes and check it out before I will buy it. But many times this is the best way to test out a scholarly book. Inter-library loan is a fine thing that I think people should make more use of. I do recognize the convenience of the less than legal download sites. 

Do I have too many books? This is the question to ask yourself. The begged question of "too many" is a rough one. This is going to be different for everyone. 

The question that most people were asking during our national nightmare of "de-cluttering" was whether or not something brings you joy. I think I'd eliminate a lot of my books were that the rubric. They don't bring me joy because I am dependent on them in order to produce meaningful writing. This kind of dependency is never joyful, but what is joyful is the process:

1. I realize I need a cite from a particular book.

2. I stand up, and walk 3 to 5 steps to the relevant bookshelf.

3. I find the book, return to my desk, and leaf around in it for the cite.

There's nothing better than this - it requires no trip to the library whatsoever. A trip to the library is fun don't get me wrong but one wants to avoid distractions when you are writing away. A trip to the library can quickly become going out for lunch, stopping at the coffeehouse/bar, and other nonsense. When you are out, you are already out, so the barrier to these activities vanishes while the barrier to producing text never erodes. 

For now, I will remain in no-buying mode and keep looking at my shelves in the hopes I can remove 3 to 5 books a week and take them to the reseller, the library donation bin, or something like that. 


Qobuz: A short lived test

I tried out hi fidelity streaming service Qobuz for the past month and love the sound quality. Somehow it is a bit better than Spotify lossless. However the reason to use Spotify is in the playlists. 


This sort of thing I really missed. I gave Qobuz access to all my saved music and it couldn’t create a list of suggestions at all. 

The other issue is playlist management. I couldn’t organize slings by date of release. The option on Qobuz is release but then it sorts it alphabetically. Not very useful to have all the albums that start with A listed by release date, then B and so on. 

Qobuz had amazing classical and Spotify has the vast majority of the releases. One of the things where it is superior is in tagging. On Last.fm the songs  were listed by performer as the artist which I really like. I think most people are only interested in composer which makes sense unless you are a regular listener, then it is important who is playing the piece. 

Maybe I will try it again in a year or so. For now Spotify has much better management function, which is much more essential than the minor advantages I got from Qobuz. 
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qobuz music player

Decided to take a break from spotify and try out some real lossless music streaming from Qobuz, the French streaming service - heard about it a lot and decided to try it out for a month or so. So far so great.

Really great selection of classical and a curated feeling about albums they show you - not as frequent as spotify but very good.



Still figuring it all out. It still has to pass the car test. Also who cares what level your lossless is at when you only have bluetooth headphones to work with? Still it seems like the music is at a higher quality on bluetooth headphones than on spotify.
The true test comes this week in the car!

Speaker Died

So sad to report one of my passive speakers for my hi-fi system really has finally died it seems. It survived so many floods and damage over the years but I really can't get it to work.

I hated the sound of just the right speaker so bad I dusted off my Google Home speaker that I haven't used in over 5 years to take over music duties. I don't like no stereo sound but it is designed to work alone, sounds good with FLAC files and is room filling. The right side Kenwood from the receiver wasn't cutting it.

Where do I even get passive speakers that aren't made for a bookshelf? They are all too tiny these days. 

My Classic Chromebook Can't Die

My most favorite computer I've ever owned (that I am typing on now) is my 2016 Pixel book Pro I got on a great black Friday deal on Google. 

I wasn't going to buy it at first, but then I just decided to go for it. I've written so much on this little machine, but it has been pushed to the back burner sadly though the acquisition of so many other great computers: A couple of Lenovos from work, and now an Apple Macbook Air 13 inch just acquired from work in the spring. I also have a pretty nice tiny Samsung laptop with an amazing AMOLED screen that I sometimes travel with. 

This computer is outdated, screen wise. It has a very blocky, wide bezel screen that is easy to see but isn't in the modern proportions we'd expect. My Air feels "wider" somehow. This screen also looks a little pixelated too. But it has a huge advantage: It's a touchscreen, and also is much easier to read for typing. 

The battery has been through a lot so now only holds about 4 hours compared to when I first got it 9 years ago where the battery would claim 8 hours left but really go for days without a charge. 

Another huge advantage is that I don't think this computer tracks me as much as my work laptop. I'm quite cautious, maybe overcautious about what I write on my work computer. We have quite the adversarial/wartime relationship with the administration so I wouldn't put it past them to track every keystroke we make on our work machines. Before you ask: No, I am not posting this from work wireless - I'm at home for this post!

Most important: This keyboard. It's the most fun, easy, smooth, and joyful typing experience I've ever had! 

I've written countless papers on this machine including writing one of those grail-projects that you never think you'll ever see in print, my essay on Allen Ginsberg's poem "Wichita Vortex Sutra." I wrote it in 3 sessions over 3 days next to a sunny window during lockdown in 2020. 

The keyboard flies but most importantly it doesn't get in the way. I don't think about it. I'm just looking at the words I'm thinking appearing on the screen. There's nothing quite like it and I've been at pains to find a similar keyboard for my desktop or for any other machine so I can have this same typing experience. 

This machine also sideloads apps through a Linux of some kind, so I can run MS Word if I don't want to or can't use Google Docs. There's no lag in any of the side loading software.

rProgrammerHumor - a cartoon of a young person touching a computer

All in all, the best computer I've owned is this one. But this summer it will lose its security upgrades. So I have to decide what's next for this machine. Perhaps Linux alone? Or maybe I can get away with Chrome OS for a while yet without the updates. I think Linux is the safest option but I do not look forward to all the hardware compatibility issues and loss of power efficiency that I know I'm going to face in such a transition. This thing is designed for Chrome OS so there has to be a loss when swapping operating systems. 

I'll post here during the transition but that's months away. I think I'll just enjoy this little laptop a while longer!


University Life

Right in the midst of the toughest part of the teaching semester now. It’s busy but not terrible because the students are really showing signs of mastery. 

Here’s an old card that fell out of a book recently. This looks like an okd request but something about it makes me think its probably from the 1990s when I was in college. 

University has changed in one way that is definitely not for the better. Endless little assignments brought on by the demands and desires of having a 24 hour electronic classroom. Instead of reading and thinking about difficult works with a professor and peers in class, all their time goes to discussion board posts and endless comments to them.

I do like all the changes we've had in higher education - they are very powerful and allow me to do some amazing things teaching and studying. But they also come with a demand for their use. That demand is never discussed and faculty are never taught how to properly balance the demands of capacity. Because there is a feature available it doesn't mean you have to use it all the time. 

Week Notes May 4 2025

Week Notes for May 4th 2025

Before we get into it, here's your weekly Cybertruck video courtesy of my dashcam. I have so many of these videos so why not just start dropping them in here?


Even though the truck is ugly at least they are great drivers, right?

Here's what happened this week:

  • Finished my essay for a book on teaching that will be published probably in a few months in Italy. I'm thinking it is ok but could be better. 
  • Wrapped up the spring term. That means that this fall will be the start of year 19 of working as a professor. 
  • Started working in earnest on my summer projects, which include two big video lecture series. We'll see if anyone watches them. 
  • My essay that is over a year old came out in Argumentation & Advocacy What a long process that was! Taylor & Francis isn't interested in being a good publisher, they just want to make free money off of academics. We let them!
  • Read Jefferson Fisher's book The Next Conversation and I'm going to make a YouTube video review of it. Spoiler: It's terrible.
  • Starting to read the most recent biography of Alexis de Toqueville

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event/man-who-understood-democracy-life-alexis-de-tocqueville

Here's this week's Music Listening see what you think. Obsessed with Ariana's new album. 

https://www.last.fm/user/Professor_Steve/listening-report/year/2025/week/17