John August

Geek Alert

Reading scripts on the Kindle

Follow Up, Geek Alert

kindle
Ever since I got my Kindle, ((I started with the original model, and later replaced it with the Kindle 2
.)) I’ve been looking for a good way to read scripts on it.

Emailing a .pdf would result in mangled margins and bizarre gaps. Converting to a .doc format with a very specific template would give me something almost acceptable, but meant a lot of extra labor, and wouldn’t work for .pdfs of existing scripts.

So it was with great anticipation that I installed the free [2.3 software update](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200324680) that finally gave my little Kindle the option of using honest-to-goodness .pdfs.

It works just as I had hoped, except for the fact that the type is pretty damn small. Like, list-of-ingredients small. My friend Cort pointed out that the Kindle screen is only as wide as a buck slip, so there’s only so much real estate available.

After all this wishing and hoping, I’m not sure I’ll be reading many scripts on my Kindle. (The upcoming Nook from Barnes and Noble has essentially the same size screen, and will likely have the same kind of problem.)

The update gives you the option of rotating the screen, so you can see it much closer to full size, but then you have to read half a page at a time. The update is also supposed to increase battery life dramatically.

kindle DXBottom line: if you have a small Kindle, install the update. You might be willing to live with the tiny type (or half-pages) for reading screenplays.

If you’re thinking about buying a Kindle, take a second look at the bigger Kindle DX, which has a screen better suited for scripts. I know a lot of people who are using it daily to read screenplays.

Why do the machines need humans?

Geek Alert, Rant

Wired’s Matt Blum asks [geeky questions](http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/10/top-10-unanswered-questions-in-geeky-movies-ii-the-sequel/) about popular sci-fi movies, including one that’s [always bugged me](http://johnaugust.com/archives/2006/why-the-matrix-trilogy-ultimately-blows):

> 8. The Matrix: Why do the machines need humans?

> The intelligent machines have all humans hooked up to elaborate devices to harvest their body heat and chemicals, right? But they also have sophisticated fusion reactors. The energy production of fusion reactors compared to that of humans (with all the maintenance required, including The Matrix itself) is so much more efficient it’s just ridiculous -— and we’re supposed to believe that intelligent machines, which would presumably operate logically, would keep the humans around anyway? It’s obviously necessary for the plot, but it just makes no sense.

But what would make sense is if humans were used not as batteries, but rather as organic CPUs.

For all its processing power, perhaps the Matrix can’t do something that human brains can. So they use the connected humans as a fleshy cloud computer to keep the Matrix running.

As a viewer, I’d be willing to accept an incredibly simple answer here. On page 50, instead of…

MORPHEUS

The human body generates more bio-electricity than a 120-volt battery and over 25,00 B.T.U.’s of body heat.

…how about…

MORPHEUS

The human brain is slow and imperfect, but it can do things silicon can’t. It can imagine, create. It can stitch together ideas to form something new. That’s why they need us -- so they can evolve.

Finding movies online, legally

Geek Alert, Video

[Toby Wilkins](http://www.tobywilkins.com/) had emailed me about this weeks ago, but I just now got a chance to check it out.

SpeedCine indexes movies available through iTunes, Crackle, Hulu and Amazon VOD, letting you know where you can find any given title. For example, searching for the The Nines provides links for download through Amazon, iTunes and NetFlix.

Because most of these services are U.S.-only, it’s not much help to international users, unfortunately.

The site is still in beta, and while it’s really useful, I wish it provided better URLs for copy-and-pasting. Right now, SpeedCine gives you a jumble of letters after an ASP query. Here’s the listing for Go in SpeedCine:


http://www.speedcine.com/results.aspx?query=T0001274

and here it is on Crackle:


http://crackle.com/c/GO

That’s small enough to be easily Twittered, and feels permanent enough that I’d be comfortable putting it in a blog post.

But that’s a small quibble. SpeedCine is worth making your first stop when trying to find a movie online.

**Update March 2011: SpeedCine [has closed](http://my-life-as-a-blog.com/?tag=/SpeedCine).**