Barnes and Noble

I was in the Bellevue Barnes and Noble today.  A couple of things worth noting.

First you enter and there is a booth-type display for the Nook staffed by a full time person.  It was really desperate (or so it seemed).  No takers except us.  The main features seem to be that you can play music and log into facebook.  I thought this was pretty crazy -- why compete as a cheaper iPad.  That doesn't seem like a winner.

The other thing that was a surprise was how much *less* floorspace is devoted to books.  There are all kinds of gifts and "junk" in the store.  Even and especially in the children's section it's 50% non-book.  There are even fewer magazines.  Very depressing IMHO because I do love a really good book store.  I will admit that Amazon is pretty nice.

Dab

New Kindle

Very impressed.  Still "just" a book reader but a solid improvement.  All people with older Kindle's should upgrade.

Newest Kindle

Germs

Just finished Germs (amazon, kcls).

It was shocking and chilling to learn some of the history about biological warfare.  It was a nuclear-like arms race between the USA and Russia with people like Iraq having a destabilizing role.  While it would likely take a government-scale operation to weaponize something, it's totally a backyard job to make something to kill thousands or tens of thousands in a small area.

The book ends in early 2001 and therefore does not cover the anthrax attacks in the USA.  However there is a great deal of discussion about anthrax and the challenges in weaponizing it.