History Geekage and Cool Toy

[inulro]

If anyone's wondering why I haven't yet read the books you've lent me, it's because I've spent the last few weeks bogged down in Kings in the North, a history of the Percy family (earls of Northumbria) from the Conquest to 1485. It's good, but very dense. Bizarrely, I wasn't that gripped by the early medieval portion (which is my field), but found the era of Edward III and the Ward of the Roses fascinating (I tend to ignore everything between King John and the 18th century). More professional reviewers than myself have said there's errors, but nothing so glaring that I noticed. I was, however, annoyed by the author's all too frequent use of italics.

The Guardian had an article about digital radio today, in which they mention The Pure Digital "Bug" radio. It's very cute, and likely to be used a lot, but with all the expenses I've incurred lately, I'll wait a while. Maybe it will even go on sale.

Comments

[quercus.livejournal.com]

BBC digital radio is rubbish. They turn the per-station bitrate down to squeeze in more stations, so the sound ends up sounding like bad medium wave. Great idea, but BBC greed is screwing it up.

There's a lot of music around though, and they're not so stupid.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Aah. I've only listened to SixMusic through the cable TV or the shitty speakers on my computer and thus haven't really noticed lack of quality.

Jason also brought up the fact that we might not even live in a digital enabled area.

[scathe.livejournal.com]

I read Kings in the North a while ago - I think the reason the later mediaeval is more interesting there is simply because the Percies had more to do with it. I did find the early history of the Percies interesting, but they weren't central to politics at that point.

It was a good book, but I did find it frustrating that in what is essentially the biography of a lineage, there wasn't much light shed on individual personalities - obviously for the earlier period this is impossible, but I was expecting something a bit more "personal" for the later period. After reading it I can't say I even remember much about Hotspur, which is saying something.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

I thought you might have read it. And yeah, I was also expecting more "personal" stuff from the later period, particularly Hotspur.