I got my hands on the new Kobo ereader, so I’m just unboxing it here.

Un boite

Pull-out ’shelf’ to get at the goods

Quickstart guide, connection, and the ereader itself

The e-reader itself, initial setup screen

So a fairly straight-foward unboxing, the unit comes with 100 free books and instructions on how to get at them. Also with USB for charging and loading up with more content. The unit is actually quite light, and the quilted back is comfortable. As can be seen from the last picture, it is quite thin.

Time for disclosure, I work at Kobo, so of course I’m excited about this device. Take a look. You may find yourself excited too.

A little while ago, government was proposing to change the lyrics of the Canadian National Anthem. The change? “In all thy sons command” would be changed to “Thou dost in us command,”. It’s a little clumsy, but it’s more inclusive. I think also people were batting around the idea of removing God from it as well or something.

At first, I was agin’it, it seemed like more revisionist crap that gave us ET with people running around aggressively pointing walkie-talkies at people, but then I looked it up. The change was to change it BACK to the way it was in the 1908 version. That affected my opinion significantly. I didn’t know it had undergone changes, so what I don’t understand is why there was apparently no (or at least less) resistance to changing it the other times, but now we shouldn’t. If it was changed to reflect our values of the day, should it not continue to do so? The cynic in me thinks it’s because it pandered to the religious and gender dominated section in power. If they wanted to change it to add more religious and male-celebrating bits, maybe it would go through. Maybe not. Somehow I think that in the States if they wanted to add more religious references to their pledge, that it would be easier than attempting (as they have) to remove them. And just as our anthem, removing them would have reverted it to the way it was before.

Honestly, whenever I sung the anthem, I obviously misunderstood that section anyways. I thought it was “In all thy Son’s command”, as in, a reference to Jesus, and not “sons” as in the males of the country. But before that, when I was younger, I sung it as “In all thy Sun’s command”, cause man, the Sun is big, and apparently I’m a pagan or something. When I was older and wanted to keep religion out of it, I didn’t try to sign the “God keep our land” in another way to avoid the god reference, I just make it an exclamation like “God! Keep our land,”, it always amused me.

I think a lot of people were outraged at the change because they didn’t think it had been changed before, but to me, knowing that it had, it should lessen the resistence to changing it again. But that would rely on people being sensible, alas. Another aspect to the whole thing is that it was put out there to distract people in a Wag The Dog sort of way, which I wouldn’t put past this administration.

I think it would be amusing to suggest that the english version of Oh Canada be eliminated, since it was originally in French anyway, so we should only sing that version. Sacré bleu

So my company has begun taking pre-orders for its own e-ink reading device. The space is packed, but hopefully our device, doing the specific things it was designed to do very well, while being less expensive than the excessively signing and dancing devices already in the market, will gain some traction. The following little demo/commercial I found quite catchy, and not just because I’m an employee, the simple tune and animation style I would have found appealing regardless of the source.

Anyway, take a look at the demo if you’d like (quicktime plugin required at time of writing), and consider Kobo for your next unbirthday present.