[FoRK] kindle?

[Stephen D. Williams]

Tom Higgins wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 8:00 AM, Luis Villa <luis at tieguy.org> wrote:
>   
>> Tom and I have been batting this around on fb via identica for a
>> while, but... does the non-ownership of things one has paid for bother
>> anyone else about Kindle? I badly want one, but refuse to pay for
>> books that I don't meaningfully own. Am I just being crazy or what?
>>
>>     
>
> Well, you know my stance:)-
>
> Something else that thread on FB has brought up, reuse.
>
> I buy a book these days and odds are its used. Powell's books has the
> amazing thought to shelf used books along side the new ones such that
> I save a few bucks buy getting the used copy next tot he shinny new
> one.
>   
Cool.  Just like the Stanford University Bookstore.  But better prices I 
suspect.  And for more than class books.
> I also give books away and am often on the receiving end.
>   
People only seem to want the books I don't want to give away, at least a 
lot of the time.
> At the end of a books life cycle the paper can be reused or recycled..
>   
I scan first, saving the bits, then I recycle.
> First off , things you buy from Kindlezon are priced one way and one way only.
>
> Second, is there a used Kindlezon book market? Is it even allowed?
>   
I think you could sell your whole account access, although that is 
probably also forbidden.
> Third, which leads to re-gifting/loaning.
>
> Fourth, the life cycle of the device is what? Whats the impact of all
> those kindles after a few years? V2 leads to the gota have v3 which
> dovetails into the simply must do v4. Since the device is not open
> enough to be upgraded or the like is each V a dead end? What about the
> files you bought for that particular device? What about the files you
> huffed over?
>   
The files you own are on Amazon.com.  They'd better be there for all 
eternity (as long as Amazon is in business at least), although I think I 
have lost access to some web-view-only ebook that I paid for on Amazon a 
long time ago.  That better not happen again.

They point out that you can delete books from the Kindle and just pull 
them down again later.  So, if my device is lost or stolen, or I 
upgrade, I should be able to change or add the device to my account and 
have access to everything again.

You can share up to 5 devices on the same account.  Enough for most real 
families and multi-device/location people, but not enough to share with 
friends (a FoRK "family" would be great).  It's unclear how well this 
works.  Can one book be on multiple family devices at the same time?  Or 
do they delete a book from one when you download it to another?  Maybe 
I'll afford another one later to find out.
> To be clear here, I am not antiEbook, heck I read more on the computer
> than  I do on the dead tree tip.  I should be Jezz Bezozs poster boy
> for his ebook effort but instead am sounding ill on it. My bad? I
> think not sir, I think not.
>
> Oh yeah, and I know its easy to use, can store all you must reads in
> one simple slim device so you wont have to break an arm reading the
> scads of economic books you need to keep up with Beberg or Bone
> threads..
> ....
> but could not this be accomplished WITHOUT stripping you of things
> like reuse, repourpose, and recycling  not to mention some sort of
> control about where you read what you pay for and what sort of things
> you can read on the device you pay for?
>   

I agree.  I want that.  On the other hand, many things are possible that 
aren't viable.  I want my flying car right now!  So, having a very 
viable and popular device is important enough that lack of perfection is 
just an irritation.  The books are discounted some, although not as much 
as they should be, so at some point you can rationalize the savings + 
convenience as being worth it.
> -tom(no sd slot to get pdf/rtf/txt/cbr files on the
> device..really???Really??)higgins
>
>   
There is an SD slot, but it is used as the main storage, and you have to 
power off the device to pull it out safely.  And I don't know if you can 
just load things yourself anyway.


sdw