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Cheech Tremendous

Kindle

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Amazon just released the second version of their popular Kindle Wireless Reading Device. For whatever reason, I have a hard time getting behind an electronic reading device. Unlike an ipod with my music collection, I don't have a desire to carry around dozens and dozens of books.

 

Is anyone using this device? Any thoughts on how it works and what the advantages and disadvantages are?

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I'm a supporter of the idea that everything that can be paperless should be paperless, and Kindle is a technologically great product. But, there's no way that I'm going to pay US$359.00 for it and then more money for the books, especially when my current system of using Wikisource, Project Gutenberg, Google Books, and PaperBackSwap costs very little and provides most of the books that I want.

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it can also do newspapers and magazines

 

*crickets chirping*

 

The only problem I have with it is that its only backed by Amazon. There are other e-readers available at around the same price point that have more support but they dont have the same features..

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I appreciate having bookshelves in my office filled with books for people to browse when they are in my house.

 

I will never buy an eBook reader (famous last words).

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I underline the shit out of my books, so this wouldn't really work for me. Also, like Mik, I enjoy having a physical collection of books that I can browse through at my leisure. Books aren't like music or movies; part of the pleasure of reading comes from the tactile experience of holding a real live book in your hands. It's an interesting idea, and my eco-friendly side likes the idea of going paperless, but I don't see myself ever jumping on the e-book bandwagon.

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... especially when my current system of using Wikisource, Project Gutenberg, Google Books, and PaperBackSwap costs very little and provides most of the books that I want.

I don't know what any of these things area. Care to explain a little?

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... especially when my current system of using Wikisource, Project Gutenberg, Google Books, and PaperBackSwap costs very little and provides most of the books that I want.

I don't know what any of these things area. Care to explain a little?

Sure.

 

Wikisource and Project Gutenberg provide works that are in the public domain. Basically, anything published in the US before 1923 is in the public domain. It can be ancient (e.g., Plato's Theaetetus) or more recent (e.g., Anna Karenina).

 

Google Books is a book-scanning project. In addition to usually having full views of public domain works (e.g. Don Quixote), it has some difficult-to-find books (e.g., Mr. Blackburne's Games at Chess) and very generous, fair-use previews of copyrighted works (e.g., Obama's Dreams from My Father).

 

PaperBackSwap is a book-swapping service. You get 2 free credits just for signing up and listing a few books that you want to get rid of. From there, you get 1 credit whenever someone requests one of your books, and you, in turn, use that credit to request a book that you want. I've used PBS to get copyrighted books, like One Hundred Years of Solitude and Watership Down.

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Guest Smues

I bought one for my parents for Christmas. Last I talked to them they liked it. Dad's a computer guy so he just loads stuff through the computer, but my mother not being very technologically savy really likes being able to buy books wirelessly over the cell phone network.

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Guest Vitamin X

I was aware of Project Gutenberg, Wikisource, and Google Books but not Paperback Swap. Thanks for the suggestion, Ortonsault/Xavier Cromartie. I'm going to sign up on it ASAP. What's your name on there? You probably get credits for referral or something.

 

As for the topic at hand, I kind of like the idea of a Kindle, but the book selection (NYT Bestsellers and just a few other things? Meh) and especially the price of the thing itself just isn't much of a selling point for me, aside from the fact that I think books are a medium that really can't be improved on by technology, no matter how hard they'll try. Hell, even when I get assignments for school in a PDF, I always end up just going over it and then printing it so that I can actually read it. It may have to do with the brightness of a computer screen- and presumably the Kindle doesn't quite have that problem- but I just don't see any sort of point to it. Who cares about carrying a library with them, when most people are generally reading maybe 1 or 2 books at a time? As for downloading the Times and magazines, that's a really cool feature, but I'm not going to pay $350 for something that a laptop- some which you can get for that price, with much more functionality than a Kindle- can easily do.

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I was aware of Project Gutenberg, Wikisource, and Google Books but not Paperback Swap. Thanks for the suggestion, Ortonsault/Xavier Cromartie. I'm going to sign up on it ASAP. What's your name on there? You probably get credits for referral or something.

Yeah, referring a new member is worth 1 credit. My nickname there is Cromartie. You can mention me as the referrer when you register, or you can contact them afterward, if you already registered. Thanks.

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Guest Czech please!

Byron's on the money with everything he said so I don't need to add much. Books should be tangible. I get going paperless for things like newspapers, where the entire model is wasteful beyond belief, but one book is going to last for years and years, not a day. If we cut back with newspapers, I think we can print books without decimating the planet.

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One's view on physical vs. electronic books depends on one's personality, I'd say. I can understand that some people might like to have a pleasant atmosphere where they can immerse themselves in an entertaining book because it's relaxing and makes them happy, or whatever. I read because I'm looking for things that are useful to me. I extract what's useful—ideas, facts, techniques, etc.—and cast aside what isn't. I swapped my copy of St. Augustine's The City of God because the full text is available online. If I want to recall, e.g., his writings about the nature of time, I can just look up the passages that I'm looking for, and so the physical book is useless to me.

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The Kindle2's text to speech capability is going to cause problems because the Audiobook Industry says that Amazon isn't paying the licensing fees for the audiobook versions of books it puts on the Kindle platform. Amazon is arguing that text to speech doesn't mean its an audiobook and wont pay the fee.

I heard the text to speech demo and its really quite good. Apparently what will likely happen in the interim until the dispute is settled is that the book companies will charge Amazon the audiobook fee in the regular book fee as well, which will raise the price for people to buy it.

 

I also think that what might happen is that Audiobooks will stop being read by "insert famous washed up Celebrity" or "insert Author trying to make an extra buck" and instead they'll use text to speech. It will save the book companies tons of money not having to pay whoever reads the book and it will still sell.

 

 

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