11 ms·

Why I won’t touch the Kindle 2 with a ten foot pole.

43 points by raganwald 18y ago

JoelSutherland 18y ago
Another factor to consider in the price of a physical book is space. The median home price is roughly $200,000 and the median home size is just above 2000 square feet. This gives a cost of ~ $100 per sq. ft. I just measured some books I had and 10 books per foot by 4 shelves high yields a minimum cost of $2.50 per book to store. This does not factor in moving costs of the lifetime of the book nor energy costs to heat/cool the books. It is surprisingly expensive to keep 'stuff'.
- wallflower 18y ago
  I remember reading a book about de-cluttering once and the author made a really interesting point. She said "if 20% of your apartment or house is clutter, you're paying 20% of your rent or mortgage towards storing it."
  - bcostlow 18y ago
    Yeah, but if you de-clutter, unless you can then downsize to something else, what do you gain? Now you're just paying that 20% towards storing air. I guess you could replace the clutter with something else (another comfy chair?) but I'd rather have the books.
    - wallflower 18y ago
      I could argue that some of my books are definitely not clutter even though I don't physically open them very often. Sentimental value or 'I paid $40 for it' maybe.
    - MikeCapone 18y ago
      But if you never declutter, you'll never be able to move in a smaller place. It has to start somewhere. Also, lots of useless clutter isn't usually very good for your sanity.. :)
- Harkins 18y ago
  Actually, books should lower the cost of heating/cooling a house. They'll act to keep the temperature level in the house at a static level, though they would cost more if you often cycled your house between warm and cold. It's like keeping jugs of water in the refrigerator: the system works by cooling the air, which falls out when you open the door. The space taken up by the water means there's less air to fall out. In any case, your analysis of square footage is clever, I hadn't thought to consider that cost.
  - JoelSutherland 18y ago
    They won't make it cheaper than if you had less house. If the square footage would otherwise be empty my whole point falls apart.
    - gravitycop 18y ago
      They won't make it cheaper than if you had less house. Actually, more mass (book mass, or any other kind) does make HVAC cheaper: http://static.monolithic.com/pres/rvalue http://static.monolithic.com/pres/rvalue The California Handbook for Solar Energy is the only government publication we have been able to find which takes into account the thermal mass of the concrete when measuring heat loss. Simply stated, the concrete acts as a heat sink which slows the passage of heat back and forth through the wall or roof assembly.
- ajju 18y ago
  And books are heavy. I'm in the middle of moving and books are second in weight only to heavy furniture. I do have a lot of them though.
  - adamvan 18y ago
    Must not have a bunch of LPs lying around; they kill books on density.
- Angostura 18y ago
  This assumes that I don't enjoy the physical objects themselves and being able to wander around and pick a book off a shelf. I do. I'm willing to pay for the pleasure.
- biohacker42 18y ago
  I preemptively apologize for this attempt to hijack the discussion, but does $200,000 seem high for a median? I'm a reasonably well compensated developer in the Boston area and it still seems high.
  - masukomi 18y ago
    Are you kidding?! $200k in Boston would be a freaking steal. People would almost literally kill for that. I'm in cambridge and all the 2 bedroom condos on the blocks around me are $450k and up. And that's a CONDO with shared walls.
    - biohacker42 18y ago
      Yes, that's Cambridge, 200K is not high there. But what about nationally? I'm in the exurbs of Boston, and 200K as median just feels bubbly.
    - kragen 18y ago
      Only 5% of the population lives in the US. $200k in Buenos Aires is a mansion.
  - donw 18y ago
    $200k won't buy you a shack in San Jose., which is probably one of the cheaper areas to live in the Silicon Valley. But it's getting close. :)
  - pchristensen 18y ago
    Pre-crash, median home price is about $240K (not sure if it has fallen and by how much). Median condo price was actually higher (~$250K) because condos were generally only in more expensive metros.
- chollida1 18y ago
  > This does not factor in moving costs. This shouldn't be over looked. My wife and I have moved twice and both times we had to cull our "library" in an attempt to save space and weight. Figuring an average moving cost of 60 cents per pound and 1 pound per book, moving costs for books can add up very quickly. And forget about it if your moving across an ocean. With e-books this cost is negligible.
- kragen 18y ago
  Dividing medians by medians is not safe; you get weird interactions between differences by region and differences within each region. (Houses in Manhattan are smaller than houses in Cheyenne, and also cost more, because the cost per square foot is higher; but in both Cheyenne and Manhattan, bigger houses cost more. Except when you get into the ghetto/non-ghetto distinction, etc.) Also I don't think the medians you cite are anywhere close to correct. Maybe they're correct as medians only within the US? I remind you that the US is less than 5% of the population. Otherwise your figures look good to me. Maybe the right answer here is to pay attention to your current region. I'm paying about US$350 per month (before taxes) for 60m², about 600ft². For me 40 books per square foot means each book costs about ⅝¢ per month to store. I think that's about US$0.68.
- Brushfire 18y ago
  Considering most people mortgage their home over 30 years, it is not unfair to use this fact and build onto your math a bit: 2.50 / 30 years = about 8.33 cents per year in 'storage rent'. Seems pretty cheap to me, when you compare relative costs of storage. Of course, I'm typing this with some sarcasm, because the whole metric is bad. Your analysis assumes that: A - somehow you have unlimited items to store in all the empty places in your house, B - ignores the absolute cost of having empty space (you've already spent on the house, but if you leave that space empty, you have opportunity cost becuase you COULD be storing books), and C - ignores any utilitarian value you get from having the books around. :) Here's a hint: C is most important. And it references back to the point the article is trying to make. It is clever though, so I'll give you that.
JulianMorrison 18y ago
The only advantage the Kindle has is wireless access to the Amazon store. There are other cheaper readers.
- jskopek 18y ago
  Online integration with the amazon store isn't just another feature point though, it's the company's primary direction with the product. The content acquisition problem is just as important, or even more so, then the hardware problems for any electronic media device. Someone using a competing e-reader has to navigate a number of competing e-book stores, download and keep track of their copies on their own storage media, and then sync books over to their device via USB or storage device; that's a lot of work when you just want to read a book. I remember reading about someone who described how he'd walk into airport book stores, lazily browse through their books, and then remotely download his favorites onto his kindle; that's powerful.
  - JulianMorrison 18y ago
    Nah. They just slope over to http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4382165/For_Dummies_Ebooks_collection_2008 http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4382165/For_Dummies_Ebooks_c... and stuff themselves like a basking shark feeding on krill.
    - unalone 18y ago
      That's still slower than, if my grandfather mentions a book he thinks I'll like, my going online, finding the book in 20 seconds, downloading a sample chapter within a minute, and potentially buying the book to read if I like that chapter. Furthermore, speaking as somebody who loves stuffing himself on torrents: it's very hard to find specific books on ThePirateBay, depending on your tastes. You can't download, say, Finnegans Wake, which I just searched for. All they have is the audiobook.
  - wallflower 18y ago
    > I remember reading about someone who described how he'd walk into airport book stores, lazily browse through their books, and then remotely download his favorites onto his kindle; that's powerful. Instant gratification works both ways. If I really need a book on something, I will go the local book superstore, browse through them and read the reviews on Amazon.com while there and buy (price insensitive) the one that seems the best. Pre-iPhone, I would read the reviews on Amazon.com and then call around to hold it.
gabrielroth 18y ago
> I wouldn’t even use one if you offered it to me for free. So if I offered you a Kindle for free, you wouldn't even use it to read non-DRM-protected books in open formats? You used to hear the same argument about the iPod -- that because the iTunes Store sold DRM-protected music, the device was somehow intrinsically flawed, even though it's also perfectly happy playing non-DRM-protected music. It's a weird argument. If you don't want to pay for DRM-protected content, don't pay for it. The device itself might still be useful, especially if you're offered one for free.
- ScottWhigham 18y ago
  Actually I never heard that argument against the iPod. I heard the DRM argument against iTunes often enough but I've never heard anyone complain about the iPod being a DRM-laden monster.
  - unalone 18y ago
    A few high school friends of mine got more obscure music players because they didn't want to be forced into using iTunes. One or two thought iTunes added DRM to tracks that wouldn't have DRM otherwise.
  - masukomi 18y ago
    That's because it's not a DRM laden monster and the distribution of music is such that there are many alternative ways to get songs you've purchased onto one without involving DRM. Unfortunately the same can not be said for books even though essentially all of the electronic books will let you put non-drm'd material on them.
- masukomi 18y ago
  exactly what non-DRM protected books in open format are you suggesting? The ones in the public domain? I honestly wouldn't. I can think of maybe one I've wanted to read in the past 10 years. As for your iPod argument, it's flawed too because none of the books i have legally purchased can be put on a kindle. Well, maybe 2 could, but they're PDF and formatted for a different paper size than the kindle and would thus look like crap on it. So, what non-drm protected content exactly are you suggesting that I would have to put on this hypothetically free Kindle that would make it worth bothering with?
fleaflicker 18y ago
maybe for him but i know people that exclusively read hardcover bestsellers when they travel. these are a huge pain to carry around. plus you hardly ever to re-read them so it doesn't matter if the kindle breaks or goes out of business.
- masukomi 18y ago
  I avoid the hardcovers except for those of very few authors because, they're physically awkward and heavier, however, I have reread every hardcover novel I've purchased at least once. In fact I've reread almost every novel I own at least once and within the next 20 years I suspect I will have reread my current shelves at least 3 times on average. For me it's equivalent to rewatching a movie, which people do all the time. If you never reread books the kindle makes much more sense, but I do, and I lend them out a lot too.
mattmaroon 18y ago
This won't be a problem for most people, since they read stuff written by Dan Brown that really doesn't require a rereading 20 years down the line. But I understand the sentiment. Nonetheless my understanding is you can fairly easily get any pdf onto the Kindle, meaning if you get a non-DRMed version of the books you're fine. Is that not correct? I own a number of digital music player's that support one DRM scheme or another, and use them frequently, yet have never actually purchased a DRM'ed file.
- raganwald 18y ago
  > This won't be a problem for most people, since they read stuff written by Dan Brown that really doesn't require a rereading 20 years down the line. But I understand the sentiment. Hmmm... I have never read anything by Dan Brown but I do re-read Ian Fleming, Alistair Maclean and James Clavell.
  - ewiethoff 18y ago
    Dan Brown is the author I love to hate. His Digital Fortress and Deception Point are hilariously bad. But don't bother spending any money on them; just borrow them from the library.
    - mattmaroon 18y ago
      You know, at least I got through DaVinci code (though maybe only because it was an audiobook and I had a very long drive). Try reading anything by Robert Ludlum. I liked the Bourne movies, but I couldn't get 50 pages into that. It was like reading third grade fiction projects. I can't believe writing that bad could be published.
      - ewiethoff 18y ago
        Thanks for the warning about Ludlum. The sad fact is, Dan Brown's junk is better than a lot of other stuff I borrow from the "New" rack at the library. At least Brown I can laugh at. Bad is bad, but laughably bad is better.
sspencer 18y ago
My thoughts exactly.
vaksel 18y ago
why can't someone do the same to Kindle that they did to iPhone? Codebreak it, so it can play any non-Amazon stuff. Or better yet, just have it read HTML/pdf/.lit stuff, so that you can get the eBooks for free and read them on there?
- unalone 18y ago
  The AZW format has been broken for a long time. That fact is conveniently ignored by the people who like getting mad at things.
  - kqr2 18y ago
    Can you please cite the source for this? I have not read that the AZW format has been broken. People, however, have figured out how to read mobipocket protected formats on the kindle. That's a big difference. A hacked AZW format would allow me to convert it to non-DRM format and even share it with other kindles.
    - unalone 18y ago
      If you open an AZW it's essentially modified HTML. I don't know if a converter is public or not - I frankly don't mind DRM very much - but getting information out of AZW and into other formats isn't particularly difficult if you really care to.
- ahoyhere 18y ago
  AZW is just a slightly modified version of .mobi, which is an open(ish) format and well understood. You can get gobs of free Project Gutenberg books formatted for the Kindle as AZW files (and in many other formats) at http://manybooks.net/ http://manybooks.net/
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
edw519 18y ago
http://www.amazon.com/Palm-1047NA-TX-Handheld/dp/B000BI7NHY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234546735&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Palm-1047NA-TX-Handheld/dp/B000BI7NHY/... http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-8-9-inch-Laptop-Processor/dp/B001BBS76Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234546768&sr=1-11 http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-8-9-inch-Laptop-Processor/...
copenja 18y ago
Do you love reading or do you love owning books? If you love reading, the kindle is great. If you to to own books, the kindle is horrible. If you love both, well you have a real tough decision to make.
nazgulnarsil 18y ago
I want a netbook with e-ink. (of course we'll need higher res, color, faster response time e-ink, plus a built in reading light since they aren't backlit) But this to me would be the ultimate portable computing device. add a headset with VoiP service and set up some way of getting calls without constantly draining the computers battery and you have a killer device.
- blackguardx 18y ago
  The color you would get on an E-ink display would be pretty crappy. Because of the limitations of technology, you wouldn't be able to get any better color images than what a newspaper has. E-ink displays are also pretty slow to refresh. They would have do something that doesn't use rasterization.
  - nazgulnarsil 18y ago
    doesn't look too bad. especially considering that this is new display tech. http://www.e-ink.com/press/images/image_release_86b.html http://www.e-ink.com/press/images/image_release_86b.html
ahoyhere 18y ago
I could write a long list of stupid design decisions they made with the Kindle (it leaves nasty marks in my hand when I hold it in my preferred way), but... the utility of it is amazing. And I live in Europe so I can't even download stuff over the wireless. I have to buy it on Amazon.com and then copy via USB. (Which is painless, even tho.) I use it to get American / English books near instantly, at 1/5th the cost of having them shipped from Amazon DE. I use it to travel -- which I do a lot. I can read upwards of a book a day, since I read about 80-100 pages an hour, even non-fiction. Do I still buy paper books? Yes, I love them. Does the Kindle free me to buy books I wouldn't otherwise, because of the weight, size, expense and time involved? Absolutely. I bought the Kindle 1 in November and I already preordered the Kindle 2. There's no turning back for me. As for the DRM, I don't really care. Say I can pay $8 for a novel or $12 to see a movie in a theater. The novel is cheaper, even if I couldn't read it over and over and over again -- which I can. After seeing the movie in the theater, I can't watch it again without paying again. I look at the Kindle as a kind of movie theater convenience for books, with the built-in ability to read anything I want again, as long as I want. Works for me.
baddox 18y ago
Why I won't touch the Kindle 2 with a ten foot pole: Because I don't have a ten foot pole OR a Kindle 2, and even in I did, doing so would be utterly pointless.
mapleoin 18y ago
the obligatory 1997 RMS essay: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
- asciilifeform 18y ago
  Many of the abuses in Stallman's tale have been brought to life by textbook publishers. I have taken a number of classes which used books having an online time-limited, non-transferrable homework supplement. Anyone who is counting on "the invisible hand of the market" to kill DRM will be in for a rude surprise when they find themselves among one of the captive audiences where it flourishes.

43 points by raganwald 18y ago

Another factor to consider in the price of a physical book is space. The median home price is roughly $200,000 and the median home size is just above 2000 square feet. This gives a cost of ~ $100 per sq. ft. I just measured some books I had and 10 books per foot by 4 shelves high yields a minimum cost of $2.50 per book to store. This does not factor in moving costs of the lifetime of the book nor energy costs to heat/cool the books. It is surprisingly expensive to keep 'stuff'.

wallflower 18y ago
I remember reading a book about de-cluttering once and the author made a really interesting point. She said "if 20% of your apartment or house is clutter, you're paying 20% of your rent or mortgage towards storing it."
- bcostlow 18y ago
  Yeah, but if you de-clutter, unless you can then downsize to something else, what do you gain? Now you're just paying that 20% towards storing air. I guess you could replace the clutter with something else (another comfy chair?) but I'd rather have the books.
  - wallflower 18y ago
    I could argue that some of my books are definitely not clutter even though I don't physically open them very often. Sentimental value or 'I paid $40 for it' maybe.
  - MikeCapone 18y ago
    But if you never declutter, you'll never be able to move in a smaller place. It has to start somewhere. Also, lots of useless clutter isn't usually very good for your sanity.. :)
Harkins 18y ago
Actually, books should lower the cost of heating/cooling a house. They'll act to keep the temperature level in the house at a static level, though they would cost more if you often cycled your house between warm and cold. It's like keeping jugs of water in the refrigerator: the system works by cooling the air, which falls out when you open the door. The space taken up by the water means there's less air to fall out. In any case, your analysis of square footage is clever, I hadn't thought to consider that cost.
- JoelSutherland 18y ago
  They won't make it cheaper than if you had less house. If the square footage would otherwise be empty my whole point falls apart.
  - gravitycop 18y ago
    They won't make it cheaper than if you had less house. Actually, more mass (book mass, or any other kind) does make HVAC cheaper: http://static.monolithic.com/pres/rvalue http://static.monolithic.com/pres/rvalue The California Handbook for Solar Energy is the only government publication we have been able to find which takes into account the thermal mass of the concrete when measuring heat loss. Simply stated, the concrete acts as a heat sink which slows the passage of heat back and forth through the wall or roof assembly.
ajju 18y ago
And books are heavy. I'm in the middle of moving and books are second in weight only to heavy furniture. I do have a lot of them though.
- adamvan 18y ago
  Must not have a bunch of LPs lying around; they kill books on density.
Angostura 18y ago
This assumes that I don't enjoy the physical objects themselves and being able to wander around and pick a book off a shelf. I do. I'm willing to pay for the pleasure.
biohacker42 18y ago
I preemptively apologize for this attempt to hijack the discussion, but does $200,000 seem high for a median? I'm a reasonably well compensated developer in the Boston area and it still seems high.
- masukomi 18y ago
  Are you kidding?! $200k in Boston would be a freaking steal. People would almost literally kill for that. I'm in cambridge and all the 2 bedroom condos on the blocks around me are $450k and up. And that's a CONDO with shared walls.
  - biohacker42 18y ago
    Yes, that's Cambridge, 200K is not high there. But what about nationally? I'm in the exurbs of Boston, and 200K as median just feels bubbly.
  - kragen 18y ago
    Only 5% of the population lives in the US. $200k in Buenos Aires is a mansion.
- donw 18y ago
  $200k won't buy you a shack in San Jose., which is probably one of the cheaper areas to live in the Silicon Valley. But it's getting close. :)
- pchristensen 18y ago
  Pre-crash, median home price is about $240K (not sure if it has fallen and by how much). Median condo price was actually higher (~$250K) because condos were generally only in more expensive metros.
chollida1 18y ago
> This does not factor in moving costs. This shouldn't be over looked. My wife and I have moved twice and both times we had to cull our "library" in an attempt to save space and weight. Figuring an average moving cost of 60 cents per pound and 1 pound per book, moving costs for books can add up very quickly. And forget about it if your moving across an ocean. With e-books this cost is negligible.
kragen 18y ago
Dividing medians by medians is not safe; you get weird interactions between differences by region and differences within each region. (Houses in Manhattan are smaller than houses in Cheyenne, and also cost more, because the cost per square foot is higher; but in both Cheyenne and Manhattan, bigger houses cost more. Except when you get into the ghetto/non-ghetto distinction, etc.) Also I don't think the medians you cite are anywhere close to correct. Maybe they're correct as medians only within the US? I remind you that the US is less than 5% of the population. Otherwise your figures look good to me. Maybe the right answer here is to pay attention to your current region. I'm paying about US$350 per month (before taxes) for 60m², about 600ft². For me 40 books per square foot means each book costs about ⅝¢ per month to store. I think that's about US$0.68.
Brushfire 18y ago
Considering most people mortgage their home over 30 years, it is not unfair to use this fact and build onto your math a bit: 2.50 / 30 years = about 8.33 cents per year in 'storage rent'. Seems pretty cheap to me, when you compare relative costs of storage. Of course, I'm typing this with some sarcasm, because the whole metric is bad. Your analysis assumes that: A - somehow you have unlimited items to store in all the empty places in your house, B - ignores the absolute cost of having empty space (you've already spent on the house, but if you leave that space empty, you have opportunity cost becuase you COULD be storing books), and C - ignores any utilitarian value you get from having the books around. :) Here's a hint: C is most important. And it references back to the point the article is trying to make. It is clever though, so I'll give you that.

JulianMorrison 18y ago

The only advantage the Kindle has is wireless access to the Amazon store. There are other cheaper readers.

jskopek 18y ago
Online integration with the amazon store isn't just another feature point though, it's the company's primary direction with the product. The content acquisition problem is just as important, or even more so, then the hardware problems for any electronic media device. Someone using a competing e-reader has to navigate a number of competing e-book stores, download and keep track of their copies on their own storage media, and then sync books over to their device via USB or storage device; that's a lot of work when you just want to read a book. I remember reading about someone who described how he'd walk into airport book stores, lazily browse through their books, and then remotely download his favorites onto his kindle; that's powerful.
- JulianMorrison 18y ago
  Nah. They just slope over to http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4382165/For_Dummies_Ebooks_collection_2008 http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4382165/For_Dummies_Ebooks_c... and stuff themselves like a basking shark feeding on krill.
  - unalone 18y ago
    That's still slower than, if my grandfather mentions a book he thinks I'll like, my going online, finding the book in 20 seconds, downloading a sample chapter within a minute, and potentially buying the book to read if I like that chapter. Furthermore, speaking as somebody who loves stuffing himself on torrents: it's very hard to find specific books on ThePirateBay, depending on your tastes. You can't download, say, Finnegans Wake, which I just searched for. All they have is the audiobook.
- wallflower 18y ago
  > I remember reading about someone who described how he'd walk into airport book stores, lazily browse through their books, and then remotely download his favorites onto his kindle; that's powerful. Instant gratification works both ways. If I really need a book on something, I will go the local book superstore, browse through them and read the reviews on Amazon.com while there and buy (price insensitive) the one that seems the best. Pre-iPhone, I would read the reviews on Amazon.com and then call around to hold it.

gabrielroth 18y ago

> I wouldn’t even use one if you offered it to me for free. So if I offered you a Kindle for free, you wouldn't even use it to read non-DRM-protected books in open formats? You used to hear the same argument about the iPod -- that because the iTunes Store sold DRM-protected music, the device was somehow intrinsically flawed, even though it's also perfectly happy playing non-DRM-protected music. It's a weird argument. If you don't want to pay for DRM-protected content, don't pay for it. The device itself might still be useful, especially if you're offered one for free.

ScottWhigham 18y ago
Actually I never heard that argument against the iPod. I heard the DRM argument against iTunes often enough but I've never heard anyone complain about the iPod being a DRM-laden monster.
- unalone 18y ago
  A few high school friends of mine got more obscure music players because they didn't want to be forced into using iTunes. One or two thought iTunes added DRM to tracks that wouldn't have DRM otherwise.
- masukomi 18y ago
  That's because it's not a DRM laden monster and the distribution of music is such that there are many alternative ways to get songs you've purchased onto one without involving DRM. Unfortunately the same can not be said for books even though essentially all of the electronic books will let you put non-drm'd material on them.
masukomi 18y ago
exactly what non-DRM protected books in open format are you suggesting? The ones in the public domain? I honestly wouldn't. I can think of maybe one I've wanted to read in the past 10 years. As for your iPod argument, it's flawed too because none of the books i have legally purchased can be put on a kindle. Well, maybe 2 could, but they're PDF and formatted for a different paper size than the kindle and would thus look like crap on it. So, what non-drm protected content exactly are you suggesting that I would have to put on this hypothetically free Kindle that would make it worth bothering with?

fleaflicker 18y ago

maybe for him but i know people that exclusively read hardcover bestsellers when they travel. these are a huge pain to carry around. plus you hardly ever to re-read them so it doesn't matter if the kindle breaks or goes out of business.

masukomi 18y ago
I avoid the hardcovers except for those of very few authors because, they're physically awkward and heavier, however, I have reread every hardcover novel I've purchased at least once. In fact I've reread almost every novel I own at least once and within the next 20 years I suspect I will have reread my current shelves at least 3 times on average. For me it's equivalent to rewatching a movie, which people do all the time. If you never reread books the kindle makes much more sense, but I do, and I lend them out a lot too.

mattmaroon 18y ago

This won't be a problem for most people, since they read stuff written by Dan Brown that really doesn't require a rereading 20 years down the line. But I understand the sentiment. Nonetheless my understanding is you can fairly easily get any pdf onto the Kindle, meaning if you get a non-DRMed version of the books you're fine. Is that not correct? I own a number of digital music player's that support one DRM scheme or another, and use them frequently, yet have never actually purchased a DRM'ed file.

raganwald 18y ago
> This won't be a problem for most people, since they read stuff written by Dan Brown that really doesn't require a rereading 20 years down the line. But I understand the sentiment. Hmmm... I have never read anything by Dan Brown but I do re-read Ian Fleming, Alistair Maclean and James Clavell.
- ewiethoff 18y ago
  Dan Brown is the author I love to hate. His Digital Fortress and Deception Point are hilariously bad. But don't bother spending any money on them; just borrow them from the library.
  - mattmaroon 18y ago
    You know, at least I got through DaVinci code (though maybe only because it was an audiobook and I had a very long drive). Try reading anything by Robert Ludlum. I liked the Bourne movies, but I couldn't get 50 pages into that. It was like reading third grade fiction projects. I can't believe writing that bad could be published.
    - ewiethoff 18y ago
      Thanks for the warning about Ludlum. The sad fact is, Dan Brown's junk is better than a lot of other stuff I borrow from the "New" rack at the library. At least Brown I can laugh at. Bad is bad, but laughably bad is better.

sspencer 18y ago

My thoughts exactly.

vaksel 18y ago

why can't someone do the same to Kindle that they did to iPhone? Codebreak it, so it can play any non-Amazon stuff. Or better yet, just have it read HTML/pdf/.lit stuff, so that you can get the eBooks for free and read them on there?

unalone 18y ago
The AZW format has been broken for a long time. That fact is conveniently ignored by the people who like getting mad at things.
- kqr2 18y ago
  Can you please cite the source for this? I have not read that the AZW format has been broken. People, however, have figured out how to read mobipocket protected formats on the kindle. That's a big difference. A hacked AZW format would allow me to convert it to non-DRM format and even share it with other kindles.
  - unalone 18y ago
    If you open an AZW it's essentially modified HTML. I don't know if a converter is public or not - I frankly don't mind DRM very much - but getting information out of AZW and into other formats isn't particularly difficult if you really care to.
ahoyhere 18y ago
AZW is just a slightly modified version of .mobi, which is an open(ish) format and well understood. You can get gobs of free Project Gutenberg books formatted for the Kindle as AZW files (and in many other formats) at http://manybooks.net/ http://manybooks.net/

deleted 18y ago

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edw519 18y ago

http://www.amazon.com/Palm-1047NA-TX-Handheld/dp/B000BI7NHY/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234546735&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Palm-1047NA-TX-Handheld/dp/B000BI7NHY/... http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-8-9-inch-Laptop-Processor/dp/B001BBS76Q/ref=sr_1_11?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1234546768&sr=1-11 http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-8-9-inch-Laptop-Processor/...

copenja 18y ago

Do you love reading or do you love owning books? If you love reading, the kindle is great. If you to to own books, the kindle is horrible. If you love both, well you have a real tough decision to make.

nazgulnarsil 18y ago

I want a netbook with e-ink. (of course we'll need higher res, color, faster response time e-ink, plus a built in reading light since they aren't backlit) But this to me would be the ultimate portable computing device. add a headset with VoiP service and set up some way of getting calls without constantly draining the computers battery and you have a killer device.

blackguardx 18y ago
The color you would get on an E-ink display would be pretty crappy. Because of the limitations of technology, you wouldn't be able to get any better color images than what a newspaper has. E-ink displays are also pretty slow to refresh. They would have do something that doesn't use rasterization.
- nazgulnarsil 18y ago
  doesn't look too bad. especially considering that this is new display tech. http://www.e-ink.com/press/images/image_release_86b.html http://www.e-ink.com/press/images/image_release_86b.html

ahoyhere 18y ago

I could write a long list of stupid design decisions they made with the Kindle (it leaves nasty marks in my hand when I hold it in my preferred way), but... the utility of it is amazing. And I live in Europe so I can't even download stuff over the wireless. I have to buy it on Amazon.com and then copy via USB. (Which is painless, even tho.) I use it to get American / English books near instantly, at 1/5th the cost of having them shipped from Amazon DE. I use it to travel -- which I do a lot. I can read upwards of a book a day, since I read about 80-100 pages an hour, even non-fiction. Do I still buy paper books? Yes, I love them. Does the Kindle free me to buy books I wouldn't otherwise, because of the weight, size, expense and time involved? Absolutely. I bought the Kindle 1 in November and I already preordered the Kindle 2. There's no turning back for me. As for the DRM, I don't really care. Say I can pay $8 for a novel or $12 to see a movie in a theater. The novel is cheaper, even if I couldn't read it over and over and over again -- which I can. After seeing the movie in the theater, I can't watch it again without paying again. I look at the Kindle as a kind of movie theater convenience for books, with the built-in ability to read anything I want again, as long as I want. Works for me.

baddox 18y ago

Why I won't touch the Kindle 2 with a ten foot pole: Because I don't have a ten foot pole OR a Kindle 2, and even in I did, doing so would be utterly pointless.

mapleoin 18y ago

the obligatory 1997 RMS essay: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html

asciilifeform 18y ago
Many of the abuses in Stallman's tale have been brought to life by textbook publishers. I have taken a number of classes which used books having an online time-limited, non-transferrable homework supplement. Anyone who is counting on "the invisible hand of the market" to kill DRM will be in for a rude surprise when they find themselves among one of the captive audiences where it flourishes.