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Just watched the worst movie - Tony Gilroy's Duplicity - what is it about Clive Owen and bad movies? Julia Roberts isn't doing so hot herself at the moment. Was bored. And it kept jumping about in time, without spending any time whatsoever giving us a reason to care about any of the characters. Basically too clever for its own good.
On the Apple Ipad vs. Amazon Kindle thing? I have a kindle. I've seen the Ipad. Read a comparison in the paper. My Kindle was about definitely cheaper than the Ipad - which clocks at well over $400 with the additional $130 for 3G and for AT&T wireless, which are included in the Kindle's base price, which is half the price of the Ipad's base price. (My Kindle was a Xmas gift, or I wouldn't have it.) The battery lasts a week without charging. Little recharging period actually. And you can read fanfic on it. Actually you can read the NY Times, the New Yorker, and subscribe to blogs and anything else on the net. It has a keyboard which allows you to key in links, and little buttons that provide browsing, plus dictionary capability. It's also small, light, and easy to hide - so less likely to be grabbed out of your hands by people on the subway. The Kindle also has a screen that replicates the page of a paperback book - so you don't go blind looking at it. The IPAD like everything Apple appears to put out is pretty, lots of flash, lots of funky things, but little practicality. This is why I own a Dell PC and ignore the Macs. Asked a computer expert who fixes computers and taught marketing for a while, he told me that Steve Jobs is a marketing genius, but don't believe a word. He knows exactly what to do to sell. True. I've read my flist - my computer crashes less than the Imac does, it has gotten less viruses, it has lasted longer. Granted I don't watch movies on it - but I don't want to. Overheard an interesting conversation on the train between two guys, who owned a Kindle, the Iphone, and the Smartphone. Apparently the Iphone is the most fragile, the most expensive, has the worst battery average, and doesn't have the capacity of the others. My bro who owns an i-phone says its' broken twice on him. Also, people are sort of underwhelmed over the ipad.
As for how Amazon treats content? I've worked in the publishing industry - amongst many others, including finance, utilities, music, video games, railroad, and health insurance. The publishing industry is by far the worst. They are all assholes. ;-) I currently hate Barnes and Noble.
Anyhow...with the Kindle? You aren't limited to Amazon's content, like I said, I'm reading fanfic for free on it. And you can subscribe to news sources. Also they haven't edited or deleted any words - from the fanfic I'm reading, which can be pretty lurid.
Anyhow, depends on what you want it for? I desperately wanted it so I could read fanfic without printing it off, read classics and books like Butcher's Harry Dresden without forking over $25.
The e-book version for Butcher is $9, the classic's - $0. Plus I'm getting overloaded by books.
The ipad is for people who want to watch movies and tv shows...although why anyone wants to watch it on that small a screen is beyond me, but I know you all do. ;-)
On the Apple Ipad vs. Amazon Kindle thing? I have a kindle. I've seen the Ipad. Read a comparison in the paper. My Kindle was about definitely cheaper than the Ipad - which clocks at well over $400 with the additional $130 for 3G and for AT&T wireless, which are included in the Kindle's base price, which is half the price of the Ipad's base price. (My Kindle was a Xmas gift, or I wouldn't have it.) The battery lasts a week without charging. Little recharging period actually. And you can read fanfic on it. Actually you can read the NY Times, the New Yorker, and subscribe to blogs and anything else on the net. It has a keyboard which allows you to key in links, and little buttons that provide browsing, plus dictionary capability. It's also small, light, and easy to hide - so less likely to be grabbed out of your hands by people on the subway. The Kindle also has a screen that replicates the page of a paperback book - so you don't go blind looking at it. The IPAD like everything Apple appears to put out is pretty, lots of flash, lots of funky things, but little practicality. This is why I own a Dell PC and ignore the Macs. Asked a computer expert who fixes computers and taught marketing for a while, he told me that Steve Jobs is a marketing genius, but don't believe a word. He knows exactly what to do to sell. True. I've read my flist - my computer crashes less than the Imac does, it has gotten less viruses, it has lasted longer. Granted I don't watch movies on it - but I don't want to. Overheard an interesting conversation on the train between two guys, who owned a Kindle, the Iphone, and the Smartphone. Apparently the Iphone is the most fragile, the most expensive, has the worst battery average, and doesn't have the capacity of the others. My bro who owns an i-phone says its' broken twice on him. Also, people are sort of underwhelmed over the ipad.
As for how Amazon treats content? I've worked in the publishing industry - amongst many others, including finance, utilities, music, video games, railroad, and health insurance. The publishing industry is by far the worst. They are all assholes. ;-) I currently hate Barnes and Noble.
Anyhow...with the Kindle? You aren't limited to Amazon's content, like I said, I'm reading fanfic for free on it. And you can subscribe to news sources. Also they haven't edited or deleted any words - from the fanfic I'm reading, which can be pretty lurid.
Anyhow, depends on what you want it for? I desperately wanted it so I could read fanfic without printing it off, read classics and books like Butcher's Harry Dresden without forking over $25.
The e-book version for Butcher is $9, the classic's - $0. Plus I'm getting overloaded by books.
The ipad is for people who want to watch movies and tv shows...although why anyone wants to watch it on that small a screen is beyond me, but I know you all do. ;-)
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The I-pad sounds grrr inducing, with nothing working without eps etc. and that to me. I even cracked and wiped my I-pod because I dislike the setup so much. Apple devices can do a lot more things once you freed them from the stupid software. Also you're right about the display
And the kindle is too linked with amazon for me. I have lots of old e-books, text books for uni etc. and I want to read them without worrying if the copyright mafia is snooping in.
I'm waiting for the all formats, open source linux reader, where I can set up every little bit myself and have an e-paper display.
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It's admittedly not for everyone. I wanted it for a specific reason and its providing that. Amazon really isn't controlling what I'm reading - at least not so far, considering I've read two fanfics on it.
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I think the kindle is great for reading online and it has great screen that's very nice to look at, but I'm not comfortable with devices that use software that keeps me from copying content. If I buy something I want to be able to lend or give it to others.
This way I feel like I'm being punished for paying for things (Same as when I watch the stupid anti-piracy adds on my Angel dvds and know I wouldn't had them if I had actually pirated them).
Have you ever heard of the infamous Napster Case?
The internet has made it increasingly difficult for freelance/professional writers to make a living, Tasini was akin to putting a finger in the dyke or dam. Barely enough to stall the inevitable.
think the kindle is great for reading online and it has great screen that's very nice to look at, but I'm not comfortable with devices that use software that keeps me from copying content. If I buy something I want to be able to lend or give it to others.
Well, no electronic device can permit that without violating international copyright law. That of course doesn't mean you can't do it. On the kindle, you can have friends email documents to you and you can download documents from your computer that you've downloaded from elsewhere.
But obvious copying? Amazon would be sued and fined by the writers and publishers whose work they distribute. (See
[Former copyright law specialist - worked in the field for 10 years and just before the internet took off, there's a lengthy piece I wrote on the topic a while back - I think it is in my memories about fandom and copyright law.]
This way I feel like I'm being punished for paying for things (Same as when I watch the stupid anti-piracy adds on my Angel dvds and know I wouldn't had them if I had actually pirated them).
So should the writer/creator be punished if you buy it?
Writer's continue to make royalties off the sales of their writing. Each book sold is money in the bank. It's one thing for me to send a comic book to someone - it's just one copy. I don't have another. No big.
But...when you copy content to your computer, you can distribute it to as many people as you wish. Say it's just 20 people? Then they distribute it to 20 people - that's 40 people that won't buy the book. And they may distribute it, and so on. You are in effect depriving the original writer, who sweated over the work, and whose living is made off of that work of their income. That's their job.
In hardcopy form - this isn't a problem. You can only realistically lend your DVD to one person. Then they have to return it or you buy another. Or a book to one person at a time.
But if you had the ability to copy it electronically?
You could realistically distribute it to a million people simultaneously and that would mean the publisher and the writer made no money well outside of the price you paid for it. They'd have no money to publish the next book. And have to get another job. Or they have to make the initial price of the content so expensive that few if any of us can buy it.
I remember having lengthy discussions about this very topic in the 1990s prior to DVDs and the expansion of the net. Terrified publishers were asking me if scanning and putting their content on a electronic databases distributed to libraries would take away their livilehood. We live off of our subscribers, they said. If you do this...who will buy our content? When they can get it for free from someone else?
Amazon is a book distributor - if you were able to do what you wanted? Amazon would be out of business. It's the Napster case redux. And it's why we had the writer's strike. And it's why there are so many advertisements on the internet and lj.
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Except for actual Flash, of course. ;-)
I'm pretty sure the iPad is going to sell a lot. I'm also 100% sure there's no way I'm reading entire books on a backlit screen. And the last thing e-books need right now is yet another copy protection scheme...
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Oh yeah. It's pretty. And it is a bit like having a superlarge iphone without the phone. Great for movie and youtube watching. But not so great for reading.
I'm also 100% sure there's no way I'm reading entire books on a backlit screen. And the last thing e-books need right now is yet another copy protection scheme...
Yep. The Kindle isn't backlit - which is why it is great for fanfic reading. That and the fact that I don't have to deal with white lettering on black screen, which people love to do.
Amazon has also figured out the copyright issue - has all sorts of protections - like the inability to send books to other people.
But yep, completely agree.
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I had thought that you just bought a book from Amazon. Sorry to be off-topic but how does this work? download? or live feed?
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All you have to do is push the menu button, push Search, type in the item you are searching for, hit google - it finds it. You click on it. Then up comes the text. I googled for example All About Spike, then hit on Spike/Buffy, then scrolled to Raising in the Sun, clicked on it and it appeared on the kindle. Not downloaded, a live feed - that once you hit the page downloads but is not saved. You can book mark it and you'll go back there or just stay there, turn off kindle, turn back on - and that's the page you are on.
Push next and you go to the next page.
Simple.
Works with most blogs too. I can't figure out how to read my lj on it though - but that has to do with a complicated password. Was however able to access darkapple's fic on an lj site and angeria's on fanfic.net.
In other words it has a built in web-browser powered by Google. And is not in any way limited to buying or accessing Amazon books.
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