Last month, I bought a Kindle.

Obviously, I did this only because somebody told me to. Specifically, my 
granddad asked me to buy one for him so he could give it to his wife for 
Christmas. They both seemed fascinated with the little gizmo, with her 
decreeing "John, don't you touch it. I don't want you to bugger it up!" 
(Yeah, she's like that...)

I've got to admit, the screen is pretty trippy. It's not like any kind 
of computer screen (mainly because it's reflective rather than 
emissive). To say that it "looks like paper" is a bit of a stretch. It 
also updates fairly slowly. The genius, though, is that it requires no 
power to hold an image (hence the long battery life).

In fact, the first time we turned it off, the screen turned into a 
beautiful illustration of some birds. If you really stare closely, you 
can vaguely make out the pixels. Or rather, I with my sharp binocular 
vision can just about resolve them. My grandparents with their barely 
functional eyes must surely be unable to see such things. (Let's face 
it, they can't see the on/off button.)

Unfortunately, now when we turn it off it just displays a boring picture 
of a famous author, selected at random. No amount of power cycles will 
make it display the beautiful bird image again, to my grandparents' 
utter despair.

It's also not especially easy to determine whether the device is 
actually switched on or off; the power light goes off a few seconds 
after you turn the device on. (I must say, it powers on /very/ fast 
indeed.) It seems that the only way to tell is that when turned off, the 
screen says "slide the power button to wake", which it never says while 
turned on.

As you'd expect, purchasing books for it from Amazon is... actually a 
total PITA! Which surprised me. For reasons beyond my comprehension, you 
*cannot* add Kindle books to your shopping basket. You can *only* 
purchase them immediately, right then and there. And for every single 
individual purchase, you have to go through a dozen order processing 
screens. You literally cannot browse the store, stick anything 
interesting into your basket, and when you're done, go through the 
basket, decide which ones you actually want to purchase, remove the 
rest, and then purchase the whole lot in one go. You can *only* purchase 
the books one at a time. And *only* way to hang on to several books is 
judicious use of tabbed browsing (a feature that nobody in my entire 
family except me has managed to figure out).

Presumably the purpose of this deliberate lack of functionality is to 
force you to buy more books than you would otherwise have bought. And 
sure, most of them are only a few quid. But it seems to be possible to 
spend money frighteningly quickly. Think about it: buy a small handful 
of books at £3 each and you've just spent £30. That's /a lot/ of money.

On the other hand, it's surprising (indeed, perplexing) how almost 
anything you do on the Amazon website somehow affects the Kindle 
/instantly/. I don't know how that's possible, but still. I registered 
the Kindle to the correct Amazon account, and within about 0.8 seconds 
the screen on the Kindle changed. That's almost faster than the page 
loading speed over my piffling 2 mbit Internet connection. (!)

Apparently it's supposed to be possible to make purchases from the 
Kindle itself. I haven't tried this. (God only knows how you repeatedly 
type in your credit card number on a device with keys significantly 
smaller than a human finger...)

It's certainly a nifty little toy. And it's /almost/ trivial enough to 
operate that my grandparents might actually figure it out eventually. 
Unfortunately, like all electronic devices, it has to scream "I can also 
do X! And Y! And Z! And J, L, R, F, Q and I!" just to confuse people. 
Actually reading a book with it is fairly self-explanatory.

(I love the way that to read the user manual you have to already know 
how to work the device. That's a wonderful bootstrapping problem.)

Now, if they made a device like this with Mathematica installed on it, 
I'd probably buy it. (It would be like the ultimate graphing 
calculator.) But as a device for reading books? Nah, I won't bother.

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Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> And for every single 
> individual purchase, you have to go through a dozen order processing 
> screens.

  That's not very smart. If you want to sell something, you should make it
*as easy as possible* to buy it. If you make it hard, it will discourage
potential buyers and you will lose money.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 13/01/2011 12:13 PM, Warp wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> And for every single
>> individual purchase, you have to go through a dozen order processing
>> screens.
>
>    That's not very smart.

No, no it isn't.

(I especially like the way they label it as "1-click buying".)

Post a reply to this message

Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Now, if they made a device like this with Mathematica installed on it,
> I'd probably buy it. (It would be like the ultimate graphing
> calculator.) But as a device for reading books? Nah, I won't bother.

Reading is not your thing and your usual abysmal ignorance shows that.  Point
taken. ;)

That said, it's the only portable device I'd ever buy, aside from the cheapest
possible cell*phones* and Nintendo's upcoming 3DS.  I don't get it people who
buy an iPhone to answer calls in the middle of some tense gaming moment or to
read ebooks in tiny letters... :)

Post a reply to this message

On 13/01/2011 3:50 PM, nemesis wrote:
> or to
> read ebooks in tiny letters...:)

With E Books, you can change the font size.
I would not go anywhere without my Sony Reader.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

On 13/01/2011 03:50 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
>> Now, if they made a device like this with Mathematica installed on it,
>> I'd probably buy it. (It would be like the ultimate graphing
>> calculator.) But as a device for reading books? Nah, I won't bother.
>
> Reading is not your thing and your usual abysmal ignorance shows that.  Point
> taken. ;)

Reading *is* my thing, I'd just prefer to do it using a real, physical 
book, that's all. (Plus, while I /like/ reading, I don't get to /do/ it 
very often.)

Besides, who wants a system that can delete the books you've paid for at 
any time, for no defined reason?

Still, it's not without advantages. (Size and weight being the obvious 
ones, but also the ability to enlarge the text to the point that even my 
grandparents can read it.) They're just not advances that are especially 
important to me.

> That said, it's the only portable device I'd ever buy, aside from the cheapest
> possible cell*phones* and Nintendo's upcoming 3DS.  I don't get it people who
> buy an iPhone to answer calls in the middle of some tense gaming moment or to
> read ebooks in tiny letters... :)

My current phone has a camera in it. I have no idea why. The images it 
forms are just barely recognisable.

It also thinks its am MP3 player. I have no idea why. The sound quality 
of a 2mm speaker is, obviously, abysmal.

On the other hand, it was the only flip phone I could find in the entire 
shop that says "Nokia" on it, so...

Post a reply to this message

Stephen escreveu:
> On 13/01/2011 3:50 PM, nemesis wrote:
>> or to
>> read ebooks in tiny letters...:)
> 
> With E Books, you can change the font size.

yes, but not the screen size.  Which means you can read in big letters 
and scroll all the time to see more text... :p

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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>> With E Books, you can change the font size.
>
> yes, but not the screen size. Which means you can read in big letters
> and scroll all the time to see more text... :p

Mmm, true. Still, the Kindle has a reasonable size of screen on it. 
Probably comparable to a hand-held paperback book. Looking at some of 
the weighty tomes I have in my room, most of the actual *text* isn't 
much wider, there's just more white space on the page. And there's a 
good reason for that: the wider a line of type, the harder it is for the 
eye to scan from the end of one line to the beginning of the correct 
line below it.

All of this of course goes a bit wonky once you have resizeable text on 
a fixed-size screen...

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Invisible wrote:
> decreeing "John, don't you touch it. I don't want you to bugger it up!" 

My wife constantly finger-prints up my screen, thinking it's a touch screen. 
Kind of funny, really.

> Unfortunately, now when we turn it off it just displays a boring picture 
> of a famous author, selected at random. No amount of power cycles will 
> make it display the beautiful bird image again, to my grandparents' 
> utter despair.

It will be back after half a dozen authors, then some architecture, history, 
and mathematics. There's even something that I would guess is an Enigma 
machine in the list or something.

I find it disturbing to fall asleep reading and wake up the next morning 
with Agatha Christie staring at me from the next pillow over.

> It's also not especially easy to determine whether the device is 
> actually switched on or off; 

Not sure what you mean. If it's showing the screen saver or nothing, it's 
turned off. If it's showing a book or a menu, it's on.

Hit the switch hard once, count to five, see if you have a book showing.

> As you'd expect, purchasing books for it from Amazon is... actually a 
> total PITA! Which surprised me. For reasons beyond my comprehension, you 
> *cannot* add Kindle books to your shopping basket. You can *only* 
> purchase them immediately, right then and there. 

Add the free samples as you see them. Let them go to the Kindle. Once you 
have looked at them on the kindle and you want it, push the "buy" button on 
the kindle.

 > And for every single
> individual purchase, you have to go through a dozen order processing 
> screens. 

No you don't. You just turn on one-click for kindle books.

No, you can't put them in your cart. You can use the kindle as your cart. If 
there's something you see interesting, send the sample chapter to the 
kindle.  Then delete it or buy it at your leisure.

> On the other hand, it's surprising (indeed, perplexing) how almost 
> anything you do on the Amazon website somehow affects the Kindle 
> /instantly/. I don't know how that's possible, but still. 

It's called a "network". ;-) Seriously, it's somewhat slower in the USA I 
think. At least around my house. It takes maybe five to ten seconds between 
buying a book and the Kindle starting to download it.

> Apparently it's supposed to be possible to make purchases from the 
> Kindle itself. I haven't tried this. (God only knows how you repeatedly 
> type in your credit card number on a device with keys significantly 
> smaller than a human finger...)

Don't be silly.  You link it to your account once (which they do for you 
when you buy it) and you just buy books by asking for them.

> It's certainly a nifty little toy. And it's /almost/ trivial enough to 
> operate that my grandparents might actually figure it out eventually. 

Yeah, I like how the new electronics are getting sophisticated enough they 
can be easy.

> Unfortunately, like all electronic devices, it has to scream "I can also 
> do X! And Y! And Z! And J, L, R, F, Q and I!" just to confuse people. 

I didn't see that at all, really. It's totally out of your face.  You turn 
it on, you get a list of all your books. You cursor to a book and click, and 
you're reading the book where you last stopped.

There's a lot of functionality, but it's not on screen. Indeed, it can be 
difficult to find sometimes.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Invisible escreveu:
> Reading *is* my thing, I'd just prefer to do it using a real, physical 
> book, that's all. (Plus, while I /like/ reading, I don't get to /do/ it 
> very often.)

I've got no respect for /real books/, their large volumes messing around 
with home space, their smell and yellow pages as they get old and the 
forests killed to make them.

> Besides, who wants a system that can delete the books you've paid for at 
> any time, for no defined reason?

that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and 
traditional book publishers.

> Still, it's not without advantages. (Size and weight being the obvious 
> ones, but also the ability to enlarge the text to the point that even my 
> grandparents can read it.) They're just not advances that are especially 
> important to me.

beside all those awesome advantages, you can also simply buy a new book 
in the middle of the night when you see fit.

>> That said, it's the only portable device I'd ever buy, aside from the 
>> cheapest
>> possible cell*phones* and Nintendo's upcoming 3DS.  I don't get it 
>> people who
>> buy an iPhone to answer calls in the middle of some tense gaming 
>> moment or to
>> read ebooks in tiny letters... :)
> 
> My current phone has a camera in it. I have no idea why. The images it 
> forms are just barely recognisable.
> 
> It also thinks its am MP3 player. I have no idea why. The sound quality 
> of a 2mm speaker is, obviously, abysmal.

indeed.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> yes, but not the screen size. 

My kindle screen size is only about an inch shorter and an inch narrower 
than a regular piece of paper. Or, to put it another way, it's rather larger 
than a standard paperback novel.  I can read most PDFs on it comfortably.

Indeed, for some reason, even at the usual font size, it seems easier to 
read than paper.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New escreveu:
> Invisible wrote:
>> As you'd expect, purchasing books for it from Amazon is... actually a 
>> total PITA! Which surprised me. For reasons beyond my comprehension, 
>> you *cannot* add Kindle books to your shopping basket. You can *only* 
>> purchase them immediately, right then and there. 
> 
> Add the free samples as you see them. Let them go to the Kindle. Once 
> you have looked at them on the kindle and you want it, push the "buy" 
> button on the kindle.
> 
>  > And for every single
>> individual purchase, you have to go through a dozen order processing 
>> screens. 
> 
> No you don't. You just turn on one-click for kindle books.
> 
> No, you can't put them in your cart. You can use the kindle as your 
> cart. If there's something you see interesting, send the sample chapter 
> to the kindle.  Then delete it or buy it at your leisure.

awesome!

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

Post a reply to this message

Darren New escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
>> yes, but not the screen size. 
> 
> My kindle screen size is only about an inch shorter and an inch narrower 
> than a regular piece of paper. Or, to put it another way, it's rather 
> larger than a standard paperback novel.  I can read most PDFs on it 
> comfortably.
> 
> Indeed, for some reason, even at the usual font size, it seems easier to 
> read than paper.

it's got the best screen hands down, aside from no colors and slow 
update.  But that's no problem for its primary and only use as a reading 
device with long battery life.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis escreveu:
> Darren New escreveu:
>> Invisible wrote:
>>> As you'd expect, purchasing books for it from Amazon is... actually a 
>>> total PITA! Which surprised me. For reasons beyond my comprehension, 
>>> you *cannot* add Kindle books to your shopping basket. You can *only* 
>>> purchase them immediately, right then and there. 
>>
>> Add the free samples as you see them. Let them go to the Kindle. Once 
>> you have looked at them on the kindle and you want it, push the "buy" 
>> button on the kindle.
>>
>>  > And for every single
>>> individual purchase, you have to go through a dozen order processing 
>>> screens. 
>>
>> No you don't. You just turn on one-click for kindle books.
>>
>> No, you can't put them in your cart. You can use the kindle as your 
>> cart. If there's something you see interesting, send the sample 
>> chapter to the kindle.  Then delete it or buy it at your leisure.
> 
> awesome!
> 

BTW, would you know if the interactive fiction game in my sign or any of 
them from

http://parchment.toolness.com/

work in kindle?  They are all playable through this javascript 
interpreter, which I'm afraid won't quite run...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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> I've got no respect for /real books/, their large volumes messing around
> with home space, their smell and yellow pages as they get old and the
> forests killed to make them.

Uhuh.

Last time I checked, most paper comes from renewable sources these days. 
People grow trees as crops, much as they crow wheat or barley as crops. 
There's a lot of profit to be made from renewable wood and paper.

Electronics, on the other hand, requires large amounts of energy for its 
production, and lots of exotic and usually toxic substances that are 
rare and difficult to find, and difficult to deal with once the device 
is no longer wanted.

And, uh, /which/ one of these is more sustainable?

As for the rest, I possess quite a few books, and none of them are 
yellow yet. Space is a valid concern.

>> Besides, who wants a system that can delete the books you've paid for
>> at any time, for no defined reason?
>
> that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and
> traditional book publishers.

Erm, no, it's a documented fact. People actually have had their books 
deleted. Twice.

>> Still, it's not without advantages. (Size and weight being the obvious
>> ones, but also the ability to enlarge the text to the point that even
>> my grandparents can read it.) They're just not advances that are
>> especially important to me.
>
> beside all those awesome advantages, you can also simply buy a new book
> in the middle of the night when you see fit.

That is quite neat, but given how often I buy books, hardly persuasive. 
Plus there's the utterly tiny range of books available for the Kindle. 
(I have no idea about other e-readers, but the Kindle range is very 
small indeed.)

Post a reply to this message

nemesis wrote:
> it's got the best screen hands down, aside from no colors and slow 
> update.  But that's no problem for its primary and only use as a reading 
> device with long battery life.

Yep. And Qualcomm is coming out with one that's fast enough to play video 
and full color, that they claim uses even less power than the B&W e-ink 
screens. That'll be cool.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

nemesis wrote:
> that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and 
> traditional book publishers.

Well, they've done it twice already. My response is that it's so rare you 
can just go out and buy the book on paper if it happens to you.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

> My wife constantly finger-prints up my screen, thinking it's a touch
> screen. Kind of funny, really.

Hee. Yeah, my mum's seen my sister playing with her iPhone, and thought 
maybe the Kindle could do the same. (I, of course, realise that its 
display technology can't update that fast, and it would waste huge 
amounts of power if it tried.)

I'm somewhat puzzled has to how the iPhone can actually work. Why the 
screen isn't scratched to pieces yet, or covered in a 4-inch thick layer 
of skin oils. (Or how my sister can afford to own one, for that matter...)

> I find it disturbing to fall asleep reading and wake up the next morning
> with Agatha Christie staring at me from the next pillow over.

That would be disturbing indeed. O_O

>> It's also not especially easy to determine whether the device is
>> actually switched on or off;
>
> Not sure what you mean. If it's showing the screen saver or nothing,
> it's turned off. If it's showing a book or a menu, it's on.
>
> Hit the switch hard once, count to five, see if you have a book showing.

Well, with most devices, either there's a bunch of status lights and 
stuff lit up, or it's all blank. The Kindle is /never/ blank. And the 
power light only comes on momentarily, so you can't use that as an 
indication either... It takes some getting used to.

>> As you'd expect, purchasing books for it from Amazon is... actually a
>> total PITA! Which surprised me. For reasons beyond my comprehension,
>> you *cannot* add Kindle books to your shopping basket. You can *only*
>> purchase them immediately, right then and there.
>
> Add the free samples as you see them. Let them go to the Kindle. Once
> you have looked at them on the kindle and you want it, push the "buy"
> button on the kindle.

Do all books provide a free sample? I thought it was only a tiny 
minority of them. (In particular, I don't recall seeing a button for it 
anywhere on the website...)

>> And for every single
>> individual purchase, you have to go through a dozen order processing
>> screens.
>
> No you don't. You just turn on one-click for kindle books.

Like I say, I clicked the big yellow "1-click order" button, and waded 
through a dozen screens to make the purchase. I assumed that would be 
just the first time, but... no. /Every/ purchase was the same.

> No, you can't put them in your cart. You can use the kindle as your
> cart. If there's something you see interesting, send the sample chapter
> to the kindle. Then delete it or buy it at your leisure.

As I say, that only works if every book has a sample chapter.

>> On the other hand, it's surprising (indeed, perplexing) how almost
>> anything you do on the Amazon website somehow affects the Kindle
>> /instantly/. I don't know how that's possible, but still.
>
> It's called a "network". ;-)

Yes. And it's intractably expensive to build one. And virtually 
impossible to build one with good coverage. So....... how?

>> Apparently it's supposed to be possible to make purchases from the
>> Kindle itself. I haven't tried this. (God only knows how you
>> repeatedly type in your credit card number on a device with keys
>> significantly smaller than a human finger...)
>
> Don't be silly. You link it to your account once (which they do for you
> when you buy it) and you just buy books by asking for them.

Well, given that I'd already linked the Kindle to the account and I was 
logged into Amazon with that account, I had expected "1-click order" to 
immediately order the thing... but no.

>> It's certainly a nifty little toy. And it's /almost/ trivial enough to
>> operate that my grandparents might actually figure it out eventually.
>
> Yeah, I like how the new electronics are getting sophisticated enough
> they can be easy.

I presume I'm not the only person to appreciate the sheer irony.

>> Unfortunately, like all electronic devices, it has to scream "I can
>> also do X! And Y! And Z! And J, L, R, F, Q and I!" just to confuse
>> people.
>
> I didn't see that at all, really. It's totally out of your face. You
> turn it on, you get a list of all your books. You cursor to a book and
> click, and you're reading the book where you last stopped.
>
> There's a lot of functionality, but it's not on screen. Indeed, it can
> be difficult to find sometimes.

Well, as soon as it came out of the box, everybody [except me] seemed to 
be pouring over the quick-start sheet, trying to figure out the meaning 
of every individual sentence and memorise each individual feature. We 
switched it on, bought some books and got the pages to turn, and people 
are still asking me "so how do you work it then?"

(In particular, apparently it has a web browser. Why you'd want that, I 
don't know. But I'm being urged to find out how it works - I'm guessing 
"badly". :-P )

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Invisible wrote:
> Erm, no, it's a documented fact. People actually have had their books 
> deleted. Twice.

Actually only *deleted* once. The second time, it was just removed from the 
store. It was unclear from the articles I read whether it was actually 
removed from the devices that had already purchased it as well. (I.e., if 
you read exactly what the article said, the answer is "no". If you assume 
the reporter was typing exactly what Amazon said, the answer is "no". If you 
read all the rhetoric surrounding it, the answer is "yes".)

> (I have no idea about other e-readers, but the Kindle range is very 
> small indeed.)

It's different. There are wads of tech papers you can get electronically 
that aren't for sale on paper, for example.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 13/01/2011 4:23 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Stephen escreveu:
>> On 13/01/2011 3:50 PM, nemesis wrote:
>>> or to
>>> read ebooks in tiny letters...:)
>>
>> With E Books, you can change the font size.
>
> yes, but not the screen size. Which means you can read in big letters
> and scroll all the time to see more text... :p
>

Scrolling is easy, just keep your thumb on the scroll button and press 
it when you want to change page or flick the screen with your thumb nail.
I’ve been reading books for more than 50 years, yes I was a slow 
starter, and I took to it like a duck to water. One of the things I like 
is the weight, no more sore wrists when reading a tome in bed.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 13/01/2011 4:50 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Yep. And Qualcomm is coming out with one that's fast enough to play
> video and full color, that they claim uses even less power than the B&W
> e-ink screens. That'll be cool.

Sounds good.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Stephen escreveu:
> I’ve been reading books for more than 50 years, yes I was a slow 
> starter, and I took to it like a duck to water. One of the things I like 
> is the weight, no more sore wrists when reading a tome in bed.

oh, the irony of seeing a 50-years old book reader enjoying new fangled 
tech and the geek youngster bashing it... LOL...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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On 13/01/2011 4:41 PM, Invisible wrote:
> (I have no idea about other e-readers, but the Kindle range is very
> small indeed.)

I don’t believe that, you’ve just not looked.
Unless of course the Kindle cannot upload from a PC.


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Invisible escreveu:
>> I've got no respect for /real books/, their large volumes messing around
>> with home space, their smell and yellow pages as they get old and the
>> forests killed to make them.
> 
> Uhuh.
> 
> Last time I checked, most paper comes from renewable sources these days. 
> People grow trees as crops, much as they crow wheat or barley as crops. 
> There's a lot of profit to be made from renewable wood and paper.
> 
> Electronics, on the other hand, requires large amounts of energy for its 
> production, and lots of exotic and usually toxic substances that are 
> rare and difficult to find, and difficult to deal with once the device 
> is no longer wanted.
> 
> And, uh, /which/ one of these is more sustainable?

Trees are consumed much faster than grown.  20 years to grow one, 1 
minute to bring it down to create some, what, 1000 books?  How many 
books are consumed over 20 years, let alone paper for office printing, 
toilet paper, comic book paper, newspaper paper etc?...

eInk doesn't consume much energy.  OTOH, I'm unsure about its 
durability... not that it matters if it's cheap.

>>> Besides, who wants a system that can delete the books you've paid for
>>> at any time, for no defined reason?
>>
>> that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and
>> traditional book publishers.
> 
> Erm, no, it's a documented fact. People actually have had their books 
> deleted. Twice.

once.

> That is quite neat, but given how often I buy books, hardly persuasive. 
> Plus there's the utterly tiny range of books available for the Kindle. 
> (I have no idea about other e-readers, but the Kindle range is very 
> small indeed.)

http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

that's one good reason for the web browser, BTW.  Another is wikipedia 
always at hand... :)

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> work in kindle?  They are all playable through this javascript 
> interpreter, which I'm afraid won't quite run...

It doesn't seem like it, but the browser has a "basic" mode and a "desktop" 
mode, plus you can turn off javascript. So I'm not sure I have it configured 
right and I don't have time to play with it at the moment. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Darren New escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
>> work in kindle?  They are all playable through this javascript 
>> interpreter, which I'm afraid won't quite run...
> 
> It doesn't seem like it, but the browser has a "basic" mode and a 
> "desktop" mode, plus you can turn off javascript. So I'm not sure I have 
> it configured right and I don't have time to play with it at the moment. 
> :-)

no prob.  It'd be just a cool bonus.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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On 13/01/2011 5:02 PM, nemesis wrote:
> Stephen escreveu:
>> I’ve been reading books for more than 50 years, yes I was a slow
>> starter, and I took to it like a duck to water. One of the things I
>> like is the weight, no more sore wrists when reading a tome in bed.
>
> oh, the irony of seeing a 50-years old book reader enjoying new fangled
> tech and the geek youngster bashing it... LOL...
>

Indeed!
But you got the years wrong. It is 60 and I did say that I was a late 
starter. ;-)

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Stephen wrote:
> On 13/01/2011 4:50 PM, Darren New wrote:
>> Yep. And Qualcomm is coming out with one that's fast enough to play
>> video and full color, that they claim uses even less power than the B&W
>> e-ink screens. That'll be cool.
> 
> Sounds good.
> 

That's the link I was looking for.

http://www.slashgear.com/qualcomm-mirasol-color-ereader-hands-on-0869191/

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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nemesis wrote:
> 20 years to grow one,

Not even close to 20 years. Nobody cares if your paper comes from a GMO. 
Think 2 to 5 years.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Invisible wrote:
> Well, with most devices, either there's a bunch of status lights and 
> stuff lit up, or it's all blank. The Kindle is /never/ blank.

It is if you turn it all the way off.  Hold the power switch until the 
screen goes blank, and it turns off the radio and everything else.

> And the 
> power light only comes on momentarily, so you can't use that as an 
> indication either... It takes some getting used to.

I'm not sure how hard it can be. If you want to read a book, and it's not 
showing text, hit the switch.  If you're done reading the book and you want 
to put the kindle somewhere the buttons might get pressed, hit the switch.

> Do all books provide a free sample?

I've not seen any that don't. I just checked 10 of 10 do, so I assume they 
all do.

> I thought it was only a tiny 
> minority of them. (In particular, I don't recall seeing a button for it 
> anywhere on the website...)

On the right, right under "buy" and "add to wish list".

> Like I say, I clicked the big yellow "1-click order" button, and waded 
> through a dozen screens to make the purchase. I assumed that would be 
> just the first time, but... no. /Every/ purchase was the same.

You didn't turn on one-click ordering. It's a separate step. And one-click 
from the web site can be off even tho one-click from the kindle is on. 
Security, remember?

> As I say, that only works if every book has a sample chapter.

Find me one that doesn't.

> Yes. And it's intractably expensive to build one. And virtually 
> impossible to build one with good coverage. So....... how?

There's a cell phone modem inside the device. I thought you already knew 
this. You pay for the coverage as part of the books you purchase. Amazon 
buys minutes in bulk from whatever service provider, and give them to you.

> Well, given that I'd already linked the Kindle to the account and I was 
> logged into Amazon with that account, I had expected "1-click order" to 
> immediately order the thing... but no.

It does, on the kindle. It does, if you turn it on on the web site.

You have to actually read the instructions, perhaps, to turn it on.

> are still asking me "so how do you work it then?"

They *expect* it to be difficult.

> (In particular, apparently it has a web browser. Why you'd want that, I 
> don't know. But I'm being urged to find out how it works - I'm guessing 
> "badly". :-P )

It's under the "experimental" menu on the home page. It works fine for 
static pages like google or wikipedia. You're not going to be playing flash 
games on it.  I use it to get to gmail when I'm traveling abroad where I 
don't have other internet connectivity.

It works OK if you use it for *browsing*. It's not that good if you try to 
use it as an application interface.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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nemesis wrote:
> Darren New escreveu:
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> work in kindle?  They are all playable through this javascript 
>>> interpreter, which I'm afraid won't quite run...
>>
>> It doesn't seem like it, but the browser has a "basic" mode and a 
>> "desktop" mode, plus you can turn off javascript. So I'm not sure I 
>> have it configured right and I don't have time to play with it at the 
>> moment. :-)
> 
> no prob.  It'd be just a cool bonus.

Yeah. I wonder if one could fix it up to run better on the Kindle. They do 
have various games. If I was getting into Kindle programming instead of xbox 
programming, I'd very much try to make that work. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On 13/01/2011 5:22 PM, Darren New wrote:
>
> That's the link I was looking for.
>
> http://www.slashgear.com/qualcomm-mirasol-color-ereader-hands-on-0869191/
>

Thanks for the link.

I want!


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Darren New escreveu:
> nemesis wrote:
>> Darren New escreveu:
>>> nemesis wrote:
>>>> work in kindle?  They are all playable through this javascript 
>>>> interpreter, which I'm afraid won't quite run...
>>>
>>> It doesn't seem like it, but the browser has a "basic" mode and a 
>>> "desktop" mode, plus you can turn off javascript. So I'm not sure I 
>>> have it configured right and I don't have time to play with it at the 
>>> moment. :-)
>>
>> no prob.  It'd be just a cool bonus.
> 
> Yeah. I wonder if one could fix it up to run better on the Kindle. They 
> do have various games. If I was getting into Kindle programming instead 
> of xbox programming, I'd very much try to make that work. :-)

so, it does run but not quite perfect, is that?

I saw a friend's kindle and it didn't seem to display CSS at all.  So 
perhaps the interface is just mangled because of CSS, but as for the 
actual javascript, it runs and is able to interpret commands fine?

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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nemesis wrote:
> so, it does run but not quite perfect, is that?

No. It doesn't even show me the menu of choices, as if the javascript is 
turned off or something.

I go to the tinyURL, it refreshes/redirects/whatever, and says

PARCHMENT
is an intepreter for interactive fiction.  _find_ _out_ _more_

And then nothing after that. Altho it loads 75K or so.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:12:25 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Besides, who wants a system that can delete the books you've paid for at
> any time, for no defined reason?

That's what backups are for. With my Nook, I back everything up so if 
they delete the books for some reason, I have non-DRM versions of the 
books I can "sideload" onto the device.  (Yes, I typically do strip the 
DRM from my purchases; they're my purchases, after all).

> My current phone has a camera in it. I have no idea why. The images it
> forms are just barely recognisable.

I find that the camera in my phone (HTC Droid Incredible) aren't bad, but 
if I want to do something more than just show my wife something when I'm 
traveling, I'll use a camera - even a lower pixel density camera (after 
all, it's not just about the number of megapixels).

> It also thinks its am MP3 player. I have no idea why. The sound quality
> of a 2mm speaker is, obviously, abysmal.

That's what headphones or speakers are for.  I have an external speaker 
that I use with my phone when I want to listen to Slacker.com or part of 
my MP3 collection.  But I also use an iPod since I've got speaker docks 
that work with it.

Jim

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On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:54:15 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Actually only *deleted* once. The second time, it was just removed from
> the store. It was unclear from the articles I read whether it was
> actually removed from the devices that had already purchased it as well.
> (I.e., if you read exactly what the article said, the answer is "no". If
> you assume the reporter was typing exactly what Amazon said, the answer
> is "no". If you read all the rhetoric surrounding it, the answer is
> "yes".)

Removed from the archive as well - so if you bought them and archived 
them, they were gone.

Jim

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On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:41:35 +0000, Invisible wrote:

> Electronics, on the other hand, requires large amounts of energy for its
> production, and lots of exotic and usually toxic substances that are
> rare and difficult to find, and difficult to deal with once the device
> is no longer wanted.
> 
> And, uh, /which/ one of these is more sustainable?

Studies have been done that show that if you purchase "x" electronic 
books per month (I forget how many, but it was a small number, 2-3 
maybe), after a year of using the same device, you've become more 
sustainable than dead tree books.

Jim

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On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:28:53 -0200, nemesis wrote:

> that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and
> traditional book publishers.

Um, no, they did actually delete one title (an Orwell book, IIRC), and 
then they stopped selling another title and deleted it from people's 
archive (but not the device).

The first incidence created quite a kerfuffle on the 'net.  I'm surprised 
you didn't see any of it.

Jim

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On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:51:47 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> nemesis wrote:
>> that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and
>> traditional book publishers.
> 
> Well, they've done it twice already. My response is that it's so rare
> you can just go out and buy the book on paper if it happens to you.

Except that you've already paid for it, so why should you pay again for 
it?

Jim

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Jim Henderson escreveu:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:28:53 -0200, nemesis wrote:
> 
>> that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and
>> traditional book publishers.
> 
> Um, no, they did actually delete one title (an Orwell book, IIRC)

hope it was not 1984 or else it'd be too much of an irony...

> The first incidence created quite a kerfuffle on the 'net.  I'm surprised 
> you didn't see any of it.

I saw the first one, the second was mostly FUD.

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Removed from the archive as well - so if you bought them and archived 
> them, they were gone.

Well, yes. That goes with the "archive" bit, I thought.

I guess if you bought it, deleted it, and then they removed it from the 
archive, you were screwed, yes. I hadn't thought of that.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:51:47 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> nemesis wrote:
>>> that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and
>>> traditional book publishers.
>> Well, they've done it twice already. My response is that it's so rare
>> you can just go out and buy the book on paper if it happens to you.
> 
> Except that you've already paid for it, so why should you pay again for 
> it?

Well, amazon gives you the money back when this happens, generally speaking.

If not, it's low on my list of problems to worry about. Like, what happens 
if this old game I already beat has DRM that doesn't work on the new 
computer?  Annoying, but not like "hey, stop foreclosing on my house" or 
something.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 11:36:00 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 08:51:47 -0800, Darren New wrote:
>> 
>>> nemesis wrote:
>>>> that's plain FUD last time I heard, both from tree killers and
>>>> traditional book publishers.
>>> Well, they've done it twice already. My response is that it's so rare
>>> you can just go out and buy the book on paper if it happens to you.
>> 
>> Except that you've already paid for it, so why should you pay again for
>> it?
> 
> Well, amazon gives you the money back when this happens, generally
> speaking.
> 
> If not, it's low on my list of problems to worry about. Like, what
> happens if this old game I already beat has DRM that doesn't work on the
> new computer?  Annoying, but not like "hey, stop foreclosing on my
> house" or something.

Some people like to refer back to the books they bought and already read, 
that's my point.

Jim

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nemesis <nam### [at] gmailcom> wrote:
> That said, it's the only portable device I'd ever buy, aside from the cheapest
> possible cell*phones* and Nintendo's upcoming 3DS.  I don't get it people who
> buy an iPhone to answer calls in the middle of some tense gaming moment or to
> read ebooks in tiny letters... :)

  Some people use it as a game console. Others appreciate the ability to
browse the internet from anywhere.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Some people like to refer back to the books they bought and already read, 
> that's my point.

Sure. You buy Animal Farm for the Kindle. You pay $10. You read it on your 
Kindle. Amazon deletes it off your Kindle and gives you your $10 back. You 
drive to B&N and buy a paper copy for $10.

I'm not saying it's good that Amazon can do this, but on the grand scale 
from "inconvenience" to "catastrophe", it seems it's much closer to the former.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

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On Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:13:29 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Some people like to refer back to the books they bought and already
>> read, that's my point.
> 
> Sure. You buy Animal Farm for the Kindle. You pay $10. You read it on
> your Kindle. Amazon deletes it off your Kindle and gives you your $10
> back. You drive to B&N and buy a paper copy for $10.
> 
> I'm not saying it's good that Amazon can do this, but on the grand scale
> from "inconvenience" to "catastrophe", it seems it's much closer to the
> former.

It's that "generally speaking" that bothers me.  Is it in Amazon's terms 
that if they delete a book from your device/archive, they will give you a 
refund?

Jim

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On 13/01/2011 05:22 PM, Darren New wrote:

> That's the link I was looking for.
>
> http://www.slashgear.com/qualcomm-mirasol-color-ereader-hands-on-0869191/

That display looks very, very dark. Maybe it's just a bad picture, but 
it looks almost unreadable.

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On 13/01/2011 05:11 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 13/01/2011 4:41 PM, Invisible wrote:
>> (I have no idea about other e-readers, but the Kindle range is very
>> small indeed.)
>
> I don’t believe that, you’ve just not looked.

Riiiight. So the bit where I sat there looking up my grandparent's 
favourite authors and found that most of them had zero or one books 
available for the Kindle, but dozens or hundreds in dead tree format... 
that was all a figment of my imagination, yes?

> Unless of course the Kindle cannot upload from a PC.

How does that help?

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> My current phone has a camera in it. I have no idea why. The images it
> forms are just barely recognisable.

I mainly use mine to replace jotting down notes while out and about.  If 
I see something in a shop I like the look of, just take a snap of the 
price/detail sticker on it, or the other day I needed to get some 
replacement part for my garage door, so I just took a snap of the model 
number sticker on the inside then looked it up later.

> It also thinks its am MP3 player. I have no idea why. The sound quality
> of a 2mm speaker is, obviously, abysmal.

A lot of people like to listen to music whilst travelling (using 
headphones), having such functionality in a phone saves having to carry 
an additional device.

> On the other hand, it was the only flip phone I could find in the entire
> shop that says "Nokia" on it, so...

Yes, unfortunately flip-phones seem to have rather gone out of fashion, 
in the UK at least.

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On 14/01/2011 9:02 AM, Invisible wrote:
> On 13/01/2011 05:11 PM, Stephen wrote:
>> On 13/01/2011 4:41 PM, Invisible wrote:
>>> (I have no idea about other e-readers, but the Kindle range is very
>>> small indeed.)
>>
>> I don’t believe that, you’ve just not looked.
>
> Riiiight. So the bit where I sat there looking up my grandparent's
> favourite authors and found that most of them had zero or one books
> available for the Kindle, but dozens or hundreds in dead tree format...
> that was all a figment of my imagination, yes?
>

Looked in the right places.

>> Unless of course the Kindle cannot upload from a PC.
>
> How does that help?

There are lots of places where you can download ebooks to your PC.
For instance:

http://www.archive.org/details/texts

http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page


-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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