Mother Jones - Comments for "Kindle v. Kindling"

To me your numbers are way

To me your numbers are way off, at least if you define the terms as I do. When you say "Share of Total Taxes" I think percentage of Federal Tax Revenue paid. In that sense the top Quintile pays about 70% of the taxes not the 28% you list. But you must mean "Effective Tax Rate" which would make more sense. Using "Tax Share" is how Republicans like to talk about taxes. Theytiffany jewelry

tiffany and co
conveniently don't mention "Income Share". Ezra Klein has a good post on this here: http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/ezraklein_archive?

"Cause that's all you'll get

"Cause that's all you'll get before it disappears"

I think the Orwell thing is unlikely to be repeated. Or, at least, it'll be self-limiting.

Publishers yanking back their ebooks will only cause readers to download pirated versions instead of buying them.

You can put any text, html, .doc, rtf, or (on the DX) PDF file on a kindle, so it's not like buyers are locked into using Amazon's DRM'd files.

I look at buying a kindle as

I look at buying a kindle as being like buying a nice chair to read in. It's just a tool for reading.

netbooks

"Until the eBook reader technology matures, it is possible to use a laptop (or netbook) to read eBooks"

Not in sunlight, you can't. At least, not easily. And one-handed reading of a netbook, rotated or not, is going to get awkward. I've run for the bus with my kindle in one hand, which I wouldn't want to do while holding an open netbook.

I already have a laptop, which is too big and heavy to be a suitable portable ebook reader. And since I already have a laptop, I'm not about to go buy a netbook.

These comments seem

These comments seem preponderantly anti-Kindle--I wonder how many of you have actually tried it? I have two Kindles (original and dx versions) and I love them. Yes, they could be a lot better--the original is horrible for graphs and maps (although the dx is a big improvement) and sometimes the layout is horrible. And often I can't find exactly what I want in the Amazon store--I suspect the two problems are related, since the horrible layout is the result of the need to get as much material as possible into kindle-compatible format as fast as possible. I assume that in the long run editions produced with the Kindle in mind will become available, as Kevin suggests, fixing many of these problems.

But even with the problems, having a Kindle is a huge improvement over lugging around a sack of books. I read a lot--typically, at least a book a day--and it's great to know I don't have to worry about getting caught waiting somewhere without anything to read. I love being able to download a new book whenever I want one, without waiting or making a detour to a bookstore. That doesn't mean I don't go to bookstores anymore--lots of things aren't available on Kindle, and sometimes I want hard copies for reference. But for me the convenience of the Kindle far outweighs its flaws.

No real disagreement

OK, I actually don't disagree with that, e-books definitely aren't for everyone. I think they're actually useful for a fairly narrow audience. In answer to your question, the main things that draw me to the Kindle are:

a. The portability. The ability to have multiple books with me at once so I don't have to decide which book I'm going to read before I go out. One of the very few DRM books I've bought is Infinite Jest. With the hardcopy, I was forced to decide in the morning whether I'd read IJ or something else that day, while with the Kindle it's always there along with the other books I'm currently reading.

b. The dictionary/web lookup access. If I'm reading in French or Spanish, I really want a dictionary nearby. With the Kindle it's built in. This was actually the primary reason I got into e-books in the first place and is related to the portability thing. This is nice in English as well, though not as much a necessity.

c. Having *something* with portable web access is almost a necessity these days, and with the Kindle there's no monthly charge, and it's a bit better than most cellphone web access. And the "save it and read it later" aspect gets me away from the computer more, which is invaluable.

d. The fact that most books I read are now free helped offset the selling price quite a bit. All in all, it's the foreign language stuff that really makes the Kindle worthwhile to me. Finding the original version of some secondary Balzac novel is very difficult in a library or bookstore and is expensive to order, but it's easy to find online and free to download.

eBooks are the way of the

eBooks are the way of the future, but Amazon's approach is deficient.

Not only does Amazon itself have a model with a larger screen than the one Kevin seems to have -- but other companies have readers that support PDF (needed for good rendering of technical material) and other business models will be more flexible than Amazon's.

Barnes and Noble just announced a major entry into this market with support for a variety of devices including phones, laptops, and desktops, as well as for a new device from Plastic Logic that looks very interesting: standard paper size screen, unbreakable plastic, PDF support, etc. (see plasticlogic.com).

Besides being environmentally friendly, eBooks (with good reader software) make it easy to search, look up words in a dictionary (or on Google), underline and take notes (with the option of hiding them), copy/paste to other documents (subject to DRM), etc. There is no way this technology will not replace the dead tree version. If you are a student writing a paper on the Iliad, try finding all the places where Achilles (or Thersites) speaks by turning pages and scanning visually. Then use an electronic search. You will be at a serious disadvantage with the former. And when school is over, you can carry all your school books with you -- for the rest of your life -- stored in thin air rather than in dozens of heavy boxes.

Until the eBook reader technology matures, it is possible to use a laptop (or netbook) to read eBooks. PDFs can be rotated, so a netbook with the size and weight of a hardcover can be held like a book. And there is a wide choice of reader software for many different eBook formats.

@woofwoof I guess what I'm

@woofwoof I guess what I'm saying is that I don't understand what personal or customer need the kindle actually serves on a wide scale. I understand what it does for retailers since it gives them another platform to deliver instant content, and for publishers who can skip the physical costs of printing books. But beyond portability I don't (or didn't until I read some of the comments above) see what it does for readers/customers, and I still don't see much of anything that would make it a commanding choice for me. I do enjoy the form of books, but I'm not trying to fetishize their physical properties here, I just don't see them as a broken medium, tho I know that the economics fo modern publishing disagree with me here. I also don't see long form text as "content" that divorces so easily from the medium that has so far shaped its aesthetic principles.

Reading newspapers, blogs, etc. on some kind of smaller-than-a-laptop portable text browser does make sense to me, especially one where I could save individual articles. (can you do that?) Other than that though, i don't see why it would be preferable to read a long novel on a browser than on the page. Is it really just the portability? the instant gratification of shopping online and getting the "book" right in that moment? If it's much the latter, the nature of the transaction justifying a less pleasing (even slightly) experience, then it really seems like a bad trade off in terms of what we do with that "content": read it.

Now some of the reading I do I have to have printed matter in front of me for, since I take notes in the margins, underline, etc. And, if Kindles, etc. were super cheap I suppose I'd be happy to have one for newspapers and travel. But I'm curious: for those of you who do have them and use them for reading long form text, what is it in the experience of reading that makes it worthwhile, worth the money? Is it entirely a lifestyle thing- don't want an apartment full of books, don't want to mess with trips to the library, etc. or is there something I'm missing?

Device cost

What I guess I still don't get is why pay $300 up front for the equivalent of the power to then buy books. As far as paying to learn how to read, I guess I had enough fancy education, but still....

How about eschewing Amazon

How about eschewing Amazon altogether? Except as a source for researching a particular book - what it's about, what others thought of it. Then go down to your local independent book seller, if you're fortunate enough to have one. They probably won't have it on hand, but they'll be glad to order it for you. So it takes a couple of days. If you're like me, you'll have plenty of things to read in the interim.

Yes, it is readable outdoors

e-ink screens, like calculator LCD screens, don't emit light; they reflect ambient light just like paper, which means the contrast is better the more light you have around you. Laptop screens emit light, and have to compete against ambient light to make themselves viewable.

High tech versus high touch

A lot has been said in the comments above, but the following has not. Yes, of course, old fossils like me buy bound paper and ink books. But when I'm through, I donate them to a needy library, so other people can enjoy. And nobody can erase them.

I really dont understand why

I really dont understand why anyone would buy a Kindle when there are so many other cooler, better, non-drm solutions on the market.

My favorite is the Bookeen from a french company that is frequently on a backorder. It makes no sense to me why people would pay for an electronic copy of a book. Maybe if the electronic copy was included in the purchase price of the hard copy, that would be cool, otherwise just download the pdf. Not a lot different than going to borders and reading a couple of chapters before you put it back on the shelf.

I think Kindle would be nice

I think Kindle would be nice for traveling, especially, but despite the pile growing around my bed, I still like books. One nice thing about books is that you can share them by giving them away. Depending on content, I give books to my local nursing home, library, daycare center and Safeway -- which runs an impromptu book shop that takes donated books and sells everything for a dollar to raise money for charity.

an answer

Yes, it's completely readable outdoors; there's no glare issue at all. I think people tend to have the idea that the Kindle screen is like a cellphone or small computer, but e-ink is really completely different.