I'm being slightly bitchy.

[rocknload]

I'd love to have a Kindle. I'd love to have like hundreds of books with me at all times and my choice of which to read. It's like an iPod. But for books. And who hates iPods? I mean I love my records but they take up so much space, and I can't take them everywhere, and CDs were fun but also quite a bit limiting, but now my 15 GB-sized music collection goes everywhere with me. Sure, a Kindle would require batteries, that I don't refute, but so does my cell phone and I don't think anyone would argue that the old rotary phone wired to my mother's office wall is more convenient because of this. I could wirelessly download things for cheap, or free, without going to the one bookstore we have across town. Bonus, it's way better for the environment than regular books, where do you think paper comes from? And how do you think they get boxes of books from place to place? I would use the shit out of that thing and probably love it forever, and I'd almost certainly read a lot more.

Dude. Amazing. Why does everyone get so snooty about these things?

... God, I really do want one now. Amazon has a deal with Sprint which lets you connect to their network anywhere for free. Maybe if I send Amazon ten dollars a month they'll let me have one in ... three years.

Comments

[maxiboom.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything here. Except I could never get one because they do not exist in Canada. Aside from also never being able to afford one.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure I'll never have one because I can't at all imagine being in a position to go, "Wow, I have four hundred dollars and nothing to spend it on. Wait, I know!" It's lame that they don't exist in Canada, though, I wonder if they couldn't strike a deal with any wireless providers up there?

[maxiboom.livejournal.com]

It's okay, within a decade the technology will mature and then they will be overflowing out of garbage cans! Hooray for the inevitability of cheap access due to disposable culture!

They could, and for all I really know they already have. But I do know the business practices of Canadian phone and internet providers piss the hell off of American product distributors (as well as everyone else, generally speaking), so there's always that barrier to overcome.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

I wonder what the Canadian providers do, since American providers are also freaking obnoxious but they still manage to muddle through, but maybe they have no choice.

But yeah, I bet the readers and ebooks and other digitally formatted stuff will become extremely widely available really quick, if only for the advantages of cheapness and the fact that it doesn't cost anything to transport it. I don't think books are going to die out or anything but the convenience of this sort of thing can't be discounted.

[maxiboom.livejournal.com]

This is where I don't really know much about it, but mainly I gather it's their willingness to gouge the public with glee. Also, the incredible degree to which Canada is not upgrading it's networks.

I'd really like to hear an argument against the rise of screen-distributed literature that didn't rely on "people don't like reading from screens", because that it so incredibly obviously an argument from the other side of the generation gap. So I wonder if there is a real one. As well, while physical books aren't going to disappear, I am curious what distribution is going to look like in the future. I gather writing, as much as it always was, is essentially a non-paying career now, and book sales continue to slide ever downward. Plus there's those machines I can't remember the name of right now, that print and bind a book for you right there. I gather that's still got a ways to go, but the technology already exists, in practice.

[unicorn]

I would never read again because my librarian mother couldn't send me books for free on it.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

Having one would not make paper books somehow inaccessible to you!

[unicorn]

It wouldn't, but it also wouldn't be worth the expenditure for the amount I'd use it. I am too deep in the old paradigm.

[paella]

I keep seeing those on the planes I've been on during my trips. Last trip I went on, I got seated next to a middle aged man with a Kindle both on the way there and the way back. It was kinda amusing.

And as much as I agree that they would be a damn useful object, they're still way too fucking much for what they do. Make them cheaper, plz.

[rocknload.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, they're way too much money. I mean, it'd be nice if there was something that did the same thing or similar but was way cheaper, too, like how you have iPods but also cheaper mp3 players that aren't as fancy but still get the job done.

[paella]

Yeah. Well, I'm sure once the patent/copyright goes up, there will be tons of rip off ones like that?

[secret-hotel.livejournal.com]

Although I completely agree with all your points, there's just something about having a book in your hands and turning the pages that I think I'd severely miss. (And the aesthetic factor that a shelf full of books looks so nice.) Maybe if the price goes down, and they release a color version. But then again, being in front of the computer screen is already destroying my eyes so...

[elspeth-vimes.livejournal.com]

I have no problem with them! They are incredibly useful devices. Though I could never use one, my habits lead to me thinking much more effectively with paper. Also, I don't think I should add that much more time in front of a lighted screen.

You know, Sony makes something similar, but I don't think they've got the catalogue that the Kindle does.