Jᴀᴄᴜʀᴜᴛᴜ - Tʜᴇ Cᴀsᴛ Oᴜᴛ

It's not trapped if you choose to be in there. I don't think very many iPhone or ITMS users feel trapped. At least we're not limited to Amazon's e-books, a commonly held misconception. As to streaming media, sure I'd have to think about it before pulling the trigger on a Fire, but shit I'm already so far into the Amazon pipeline that I can't see it being a problem.

I'm not saying bookstores will ever be toast (200 years from now they'll still exist... if we still do), I'm betting that stores like Chapters and such will either die out or massively change their business models.

What I expect is that eventually new releases will be mainly digital and the hardcopies will be more expensive. So I imagine that instead of there being "new" book stores, and "used" book stores, the current used book stores will just add a small section for new books, and will also handle a lot of special orders for anything other than bestsellers. Pretty much exactly what we see with vinyl (just more widespread, every city will always have 10 or 20 bookstores to each vinyl store).

Amazon continues to go for the jugular, and B&N responded in a foolish tantrum today: Amazon bought up exclusive rights to DC Comics' digital library, something BN has wanted access to for the Nook. BN responded by yanking those titles from stores which IMHO was not the correct response.

I hate exclusive deals like that. M$ has been nad-kicking pc gamers for years with the damn xbox, buying up titles and causing most pc titles to be crappy ports of a game.

Ampoliros wrote:I hate exclusive deals like that. M$ has been nad-kicking pc gamers for years with the damn xbox, buying up titles and causing most pc titles to be crappy ports of a game.

Is that what happened with Resident Evil?

I just took the cheapest e-reader I could find on a three-week campaign up thru the Indian Nations & into SW Missouri ...

no wireless capabilities at all, just drag & drop from a computer - turns out this thing will not only display pdf & epub,
but also rtf, doc, txt, damn near anything ... (zooming may or may not work, depending on the format) ...

no touch screen bullshit (touch screens are worthless with gloves on, or with rough, callused hands ..)
I first built a little black leather slip-cover for it, later took an old huge bible cover and embedded all that into it ...
looked like we were standing around consulting scripture ... which we kinda were ....

I dropped all the pdf's of the CSA army regs & Confederate Congress papers on there, tons of letters and reports from
the O.R.s, maps, & etc. - all the kinds of stuff we stand around arguing about ... the whole thing worked really well,
esp. the pdf's that were OCR scans from the original 1860s publications .....

between Gutenberg & google books, there are tens of thousands of OCR pdf's of 19th century publications ...
(advance search of google books with "publication date" between Jan 1860 & Jan 1866 returns around 30K books ...)

the only downside was the access-time for loading up pages (itty-bitty processor) and lack of a real search function -
I had to know where what I was looking for was & it could take awhile to load-up the page ...

I've got a Kindle. It's cool, but the pictures look crap on it, and I can't see maps on in properly, even with my glasses on and squinting, so it's a thumbs down for me. It's only OK if you don't like your books to come with pictures. So a history book would be pretty dull unless you like reading loads of words and dates. Whic I don't.
Wonder if there' s shiteguard protection which would stop Combover's books from downloading onto the Kindle? Just checked Amazong UK and Smellhole and the Assholes of Worlds are both on sale for six quid each on Kindle. Doesnt' seem any point buying them. As they're only fit for wiping your arse on. And you'd have smelly fingers if you tried to do that with the Kindle version.

chanilover wrote:Just checked Amazon UK and Smellhole and the Assholes of Worlds are both on sale for six quid each on Kindle. Doesnt' seem any point buying them. As they're only fit for wiping your arse on. And you'd have smelly fingers if you tried to do that with the Kindle version.

I've missed you too (and great imagery, as always). Welcome back!

The Kindle Fire looks interesting to me, but I don't see myself getting an e-reader/tablet anytime soon.

SandRider wrote:I just took the cheapest e-reader I could find on a three-week campaign up thru the Indian Nations & into SW Missouri ...

Wilson's Creek? Nice little park they have there.

Yea! We have chanilover-sign!

Anyone else got a Kindle Fire yet? I was thinking of getting one for the kids to share, for Christmas.

Fuck it, I'm going to get one. The "major complaints" I see in reviews are minor.

It's a $200 tablet computer for crying out loud! Of course it doesn't compare to a $500 ipad.

I still haven't had a chance to look at one yet. Are the complaints just that it's slow?

Tha major complaints seem to be; the location of the power button, no physical volume button, no privacy settings, low storage space (but it comes with amazon cloud storage and amazon purchases don't count against that), and it's size.

I've read more positive reviews than negative, seems like for the price it would be a good starter tablet.

I have a feeling the late negative press is coming from a threatened Apple.

The Amazon Prime subscription is affordable and I DON'T WANT and Apple product, anyway.

Plus, my 7-year-old is struggling with reading and I think something fun like that might encourage him.

For two hundred bucks if it functions it's good.

Freakzilla wrote:Plus, my 7-year-old is struggling with reading and I think something fun like that might encourage him.

I don't think the problems you mentioned above then would keep me from getting one if this is one of the reasons you want to use it.

A Thing of Eternity wrote:For two hundred bucks if it functions it's good.

I know, right? I don't think it's even fair to compare it to an ipad at that price. But it sounds like it does everything the apple does except take pictures.

Nekhrun wrote:

Freakzilla wrote:Plus, my 7-year-old is struggling with reading and I think something fun like that might encourage him.

I don't think the problems you mentioned above then would keep me from getting one if this is one of the reasons you want to use it.

Yeah, it's intended for the kids to share. My princess is just starting school, too. It would be nice to encourage her, as well.

Of course, I'll be reading on it when they're not using it.

Another concern is that the storage isn't expandable.

Nothing a USB cable can't fix, IMO.

It's got 4 out of 5 stars from 5,500 reviews (on amazon). http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0051VVOB2/?ta ... l7b2uwu2_e" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

3-1/2 on CNET http://reviews.cnet.com/tablets/amazon- ... 22491.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

the Kobo was $85, reads and displays epub, pdf, rtf, & txt ...
google books has tens of thousands of books in epub & pdf for free ...

you can find damn any book downloadable in pdf in the /lit section
of atleast 2 dozen chans ....

fuck amazon and fuck paying for books ...

Thanks, SR. I hadn't even HEARD of the Kobo.

In depth: Using the Kindle Fire vs. the Kobo Vox vs. the Nook Tablet

I think that was the best review of the super-eReaders/mini-tablets I've found yet.

I like Amazon and multimedia so I'm still leaning towards the Fire.

I didn't Know about the Kobo Vox, and don't care to - that was my point,
the simple Kobo is $85 and is a tough unit & works well ...

SandRider wrote:fuck amazon and fuck paying for books ...

I agree.