Just got a Kindle.

Darat said:
That just means you need to add more books to your Kindle so you can browse the titles on the Kindle!

:)
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I have about 450 or so on there already! You're saying that's not enough? :)

Actually, I'm discovering the pleasure of browsing through the titles on the Kindle, opening a book here and there and reading a snippet, then another one. I love that the Kindle saves your place in each book for you.

What I was trying to say before was that I miss seeing all the brightly colored dust jackets, how Hot Money by Dick Francis has that coppery metallic spine that I can spot a mile away, while that other book, Memoirs of an Invisible Man has that ghostly blue and white cover, and that Unabridged The Stand has a million creases in its well-worn spine from me reading it a million times, and cracking open the cover to tent it up while I stirred the soup on the stove or some other task.

Just that stuff I miss :)
 
Moving house next week. I just carried 20 some boxes of books down three flights of stairs to the garage.
It has not escaped me that all these books on a Kindle would weigh...pretty much what the Kindle weighs.
I feel like a traitor to mankind for liking this thing, but hell and damn if I don't.
 
I just emptied my last box of books and took a bunch to Half-Price Books. While I waited for them to tell me they were worth $5, I wandered the aisles and considered the impending shrinkage of that type of store. After getting my measly $5, I considered asking them where the used ebooks were...
 
fls said:
Actually, what I notice a lot is people putting devices into sleep mode, seemingly unaware that they will still transmit and receive in this mode. So if the "turn off all devices" command is for the purposes of preventing interference, it fails to accomplish anything. Your Kindle will still receive transmissions in screen-saver mode. This is how updates are automatically sent to it. The way to stop this is to turn off the wifi/3G, not to put it to sleep.

Same with the smartphones and tablets I see people merely put to sleep instead of turning off.

Linda
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I have a wifi-only Kindle, and leave wifi off unless I am actively searching for a book to read. Helps stretch the battery life to even greater extents.
 
Soapy Sam said:
Moving house next week. I just carried 20 some boxes of books down three flights of stairs to the garage.
It has not escaped me that all these books on a Kindle would weigh...pretty much what the Kindle weighs.
I feel like a traitor to mankind for liking this thing, but hell and damn if I don't.
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I absolutely love that I was able to download the complete works of Shakespeare from Gutenberg and get rid of the weighty tome taking up space on my bookshelf. And now that I don't have to lug that huge book around, I might actually read all the plays. Plus my local library gets a gently-used copy out of the deal. ;)
 
The airplane thing reminded me of an incident at work.

One of the Kindles I have directly caused the purchase of (I'm up to twelve and counting; I'm on the Amazon board for the Cadillac, right behind Ricky Roma) belongs to a young lady who works in the switchboard. The other day I noticed she was reading a real book. I asked her where her Kindle was, because she usually has it when she's covering the phones for the day. She got all pissed and told me management told her she couldn't use it. Apparently it's OK to sit and read a book when the phone's not ringing, but not a Kindle. WTF? Last time I looked, our switchboard didn't have any sensitive electronic instruments that could be interferred with by a Kindle.
 
zooterkin said:
I don't know what sales are like world-wide, but 4 of the people who sit around me at work have each got a Kindle in the last month or so, all independently.
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My bet is that International sales are big and will be huge. My wife and I (UK) both have one, and I know Amazon UK recently announced it had sold more digitial than physical books.

I think this trend will roll out around the world. For example, consider my home country of New Zealand.

My Dad bought one after seeing ours on a recent visit. He discovered that Amazon US now sells the Kindle to (and supports) New Zealand directly. The price is given in $NZD and includes shipping.

The economics dictate the Kindle will explode in NZ once people realise what it makes available to them. This may take a while to filter through the population, because Amazon don't have a local presence there.

In NZ a paperback typically costs £10-15, versus £4-£6 here in the UK. So my Mother (a huge buyer of books) typically pays more than double the amount I do for the same book.

With a Kindle New Zealanders suddenly have access to US and UK book prices with instant delivery at no cost. Not to mention all the content that is available for free, or for less than £1. Try buying a physical copy of Dracula for free. Or any classic historical work.

The same economic imperative will apply in Australia. I'm glad I don't own a bookstore.
 
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AdMan said:
Does anyone know what the deal is with Kindles on airplanes? ... On my latest flight today, the flight attendant made a specific announcement about turning off "all electronics, cell phones, iPods, Kindles..." when we were taking off
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I just flew London -> Hong Kong -> Auckland -> LA -> London. Nobody asked me to stop reading my Kindle on take-off or landing, despite numerous opportunities to do so.

Could such a low-powered device (with wifi/3g switched off) affect an aircraft?
 
Howie Felterbush said:
Apparently it's OK to sit and read a book when the phone's not ringing, but not a Kindle. WTF?
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i once got fired from a job for reading. watching soap operas on tv was allowed. this was in, of all places, a freaking science museum.
 
megaresp said:
I just flew London -> Hong Kong -> Auckland -> LA -> London. Nobody asked me to stop reading my Kindle on take-off or landing, despite numerous opportunities to do so.
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Out of curiosity, is your Kindle in a cover, so that it looks like a book? I wonder if the request is made only to those who have their Kindles out, and thus looks like what it is: an electronic device. Whereas those who have in a cover so that it looks something like a book, get a pass.

Could such a low-powered device (with wifi/3g switched off) affect an aircraft?
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Not really, but there hasn’t been enough rigorous testing to draw this conclusion. About a few years back, 20/20 did a report on the cell phone ban, and found that this was mostly a case of erring on the side of caution. The FAA didn’t want to expend the cash to conduct rigorous testing and placed the burden on the airlines, who decided that inconveniencing people was easier and more economical than conducting their own tests.

Mythbusters did an episode on it, and while not a rigorous study, it certainly agrees with what the 20/20 report suggested: airplane equipment is shielded to the point that little to no interference can be caused by cell phones either being on or being used during a flight.
 
I just got a Kindle as a gift, but I don't have internet to put things on it since nature decided to kick my state's collective ass :(
 
Has anyone tried Lendle?

This site was mentioned in the LA Times article about libraries and Kindle linked to about a page ago.

Apparently, you can lend books to people for a 14 day period. Looks interesting and cheap!

I love my new Kindle. I think I've read more books in the last 3 weeks I've had it than I have in the last 3 years.
 
A Laughing Baby said:
I just got a Kindle as a gift, but I don't have internet to put things on it since nature decided to kick my state's collective ass :(
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If its a 3G Kindle, that shouldn't be a problem. If not, does your phone have a hotspot feature? Many do. My Verizon iPhone does, and I have synced my Kindle with that when I could not get an AT&T signal.
 
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