Amazon Kindle (ebook thingy)

Are they ever going to sell this fucker in the UK?

its interesting the oldies are early adopters here - says something def for the simplicity of the device - also young people just read bloggz

this is pretty nuts http://www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodget-kindle-sales-now-a-shocking-35-of-book-sales-when-kindle-version-available-2009-5

I think they also have the cash and are more willing to pay for the luxury of adjustable font sizes and not having to carry a pile of print around. The kindle's lack of fashionability, butt-ugly grey facade and inability to mod probably drives away the younguns and mothtoflames the seniors

yeah that is nuts!

irl i have only seen kindles in the hands of old(er) people on planes

i hav never seen a kindl :(

an older woman on my bus has one, she seems weird. she wears old school walkman headphones and listens to a discman and for awhile i swear she listened to static for white noise purposes. now i'm not so sure. i heard music, real music the other day. she's the kind of person who on an empty bus will place her bag next to her so no one sits next to her. not sure what this says about the kindle. i sometimes sit next to her. she was reading some book about thomas jefferson last week. the print was clear and easy to read, i'll say that much. kindles make it much easier to see what yr fellow bus rider is reading.

also dude in one of my classes had one. youngish guy but he's super geeky and dorky and stuff.

i have never seen anyone using one on the bus but someone would probably punch you in the face and steal it and run off the bus like with iphones

actually lol who am i kidding no one would steal one of these things

theyd take it and then be like wait wtf is this thing a really old ipod

why does this ipod have a keyboard

this isn't an etch-a-sketch?

lol

maybe they would just punch you in the face and *not* steal it

*punch* what, regular books aren't good enough for you, fucker?

They might punch you in the face and then hand you a Sony eReader

I'm interested in how the textbook thing plays out. Textbooks are damned expensive due to the resale issue and this removes that but whether you have to buy individual titles for this thing or universities will get a site license as they do for journals and things like knovel. I suspect the latter so I wonder if schools will be doling out kindles and they were doing so with ipods a while back. It will be interesting to see apple and gookle duke it out for this space if the ipod tablet surfaces.

apple tablet w/full keyboard would be pretty much the best thing for college - read yr books - bring it to class as yr laptop - txt on there - whatever

itunes

im thinking youd hav some sort of fold up dock that has the keyboard and angles the tablet up and has ports and power supply - then when u want to just take it out and read or whatever u go to the touch screen - the doc could hav wifi so u could connect to harddrives phones or whatever while yr in wireless mode

Amzon, not google, possibly a prescient freudian slip.

all the classics are available

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F19998D6L._SL500_AA246_PIkin2,BottomRight,-12,34_AA280_SH20_OU01_.jpghttp://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jE0LfTCYL._SL500_AA246_PIkin2,BottomRight,-10,34_AA280_SH20_OU01_.jpg

etch-a-skindle

i finished my iphone kindle Animal Farm in like three subway rides and a few in-between-bands-glances. I know it's a small book, but i honestly think i read MUCH FASTER on my iphone app than with a regular book

Its these little blocks of text that you can just gulp down in one bite and flip past, instead of staring at entire pages of words.

Ever since I was a kid I would space out while reading long passages. I get as much two pages ahead and realize that I haven't actually READ anything paragraphs, I just LOOKED at the book while I thought about other things. I didn't do that at all with my lil phone--and when i did, i was just stuck on a little page with 40 words and i could just reconnect in 2 seconds. I'm totally into reading books on my iphone.

Next I'm gonna do White Noise, which I only got through half of last time because I left my book inside the Tate Modern and never got a new one.

friend of mine is thinking of getting one since he's gonna be going to africa for a few months and wants to bring hell of books with him

what a big fat bald baby this guy is

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/06/for-jeff-bezos-the-great-run-for-books-is-over-really.html#more

Levy: For a special book, do you still want to read the physical book?

Bezos: No. No, in fact, I now ... I kind of am grumpy when I am forced to read a physical book. Because it's not as convenient. Turning the pages ... I didn't know this either, until I started using the Kindles a couple months ago, I mean a couple years ago, I didn't understand all of the failings of a physical book, because I’m inured to them. But you can’t turn the page with one hand. The book is always flopping itself shut at the wrong moment. They’re heavy. You can only take one or two of them with you at a time. It’s had a great 500-year run. [Audience laughter.] It’s an unbelievably successful technology. But it’s time to change.

I wish they'd release it here. I still prefer actual books though.

lol at that bezos quote; surprised he didn't bitch about paper cuts

I think this thing may finally be catching on in "middle America" (lol whatever that is). I mean, all of my Mom's friends (Midwestern middle/working class) are buying these and raving about them.

can't wait for the nyt article about whole houses with no bookshelves and the great bookshelf bust as demonstrated by a trip to an ikea and a west elm.

... and container store; takes three to be a trend, remember?

I think this thing may finally be catching on in "middle America" (lol whatever that is). I mean, all of my Mom's friends (Midwestern middle/working class) are buying these and raving about them.

Fair enough, but it's gonna make book burnin's a lot more expensive now.

Fahrenheit 488

Ha. I was just surprised to see that people I actually knew were starting to buy these in any numbers.

it's mostly older people, from what i've read

You know how old people like to jump on trends.

the ones i've seen in person=youngish guy, slightly older woman, oldish woman

muddy waters, "oldish woman"

i don't think her name is muddy waters, but if she's on my bus tonight i'll ask her

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_90_of_waking_hours_spent?utm_source=a-section

fantastic. that's on par with their best.

my main attraction is that I would be able to knit 'n' read at the same time. Now it's a bit hard cause paperbacks don't really lie flat that easily. :-( maybe that's why a lot of your mom's friends are getting these? i know it's a really big hit with ravelers (knit related community)

I occasionally buy a book for the Kindle app for my iPod touch, but this story made me decide not to buy ebooks from Amazon regularly.

can't wait to dig into this story, Nicholson Baker buys a Kindle
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker?currentPage=all

I wonder if the Kindle will ever see any sort of mass adoption. Maybe many years from now, some digital reading device will become popular, but I doubt it will be the Kindle.

I think devices like the iPhone will become *much* more popular over the next few years.

This new Apple tablet is probably not going to go mainstream tho: http://gizmodo.com/5323446/financial-times-confirms-apple-tablet-features-september-launch

Thanks for that link, Mr. Que. Looks like a good article.

Yeah, I'd be curious to hear what a paper hoarder like Baker has to say about the kindle.
My head tells me to wait three or four years until they optimize these for comics and crossword puzzles and they shake out the problems. My heart wants new gadgets.

i still find this things's potential end result to be unbearably depressing

Agreed.