Comments on: The Liberty Papers Now Available For Amazon Kindle

By: trumpetbob15

trumpetbob15 — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:01:07 +0000

I bought a Kindle 2 when it came out a couple months ago and I love the thing. I own more than 1000 paper books (mostly from when I was a child), but it is much nicer to actually carry that many digital books around in one small device. It is also nice for taking notes on political books. I just finished a biography of Samuel Adams and I now have the links I made to remind myself of a great quote.

I don’t know about the new DX with the bigger screen, but if you read more than a couple books a month, I would suggest getting the Kindle 2 or DX. Remember also, if you have an iPhone or one type of iPod, you can also get Kindle books on there, but I haven’t seen how that looks yet.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:38:06 +0000

The great thing about it, in my opinion, is that it disappears, just like a physical book does. I ignore the device and read the book. And it’s so much more convenient it’s simply ridiculous. I have not felt the need to buy a “real book” since about a month after I got it.

By: Brad Warbiany

Brad Warbiany — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:32:10 +0000

Eric,

Like you I’m not that concerned about the DRM aspect. I like real physical books, and I can see myself purchasing some hard copies of some of the ones that I’d actually want to keep on a shelf down the road. I’d probably use the Kindle more for novels to read on airplanes, and the occasional “topical” political philosophy book. These are the types of books that clutter my house until I get enough of them to donate to the public library anyway, so long-term availability isn’t that important.

For me, the question right now is whether I’m going to get $500 worth of utility out of it, or if — as I’ve done in the past — I’m going to drop serious coin on a technology gadget that I’m going to grow bored with.

I suspect I won’t grow bored with it, based on what I’ve heard from most Kindle users. And I’ve got access to gift card funds that I could apply that would cover the bulk of the cost… But it’s still $500, and thus not the easiest decision.

By: Eric

Eric — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:10:25 +0000

I bought a first generation Kindle and truly love the device. There’s some good new features in the Kindle 2 and DX, but not enough to convince me to upgrade yet. That said, I have not bought a physical book since I bought my Kindle. I’ve read twice as many books as I typically would have in that period of time. And spent half as much as I used to spend in the same time period.

As far as “you don’t ever own anything” from Miko …. well, I’m not that concerned about it personally. Then again, I’m not very ideologically motivated in the sense that some are. If it works well for me, and it doesn’t pose a problem for me, I act in my rational self-interest. Further, the Luddite cry of some anarchists that technology is horrible and a means to enable control of them is silly. Without technology they would never know what anarchy is, but they would certainly be busy performing manual labor for their feudal lord. Technology enables knowledge to spread and labor to be saved. Those two things have led to the enablement of more individual liberty for more than a billion people.

The opposition to technology and neo-Luddite world view espoused by so many “anarchists”, as they type their comments into a computer to share on a blog, via the Internet, convinces me that they need to go live with the Amish for a while.

By: Miko

Miko — Thu, 14 May 2009 18:21:49 +0000

“And as it turns out, if Amazon suspends your Kindle account (say, because you returned stuff too often), your reader becomes an inert chunk of plastic suitable for use as a doorstop or paperweight. All the e-books you’ve already bought and paid for can no longer be read. If you fall afoul of Amazon’s good graces, they’ll destroy your reader by remote and make the e-books you already “own” utterly worthless.

This is just another example of the general rule that, when it comes to digital content, you don’t ever own anything.”

http://c4ss.org/content/448