Kindling...
Sep. 4th, 2011 03:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flexagonI jailbroke my Kindle today so that I could put custom screensaver images on it. Hah! Sweet success. There's a whole tumblr blog devoted to Kindle screensaver images that is oddly hypnotic, and I swiped a few from there rather than put in the hours to create my own. (One day I'd love to create a whole series of Sandman images. I think HR Giger would translate very well to the Kindle screen too.)
I adore this one just as much as you think I do:
As for actual Kindle usage -- the thing was a godsend when I was stuck with unexpected, extended travel last week. I had brought only the Kindle and a copy of Marcelo in the Real World, and of course I chewed through the latter on the plane on the way to Montana (highly recommended, by the way). So the Kindle's ability to download new books on the fly was fabulous. Even more fabulous was downloading numerous free first chapters of books from the airport and the airplane when I felt restless and didn't know WHAT I wanted to read. Sure, I'll take a chapter of this and a chapter of that and...! I haven't used it since my return (except for the jailbreaking and screensaver hack) because I've been reading Drood in dead-tree format. Paperback. And that's fine. But it's going to be painful to read my hardcover hardcopy of A Dance with Dragons, next. It weighs 2.6 pounds to the Kindle's 8.5 ounces.... that's nearly 5 times as heavy. It's also 6 times as thick, wider and longer.
I want to understand a little more about re-downloading rights. Things seem to be evolving; it's now possible to lend some Kindle books to other Kindle users for 14 days, and starting later in 2011 it will be possible to borrow Kindle books from libraries too. And yes, the Boston Public Library has Overdrive. All very cool, but doesn't answer the question of what one does when a Kindle dies. Judging from history, some fateful day I will leave the cap to my water bottle a little bit unscrewed. I'll put it in the purse with my Kindle, and that won't be the day I want to find out what items are eligible for re-download and which are not. As far as I can tell, purchased books are safe as they're archived on Amazon and can be downloaded again; but how many times?
I adore this one just as much as you think I do:
As for actual Kindle usage -- the thing was a godsend when I was stuck with unexpected, extended travel last week. I had brought only the Kindle and a copy of Marcelo in the Real World, and of course I chewed through the latter on the plane on the way to Montana (highly recommended, by the way). So the Kindle's ability to download new books on the fly was fabulous. Even more fabulous was downloading numerous free first chapters of books from the airport and the airplane when I felt restless and didn't know WHAT I wanted to read. Sure, I'll take a chapter of this and a chapter of that and...! I haven't used it since my return (except for the jailbreaking and screensaver hack) because I've been reading Drood in dead-tree format. Paperback. And that's fine. But it's going to be painful to read my hardcover hardcopy of A Dance with Dragons, next. It weighs 2.6 pounds to the Kindle's 8.5 ounces.... that's nearly 5 times as heavy. It's also 6 times as thick, wider and longer.
I want to understand a little more about re-downloading rights. Things seem to be evolving; it's now possible to lend some Kindle books to other Kindle users for 14 days, and starting later in 2011 it will be possible to borrow Kindle books from libraries too. And yes, the Boston Public Library has Overdrive. All very cool, but doesn't answer the question of what one does when a Kindle dies. Judging from history, some fateful day I will leave the cap to my water bottle a little bit unscrewed. I'll put it in the purse with my Kindle, and that won't be the day I want to find out what items are eligible for re-download and which are not. As far as I can tell, purchased books are safe as they're archived on Amazon and can be downloaded again; but how many times?
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 12:21 am (UTC)what about when amazon goes out of business, or changes its policies?
If Amazon goes under I think I'll have enough warning and time to pick up hardcopies of the books I care about THAT much. I'd certainly have more warning on that than on my house burning down, which is the way I'd lose my version of your Japanese book (it's a very rare, out of print book aimed at tweens, but same idea).
I have, of course, thought about the issue. And I've noticed that when I do book purges, which is frequent, the majority of the books I get rid of are the ones I most recently got. Not all books that are worth reading are worth reading twice, and not all of the ones that ARE worth reading twice are worth worrying about whether I'll still have them in 10, 15, 20 years. I decided I'm willing to pay twice for that kind of book when it comes along, as becomes necessary; in exchange for the ease of reading a lot of otherwise-heavy, only-worth-one-read books on the Kindle in the meantime.
no subject
Date: 2011-09-06 10:20 am (UTC)