Wednesday, June 11, 2014

more on e readers


MORE ON E-READERS

As much as I loved my Kindle for what it did- a cheaper way to read post-apocalypse fiction- I don’t confuse that luxury with necessity.  The new non-fiction books I’ve bought cheaply on Kindle didn’t really counteract the broad tendency to save a mere ten to twenty percent on K versions compared to paper.  If you wait a modest amount of time, usually you can buy used paper books just as cheap or cheaper than Kindle versions.  So, in the great scheme of things, Kindles only save you money on fiction.  I usually find that the great variety of free or cheap e-books in the non-fiction category are of the quantity version rather than the quality side of things.  You might be excited beyond belief that you now own 137 different military manuals as e-books, but I’ve never found them particularly invaluable myself.  I’d rather learn civilian/survivalist skills at the school of hard knocks than risk my life learning military skills.  As I keep saying, and I’m not sure why this seems to be rocket science, the military trains you to be cannon fodder- not how to survive.  Even their survival manuals are going to be to some degrees polluted by the tendency to view all of us non-officer class pheasant soldiers as expendable replaceable cogs from a machine.

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This weekend, as I was sweating amongst my totes full of books, moving things about to access them, I entered into full dumbass mode and forgot where my Kindle reader was laying and put most of my 185 pounds onto the device via a knee ( my totes are on a bed platform you must crawl up onto to get to the furthest stack ).  Crunch.  I’m going to replace it today, but not because I place any value in the device as a survivalist library.  When I last wrote on the Kindle, I reported a price decline to $50 I had learned of through an ad sent to me.  I think that was a limited time offer, as I saw nothing at that price other than used machines.  My apologies for not reporting that properly.  Still, used is okay with me.  I’m only buying another one because it was a gift and one doesn’t spit upon such generosity.  Plus, I hope that publishers/authors will still send me e-books.  If I insist on paper versions, the printing and postage cost might discourage some.  With an e-book the cost to solicit a review drops to zero.  Also, there are the free post-apocalypse books always showing up on Amazon ( go to search, search in Kindle, and type in Post-Apocalypse.  There will be hundreds to pick from, many free [ of course if we are honest we will admit even at that price they are expensive in the time out of our lives and the cost to our sanity ] ).   I was never quite happy with post-apoc e-readers in any form.  After crunching the Kindle, even less so.  Absent fire, it is a lot harder to kill dead tree books.

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5 comments:

  1. Jim;
    Don't buy a Kindle- get the K.reader program for your PC - it's free! Mine works fine, at least on Windows... You'll have to see about Chrome.
    Neil

    ReplyDelete
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    1. The K takes a lot less solar power than my computer, which is why it is worth it. Especially in winter with the overcast

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  2. Place inverted milk crate over one end
    of a shallow trench. Strew grain in trench
    and under milk crate. Birds will trap themselves.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry about the comments this morning, folks. Computer was slow and that froze it up.

      Delete

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