The Kindle DX changes that. Just find the book you want in PDF form, upload it to your Kindle over USB, and you’ve got a perfectly readable and convenient textbook. Sure, students will have to deal with the usability issues I raised above, like slow highlighting. But these books, frustrating as they might be, will be 100% free. That’s $300 per quarter in extra beer money. Most obstacles and morals fade quickly in the face of that much alcohol.
hehe i agree in a way. i know first-hand how expensive books can be for students, and i'm stuck with books here that its much more hassle to resell than to just plunk down at the neighborhood Salvation Army store or leave it at the building stoop for anyone to pick up. most likely, they will still be traveling with me if i ever move into a new place. harking back to my college days, we just used to photocopy book chapters that we needed, due to shortage (of both books and funds), but lugging all those stapled papers can be a pain (literally as well, with the paper cuts). i find myself envious of the Internet Generation because of the wealth of information at their fingertips, and the advent of multiple devices to store such information, which would have been quite an advantage back in the '80s, or really, in any generation.
but back to the pirated books for Kindle: for students to be able to do this, they would need to make that $489 (granted, one-time) investment for the Kindle device. unless they had rich parents (in which case, buying new books is not an issue), they have to somehow find a way to pay for it (off their student loans, perhaps? or maybe sell a few joints here and there - not that i'm advocating!).
i never fantasized owning an e-reader, due to the lack of free content (when i mean free, i mean uh ... you know what i mean), and at present, the prohibitive cost of one (whether its from Sony or Amazon). now, with rumors of Apple joining the fray, i might just change my mind. a little bit. although i'm sure the business model is to still gouge early adopters, would a price war be eventually beneficial to the masses that they would fork over say, $250 for a nifty, internet-ready-and-everything-else book reader? why not? it happened to the iPod, although stretched thru this decade.
if that's the case, then i wouldn't mind if i had such a gadget and if i could uhm, appropriate and read page-turners like the one i'm currently holding (Jeff Pearlman's Boys Will Be Boys). damn, i can't put this thing down. not really highbrow, but that really shouldn't matter to the e-reader's bottom line, should it?
but back to the pirated books for Kindle: for students to be able to do this, they would need to make that $489 (granted, one-time) investment for the Kindle device. unless they had rich parents (in which case, buying new books is not an issue), they have to somehow find a way to pay for it (off their student loans, perhaps? or maybe sell a few joints here and there - not that i'm advocating!).
i never fantasized owning an e-reader, due to the lack of free content (when i mean free, i mean uh ... you know what i mean), and at present, the prohibitive cost of one (whether its from Sony or Amazon). now, with rumors of Apple joining the fray, i might just change my mind. a little bit. although i'm sure the business model is to still gouge early adopters, would a price war be eventually beneficial to the masses that they would fork over say, $250 for a nifty, internet-ready-and-everything-else book reader? why not? it happened to the iPod, although stretched thru this decade.
if that's the case, then i wouldn't mind if i had such a gadget and if i could uhm, appropriate and read page-turners like the one i'm currently holding (Jeff Pearlman's Boys Will Be Boys). damn, i can't put this thing down. not really highbrow, but that really shouldn't matter to the e-reader's bottom line, should it?
4 comments:
We've got bigger problems here in the motherland. We write very few books and Customs impose tariffs on imported ones, in violation of a treaty we signed. But some people are beginning to stand up against this travesty, although sadly, it's a non-issue for most of the public.
let us all support Teddy Boy! (that was Teddy Boy right?)
Yes. Youre welcome to be Teddy Boy's supporter.
ah, the double entendres of our time.
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