eReader Wishlist, or, How to Get Me to Buy a Kindle Monday, December 8th, 2008
Posted by carltonstedman in books, toys.add a comment
So, although I can’t afford one anytime in the near future, I’ve been thinking quite a bit about getting an eReader, and, most likely, an Amazon Kindle. However, there are a number of issues that stop me from getting a Kindle. Here’s what I want Amazon to do for Kindle 2.0:
- Lower the price point: $360 is still too much, guys. I don’t want to pay for EVDO that I’d hardly ever use — make the Whispernet a subscription fee to lower the initial cost, instead of bumping the initial price up to subsidize expected bandwidth uses. Which brings me to the next point…
- Lower the book prices even more. It’s a fact: the book prices include mark-up to cover bandwidth use, but, with a subscription model, this won’t be necessary. As it stands, I have to buy over 100 books before I can justify the cost. That assumes books at 30-50% the cover price, but for most of the stuff in my wish list, the books are the same cost as paper or not available! And you really should…
- Offer public domain books as free downloads! This means, right away, without any fiddling on my part, I can just go an grab a bunch of books for free. This is added value for the Kindle for sure. And for Christ’s sake…
- Get rid of the fee for RSS feeds! Again, go with a subscription fee to EVDO only. This was a stupid idea. Even at $0.99 / feed, it’d cost me over $40 a month. And we can even lower EVDO use if you just…
- Build in WiFi support. This will allow use of internet connections already available without having to pay the EVDO fee, while also increasing speed and lowering EVDO bandwidth usage — win, win, win. And I could really use…
- Native PDF support. This would be great for use at work, storing, reading and annotating all sorts of documents, including datasheets and more. Yes, I can do that email-conversion dealie, but just being able to grab documents like that would be great. Course, if I could do that, what I’d really want is…
- A touchscreen with simple pen to mark-up documents. Heck, let me create note documents too, that’d be sweet. I don’t even need text recognition or anything. This could even be in a more expensive model, perhaps, but could use on-screen buttons to…
- Cut down on the number of buttons. Better ergonomics and aesthetics is low on my list, but, jeesh, these are ugly as sin. While we’re at it…
- Add full support for SDHC. 4 GB is fine and all, but I’d really like support for 16 GB cards and even 32 GB (although they are currently ridiculously expensive, I’m thinking long-term).
Now, the Sony PRS-700 has most of the above features, but is $400. Ouch. And Amazon has a much bigger collection of Kindle books, it seems. Plus the Sony Bookstore books cost more than the paper books on Amazon!
This could all get me more interested in the Kindle. Of course, DRM-ed books make me very unhappy, but I don’t see a solution anytime soon. I’ll probably just stick with paper books for quite a long time — they look nice, have unlimited battery life, can be gotten used for dirt cheap, will always be compatible, can be borrowed by friends and can be sold in a pinch or if you don’t like it. Give me a format that I can sell and buy used from others and then we’ll be talking — otherwise, the books better be damn cheap and make sure they’re in an open format, so I can use them years from now.
Why Aren’t the Dems for the War in Iraq? Thursday, December 4th, 2008
Posted by carltonstedman in objectivism, politics.add a comment
For some reason, this wasn’t converted correctly, going to WordPress, and was listed as unpublished. This was originally written up back in April of 2008, in my old blogger site (link). Anyway, here it follows.
One thing certainly seems clear: the Democrats and their supporters (I’ll just call them all “liberals”) really seem to think the USA should get out of Iraq, as soon as possible. I don’t think this is up to too much debate, but the problem I have is this: why do the liberals want to get out of Iraq?
First, think about this: the liberals clearly, focus a lot on so-called “social policies”. They are all for increasing funding to public education, getting a national health plan, pro-welfare and the ilk. Another way to put it: the liberals are socialists. This is really a better name, since they aren’t really “liberal” in the root way of the word, like liberty, pro-freedom; that doesn’t really seem to be the policy of the “liberals”, so let’s call them socialists.
Why do the socialists want to get out of Iraq, then? Socialists are all about the “rights” of the majority, the “common good” reaching some sort of averaged level of wealth and health. This “golden mean” is really a fallacy (I’ll expound on that at some later date), but that’s not my issue here. Certainly, a socialist in principle would be all for the global “common good”, and definitely for improving average conditions in Iraq, the whole “Operation: Iraqi Freedom” deal. Clearly, the only reasonable stance for someone that advocates socialist principles would be in favor of staying in Iraq and pouring USA efforts into attempting to improve the lives of Iraqis.
So, why aren’t the Dems for the war in Iraq? The answer is really simple: they’re big hypocrites. Don’t get me wrong; so are the “neo-conservatives” that are for staying in Iraq, which is against any really conservative principles (my meaning: anti-socialist, pro-capitalist).
By any rational standpoint, the war in Iraq has been an utter and complete failure. The only possible justification for war is protecting America citizens against physical attack and harm. What has the war in Iraq done, but drain the pockets of hard-working taxpayers, against their will? It has accomplished nothing in protecting American citizens from physical attack or harm and is therefore a complete failure.
There is a justified war to be fought in the present, and this is against people that actually present a physical danger to American citizens: Islamo-fascist terrorists. The USA should not waste American lives by going in on foot, but just bomb by air known terrorist locations throughout Iran, Saudi Arabia and other nations we know to be harboring terrorists, destroying synagogues, weapon factories, cells, training camps and more, without even asking the UN (which shouldn’t even exist). The USA could just about destroy all terrorist opposition in a few weeks. This is the justified action of the military in protecting America against known physical danger, attack and harm.
Although, this is unlikely to happen, due to the socialist mindset and unwarranted respect for nations harboring terrorists and paying homage to the socialist institution of the UN. Instead, the USA will just fight war after war, converting nation by nation in imperial fashion, sacrificing untold trillions of dollars and millions of American lives. That is exactly what would happen with a Democratic president (and I’m not sure McCain would be much better).
