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I concur: Raspberry Pi + Small Display + cheap usb keyboard gives you what you're looking for, and within your budget (give or take a couple bucks).

Since the Pi + LCD listed above pull a total of less than 7 watts a piece, you should have no trouble powering several with a low-cost portable power solution, such as solar/wind generators, or hell, even a dynamo; I mean, why not?

I just checked eBay, and there are still plenty of Handspring Visors left for sale cheap. Those things go a very long time on a pair of AAA cells. You don't want the color model, you want the black-and-white that takes AAA cells.

Then for a keyboard:

http://www.amazon.com/LandWare-GoType-Keyboard-Handspring-Visor/dp/B00004TF4V

Finally, buy a stack of NiMH AAA cells and some chargers.

These should suffice for learning. The keyboard is a little bit small, but I was able to type on it, and my hands are not small.

I don't know if there are any actual typing tutorial programs, but you might be able to get a college student to write one for you as a project.

I do remember that there is at least one "typing speed" program for PalmOS. It was intended for users to test their writing speed using the stylus, but it should work for typing.

steveha

It's a bit above your $50 price tag, but moments googling "typing tutor toy" took a total of 0.8 seconds to complete and brought me this solution not far from your price range.

I had something like this as the oldest of 8 kids, the batteries were C or D and lasted for months/years. It was sturdy enough to easily endure the abuse that 8 kids put it through. We weren't "nice" to it.

VTech makes cheap battery operated laptop like learning computers, with full Qwerty keyboard. - http://www.amazon.com/VTech-80-60580-80-60583-Learning-Laptop/dp/B00078ZJ10/ref=sr_1_14?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1347991838&sr=1-14&keywords=vtech+laptop

Well, I don't know much about what an average Bangladeshi village has on hand but I'm going to wager that it's a very wide spectrum. So my personal advice is no matter what you find to be your solution, you should provide the DIY equivalent any DIY-able components of the pieces. In this way you can treat yourself as a one man thinktank and you can publish this stuff under CCBY3.0 and your project may enjoy self sufficiency without requiring your constant attention.

So to start at the core of it, I would personally select a $25 non-ethernet (Type A?) Raspberry Pi, an $8 USB keyboard and $5 flash card. From there those little devices have the RCA Video (analog) out and also an HDMI out. So if one of your computers goes bad, you can always rig it up to one of these little guys. However, I also understand that you need more displays. Now this is where you have the option to become a rockstar superman. If you are not afraid of code and working GPIO pins I would suggest purchasing some of these little guys first getting it to simply display and read across what they are typing and secondly maybe use one row to take in a file that progresses in typing difficult and displays that on the first line while it waits for input and validates on the second line (might even have room to use LEDs or something else on the RPi for score keeper/carrot/stick. If you document all this, it might turn out that the villagers get wise on how to ripe a seven segment display out of anything and hook it up to these GPIO pins?

So how to power this? Well the easy way would be to use what you have already available for power but get some of these guys and daisy chain these guys from one of your existing computers until they don't produce enough power. I would suggest researching that screen and the Pi and figuring out what their power draw is. Maybe get some cheap fuses to protect your hardware. A lot of broken appliances still have good electric motors in them and electric motors often produce energy as turbines if you spin them. Now, the big problem is how do you clean the power if people are cranking these turbines with their hands or connected to a bike's gear set? That's something I'm not much of an expert in. I do know the Pis run off of two rechargeable AA batteries just great but you also have to take care if they're planning to try to charge those batteries with a hand cranked appliance motor. From my understanding it's pretty tough to not screw stuff up if you're dealing with human generated power. Had to keep that steady and to find existing ways to clean it down to what tiny sensitive devices need.

The upswing of all this would be that the RPis are versatile, any of those students could really do a whole bunch of things with these. And if you make this a part of the Raspberry Pi wiki, you might get people helping you with those screens -- might. At least others will be able to use your work.

My phone (a Samsung Vibrant, or Galaxy S1 if you will) charges from empty to full on 2 hours.

Doubling the charge time for double the capacity doesn't seem like a problem to me, since it usually charges overnight -- and it still leaves the option of a half charge in the same amount of time for the same amount of battery life I have now.

Of course, I sometimes carry one of these around, but that's mainly because tethering is a huge battery drain. Oh, and that+the phone easily fit in one pocket, with the Nexus 7 that is using the phone-provided wifi in the other.

There seem to be a few Dremel diamond wheels on Amazon.

You have made my day with that info. Here's why: About a year ago I gave some consideration to how much time and effort (and cost) was involved keeping the floor clean in my house. The house gets very dusty quickly because of where I live. I opted against a Scooba back then primarily because the price was way out of my priorities and budget.

But I did buy an expensive mop and bucket from the local five and dime. I just stared at all the options long enough, so I wouldn't have to constantly get my hands wet wringing out the dirty wet mop. This centrifgual mop bucket is what I bought and I like it a lot. I bought several extra pads and I throw them in the washer (along with similar rags used for cleaning).

It works by pushing the mop down in the bucket, about three pumps is good. Doing so spins the mop head fast to rinse off excess water (after rinsing down in the bucket, of course).

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Leifheit+55341+Twist+Mop+System

I find simply sweeping the floor simple and effective enough for about 1 or 2 'cleanings' and the about the 3rd time I get serious with the mop and bucket.

Oh, I almost forgot *this* is most awesome! OMFG it is so awesome. Imagine sweeping up the dust off the floor using a little dustbroom and pan. Now stop doing that and use this little Dyson DC34 cordless vacuum cleaner (for Everything) like I do: http://www.amazon.com/Dyson-DC34-cordless-vacuum-cleaner/dp/B006WS39NE/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1347946341&sr=8-18&keywords=dyson Even this most-serious former Air Force I.T. security professional raves about his little Dyson: http://taosecurity.blogspot.nl/2007/12/make-cleaning-awesome.html

Just for cleaning the regular dust build-up behind the PCs alone, that extremely well-designed vacuum is seriously worth the money!

Since I have adopted those tips, life has improved greatly.

You have made my day with that info. Here's why: About a year ago I gave some consideration to how much time and effort (and cost) was involved keeping the floor clean in my house. The house gets very dusty quickly because of where I live. I opted against a Scooba back then primarily because the price was way out of my priorities and budget.

But I did buy an expensive mop and bucket from the local five and dime. I just stared at all the options long enough, so I wouldn't have to constantly get my hands wet wringing out the dirty wet mop. This centrifgual mop bucket is what I bought and I like it a lot. I bought several extra pads and I throw them in the washer (along with similar rags used for cleaning).

It works by pushing the mop down in the bucket, about three pumps is good. Doing so spins the mop head fast to rinse off excess water (after rinsing down in the bucket, of course).

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Leifheit+55341+Twist+Mop+System

I find simply sweeping the floor simple and effective enough for about 1 or 2 'cleanings' and the about the 3rd time I get serious with the mop and bucket.

Oh, I almost forgot *this* is most awesome! OMFG it is so awesome. Imagine sweeping up the dust off the floor using a little dustbroom and pan. Now stop doing that and use this little Dyson DC34 cordless vacuum cleaner (for Everything) like I do: http://www.amazon.com/Dyson-DC34-cordless-vacuum-cleaner/dp/B006WS39NE/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1347946341&sr=8-18&keywords=dyson Even this most-serious former Air Force I.T. security professional raves about his little Dyson: http://taosecurity.blogspot.nl/2007/12/make-cleaning-awesome.html

Just for cleaning the regular dust build-up behind the PCs alone, that extremely well-designed vacuum is seriously worth the money!

Since I have adopted those tips, life has improved greatly.

PCs are popular because people feel they have a choice. If they want to buy software from staples they can. Amazon? sure. With apple, there is only one place you can get your software, and only a very limited selection of dealers to get your hardware from.

While only Apple makes Apple hardware, like Samsung makes Samsung phones (unless you go for the Sansuny Chinese ripoffs), I'm puzzled. There's only one source for Apple Mac software?

Is it this one? Or perhaps this place of PC software as you mentioned? Or too bad they can't walk into a store either.

Of course, if you were trying to confuse PC software and iOS software... which is disingenuous at best. Android and iOS, yes, you can get software from torrents, file lockers, Amazon, Google Play, Appslib, and dozens of chinese stores as well, which is a definite advantage for Android.

Get one that can be rotated to portrait mode.

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-SyncMaster-204B-20-1-Inch-Monitor/dp/B000E1CB1Q

Unless you need publishing cred for your job, I can't see why anyone would bother going that route.

It's only really useful for tenure in a teaching position, and *slightly* useful for other job prospects. If you're not pursuing either of those, why bother?

1) Your information is owned by the publisher, you can't reprint or send copies to friends.
2) You make no money from having done the work.
3) The work gets restricted to a small audience - the ones who can afford the access fees
4) It's rife with politics and petty, spiteful people
5) The standard format is cripplingly small, confining, and constrained.
6) The standard format requires jargonized cant to promote exclusion.

A website or blog serves much better as a means to disseminate the information. It allows the author to bypass all of the disadvantages, and uses the world as a referee.

Alternately, you could write a book (cf: Quantum Electrodynamics by Feynman). There's no better way to tell if your ideas are good than by writing a book and submitting it to the world for review.

Alternately, you could just not bother. For the vast majority of people, even if they discover a new process or idea publishing it makes no sense. There's perhaps some value in patenting, but otherwise there's no real value in making it public.

Today's scientific publishing is just a made-up barrier with made-up benefits. In the modern world it's been supplanted by better technology.

I read about him in "The Radioactive Boyscout"

The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor

To Texans, that's meaningless. They need Yosemite Sam with the caption 'Back Off'.

> One doesn't "hit an alrm clock". One presses a button that is wide and shallow
> enough that a blow from one's hand will activate it.

That's one approach. On the other hand, companies have been putting accelerometers into alarm clocks for a while now.

Apparently, this is one of those "... in a phone" patents.

> One doesn't "hit an alrm clock". One presses a button that is wide and shallow
> enough that a blow from one's hand will activate it.

That's one approach. On the other hand, companies have been putting accelerometers into alarm clocks for a while now.

Apparently, this is one of those "... in a phone" patents.

Or spend almost double that and get a 64GB drive

I am still holding out for the 128GB drives to come down a little more.

Good luck convincing your bank to offer its application on Amazon or SlideME. I own an Archos 43 Internet Tablet, which didn't come with what was then called Android Market. I called a representative of Chase Bank and asked how to get Chase Quick Deposit working, and I was told that there were no plans to support my device. Nor were there plans to support a PC's flatbed scanner instead of a smartphone's rear camera.

What does either thing have to do with whether you bought the app on the Amazon store or Google Play? I'm looking at the Amazon store right now and there's a Chase Mobile app there and it says it supports Quick Deposit. If it doesn't support your device, you can't claim it's because the bank doesn't want to offer its app through Amazon, because it does. Bank of America has an app in there, too, though it looks like it explicitly only supports the Kindle Fire (which is sort of logical, since that seems to be Amazon's main app market these days).

So the solution is simple. Let's all wear burqas to protect our privacy!

Maybe the "scramble suits" in Philip K. Dick's A Scanner Darkly , instead of being a sad manifestation of the author's mental illness as long thought, were an idea whose time is coming. On the other hand, many jurisdictions already have laws against walking around in a face mask of any kind.

Teleportation remains elusive "That's really neither here nor there"

+1 for humor!
And has anyone read The Physics of Star Trek? http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Star-Trek-Lawrence-Krauss/dp/0060977108
Great speculation on two possible explanations for the transporter; is it data or is it matter?

In Vernor Vinge "A fire upon the Deep", humans are marooned in orbit around a low-tech civilization...

Actually, you're thinking of A Deepness in the Sky. In A Fire Upon the Deep, humans are stranded on a planet with a low-tech canine civilization, and the 'interference' (radios, gunpowder, etc) is direct. (And technically, they're not marooned in orbit, they anchor themselves in a LaGrange point. They only enter the planet's orbit at the beginning, and at the end...)

In Vernor Vinge "A fire upon the Deep", humans are marooned in orbit around a low-tech civilization...

Actually, you're thinking of A Deepness in the Sky. In A Fire Upon the Deep, humans are stranded on a planet with a low-tech canine civilization, and the 'interference' (radios, gunpowder, etc) is direct. (And technically, they're not marooned in orbit, they anchor themselves in a LaGrange point. They only enter the planet's orbit at the beginning, and at the end...)

Presumably you have read Bester's The Stars My Destination? Jaunting (personal teleportation) is somewhat like that.

A great book, read it as a kid. From wikipedia... "The novel included some notable early descriptions of proto-science and fictional technology, among them Bester's portrayal of psionics, [12] including the phenomenon of "jaunting", named after the scientist (Jaunte) who discovered it. Jaunting is the instantaneous teleportation of one's body (and anything one is wearing or carrying). One is able to move up to a thousand miles by just thinking. This suddenly-revealed and near-universal ability totally disrupts the economic balance between the Inner Planets (Venus, Earth, Mars, and the Moon) and the Outer Satellites (various moons of Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune), eventually leading to a war between the two. Jaunting has other effects on the social fabric of the novel's world, and these are examined in true science-fictional fashion. Women of the upper classes are locked away in jaunte-proof rooms "for their protection", the treatment of criminals of necessity goes back to the Victorian "separate system", and freaks and monsters abound." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stars_My_Destination#section_3

I used to keep an Archos 5 IMT ( http://www.amazon.com/Archos-32-Internet-Tablet-Android/dp/B002OL2PLU ) in my pants pocket and never had a problem with it...hell you should see all the crap I've got in them right now...wallet, pack of smokes, lighter, two pencils, a pen, car keys & fob, RSA fob, house keys, office keys, apartment fob, detachable keychain, sunglasses, and an LG VX9800 ( http://www.cellphonestalk.com/cellphonereviews/lg/vx9800/lg-vx9800-flipside2.jpg )

...and that's all in my front two pockets. And the only thing in the left one is the wallet. Stop wearing tight jeans and it won't be an issue ;)

In Vernor Vinge "A fire upon the Deep", humans are marooned in orbit around a low-tech civilization and do what they can to bootstrap a starfaring civilization there. As soon as the first computers are invented, they start sending pseudonymous messages and create and contribute to software projects to speed things up, acting like they are 'groups of students' (like Bourbaki) or anonymous contributors... How would we even know if half the contributors to Linux didn't even exist in real life ? Come to think of it, many of the project leaders are indistinguishable from aliens. RMS anyone ?

It's not that ancient. In fact it's coming out today.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal" - PICASSO

See, you can't even attribute the quote right.

And that's why you don't understand what it means. It doesn't mean LITERALLY steal. It means you find something you love, and understand it totally... then you re-make it into something that is like it was but is wholly yours.

It's a hard concept to explain without more understanding of art and creativity... this book will help.

I know very, very few people who actually use a smartphone app from their bank.

One reason that someone might use a bank's smartphone app is that he lives nowhere near any of the bank's ATMs. Unlike the bank's web site, the app allows the user to deposit a personal or payroll check by using the device's camera to take a picture of the front and back of a check. Or should everyone in such a situation send deposits through the mail?

OEMs have to license Google Apps and the app store commercially.

Well, no, they don't _have_ to. They may choose to. For example, there's this little shop that sells Android tablets with their own store. Or here's a third party appstore that OEMs may choose to license and integrate. Then there's Opera's appstore, GetJar...

OEMs can and do release Android devices without licensing anything from Google just fine. And no, it's not limited to smalltime OEMs, and it doesn't seem to mean you lose the chance to get to Playstore with this. HTC released a few devices with SlideMe for example, and I believe they still have GApps on other gadgets.

You'll give a shit, when you go spend $50 for your replacement proprietary connector. While everyone else is only spending $6.

Why say something that is so easily falsified? Even from Apple the cable is $19.

Third party, it's less than $1.
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=iphone+cable

I know it happened 12 years ago, but come on, the chip cards with pin have been cracked and crackable for a long time. In 2000, Serge Humpich, a french hacker found a flaw in the chip design and used Japanese algorithm to factorize the prime used in the chip card.

In French:
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serge_Humpich
http://www.bibmath.net/crypto/moderne/cb.php3

In English:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2000/02/26/french_credit_card_hacker_convicted/
http://www.amazon.com/Serge-Humpich/e/B001K7H3DE

I remember my reaction when chip cards appeared in Canada *after* 2000, as if they were waiting on having a backdoor before they deployed them.

JigJag

yes. This is nothing more than a scare tactic to prevent any more books like from coming out. And that's one of the tamer ones (I've read it).

Presumably you have read Bester's The Stars My Destination? Jaunting (personal teleportation) is somewhat like that.

How much shorter is the commute? That alone will add "pay" to the new position. I think a lot of people fail to recognize just how expensive car commuting is. If the new work place is close enough that you can bike, you can really save a lot of money.

These days, when considering what a job pays, you can't just look at the salary. I really recommend reading Your Money Or Your Life . Yeah, the language is kind of mushy and touchy-feely at times, but the general points are important. All for-pay jobs should be considered in terms of their real pay. Which is your salary, minus taxes, minus commuting expenses, minus work incidentals (uniforms or other equipment you personally need to buy), etc etc. Any non-reimbursed expense that you must incur as a result of your job must be subtracted from the advertised salary. IOW, would you spend this money if you didn't have to work? Furthermore, you need to break that real pay into an actual wage, i.e. what is your effective per-hour pay? Take the salary, minus all the expenses I mentioned, and divide by hours spent on work---including your commute, forced breaks, overtime, etc. (So, for example, consider two otherwise identical jobs, but one with different commute times. The one with the longer commute has a lower overall real wage.)

Consider also health insurance benefits. If you're single, it's probably less of an issue. But if you're married and have kids, then it becomes a big deal.

I will say this: I've now had two positions in my career, and in both case I was part of the "expense" structure. In other words, the stuff I worked on was necessary and provided real value to the company, but was not the primary revenue generator. So management views it as an expense, and cost-cutting is the name of the game. How little can we spend and still get the same result? But when you're dealing with a part of the business that is directly responsible for the profits, management tends to be a little more flexible, and willing to take bigger risks. Just something to consider: if you're moving from a position where you work on your company's end product, to one where you are simply part of the "support" structure, you may find the new environment to be frustrating.

FWIW, I was faced with a loosely similar situation: I had a relatively stable job at a big company. It paid a decent wage and I more or less liked it. But from a friend's invitation, I took a chance on a completely new job in a new city at a startup. The startup has been quite successful, and I'm making considerably more money. But I'm not particularly happy with the job itself; not miserable, but it's certainly not something I'd do for free. I stay for the pay. But I don't regret my choice; even if I knew then what I know now, I'd still take the job. The way I look at it, I'm "buying" greater future freedom by sticking with the not-enjoyable-but-high-paying position for now.

My first link in this comment was from Mr Money Mustache, a blog about facilitating early retirement through frugality and saving money. The retirement goal isn't so much of being able to sit around and do nothing, but being financially independent so that you're no longer a wage slave---you can strictly chose what you do based on the fulfillment factor, rather than worrying about putting food on the table. IOW, you can find the job you like so much you'd do it for free.

Do you know anything about the department/group you'd be managing in the new position? What are the people there like? Are they naturally happy and motivated to do good work? Or is it a sweatshop, where your job will be to crack the whip? Are they struggling right now, and just looking for a patsy to take a big fall?

Ultimately it's a personal decision, no matter how many details you provide about each

Not 120 but much closer.

They aren't, for the most part, interested in the ability to top off at the airport.

I fly ~140,000 miles per year. In every single airport there are hordes of people hunting for outlets to charge their gadgets. I'm not saying the solution is going wireless, I am saying that a claim that folks aren't searching out power at airports is uninformed.

Agreed entirely. I would like to note, though, that travel power strips and surge protectors are extremely affordable and quite portable. I've kept one in my laptop bag or briefcase for years. Nobody has ever denied me access to a power outlet, and it usually leads to a few other people thanking me. Also extremely useful in universities, libraries, coffee shops, etc.

Never had an iPhone, but I did have an iPod touch a while back and my biggest complaint was always that the damn thing was too small! I mean had it been a resistive touch screen it would be alright, but for a capacitive screen I had a hell of a time using the damn thing. Try to type in portrait mode and you can only type one word per minute because that's how slow you have to type to actually hit the right keys; try to type in landscape mode and you can no longer see the text you're typing because the keyboard occupies most of the screen.

I think the Archos 5 IMT ( http://www.amazon.com/Archos-32-Internet-Tablet-Android/dp/B002OL2PLU ) was the PERFECT size. I mean I don't _mind_ if they want to remove the bezel and make it a bit thinner; might be nice if it's going to be a phone...but I've never understood why you'd want smaller than a 5" screen. If I could get that device with an updated version of android and modern hardware (keep the screen resistive though please) I'd buy it in a second.

The entire point of buying these things is that they're _not just phones_ anymore -- you might as well get one with a large enough screen to actually do something useful with it! Unless it's too big to fit comfortably in my pocket, it's not too big.

I have only met one person who is purely self taught, reads computer science textbooks or the equivalent, and reads such books covering a wide variety of topics comparable to what one sees in a traditional computer science program. When I was working on my degree I borrowed Knuth vol 1-3 from this person, these were not vanity books for a bookshelf, they were all obviously read.

Are you sure your opinion wasn't influenced because they were more attractive to you? :)

Knuth books make you more attractive to your fellow IT workers

Here is a link all of his wares on Amazon. Feel free to review crap on him. Hit the greedy bully fuck where it hurts... the wallet. http://www.amazon.com/JAZAN-WILD/e/B006GFY0LS/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop_2

Kind of reminds me of the Saga of Seven Suns series of books by Kevin J Anderson.

"We will not accept content that is freely available on the web unless you are the copyright owner of that content." and "We do accept public domain content" are contradictory unless the latter is intended as an exception to the former (which is not what the text you quoted actually says), or only public domain content that isn't freely available on the web is accepted (which is clearly not how Amazon themselves interpret it). So the policies aren't as clear for the general case as you say they are; there are some real books where reasonable people will come to different conclusions about what the policy actually says. Linked, by the way. But they are indeed very clear for the specific book that this story is concerned with.

Far and away now a days I read more self published books on amazon. Their editing standards are not usually up to published quality, esp for an author's first book, but I'm more and more convinced that publishers have been more harm than help in the book work anyways.

For example here is a category of books I enjoy, and the top books in it:

http://www.amazon.com/High-Tech-Science-Fiction-eBooks/b/ref=amb_link_7192512_3?ie=UTF8&node=158595011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-1&pf_rd_r=18Z89FBPQX256PRKTBVW&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1300192942&pf_rd_i=668010011

On the first page alone I think there might be 1-2 non self published books.

SO maybe because they are so cheap, they are popular and sell a lot. Let's try by customer rating:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?qid=1347374427&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133141011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A158591011%2Cn%3A158595011&sort=reviewrank_authority

STILL almost entirely self published books.

So yeah while the editing standards might not be quite up to snuff, the storytelling has been great and once the author hits with one book he gets almost all the sales money so makes much more than an author under a publisher. Then he has the cash to hire editors etc etc and the result is there have been some amazing series published on there.

Thanks to my kindle and all these 99c self published books, I read MUCH more than I would have otherwise and found some real gems. These days the publisher is just a money sucking middleman that I'm not convinced is really needed anymore.

Far and away now a days I read more self published books on amazon. Their editing standards are not usually up to published quality, esp for an author's first book, but I'm more and more convinced that publishers have been more harm than help in the book work anyways.

For example here is a category of books I enjoy, and the top books in it:

http://www.amazon.com/High-Tech-Science-Fiction-eBooks/b/ref=amb_link_7192512_3?ie=UTF8&node=158595011&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=left-1&pf_rd_r=18Z89FBPQX256PRKTBVW&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1300192942&pf_rd_i=668010011

On the first page alone I think there might be 1-2 non self published books.

SO maybe because they are so cheap, they are popular and sell a lot. Let's try by customer rating:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st?qid=1347374427&rh=n%3A133140011%2Cn%3A!133141011%2Cn%3A154606011%2Cn%3A158591011%2Cn%3A158595011&sort=reviewrank_authority

STILL almost entirely self published books.

So yeah while the editing standards might not be quite up to snuff, the storytelling has been great and once the author hits with one book he gets almost all the sales money so makes much more than an author under a publisher. Then he has the cash to hire editors etc etc and the result is there have been some amazing series published on there.

Thanks to my kindle and all these 99c self published books, I read MUCH more than I would have otherwise and found some real gems. These days the publisher is just a money sucking middleman that I'm not convinced is really needed anymore.

The mainstream thought about markets in general, and therefore also the stock trading market, is that it is self-stabilizing. There are nice books about the nonsense of that theory, but HFT purely exist to syphon off the "correcting" movements of the markets. So even if the stock trading market were as stable as the theory said, it would just bleed dry under HFT.

Also, I guess (but this is a wild personal guess) that these automated traders are so big that they do not only react to fluctuations, but are capable of causing their own and then reaping the upward ripples.

Anyway, nothing of value is produced here. It is only a process being reaped. HFT is crime. Nothing less.

Yet they allow sales of works in the public domain such as Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, etc., which are freely available in electronic form on the Internet as well.

Yes, I've "bought" all of those books on Kindle. Of course, you failed to mention that they are available for $0.00. (Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland) To be fair, I would wager you can find non-free versions of these from others but Amazon must be exercising some control or there would thousands of versions of these public domain books in the store. The real issue is not the fact that it can be gotten for free elsewhere - the problem is that Dusty is not obviously the author or copyright owner of the material. Perhaps this case is perfectly innocent and there is no problem with him publishing the material under his name, but if Amazon cares about the quality of their marketplace, they ought to be careful about letting any random person scrape a community-created document from the internet and publish it as an ebook.

This thread actually brings up another point that I've wondered about recently. With the recent reports of ebook sells now outstripping printed books, I have to imagine that the huge number of free ebooks contribute significantly to these "sales" numbers. If I download a free book from Amazon, it is treated like a purchased item. Google does the same on their Play store. I've purchased about 40 Kindle books and spent less than $10.00 because most were free. I would love to see the ebook vs printed book numbers if you exclude all the free ebooks.

Yet they allow sales of works in the public domain such as Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland, etc., which are freely available in electronic form on the Internet as well.

Yes, I've "bought" all of those books on Kindle. Of course, you failed to mention that they are available for $0.00. (Frankenstein, Alice in Wonderland) To be fair, I would wager you can find non-free versions of these from others but Amazon must be exercising some control or there would thousands of versions of these public domain books in the store. The real issue is not the fact that it can be gotten for free elsewhere - the problem is that Dusty is not obviously the author or copyright owner of the material. Perhaps this case is perfectly innocent and there is no problem with him publishing the material under his name, but if Amazon cares about the quality of their marketplace, they ought to be careful about letting any random person scrape a community-created document from the internet and publish it as an ebook.

This thread actually brings up another point that I've wondered about recently. With the recent reports of ebook sells now outstripping printed books, I have to imagine that the huge number of free ebooks contribute significantly to these "sales" numbers. If I download a free book from Amazon, it is treated like a purchased item. Google does the same on their Play store. I've purchased about 40 Kindle books and spent less than $10.00 because most were free. I would love to see the ebook vs printed book numbers if you exclude all the free ebooks.

I think we all got scammed here on Slashdot. I'm willing to bet this Dusty Phillips is the one who originally submitted the story anonymously to Slashdot. Here is why I'd think that.

Summary incorrectly states that he's the author. He only did some editing, the content was written by the community.

Correction: For the paperback version, he did not do **any** editing whatsoever.

Here is the only customer review for his book in paperback version.

What I was hoping for in this book was a little better laid out and explained version of the tutorial from Arch's website. What I received is a verbatim printed version of the website in a pocket sized soft cover book. I wanted a printed version that I could follow along with, and had considered just printing the website in the first place. At least for $11 the book might have cost less than it would have to print out all those pages on my own. Ink is expensive! My biggest complain is that it really is word for word from the website. For example, the VERY FIRST PAGE has an underlined hyper-link to go for more info. Go ahead, try and click it... I dare you

You can actually confirm this by going to his book and 'click[ing] to look inside'. The book is horribly edited. The table of content is misaligned. It's just a very poor print out of the wiki site with blue links all over the place.

Furthermore, he's listed on Amazon for the paperback version of the book as its sole author, which is a listing he has complete control over. And no, I'm not talking about the cover of the book, or inside the book, I'm talking about the way he listed himself in the Amazon index, which is the part almost everyone sees even if most never take a close look at anything else. And yes, even if he didn't want to list Aaron Griffin and Judd Vinet as the main authors/original copyright holders of this work on Amazon, it is indeed possible to list himself as an (editor) only, for instance just like these guys did with the Richard Feynmans' letters.

I think we all got scammed here on Slashdot. I'm willing to bet this Dusty Phillips is the one who originally submitted the story anonymously to Slashdot. Here is why I'd think that.

Summary incorrectly states that he's the author. He only did some editing, the content was written by the community.

Correction: For the paperback version, he did not do **any** editing whatsoever.

Here is the only customer review for his book in paperback version.

What I was hoping for in this book was a little better laid out and explained version of the tutorial from Arch's website. What I received is a verbatim printed version of the website in a pocket sized soft cover book. I wanted a printed version that I could follow along with, and had considered just printing the website in the first place. At least for $11 the book might have cost less than it would have to print out all those pages on my own. Ink is expensive! My biggest complain is that it really is word for word from the website. For example, the VERY FIRST PAGE has an underlined hyper-link to go for more info. Go ahead, try and click it... I dare you

You can actually confirm this by going to his book and 'click[ing] to look inside'. The book is horribly edited. The table of content is misaligned. It's just a very poor print out of the wiki site with blue links all over the place.

Furthermore, he's listed on Amazon for the paperback version of the book as its sole author, which is a listing he has complete control over. And no, I'm not talking about the cover of the book, or inside the book, I'm talking about the way he listed himself in the Amazon index, which is the part almost everyone sees even if most never take a close look at anything else. And yes, even if he didn't want to list Aaron Griffin and Judd Vinet as the main authors/original copyright holders of this work on Amazon, it is indeed possible to list himself as an (editor) only, for instance just like these guys did with the Richard Feynmans' letters.

I think we all got scammed here on Slashdot. I'm willing to bet this Dusty Phillips is the one who originally submitted the story anonymously to Slashdot. Here is why I'd think that.

Summary incorrectly states that he's the author. He only did some editing, the content was written by the community.

Correction: For the paperback version, he did not do **any** editing whatsoever.

Here is the only customer review for his book in paperback version.

What I was hoping for in this book was a little better laid out and explained version of the tutorial from Arch's website. What I received is a verbatim printed version of the website in a pocket sized soft cover book. I wanted a printed version that I could follow along with, and had considered just printing the website in the first place. At least for $11 the book might have cost less than it would have to print out all those pages on my own. Ink is expensive! My biggest complain is that it really is word for word from the website. For example, the VERY FIRST PAGE has an underlined hyper-link to go for more info. Go ahead, try and click it... I dare you

You can actually confirm this by going to his book and 'click[ing] to look inside'. The book is horribly edited. The table of content is misaligned. It's just a very poor print out of the wiki site with blue links all over the place.

Furthermore, he's listed on Amazon for the paperback version of the book as its sole author, which is a listing he has complete control over. And no, I'm not talking about the cover of the book, or inside the book, I'm talking about the way he listed himself in the Amazon index, which is the part almost everyone sees even if most never take a close look at anything else. And yes, even if he didn't want to list Aaron Griffin and Judd Vinet as the main authors/original copyright holders of this work on Amazon, it is indeed possible to list himself as an (editor) only, for instance just like these guys did with the Richard Feynmans' letters.

I wonder whether ordering these [amazon.com] would land me on some list.