Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Stymies Lendle E-book Lending Service
CheerfulMacFanboy writes "CNET quotes Lendle co-founder Jeff Croft: 'They [Amazon] shut the API access off, and without it, our site is mostly useless. So, we went ahead and pulled it down. Could we build a lending site without their API? Yes. But it wouldn't be the quality of product we expect from ourselves.' Croft also said 'at least two other Kindle lending services got the same message' yesterday.'"
Without the functionality being sanctioned by Amazon's own API, we aren't sure if there is a legal sinkhole waiting to ruin us.
10$ says Amazon has their own 'lending' service come online involving modest per-loan fees within 6 months.
Let's make a web site that completely and entirely depends on some interface provided by large perpetually hungry company!
And compete with that company!
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I've used the eBook Fling site, and they don't seem to use an API. Their site is built around their users following a number of steps to lend eBooks to each other, each step described in an iFrame below which the Amazon site is displayed.
They're probably still good to go, although the site has a number of deficiencies. For example, Amazon only allows US-based Kindle owners to lend books. They're not clear about this (you can't find it on the site) and eBook Fling doesn't tell you either. So I've wasted an hour or so finding out what was wrong with either eBook Fling or my Amazon account, until an Amazon rep finally figured out that I wasn't US-based.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
... on TPB business goes on as usual.
Har, har, har
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
While I understand that the Kindle is sold somewhat as a loss-leader and a mechanism to try to sell ebooks for absurd prices (it's bad enough that paperbacks are $9; to charge that same price that costs you NOTHING to duplicate, NOTHING to store, NOTHING to ship, NOTHING to advertise is...hard to swallow), at some point even your lawyer-swaddled management must recognize that if one too blatantly attacks all *reasonable* means of use of that hardware, the only things left are going to be people who are willing and able to use your hardware WITHOUT your consent/cooperation, ie pirates.
Cutting off Lendle (and with a classy c&d sent from a 'do not reply' email address and no recourse to appeal or discuss), secretly editing books, purging books that people have purchased - all of these things simply indicate that you as a vendor are untrustworthy. Therefore the trusting will go elsewhere, the unscrupulous will continue to use Kindles and here's the kick: you're not going to see a DIME of their activities.
-Styopa
CJ Cherryh sells her books cheap and DRM free, see http://www.cherryh.com/, at least those for which she can wrest the rights back from publishers. Such direct book sales from authors, cuttong out publishers AND bookstores (brick like Borders or vaporous like Amazon) will get progressively easier. Just like the music industry will eventually learn, gouging your customers always loses in the long run.
I trust warez release groups more than Amazon. That's so wrong.
Nah. Somewhere in between is better.
We do need some system of rewarding people who work hard, or else, evidence shows, people will just slack, and you end up not with everyone equally rich, but instead with everyone equally poor, so to say.
On the flipside, we do also need mechanisms for ensuring that capitalism is a servant of the people - and not it's master.
I tend to think the scandinavian countries hit the balance close to optimal, but offcourse I'm biased, being Norwegian myself. Some people would say we're -too- socialist, while others would say we're not -enough- socialist, to a certain degree it's a matter of personal taste, I guess.
But I think it's fairly clear-cut that capitalism in the USA, needs *more* moderating influence, and that it has gone too far in the direction of giving power to the wealthy.
The DMCA is not a result of trade in the marketplace. It is the result of trade in the political economy, that is to say of state power and privilege.
Does this sort of thing happen often? If Oracle decides I have too many weeds in my yard, will my Java programs stop working?
Seriously, is the wave of the present/future APIs with all sorts of tests in them so they do different things for different users? Sounds both intriguing and insidious.
Being from another Scandinavian country myself, I have to disagree. The nanny state is huge, and people are no longer able to be responsible for themselves. Everyone thinks about their rights, not their obligations to society. Also, there's a great deal of Jantelov thinking, which is basically an institutional form of jealousy. The scandies need to consider that they're no longer in an isolated, homogeneous part of the world, where everyone agrees about what the public pot should be spent on.
But anyway, that's not the main point I wanted to make. It's not that giving power to the wealthy is the main problem. (Sure, it can be a problem, no doubt.) The problem is giving power to large institutions. Microsoft, AT&T, Shell, etc... government is yet another example. If you ever work with or for one of these behemoths, it's understandable why you're frustrated. Large organisations lack common sense in their decision making, and they lack common empathy in their dealings with ordinary individuals. Due to their size (and influence) they're also able to live beyond their useful age, holding up resources (people, mainly) from more productive uses. Unfortunately, the west has institutionalized a system where the big firms work with the big governments to make sure neither of them is ever renewed. If organisations were smaller, we'd have a much more healthy society, where useful firms live, and old, unproductive ones die.
forces me to buy Hospital insurance
So many stupid US people grumble about being forced to pay for other people's healthcare, blahblahblah.
They don't seem to realize that they're ALREADY paying when some uninsured person queues up at ER and either eventually gets treatment and/or dies there (that still costs money). Even just turning them away costs money and time (won't be surprised it lowers the effectiveness of the ER in treating actual emergencies).
Guess where the money comes from?
Guess how efficient the "long queues at ER" method is at providing healthcare?
Just look at how much healthcare costs per capita in the USA and what the US citizens get for it, and then compare with other countries.
Under communism, who would have invented and marketed the kindle (or iphone or other devices), and why?
Sure, but your socialistic policies and programs work much more smoothly and efficiently because you also have severely restricted immigration, a 90+% homogeneous population, and less people in your country than the Los Angeles metro area. Kinda easy to make blanket statements when your total immigrant population is half a million people across the entire country.
Calling these things eBooks ought to be considered deceptive labeling.
It's not a book if you can't lend it.
It's not a book if you can't resell it.
It's not a book if it won't last thirty years under ordinary casual home storage conditions.
It's not a book when a public library can't buy one copy and lend it out as often as they wish.
It's not about feel of the cloth covers or the smell of the dust or the silverfish living in real books, it's about replicating the functionality all books have had for five hundred years.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
What you really mean is if you get really sick - and young people can and do get really sick - you'll be uninsured and expect me, through my taxes and my insurance contributions to pick up your tab? Or do you have a six figure sum tucked away for medical emergencies?
The largest hospital near me is state owned. When an uninsured person turns up there, it is my taxes that help pay for it. At the other, private hospitals you are right, they have to eat that cost and consequently increase their charges resulting in higher insurance premiums, so I pay for those folk too.
It's because people like you do not know how to count that insurence finally has to be mandatory...
Corporation do not magically have "money" to spend, ALL their money at the end comes from YOUR pocket, the only difference between :
Taxes, mandatory insurance where the money is collected by the state, mandatory insurance where the money is collected by recognized insurance, volontarely insurace is the billing system, and the potential spending oversight, not the "cost" in itself.
And not having an insurance when you are young is stupid because the insurances ajust for risk, so it is cheaper to get insurance when you are young and still a decent deal if you happen to be unlucky and either break a leg or get some nasty stuff you where not planning for...
So it is more efficient to lobby for a decent affordable well run insurance, than sticking your head in the sand...
In fact show me ONE form of government that is fair. Because I cant find one that exists ANYWHERE on this planet.
Bhutan? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhutan#Government_and_politics
If I didn't make an income and had a reasonable lifestyle provided for me I would still be writing code. And the quality would probably be better because the people around me who only do it to make a buck would get weeded out faster.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
I would suggest getting catastrophic coverage. The cost is unbelievably cheap and you will be protected in the event of some major health event: cancer, severe accident, etc.
Cool story bro time...
I'm in my 20s and healthy. I would be like you (except with catastrophic coverage mentioned before) if my employer didn't provide insurance, but they do. Last year I was in an accident and broke my arm. The total costs (to my insurance company) for the ride to the ER, surgery to screw my bones back together, a couple days in the hospital, and some physical therapy afterwards was over $50k. A couple things to note here. That $50k would have bankrupted my family if we had to pay that out of pocket. More importantly though... while I was in the ER I got to hear the initial patient questions they asked everyone in the room... Name, what happened, do you have insurance, etc. I can tell you based on the responses to those questions that my $50k of health care probably only cost about half that, because several people didn't have any form of insurance... But the hospital had to pay for doctors, nurses, beds, food, etc. for every one of them. The hospital I went to is non-profit. And sure, the President makes a big paycheck as do the doctors, but there's not massive corporate profits going into the pockets of some benefactor. In fact, the big local for-profit hospital will just do enough to keep you alive and then offer you a free ride to the non-profit hospital I was at.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
Who do you think ultimately absorbs the hospital's loss? WE DO. When the hospital writes it off, they get a tax break which in turn is less money coming from the hospital which means WE have to make up for the difference. Your sig is a joke and shows a lack of critical thinking. You would do well to remove it.
Good-bye
The idea that "all the doctors would be working for the government" is a red flag waved by people who like the system as it is : way overpriced...
France has had mandatory insurance for probably over 20 years, and generalized insurance since the end of ww2.
And most of the doctors are independent professionals, and although you are supposed to identify a "generalist" as your "family doctor" and use him or her as an "entry door" before visiting a specialist (expect special cases like eye doctors, gyncologist, ... and urgent cases...), you can change it very easily and the choice is free..
There is no reason to have a "UK" style health system, reglementation and competition can work together, you just have to try to get the best out of both...
Let Amazon's actions, and Twitter's, and others, be a lesson:
Never, ever make a competitor's (or potential competitor's) products and services a crucial part of your business unless you've got a written, signed contract with them that's got guarantees written in that they won't alter or discontinue those products and/or services and severe penalties if they fail to live up to those guarantees (scaled to the actual consequences to your business of the disruption, not to some arbitrary "fair" scale, and scaled to compensate you for those disruptions, not to be "fair"). Make sure your lawyers helped write the contract, don't touch a "take it or leave it" offer. Especially if their offer includes a clause that lets them change the terms at any time.
Doing otherwise is just becoming your competitor's unpaid R&D and market research department.
You've previously stated that you make close to $150k, why not just say that instead of skirting around the question?
Oh, I know, it's because you know no one will take your claim of being "poor" seriously. Well, fortunately for us, this isn't 4chan and your posts never get erased.
Have a nice day. :)
It makes the hospital more. They pass the costs to the insurance companies who then pass it to the companies or individuals.
:).
FWIW it also helps pay for the uninsured queuing up at the ER.
Whereas in some other countries you have:
1) private hospitals which charge a lot.
2) government/state hospitals which are tax subsidized/funded, but often (not always!) have longer queues - so if your condition is not serious you have to wait longer than someone who needs the stuff "right now".
The latter is not always inferior to the former. The government doctors often have more experience
What makes me really laugh about the Americans whinging about people spending their taxes on healthcare, is that despite spending nearly twice as much per capita on healthcare than Canada, they still have a lower life expectancy for reference and their infant mortality is significantly higher. And even funnier, their % of government revenue spent on health, is higher than Canada too.
Surely a solution to this is for the government to regulate the healthcare and medical insurance industries to ensure the cost isn't completely ridiculous so EVERYONE can afford healthcare.
Oh - and before anyone bleats on about not being able to see a doctor when you like - Canada has a very similar number of physicians per capita to America. There is no need for rationing.
Also - for the parent posting - when will you decide your body is failing enough for you to get insurance? When you're 30? When you're 40? When you're 50? Sickness can strike at any time - it's not just limited to the old.
What do the anti-ebook crowd hope to accomplish? I don't think paper books are EVER going away so I'm not sure the crusade is merited. If you don't like ebooks, don't buy them. I prefer them for novels where there isn't going to be charts and graphs that need to be studied. And I don't think libraries are going away either. If there are fewer of them, that's not the end of the world. People can travel relatively small distances with ease. It will still be more convenient than 60 years ago when people had to "go to the city for the day". I think ebooks and laptop vs. tablet are the two most annoying and useless debates going on in technology. The people that use the new technology usually love it and the people who hate it aren't changing any minds.
The point he was making is that hospitals charge at least twice their actual costs for any procedure in order to cover the half of their patients who have no insurance and no means to pay. Insurance companies have some leverage to drive these costs down, but cash customers really get screwed.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Ah yes, Nook... the device the Microsoft is currently suing for patent infringement? I'm sure it's got a bright future ahead, cause obviously our current system encourages choice.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Heres a few:
1) People are more apt to support their own than others. This extends to cultural and socio-economic groups. A homogeneous culture benefits from this aspect of basic human behavior. With the small size of the population of Norway, the community aspect becomes more pronounced.
2) A much smaller problem, but still a problem, comes from supporting people of many different ethnicities on a large scale. Medically(as Norway is used as a prime example for social medicine done right), the lack of diversity will assist in keeping costs down as there are a number of medical issues that have prevalence based on ancestry(like sickle-cell anemia). Not a major issue, but one that costs money regardless.
This action has nothing to do with capitalism. This is just greed.
Capitalism is a method of allowing private or public investment in business, for the investor to gain returns if the company is successful.
An ethical business will create value and keep as a profit some portion of the value, with its customers acquiring the remaining value in the form of that product or service.
An unethical business with divert value instead of creating it, so they profit from something that harms everyone else.
Communism is nothing more than government substituted for the company in these roles. A government can be just as ethical or unethical (the latter usually in the form of corruption by leaders).
What is needed is a means to ensure ethical behavior, regardless of whether capitalism or communism is involved. Since governments tend to be inefficient, poorly organized, and heavily burdened by bureaucracy, and corporations tend to lie, steal, and cheat everywhere they can get away with, the ideal solution is for a well regulated form of capitalism.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
A huge problem in the US (which is getting worse) is the "culture islands" of people that have no interest in assimilating. During previous immigration waves the people that were coming to the US wanted to be "Americans" (whatever that means) but recently the trend has been "diversity" where they want to keep their culture, language and customs - just live in the US, make lots of money and send a good bit of it home to the family.
What this does is you get attitudes that are very, very counterproductive if you are trying to assemble the people behind a common goal. Let's say that it would make sense to raise taxes in order to pay for a really spiffy Medicare benefit such as assisted living. So instead of putting Grandma in the cheapest warehouse so she can wait to die she could get some kind of home assistance. Well, the folks that are here to make money and send it home (and probably return there after working for 10-15 years) have no interest in such things. Trying to build a demographic of middle-aged people working gets all skewed because maybe 10% of the working adults in may be transients that have very little interest in anything except fatter paychecks right now.
There is certainly another factor at work as well, Fundamentalist religious beliefs, whether they are Christian or Muslim, tend to push people to focus on the afterlife rather than material things in this life. So good health care is relatively meaningless and care for Grandma is not a priority at all. Such people are going to vote for things that mystify people interested in the here and now. It isn't Sharia law that we need to worry about as much as voting for the afterlife. If you want benefits and support from your government, you are looking for things that are meaningless to someone focused on the afterlife.
It doesn't matter if these people are white, brown or green. If they are in the US (or UK) to grab some easy cash and send it back to the wife and kids somewhere else, they aren't going to have the same priorities as someone in the country for the long haul. And I'd say getting too many people not in it for the long haul is hazardous to any country.
150,000 is pretty standard for the readers of Slashdot (programmers or engineers), and it's miniscule compared to the persons earning $5 million a year off Stock options and other shit. (i.e. the Ruling class of this country, like CEOs and congressmen)
But it certainly isn't anywhere near "working poor".
Fandroids hate facts.
High deductible (aka catastrophic coverage) insurance is a crock of shit. The savings in premiums may exist, but often its insubstantial -- possibly as little as 5 or 10% -- unless other provisions exist, such as low lifetime caps on treatment, which completely defeats the purpose of having insurance in the first place. Worse, the lack of any co-pay before meeting the deductible discourages people from seeking treatment *before* something minor turns into something big. That's the point when a true savings can be realized, not to mention treatability and life expectancy for many ailments that get worse, sometimes irreversibly, over time.
The NYT had a great article on high deductible policies...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/30/health/30patient.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
Basically, unless you get very sick within a very short window after starting high deductible coverage, you're probably better off putting your money into an HSA. Still, saving money specifically for potential healthcare expenses only really benefits a very narrow window of people: those who can save enough money to cover potential expenses AND never need to use that money. For everyone else, standard insurance is the far better option, which is why we carry it on almost everything else of value that we insure in life.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
You're just setting yourself up for higher premiums later in life. A system where people don't buy insurance until they need it can't work any other way.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
You should play Go. You'll find that all crude, low-level games end vastly imbalanced-- B+30 points, W+178 points, an "even" handicap cannot be won and it's W+60 points, etc. Higher level games, however, tend to fall within 2-4 points; occasionally a mistake is made, and a large loss is sustained, B+186 after White plays the tiger's mouth instead of the solid connection and loses a vital point in his wall.
What is interesting about Go, however, is that the manner of play must be flexible. The openings are vast and provide an open, but not really solid, foundation. Attacks here lead to defenses here, or maybe passive responses here; you can protect, or you can concede 30 points here but take 30 points over there in exchange. So while every high-level game comes within 2 points because of near-perfect play on the part of both parties, no two games are even vaguely similar.
Economics works the same way. Capitalism won't work, just like playing all your stones along one side and trying viciously to collect territory won't work. Communism won't work either, just like scattering your stones all over the board as thin as possible right in the opening won't work. Aggressively attacking won't work, neither will aggressively defending; individual moves have to both defend and expand, or defend and attack something else.
A working economic system must be extremely flexible, and it must be a blend between communism and capitalism. Communism and capitalism are simply endpoints on a continuum; the Free Enterprise Market system is near-capitalism, but shifted a little to communism. Sometimes the government has to tell you, hey, you can't use your monopolistic position abusively to stifle competition or strangle other markets you want a foothold in. Patent protection is good, but endless patents and copyrights are not; in a fast-changing technological climate, you want shorter IP terms to avoid outright stifling innovation by making it dependent on the patent chain.
Maybe we should provide healthcare, but it's expensive. Maybe we should provide free clinics (check-ups, lab test, prescription writing, everything but OR and ER) to reduce the healthcare burden, sort of pay 10% to get 90% of the benefit. If you have insurance, it pays just like it pays in-network and out-of-network doctors; but the free clinic healthcare system pays the difference, instead of out-of-pocket payments. That's a good attempt between "Pay everything" and "Pay nothing." So was medicare and medicaid (socialized medicine for old people, not workforce).
As the economic climate changes, the optimal balance shifts. If you're greedy and want everything, you will fuck it up. Things need constant adjustment, attention, evaluation. You must know when to concede to gain more, or more often to lose less.
Support my political activism on Patreon.