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Amazon Donates 2,000 Kindles To Wounded Veterans
destinyland writes "Amazon's just announced that they're donating 2,000 Kindles to a charity for wounded soldiers and their families. They're also promising to hire at least 1,200 more veterans within the next year at fulfillment centers around the country through Amazon's Military Talent Program."
So, they're saying you have to pay an arm or a leg for a Kindle?
Seems high.
This would be like Microsoft giving away X-boxes under the hope you'll go out and buy games. They're loss-leading new customers.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Hopefully they improve working conditions (beyond just installing air conditioners), or their offer to hire veterans takes on a less impressive light.
They're also promising to hire at least 1,200 more veterans within the next year at fulfillment centers around the country through Amazon's Military Talent Program."
Amazon's warehouses are the closest thing the US has to Foxconn-style conditions. Obviously there is no serious comparison to be had but I wouldn't wish that job on anyone, much less a veteran. Make with the robots already and let's find a better way to make sure seniors and the disabled have money and work.
http://www.gutenberg.org/ is all these soldiers need, e-ink screens are great and there's no need to pay Amazon if they want great classics.
That's it, I'm skipping dinner tonight.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Just as devil's advocate for the moment, since my preference is for the Sony readers, but...
You can download content from all sorts of places, and if you use Calibre (a great program, BTW) to manage your library, I understand you can use pretty much whatever device you want, and it will convert the format (if required) to whatever device you have. There are ways to strip any DRM if you have to. (Who cares if that's legal? If you've paid for a book, it's yours, just the same as if it's printed on paper.)
It doesn't do to spit on Amazon here. Sure they may have ulterior motives, but there was nothing forcing them to make these donations, and they're certainly not hurting you or me.
I was a skeptic about e-readers for a while. I thought the Kindle was a bit overpriced when it first came out, I didn't understand why they weren't selling them at a loss to encourage more book sales. I also kinda liked the concept of the printed page and the traditional look and feel of it. But lately my curiosity got the better of me and I got the Kindle app for my phone and was blown away by the convenience of being able to download a book and start reading right away. Then I ended up getting a Nook.
Man, my view of books has changed overnight! I've been reading books at a rate of knots compared to before. It's just so damn convenient to carry this little thing around with an entire library stored in it, and it's way more robust than the printed page in terms of being resistant to dog ears and the like. (I wouldn't like to drop it, but still...) I've taken delight in taking the train to work even though it takes twice as long because it gives me an opportunity to indulge in novels. The convenience of being able to instantly download any book you feel like getting/buying makes the shipping of printed books look like pigeon post. My shelves full of books are now starting to look like my old CD collection: obsolete, wasteful and space-consuming. And the e-ink is very easy on the eye.
Now I'm a believer!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
I hope so, kinda useless otherwise. Of course, only one place to buy that content from.
The are hundreds of thousands of free e-books available for the Kindle.
Free Book Collections
Baen Free Library
Munseys
The chances are quite good that you can borrow e-books formatted for the Kindle through the online services of your local public library:
Nioga Digital Home [Western New York]
Seriously, I know Bezos isn't a fan of the war but it'd be more humane to give them a new job in Afghanistan than put them in a warehouse that people regularly heat stroke out of, are berated all day, and fired for not keeping up with untenable quotas.
Heatstroke.
... I don't think many people posting around here have a clue what a normal workday in the military can be like. When a vet says he is sore after working at Amazon I'll be more concerned than when a keyboard jockey says he is sore after working at Amazon.
Pressured to perform all day.
Untenable quotas.
Sounds like a typical day in the Navy.
On a more serious note. Perhaps veterans are used to pretty hard work, and I'm not talking combat. Training, maintenance, logistics, etc
Working in Amazon's fulfillment center is probably the worst job I've ever had. (I quit after two days and still had pain a week later).
And a veteran recently returned to civilian life would probably have thought that an easy day.
Our (great-)grandmothers who had assembly line jobs and our (great-)grandfathers who had factory jobs would probably laugh at you. A lots of blue collar workers in the 40s, 50s and 60s had muscles and it was not from going to the gym. It was from going to work.
Odd, I have downloaded quite a few free ebooks for my Kindle, directly from Amazon. Guess what, they were from this century. Just go to these two websites and they will point anyone in the right direction.
http://www.daily-free-ebooks.com/category/free-kindle-books/
http://ereadernewstoday.com/category/free-kindle-books/