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Amazon Piles On the Prime Benefits With New 'Prime Reading' Perk (geekwire.com)
Amazon today unveiled the latest perk for Prime members in the United States: Prime Reading. With this, the company is offering access to "over a thousand" Kindle books, comics, magazines and more. The selection will rotate, the company says, suggesting that you should be able to read titles that aren't available today. GeekWire adds: The new perk, Prime Reading, lets Amazon Prime members access more than 1,000 e-books from best-selling authors at no extra charge, read a rotating selection of popular magazines, and read content from the company's Kindle Singles library, including classic short stories and essays. Prime reading is available on the Kindle app for iOS and Android, and on the company's Kindle e-readers and Fire tablets. The new perk comes in addition to the Kindle Owners' Lending Library, which lets Prime members who own Amazon devices borrow one e-book a month from a larger selection of titles. Separate from a Prime membership, Amazon offers the $10/month Kindle Unlimited e-book subscription service.Amazon Prime program costs $99 per year.
I am guessing that new releases will not be included in this.
I currently buy all my e-books from B&N and read them on my Nook e-ink. I got locked in to that because, at the time, the Kindle didn't have a backlight and the Nook did.
Turns out, I like the Nook's size and weight and I also like not living 100% in Amazon's ecosystem.
Still... they may still hook me into another year of Prime if the selection of sci-fi is decent. I will just have to read them on a tablet (heavy and bright and battery hungry)
I don't order enough stuff on Amazon to make the 2 day deliver worthwhile and the only reason I kept it for another year was for the Prime video... but it seems like all the good stuff is going paid anyway so I don't see much point in that service anymore.
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
I don't know why people keep repeating this bullshit. Wait times depend on severity, which makes sense, otherwise more people would die. Have you been to an emerg in a Canadian hospital? Idiots come there for minor cuts and scrapes and then whine about the 4 hour wait time. When my dad had a bypass, he saw his doc one week, the cardiologist the same week, and had the surgery within 2 weeks (and that was by choice, they we willing to operate on him within days). Conversely, when we went to have non-urgent knee surgery, it took 3 months which was fine by him. One saved his life, the other made it more comfortable, all for $0.
Disclaimer: My opinions are my own and do not, in any way, reflect the opinions of my employer or university.
It depends a lot on the province/city vs state/city for sure, but having lived most of my life in Canada and now being a US permanent resident, the difference is night and day.
When I was a kid, I was -terrified- of the ER, because I knew I'd be there all fucking days. I had a friend who had a major motorcycle accident, was bleeding everywhere, and beyond stopping the blood, made him wait for hours.
And then there's the huge percentage of population that can't get a family doctor, and even if you have one, getting any kind of appointment can take months.
Since i moved I started having some health issues (probably related to american food, heh), and the first time I walked in an hospital (after I walked straight passed it thinking it was a condo building), I couldn't find the ER because I could not find the crowd/line.
I was seen immediately, and the service was 100x more respectful, and problems were found significantly faster.
Of course, its because of the $$$ involved and I have great insurance. Thats unfair to the poor, and I'd still take the Canadian system over that if only so people don't have to be terrified about going bankrupt because they get sick. But in term of care quality, its literally incomparable. Night and day.