If you bought it as early as that and have only read 30 books then you aren't nearly as voracious as you think you are. I've got 3 pages of books listings on my Kindle right now, probably not quite 30 (smallest font), but I've only had my Kindle for maybe 6months! At the end of a year I'll easily have read more than 30 books on mine although not nearly so many monthly type things - sadly their selection doesn't do it for me and I get mags that are picture heavy generally. No not THAT kind, car mags!
Anyway, that said yeah the Kindle makes for nice easy reading of books and I'm now not ever without a book to read!
Umm, is Analog DRM free on the Kindle? I own a Kindle and a loooong time subscriber to Analog but didn't subscribe on Kindle due to the pittance of a discount. If it's DRM free that might be a supporting reason to subscribe but still I dunno' about it. I think I can get it even cheaper with multi-year subscriptions and coupons, the Kindle price just doesn't seem all that great for Analog - which is a real bummer. Plus I don't like to leave the cell modem on very much which I'd have to do more often to catch the Analog downloads...
Actually, if the paperback cover price is $10 then expect to pay maybe $6.99 with Kindle - max. The most expensive book I've bought so far on my Kindle was $9.99 and cheapest was maybe $2. they discount off the cover price pretty good, especially if you look at hardcover prices for new books. It's only when you look at tech manuals or perhaps some sort of texbook thing that you begin to see much higher prices. $9.99 is pretty much the most you will see ofr normal books you'd find off a bookstand rack.
I disagree. I do not think they are making much money on the Kindle itself - however I am betting they are making a pretty good penny on the distribution of eBooks. The eBook distribution costs them VERY little even when you factor in the cell data costs - the data transfer for a purchase is minimal! Even if they only make a few bucks per book purchase and lose a little on the reader - possible - they are making a good bit of cash.
Most folks aren't going to goto the trouble of finding alternate sources of books and converting them (I've done maybe 5) but will purchase many from Amazon, especially with their EASY method of purchase and distribution. I've bought at least 15 books from them for mine and see no end in sight.
Certainly if someone wants to compete with Amazon for this market they can but they will have to make it cheap enough that folks won't mind having to use USB to transfer the books or Amazon's PDF service. Right now, for books, Amazon is kicking butt - I but music from them too actually. With music I might want it on more than one device but eBooks? I only have the one Kindle right now....
You're ASSuming that $ony would accept such a partnership. the Sony reader is pretty darned nice and looks great but the selection for it sucks ass. the Kindle on the other hand looks a little crappy but functions VERY well and has a MASSIVE selection of content and a terrific distribution system. The DRM also doesn't get in your way. You know the Kindle doesn't use WiFi right? And that Apple makes WAY more off of iPod hardware than music sales? As I recall they don't make all that much at all off of iTunes - anyone got links?
I have a PSP too and while I like it okay for movies I'd draw the line at eBooks and prefer the Kindle by far. The screen is simply too small and folks I know who bump the font WAY up on the Kindle wouldn't be able to get hardly any text on a PSP screen. Same with the iPhone, I do not see myself reading books on that anytime soon - especially since I also own a Kindle. The Kindle is really pretty good at what it does - sux ass as a WEB browser though, I've yet to try it's MP3 capabilities either.
The screen isn't like a standard LCD. If there's enough light to read a book then there's plenty of light to use the Kindle. It's nothing like reading off of a laptop screen in my extensive experience with the device. Battery life, with the modem OFF, rocks too and swapping the battery isn't a big deal.
Umm except it happens to do that job VERY well indeed. I have read quite a few books on my kindle and find that it is VERY nice to be able to carry around several books at once on it so that as I finish one I can start another. I just finished a business trip in fact and while sitting in the airport to LEAVE for my trip I finished a book, browsed\purchased\downloaded another, and then on the return trip having finished the first book I bought two more while sitting in the airport waiting for my flight.
With the Kindle I'm now pretty much always reading at least one if not more books constantly! I read many books before but frankly ran out of shelf space, found it a hassle to carry more than one, and paid MORE than I do now if buying new plus I had to get off my ass to go get them! the Kindle may be a one trick pony but it's pretty good at what it does.
P.S. You know it can be used to browse the WEB right? Play MP3?
So to protect data it must be flagged and the protection consists of making a second copy? That's pretty inefficient and a PITA. unRAID would do it better although depending on what you are streaming to you might have to do a little more work. To each his own but I think you'd find that there are better solutions out there....
Take a look at unRAID by Lime Technology. Maxxes out at 15 data drives, 1 parity. Lots of advantages too numerous to list here to include spindown of drives not in use. Plenty fast enough for streaming multiple HD streams and runs on low end hardware easily with good data protection. I'll take it over standard RAID for home use any day. My two servers together are over 7TB and growing:-)
Been getting these for over 6 months. Asked the dealer about it and how they got my number and make of car - they claim to have NO clue and told me point blank it wasn't them calling nor was it VW. What's odd is I am pretty sure I've never given VW my cell phone either! Very very annoying...
Nope, XBMC won't work with it I'm pretty sure. Asked about and on the forums and the answer was negative if memory serves. Their player is custom and uses FFMPEG, no Haali...
Define massive - my BD rips from disk prior to compression top out at around 40Gigs each with DTS sound. The sound track is normally about a half gig and with an uncompressed soundtrack I might see MAYBE 1.5Gigs. So, figure 41gigs or so per movie prior to compressing them. When compressed figure about HALF that even with really high bitrates - I've done this about 60 times now so I think those numbers are accurate. Bear in mind some BD rips are also UNDER 15Gigs prior to compression too
So, why wouldn't a 1.5TB drive work? I use WD green 1TB drives now in an unRAID system and they are GREAT! Hell I don't even use Gig ethernet as I bought the wrong cable and the run is too long. 100meg has ZERO issues handling HD streams with 5.1 surround on my setup! I have NEVER had an issue with throughput nor have I come close to maxxing out my read speeds while streaming even from my IDE drives - not even EIDE.
You won't need the speed gotten from reading from parallel\striped disks in order to watch HD movies. unRAID doesn't work that way and no one I know has issues watching HD video - even multiple streams from the same drive at the same time. You WAY overestimate what's required and a RAID5 system is unnecessary, uses too much power, and IMO risks the data too much over something simpler like an unRAID that uses a single parity drive and standard F/S formatting.
If you have the money for a cheap motherboard, a celeron CPU, a gig of memory, a decent case, a decent P/S, and a pile of HDs laying around you *DO* have the money to build as big a NAS as you have drives for.
Look at unRAID from Lime Technology. It protects your data pretty well, spins down drives not in use, can be built on cheap hardware, and the software for it is pretty cheap too - Linux based. I have two of these beasts running and umm "many" TBs worth of disk space. When I built my first one the msot expensive part of it was the silly case! They even have a free version that will run 2 data drives and a parity drive that you can test with. When I run out of space I buy a drive - they are supporting up to 16disks total!
Sorry, but this is way easier than you make it out to be and not so cutting edge that you couldn't do it if you decided to try. Hell you've probably got half the hardware already laying around if you're anything like the rest of us.
Personally I want my HTPC running the smallest quietest drive possible. I currently use a small 320Gig laptop SATA drive I took out of a WD enclosure. I am considering building a small SSD instead just to knock the noise down further and allow me to shut off a noisy fan. I could boot it from a CD and store data files to a USB maybe but an SSD is more flexible I think. Big drives in a small HTPC case make no sense IMO.
Servers do not belong in the living room and 1.5TB isn't enough anyway - all of my noisy stuff is far far away and I try to minimize my HTPC machine....
It might also be nice if something like oh say FFMPEG supported that H.264 decoding chipset too huh? So far it seems that high powered CPU decoding of HD is the order of the day if you're running free software like XBMC. It would also be most awesome if ALSA supported audio out over HDMI on a wide range of modern chipsets too. Some of this stuff is coming for sure but it looks to be a VERY long time before I'm going to have something powered by something as lowly as an Atom in my HTPC....
XBMC, the Linux version at least, will want closer to a 3Ghz C2D unless your idea of HD is low bitrate 720P stuff. The Killer Sample clip that everyone tests with is pretty insane but until I bumped to 3GHZ I saw skipping in BD rips I'd encoded too. The CABAC patch that they have used on FFMPEG really helps!
One of these days GPU acceleration will be available but for now brute force CPU is required. A P4 doesn't have a chance I'm afraid - not with XBMC anyway. I think on Winders they aren't using video acceleration either so that won't make a big diff either.
anyway, on a 100meg connection I stream this stuff no problem. SATA is 100% NOT required. In fact my dual tuner HDHomerun only has a 100meg connection and can stream TWO HD streams...
Click on the signup buttons and whatnot and you'll get much more data than some lame article. I did this a few months ago after seeing something about it here or on DIGG and there appeared to be adequate protections in place. Unfortunately there was the small issue of sign up fees too.
Interestingly - going to the page myself I see no mention of specific fees but instead they ask you to "pledge". Seems to me that this ios now going to be a case of high "bidders" go first - a shame:-( I'm pretty sure that this is not what I saw previously but I'm not willing to dig through wayback to be sure....
I looked into this project. As I recall those who receive the information about you do not actually receive WHO you are. That is one of the protections in place if my memory serves. However someone obviously knows who you are since any results of the sequencing and research are supposed to be passed back to you as a condition of participating. That said, they do not guarantee privacy because it's possible someone will be able to figure out who you are by reading medical records or some other quirk. On top of that these folks apparently announced that they are participating so duh yeah we know who they are but I do not recall that as a requirement to participate. Unless I am remembering incorrectly I do not think that there's going to be a Wiki with your DNA plastered on it and your complete medical history for all to see. Instead there will be a repository with DNA and medical histories stored for qualified researchers to examine and report results back to - said results then get passed back to the people who volunteered.
so long as the people doing the passing of information are ethical and the researchers do not spend all of their time trying to figure out WHO volunteered and instead do the research they signed up for I do not see a problem with this and would have participated myself were it not for the entrance fees of a couple grand. IMO DNA science has the potential for a great deal of benefit in this case. If they can predict a disease or find something else that could benefit others then I say go for it - I'd volunteer.
Frankly if it didn't cost a couple grand to participate I'd be doing it myself. As I recall they are not posting your name to the DNA sample and there are SOME protections in place but they cannot guarantee that someone won't figure out who you are. All results etc. are supposed to go back to the person who signed up for the project too. So that means that if someone finds something that you really ought to know about you will be notified.
Aside from the couple grand entrance fee and being willing to tell them about my family history etc. I do not see this as too onerous. In fact in the long run it might help others out so given a choice I'd sign up. I leave my DNA all over the place, I do not consider it to be too terribly private.
That said I do tend to protect my privacy in general but in this case the benefit to me and potentially to *others* would seem to be worthwhile particularly since there are some protections in place.
Obviously he pulled the numbers from his nether regions. He's simply not asking the right people. No one I know is thrilled about DRM and nearly ALL of them have had issues with it mucking up their systems at one point or another.
When I heard Spore was coming out I was pretty excited - I wanted it! But their Creature Creator thing refused to install for me and then I found out about the DRM - no sale. It got better, the girlfriend's daughter was raving about this kewl new game she'd played at a friend's house - Spore!
I then carefully explained that while I thought it was a really neat game that I didn't approve of the way it burrowed into the computer's O/S and that I wouldn't be purchasing it for them to install on their computers either. She was disappointed but once I explained my objections she accepted it. A real shame too since for kids I think this would have been perfect, oh well! DRM ruined at least two sales right there, possibly more since in this home each child has their own computer. It really did sound like a fun game too. If they reverse their decision and do something to neuter or remove the DRM I'll sign up for it, not till then...
But who would be responsible for the scrutiny and what level of responsibility would we place upon them to do that job correctly? If they are going to be held accountable at all for having reviewed the notice then chances are they will agree with the take-down all the time just to avoid the possibility of being wrong. I do not see this solving the issue, only putting additional responsibility on the hosting service which they are trying hard to avoid now as it is.
The problem in your theory is the part where you said "relatively unshielded". True of a cheap ass PA system, not so much true when you're talking about a multi-million dollar airplane that has to pass rigorous testing for things like RF and electrical interference...
In this case it was something they thought of and patented - this was a feature that DISH or Direct copied at one point, got sued, and pulled back if memory serves and would be why your box doesn't have it. they could perhaps license it but cable DVRs tend to be built by cheap bastards...
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If you bought it as early as that and have only read 30 books then you aren't nearly as voracious as you think you are. I've got 3 pages of books listings on my Kindle right now, probably not quite 30 (smallest font), but I've only had my Kindle for maybe 6months! At the end of a year I'll easily have read more than 30 books on mine although not nearly so many monthly type things - sadly their selection doesn't do it for me and I get mags that are picture heavy generally. No not THAT kind, car mags!
Anyway, that said yeah the Kindle makes for nice easy reading of books and I'm now not ever without a book to read!
Umm, is Analog DRM free on the Kindle? I own a Kindle and a loooong time subscriber to Analog but didn't subscribe on Kindle due to the pittance of a discount. If it's DRM free that might be a supporting reason to subscribe but still I dunno' about it. I think I can get it even cheaper with multi-year subscriptions and coupons, the Kindle price just doesn't seem all that great for Analog - which is a real bummer. Plus I don't like to leave the cell modem on very much which I'd have to do more often to catch the Analog downloads...
Actually, if the paperback cover price is $10 then expect to pay maybe $6.99 with Kindle - max. The most expensive book I've bought so far on my Kindle was $9.99 and cheapest was maybe $2. they discount off the cover price pretty good, especially if you look at hardcover prices for new books. It's only when you look at tech manuals or perhaps some sort of texbook thing that you begin to see much higher prices. $9.99 is pretty much the most you will see ofr normal books you'd find off a bookstand rack.
I disagree. I do not think they are making much money on the Kindle itself - however I am betting they are making a pretty good penny on the distribution of eBooks. The eBook distribution costs them VERY little even when you factor in the cell data costs - the data transfer for a purchase is minimal! Even if they only make a few bucks per book purchase and lose a little on the reader - possible - they are making a good bit of cash.
Most folks aren't going to goto the trouble of finding alternate sources of books and converting them (I've done maybe 5) but will purchase many from Amazon, especially with their EASY method of purchase and distribution. I've bought at least 15 books from them for mine and see no end in sight.
Certainly if someone wants to compete with Amazon for this market they can but they will have to make it cheap enough that folks won't mind having to use USB to transfer the books or Amazon's PDF service. Right now, for books, Amazon is kicking butt - I but music from them too actually. With music I might want it on more than one device but eBooks? I only have the one Kindle right now....
You're ASSuming that $ony would accept such a partnership. the Sony reader is pretty darned nice and looks great but the selection for it sucks ass. the Kindle on the other hand looks a little crappy but functions VERY well and has a MASSIVE selection of content and a terrific distribution system. The DRM also doesn't get in your way. You know the Kindle doesn't use WiFi right? And that Apple makes WAY more off of iPod hardware than music sales? As I recall they don't make all that much at all off of iTunes - anyone got links?
I have a PSP too and while I like it okay for movies I'd draw the line at eBooks and prefer the Kindle by far. The screen is simply too small and folks I know who bump the font WAY up on the Kindle wouldn't be able to get hardly any text on a PSP screen. Same with the iPhone, I do not see myself reading books on that anytime soon - especially since I also own a Kindle. The Kindle is really pretty good at what it does - sux ass as a WEB browser though, I've yet to try it's MP3 capabilities either.
The screen isn't like a standard LCD. If there's enough light to read a book then there's plenty of light to use the Kindle. It's nothing like reading off of a laptop screen in my extensive experience with the device. Battery life, with the modem OFF, rocks too and swapping the battery isn't a big deal.
Umm except it happens to do that job VERY well indeed. I have read quite a few books on my kindle and find that it is VERY nice to be able to carry around several books at once on it so that as I finish one I can start another. I just finished a business trip in fact and while sitting in the airport to LEAVE for my trip I finished a book, browsed\purchased\downloaded another, and then on the return trip having finished the first book I bought two more while sitting in the airport waiting for my flight.
With the Kindle I'm now pretty much always reading at least one if not more books constantly! I read many books before but frankly ran out of shelf space, found it a hassle to carry more than one, and paid MORE than I do now if buying new plus I had to get off my ass to go get them! the Kindle may be a one trick pony but it's pretty good at what it does.
P.S. You know it can be used to browse the WEB right? Play MP3?
So to protect data it must be flagged and the protection consists of making a second copy? That's pretty inefficient and a PITA. unRAID would do it better although depending on what you are streaming to you might have to do a little more work. To each his own but I think you'd find that there are better solutions out there....
Take a look at unRAID by Lime Technology. Maxxes out at 15 data drives, 1 parity. Lots of advantages too numerous to list here to include spindown of drives not in use. Plenty fast enough for streaming multiple HD streams and runs on low end hardware easily with good data protection. I'll take it over standard RAID for home use any day. My two servers together are over 7TB and growing :-)
Been getting these for over 6 months. Asked the dealer about it and how they got my number and make of car - they claim to have NO clue and told me point blank it wasn't them calling nor was it VW. What's odd is I am pretty sure I've never given VW my cell phone either! Very very annoying...
Nope, XBMC won't work with it I'm pretty sure. Asked about and on the forums and the answer was negative if memory serves. Their player is custom and uses FFMPEG, no Haali...
Define massive - my BD rips from disk prior to compression top out at around 40Gigs each with DTS sound. The sound track is normally about a half gig and with an uncompressed soundtrack I might see MAYBE 1.5Gigs. So, figure 41gigs or so per movie prior to compressing them. When compressed figure about HALF that even with really high bitrates - I've done this about 60 times now so I think those numbers are accurate. Bear in mind some BD rips are also UNDER 15Gigs prior to compression too
So, why wouldn't a 1.5TB drive work? I use WD green 1TB drives now in an unRAID system and they are GREAT! Hell I don't even use Gig ethernet as I bought the wrong cable and the run is too long. 100meg has ZERO issues handling HD streams with 5.1 surround on my setup! I have NEVER had an issue with throughput nor have I come close to maxxing out my read speeds while streaming even from my IDE drives - not even EIDE.
You won't need the speed gotten from reading from parallel\striped disks in order to watch HD movies. unRAID doesn't work that way and no one I know has issues watching HD video - even multiple streams from the same drive at the same time. You WAY overestimate what's required and a RAID5 system is unnecessary, uses too much power, and IMO risks the data too much over something simpler like an unRAID that uses a single parity drive and standard F/S formatting.
If you have the money for a cheap motherboard, a celeron CPU, a gig of memory, a decent case, a decent P/S, and a pile of HDs laying around you *DO* have the money to build as big a NAS as you have drives for.
Look at unRAID from Lime Technology. It protects your data pretty well, spins down drives not in use, can be built on cheap hardware, and the software for it is pretty cheap too - Linux based. I have two of these beasts running and umm "many" TBs worth of disk space. When I built my first one the msot expensive part of it was the silly case! They even have a free version that will run 2 data drives and a parity drive that you can test with. When I run out of space I buy a drive - they are supporting up to 16disks total!
Sorry, but this is way easier than you make it out to be and not so cutting edge that you couldn't do it if you decided to try. Hell you've probably got half the hardware already laying around if you're anything like the rest of us.
Personally I want my HTPC running the smallest quietest drive possible. I currently use a small 320Gig laptop SATA drive I took out of a WD enclosure. I am considering building a small SSD instead just to knock the noise down further and allow me to shut off a noisy fan. I could boot it from a CD and store data files to a USB maybe but an SSD is more flexible I think. Big drives in a small HTPC case make no sense IMO.
Servers do not belong in the living room and 1.5TB isn't enough anyway - all of my noisy stuff is far far away and I try to minimize my HTPC machine....
It might also be nice if something like oh say FFMPEG supported that H.264 decoding chipset too huh? So far it seems that high powered CPU decoding of HD is the order of the day if you're running free software like XBMC. It would also be most awesome if ALSA supported audio out over HDMI on a wide range of modern chipsets too. Some of this stuff is coming for sure but it looks to be a VERY long time before I'm going to have something powered by something as lowly as an Atom in my HTPC....
CABAC patched FFMPEG does SMP VERY well in my experience. Unfortunately it won't use more than two cores right now.
Decent front-ends like XBMC won't utilize non-free CODECS so even if you get it installed you'll still have to find a good front-end to use it.
XBMC, the Linux version at least, will want closer to a 3Ghz C2D unless your idea of HD is low bitrate 720P stuff. The Killer Sample clip that everyone tests with is pretty insane but until I bumped to 3GHZ I saw skipping in BD rips I'd encoded too. The CABAC patch that they have used on FFMPEG really helps!
One of these days GPU acceleration will be available but for now brute force CPU is required. A P4 doesn't have a chance I'm afraid - not with XBMC anyway. I think on Winders they aren't using video acceleration either so that won't make a big diff either.
anyway, on a 100meg connection I stream this stuff no problem. SATA is 100% NOT required. In fact my dual tuner HDHomerun only has a 100meg connection and can stream TWO HD streams...
And me without mod points...
Go check out their home page http://www.personalgenomes.org/
Click on the signup buttons and whatnot and you'll get much more data than some lame article. I did this a few months ago after seeing something about it here or on DIGG and there appeared to be adequate protections in place. Unfortunately there was the small issue of sign up fees too.
Interestingly - going to the page myself I see no mention of specific fees but instead they ask you to "pledge". Seems to me that this ios now going to be a case of high "bidders" go first - a shame :-( I'm pretty sure that this is not what I saw previously but I'm not willing to dig through wayback to be sure....
I looked into this project. As I recall those who receive the information about you do not actually receive WHO you are. That is one of the protections in place if my memory serves. However someone obviously knows who you are since any results of the sequencing and research are supposed to be passed back to you as a condition of participating. That said, they do not guarantee privacy because it's possible someone will be able to figure out who you are by reading medical records or some other quirk. On top of that these folks apparently announced that they are participating so duh yeah we know who they are but I do not recall that as a requirement to participate. Unless I am remembering incorrectly I do not think that there's going to be a Wiki with your DNA plastered on it and your complete medical history for all to see. Instead there will be a repository with DNA and medical histories stored for qualified researchers to examine and report results back to - said results then get passed back to the people who volunteered.
so long as the people doing the passing of information are ethical and the researchers do not spend all of their time trying to figure out WHO volunteered and instead do the research they signed up for I do not see a problem with this and would have participated myself were it not for the entrance fees of a couple grand. IMO DNA science has the potential for a great deal of benefit in this case. If they can predict a disease or find something else that could benefit others then I say go for it - I'd volunteer.
Frankly if it didn't cost a couple grand to participate I'd be doing it myself. As I recall they are not posting your name to the DNA sample and there are SOME protections in place but they cannot guarantee that someone won't figure out who you are. All results etc. are supposed to go back to the person who signed up for the project too. So that means that if someone finds something that you really ought to know about you will be notified.
Aside from the couple grand entrance fee and being willing to tell them about my family history etc. I do not see this as too onerous. In fact in the long run it might help others out so given a choice I'd sign up. I leave my DNA all over the place, I do not consider it to be too terribly private.
That said I do tend to protect my privacy in general but in this case the benefit to me and potentially to *others* would seem to be worthwhile particularly since there are some protections in place.
Obviously he pulled the numbers from his nether regions. He's simply not asking the right people. No one I know is thrilled about DRM and nearly ALL of them have had issues with it mucking up their systems at one point or another.
When I heard Spore was coming out I was pretty excited - I wanted it! But their Creature Creator thing refused to install for me and then I found out about the DRM - no sale. It got better, the girlfriend's daughter was raving about this kewl new game she'd played at a friend's house - Spore!
I then carefully explained that while I thought it was a really neat game that I didn't approve of the way it burrowed into the computer's O/S and that I wouldn't be purchasing it for them to install on their computers either. She was disappointed but once I explained my objections she accepted it. A real shame too since for kids I think this would have been perfect, oh well! DRM ruined at least two sales right there, possibly more since in this home each child has their own computer. It really did sound like a fun game too. If they reverse their decision and do something to neuter or remove the DRM I'll sign up for it, not till then...
But who would be responsible for the scrutiny and what level of responsibility would we place upon them to do that job correctly? If they are going to be held accountable at all for having reviewed the notice then chances are they will agree with the take-down all the time just to avoid the possibility of being wrong. I do not see this solving the issue, only putting additional responsibility on the hosting service which they are trying hard to avoid now as it is.
Cell phones aren't banned either.
The problem in your theory is the part where you said "relatively unshielded". True of a cheap ass PA system, not so much true when you're talking about a multi-million dollar airplane that has to pass rigorous testing for things like RF and electrical interference...
In this case it was something they thought of and patented - this was a feature that DISH or Direct copied at one point, got sued, and pulled back if memory serves and would be why your box doesn't have it. they could perhaps license it but cable DVRs tend to be built by cheap bastards...