GA Russell

TTK, I have read that Simon, Theodore and Alvin were the first names of the three owners of Liberty Records.

Absolutely not. You didn't get it from them. (Though I should add that the device's logs can be "seen" by techs there, if they decide to pull them during a synch - so I guess it *might* be possible, though likely very illegal!) Thanks for your informative response, clave. I want to point out a couple of things, however. 1) One idea that I picked up from my reading is that AZW is a DRM program. In the case of the Kindle, I've been using the two terms interchangeably. Am I wrong? 2) I gather that you think that Amazon wouldn't do it even if they could because it would be "very illegal". But that's my point. I bet there are a lot of lawyers who think that what they did in deleting the two Orwell titles was very illegal, and they're going to file lawsuits about it, I expect. The whole issue now, it seems to me, is that Amazon cannot be trusted by its customers. So I would like to know what they have the physical ability to do. I read on another board that in order to buy an eBook from Amazon, one must use the wireless function on one's Kindle. So if some goober at Amazon doesn't like what's on your Kindle, he can see it and delete it. So then one must backup everything onto a hard drive before every trip to the Amazon eBook store. Am I wrong? By the way, I am under the impression that the Sony folks could do the same thing, but I am not so confident about that.

RC, I don't have a clue as to how the Kindle works! But I have to believe (wild speculation here) that there were many people who did not know that Amazon had the physical ability to delete what was on their Kindle, let alone actually do it without warning and approval. Suppose I download a public domain book from Project Gutenberg. Would Amazon have the physical ability to delete that as well?

As I understand it, Amazon would not have the ability to remove books from Kindles on a massive scale if it were not for the DRM. True? Yet as long as there is this wireless set up, I don't think that anything can physically stop them from deleting material from Kindles one by one. True? So the more I think about it, it seems to me that the way to go with the wireless set up is book rental, kind of like DVD rentals. I mentioned the other day that one might rent a book for a month for a dollar. I don't realistically think that Amazon would price a book not in the public domain that low. But maybe two dollars per month would work. Three dollars for a best seller. Many non-fiction best sellers are ephemeral, like those by political pundits like Ann Coulter and Bill O'Reilly. You can read them in a weekend without much effort, and pretty much never go back to them again. And I think that there are a lot of people who would pay a quick three dollars for that sort of thing rather than plunk down the $18 best sellers are often discounted at, or wait for weeks for your turn to come up for the library's copy. So as long as the eBook readers have blue tooth and other wireless capability, I see rentals as the way to go. Personally, I would prefer to own a reader without wireless capability, but I haven't found such a book in my internet search yet.

Montreal Alouettes 43...Saskatchewan Roughriders 10 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/foot...article1223678/ The Roughriders made a game of it for a half. Anthony Calvillo tied Ron Lancaster for career TDs thrown. Lancaster held the record for about 30 years until Damon Allen broke it a few years ago. After three weeks, the Als appear to be the class of the league. ***** Hamilton Tiger-Cats 25....Winnipeg Blue Bombers 13 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/foot...article1223744/ Good defensive game. I guess when two bad teams play, somebody's got to win. Kevin Glenn played the second half and was good. After three weeks, it looks like Toronto, Winnipeg, Hamilton and Edmonton need a lot of work. ***** The Roughriders have signed Graham Harrell, who received the ESPY Award as college football's best player in 2008 with Texas Tech. He also won the Johnny Unitas Award as the best senior quarterback. He was fourth in the Heisman voting. http://www.leaderpost.com/sports/NCAA+quar...4594/story.html http://www.leaderpost.com/sports/Roughride...8233/story.html

Here's what PCWorld says about it today: http://www.pcworld.com/article/168654/amaz..._ownership.html The link to The Consumerist which Moose provided now has a number of comments which are worth reading. One states the agreement which the Kindle customer must accept in order to download the eBook: Upon your payment of the applicable fees set by Amazon, Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times... So not only does Amazon's removing the books from the Kindles without the owners' knowledge offend the sensibilities, it also violates their own contract provisions! I see a lawsuit coming. I wonder if Amazon would have been physically able to do this if the eBooks were kept on an SD card like other readers have. I think that their ability to do it was based upon the Kindle's wireless capability. Perhaps if the reader had no wireless connection, and had to be hooked up to the computer's USB port, then the eBooks would be safe from confiscation. You computer mavens would understand all this better than I do.

Calgary Stampeders 44....Toronto Argonauts 9 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/foot...article1223327/ The score was 13-9 at halftime. But the Argos lost three non-import receivers in the first half, and they couldn't do much right after that. In the second half, the Stamps' defense scored three TDs. This week is Retro Week in the CFL, with the teams wearing 1960s uniforms. Throughout the game in Calgary tonight, between plays the stadium played 60s oldies.

Happy Birthday 2009 Kenny!

British Columbia Lions 40....Edmonton Eskimos 22 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/foot...article1221719/

I still remember this without looking it up. Everybody knows in the second life we all come back sooner or later As anything from a pussy cat to a man-eating alligator. Well, you all may think my story is more fiction that it's fact. But believe it or not my mother dear decided to come back As a car. She's my very own guiding star. She's a 1928 Porter. That's my mother dear. She helps me through everything I do And I'm so glad she's here. My Mother The Car. My Mother The Car. And I guess everyone this side of China knows the lyrics to Secret Agent Man. Here's one more I remember off the top of my head. (Lyrics by Paul Francis Webster, as I recall.) Obviously I need a little help here, but no fair looking it up! Who is the tall dark stranger there? Maverick is the name. 3rd line 4th line Smooth as a handle on a gun. Maverick is the name. Wild as a wind in Oregon Blowin' up a canyon. Easier to tame. Riverboat ring your bell. Fare thee well Annabelle. Luck is the lady that he loves the best. Natchez to New Orleans, Living on jacks and queens, Maverick is a legend of the West. Maverick is a legend of the West.

Happy Birthday JL! Treat yourself to a barbershop shave!

David Naylor Week 3 preview http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/fina...article1219892/

Al, I know the feeling! I think that part of it is that I haven't been really excited by much of the new stuff that has come out in the past five years. Another part of it is that there was only a finite amount of good jazz recorded during the 50s and 60s (my favorite period), and a great deal of what interests me has already been reissued. And finally there is the issue of my collection. I try to listen to all of my CDs at least once a year. Most years I come close, and last year I did it. Anyway, when you only hear a CD once or twice a year, it is almost like listening to a new CD. So I don't need a lot more CDs to be satisfied. Put it all together, and I don't enjoy buying CDs like I did ten years ago.

Happy Birthday 2009 Tom!

clave, many thanks for your input. Your posts have been just what I was asking for when I started the thread. It appears to me that both Amazon and Sony want to keep you on the hook. It is good to know that you don't have to remain an Amazon customer after you purchase the Kindle, but it appears to me that Amazon offers no support in that regard, apparently only explaining how to use the Kindle with Amazon. At this point I'm reluctant to spend $300 on an item that I then need to figure out on my own how to use. If the price were $100, I probably would have a different attitude. With that link you provided last night, I found a list of YouTube videos showing the txtr at some book fairs in Germany in the spring. Pretty impressive, although I think I would prefer a larger screen, maybe like the Kindle DX. However, I think that the lack of an SD slot for the Kindle 2 and DX is going to be a deal killer for me and maybe a lot of people. One thing we haven't mentioned is that I strongly suspect that Amazon will offer the largest selection of copyrighted books. That may be important to many people. However, this idea that with their DRMs Amazon and Sony have the ability to limit the amount of time you license your book for is troubling to me. I don't think that that is something I would want to pay for in the future. I suspect that a lot of people will be turned off by that. Again, the price is an issue. If they let you read a book for a month for only a dollar, I think that a lot of people would go along with it.

RC, I'm feeling the same way. That's why I'm leaning toward the txtr.

Yesterday the Ticats caught a Bomber scout spying on their practice, taking 12 pages of notes (which the Ticats confiscated). http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/blue...article1218416/ ***** The Bombers' Arjei Franklin will miss 6-8 weeks with an ankle injury. IMO he is one of the best non-imports in the league, and the team is going to have a lot of trouble replacing him. http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/sports/fo...s-50614972.html

Thanks for that link, clave! I'll study it for a while. Let me ask you a basic question. Can you go to Project Gutenberg with your Kindle 2 and quickly download a book for free with no hassle?

funkogre, I live in the country. The books I want to read are not found in the public library. The Sony PRS-505 is the old model from 2007. I believe that what I saw at BJ's was the new PRS-700 model.

Moose, here's my thinking. I am primarily interested in older books now in the public domain. My books seem to always cost $15 plus fairly high shipping. So I'm thinking that by downloading 15-20 free public domain books the reader will pay for itself, and I then get to read the classics for free. I get the impression that all of the readers are like the iPod - the consumer cannot change the battery. You have to send it in with something like a hundred bucks, and they will send you a new one, with whatever was in your reader's memory lost and gone. I have read complaints that the Kindle 2 does not have a slot for an SD card, which people use to store their books. Instead, when your Kindle's memory is full, you upload your books to Amazon's website, and trust them to keep your library for you. A lot of people don't like that idea. I don't remember exactly what the Sony reader at BJ's cost - maybe $259 or maybe $239. I would expect Amazon's price to be the most expensive, so if they have the Kindle 2 pegged at $299, I would expect the txtr to come in lower than that.

I saw the Sony eBook reader at BJ's two weeks ago, and I have been doing a little research. You heard it here first! I predict that the eBook reader, especially the Amazon Kindle, will be the #1 Christmas present this year. It's all pretty confusing, but my research indicates that both the Sony and the Kindle come with DRM which basically forces you to buy your books from them. Amazon will even charge you for public domain books because they cite their effort to run those books through their DRM! Furthermore, Amazon claims that you are not buying the eBook, but only a license; and they reserve the right to limit the time you have to read the book before they discontinue your access to it! I have found a German reader that looks very appealling to me called the txtr. It is open source with no DRM. No fee for public domain books. It will be released in October. No word yet on the price. Just this past week Amazon has lowered the price of its Kindle 2 from $350 to $299, so I imagine that the txtr will be in that ballpark. Have any of you purchased an eBook reader or looked into buying one? What are your thoughts?

Happy Birthday EKE BBB, wherever you are!

Happy Birthday 2009 jostber!

Uh oh. Paul McCallum disappeared from the Ticats game due to what the announcer said was an undisclosed injury. Today it was announced that while attempting to make a tackle, he broke his wrist and injured his knee. He should be out eight weeks. So now the Lions are in the market for a kicker. http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Football/CFL/BC/...0120741-cp.html

I received my confirmation today. But when I tried to play the game, it was way too slow.