Monday, May 04, 2009

No Flu, but a new Kindle

So Brian doesn't have the flu, of any variety. He's just sick. He was prescribed antibiotics though -- you know, just in case they help.

Gary is not acknowledging that he is sick too, which is fine.

He is also having second thoughts about the job in The City. He feels badly about telling them that he doesn't want it after all this, but maybe he will. I told him that he could say that he couldn't work out the transportation or that his mean parents wouldn't let him. He thought he might go with the transportation.

I'm not really sure what his real reasons are. The transportation problem might be the big one. Now that the job is real and he actually has to work out the details he can see how complicated it all is.

Wednesday Amazon is supposed to be announcing a new, bigger Kindle which might be good for newspapers and magazines and maybe is really about textbooks. On one hand I look forward to the day when all the textbooks are electronic. Publishers must look forward to it too since it would severely undercut the used book market. I still have my doubts that the Kindle will be the right platform though. As I said before, textbook publishers are already beginning to sell popular books on-line direct to students. Textbooks are marketed directly to educators. Amazon doesn't seem to have anything to offer textbook publishers except lower profits.

I could be wrong, of course.

5 comments:

  1. Are you sorry you didn't wait for the bigger, badder Kindle?

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  2. LOL over giving Gary the option to say he could not take the job because of his mean parents. My Rob opted out of baseball this yr and this past wkend met one of his former teammates. When asked why he wasn't playing he looked at me like I was going to save him. It was totally his decision and I told him he could say he wasn't into it or too busy but he could not (with caps!) blame his choice on me! Now, that's mean!! (grin)

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  3. foster Abba, ask me on Wednesday, but I think not. This one fits in my purse.

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  4. I have offered to be the bad guy more time than I can remember. I am still a fan of paper books. I am a techno geek, but really quite a luddite when it comes to my books. Do you read fast? How does it work if you are a really fast reader?

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  5. Given your comments about textbooks and Kindles, I thought you'd find this post on the Volokh Conspiracy blog (run by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh and others) interesting:

    "Case Western Reserve University will be part of a pilot program in which students in certain classes will have their textbooks loaded on to Amazon Kindles."

    http://www.volokh.com/posts/1241615389.shtml

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