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New York, 8:01 PM
Thu Nov 26
21 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/07/09
10/07/09
10/07/09
10/07/09
10/07/09
10/07/09
10/07/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
You think this is troubling? Go try to find information about economics-related grants on the National Science Foundation website.
Try for example grant no. 849224, Principal Investigator Kenneth Rogoff, Co-PI Carmen Reinhart.
07/18/09
Well now the results show up if you search by name. It will also come up if you add a 0 in front of the grant number.
Considering that this is the NSF, one wonders what the deal is...
07/18/09
BTW, Amazon grabs a whopping 70 percent of each book purchase and gives only 30 percent to the publishers, even though their glorified newsstand costs pennies per person to make and use to deliver copies. That sort of oligarchic grab is terribly unjust, and that's why you see publishers warring on Kindle -- and you will see more of this.
07/18/09
07/18/09
Bookstores sell with a markup of forty percent, correct?
07/18/09
That is, for the copies they sell. Book retailing is a consignment business: any books B&N do not sell go back and are unpaid. The distributor and publisher get paid only if the retailer sells the book. It's a horrendous, inefficient, bloated, unresponsive system that needs to die.
07/21/09
07/17/09
07/17/09
07/17/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
Actually, I would consider it appropo.
07/18/09
07/17/09
search for the comment by amazon kindle customer service.
what happened here was this:
1. publisher put up a book that was in PD elsewhere, but not in the US and got called on it.
2. publisher pulled the book rather than be sued.
3. amazon does much the same and gives a pretty terse and unsatisfactory explanation as to why.
4. an utter shitstorm erupts all across the interwebs as every tech blog and their cousin decides to fricassee amazon for doing this. lets be honest -- amazon did handle this poorly and deserves to be called out about that.
but the amount of vitriol and bile spewed today over this felt kinda disproportionate, especially in lieu of the fact that most every blog just seems to have parroted the same stuff others said without ever bother researching what really happened -- the above post being an excellent example. this story is kinda old and much of the information of what happened has filtered out by now. but it's kinda easier to just say 'amazon is big brother! hur! hur! hur!' etc.
5. so now amazon puts up another post and says they won't do this anymore (read: 'we've made the publishers sign legal indemnification waivers so we can't be held liable by their mistakes anymore') and with that, we pretty much have the whole story in hand.
which i fully expect to be reported almost nowhere, because, hey, why bother doing a little bit of research when being sensationalist takes almost no time at all?
don't get me wrong -- amazon did walk the dog on this one and does deserved to called out for how non-transparently they handled this, but the way everyone pilloried them today just made me feel kinda icky.
07/17/09
07/17/09
Consumers will now always think that a book that they ostensibly purchased isn't really theirs. It brings issues of DRM and control to the forefront.
To add insult to injury, the fact that it was 1984 was the egg on their face and made it a marketable story.
07/17/09
It would be one thing to pull the book from the site and not sell any more copies, but the ones that already got it? It should be tough shit.
Yes, a lot of sites aren't telling the whole story but none of it changes the fact that they remotely wiped two purchased books off people's devices.
Even if he Kindle WAS available in my country, I wouldn't buy one because frankly, this just makes my tinfoil hat tingle.
07/18/09
07/18/09
should they be able to reduce their exposure to a potential lawsuit by removing what is effectively stolen goods?
suppose you go buy a recent model jaguar for $1000. or an xbox for $20. or a new $2000 laptop for $100. now suppose a week later, the police comes-a-callin' and informs you that these items were in fact stolen and are going to be returned to their rightful owner.
and yes, the money you spent just kinda evaporated.
the move amazon made was certainly a bit knee-jerk, but the response they took was within reason and legal means to minimize their own exposure. i actually agree with the above poster that a waiver won't completely indemnify them from any future legal actions along these lines, but at the very least it should make most small publishers think twice about not doing their due diligence, which is prolly how this whole thing got started.
the crux of the matter is whether or not you should be able to own/keep stolen property. the law says no and amazon reacted accordingly. if people wanted to start a grassroots movement to ensure otherwise -- sure, why not. but until then, outrage over effectively ripping someone else off imo is misplaced.
however, another poster above is right about all this highlighting the potential pratfalls of a DRM-based system. the issue as a whole (imo) highlights how problematic navigating an ebook service to potential profability will be, for amazon or any other provider. the challenges and aperils involved are far more daunting (imo) than the ones faced by music and video content providers.
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
Amazon did handle this exceptionally poorly. But I am with Kurt: much of this outrage is poorly informed and comes from folks who say information should be free as long as it's someone else's information. And if you don't like it, then don't buy a Kindle. But don't expect Sony or anyone else to do things any differently: the law requires some sort of DRM and control over content.
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
07/18/09
And I didn't even know I was promotable :)
07/23/09
07/17/09
05/09/09
aw HELL no!
kari, i feel like i hardley knew ya...
05/09/09
05/09/09
05/08/09
05/08/09
05/06/09
The broadsheet is the classic homeless guy blanket. Tabloid works in a pinch but it's sort of the Ladies model of last ditch shelter.
And you can't take that away, apple.
05/06/09
Amazon. Contrary to popular bloglief, there is more than one innovative technology company on planet Earth.
05/06/09