I think BB wants to re-evaluate the time dimension in his arguments when he shifts from the actual Kindle tot he virtual Kindle. . .no? Could I have really done all you say, when you said. . .virtually? PS Still, the map is not the territory, no matter if the same maker. On Mon, 28 Feb 2011, Bowerbird@aol.com wrote:

michael said:

...

   So, you equate not having the money    to buy one as being not awake.

always misinterpreting things as insults, aren't you?

so no, michael, that's not what i am "equating" at all.

i don't have the money to buy a hardware kindle either. (i spend my meager cash on _generalized_ machines.)

but -- like poor people everywhere -- what i _do_ have is the ingenuity to know how to get stuff when it's free, and the perseverance and street-smarts and tenacity to know _how_and_where_ you can get that free stuff...

so yes, i've known all along that the kindle apps are free, and i've been evaluating them all along.  that's what i do. because i am intensely interested in electronic-books...

...

   You probably also equate ignorance with stupdity. . . .

i'm not sure what that means.

but i can separate "ignorance" from "stupidity"...  easily...

so no, you're not "stupid" for not knowing that you could have been evaluating the kindle experience all this time, even without money.  you're _ignorant_ for not knowing it.

and you'll probably take _that_ as an insult too.

...

   Somehow I never beleived in simulators being real.    Any evidence people are downloading with those?

more ignorance.  and it's _willfill_ ignorance, to boot!

they aren't "simulators".  they are viewer-programs which empower kindle customers to read books on a wide array of platforms out there, including i.o.s., android, blackberry, and of course the full gamut of desktop/laptop computers.

and yes, people are downloading them, and using them... (and i feel like the _master_ of understatement saying that. in case you haven't heard, amazon is selling e-books like... well... like hotcakes, if you must know, and it is _precisely_ because users can read k-books on all kinds of hardware.)

and i am totally bowled over by the fact that _michael_hart_ doesn't know all of this!  you should check in with your baby every now and then; she's in college now; did you know that? and everyone wants to date her!  remember when she was young, and ugly, and everyone said she was destined to fail?

you missed a lot in your coma, old man.

...

   Just how SURE are you?

now you're edging from ignorance into stupidity.  careful.

...

   Ah. . .back to the money syndrome. . . .

you have a computer, right?  and a phone, right?

and before long, you might get a hand-me-down ipad.

you don't need that much money to be connected today.

***

one more thing, while i'm here...

when i said that amazon bought lexcycle (the company who made stanza) and "more-or-less shelved it", i didn't mean to imply that they had done something unethical...

that kind of behavior is very common in the tech world.

if lexcycle had made good on their initially-stated goals -- which was to provide a seamless arena for e-books across both _file-formats_ and _hardware-platforms_ -- they would have blown up amazon's proprietary plans...

so amazon bought them.

you can't allow a random company to ruin your company.

but another company could have then started itself up and made an initial announcement to do the very same thing -- i.e., build a cross-platform, cross-format e-book arena.

with a good first stab at that goal, they too might've been considered as an acquisition.  that's called "build-to-flip".

i was kinda amazed that nobody actually _did_ that tactic. (if i had any itch to get-rich-quick, i certainly would have. hey, i even considered doing it as a joke on the universe.)

and even if amazon didn't buy you, the rest of the world would have made sure that you were making some profit. (that's why lexcycle flipped; they wanted to make money.)

amazon bought stanza as an "insurance policy" against the chance that .epub would get a bunch of momentum.

if so, amazon then had lexcycle's .epub expertise in-house.

that the purchase also _destroyed_ the .epub momentum which lexcycle had generated by attaining that expertise was just a nice "side-effect" which accompanied the deal.

that was so ironic, because the momentum stanza created made the move to .epub irreversible, which has mired the non-amazon ebook-world in .epub quicksand ever since.

so this was indeed a brilliant master-stroke by amazon...

but i.d.p.f. _created_ this mess when it failed to produce any open-source "reference implementations" for .epub, so that _any_ company could've been a threat to amazon and its reliance on its proprietary format to get lock-in...

but the i.d.p.f. chose that particular course of inaction -- i.e., the failure to code reference implementations -- because they were trying to sideline e-books _in_toto_.

but amazon one-upped them, with an idea which would no longer be denied at this particular place and time...

and of course, even since then, the corporate publishers have continued to keep shooting themselves in the foot.

their move to the agency model has _sealed_the_deal_ for amazon's proprietary format, since stores that offer .epub can no longer use pricing as a weapon to undercut amazon.

it would've been difficult before, since amazon is the best company at undercutting, but now it's simply _impossible._

so now, consumers are stuck with the same price everywhere, and file-format is one of the few "deciding factors" that's left.

and most of those consumers are deciding on kindle-format, since that's the format that actually does work cross-platform, while .epub just makes that (empty) promise but fails to fill it.

so i hope all you .epub supporters are happy.  you got the "open format" you wished for.  watch out what you wish for.

-bowerbird