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You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:5, Informative)
You know you're reading slashdot when the number given is 1,000 times off.
240,000 is not 240 million
Re:You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:5, Funny)
That's not M as in Million, it's M as in Mousand.
Yeah, they should have used K as in Kousand ...
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Bzzzt. For anyone who has worked in banking in the US, M means thousand, and MM means million. It bugs me to this day when people write 240M when they mean 240 million.
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Interesting. The only knowledge I have of MM being millions is with natrual gas MMBTU
Re:You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bzzzt. For anyone who has worked in banking in the US, M means thousand, and MM means million. It bugs me to this day when people write 240M when they mean 240 million.
M is also used in the advertising industry for thousands. For example, the cost of an ad buy can be given in thousands of impressions, known as CCM (cost per thousand).
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Figures that an American institute uses outdated systems of counting and measuring instead of internationally defined ones.
k = kilo is 1000
M = mega is 1.000.000
G = giga(jiga for bttf fans) is 1.000.000.000
Re:You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:5, Insightful)
For anyone who has worked in banking in the US, M means thousand, and MM means million.
The target audience of slashdot is geeks - specifically, engineering/computer geeks. This audience uses K for thousand.
If you want to use M for thousand on bankerdot.org, sure, go for it.
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Re:You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:5, Funny)
This audience uses K for thousand
No, we use K for 2**10, which is 1024, not 1000.
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And the of course there's the Bakers Kilobyte [xkcd.com].
Re:You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:4, Funny)
Is that why the U.S. banking system went belly-up?
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Re:You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:5, Informative)
Latin. Its the roman numeral for 1000.
See milli.
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Re:You know its slashdot when it's.. (Score:5, Informative)
Wouldn't it make sense to use K?
As a rule, Latin is used for numbers less than 1. Greek is used for numbers greater than 1.
1000 = kilo (greek)
1/1000 = milli (latin)
10 = deca (greek)
1/10 = deci (latin)
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The editors learned math from their Latin professors... what are you going to do?
Everything old is new again (Score:4, Funny)
Sales figures look much more exciting in roman numerals!
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Is that what it's about? Who came up with the lousy idea of mixing modern and ancient number systems?
one should come up with numbers that make sense (Score:4, Interesting)
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ah but that's the thing, you can read slashdot on the kindle, I'm not sure if it's free or not, they like to charge $9.99 for things, but you are paying $400 for a device that has much less expensive hardware, and doesn't charge the end user for their bandwidth, despite using cellular data service...
"More than 350 top blogs from the worlds of business, technology, sports, entertainment, and politics, including BoingBoing, Slashdot, TechCrunch, ESPN's Bill Simmons, The Onion, Michelle Malkin, and The Huffing
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Great Title (Score:5, Funny)
When I read the 240M title I wondered where my Kindle was in the house and why I could not remember even buying it :)
Doesn't seem like that many (Score:3, Interesting)
If I was an investor in Amazon, I would be upset that they are not releasing any numbers. I would certainly no longer hold a position in them. It looks pretty small when you think about how many devices Apple and Nintendo are selling.
Re:Doesn't seem like that many (Score:4, Insightful)
Put in perspective, if the numbers I'm seeing on websites about iPhone sales are correct, this puts the kindle somewhere on the order of 10-20 days worth of iPhone sales.... Yeah, not that great. Book reading on an existing device is useful and a lot of people will do it. Buying a special piece of hardware whose primary purpose is book reading... definitely a niche market, particularly when it costs about twice as much as an iPhone (carrier subsidized) that does so much more....
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Re:Doesn't seem like that many (Score:5, Funny)
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Welcome to Slashdot, where if you can't be the absolute best at everything, you might as well not bother at all.
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Re:Doesn't seem like that many (Score:4, Informative)
Obviously you have had no experience with a Kindle. The EVDO is the "special sauce". I have owned one for 8 months and I love it. I use it every day. I am reading (buying) about 3 books a month (each book is about $6, best-sellers are more like $10, but I usually wait until they "age" a bit). Plus I shut off my newspaper ($30/month) and get it delivered to my Kindle instead ($10/month), so in the end my monthly outlay for reading materials is unchanged while I am essentially getting 3 books/month for free. So from that perspective, my $400 initial outlay (I was an early adopter before the price drop) will be paid for in 33 months. Anyhow, what makes this device really attractive to me is the (free) wireless. Being able to browse their book collection (which is substantial), download and read a few chapters (for free) anywhere, anytime, is extremely addicting. And being able to buy the book and be reading it in less than 30 seconds is a convenience I've grown to "need". In the morning when I turn it on, there is my newspaper - I don't have to boot the PC, connect the USB, do the "syncing" thing, it's just delivered automatically. Built in web-browsing for checking the occassional baseball score or my email is also a big plus. Yes, the hardware is a bit clunky (too many next page buttons - there is no place to hold the thing), and the industrial design looks like something from the 80s, but the battery lasts a good long time (many days if you turn off the wireless and just use it as a book) and the display is very easy on the eyes. Never having to tether to a computer is a really big deal for me - don't knock it until you've tried it.
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Re:Doesn't seem like that many... But (Score:4, Insightful)
Buying a special piece of hardware whose primary purpose is book reading... definitely a niche market
Yeah, but... I've been on Holiday in London for the past month. I take the tube (when it's actually running) everywhere and I've got to say the US$700 I spent on my iRex iLiad and about US$100 worth of novels has been a godsend on the train. The batteries last all day, bright light only improves the readability and much more portable than a laptop.
It may be a niche market but it has potential. Unfortunately, the only way this potential is going to be achieved is if the corporate players get their collective heads out of their ass and standardize on one, decent, open, portable format.
They also have to port previous works into an electronic format. Try to find Robert Ludlum's books on mobipocket format. You can't, at least not the pre-death publications. Dale Brown? "Oh yeah, let's pick every other book to publish." What idiot does that. If I'm going paperless then I'm going paperless.
DRM is tolerable but there's no reason you can't have an open format that supports DRM.
The people that dreamed up these different formats have done such a poor job it's not funny. PDB don't support different typefaces. PDF's don't reflow. HTML isn't going to support DRM and you need to zip to capture multiple files. Kindle isn't compatible with anybody else, lit is closed. While I find mobipocket tolerable try accurately converting any of the others to mobipocket. They're all just a kludge. Concepts of "paragraph", "chapter", "lists" and "Table" all are meaningless in these formats and essential concepts for reflowable layout. Basically, a quick experience in trying to convert formats and you will quickly understand that the people who designed these "formats" know nothing about capturing and encoding information.
Until they get a clue eBooks are dead in the water. (And I like mine, that should tell you something.)
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Not selling too well... (Score:2)
ugh (Score:5, Insightful)
I can see how it could come in handy if you're on vacation and want to travel light, but IMO that's not nearly enough to overcome the negatives. I'll probably get an e-book reader in 2030 or something. There's no rush. First I want to see someone get it right.
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I like your first statement. I must say, as a Kindle owner I perfectly understand your point of view. Here's the way I see it
1. The cost was fine for me, but I'm also a young guy with a decent job so I've got some disposable income.
3. PDF's can't transfer well because of the size of the screen... I do wish there were an easy way to read technical papers on it though, I dont see it until the E-ink comes down in price and improves durability though.
4. Again, I've got adequate money right now, if its a book
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You forgot one - for a modern device in a culture that is bent on style, the kindle is quite hideous. iPhone, iPod, iMac, etc...though I'm not a big Apple fan (I do own an iPod), the style factor is why these things sell. The Kindle looks like it's still a prototype.
Amazon wants Kindle to fail? (Score:4, Insightful)
Books are cheap in the U.S. and people have a lot of room to store them, so Kindle is definitely a niche product in its domestic market. However, in other countries books are expensive and often space is at a premium. Kindle offers huge advantages, and would be wildly successful in these markets.
How does Amazon respond to this market need? They refuse point blank to sell kindle devices or media to anyone outside North America.
Sure, whispernet is NA only. But a USB connection works just as well...
What sane company ignores its largest potential market? And when it does, the writing is on the wall. If I was a shareholder, I would be livid.
So the only question that remains is why Kindle is being set up for failure? Simple incompetence? Xenophobia? Or something more subtle?
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I'll take a guess that it's nothing to do with any of that. The name "Kindle" gives you a clue if you know anything about the historical relationship between publishers and distributors. Burning books. Basically, publishers hate (and I mean hate) distributors. Not only does distribution means high costs, it means massive restrictions on what publishers can publish. Poetry? Philosophy? Not a hope in hell: if it doesn't sell within a week, those tiny shelves need to be stacked with some crap that does. Lowest
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A little bit of marketing could maybe help (Score:2)
I am usually keeping an eye on Linux projects that have a certain size, but this is honestly the first time I hear about this.
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I have one too and I love it. The only negative is that if I use Calibre (the Linux software) I cannot use the Windows software (that comes with the ebook).
It isn't that important but having the ability to sync with my Vista Laptop and my Linux desktop would be nice.
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I'm normally among the first to smell a Treacherous Computing/Digital Restrictions Management dystopia, but can't "e-paper" be photocopied or scanned? I'm picturing a solenoid or two and a short program that synchronizes the "next page" button with the "scan/copy" button here.
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No, No!
They sold 240 MegaKindles, each of which is one seventh the physical size of the Library of Congress.
Believed it (Score:2)
Compromise on L (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Compromise on L (Score:5, Funny)
240l of Kindles is approx 65 gallons
But you can only get that if they blend.
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They always blend.
Re:It sucks that "K" and "M" are so close together (Score:2)
I hadn't thought about it but after reading your post I guessed correctly ;)
Re:It sucks that "K" and "M" are so close together (Score:5, Funny)
I knew who posted the story without looking.
mdawson?
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Let's try that again:
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That's true in some markets, but in typical day-to-day use, k=thousand and M=million. There's only one other time I can recall 'MM' being used for million, and it was also in the context of sales/revenue.
It's like "milliard" - not technically wrong, but you'll confuse the fuck out of most people with it.