Let me introduce to you a book lover’s nightmare:
Late in the night while you sleep, a shadowy figure enters your house by some unknown method. He disturbs nothing—walks right past your wallet and your wife’s jewelry box. The gun cabinet and electronics remain untouched as he stealthily slips past your bedroom into—of all places—your library. Completely undetected, he removes several classic volumes from your shelves leaving gaping voids in your formerly meticulously organized shelves. You awake the next day and experience the feeling of personal violation that comes from being victimized by a thief.
That scary scenario seems unlikely, but in a sense, that is what happened to owners of Amazon’s Kindle digital readers. Okay, it wasn’t technically theft—and no one broke into anyone else’s home. But last Friday, unbeknownced to their owners, Amazon remotely accessed Kindle readers and deleted some digital books that their owners had bought from them. To their credit, Amazon paid the people back. But readers lost any notes or highlighting they had placed in their books.
What was the greatest irony of the whole situation? Among the books that were deleted—George Orwell’s 1984. If you don’t get the irony—read the book. The REAL book. And when you finish, you can always do something else you can't do with an electronic book. You can resell it or give it away!
HT: Alan Jacobs
Late in the night while you sleep, a shadowy figure enters your house by some unknown method. He disturbs nothing—walks right past your wallet and your wife’s jewelry box. The gun cabinet and electronics remain untouched as he stealthily slips past your bedroom into—of all places—your library. Completely undetected, he removes several classic volumes from your shelves leaving gaping voids in your formerly meticulously organized shelves. You awake the next day and experience the feeling of personal violation that comes from being victimized by a thief.
That scary scenario seems unlikely, but in a sense, that is what happened to owners of Amazon’s Kindle digital readers. Okay, it wasn’t technically theft—and no one broke into anyone else’s home. But last Friday, unbeknownced to their owners, Amazon remotely accessed Kindle readers and deleted some digital books that their owners had bought from them. To their credit, Amazon paid the people back. But readers lost any notes or highlighting they had placed in their books.
What was the greatest irony of the whole situation? Among the books that were deleted—George Orwell’s 1984. If you don’t get the irony—read the book. The REAL book. And when you finish, you can always do something else you can't do with an electronic book. You can resell it or give it away!
HT: Alan Jacobs
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