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Amazon Tablet

Hey, everyone. The buzz has become a bit more than buzz concerning the Amazon tablet. I saw several articles on Google news about Amazon ordering 800,000 touchscreen tablets from Taiwan. A few days ago I almost jokingly declared that this was "the tablet decade". It probably is just that. Would you rather sit in a desk chair and surf the web or pile up in your recliner? Duh. Another big attraction of the tablet is that it is truly a 'personal' computer. Your own stuff on it. Yours. Not shared. If you want a picture of a deer track for a screen saver that's your business. You can have your games, and not ones that you hate, on there. If you want 2000 romance novels on it, so what? Set up all the news sources you like, your music lists, email. By the way, I hope you don't think I have 2000 romance novels on my I-Pad. I was making a point.
3 out of the big 6 publishers are starting their own web site to sell e-books. Interesting. This e-book thing is taking on a life of its own and the battle ground for billions of dollars stretches around the globe. France is regulating the prices of e-books as they have done for some time with the price of regular books, hoping to ensure the survival of the corner bookstore. Wal-Mart has started selling the Kindle e-reader. When I saw this I thought, "Money makes strange bed fellows". Amazon, so long famous for its devotion to and popularization of, internet business, selling something at Wal-Mart.
I tend to focus more on interesting changes of this nature than the grim news of wars and oil and crime. We are seeing the death of one industry in the book realm and the explosive birth of another. Even now, as a certain percentage of people still buy vinyl records, we are seeing the same sort of thing happen to books as happened to music. It will wind up being mega cool in some ways, not so cool in others. One thing about all this that bothers me is this. The next time a dictator arises, he won't have to have book burnings, he can just delete them from everyone's e-readers. The greatest profiling tool in history is being born before our eyes as well. "Well, let's see, did this guy read books like Mein Kampf (spelled right?) or The Communist Manifesto? We'll monitor him a little more closely than this lady that reads the Nancy Drew series. Will we subtly alter our inquisitive mind's hunger as we think about Big Brother watching us? I have never played golf but one could assume I did by the games I play and the books I have read, as well as articles I read on Pulse and Flipboard. Profiling is useful but far from perfect. The bottom line is, it's no one's business what you do in the privacy of your own home.
Of course, Barnes and Nobel, as well as Amazon have started their own e-pub sites. Where will all this end? Should I hide a few thousand of my favorite books in my fully self-sufficient fallout shelter? Gee, I don't know.
I have a hardcover book that was published in the early 1900's. It's an Edgar Rice Burroughs novel called The Mad King. It's in remarkably good shape. I have another old book that has a nice sticker in the front of it that says "From the library of Judge So and So, Detroit, Michigan". I bought it for $3 at a used book store in North Georgia about 100 years after it was made. Before me on my desk as I type I have a Zane Grey book titled The Rainbow Trail. In neat, feminine hand writing on the flyleaf are these words. "Given to Tommy from Henry and Mim on December 31st, 1917." We are talking World War 1 here, people. Tommy has long since gone to another place. Someone has written below this the cryptic message, "hs is, page 298". Of course, I went to 298 and saw that 299 was partially ripped out, as though a zealous grandmother did some serious censorship.
Well, I digress, but books in any form tend to evoke powerful feelings in folks. I guess when someone goes to the trouble to put thoughts on paper, or on a screen somewhere, things good and bad can come of it. A century later, people can wonder about that note you wrote. Makes me want to jot down a few passages in some of my old books. I could sign one as Abraham Lincoln and donate it to a library, just for fun. I could remark that I walked 10 miles to return it, through the snow. Those of you who know me know that I would never do that.
Wow! I have rambled tonight. I'm not used to getting out to civilization. It must have fired me up to interact with so many humanoid life forms today. By the way, Thor made 25 million its first day. That's not bad at all.
From the author's green retreat, I'm CE Wills.

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