Modern Serfs

"People who work for free are far hungrier than anybody who has a salary, so they're going to outperform, they're going to try to please, they're going to be creative." — Kelly Fallis, chief executive of Remote Stylist.

The above quote comes from this article in Fortune which asks if unpaid jobs are the new normal. Dear god, I hope not. I could be mistaken, but I thought slavery was outlawed.

Yeah, I understand that some college grads will take internships in the hopes of receiving valuable training and "getting their foot in the door." That's fine, but of course, a person who can take such a non-paying job has to already be in some kind of financially stable position (like living with their parents, perhaps).

And while contemplating the article, I remembered that I had worked for free. A friend and I spent a couple of years designing and programming some mobile games. But then that's really not the same, is it? I was working independently in the hopes of pure profits at the end of the road (which never quite materialized).

If I ever had the balls to assume I could hire a staff of fifty to assist me -- without any pay -- hell, I'm sure I could have been way more successful. I could have turned out more products and sucked up all the profit for myself. But that's just not right. I believe the word is "exploitation."

But we are living in anti-labor times now. The Fortune article laments, yes really laments, that using unpaid labor isn't always legal:

Unfortunately for many employers hoping to use unpaid labor to advance their business goals, there are strict federal and state rules that workers must be paid the minimum wage and paid for overtime, and must abide by other provisions in the Fair Labor Standards Act, which applies to about 135 million people working for 7.3 million employers. The FLSA doesn't apply to companies with less than $500,000 in annual revenue unless they engage in interstate commerce -- which can be as little as accepting credit cards or placing phone calls to another state.

The FLSA is there for a reason. In many job sectors a lack of wage laws can create a race to the bottom with each company cutting worker compensation to compete with the other companies that have cut worker compensation. And in the corporate world, that means that every person willing and able to work for free is taking a job away from somebody who needs income.

But now let me make a confession of sorts. It's kind of funny really. Or sad. The last few months I've been working in a "virtual sweatshop." Yes, I've been pimping my human intelligence to Amazon Mechanical Turks. Mostly I've been writing short informative articles for content farmers. I've found the work mostly enjoyable and kind of challenging.

For example, I've written informational pitches for snowboard products, despite the fact that I've never snowboarded, skied or made fluffy snow angels. Talk about creative writing.

But it's not the low pay that makes me creative. And I'm certainly not motivated by hunger. In fact, I can't say I work particularly hard at these assignments. I have no illusions of my work landing me a "real job." For me, as a person with a disability, it's a simple case of accessibility. I browse some HITs (Human Intelligence Tasks), click a button, and have an assignment. No commute. No long hours. No job interviews. No coming face-to-face with people's prejudices.

The pay, however, is embarrassing. I could maybe live off of it... if I moved to Zimbabwe. One of my friends suggested that the turkers unionize. I think he was joking, but I'm not sure.

Unpublished

As the clocks were striking thirteen, the Ministry of Truth -- I mean Amazon.com -- was deleting some e-books from their customers' Kindles. Ironically, one of the books was Nineteen-Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

I won't get carried away with hysteria over a repressive, totalitarian regime. This is not the government erasing books from our shelves and our memories. This is about an electronic commerce company remotely deleting unauthorized editions and refunding their customer's money.

However, I've been a big fan of the Kindle e-book reader for about a year now. I've purchased quite a few books and downloaded many free public domain works too. Like all customers, I know I have rights, and I believe I justifiably own whatever I have already purchased. If my books were to vanish over night in a wireless search and seizure, I would be furious. Let's just say my Kindle would become kindling.

Amazon.com is making the same mistake the recording industry made over MP3's: punish and anger your loyal customers. That's a very bad idea. And it's even worse in Amazon.com's case because the whole e-book thing is a rather narrow market still in an awkward early adopter phase. If the current Kindle customer is willing to shell out $300 just to read books, I'll assume they're part of that elitist educated demographic who take any perceived censorship very seriously.

And what about the future customers? Those who were cautiously considering a Kindle? Amazon.com just turned them off for good.

So what would have happened if a book publisher had printed unauthorized editions of a physical book? Certainly the book seller would not be invading homes and confiscating the books! No, the publisher would be responsible for their own mistake and pay whatever fines and penalties the law prescribes. That's the way the e-book situation should have been handled too.

I hope this isn't another case where we need a new law to address an old problem. But with more people purchasing MP3's, e-books, software and the like online, we may one day need a law to protect the digital assets of consumers.

Meanwhile, Amazon.com is at least admitting to their mistake:

Amazon effectively acknowledged that the deletions were a bad idea. “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances,” Mr. Herdener said.

I still love my Kindle, but I trust Amazon.com a whole lot less. Glad they don't have the power to strap a cage of rats on my face.

The Kindle Is Great In Bed!

I've had my Amazon Kindle book reader for a little over a week now, and I love it! In my first Kindle review I discussed its basic functions and my first impressions, but now that I've finished reading one novel, I can better share my experience.

The first book I purchased was Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller. Amazon.com currently has over 110,000 books available for the Kindle, but Tropic of Cancer had been on my reading list for a while, and it was a mere 80 cents. That was a savings of 68% over the print edition. I noticed that Kindle editions of older novels are very affordable. There are similar savings on new novels. You can save 45% on A New Earth (Oprah's Book Club). You can save 62% on When You Are Engulfed in Flames. And you can save 64% on What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.

Books download via Whispernet directly to your Kindle in about a minute. It's almost too easy. I can conveniently browse, buy, and read almost anywhere... but mostly in bed it seems.

The reading experience has been so comfortable. When I'm engrossed in a book, I'm not even thinking about the technology I'm using. The high-resolution screen is easy on the eyes. There is no glare, and the black "electronic ink" on the gray background feels just like a paperback. But like a paperback, the Kindle has no backlight, so you still need a light source. However, even in dim light, I can still read the screen.

The Kindle has six font sizes you can easily switch between. I prefer the default size, but there are three larger sizes. Using the largest font, I can easily read the screen from three feet away.

The battery life is impressive. In fact, I've owned many electronic gadgets, but the Kindle battery life is the best I've ever seen. Of course this is mostly due to the new technology of electronic-paper, but the reason doesn't matter. The bottom line is that the battery can easily last 5 days with normal use and the occasional downloading.

One odd concern I had was how quick can I tuck the Kindle away when I'm done reading. It's not really an odd question I guess since people like to read while waiting in line, or for a plane, or for a dentist appointment. I found that bookmarking a page in the Kindle was simple -- just scroll to and click on the upper right corner. Then you can switch in and out of standby mode by holding the alt key and pressing the font key. But even if you forget to bookmark, the Kindle will still remember your last location in every book you have. So all you really have to do in a hurry is switch the Kindle to standby.

Which, by the way, the Kindle has the most artsy standby mode I've ever seen. It randomly puts an image on the screen... it might be the portrait of an author, or some ancient Egyptian art, but it is always interesting.

Here are some other things I've learned about the Kindle in the past week.

While reading, you can press alt-T to see the current time in the lower left corner. (I knew this function had to be available somehow. It just took me a while to find it.)

The Kindle web browser has some features integrated with Google maps. If you press alt-1 you will see a map of your current location. Pressing alt-2 is supposed to map nearby gas stations, and pressing alt-3 is supposed to map nearby restaurants, but I couldn't get those last two functions to work! Google didn't seem to understand the location information that the browser was sending to it. I'm hoping this problem will be fixed soon.

If you'd like to convert a Word or PDF document for use on your Kindle, you can email it to yourname@kindle.com (check your Amazon account for your correct Kindle address and to whitelist any address you want to send from). Having Amazon convert docs and send them to your Kindle costs ten cents per doc. However, you can also email your docs to yourname@free.kindle.com and they will convert and send it back to your email account for free. Then it's up to you to send the doc to your Kindle by a USB connection.

If you're sitting at your computer and reading a long article and thinking to yourself "gee, I'd rather read this later on my Kindle," well, there is a free service for you. It's called Instapaper. You use a bookmarklet to save pages while on your PC, and then using the Kindle web browser you can easily access them later. Instapaper was designed with the iPhone in mind, but the simple interface works perfectly well with the Kindle.

In my previous review I mentioned Many Books, but I think it deserves another plug. It's a great source for FREE public domain books you can download straight to your Kindle. They offer their texts in the Mobipocket file format which is compatible with the Kindle.

So my conclusion is that I love the Kindle. It is a great product, and I will be using it for a very long time. If you're thinking of buying one, consider clicking this link so I can earn a little commission: Amazon Kindle $359.

Amazing Kindle

The Amazon Kindle is a convenient, portable reading device with the ability to wirelessly download books, newspapers, magazines, and blogs. I have at times advertised the Kindle on this blog, but last Sunday, when Amazon offered me free 2-day shipping, I decided I needed one for ME!

Yesterday, after two days of waiting (it seemed like forever), my Kindle arrived. UPS didn't deliver until after 7pm, so I haven't had as much time with it as I would like. However, here are my first impressions.

The viewing area is similar to a typical paperback novel. The size of the Kindle is much thinner than a paperback. The weight is less than a paperback (10.3 ounces). The price is way more than a paperback. Anyway, if it's technical specs that you're after, you can find them all here.

What I really want to talk about is the quality of the reading experience. The display is unlike any laptop, PDA, or cell phone I've ever seen. The Kindle uses a new technology called electronic-paper. The result is a sharp, high-resolution screen that looks and reads like real paper!

And like ordinary paper, electronic paper uses no backlighting, eliminating the glare associated with other electronic gadgets. I've discovered that the Kindle is as easy to read outdoors as it is indoors.

You navigate through pages by clicking next and previous buttons located on the left and right edges of the Kindle. You can easily read a book while holding the Kindle with a single hand.

There is also a little scroll wheel on the right edge which allows you to select a line of text to highlight, annotate, or perform a dictionary lookup. I've found it very handy to have instant access to a dictionary.

You also get instant access to WikiPedia and the Amazon Kindle Store... And here are two facts that might surprise you:

1. You don't need to setup any WiFi. Kindle utilizes the same high-speed data network (EVDO) as advanced cell phones.
2. There are no monthly wireless bills, service plans, or commitment -- Amazon takes care of the wireless delivery so you can simply browse, buy, and enjoy.

The wireless features include some basic web browsing capabilities, but it seems best suited for simple sites that are mostly text. I recommend that one of your first stops should be http://mnybks.net/ which has many FREE public domain books you can download straight to your Kindle. Hint -- select the Mobipocket file format for Kindle compatibility.

There are a few things that I don't like about Kindle web browsing. First is input and navigation. Kindle has no mouse like a laptop and no touchscreen like a PDA. Instead you're stuck with the same scroll wheel you use for selecting lines of text. So you scroll to the line with a link or button, press the scroll wheel... and then the software asks you which link or button you actually meant. It's clunky and annoying, and it takes too many clicks and scrolls to get where you're going.

Also, the connectivity seems unreliable. I don't know if it's my location or I've just had bad luck in my first 24 hours of usage. I'm hoping it improves.

Sometimes while paging through a WikiPedia article I noticed the bottom line of text was half cut off. Flipping to the next page didn't help... still only displaying the bottom half of the cut-off line. I hope they will address this annoyance in a software upgrade.

But to me, the web browsing is only a secondary feature of the Kindle. The primary feature is book reading.

Obviously the Kindle isn't for everybody. Here are my main reasons for purchasing one:

• I like to read.
• I love electronic gadgets if they are useful.
• I like to have resources at my fingertips.
• I am honestly a small little weakling who has trouble holding up hardcover books while in bed. This is no joke. For me, the size and weight of the Kindle makes books much more accessible.
• I like instantly getting the books I want without having to go to the store or waiting days for a delivery. The Kindle fits with my lifestyle.
• I can sample many books from the Amazon Kindle Store before purchasing.

Anyway, since I have the Kindle in my hot little hands right now, feel free to post any questions you might have about features or quality.