One Sci-Fi Author Wrote 29 of the Kindle's 100 Most-Highlighted Passages 239
An anonymous reader writes "Today Amazon announced that a science fiction writer has become the Kindle's all-time best-selling author. Last June Suzanne Collins, who wrote the Hunger Games trilogy, was only the fourth author to sell one million ebooks, but this month Amazon announced she'd overtaken all her competition (and she also wrote the #1 and #2 best-selling ebooks this Christmas). In fact, 29 of the 100 most-highlighted passages on the Kindle were written by Collins, including 7 of the top 10. And on a separate list of recent highlights, Collins has written 17 of the top 20 most-highlighted passages."
It's pretty interesting to go through the top-100 list and look at the passages people think are worth highlighting. Taken out of context, many of them could be patched together and re-sold as a self-help book. None are quite so eloquent as #18 in the recent highlights.
Required reading (Score:4, Funny)
It's a recent publication that is required reading in a lot of schools. Of course a lot of it is highlighted, those are the answers to the tests.
Hmm. What a co-incki-dinck! (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee, how shocking. A book which is getting a lot of advertising push in the run-up to a movie release just happens to be getting highlighted in an Amazon bookstore function designed to let you see what's popular. Gosh, I guess it must just be practically scientifically, objectively the most read book right now. You should probably buy it and check it out!
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If they did this 3 years ago, it'd be full of Twilight nonsense.
Which #18? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which #18 is the summary referring to?
"Press and hold, then drag your finger across text to select it. A dialog box will appear that lets you highlight the text, add a note, and so on. If several other Kindle users have highlighted a particular passage in the book you are reading, you will see that passage underlined. You can turn off these Popular Highlights in Settings. Notes appear as superscripted numbers within the text. To view a note the next time you visit that page, simply tap on the number."
or
"“Panem et Circenses translates into ‘Bread and Circuses.’ The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power.”"?
They're both oddly appropriate for self-help...
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The former, definitely.
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Nice passages (Score:4, Insightful)
Astro-turf. Pop culture feel good quotes, coming to a theater near you, and and mindless platitudes. The Harry Potter star-maker machinery is at work again, I see.
'bloomers' for the win. Ben Franklin would have loved that, the ol' whore monger.
Depressing (Score:5, Insightful)
Seeing what statistically significant humans think is highlight-worthy is incredibly depressing. Is it any wonder the One Percent can manage to stay in control? Humans have opposable thumbs and can manage language, but wise they aren't. They can't discern platitudes and doublespeak from actual wisdom.
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Thanks for posting that and saving me the trouble. When I saw the link to the 100 most highlighted passages, I thought great--a few new gems for my personal collection. Wow, was I wrong. Almost none of the passages were insightful or even interesting. For some real insightful and interesting quotes & passages, check out Robert Heinlein's "Notebooks of Lazarus Long". (FWIW, IMHO, YMMV and other standard disclaimers apply)
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You know what else is depressing? There will always be a Top One Percent.
Yeah. And half of you are below average. THAT'S depressing!
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Yeah. And half of you are below average. THAT'S depressing!
When you know what the average is, yes. It's not exactly below average genius, if you get my drift...
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Yeah. And half of you are below average. THAT'S depressing!
Yes, but ...
"Approximately 99% of people have more than the average number of legs".
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{1, 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 6, 7}
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With the exception of a couple wealthy families (Walton and Mars come to mind), most people in the US who are millionaires were not born into their wealth.
Re:Depressing (Score:4, Informative)
69% earned it according to a study. 6% completely inherited it, and the remainder was a mixture. That's not exactly "only a couple of wealthy families."
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/most-affluent-americans-earn-their-wealth-feel-more-secure-during-economic-downturns-pnc-survey-reveals-57351597.html [prnewswire.com]
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Read about the Great Gatsby Curve : http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/the-great-gatsby-curve/ [nytimes.com]
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"There will always One Percent that has more than the other Ninety Nine Percent. Deal with it."
Yep,but sometimes the 99% take the guillotine out of the shack.
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Of-course they do, and when the 1% is departed with their wealth and their heads, the next ones in line are those, who were just below them [wikipedia.org].
Eventually you can be that 1%, it's not like it takes too much to be in that category given enough murder. It happened many times, and just a little while ago the 1% were people with metal roofs above their heads [wikipedia.org] (not that it helped them to escape the 99% with the guillotines).
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You are simply wrong. There are vast differences among societies in how unequal they are [wikipedia.org], and it's ever-evolving, even within any-given nation. Wealth distribution is not physical law, it's political will. It can and does change, constantly.
Re:Depressing (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, you mean the most highlighted things come from the books the most people have? Say it isn't so!
Hunger Games isn't a bad series. Would you prefer the top highlights be from Twilight? Or some terrible self help book by the latest fad guru? Or the newest diet sensation?
Don't forget that not only have the Hunger Games book sold incredibly well, they were one of the promoted books for the "one free book a month for Prime subscribers" program.
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Seeing what statistically significant humans think is highlight-worthy is incredibly depressing.
But it's at least least warned me not to bother reading The Hunger Games -- the quotes all seem trite and badly written to me, so it seems that the books are not for me.
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The story is decent, but I'm not a fan of first person narratives. It's a rare writer who can pull it off without it detracting from the novel, and Collins isn't such a writer.
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They can't discern platitudes and doublespeak from actual wisdom.
How do you think the bible got so popular? Now excuse me while I duck.
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At least you said it before I did. I get to keep eating for once.
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No matter, there's still plenty of corroborating evidence that people are stupid. ;-)
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Guilty pleasure (Score:2)
Seeing what statistically significant humans think is highlight-worthy is incredibly depressing. Is it any wonder the One Percent can manage to stay in control? Humans have opposable thumbs and can manage language, but wise they aren't. They can't discern platitudes and doublespeak from actual wisdom.
I like to highlight completely inane random passages taken out of context on my kindle
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Seeing what statistically significant humans think is highlight-worthy is incredibly depressing
Sample bias.
The only thing we know for sure is that child-murder-curious readers tend to highlight things on Kindles.
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If that's the primary reason that people are doing this, then I might retract my rant... or at least the motivation for it. Humans are still stupid by and large. ;-)
obligatory snark (Score:5, Interesting)
From my own highlight list:
How much of old material goes to make up the freshest novelty of human life.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne, House of the Seven Gables (1851)
And everything new is good forgotten old (Score:3)
One can find the origin of these rather shallow "deep thoughts" in much older literature. The requirement is just a little knowledge. E.g. the first on the "recent list" is a seriously dumbed-down Faust:
When I say to the Moment flying;
'Linger a while -- thou art so fair!'
And so on.
Re:And everything new is good forgotten old (Score:5, Funny)
Bah. That's clearly just repackaged from:
"Hello, my friend! Stay awhile and listen..."
Oxford American Dictionary #124 (Score:2)
The highlighted text:
The New Oxford American Dictionary Contents About this book
Truly inspiring
Am I the only one then...? (Score:5, Interesting)
That read the first book and thought "Really?? This is what all the excitement is about?" I didn't care for Hunger Games at all. It was an engaging read admittedly. I kept turning the pages. But the foreshadowing of where things were headed seemed pretty shallow to me (no, I did not cheat and peek at the ending). My closing thoughts were "well, someone's hoping to cash in on a screenplay here" and a sort of dirty feeling. I felt like one feels when you slow down at the sight of a roadside accident to see if there's anything gory.
I read the next two books just to see if it would get any good.
I have this vague sense of irony about the whole thing. As I listen to people tell me why they just like this book so much, some times I feel like a big part of the reason they liked it was because everyone else seems to as well. It's cool, because if you're read it, you're in the club. And the club says it's good. Given that a major theme of the book is humanity's ability as a collective to ignore stuff that is wrong, this seems hugely ironic to me.
If you enjoyed it, no offense meant. I respect that. To each his own. I liked the Mistborn series and Terry Pratchett novels far better than this among recent reads, and maybe you don't care for those.
Am I the only person that didn't care for Hunger Games at all?
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"I read the next two books just to see if it would get any good."
Bless you. This is the slashdot I know and love.
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I've just finished reading the series myself (on a kobo, natch). I liked them. They're not going to win any awards for great literature, but they're significantly better written than Harry Potter or the first couple of chapters of the first twilight book (I couldn't stomach any more than that). I wouldn't even classify them as young adult; they're pretty violently brutal with quite a few analogies to our current day politics. It's only that the protagonists are teenagers that makes it 'young adult' really.
O
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I've read all the Harry Potters and I think from the third book on they're quite well written. The reasons people will say otherwise, in order of appearance, would be
1. empty posturing
2. they've only read the first book
3. more sincere posturing - based on attitudes of what serious literature should be and disdain of the rest
Yeah. Hunger Games. (Score:3)
If there was any doubt that The Hunger Games are young adult novels, just read through the list.
I'd weep for the youth of today but I was a youth of yesterday and I was a giant idiot too. I mostly grew out of it. They will too. It's how it works.
Lame (Score:2)
The top one makes a lot of sense, actually. (Score:2)
Thank you, Slashdot. (Score:5, Funny)
This article came at a fitting time as I had recently picked up the bad habit of writing. It's a peculiar problem I have; it sneaks up from time to time, usually as the result of a new gadget which had the misfortune of including a keyboard. The impulse afflicts me for a few days or weeks until I finally convince myself, in no uncertain terms, that I am really a irredeemably terrible writer and should, in a just universe, have long ago been issued a restraining order against the whole of the English language. As this is, alas, an entirely unjust universe, over the years I have left a terrifying path of half-finished video game plots, reimagined TV shows and fan-fics in my wake.
But I digress. When I stumbled upon this article I thought that it would be my rescue, as my recent purchase of a Bluetooth keyboard for my smartphone had me again fancying myself an auteur while the tiny rational part of by brain helplessly fought the controls. While I had never read any of Suzanne Collins work, surely anyone capable of penning a third of Amazon's top quotes must have a rapier wit and a stunning insight into the human condition. It would be a delightful chance to reaffirm my own incompetence and move on with my life. And I'd even get a new collection of bon mots to use at the water cooler. What could possibly go wrong? [tvtropes.org]
Oops, I'm starting to digress again and souls don't crush themselves, after all! Bring on the quotes!
Because sometimes things happen to people and they’re not equipped to deal with them.
Ah, well, that's...very true. Very applicable to lots of...things.
It takes ten times as long to put yourself back together as it does to fall apart.
That's true, too! I've heard the same message plenty of times before, but that doesn't make it less insightful.
“I wish I could freeze this moment, right here, right now, and live in it forever,” he says.
Okay, maybe a bit trite, but still a nice sentiment.
“I just want to spend every possible minute of the rest of my life with you,” Peeta replies.
Ah...um, okay, now my secret My Little Pony fan-fic is starting to look good. Uh...moving on...
We’re fickle, stupid beings with poor memories and a great gift for self-destruction.
...Dear...
“Having an eye for beauty isn’t the same thing as a weakness,” Peeta points out. “Except possibly when it comes to you.”
...God...
Life in District 12 isn’t really so different from life in the arena. At some point, you have to stop running and turn around and face whoever wants you dead.
...this...
The berries. I realize the answer to who I am lies in that handful of poisonous fruit. If I held them out to save Peeta because I knew I would be shunned if I came back without him, then I am despicable. If I held them out because I loved him, I am still self-centered, although forgivable. But if I held them out to defy the Capitol, I am someone of worth. The trouble is, I don’t know exactly what was going on inside me at that moment.
...is...
I am not pretty. I am not beautiful. I am as radiant as the sun.
...all...
“District Twelve. Where you can starve to death in safety,”
...complete...
That what I need to survive is not Gale’s fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can
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Re:great book! (Score:4, Interesting)
Crap. I wasn't logged in. My comment. Great book for those interested. Kind of like The Running Man, but in many ways, much crueler.
And a complete rip-off of Battle Royale. Skip it and just watch that instead.
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That was my first reaction, though I've seen plenty of entertaining books inspired by others. Has anybody that's read both Battle Royale [novel] and Hunger Games care to comment?
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That was my first reaction, though I've seen plenty of entertaining books inspired by others. Has anybody that's read both Battle Royale [novel] and Hunger Games care to comment?
I doubt there is a great overlap of audiences. The Hunger Games readers are, in my judgment, going to be Potterheads, not weaboos.
Some of them might be old enough to have seen Schwarzenegger in The Running Man, but fewer will have read the book or have seen Series 7: The Contenders. And like with any fad, the majority will think it's new and groundbreaking.
As long as it gets kids to read, I won't complain. Perhaps they'll pick up some other books later, and one day develop critical thinking.
Re:great book! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Which was a rip-off of some Star Trek episode or Asimov story.
No new ideas in the hopper.
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Indeed. One of the original horror stories, so far as I'm concerned.
Why? Because when you're in high-school, you believe that it's just a story. Later on, you find out it's a commentary on communities in general -> everyone goes along with a tradition / way of thought, because it's how they've always done things. The only people who call for change are those who find themselves the odd-man out, and typically only after they've been selected as a sacrifice; the people throwing stones are just happy it isn
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Robert Scheckley (Score:4, Interesting)
Crap. I wasn't logged in. My comment. Great book for those interested. Kind of like The Running Man, but in many ways, much crueler.
And a complete rip-off of Battle Royale. Skip it and just watch that instead.
And all of the above got the idea from Robert Scheckley's 1958 short story "The Prize of Peril", which is not only the first depiction of this type of game, but also of any form of reality television in fiction, decades before it materialized in the real world. I have not read the hunger games, but I wonder how much all of these add to the original concept...
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Both books were completely different.
As opposed to only one of them being completely different? Yes, I can believe you're a Hunger Games fan with that feat of logic.
The two are as similar as "Ca Plane Pour Moi" and "Jet Boy, Jet Girl". That is, they're indistinguishable for an outsider, but different for those who are fans. But when you boil away the fat, the exact same riff or plot remains.
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Have you read it? Good literature is good regardless of your age, and despite my initial doubts, this trilogy is actually good literature.
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One of my favorite books to this day is Gemini Game, which is all about virtual reality games and a minor criminal conspiracy. It's set in a dystopian sort of future where nothing is really pointed out as bad but a smart kid will realize the implications (such as police being able to open any door by putting their badge against the lock).
Re:great book! (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't worry, no one here is impressed with your intellect. You're free to read something purely for enjoyment.
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Agreed. Read what you enjoy. That's the key to enjoying reading in general.
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Re:great book! (Score:5, Funny)
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There's nothing so sad and useless as an English Literature major. What did you really think you were going to do after four years? Tell people how great Schopenhauer is while you bag their groceries?
A lot of English Literature majors go on to work in Finance and earn considerably more than most scientists, if that's how you want to measure success. This is ignoring the fact that studying literature is something all educated people should do for pleasure anyway.
If you think a university education is just glorified job training, I really do feel sorry for you.
Re:great book! (Score:5, Interesting)
What an asshole you are. You make up your own cultural norms by presumably abstracting from your personal experiences and then you passionately insult anyone who doesn't follow the limited views that result.
Norm 1: people read books to be "enriched" by them as efficiently as possible ("Why go through all the trouble reading the Harry Potter or Hunger Games series when you could read Dr. Seuss's books and become three times as enriched in a fraction of the time?"). This is patently ridiculous. Books can be enriching, but they can also be guilty pleasures, pure entertainment, sleep-inducing material, or a host of other things. Moreover, books are different things to different people. Your own view of a book will probably not be very universal, and that's not a bad thing.
Norm 2: an "adult or literate high-school upperclassman" should not promote a children's or young adult's ("Dick and Jane") series. Screw you; I'll recommend The Hobbit or Harry Potter or whatever I think is appropriate for whatever reason I feel like to whomever I wish. You're in no position to pre-judge the quality of my reasons in such a hypothetical case you judgmental prick. You're similarly in no position to judge the value of everyone's reasons for reading a particular book.
You do have some good points--calling Twilight "good literature" is pretty silly using the usual definition of "literature"; most people on /. are literate adults; and Dr. Seuss' books are remarkably enriching, especially to the young. Your good points are buried in crap and shrouded in assholery today, though.
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Sometimes I think in our eagerness to pass judgments on books, we neglect to actually *read* them. At least not with real critical objectivity.
When *Twilight* became a phenomenon I bought a copy and did my best to read it with enjoyment. While it was not *my* cup of tea, I think I saw why fans feel it's special. It's not just the obvious reasons; it's clear to me that Stephanie Meyers is actually quite a talented writer. What she's not is a *skillful* writer, at least at the time she wrote tha book. *Twilig
Re:great book! (Score:4, Insightful)
People say the same about Harry Potter and Twilight. Those people should be smacked in their mouths with a rolled-up newspaper.
You got modded troll, but you're right.
People don't feel this way about Twilight [freewebs.com] because of the quality writing.
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I find http://reasoningwithvampires.tumblr.com/ [tumblr.com]">this to be a pretty good analysis of just how bad the writing is. My wife is a librarian at a middle school here in Virginia, and she makes a point to keep up with popular fiction for middle-schoolers. She said that while the writing is awful, some of it was actually really good, but most of it was just padding.
We watched the first 3 movies together... well, at least sat in front of them while surfing on our laptops. I couldn't even get through the fir
Re:great book! (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. I needed something to read early last summer. Based on hearing about it from a friend or two and all the promotion, I decided to give it a try. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the three books.
I'm interested in seeing the movie. Some of the bits in the trailers look great to me, although I imagined District 12's town to be less rural and the fence more imposing. I agree that PG-13 is going to be an interesting challenge. Given it's a book in which, just based on the jacket, you know 23 kids should die means they're going to have to deal with violence issues. Of course there is no way they could make it R, it would cut out the movie's target audience.
The movie has a big enough budget that they certainly should be able to do a good job. I hope it at least turns out decent.
Re:great book! (Score:5, Funny)
Violence is OK. They just have to keep sex out of it.
'The Gun is good. The penis is evil'
(Anybody remember Zardoz? You do? I'm very sorry.)
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Re:great book! (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, I survived it, but I think it permanently scarred me.
Sean Connery in a pink diaper with suspenders - one of those horrid images that pop into my consciousness at inappropriate moments.
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Sean Connery in a pink diaper with suspenders - one of those horrid images that pop into my consciousness at inappropriate moments.
Legend has it that Connery was concerned that he would be forever shoehorned in the "suave spy" role of his James Bond movies and used Zardoz to shatter that stereotype utterly. I also imagine it was a lot more fun to be in the movie than to watch it.
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Yeah, he got to get up close and personal with Charlotte Rampling and a few other attractive actresses. Such sacrifices....
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Re:great book! (Score:5, Funny)
As the relieved father of a young woman who has finally made it into her twenties, I am keen to read some books where awful stuff happens to teenagers.
Especially goths. Does anyone know if these books have awful stuff happening to goths? Oh, and horny teenage boys who are always hanging around. I could do with a book about awful stuff happening to horny teenage boys with adams apples and their parents' cars who are always hanging around trying to get daughters to go to parties at the homes of absent parents. That could be very entertaining. Dismemberment, maybe brutal beatings with baseball bats, like that. I may have to check out these books.
Hey, they're making a movie of this Hunger Games stuff, right?
Re:great book! (Score:4, Funny)
As the relieved father of a young woman who has finally made it into her twenties
I could do with a book about awful stuff happening to horny teenage boys with adams apples and their parents' cars who are always hanging around trying to get daughters to go to parties at the homes of absent parents.
I may have to check out these books.
I am really sorry about this. (Score:3)
Her house brooded behind partially trimmed hedges, an island of shadow under willow trees. Ryan Davenport, 18, shuddered as the sun passed behind a cloud. Sophia was in there. His Adams' apple bobbed as he swallowed, unease shadowing his handsome face.
His mind was made up. It was time to meet the parents.
The drone of unseen hedge trimmers somewhere nearby dulled his roiling mind. "Keep it together, R-dawg. Keep it together." Breathing slowly wasn't working. His pounding heart moved oxygen-deprived blood thr
Re:great book! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:4, Informative)
Home -> Settings -> Popular Highlights -> Turn Off
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:4, Interesting)
When you highlight a passage, you have the option to share it. When you're reading, you'll see highlights that other people shared as dotted line underlines, along with a number indicating how many people shared that bit. You can turn off the display of shared highlights in the menu. Anyone who owns a Kindle would know that, so I suspect you're lying when you insinuate that you're a Kindle owner. Most likely a shill/fanboi for some other company.
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Kindle Reader app does not make the ability to disable this visible or obvious.
It's also not visible or obvious on all versions of the Kindle.
I think you need to go take a better look at the software on the different Kindle models.
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:5, Interesting)
anyone? doubtful. most? also doubtful.
amazon tracking and collecting this sort of data is not any different than tivo and cable companies doing the same with dvr's (and not any less spooky), what programs are recorded and watched, when they're watched, what parts get replayed, skipped-over or paused on. and like tivo, amazon defaults to opt-in instead of opt-out (which is not exactly convenient to do with tivo.. and near or completely impossible with cable company boxes). tivo took a lot of heat after that most unfortunate of superbowl half-time performances -- amazon should here as well.
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don't your highlights get sync'd to all copies on your devices?
some would consider that a feature.. and how else are they going to do that if they're not watching?
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and this is marked as "troll", because ... ???
i asked myself the very same question when i first read this article.
but then i also do not understand why people still keep buying devices, where "they" can remotely delete files (ebooks) on that same device, without your consent. this is exactly the same as "them" sending a burglar to your house and steal one book, because "they" think that book is not appropriate for you.
you wouldn't be happy with that now, would you?
google for "amazon erases orwell books fro
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Be honest--you didn't read the user agreement in the first place. Not that I don't sympathize.
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How else did you think they let you see passages that other people have highlighted?
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:5, Informative)
Are you trolling?
If you have a Kindle, it's dead obvious they do this.
As soon as I started reading on my Kindle, I noticed underlines on things. Amazon shows you the most popular things to highlight in the books you read, and tells you that. It's one of the features of the Kindle (I turned it off, as I found it distracting).
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Yeah, I'm not generally a highlighting person. It has it's place, and if I was reading some reference book it might be nice. But when I'm reading fiction I'm not interested in finding out what sentences 8500 other people think are poignant.
Amazon did a good job with it. And having turned off other people's highlights, I can still put my own in (even though I don't).
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:5, Insightful)
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How does a private entity violate the constitution, which is a document that has to do with the government and not private entities?
Do you think a no talking rule in the theatre equates to a violation of your First Amendment rights?
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spying? please.
you VOLUNTARILY gave them your name and billing address when you ordered the damn thing.
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Ha ha! Let me address my loving readers all at once here.
I always say, "Say what you want on the Internet, if you are wrong, you will be corrected with great enthusiasm." I liken it to being married.
Ok, here's my perspective. I got a Kindle. I just want it so I can read. My eyes aren't so well these days, and I can make the print big enough I don't need my reading glasses. Honestly though, for me it's still backwards. I spend most of my time on the computer and not reading a book. I haven't read fiction, (o
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What Else Could be Found? (Score:4, Informative)
Interestingly, the Hunger Games series is one of the few on Amazon that is significantly cheaper on the Kindle (and apps) then the paper version. And for some bizarre reason, they're the only Kindle books that I've seen that aren't plastered with typos.
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It used to be that when you bought a hardcover, you had a reasonable expectation of it having been proofread. Not so, anymore, apparently. My guess is that proofreading these days isn't done on paper, where it was easy to insert corrections and get the author's feedback, but are now done in electronic format as a one-step-job, and a lot slips through the cracks.
Point in case: C. J. Cherry's latest Foreigner novel, "Intruder", which has a fair problem with uncorrected typos and transpositions.
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If you look at the #1 entry, with about 50% more highlihgts than the following entries, and bother to read what was highlighted, it's pretty clear that this is highlighted because people somehow were convinced by others to highlight it. It isn't something that stands out at all, with no profound wisdom, and nothing that defines the story.
As for the top 25, any random entry from the old Unix "fortune" program will be more profound. Let me try:
"There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old t