Why not? People who really want these data will be able to get them no matter what. There is no privacy anymore; the only thing protecting most people is that they just aren't interesting enough for anyone else to care.

I am so glad this post is here. Slashdot has restored my faith in humanity.

That sounds like a pretty cool story. You should post it somewhere online.

And in the end, both groups are equally bad.

You say that like it's a bad thing. *Sigh*

Wow, that's the first meta-joke I've read in quite a while that's actually funny. Good job!

Worthless, no. Worth little, quite possibly.

As a fellow college student, I have to agree with you. I would hate to have to use a Kindle for my school reading. If the Kindle textbooks were cheaper by a significant amount (i.e. a factor of ten), then I might be forced to reconsider my stance for economic reasons, but even then I wouldn't like it. As I see it, the Kindle offers two advantages over paper books: lack of weight and easy searchability. These are both nice things to have, but certainly they don't outweigh the many disadvantages of the Kindle: need for a battery, annoying interface, a proprietary file format, etc.

For pleasure reading, the Kindle is even worse. When I read a book, I want to actually read a book, not some digital facsimile thereof. If I want to find something new to read, I want the ability to go to a bookstore or the library and browse actual, physical, paper books. If this makes me a snob or a technophobe, so be it.

Finally, I find it very amusing that Princeton is being all high-and-mighty about its Kindle project being sustainable. Paper books, if properly cared for, can last hundreds of years. I have some books that my parents purchased before I was born which are still in good condition today, and I'd like to be able to pass them on to any future children I might have. Will Amazon still support today's Kindle format 50 years from now? Maybe they will, but I'm a bit skeptical.

So, basically the entire paper boils down to "OMG! Hardware works as advertised, and Linux lets root actually use said hardware." Color me unimpressed (and unconcerned).

Indeed. Handbrake and libdvdcss are all you need.

Most (all?) of Slashdot's icons are stale. That's part of its charm.

Which, in some ways, is oddly like the Z-machine!

Yes it can!