I know there are methods to remove the ads - but I have to say that when they planned this out they did it right. I've never felt a need to remove it from mine. They only show up on the home screen (where they are crazy small) and on my screen saver thing. When I'm reading there is no difference. I really don't spend any significant amount of time not actually "in" books on the thing so I forget about it. Every so often it will remind me to connect to wi-fi if I haven't done so in a long time but if it really helps keep the cost of the readers down I don't mind it at all.

I think that calibre plus the kindle means that I have access to pretty much everything. It's like having the worlds largest library in my home. And since I don't live in a country that has libraries with books in my native language that's a pretty nice thing.

And I have moved enough that I really don't want physical books much any more. There are instances where they are better but for anything I'd read as a paperback I much prefer electronic now.

I modded up some of our discussions (by our I mean our little(r) circle here) last week or something like that.

What's funny is the drive I found in the office is throwing some errors too so I just ordered a new one.

For $70 you can get a fantastic e-ink reader. The 6 inch kindle with offers is $69.

Team that up with Calibre on a PC and you are all set. That is how I do all my reading now.

Very nice.

I follow a similar pattern. I went from an S to the S3.

This was in part due to cost. If I am going to spend $600 on a phone, I treat it like any other computer purchase and I expect to get a minimum of 3 years out of the device.

Now that there are phones available that are of almost the same quality, at a much lower price I'll probably make a move - but not for at least a year. While I waited to repair this one I was using a Moto G and I loved it. The screen isn't as big, and it was a relief to get back to my Galaxy in that regard. But I'd say otherwise the Moto G was just as good but it cost less than $200.

People talk about the race to the bottom - and there are some awful Android devices out there but there are also some really nice devices that don't cost such a huge premium and I like to think of them as being part of the race to the middle. The point where I get maximum value.

I'm in no rush to update. I wait on that stuff and let the early adopters find the problems.

I really don't get why everyone gushes over mac as being so superior to Windows when it comes to the stability of updates. Mac fans are just willing to endure more.

Don't know.

Mine has 16GB - and the instance still gets cranky sometimes even after I've thrown a lot of resources at it. And I don't think it is Fedora - it's something to do with the virtualization. But it is good enough.

I am a big Scalzi fan and have loved every bit of his fiction that I have read - except for Redshirts. So I don't get it either, but a lot of people love it. A TV show will come of it and that escapes me as well. Apparently we are just not in touch with something a lot of other people see in it.

You mention the length of trailers and what not. Noticed this when I was home in the US this summer. Here in Hungary it's a lot nicer. I reserved our seats in the morning, on-line. We showed up about half an hour before show time to buy them. Then we hung out at a book store and toy store in the mall for a little bit and went into the theater about 10 minutes before the movie started. We took our seats, watched 3 trailers maybe and the film started. Really nice.

When I took my son to see the new Transformers I don't think it started until well beyond 30 minutes after the listed showtime. It was a long movie and much later than I anticipated when we left. Not the end of the world, but annoying.

The only downside, and this is just for us, is that we have limited options to see the film in English and there was no straight original version. Dubbed or subbed and the subtitles were unfortunately distracting a few times when the chosen shots put actors at the bottom of the screen. All 3d showings were dubbed so that was out as well, but we prefer 2d anyway.