Round up #194: New products, Prime Early Access Sale

Round up #194: New products, Prime Early Access Sale

Prime Early Access Sale

We’ve already had Prime Day this year (12 July to 13 July) & Black Friday isn’t until 25 November, but this year, Amazon is giving us another sale in-between the two:

Prime Early Access Sale (at AmazonSmile*)

They are advertising this a lot! I’ve seen actual commercials for it, as well as a splash every time I open the Amazon app. It’s a sale for

Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

members. As has been the case with other sales, even though it isn’t the official day yet, there are sales now that will likely continue through that day. For example, even though they aren’t found when you filter for Prime Early Access deals, Amazon devices are on sale and I’d be suprised if they aren’t on PEAS (gee, is all they are asking is for you to give PEAS a chance? 😉 ). Here are the

Amazon Devices

Here is a filter for the PEAS deals…interesting to see, and you can “watch the deal” to get alerts on them:

Prime Early Access Sale deals

Expect there to be more deals! I’d especially recommend looking for deals on subscriptions…”channels” for Prime Video (on Prime Day, I did Paramount+ for $0.99 a month for a limited time, then I’ll cancel…I got to see Star Trek: Strange New Worlds that way), for Prime itself, for Kindle Unlimited, for Audible…

Good luck!

Major change to Kindle book return policy by end of year?

One of the best sources for news on EBRs (E-Book Readers), GOODEREADER, reports in an

article by Michael Kozlowski

that, by the end of 2022, the policy will change from a return of an e-book within 7 days for pretty much any reason (if Amazon thinks you are abusing the return policy, they can change the way you ask for refunds), even if yu’ve read the whole book, to making you defend the return if you’ve read more than 10% of it. Kozlowski links to an Authors Guild page where they are taking credit for the change.

This is major, if it happens.

For authors/publishers (that can be the same thing nowadays), that places even more emphasis on what you put in the front of the book. I’ve generally recommended putting the actual content as close to the “front cover” as possible, to engage readers during their free samples. That would mean, for instance, putting acknowledgements in the back. Depending on how Amazon does it, though, you might be able to “return proof” a book by frontloading it with content people tend to skip so they get right past the 10%. I wouldn’t recommend that: you don’t want to trick people into having to keep a book! I was a successful brick and mortar bookstore manager, and I made sure that my clerks knew we were making customers, not sales (that’s not an original phrase with me). It’s okay to lose a couple of dollars by taking a return if that cements an ongoing relationship that results in profitable sales later.

We’ll see what happens…

Amazon Devices & Services Event

On 28 September, Amazon introduced their new devices & services. As usual, there were many items, some incremental changes, some big.

There are usually a couple of jawdroppers, and there were two big ones I want to mention.

First, there’s a new sleep monitoring device, the

Halo Rise

Sure, there are sleep trackers already, but this is something different. Amazon is well aware of privacy concerns, and the Halo Rise doesn’t use a camera…or even a microphone! Among other things, it apparently uses radar to detect your respiration & movement! I think there may be a market for this one, at $139.99. It may actually be a step forward in one of the really impactful areas of health, sleep. You can’t buy it yet, but you can sign up for a notification when it becomes available.

This next one…well, I’m less sure about it. In a way, it’s something people have wanted for a long time. It’s the

Kindle Scribe

Sure, it’s a new Kindle, it’s an e-ink…but you can write on it. That’s the huge innovation here: writing on a screen which isn’t backlit. I certainly get the appeal of that. You can actually a “pen” to do it, so you can do drawings and such.

While they do promote it for reading Kindle books (and I can see how you could want to annotate those differently than the way we’ve done it in the past, especially nonfiction), they also have blank templates, including lined paper.

They are clearly making it much easier to export and import (that’s never been a strength of Kindle devices).

I’ll be interested to see if people start using it unconnected to Kindle books…for example, someone working on a factory floor might like the eye feel. The pen won’t need charging and the Kindle Scribe can stay charged for weeks: might be great for expeditions.

It does have a frontlight, like a Paperwhite, and that’s always been the comfortable way for me to read, more so even then paper.

My question is whether people will see the advantages enough to pay $339.99 for it, when you can get a tablet for well under $100.

We use a

Rocketbook Fusion

and like that. You use a special pen (but it’s ink), you are writing on paper…but you can easily erase it (a damp microfiber cloth will do it particularly well). Obviously, the Kindle Scribe has a lot more robust capabilities, for about $25, it’s a good solution.

I’m convinced the Kindle Scribe is cool, but is it more than niche? We’ll see.

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I haven’t done a Round up like this in some time…it was fun! I’m always curious to know what you think. Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post or on Twitter at

Twitter.com/bufocalvin

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other organizations, begin your Amazon shopping from a link on their sites: Amazon.com (Smile.Amazon.com)

Round up #193: Clive Cussler, Alexa said um

Round up #193: Clive Cussler, Alexa said um

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Alexa: “…um…”

I think Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant, has gotten to sound a lot more natural in the last year. I live in California, where we pronounce place names (like cities) with a somewhat odd mix of Spanish and English (the way we say “San Jose”, with “San” rhyming with “can”, but “Jose” being pronounced like Spanish, “Hoh-zay”, can baffle computers…and visitors/resident newbies). Recently, Alexa’s been getting those “right”.

When the AI reads my “On this date in geeky history” (see Alexa skills below), it’s a long list. Alexa now varies the way that items are said throughout the list, as a human would (not reeling them all off with the same emphasis).

Why is this happening?

No question, it’s a major push for Amazon. The Samuel L. Jackson voice (you can chose explicit or non-explicit) sounds like a recording, rather than something generated on the spot.

One way they work on this is the “Alexa Prize”. You can say, “Alexa, let’s chat”, and a team’s competitor will chat with you. Two that I heard yesterday were not impressive: a lot of non sequiters, and not understanding my intention.

However, one that I heard earlier this week was quite good!

Something that really impressed me? When Alexa was answering me, it used “um” in the middle of a sentence! That probably wouldn’t be good if it was reading, say, a Wikipedia article (it wouldn’t sound authoritative), but sounds more natural when chatting socially.

“Go, go gadget grocery!”

Amazon has now opened a

Go Grocery store (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

at 610 E. Pike Street in Seattle.

While you might think that a store is just a store, and even a cashierless one is just an evolution, there really are some important social issues involved in this.

This is it in a pick it up and leave nutshell: will people trade virtually all of their privacy for convenience?

I think that for many people, the answer is yes.

Not everybody: there are people who don’t have cellphones because they are concerned about the surveillance. Well, I think you need one to shop at the Go store, so they’re kind of out of the equation, but you know what I mean. 😉

Here’s how it works:

You download an app to your phone. You show the “key” in the app when you go into the store. There are humans there, but AI tracks your every move every second you are in there (I assume). You could just pick something up, say, a ready-made lunch (that’s one of the products they think will be an attraction), and then leave. The system know what you took out of the store, and charges you for it.

It’s supposed to know if you picked something up and then put it back, leaving without it.

Could it make mistakes?

Sure, but I’m a former brick-and-mortar bookstore manager (other kinds of stores, too). Human clerks make mistakes, too…balancing a drawer every night (making sure the money and other receipts match the sales) wasn’t a task to take lightly, and it wasn’t uncommon that you’ve have to track down an error.

My intuition is that the AI is probably already more accurate than the humans…and you won’t have that pesky employee theft as a concern.

My guess is that the average shopper will be fine with the surveillance…you are already continuously  watched in many stores.

Clive Cussler has reportedly died

Author and real life adventurer

Clive Cussler (at AmazonSmile*)

reportedly died February 24 (about a week ago as I write this).

Cussler had many bestsellers, and had the best part of 100 books published.

There were 25 Dirk Pitt novels alone, some of them co-authored with Cussler’s son…also named Dirk.

Doc Savage to now be a TV series instead of a movie…I’ll be superamalgamated!

Regular readers know that Doc Savage is one of my fictional heroes…I do try to abide the pulp hero’s (introduced in 1933) oath, to improve myself to benefit others (among other things).

For some time, a Doc Savage movie has been on Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s movie “dance card”…the actor was attached to a Shane Black movie.

However, it’s recently been announced that the plan has changed, and they are now looking at doing a TV series.

I think that’s a better fit.

There were 181 original adventures (and recently, authorized new adventures). I think the long-form of an open ended TV series (on a platform like Prime Video/Netflix/Hulu) would allow that depth and variety to be better explored.

I’m quite excited by the prospect!

By the way, in conjunction with that, I checked the Kindle store…and a lot of the original were now available there. However, I’m in the USA, and I “looked inside” one…it said it was legal in Canada, but might not be in the public domain here (my understanding is that it isn’t). I didn’t see anything built into the site that would have prevented me from buying it…and if it’s listed by accident, that’s exactly what happened with the 1984 issue, from what I’ve read. Amazon accidentally made 1984 available in the USA, when the publisher only intended it for a market where it was in the public domain. Amazon “recalled” the books from customers, which created a big bad publicity flap, still affecting customer perception today. Amazon has said they’d never do it that way again, remove books from customers like that, even though they compensated people.

I am not recommending that you download them (I’m not linking) if you are in the USA, even though you would not, as I understand it (I am not a lawyer), not be in legal jeopardy.

I’m going to alert Amazon.

I’m still hoping that a legal version of the original 181 show up at Amazon.com’s Kindle store for the USA. If there was, say, a $250 bundle for the 181, I’d buy it.

What do you think? Are you a Clive Cussler reader? Would you be comfortable shopping at an Amazon Go store, being constantly watched? Have you noticed Alexa sounding more natural? Should it “um”? Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other organizations, begin your Amazon shopping from a link on their sites: Amazon.com (Smile.Amazon.com)

 

Round up #192: Best Books of the Year, Amazon Sidewalk

Round up #192: Best Books of the Year, Amazon Sidewalk

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Amazon’s Q3 financials disappointed…but it’s okay now

When Amazon announced its Q3 results on October 24.

recorded webcast

the stock dropped enough that Jeff Bezos reportedly was no longer the world’s richest person…but that only lasted about a day. 🙂

According to

CNN.Money’s Amazon quote

the stock is up about 2.47% over the past 30 days.

Amazon’s brag sheet…er,

press release

has more details. Sales were up (naturally), but yes, income was down. However, they’ve introduced several initiatives which have a lot of potential in the future. Certainly, I’m not worried about them…although I’m also not dependent on them for income.

Amazon announces the best books of 2019

Amazon has announced their

The Best Books of 2019 (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

These are the features and categories:

Featured in Best Books of 2019

• Top 100: Print Books
• Top 100: Kindle Books: the two lists are very similar at the top…I think they used to be more different when more books were released without Kindle editions. The number one book? The Testaments by Margaret Atwood (at AmazonSmile*), the Booker Prize winning sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale
• Celebrity Picks (including: Stephen King; Sally Fields; Admiral McRaven; Kobe Bryant; Louise Penny; John Waters; Dav Pilkey; and more)
• Editors’ Holiday Gift Picks

Best of the Year by Category

• Biographies & Memoirs
• Business & Leadership
• Children’s Books
• Cookbooks, Food & Wine
• History
• Literature & Fiction
• Mystery, Thriller & Suspense
• Nonfiction
• Romance
• Science
• Science Fiction & Fantasy
• Teens & Young Adult

Disney+ has launched

As I had written I thought would be the case, Disney and Amazon worked out their differences enough for Disney+ to be available on the Fire TV family. I’ve written my first impressions on my other blog, The Measured Circle:

Disney+ on Fire TV: 1st impressions

Amazon Sidewalk

In this

Amazon dayone blog post

from September 27, Amazo announced a new communications protocol they call Sidewalk. This is one of those things which may make a big difference in the future. It’s the use of the 900 MHz band to enable smart devices to have a network that goes outside the home, but not as far as a SmartPhone would do. I don’t think there’s been enough notice of this.

It will mean that you can have your Ring camera further away from the door (we love ours…we’ve seen two deer come right up on the stoop in the middle of the night, and we are not in a wild area), which is great. They are promoting it for a device they’ll release called Fetch, which will be able to geolocate your dog (or other pet). That’s great: it can let you know when your dog leaves your yard.

In the future, though, they clearly intend the networks to intermesh…your neighbor’s Sidewalk (although probably not your neighbor) will know when your dog is nearby.

That means, hypothetically, that the police could eventually get data about where people are or were. Yes, they can do that now with a SmartPhone, so maybe it doesn’t matter, but it does seem like there will be another way to track things. That can certainly be a good thing, but I’ve just been surprised not to see more comments about it.

Amazon future>>engineer

This one seems like a great program, like Amazon giving back!

It’s a way for people from “underserved and underrepresented communities” to get help in studying computer science. One important part of it is that you can apply for $10,000 a year 4-year college scholarships (so, $40,000 altogether) right now. It goes down to K-8, but I wanted to call attention to the ability to apply at

Amazon future>>engineer

Certainly, this could help Amazon in the very long run…not only producing more engineers, but making people more comfortable with robotics and AI. Still, a lot of people could benefit who never ended up working for Amazon (well, for the college scholarship, there is a paid summer internship at Amazon after their freshman year in college). Deadline to apply is January 17, 2020, 3:00 PM CT.

What do you think? Worried about Amazon Sidewalk? What do you think was the best book of the year? Watching Disney+? Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other organizations, begin your Amazon shopping from a link on their sites: Amazon.com (Smile.Amazon.com)

 

Round up #191: Public library petition, Amazon hardware announcement…

Round up #191: Public library petition, Amazon hardware announcement…

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Amazon’s hardware announcement tomorrow (Wednesday 25 September)

I’ll probably write about what happens tomorrow, but I thought I’d share rumors/speculation.

The buzzy thing will probably be in-ear Alexa. These would hypothetically be wireless earbuds. I have a thing about objects touching my ears (although I can wear reading glasses just fine). However, that’s the outer ear…ear canal would be different.

What would these do?

• You could call up Alexa (it would be connected to your phone wirelessly)
  • That would include playing music, having questions answered, possibly SmartHome control, although that seem less certain to me, maybe phone calls processed by the phone)
• Rumor has it that it could have fitness tracking capabilities. Certainly, I would think heartbeat could be measured in the ear. Steps? Maybe, but probably not necessary, since they will already be connected to a phone which almost certainly does that

For me to love these personally, they’d have to have pass-through sound (I’d want to be able to hear what was around me, at least to some extent…maybe to the extent it was legal to wear them driving, but Alexa Auto takes care of that). If they did, I could see wearing them quite often. Nice to control the TV that way, for one thing.

Speaking of Alexa Auto, they could certainly make that available for general purchase (currently, it’s by invitation only…we have one, have requested another, and it’s great!).

Kindle/Fire tablet announcements may come later.

More SmartHome control and devices, more Fire TV…an update to Echo, I should think.

Also, based on last year, something odd…like the microwave they introduced. We have one of those…it was a bit disappointing. The plastic on the buttons really peeled quickly…that seems to always be a problem with inexpensive microwaves. We’ve also just stopped using the voice commands…the buttons are easier. A washing machine? Instant pot? Toothbrush…nah, maybe not. 😉

That Alexa robot story is also still viable…

Librarians versus Macmillan (and others) on e-books

I definitely want to write more on this!

I wrote in July about new e-book policies:

American Library Association expresses concerns about new Big 5 tradpub policies

ALA launches national campaign against e-book embargo
The librarians have been escalating this…here’s some recent articles:

• Slate article by Heather Schwedel
• Why This Librarian Is Using Twitter To Fight Changes To Library Ebook Pricing Terms in Forbes
• ALA launches national campaign against e-book embargo from the American Library Association

If you want to take action, you can sign an online petition here:

Tell Macmillan Publishers that you demand #eBooksForAll

There are over 35,000 signatures at time of writing.

Banking on…er, with, Amazon 😉

There are some stories out there about Amazon having a full-fledged bank within 5 years. Would I use it? I’d consider it, but leaving a bank is hard…just sort of complicated. I suspect it would be most successful first outside the USA, and then with people getting either an “extra” account or their first accounts (although I’m not sure that younger people who might tend to do that trust Amazon all that much).

What do you think? What do you think Amazon will introduce? An Amazon bicycle? Ooh, an Amazon exercise bike! That could really work, with Prime Video, music, and so on…sorry, I was asking you! 😉 How do you feel about the e-book policies and the libraries? Would you bank with Amazon? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amaz on site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. 

Round up #190: Dash away, an unexpected benefit of Echo Auto

Round up #190: Dash away, an unexpected benefit of Echo Auto

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Echo Auto solves a long term problem

We’ve now settled in with having the

Echo Auto (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

in my Significant Other’s car.

I really want one for my car too, and we’ve put in a request, but that’s all you can do at this point.

The main thing my SO uses it for is music. I’ll use it for a lot more than that, but that’s the main purpose now.

It’s working very smoothly. I do turn off the Bluetooth on my phone when we are both going to be in the car…that car defaults to my phone. My SO, who isn’t very techie, did change the audio from Bluetooth to a local radio station, so I had to adjust that.

I pointed out (after testing it), that my SO could just say, “Play XYZ” and that local station plays on TuneIn. They did good programming on that: you don’t have to say, “Play XYZ on TuneIn”…it just works.

When we were driving home from the dog park yesterday, though, we got a really pleasant surprise.

Our now adult kid called…that’s a regular occurrence. They called just as usual, calling my SO’s phone number.

None of it felt different in answering it…but we realized pretty quickly that our kid could hear me very well when I was in the passenger seat! I drive out, my SO drives back.

In the past, using the built-in car audio system, the passenger couldn’t be heard very well: the phone pick-up was really only designed to work from the driver’s side.

However, with the Echo Auto’s far field microphones, we could both be heard just fine. No more having my SO repeat what I said. 🙂

That was really an improvement!

Dash away, dash away, dash away all!

I always thought the concept of Amazon’s physical Dash buttons was weird.

Here’s a company which is dominating by moving people away from the physical to the electronic. That doesn’t mean that they don’t sell a lot of physical products (“diapers and windshield wipers”, as I like to say): they do. It’s more about interactions and media (although they do sell a lot of physical media, too).

Sending you a plastic device which did exactly one thing (reorder a specific product when you pushed a button) just seemed like the opposite of that.

They just about gave them to you, usually crediting you with the cost of the device.

Well, they’ve been doing a lot of other things that seem to fit better to me. Subscribe & Save, which we use for many things, and ordering through Alexa.

So, you won’t find them to buy at Amazon now, and according to this

CNN story by Heather Kelly

and other sources, they’ll just stop working on August 31st…in a few weeks.

They’ll automatically give you

virtual dash buttons (at AmazonSmile*)

for any physical ones you have: that makes sense and will continue. You can just click/tap on a screen to order, or again, you can order using Alexa. If you use the

Echo Show 5 (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

you can combine the two. You just say, “Alexa, show my Dash buttons”, and they’ll appear on your screen. Then, you just tap the white button of the one you want.

I’m kind of a big Daily Deal 😉

Today’s

Kindle Daily Deal (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

is one of their big ones they do from time to time: 72 titles.

I now generally use sales like that to either put books on the gift list my family uses for me, or buy them as gifts (since you can buy it at the discounted price and delay delivery for the appropriate gift-giving occasion, or print it out to give whenever you want). Check the price before you click/tap/eye gaze that Buy button: prices may not apply in your country or the book might not still be part of the deal when you see this.

Here are a few titles that caught my eye:

• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs by Steve Brusatte | $2.99
• The Silent Woman by Terry Lynn Thomas | $0.99
• A River in Darkness: One Man’s Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa | $1.99 (also available through Kindle Unlimited) | I’ve read this one, and found it fascinating
• P.S from Paris by Marc Levy | $1.99 (also KU)
• Instinct by James Patterson and Howard Roughan
• Mycroft Holmes by Kareen Abdul-Jabbar and Anna Waterhouse | $1.99
• The Cthulhu Casebooks – Sherlock Holmes and the Shadwell Shadows by James Lovegrove | $1.99
• Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell | $2.99
• Matt Helm – Death of a Citizen by Donald Hamilton | $1.99

“Alexa, send Driftwood to Bufo’s Kindle”

Alexa can now manage your content by voice.

You can start with, “Alexa, manage my content”. You can then tell Alexa to send a specific book you own to a particular device, or even to permanently delete a book from your library (there will be a confirmation message first).

To quote Manny Farber: “…context…”

Natural conversation is making great strides.

However, it still has a ways to go, especially in the area of context. When people say something, we have automatically connected it to a million other things in our heads. The statement doesn’t just stand alone.

That’s one of the issues with Alexa…responses can be very specific.

I saw that twice this week.

My Echo Show suggested I ask Alexa about what the digital assistant’s favorite book was.

The answer was good: I was told that Alexa really likes I, Robot, and was a big believer in the 3 laws of robotics.

Just to test, though, I said, “Alexa, who wrote that?”

Alexa couldn’t answer that one…some fan. 😉

The other one was using an Alexa “social bot”. Amazon does a university prize for the best chatbot. You can test them by saying, “Alexa, let’s chat”, and a random bot will start a conversation.

This one gave me a couple of choices for conversation: I chose Disney.

The chatbot told me a news story about Ice Cube and Caroly Rafaelian bidding to buy Sports Networks from The Mouse House. That was relevant, and made sense.

The chatbot then asked me if I wanted to know more…and proceeded to tell me about actual frozen water ice cubes! 🙂

No human being would have brought up the singer Ice Cube and then confused it like that.

I do believe they’ll catch up to us, but they aren’t there yet.

Have any thoughts or questions on these stories? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

 

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. 

 

Round up #189: Gene Wolfe, Amazon Key for Garages

Round up #189: Gene Wolfe, Amazon Key for Garages

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

What a difference a day makes…

Amazon announced recently that

Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

members will soon get 1-day shipping for free on most items (cutting the time in half from the current 2-day). This, by the way, will not apply just to the USA, but will eventually roll out to more countries.

Is this a big deal?

Everybody is certainly acting like it is. Stocks of some other big retailers have actually dropped, perhaps related to this (and perhaps related to what was seen as a good financial report from Amazon).

Will I care?

There have been a few times when I’ve paid more to get something in one day.

I’ve already seen this, although it wasn’t necessarily the commitment. I ordered something today at about 2:47 PM (on a Saturday), and I’m supposed to get it tomorrow…and that would have been true if I’d ordered it up to 7 hours later, according to them.

One of the things that certainly may happen is people may procrastinate more. It may also increase sales around holidays, when you hear last minute about someone else attending a function. We usually keep a few “mystery guest” gift items around for just that reason. Rather than running out to the store, they could order from Amazon.

Why can Amazon do this?

Supposedly, because logistics are getting better. Some Chinese retailers already have 1-day shipping within China (Axios article by Erica Pandey). Robots may be paying off, but Amazon is also going to invest $800 million on this…much of that will have to do with controlling the door to door process, buying trucks (eventually, self-driving), planes, and more. They’ll also get more employees…and I would expect more investment in non-human workers.

I’ve seen some very odd negative comments on this.

One said that Amazon was “continually” (or “continuously”…I forget which) raising Prime prices. Amazon has raised Prime prices twice…in about fourteen years. If a fountain was supposed to be running continually, and it only worked on average once every seven years, I think I’d be a bit disappointed. 😉

Yes, the amount of time between the first and the second raise was a lot shorter, but I don’t think that’s a solid indicator that it’s going to continue to speed up.

Another person commented on how Amazon’s profit machine was still humming along…when the e-tailer didn’t make any profit for so long in their first years that I heard someone describe Amazon stock as like a “Ponzi scheme.” 🙂

I do understand people expressing concern that this may be harder on workers, but again, Amazon has said that they will increase staff…and increased efficiency should mean less work for the employees (essentially, better efficiency is getting the same product with less work).

Just sounds like another reason for me to be happy with Prime!

What about returns?

While Amazon has made it easier to return items, people still don’t like having to box them up for the returns. I always wait to break down the boxes (for recycling) from a shipment until I’ve tried out the items to make sure they work and are as expected.

One idea I had recently…I’ll bet Amazon could develop reusable boxes. We’d take out our products, flatten them somehow, and Amazon would pick them up with the next shipment. They’d be able to pop them back open, and use them again (probably not cardboard). I don’t know how all that would happen exactly, but I think it would be a big hit for the way it would save on packaging. Even when you recycle a box, it’s certainly not with 100% return to use. I always feel a bit of remorse about all the boxes we get, even though we recycle diligently. Amazon’s recent introduction of allowing you to choose a weekly delivery date, so you can get fewer boxes, helps, but this would be even better. I think it just hasn’t occurred to most people in the past because an order tended to be a one time thing, or at least rare. With Amazon, many people get orders every week. You’re welcome to the idea, Amazon! 🙂

However, with a recent announcement, you don’t have to box them up at all!

You can simply take them to certain Kohl’s stores (currently in Chicago, Los Angeles, or Milwaukee) for return (Kohl’s page.

Starting this July, that service will expand to any Kohl’s store in the USA! (Chris Welch article in The Verge)

Reportedly, the vast majority of Americans live within 10 miles of a Kohl’s.

Why would Kohl’s do this? Isn’t Amazon a competitor?

I assume the return centers are in the back of the store, so you have to pass by other merchandise on the way or the way back. I don’t know that, but it would make sense. Some people may buy from Kohl’s when returning Amazon items (oh, worth noting…not all items are returnable that way).

I probably should have mentioned this under my first part of this on shipping: third-party merchants. Third-party merchant items aren’t returnable this way…and Jeff Bezos has said they are more than 50% of the sales now.

The reason I should have brought that up with the shipping is that 1-day is the shipping…not the turnaround time from when you order. We’ve noticed that many items with Prime are taking a lot longer than two-days to get to us; we’ve had it be more than a week. That’s because of the third-party part…Amazon gets the shipping done within two days, but may not get it from the seller for several days.

Amazon Key for Garages

You’ve been able to get Amazon packages delivered inside your home (even when you aren’t there ), and in the trunk of your car (with certain types of cars), once you get the necessary software and hardware.

Now, they are promoting getting packages delivered inside your garage.

Amazon Key for Garage (at AmazonSmile*)

This one also makes a lot of sense to me. We keep our garage door (into the house) locked…ever since we had that break-in:

Eight of our Kindles stolen

That’s how they got into the house: they broke a door into the garage from the outside, then came through that inner door. Couldn’t they break down the inner door, too? Yes, but I think that’s a lot higher risk that someone will hear it happening if they are wrong and someone is home. If you have dogs (we do now…it was a real anomaly in our lives that we didn’t have dogs when they broke in before), they’ll also be alerted. Your average dog doesn’t consider the garage their territory, so they are less concerned about it.

The hardware is on sale (in the USA) as I write this.

Gene Wolfe

I wanted to note the passing of science fiction/fantasy writer

Gene Wolfe (Gene Wolfe)

Wolfe started as a short story in the 1950s, saw a rise of interest in the 1970s, but it was really The Book of the New Sun series in the 1980s which cemented the author’s status. Wolfe didn’t write easy, “popcorn” books, which is an accusation often levied at science fiction and fantasy. Those books do exist there, certainly…and there are times that’s what you want. Wolfe is more complex than that…and there are times that’s what you want, too.

What do you think? Is it worth it for Amazon to cut Prime Shipping time from 2 days to 1? If that resulted in a rise in the Prime subscription price (I don’t think it will), would that be okay? Are you using Amazon Key? Does the garage access make it more likely? Have you already returned an Amazon item at a Kohl’s? If not, is that attractive to you? Do you shop at Kohl’s now? Is there a Gene Wolfe book you’d recommend to someone trying the author? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Round up #188: Bezos’ lauds inefficiency, VSS

Round up #188: Bezos’ lauds inefficiency, VSS

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Today’s (Sunday April 14) Kindle Daily Deal

Today’s

Kindle Daily Deal (at AmazonSmile*)

has some particularly good options! Remember that you can order these e-books at this reduced price, and then either delay the delivery until the appropriate gift-giving occasion, or send them to yourself and print out a certificate to print, gift-wrap (if you want), and give whenever. I think e-books like this make great small gifts (or larger)…the recipient doesn’t have to have a Kindle to read them (although they do need an Amazon account).

Note: check the price before you click/tap/eye gaze (the last can be an option in virtual reality…and Windows 10 works with eye trackers) that Buy button. The price may not apply in your market, or you may see this after the sale…

Books in the sale include:

• Sapiens: A Brief History of humankind by Yural Noah Harari | 4.5 stars out of 5 | 5, 764 customer reviews at time of writing | $3.99
• Second Nature by Nora Roberts
• The Gown: A Novel of the Royal Wedding
• Hunting LeRoux: The Inside Story of the DEA Takedown of a Criminal Genius and His Empire by Elaine Shannon
• Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly | 4.4 stars | 2,113 reviews
• Twenty Wishes (Blossom Street #5) by Debbie Macomber
• Song of the Lion: A Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito Novel by Anne Hillerman | 4.5 stars | 832 reviews
• Peach Blossom Pavilion by Mingmei Yip
• Out of the Silent Planet by C.S Lewis (The Space Trilogy #1)
• This Is Me: Loving the Person You Are Today by Chrissy Metz
• One, Two, Buckle My Shoe (Hercule Poirot #22) by Agatha Christie | $1.99
• The Dead Room (Harrison Investigation #4) by Heather Graham
• Darkest Hour; How Churchill Brought England Back from the Brink by Anthony McCarten
• Ending #1: The Last by Katherine Applegate
• The Nesting Place: It Doesn’t Have to Be Perfect to Be Beautiful by Myquillyn Smith
• Not My Father’s Son by Alan Cumming

Enjoy!

Jeff Bezos’ Letter to Shareowners 2019

Jeff Bezos, CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of Amazon writes an annual letter to the company’s shareowners, and it’s always fascinating!

Throughout the year, Jeff (and Amazon generally) can feel somewhat…guarded. This is one place where you can see the enthusiasm this person who has been there from the beginning still has for the job!

You can read

the letter

here, but I want to call out a couple of things.

• Bezos points out how third-party sales (other people selling things through Amazon, rather than Amazon selling them directly) has grown from 3% in 1999 to 58% in 2018. This ties right into something I say quite often : Amazon wants to be the infrastructure of the internet. This is a good thing for us as Amazon customers: it makes us (satisfied, loyal customers) one of the most important assets they have. Jeff says this growth happened through programs  “…pushed forward with intuition and heart, and nourished with optimism”
• Bezos makes a strong case against always going for efficiency. You have to experiment, you have to fail. That may seem counterintuitive for Amazon, which seen to be so much about efficiency, but it’s key. I have a certification in performance improvement (I’m an Associate Improvement Advisor), and there’s something people suggest which always makes me (internally) laugh. They say that you find the most efficient people, see what they are doing, and then teach that to the underperformers. What’s funny about that to me is that it suggests the efficient people have found the “best” way to do something. Those efficient people, at least in using technology (which is my “day job”…technology in healthcare) are like that because they like change, which is super unusual. Even when things are going very well, they’ll experiment. Come back to them in a month, after you’ve shared their “best” practices, and they’ll be doing it differently

Another big thing in the letter is the push for machine learning/artificial intelligence (which we most commonly see in Alexa)…and if you did want to be afraid of something at Amazon (I’m not), that might be a good choice. 😉 It’s going to be a tremendous challenge for software to adapt that ethos that efficiency isn’t always best…which may suggest a slowing down (not just at Amazon, but throughout society) in innovation.

British Amazon workers “exposé”

This

The Guardian article by Anna Tims

may get a lot of play. It’s something we’ve seen before, in terms of theme: Amazon workers talking about how they are exploited. Undermining it being convincing to me is that we aren’t given actual names. That doesn’t mean it’s false, of course, but it does make it less verifiable.

Amazon employees listen to Alexa recordings

Gee, I thought we wanted big companies to listen to their customers. 😉

There has been a ton of

news coverage

about Amazon employees listening to Alexa recordings.

That’s not unauthorized listening. It’s analytical: what did Alexa say, what do I hear that person saying, how can we align the two better…that sort of thing.

I’ve always assumed that had to happen, separated from the employee knowing personally-identifying information. It doesn’t bother me if somebody who doesn’t know it’s me knows that someone asked Alexa to play music by

Puddles Pity Party (at AmazonSmile*)

(which I did earlier today).

You can delete your Alexa recordings if you want…again, I don’t do that, because I want it to learn more things and learn them more quickly.

On your app, you can delete individual recordings something like this:

Menu (three horizontal lines in your top left corner) – Settings – Alexa Account – History

Talk about precious!

Amazon is spending a lot of money on its upcoming Lord of the Rings TV series! According to this

Daily Record article by Craig McDonald

that could be 1 billion pounds (about 1.3 billion U.S. dollars…thanks for the conversion rate, Alexa!).

That’s a next level budget. I wonder if people think it looks like it had more money than heart we’ll see some wag call it “The Lard of the Rings”. 😉

I’m hoping to write about Disney+ (Disney’s $6.99 a month streaming service launching late this year) soon in another one of my blogs, The Measured Circle. Certainly, streaming competition is only getting stronger, but it’s Netflix that should be worried. You see, Amazon and Disney don’t need to profit on streaming, if that acts to increase income in other ways in other parts of the business. Netflix doesn’t have that same luxury that same way.

#VSS365

I have a great deal of fun with writing prompts. I like taking a minute or two and coming up with something creative with very specific rules…and yes, I like it when people show appreciation.

Every day on Twitter, there is a writing prompt for “very short stories” (VSS). It will give you a one word hashtag, and then you are to use that word in a “story”. Mine tend to be snippets of dialog, but other writers do a lot of creative things.

For example, yesterday was “vortex”, and I wrote this:

Your wretched writing is a veritable #vortex of amateurish alliteration! Can’t you say anything without it?”
“How’s this–screw you!”
“That reminds me: about your poetry….” #vss365

I may do more than one in a day…I deliberately don’t take much time on them, that’s part of the joy for me.

If you want to play along, you can search for #VSS prompt, follow @misskeelahrose (who seems to be the host), or to see my contributions, you can follow my main Twitter feed at

https://twitter.com/bufocalvin

If you are playing, let me know…I’d love to see your VSS!

What do you think? Did you know that humans at Amazon would be listening to Alexa recordings? Do you care? How do you think the Lord of the Rings show will go…is Disney+ a competitor? Do you worry about how Amazon workers are treated? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

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Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.

Round up #187: new Dr. Seuss, Amazon Day

Round up #187: new Dr. Seuss, Amazon Day

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Help the environment and plan your week with Amazon Day

It’s super easy to order things from Amazon with 1-Click. In fact, I’m a little surprised that isn’t a new idiom…instead of “As easy as pie” (and pies are not that easy), things should be described as “As easy as 1-Click”. 😉

We can even order things using an Alexa device…or, um, “No-Click”?

There is a disadvantage to this, though, and I’ve certainly done it.

It means that I tend to just order things when I realize we need them…and that realization may come several times in the same day! It might be spread out over days.

This means I might have placed several orders in a week, and so, we may get Amazon boxes literally every day, with maybe one or two things in them.

Amazon has just introduced

Amazon Day shipping (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

which is only available for

Amazon Prime (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

in the USA currently.

What happens is that you designate a day of the week (say, Saturdays) as your Amazon Day. Unless otherwise instructed (which is easy to do), Amazon will group your orders together and deliver them on that day.

Even before this was officially released, Amazon says it has saved tens of thousands of boxes.

This also has the advantage of you knowing when things will arrive. I will admit to some dismay when a package has arrived a day early: I may have carefully planned the arrival of an item for a day when we would be home (we do have a mail theft issue in our area).

This doesn’t affect the Amazon Lockers (which we use a lot…but some items can’t be shipped there, and sometimes the locker is full).

You can choose to have a specific item arrive on one of the other six days of the week (to get it sooner, presumably), or switch the Amazon Day when you want.

There’s also a parallel here with the Alexa shopping list we use…my Significant Other and I feel very differently about that. I want to add things to the list when I think about it; it might be days before we need it. If my SO sees it, they think they need to go right now! We kid about it, but we know: I don’t like the list to be empty, my SO doesn’t like to have things on it. 🙂 It’s like how I feel about the laundry hamper: it should always have something in it. Otherwise, it feels like it is taking up space for no reason. 🙂

Now, with Amazon Day, we can do it both ways…add things to the Amazon Day shipment (the list equivalent), or have it resolved right away.

Amazon to open another grocery chain

According to this

Business Insider article by Rebecca Ungarino

and other sources, Amazon plans to open a second grocery chain (in addition to Whole Foods) with lower-priced offerings.

That honestly makes more sense to me.

Amazon has done well with lower-priced (but not bargain) items that do the job but aren’t luxury. They haven’t done as well with the high-end items. It’s also an opportunity for Amazon to really innovate, maybe doing checkoutless stores, such as those with which they have already been experimenting.

I don’t picture them as having aisles long enough to land an airplane, like some stores, and a million choices.

My guess is that it will be a lot of Amazon brands, also mainstream brands, but pretty narrow focused. Sort of like the Amazon 4-Star Stores:

My trip to an Amazon 4-Star Store

A smaller selection of high-value items.

It’s reasonable to wonder if that would work for a grocery store: don’t people want to get everything in one store?

Well, we don’t do that…we shop at several stores. Part of that is being vegetarians; no single store has a great selection.

I also think of it kind of like a 7-11, and that’s not meant to be disparaging. It may be the place where you just run in and grab a few things you want (including pre-packaged lunches).

Amazon may also arrange it as a pick-up location: you order maybe ten things, and then they already have it boxed when you get there…

New Dr. Seuss book coming in September 

While it isn’t listed for pre-order yet in a Kindle edition, it can be pre-ordered in hardback:

Dr. Seuss’s Horse Museum (at AmazonSmile*)

Dr. Seuss died in 1991, which is quite some time ago…and this one is, well, interesting. It will be Dr. Seuss’s (I’m adding the terminal “s” the way they did) words, but it will be illustrated by Andrew Joyner. According to this

auburnpub.com article by Kaitlin Gates

there will also be “cameo” appearances by other Dr. Seuss characters, like The Cat in the Hat. That, honestly, doesn’t encourage me…it seems a bit gimmicky. Still, I’ll have an open mind and be hopeful.

My recovery

I had hip replacement surgery on January 17th, and got back to my day job yesterday. The change has been amazing! I’m walking without a cane for the first time in years…I keep looking for where I put it, when I actually didn’t bring it at all. I can also do stairs again, which means I get to rework my paths.

It was a lot of work; literally hours every day of PT (physical therapy) and wound care. I’m a very compliant patient…I definitely follow the rules, and I think that helped. I was also in relatively good health for the surgery, and a newer technique was used (the direct anterior approach with the Hana table…don’t look up videos if you are squeamish, but it typically shortens recovery time).

I thought I would get more reading and writing done, but that work was disruptive, as well as taking naps (which they said would happen). I don’t feel chronic pain much, so I (with the agreement of my surgeon) only took a half a pain pill the first night.

I did get some pictures digitized…I’ve been meaning to do that.

Anyway, I’m hoping I can get back into writing more narratives now…

What do you think? Are you looking forward to the new Dr. Seuss book? Do you like character cameos in books? What would get you to go to yet another grocery store? Does Amazon Day sound like something you’ll use? Feel free to let me and my readers know what you think by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

Bufo’s Alexa Skills

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. 

Round up #186: make your own Flash Briefing, Middle-Earth map

Round up #186: make your own Flash Briefing, Middle-Earth map

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Escape (?) from New York

Do we have to start calling Jeff Bezos “Snake”? 😉 **

While there were apparently a lot of people looking forward to Amazon opening a new HQ in New York, there was also a lot of opposition to it. That split has politically been interesting, in terms of who supported, who opposed, and how close they were to the proposed site.

Amazon has now decided not to proceed with the project.

Does that mean another city for “HQ2”? Not necessarily…they already have a Virginia site as part of the HQ2 plan.

They are also doing work other places (Boston, for one) even though those aren’t HQs.

One interesting speculation I heard: Jeff Bezos’ (Amazon’s Chief Executive Officer) living and property situation may be changing due to a major life event, and perhaps that made New York not as attractive as it would have been before. I don’t buy that one (Amazon corporate decisions are not capriciously made to suit Jeff Bezos’ whims…at least, I find that very unlikely).

There has been a lot of writing on this…while we knew that Amazon was increasingly a part of our lives, I didn’t expect them to be driving the political debate to this extent (and this isn’t the only issue where that’s the case).

Google news search for “Amazon New York”

Update on Amazon Giveaways

Close to two years ago, I was doing quite a few Amazon Giveaways:

Amazon Giveaways: so fun I’m running four (update: 5!) right now 🙂

With a change in my life situation, I wasn’t doing as many…but I did recently do one for my birthday.

As may not be a surprise, it’s changed quite a bit since then.

One of the first things that stood out to me was there were a lot fewer options that you could set as a requirement to participation.

This could be affected by the type of thing for which you are doing the giveaway, but it’s worth noting that this was a giveaway of a physical item:

Echo Buttons (at AmazonSmile:benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

I had the following options:

• No requirement
• Follow an author on Amazon
• Watch a YouTube video
• Watch an Amazon video

They removed an option to have them take a poll, and two that had to do with Twitter (follow someone on Twitter and tweet something specific).

I also didn’t have as many options for how the item was given away. I could pick a number for a participant, and the lowest was 600. Interestingly, I got to 600 pretty quickly…within hours. Again, that number may be different for different items.

Definitely worth doing giveaways…just not as much flexibility as there used to be.

If you want to start a giveaway, you’ll find a link on many Amazon product pages.

If you want to try to win a giveaway, you can start here:

Amazon Giveaways (at AmazonSmile*)

You can publish Alexa skills…Flash Briefings, anyone?

Poof! You’re a news network! 😉

Amazon recently opened up publishing skills in the Alexa store to everybody who meets the simple requirements.

This is so big and so new that Amazon hasn’t been able to answer a question about it for me yet.

As this is a round-up, let’s just really focus on one skill type which I think could apply to the largest number of my readers.

You start here:

https://blueprints.amazon.com/

You do need to set up a free developer’s account.

I’ve created skills before…in particular, I created a quiz skill for my day job which worked very well. Once we knew what the content was going to be, it only took a few minutes.

One of the blueprints they’ve added is for a Flash Briefing.

Yep…you can create something to which people can listen on their compatible Alexa device every day (or once a week), You can publish it generally, or just for your followers.

You can add text (which Alexa will read) or audio (a recording) content.

I just created one (which I haven’t released) to test it, and found a big limitation for the Flash Briefing: 400 characters…a bit less than a tweet and a half. Hm…it’s possible if I picked a different category it would be longer, but I don’t know yet.

It became available to me right away…certainly under two minutes.

The text took some massaging…no special characters, and one of the things that meant for me was dropping parentheses. I’m testing it with On This Date in Geeky History, but I could also test Bookish Birthdays (although that would probably run longer than 400 characters quite often, since I include a title/series per author).

UPDATE: Adding a comma between the celebrity and the credit made a big difference! So, it looks like this (without the quotation marks): “Andre Norton, Witch World, J.T. Edson, Bunduki,”. That’s pretty easy to update for me…just replacing all “(” and “)” with commas. I may try publishing the Bookish Birthdays….I probably should test it for a few days first to see how much time it takes to do.

Once you’ve created it, you can either make it available to specific people or publish it generally in the Alexa Skills store (or keep it private to just you). Please don’t share this, but here’s the link so you can hear mine if you want:

REVOKED SO IT COULD BE PUBLISHED TO THE STORE

I’m not ready to commit to making it generally available (SEE BELOW), although I think I can adapt my posts on it (which I do anyway) in about five minutes. I’d also like to find more of a separation between the celebrity’s name and a work for which they are known. The parentheses do that visually, but they aren’t an option. I want to experiment with it: see if it will take a period, for example. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take a colon.

Update: I have published both the Bookish Birthdays and The Measured Circle’s Geeky History Today (the latter is still in review at time of writing)…which meant having to revoke the sharing.

There’s another skill that reads blog posts…those could presumably be longer. However, it needs a WordPress plug-in which I think requires a business account…and that costs $25 a month. I’ve used the free version of WordPress for close to a decade, which has worked well….changing to the paid plan is not something I want to do at this point.

I suspect many of you can find a use for this…I’d appreciate knowing your use cases.

Baby Skill Activity API

Speaking of skills, Amazon has just announced a new Baby Skills API (Application Programming Interface) for Alexa. Basically, parents/guardians will be able to track things like feedings and sleep by talking to their devices. It’s an interesting move, and it will help integrate Alexa even more into people’s lives.

PSFK article by Rachel Gonzales

Prime Video’s Lord of the Rings TV series releases a map

Amazon is working on a TV new series based on

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien (at AmazonSmile*)

They are being pretty secretive (hey, it’s Amazon) about what it’s going to cover…but they have released a (vague…no place names) interactive map:

https://www.amazon.com/adlp/lotronprime”>https://www.amazon.com/adlp/lotronprime

Well, I could keep going, but that’s enough for today! Oh, wait! I will link to today’s

Kindle Daily Deal (at AmazonSmile*)

which has 53 titles, including ones by bestselling authors Melinda Leigh and Robert Dugoni.

Enjoy!

Do you have any opinions or questions on any of these stories? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

** In John Carpenter’s movie, Escape from New York, the main character (played by Kurt Russell) growls out “Call me Snake”

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. 

 

Round-up #184: new Paperwhite under $100, legal news

Round-up #184: new Paperwhite under $100, legal news

The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.

Woody Allen sues Amazon for $68m

“…80 percent of life is showing up”.
–Woody Allen

What happens, though, if there’s no place for you to go?

Woody Allen is suing Amazon for not releasing the filmmaker’s most recent movie, according to this

Variety article by Gene Maddaus

and other sources.

This is a bit of a tricky one…it looks like Amazon didn’t release it because of allegations against Allen…but this would be a case, to quote the cartoon Super Chicken, where “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it.” 😉

In other words, the allegation was undoubtedly known to Amazon when they entered into the agreement…although one could argue that the climate has changed.

In other legal news…

Okay, I didn’t want to lead with this, and I’m carefully trying to not be political with it.

The lead story in the news tonight has to do with Amazon CEO (Chief Executive Officer) Jeff Bezos who wrote this

post on Medium

Okay, let’s see…basically, it has to do with a publisher threatening to release embarrassing information (including intimate pictures) of Bezos if the Bezos-owned newspaper doesn’t stop investigating the other publication.

If everything is as alleged, it sounds like blackmail.

This is a very important story, and I could write thousands of words about the politics of it, but this isn’t the place.

The key thing is that, if a new crime has been committed, it could invalidate previously established cooperation deals…which could really up-end what’s happening. Ask your friends who are into politics and/or the law.

On the Amazon side…Bezos going public with this is, perhaps, a surprise, since it could compromise the image of the CEO and hypothetically, the company.

I think many people will see the article as a positive and a smart way to go in this situation.

You can comment on this story, but I’m unlikely to reply on anything political.

Amazon financials were great, so the stock…

dropped. 🙂 I kind of get it this time, though. Amazon didn’t make a profit for years…they were investing in the future, basically. Then they started making a profit, which the investors liked. Now, they are suggesting that in the next quarter, they are going to invest a lot, which could affect the profit.

This feels like….being in a relationship with someone with a gambling problem, who manages to give it up, and then says they are just going to get involved in a friendly game again.

The investors may be afraid that they are going to go down that no-profit path again.

Here’s where you can see the specifics:

https://ir.aboutamazon.com/quarterly-results

Here’s a search for news stories on it:

Google news search

New, water-resistant Paperwhite is $30 off for Valentine’s Day

The

Kindle Paperwhite (at AmazonSmile: benefit a non-profit of your choice by shopping*)

is my all-time favorite Kindle model so far, and is on sale for under $100 right now ($30 off).

Definitely a good deal!

My recovery

Just a quick note on my recovery from hip replacement surgery. Surprisingly, I’m having to spend more time on it now than I did before. That has to do with wound care (for the incision). I don’t have any pain, and I’m more mobile currently than I was before the surgery. Now it makes sense that I’m out of work for about another month. I couldn’t effectively be at work with this routine.

Do you have thoughts/questions on any of these stories? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.

Join thousands of readers and try the free ILMK magazine at Flipboard!

All aboard The Measured Circle’s Geek Time Trip at The History Project!

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get.  Shop ’til you help!  

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.