Warning: This post is a “first world problem”. If you’re currently fighting hyenas for food, in a gun battle with Al-Qaeda, enduring Ebola, or living in a mud hut… don’t even think about reading my silly American whining because you’ll hate me.
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It’s no secret that my Kindle pretty much owns my ass. I read a lot. For a book fan, it’s crack!
I swore I’d never give up my beloved paper books. As the only owner of the only functioning rotary phone in the county I was holding out against technology. I insisted that overpriced hardcovers and battered cheap paperbacks were all I’d ever need. My intentions were solid. If there was anyone reading a scroll and writing with a quill pen… I’d have joined ’em.
Alas I tasted the forbidden fruit. There is no going back.
However I’ve come to a minor technical complaint about Kindles. They fill up. Really? WTF!?!
I like to keep my books on my device because I’m prickly that way. I don’t want to invoke the damn matrix every time I read a book. The great controlling interests of the universe (by this I mean our overlords at Amazon) want to nudge me away from my foolish individualism. And by “nudge” I mean “steamroll”. They thwart my intentions and smile and say “it’s all on the cloud dude”. The bastards! I suppose I might as well walk right on the cattle car too?
I was told a Kindle would hold a number of books in the “a whole shitload” category. I recall 3,000 for a plan vanilla Kindle and 6,000 for a Kindle Fire? The future had arrived! I didn’t get the flying car and homemaker robot I was promised, but at least the Russians never dropped the bomb and I could carry a library in my motorcycle’s saddlebags.
In real life capacity, I call bullshit.
I had a plain vanilla Kindle and it seemed to get buggy after several dozen books. By chance that device vanished from my life before I could really tell if it was an issue. I wound up with a Fire (the version that needs wifi in case that matters). It has no music, no videos, no docs, and only a few apps (which I cannot seem to delete). I use it only to surf the internet and read.
It does have 245 books (many of them small ones). Those are books on the device and not shortcuts that point to a book “on the cloud”. (I have many more “shortcuts”.)
Here’s my question. Is that all? Am I really out of space? Can that be?
When I surf on the Fire I get a recurring error messages that says “running out of space, click ‘ok’ to select apps to delete”. When I click “ok” I’m given the option of deleting the one game I keep on the thing; “Stupid Zombies”. It appears to occupy a mere 2 megabytes and I spent several days while seriously injured playing it. I’m sorta’ attached to that one dumb game (which I never play). I suspect it doesn’t really matter anyway. (How do I kill the other apps?)
I never have a problem while actually… you know… reading; so far.
Is it really full? That’s my question.
I expect the usual caveat that not all books are the same length but 245 +/- is not in the realm of the 6,000 +/-. I expected a room full of books, not a shelf.
I could dump all but the half dozen books I’m currently reading to the cloud but I’m a curmudgeon. As a card carrying curmudgeon I want the file to physically reside on my device, the one I’m holding in my hand, right friggin’ now. I was told 6,000 books and I’m going to be pissed with any number below… oh heck I’ll cut ’em slack… lets say 4,000. (See how nice I am?) Having a book “on the cloud” is logistically efficient for Amazon but that’s Amazon’s problem and not mine. Also it makes sense for anyone who’s neither paranoid nor a curmudgeon but guess what? I’m paranoid and curmudgeonly. Suck it, Amazon cloud!
What if there’s a grid down apocalypse? I can’t get by on only 244 books!
What if the entire planetary communications system is destroyed and I want to read H. P. Lovecraft to cheer me up? What if I’m locked in an abandoned missile silo and I want to read Wool? What if I’m waiting in line to vote and I want to pass the time reading Animal Farm? What it the TSA is fondling my nuts and I want to read 1984? What if a politician is talking and I want to check the constitution to see where the rebels that fought the British Empire agreed to give up their muskets for free cell phones? What if I’m starving and want to read The Road? (OK, that would be just crazy… nobody could do that.)
Is there anyone out there that can help? Has anyone stored many hundreds of books locally on a Kindle Fire? Did they have issues? I can’t imagine I really filled it up. Someone tell me what I’m missing. Thanks.
A.C.
P.S. It wouldn’t kill me to delete the game but if one dumb game equals 3,500 books I’ll eat my hat.