Just wait, it'll come to me

So I haven't really been thinking about a different reward for reaching my goal ... and in the meantime, it's become clear that there is at least one type of e-book that is DRM-free for the Kindle family.

Public domain. Ah yes, those books more than 75 years old who've not had their copyright renewed. Places like literature.org and Project Gutenberg have collections of public-domain works in electronic format. Most of them can be ported easily to the Kindle or to other reasonable reading devices, and there are conversion programs for the rest.

Of course, if you thought the new Barnes & Noble e-reader was a good idea (we're a financially sound business with original ideas! no really!), think again. Yeah, for some reason, they figure they need to put DRM on the public-domain e-books for their reader. Maybe they were just afraid that Borders would go out of business before they would and they needed a gimmick to make up for lost time.

So when I hit that goal and get some version of a Kindle, I'll check out those sites, hit up Feedbooks, and get myself some stuff that I can read at my leisure.

The DRM thing, well ... even Apple learned its lesson eventually, I guess.

Problem

Well, not like you might think. I mean, the job thing, sure, but that's not a problem for right now.

The problem for right now is ... what's my reward? You know, for losing weight. It was going to be a Kindle (I think ems suggested this), but see, there's this thing about DRM, and mysteries (not the book kind), and Amazon not clearing them up for you.

Now, I'm not allergic to DRM like a lot of techies are – I mean, I have a 360, and of course the DRM is terribly executed there (it cost me hundreds of hours on Bejeweled, just as well, that achievement probably wasn't worth it anyway) – but I do have my limits. And I like to read. I have books from some of my college courses, probably even from when I was a kid. I might want to keep books for a while.

And when there are still all these limits around that Amazon doesn't really know about in the first place and can't clarify for you in the second, well ... I'll probably like the Kindle, and at some point in the future I'll probably want another one. If I can't be sure I can read my books on both devices (or on alternate devices) ... the last thing I need is another pile of outdated electronic crap in my house. (No, really. Would you like a 100-disc CD changer? How about a two-deck VCR? A 20-year-old analog TV?)

sigh. Back to the drawing board ... perhaps literally, now that I have Photoshop ...