The Kindle ads are worse. I don't mind at all opening up my Kindle and seeing a book recommendation ... if its at LEAST in the genres I read. You would think Amazon would be on top of it.
My library has the option of "checking out" ebooks. They will "purchase" them and have a set "number of copies". I put all of these things in quotes as I'm not sure how its handled for essentially a digital file vs a physical paper book, or how the author/publisher/etc makes money in this deal.
That's plain naked rentseeking. I'd get them charging a nominal sum to prevent abuse (like "why I'd buy any books if I can just check out everything for free in the library" - virtually nobody ever says that but maybe they're afraid of it) but $55 is way over the cost of an average book, let alone ebook, and expiring them makes zero sense since popular book stops bringing substantial income quite soon so they literally lose nothing allowing the library to keep it.
It's surely competitive with physical books, including the cost of storing and handling them, otherwise libraries wouldn't buy them. A random on the internet says about library books: "Very popular hardcover books have a lifespan of around 20 circulations, which is around a year or less, depending on how well bound they are and how well the patrons treat them." Other books are regularly thrown away because they're not popular enough. So I presume publishers account for the short life of a library book in their pricing, and if they actually lasted forever, they'd cost more.
Having seen some of the contracts -- there are publishers which sell them with a lifetime measured in reads, and others with a lifetime measured in years (and you buy N copies), and a very very few who don't impose a lifetime.
In all cases the author gets paid through whatever royalty arrangements they made with the publisher -- but that might contain a lower or zero payment for library and/or educational purchases.
The idea is that a physical book has a lifetime before it has to be discarded due to wear, so they want the e-book to be the same. I think that's dumb, and don't feel we need to be tied to the durability of paper books, but that's their justification.
I think most libraries offering this are doing it through Hoopla. It works fine though you can only play them in a browser and the video quality is roughly at the level of a DVD.
As I understand it, the number of copies is enforced using DRM (which isn’t the best, of course), but the books are free and there’s usually a pretty wide selection.
They introduce other problems than just distracted drivers.
I took in my Mazda3 to have the screen replaced. There was an issue with the sensors that mistakenly thought someone was touching the screen. At low speeds, when the toch screen re-activates, it would start navigating on its own; from changing music stations to calling people and changing GPS waypoints. Drivers trying to stop this will be more distracted than they otherwise would be. This happens at stop signs, red lights and slow-moving traffic.
Hey! This happened on Sunday in my wife's CRV! We were going to lunch, and the touchscreen went apeshit, flipping between menus at the speed of light, beeping madly.
And, as you said, she immediately began fooling with it, trying to get it to stop. I had to tell her "Let me do this! You just drive!" Its very, very distracting.
Go to your dealer. I wasnt notified but they had a type of limited warranty where they knew about it. The sensors were not installed correctly in some units. They replaced it for free.
Being originally from Chicago, I remember when the Sears Tower was in the process of the name change to Willis Tower. There was a Lego kit to make the Sears Tower (marked as such) and it was re-released with the Willis Tower naming. I believe we paid $19.99. We bought it purely for nostalgia purposes and keep it on the shelf unopened.
This article caused me to look into the kit. According to BrickLink[0], the average selling price is $148.83 One sold this month for $193
I never worked in food service. I worked in retail (sales and stocking), delivery services, freight (un)load, construction trades and the military. Every one of those still exists, is not going away any time soon and qualifies as entry-level.
