Kindle: Most Highlighted Passages of All Time | Hacker News Reader

Kindle: Most Highlighted Passages of All Time

kindle.amazon.com

27 pointscosbynator29 comments

Is it just me that thinks it's a little creepy that Amazon knows what I highlight? (Well, theoretically anyways, I don't own a kindle)

Uh.. In order for them to save your highlights and transfer them between devices, it needs to be put into their servers somewhere.

Maybe it's a little creepy they admit to 'snooping' it, but then again they're being honest and open about it so I don't have any problem with it (I'm a Kindle owner). As long as they keep it anonymous though I have no problem, it's similar to the Netflix anonymous data isn't it?

They also store your notes, and while I'm hoping those aren't snooped we really don't have any guarantee over it just as we don't have any guarantee that someone at Google doesn't read our gmail account, or any number of other sites and scenarios.

The demoralizing part for me is that a lot of the top quoted passages are from The Shack and The Lost Symbol, and the very top one is from a Malcolm Gladwell book. In fact all of the top 12 are from those 3 books, and 9 of the top 25 are from The Shack (which I had never even heard of before, then again I rarely read fiction and certainly not religious-inspired fiction).

I wish we could have a more normalized view of this- instead of just showing us the most highlighted, have an algorithm that somehow takes into account overall downloads as well. This would give us a better idea of the 'important' passages and could really help out in finding new books to read. Especially so if you could filter by genre because frankly I wish we could cut out the fiction part altogether. I don't really see much point in highlighting passages of fiction unless it's some literary classic or you're doing it for school or whatever, but really what's the point in saving some random passages from some Dan Brown book? To each their own, though...

This seems to be one of those situations where less popular is more interesting. Logging in and browsing the highlights for books I've read brought up a lot of very good passages (that I sadly barely remember).

They could have encrypted them on the client side.

I feel the same way. Can't a company just provide a service for me without looking at the data they are servicing? Are they going through my S3 backups, too? (No, because they are encrypted. But what if they weren't?)

That was my first thought as well - how do they know? But it's logical; I am an user of Kindle for PC software, which I have installed on 3 PCs, and their state is synced (like what book I read, which page etc). So logically the info must go to their servers.

I was considering buying a Kindle within the next month or two. This story literally just made up my mind.

No, it's not just you.

Am I the only one who's kind of annoyed that Kindle has become synonymous with e-ink book readers? I wouldn't care so much if Amazon didn't have a history of removing books from Kindles. Not to beat a dead horse, but I don't see why everyone seem to, either, not care or have forgotten about it. What if they took back a physical book you had purchased from them, that you wanted to keep, without your consent and just refunded your money as compensation. It's obvious you wanted the book not the cash or you'd not have spent it. That's what made up my mind about the Kindle. Yes, I know you could get one and not buy any books from Amazon but I'd like to have the option open. </open>

Buy a Kindle and disable 3G. I don't ever use 3G and the battery life is virtually infinite. I'm never buying a paper book again unless I absolutely must. Also, it's much better for reading than the iPad (especially outdoors).

> I was considering buying a Kindle within the next month or two. This story literally just made up my mind.

If you're a regular reader, get some kind of e-ink ebook reader even if not the Kindle. It's been amazing for me getting all the out of print classics for free off Gutenberg.org and taking the time to read philosophy, history, the best fiction of all time, and so on. I've got a Kindle and am very happy with it, but get something even if not the Kindle.

I'm reading different, often deeper things than I used to read, I'm reading more, and it's light - I travel so that's a huge plus for me. Also, I never finish a book mid-airplane or mid-train and get stuck looking out the window any more.

I was considering to buy one, but a big drawback for me is that I can't read on it in the dark, which is almost all my reading time - my wife sleeps next to me and I don't want to switch on the light, so I current use a netbook (where I can also read Amazon or B&N books using their software). But I know there exist a small lamp which can be attached to a Kindle - but, can someone confirm it is convenient way to read that way?

I have a book light for my kindle, it works really well. There are numerous teeny lamps meant for attaching to dead tree books that attach to the kindle as well.

I read on my Nexus One with dimmed white on black text. I use the Aldiko e-book app.

> I was considering to buy one, but a big drawback for me is that I can't read on it in the dark, which is almost all my reading time - my wife sleeps next to me and I don't want to switch on the light, so I current use a netbook

That makes sense, yeah. You can read on your netbook for long periods of time without your eyes hurting, though? I've never really been able to read things that require a lot of studying to get through on the computer without breaks. Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life" took me like five sessions with short breaks to get through on my laptop, where I could normally read something like that in one sitting on paper or e-ink.

> But I know there exist a small lamp which can be attached to a Kindle - but, can someone confirm it is convenient way to read that way?

I've been looking for something like that myself, could be quite a boon.

Maybe I am a minority, but my eyes don't hurt...as a programmer, I am used to a computer screen. But it's true that i don't read for long periods of time, usually 1-2 hours, max 3. But reading 2 hours on my netbook is not a problem for me.

I know it syncs but I'm pretty sure that I didn't agree to crowd-sourcing my highlights. I probably did, but it wasn't made clear to me that I would be.

Bad-form Amazon.

I actually find this data interesting, as long as it's anonymous. It should probably be something you have to opt-in for though.

Perhaps they aren't publishing non-anonymized data. But the fact that they are collecting and analyzing these data without any kind of opt-in system is a little disturbing. If they're willing to do that, how willing will they be to protect these data from falling into the wrong hands, especially if the "wrong hands" are holding a warrant or a court order? I'm sure glad I don't have a highlighted e-copy of, say, the Communist Manifesto or the Anarchist's Cookbook. I wouldn't know who to expect knocking at my door.

Do you honestly think anyone cares what you highlight in the Communist Manifesto or the Anarchist's Cookbook?

Even presuming some dystopian future where The Government (cue hammy antagonist music) is busting your chops for what you read, the fact that Amazon has a receipt for you purchasing a copy is likely to be a bigger deal to them than which bit you highlighted.

"Some dystopian future"...like the U.S. in the 50s, when Joe McCarthy was demanding the removal of material he deemed "inappropriate" from State department libraries? (Wikipedia says some libraries actually burned the banned books: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McCarthyism#Senate_committees) If that sort of suppression is possible in the U.S. when private companies aren't holding vast amounts of data on exactly what "subversive" material citizens are reading and finding important, what's possible when that information is easily accessible and searchable by anyone with a government order?

Not all of Amazon's customers live in the U.S., either. It appears that they don't currently sell the Kindle in Iran and China, for example, but if they did, I sure wouldn't want to own one there.

Someone definitely cares about what you highlight in the Communist Manifesto, if you are arrested for a crime. Why give the authorities fodder to build their case?

How do publishers and authors feel about this? Is Amazon giving away the sizzle or the steak?

For some deeper books this might impel me to make a purchase. For collections of shallow platitudes (e.g. my predilection for self-help books) the "top highlights" view is all I'll need.

Here's an example of a book I considered buying but didn't - The Talent Code. Now I've got the high notes in a free, easily digestable format: http://kindle.amazon.com/work/talent-code-greatness-born-gro...

Edit: And here are the highlights from Hackers and Painters: http://kindle.amazon.com/work/hackers-painters-big-ideas-com...

That's a lot of deep sounding pseudo-wisdom right there.

Just wait until 4chan starts highlighting things.

Now why did I know that most passages that have been highlighted by readers are from lowbrow popular books, with many of the highlighted passages being platitudes?

P.S. When you read a book that you own, do you highlight passages of the text, or do you keep a notebook (electronically or on paper) of the most important points in the book? At the risk of setting up a bogus dichotomy, I think many people who take notes from books seem not to highlight them, and perhaps the converse is true as well.

Why is:

PRINCESS ON THE PEA (From the tale by Hans Christian Andersen)THE UGLY DUCKLING

at #19? or:

AND THE BEAN-STALK (Said to be an allegory of the Teutonic Al-fader, The tale written in French by Charles Perrault)JACK THE GIANT KILLER (From the old British legend told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, of Corineus the Trojan)LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (From the French tale by Charles Perrault)THE THREE BEARS

at #22? And it shows the number of highlights - around 700 for each. Is this a case of accidental highlighting, some people organizing to highlight random sections of text from free books to mess up the stats, or a bug?

Edit: I have no idea how to use markdown. Argh! I thought two spaces at the end of the line added a line break?

To verybody that is complainin about privacy: You have the choice, to turn off/on, popular highlights, backup or not your anotations, etc. They are clearly marked on the "Settings".

There should be a way to disable it appearing from their website.

Gladwell must be so proud to be nestled between Dan Brown and William P. Young atop these charts.

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