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Comment by DonGateley | Hacker News Reader

Actually I meant audio books, not ebooks. ebooks are cheap enough but getting a portable device with a display into that situation is well nigh impossible.

Specialized versions of devices comparable to Google Glass might could be designed to be acceptable though. Now there's something to think constructively about.

(Sorry about the "might could be" but I just don't know any economical way to say that which actually exists within the language.)

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(A note on usage: "Might could be" is a double modal, something which is theoretically valid in American English, but in practice serves as a stigma of lower-class speech; it's somewhat common, for example, in Southern American English, which is my own native dialect, and whose use speakers of acrolect and most other dialects regard as a low-class status marker. Semantically equivalent, but more generally acceptable, alternatives to this double modal might be "…could possibly be…", "…could perhaps be…", or simply "…might be…" -- in this case, "might" can be used to express both modality, thus making "could" redundant, and the further conditionality provided by the adverb, thus making that redundant as well.)

The JPay JPlayer, mentioned and linked elsewhere in this thread, is a cheap ($50) portable device with what appears to be a roughly phone-sized display, 8GB of internal memory, and approval from the US Department of Corrections. It is already being issued in prisons as an MP3 player, for music sold at JPay-owned kiosks installed in prison commissaries, and as a tool for reading email and composing replies which can be sent during kiosk sessions at a cost dependent on the length of the message. Adding to this device the capability to read ebooks, and to the kiosks the ability to sell them, seems like it shouldn't be much of a stretch; reading might be more pleasant on a larger screen than the JPlayer seems to provide, but I suppose prisoners can't be choosers, either.

(A note on a note on usage: Yes, living for some time on the Gulf coast is what made me familiar with "might could be" but I learned it in a professional setting that hardly fits lower-class so perhaps the usage has become wider. Maybe you have to live with it to appreciate the very subtle difference between that and "could possibly be." As I heard it used it expressed a much stronger likelihood of the possibility.)

Thank you very much for the JPay JPlayer tip. I will definitely investigate Jpay.

As may be obvious I have a long standing close friendship with someone who, through stupidity more than evil, finds himself incarcerated for quite some time in a Federal prison. He may be stupid but he is far from dumb and while reading helps him retain his sanity, he is older and his eyesight is failing fast. Thus my focus on finding a way to get audio books inside. It could also greatly assist the less than literate. Any tips from anyone on how to go about that will be greatly appreciated.

A kindle probably isn't a huge safety risk/weapons risk, especially with a new shell. Plastic vs glass screen, etc. some kind of kiosk to load books.

I'd be ok with e readers sold nearly at cost, and books sold very in expensively as well.

Write to Jeff Bidzos. If he hears it from more than one of us it might get him to thinking. Despite his hard ass management style there is a strong element of community concern in him.

Not sure the net of the PR for Amazon would be positive or negative, though. I'm surprised at how many Americans feel that the incarcerated should suffer maximally, that there should be nothing provided to ease their time regardless of how constructive it might be. The will to punish runs deep in the American psyche.

It's amazing how fast we forget our past.

I assume you mean Jeff Bezos (Amazon), not Jim Bidzos (early CEO of RSA, Verisign).

>Actually I meant audio books, not ebooks

Interestingly enough, my public library has a HUGE collection of audiobooks in cassette form. I doubt anyone takes them out anymore. I wonder if they can be moved to prison libraries. Ever see how many are in your library?

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