Unregistered Paperwhite - how to use Collections?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Rona 75

...
Which brings us back to unregistered device being the only sure way to keep one's privacy. And not having the full use of device one owns without jailbreaking and risking rendering it useless.

Well, if keeping your privacy is your highest priority, then a Kindle won't be a good option for you. There are many other eink readers out there you could use instead. Why choose Kindle and then complain how you cannot use it the way you would wish?

[BookCat]

Originally Posted by Rona 75

BookCat, once you have registered your device, the fact that you keep it in airplane mode is practically irrelevant. That is, it is only relevant if you plan to never, in the lifetime of device, allow it to connect to WiFi. While the Amazon can't contact you it most certainly knows you exist. You can have kindle offline for years, connect it once to WiFi, to surf wiki or use Bluetooth, and all the info that they collect from users constantly connected to their Amazon accounts will be collected at once from your device.
Which brings us back to unregistered device being the only sure way to keep one's privacy. And not having the full use of device one owns without jailbreaking and risking rendering it useless.

Just for the record, I have no intention of connecting my kindle to wifi ever again. There's absolutely no need. Everything can be done via usb. I don't use my ereader to surf wiki, I have a computer to do that. I see no need to use my ereader as though it were a tablet. It's a dedicated reader. I READ on it. Contacting the internet is done on my laptop, which is so much easier (proper keyboard etc).

I agree with Sirtel and wonder why you ever purchased a kindle.

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Well, if keeping your privacy is your highest priority, then a Kindle won't be a good option for you. There are many other eink readers out there you could use instead. Why choose Kindle and then complain how you cannot use it the way you would wish?

I remember my Kobo Glo HD requiring registration before being able to use the device at all. Iirc, it might have been the same with Nook.

Kindle might be gimped in terms of features if left unregistered but for basic reading and transferring books via Calibre (or file manager on PC), it's actually usable without ever connecting to the internet.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BookCat

Just for the record, I have no intention of connecting my kindle to wifi ever again. There's absolutely no need. Everything can be done via usb. I don't use my ereader to surf wiki, I have a computer to do that. I see no need to use my ereader as though it were a tablet. It's a dedicated reader. I READ on it. Contacting the internet is done on my laptop, which is so much easier (proper keyboard etc).

I agree with Sirtel and wonder why you ever purchased a kindle.

None of my Kindles have ever had WiFi turned on after initial registration. Not because I give a damn about Amazon knowing what I read (anyone who wants to know that has only to come here), but because having WiFi turned on significantly shortens battery life. It’s a non-issue. WiFi doesn’t turn itself on and magically connect itself. Leave the device in aeroplane mode and stop worrying about it.

[BookCat]

Personally, I don't give a fig about what Amazon are up to. I just don't like wifi, it gives me a headache. The Great Power of Amazon is welcome to know about the mobileread classics I read. I'm in the middle of reading a not-very-rivetting book I purchased from Amazon. Big deal!

I truly don't understand the OP's over-concern.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by BookCat

P I just don't like wifi, it gives me a headache..

It absolutely doesn't. Totally investigated. RF sensitivity doesn't exist. Also your phone beside head is about 3,000 times the power on almost the same band.
Inverse Square law.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by FrustratedReader

It absolutely doesn't. Totally investigated. RF sensitivity doesn't exist. Also your phone beside head is about 3,000 times the power on almost the same band.
Inverse Square law.

There's no doubt that the symptoms are real for some people but, as you say, dozens of "double blind" medical studies have shown no evidence that anyone is actually sensitive to WiFi, which is why the medical term for the condition has been changed from "electromagetic hypersensitivity disorder" (EHD) to "Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields" (IEI-EMF) ("Idiopathic" means "of unknown cause"). There's a summary of the medical studies here:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19681059

The most likely explanation, as the above link suggests, is a "nocebo effect" - ie exposure to something that you think will make you feel ill really does make you feel ill. The symptoms are real, even if the cause is purely psychological.

[BookCat]

For years there was "no evidence" that smoking damaged health, just anecdotes. Many people thought smoking was good for you - ever seen the old adverts?

Just for the record, I rarely use a mobile phone, except for texting. Also it's a dumb phone. I still have, and use, a landline. If I'm out, I'll text "on my way" etc.
My moby is normally switched off.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by BookCat

For years there was "no evidence" that smoking damaged health, just anecdotes. Many people thought smoking was good for you - ever seen the old adverts?

Absolutely, but that's not what we're talking about here. A total of 46 separate properly-conducted double-blind medical trials to investigate the phenomenon, not one of which has found any evidence that anyone actually is able to detect when a WiFi signal is or isn't present, really can't be discounted. As the link I posted says, nobody is suggesting that the symptoms are not very real, merely that the cause has been pretty conclusively proven not to be electromagnetic fields.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by BookCat

For years there was "no evidence" that smoking damaged health, just anecdotes. Many people thought smoking was good for you - ever seen the old adverts?

While that seems to be true it isn't actually what happened. It was well known by tobacco companies that cigarettes had all kinds of negative health effects. They did a lot of studies and they hid the results. Not many others were doing studies.

Later, after the Surgeon General released his report in 1964, it was found out that the tobacco companies knew for decades about the health risks.

There were always ads about the health benefits of tobacco before that. When studies began that prompted the Surgeon General's report, and those were made available to the public, the ads that promoted the health benefits increased. After the Surgeon General's report they switched to other advertising memes.

The key fact here is that for decades before this the tobacco companies knew cigarettes were dangerous to health and they covered it up. I forget the penalties they suffered because of that but they were considerable.

I'm 78 and in those days I was a smoker so I lived through all this and watched it unfold with interest. This is all from memory. I may have some details wrong but I have much of it right and there was a lot more to it than I remember now.

Barry

[BookCat]

Thank you for that information, barryem, that stirs things in my memory which I've seen in documentaries. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't doctors, probably working from a remit from the tobacco companies, constantly repeat the "no evidence" claim until something like the 1980s?

Who funded the above-linked studies? Any chance that there's a vested interest?

I'm not someone prone to headaches, and these were of a very specific type - a deep, painful ache in both temples - which would begin about an hour after switching on the laptop's wifi. It doesn't happen when using the home plugs with the laptop's wifi switched off.
For the record, I'm also sensitive to X-rays (they make me feel sick), but not MRI scans.

Odd.

PS Let's not get into the hazards to radio frequencies some say are caused by home plugs. Message already received, but irrelevant here.

[DuckieTigger]

@Rona 75: Not everybody wears a tinfoil hat like you do. BookCat keeps all devices off of wifi, not for privacy but health reasons.

[BookCat]

DuckieTigger: A good reminder to stay on-topic.

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by BookCat

For the record, I'm also sensitive to X-rays (they make me feel sick), but not MRI scans.

Odd.

That is not odd at all given that an MRI does not use radiation while x-ray, CT scans, and nuclear imaging does. Ultrasound would be another alternative for you that is safe to use (no radiation enters the body).

[DuckieTigger]

Originally Posted by BookCat

DuckieTigger: A good reminder to stay on-topic.

It is on topic. Registering is the easiest way to enable collections, keeping the Kindle off wifi is easy afterwards. It is a small price to pay, unless you wear a tinfoil hat.