Editor, Kindle Nation Daily
©Kindle Nation Daily 2011
ALBUQUERQUE, April 1 -- In preparing to send out this week's Kindle Nation weekly digest after a serious case of Workweekus Interruptus, we had to make some tough business and editorial decisions. Without a doubt, the toughest involved how we should handle an ironclad commitment we had made to embargo the following story until our regular weekly issue of April 1, 2011.
Don't get us wrong: we would understand, with or without the painkillers, that ironclad commitments are considered serious by some. But this is journalism, and our first commitment is to our readers, so we decided to run with the April 1 story and answer questions later. Questions like, can we come up with another April 1 story? Or, can we get away with running this one all over again on April 1?
Our story employs some magical and revolutionary journalistic approaches, because it is built upon close textual analysis of never-before-seen footage from very, very early in the career of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, the inventor and visionary behind the Kindle.
Mr. Bezos laughing, 2007 |
What's really going on behind this laughter? What are the unifying threads behind a a laugh that has been likened by Bezos fans Steve Jobs and Len Riggio, respectively, to "a jackass gargling bumblebees" and "a rapid honk that sounds like a flock of Canadian geese on nitrous oxide?"
Mr. Bezos laughing, 2009 |
It was just a matter of time before someone came along to decipher the code behind these eruptions of laughter, and we never thought it would be us here at Kindle Nation. Frankly, we thought it almost certain that it would be Dan Brown.
Mr. Bezos laughing, 1964 |
Beta tester with early Kindle prototypes |
It was a somewhat gentler laugh in 1964, perhaps even less annoying, but we know that babies are engineered to be able to get away with a lot.
To the best of our knowledge the video is not protected by any corporate or pediatric counseling privilege, so we offer it here for your enjoyment and edification:
And do enjoy your April 1st, whether you celebrate it then or now.
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