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Court
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - 10:26 pm: | 
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There's a LOT to be said for paper. . . . . both printed and digital have their place.
I can't, yet, speak to digital for serious research but I DO know that more Nobel Prize winners have passed through this library than any university in the world.
Speaks . . . pardon the pun . . "Volumes".
I'm a bookaholic ,some months nearly a grand. . mostly law, math and economics. . . and love the ability to mark up, scratch, underline and write in the margins.
I do LOTS of reading on screens but for serious research I am addicted to paper . . . Not saying it's right . . but it works for me.
I also, as some of you know, am addicted to libraries . . . I think every Badwebber who has visited has done at least one of my library tours. I belong to a private library that is all technical information, but in all honesty the building is part of the lure.
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Gregtonn
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - 10:53 pm: |
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Just one question.
What happens twenty years from now when the tech has changed and you want to read that book again?
Think eight tracks, vinyl records, cassettes, CDs or your favorite old computer games/software.
G |
Just_ziptab
| | Posted on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 - 11:26 pm: |
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Grandmother, reading Mother Goose bedtime stories..........just won't be the same........ |
Hybridmomentspass
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 12:02 am: |
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greg - cd players and record players are still around. Probably cassette too.
I just picked up a few new records recently, my collection keeps growing  |
Court
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 08:54 am: |
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I'm sitting here in the office listening to a Todd Rundgren Something/Anything LP on a Technics turntable.
You will never get this sound off a CD.
Still have all my LPs from the 60's and 70's although the early Led Zeppelin ones look like they were ice skated on. |
Court
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 09:07 am: |
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By the way . . . records are sill cheap. There are several great Vintage Vinyl places in the East Village. |
Fltwistygirl
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 09:25 am: |
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Thanks all for your input.
"What happens twenty years from now when the tech has changed and you want to read that book again?
Think eight tracks, vinyl records, cassettes, CDs or your favorite old computer games/software."
The cool thing is if it was worth playing, or listening to, it will be back in the "new" format. When we got our first desktop computer in the 1990's, one of the first game discs we picked up was "Oregon Trail". Anyone remember that? For us it was pure nostalgia.
When we got the Wii a few years after its introduction, we downloaded Donkey Kong. Again, nostalgia.
For the record, our family got a Kindle Fire for Christmas, and I traveled with it on this past trip. WiFi reception at both airports was hit or miss, and at MSP the Kindle was not synching properly. It was a little frustrating and I found myself missing real books at that moment. Once airborne, it was no problem. No technology is perfect but e-readers/tablets have a lot of potential. I just hope libraries stick around for a while. |
Fltwistygirl
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 09:29 am: |
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"You will never get this sound off a CD."
Court, one of my h.s. classmates is in a band and has a recording studio. For the reason you mentioned, he is releasing his newest album on vinyl. Cool stuff.
Wish I had never gotten rid of my albums. My mom probably sold them for $.05 each at a garage sale  . |
Slaughter
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 09:48 am: |
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Our entertainment center (note NOTHING connected to co-ax)
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Xb1125r
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 10:02 am: |
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it does not really matter. just about every book has been formatted to pdf which is anyone can get access to pdf reader.
and amazon and the other make their own format, but all can be converted to pdf.
I saw a new technology in Mexico which is a scroll. flexible screen that can be rolled like a scroll.
its got a base at one end which you can plug in your usb oe just connect to the internet wifi and go to the cloud.
i think its going to be the way of the future and its coming soon. |
Blake
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 10:29 am: |
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Bill,
How to share kindle books?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.htm l?nodeId=200549320
The cloud is cool...
https://read.amazon.com/about
I don't own a kindle device, just iphone, ipad and PC. The phone is perfect for reading in bed. Lock the screen and read on your side, flip to next page with a swipe of the thumb. Highlighting and notations are similarly facilitated. And the highlights and notes are all indexed automatically for future reference.
Smell and feel of paper? Those VOCs are toxic you know, and infection from paper cuts can be dangerous. ![: ]](http://www.badweatherbikers.com/buell/clipart/proud.gif)
The thousand plus books we have on the shelves aren't likely to disappear anytime soon. We do cull ever few years and send the chosen to the library.
Some of the online Bibles are nothing short of amazing with all their embedded hyperlinks (cross references, footnotes, historical commentaries, etc) and reference materials, comparisons to other versions and even the actual original Greek and Hebrew. What used to cost thousands of dollars in textbooks is now free to all. And the efficiency of study has skyrocketed. Martin Luther must be happy. Surely he'd appreciate e-books.
Some of the technical e-books are evolving similarly. I do most of my classical (hand) analysis in Excel now and make huge use of cut and paste from various structures e-references, AISC, Roark's, Aluminum Assoc, ACI, ASCE, ASTM etc.
Anyone recall the 1996/97 Buell Lightning S1 Service Manual? Sooooo useful with its embedded hyperlinks. Wayyyyyy ahead of its time.
(Message edited by blake on February 22, 2012) |
Dwardo
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 10:37 am: |
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If I can't read it on the toilet it isn't worth having. |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 10:40 am: |
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Belinda, that's why I am sold on the Digital Ink kindle, but ambivalent on the Kindle Fire.
So the "kindle" e-ink at $79 is a slam dunk. WiFi only, but it caches books, so you just need WiFi to buy the book and give it a few minutes to download.
The Kindle Touch or Kindle Keyboard 3g is also a slam dunk. You are up from $79 to $149 or so, but for that you get cellular data access. So you can buy books even when you are not within a WiFi connection. Not a big deal just for that, but you can also make the thing do "emergency data access". For example, on my 2nd gen Kindle 3g, I can get to google mail and see if I have new email or not. Or go to the Drudge Report and see if the world ended yet.
In a pinch, I could even reply to email on it. Not something you want to use day in and day out, but a great emergency backup for when all else fails. And an incredibly painless way to buy books. And there is NO monthly charge for this data plan... That alone is worth $150 over the course of a couple years.
The E-Ink readers will hold a charge for weeks to months. You do need to add one of the LED light cases though.
I was interested in the Fire's when they came out. But at the end of the day, they feel like a less well done IPad. Far cheaper, but far less useful. So I'm in a spot where I decided to either just step up and buy an IPad, or just live without it. It hits a compromise I don't want... a cheaper price for a device I don't want to use.
And its completely different than the original kindle anyway. We have an IPad, but my wife and kids are literally *always* using it, so I never get to touch it. But even if I could, I would not want to read books on it, I would go grab my kindle. The IPad rocks for NetFlix, games, and light web surfing. But it's too big, too expensive, and too power hungry to be a good book reader. |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 10:42 am: |
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Thanks Blake... I played with that... It has two tragic flaws at the moment...
1) The publisher gets to decide if books can be shared. Many say they can't.
2) Its clunky. I loaned a book to someone to try it. They said they only had a week before it "expired", and I could see no way to renew it. And after it did expire, my kindle now shows it as still loaned out, but they think they returned it. Probably operator error somewhere... but thats still a sign that the whole process is awkward and unreliable. |
Fltwistygirl
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 01:08 pm: |
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"In a pinch, I could even reply to email on it. Not something you want to use day in and day out, but a great emergency backup for when all else fails. And an incredibly painless way to buy books. And there is NO monthly charge for this data plan... That alone is worth $150 over the course of a couple years."
Bill-Thanks for that info, that sounds like the Touch or Keyboard would better fit my needs. We'll keep that in mind when it comes time to throw down cash for my son's e-reader. He may be using the fire. When I am "up north" (mere miles from the Canadian border, seriously in the woods), WiFi is available at few places and phone service is spotty. I routinely borrow my son's
A T & T phone because it gets signal nearly everywhere I ride up there. |
Mr_grumpy
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 03:31 pm: |
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Dwardo, you nailed it.
I'm a paper man, as Char said they're like old friends.
As long as the ink is still legible & my eyes are working I'm going to stay with books as my favourite love, but that's not to say I won't use a kindle or similar as well.
Court said "You will never get this sound off a CD. " well yes Court you can.
My darling wife gave me a record player for Christmas that has a USB port on the front & records vinyl direct to mp3 on a stick or hard drive.
So now I'm slowly putting my vinyl on CD in mp3 format, it's fantastic listening to my old stuff, complete with crackles & hiss, in the car or truck.
Time to go, I'm re-reading Bill Bryson's "Notes from a small island." superb stuff & nice smelling pages too. |
Chauly
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 04:31 pm: |
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+1 on the Kindle Keyboard w/3G. I lost one, and replaced it in 4 days 'cause I liked it so much.(OK, it was also a present from my wife, and I almost didn't tell her...:-)
I think what Court was saying is that by the time you sample the analog on vinyl to digitize it, there are nuances lost on the way. Sample at a higher rate, and it gets better, but if you have analog sources (LP, microphone, tape, etc.), record them on analog equipment (vinyl, wax, tape), and play them back through an analog sound system (tubes, non-digital solid state, megaphone) to be picked up by our own analog "ear decoding system". Even I can hear the difference, and that's saying something! |
Jcbikes
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 06:07 pm: |
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Another +1 on the Kindle Keyboard w/3G. I use it to check email and other stuff besides reading books. I do not have a smart phone, so this has internet access for free anywhere at&t phone service is available. No substitute for a real computer for the internet but works on the go. |
Midknyte
| | Posted on Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 07:58 pm: |
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http://boingboing.net/2012/02/22/amazon-strong-arm s-independent.html
Amazon / Kindle strong-arming... } |
Drkside79
| | Posted on Thursday, February 23, 2012 - 08:31 am: |
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I love my kindle. I have been a n avid reader sine Jr High. Love books and never thought i would like an e-reader. However I am now 50 books into my kindle and it is awesome.
e-ink is very close to print visually. oh and as a guy its nice to be able to take a book anywhere with you as kindles fit easily into a back pocket. Try that with your average hard cover.
Also other than the i like paper argument there's not much that is a negative.
Oh and you are saving trees. Which isn't a bad thing |
Reepicheep
| | Posted on Thursday, February 23, 2012 - 09:06 am: |
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Another cool Kindle feature is the ability to view from multiple devices. I do most of my reading on my e-ink kindle now. But sometimes I find myself sitting unexpectedly in a tire store while somebody fixes a puncture, and I can just whip out the IPhone and pull up the book I am currently reading and pick up right where I left off on the kindle sitting beside my bed at home. Reading a book on the IPhone isn't my favorite thing, but it beats listening to Jerry Springer on the tire store TV.
When I get back home, and fire up the kindle again, it asks "would you like to move forward to your last read page?".
Not rocket science, but beautifully executed. |
Notpurples2
| | Posted on Thursday, February 23, 2012 - 10:44 am: |
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Love books, but I'm really getting into the Kindle and now that I have an iphone it's even better.
I still will buy some paper books but now books that will be a read-once-and-that's-it kinda thing are better on the kindle. I've sold and donated tons of books and still have boxes of them put away. It's better to just have the electronic versions which take up no space at all.
Having the iphone also makes it really nice cause I have access to one of the books i'm currently reading anywhere I go.... long line at the store, on the cycle trainer at the gym, in the can... read a few pages from your book.
piracy will be a much bigger issue in the future for authors though. Musical artists still make money touring. Actors and movies make money through theatrical releases. Both make money off endorsements. But authors have to sell books to make money. They don't really have any other aspect to their craft that can make them money... unless they sell the rights to make a movie, and that's relatively rare.
Hopefully, readers will be more understanding and will continue to buy books from their favorite authors. I know I will, whether in paper or electronic form.
(Message edited by notpurples2 on February 23, 2012) |
Harleyelf
| | Posted on Thursday, February 23, 2012 - 06:09 pm: |
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Kindles are great. They won't replace books, because the data has to be entered somewhere by someone, and not all books have that big an audience. See Court's example. However, the Kindle 3G can access Amazon (or a few other sites) anywhere you can get a cell phone signal and they pay the monthly bill! Loads of good science fiction for a few bucks a book - the best is out of copyright because it was written in the 30s thru 50s.
It's like a paperback book with a million pages. |
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