E-Readers (Kindle, Nook, using iPad for reading) yay or nay

I own an e-reader but I think it's mostly dud/still mainly read regular books

I own an e-reader and it's pretty classic but I still mainly read regular books.

Was sort of considering buying my mother one for Christmas but she is not super comfortable with computers (she is fairly competent at various Office tasks but will complain about how illogical they are all the way) and I think she is kind of attached to the idea of paper books

(also e-books are super expensive unless you are adept at finding real ebook links among download scam sites, which is totally not a route I want to have to coach my mother to go down - the Amazon ebook price is rarely more than a couple of pounds cheaper than the paperback price, and I don't see my mother wanting to pay that for something "virtual" which she'll be scared she'll delete by accident, or which Amazon have the right to take away from you again without warning)

case spudette's mother is the person in this thread i feel i have most in common with (and all her concerns otm!)

i'm with lex on this one

also it's kind of annoying posting in a thread with actual reasons that haven't been disproven and being shouted down just b/c i'm not on-message technologically - how do you people cope with the vast majority of people who are even less comfortable using new technology than i am?

Your positions have been rationally countered. You had no rebuttal except to restate your original positions.

how do you people cope with the vast majority of people who are even less comfortable using new technology than i am?

laughing and pointing, mainly

"nope", "nope", "nope" ≠ rational countering

c'mon lex they told you you were wrong, what more could you want

kindle for majority

Easy, cheaper, instant access to books

Lighter and more portable than one paperback

Free books

easier to read in bed/bath too

E ink screen does not strain eyes/cause headaches like backlit screen can

Basic models are very simple to use. I recently got my 1st cell phone ever, a very basic one, and it was more complicated than my e-reader.

Lex: n/a, ledge, julia, silverfish and others have presented benefits that counter your detractions. There are on 54 posts itt atm so they should be pretty easy to find... Or Are you trying to rea this thread using a paperback format?

fake sandbox lex

ie: an object composed of toxic chemicals that will be obsolete within several years vs. object composed of renewable resource that will last forever

― aesthetic partisan (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, December 15, 2011 1:16 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

this kinda analysis is actually very difficult to do cause "someone buys a paperback" involves more emissions than just cutting down some trees, you also have the emissions from a. transit of object b. brick+mortar store c. transit of human being to buy object. then if you really want to drive this to the ground you can say 'well what else would people be doing with that bookstore location, what happens to the money we'll save/spend w/ ebooks, etc. also w/ the way the economy works right now, isn't any new economic activity basically bad for the environment somewhere down the line? a: yeah...' even 'just go to the library' is like, fine, okay that works on an individual level, but libraries w/ physical books depend on a system where lots of people publish and buy physical copies of books.

you also have to consider that people are buying tablet type computers *regardless* of how much they read, so it's not really and either/or decision w/ paper books. using myself as an example I might buy a tablet *instead* of buying a new laptop and eventually tablet-devices will probably do everything our laptops do so reading a book on them won't be any 'worse for the environment' than reading ilx.

in conclusion there are better things to worry bout.

I read pirated ebooks on my iPad, like I downloaded every Discworld novel recently. l1br4ry.nu is hit-or-miss for textbooky things. I bought a few indie tabletop roleplaying games as PDFs that I read on the iPad.

Basically I might pay $3 but not $10 for an ebook of what would be a backlist mass-market paperback and I don't really want to buy a physical backlist mass-market paperback. Humongous postmodern novels, physical all the way.

I say, "get that e-reader offa my lawn, you punks!"

iatee otm. Just think of the carbon footprint of this baby
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v296/WilliamCrump63/libraryken.jpg

reading a kindle in the city vs. reading a paperback in the suburbs

classic

Ytvgyivihbhi hjkhi

I just read that on my ereader.

The abridged version of Finnegans Wake with shorter thunderwords?

l1br4ry.nu

hmm, is this something that requires an invite?

Is the name in the URL of the image above being familiar just a coincidence?

Jesse, read me an ebook before bed. Plz.

The one with all the pretty pictures.

I am not especially for or against e-readers or paper. What was bugging me was that a couple advocates of paper ITT have been ardent and unrelenting in their derision of e-readers. Of course the poll is pretty inflammatory, but to me it feels like a reaction to the sanctimony coming from some of those in the throes of a backlash against e-readers.

I do not own an e-reader, but I will probably wind up with one sooner or later. I do most of my pleasure/personal interest reading on my iPhone, on my personal laptop, or my work computer. Reading on the iPhone is not great b/c it's just too small, and it's not e-ink.

As I see it - the merits e-reading and dead tree reading:

Paper:

- Flipping through and skimming is far easier

- Enjoyment of the tactile aspect, holding a real object, and being able to write on it (this is especially important to me). And autographable.

- Feels familiar and somehow wholesome, authentic, natural, earthy

- Won't malfunction, for the most part

- No great initial expenditure

- Accessible to more people

- Related to the last three: When the revolution or Armageddon comes, we will be able to use printed matter long after e-readers' batteries have died. (also, easier to smuggle paper - just try to carry a Kingle or Nook in your own "nook")

e-reading:

- Index or Table of Contents look up are much easier in a physical book. I find that this view is the other way around for me.

Nearly every single time I'm reading on paper, I wish for Ctrl+F capability. Especially if it's informational reading.

- Hyperlinks. To definitions, allusions, related information, etc.

- Portability. One light-weight device holds voluminous amounts of text.

- After the cost of purchasing the device, e-text is comparable or cheaper. And, as I understand it, e-books are available on loan from libraries (many? some?).

- Convenience of downloading reading material v. borrowing at the library, buying at a store, ordering online, borrowing from a friend, stealing.

- Kindle is idiot-simple to use. There are people in my life who are profoundly tech illiterate who enjoy their Kindles.

That is a big post.

maybe that poll option got truncated?

― nuhnuhnuh, Thursday, December 15, 2011 5:48 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

It said something about liking other people to know what you read in the park/on the subway etc. (b/c kindle ain't got covers right)

Anyway for the most part I just haven't taken very well to the e-reader experience. I don't especially dislike it, it's more like I just never felt like a book was something that needed improving. With the iPod I quickly saw the advantages of having a ton of different music in one tiny place, not having to change CD's, etc. With books it's pretty rare that I'd want more than one on me - in fact the vast possibility of e-readers is a distraction from reading for me (it's even worse with the iPad).

ie: an object composed of toxic chemicals that will be obsolete within several years vs. object composed of renewable resource that will last forever

― aesthetic partisan (Shakey Mo Collier),

this makes me realize you've never been to a paper mill.

Tonight I started some music with the Eno app Bloom, then I browsed through some books trying to decide which one to read next, and then I wrote two emails, and then Jaq started a Words With Friends game against me. Did all that from the same screen. SO difficult.

Lex's adversarial relationship with tech is such that I'd trust his opinion on e-readers as soon as I trusted his opinion on kitchen gear.

l1br4ry.nu

hmm, is this something that requires an invite?

― William (C), Thursday, December 15, 2011 9:17 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Permalink

lol no it's just g00gl3proofed

though when you visit it asks you to log in, and has no options to sign up

the ebook era adds a weird dimension to digital rights stuff - like I have a nypl card and my gf's college library has like every book known to man - between the two I can at the moment check out any book I'd ever want w/ a bit of legwork. and when I want to read something I generally do one of the two. otoh, if I found and illegally dl'd that same book for a kindle, it somehow seems harder to defend?

there was an ilxory party last week where virginia plain (librarian) and I were having a discussion w/ this twirpy author who kept claiming (w/ a shit eating grin) that he felt like libraries violated his property rights.

maybe there should be a spotify for books, idk.

xp to self whoa wait does it? I don't think it used to. I guess it does.

I own an e-reader and split my reading between that and regular books was my vote. Haven't bought a single e-book, I use gutenberg and yes I get pirated copies of non out-of-copyright stuff - but since I got my e-reader I've borrowed and bought more real books than ever before.

I don't especially dislike it, it's more like I just never felt like a book was something that needed improving. With the iPod I quickly saw the advantages of having a ton of different music in one tiny place, not having to change CD's, etc.

^^^^

With the e-reader I quickly saw the advantages of having a ton of different books in one place, e.g. when I am on holiday and don't want to fill my luggage with bulky weighty tomes.

or just y'know maybe not wanting to read the one book at a time

there was an ilxory party last week where virginia plain (librarian) and I were having a discussion w/ this twirpy author who kept claiming (w/ a shit eating grin) that he felt like libraries violated his property rights.

You should tell us his name so we can all illegally download his books.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

re-reading Lem's "Return from the Stars" (1961) this morning, lol'd at this passage:

"No longer was it possible to pbrowse among shelves, to weigh volumes in the hand, to feel their heft, the promise of ponderous reading. The books were crystals with recorded contents. They could be read with the aid of an opton, which was similar to a book but had only one page between the covers. At a touch, successive pages of the text appeared on it. But optons were little used, the sales-robot told me. The public preferred lectons - lectons read out loud, they could be set to any voice, tempo, and modulation... The robot that served me was itself an encyclopedia, in that - as it told me - it was linkeed directly, through electronic catalogues, to templates of every book on Earth."

this makes me realize you've never been to a paper mill.

my point was that books are largely non-toxic and easily recycled at the end of their useful life, which is typically decades after being printed. this is not the case with e-readers, which will be obsolete in a few years, and cannot be easily recycled.

also dunno if yr aware of this but paper grows on trees and you can always grow more trees. after all the rare earth metals are mined, it's not like the earth's gonna make a lot more in a few years.

there's also the kid in 'stars in my pockets like grains of sand' who has an Absorb The Entire Western Canon brain plug or w/e

w.h. smith had demo units of their version of this idea out and i had a go on one and it took somewhere over a second to load the next 'page' of text -- are other units this bad? is it just me who finds this terrible and unworkable with?

if there was one that connected straight up to jstor etc i'd die for it. to read, like, novels, seems kind of pointless.

also the death of typography and the reading environment etc etc

like: I have no interest in an e-reader; I like the feel and smell of musty yellowed paper and the faint narcissistic thrill

understates the case of this stuff somewhat. thinking of the text of a book as some platonic ideal away from all decisions as to where it physically lies on the page = colossal dud

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O1_Ky06bV30/TodrT6hyl2I/AAAAAAAAAqU/-8VkV8t8gZc/s400/Hepburn12_152.jpg

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/viewFile/1405/1323/14245

I have idly wondered how material that plays with typefaces and typesetting (like, say Alfred Bester, or Aldiss' Barefoot in the Head) is handled by e-readers

I just want a cheap source of 60's scifi stuff. Tho, this format seems to work with all the classic short-story collections put out back then.

i picked up the entire wheel of time series for free, that was pretty economical imo

jibe i had to convert those, fwiw- i used an online converter but can't remember what it was called so i'm not actually any use to you but there you go

me too.

have you read 'ill fares the land'? i cant recommend it highly enough tbh

ha thanks darragh. i'll see how those books come out without any settings modified.

thanks to the democratization of publishing my friend who is way better at writing lots and lots of words than he is at writing good ones now has a bunch of ebooks in the kindle store. I don't recommend spending yr money.

unless you want to read his self-insert fantasies about managing a rock band or being a computer hacker and dating large-breasted women

have you read 'ill fares the land'? i cant recommend it highly enough tbh

― є(٥_ ٥)э, Thursday, December 29, 2011 6:16 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Permalink

yeah i read this in like two hours and immediately donated my copy to the occupy portland library; as a (very personal and rightly so) manifesto against The Problem it's sterling.