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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
New data suggest that the reading public is ditching e-books and returning to the old fashioned printed word.
Sales of consumer e-books plunged 17% in the U.K. in 2016, according to the Publishers Association. Sales of physical books and journals went up by 7% over the same period, while children's books surged 16%.
The same trend is on display in the U.S., where e-book sales declined 18.7% over the first nine months of 2016, according to the Association of American Publishers. Paperback sales were up 7.5% over the same period, and hardback sales increased 4.1%.
"The print format is appealing to many and publishers are finding that some genres lend themselves more to print than others and are using them to drive sales of print books," said Phil Stokes, head of PwC's entertainment and media division in the U.K.
Stokes said that children's book have always been more popular in print, for example, and that many people prefer recipe books in hardback format.
Source: http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/27/media/ebooks-sales-real-books/index.html
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @10:44PM (3 children)
I took a trip to the mall, and not only does the mall still exist, but the bookstore sells vinyl records! Amazing!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:15PM (2 children)
I couldn'ŧ be happier since I sold my Selecŧric and wenŧ back ŧo ŧhe Remingŧon. I ŧyped ŧhis on carbon paper so I could keep a copy for my files.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:47AM (1 child)
Clean your "t" key, please.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:26AM
Found the un-hipster!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:02PM (32 children)
I'm not surprised. Hardcover books are a superior product compared to digital e-books. They are convenient, there is the tactile sensation of holding it, it can't be altered and most of all they are mine/yours instead of being at the whims of your e-book reader.
(Score: 4, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:18PM (21 children)
Plus you don't feel at all bad about slamming a print book down as hard as you can on a big, hairy spider.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:24PM (5 children)
You should feel bad for killing spiders which are helpful predators of pests.
(Score: 2, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:34PM (4 children)
I never feel bad for anything. That's a sign of a life not lived in accordance with your own moral code.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:42PM (3 children)
Never feed bad, you say. Delusion of godhood, probably on drugs too
Must be nice never to make mistakes, never to do anything by accident, never rush to do something without fully understanding it first. I should audit your commit history on github to call you out for hypocrisy, assuming you haven't rebased everything to whitewash all your bugs.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:56AM (2 children)
You should really learn to recognize the fine rhetorical art of shit talking.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:28AM (1 child)
There is a time and place for shit talking. You throw it in whenever you feel like which is improper use. Don't fault others for your poor social skills.
A discussion about spiders being more beneficial alive than dead is not exactly a shit-talking or trolling scenario.
(Score: 4, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 03 2017, @11:07AM
Dude, I can talk shit while ordering a pizza. I am that good.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:04AM (11 children)
Ok, Garfield :)
But, seriously, what did the spider do? I used to kill them, till I realized that they kill the insects I *really* don't like.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:34AM (6 children)
He is a creature ruled by emotion but believes he is rational. He lacks empathy, or so the troll says, so anything he doesn't like can be murdered without a second thought.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:47AM (2 children)
If Garfield is such a psychopath, then why didn't he murder Odie or rape Arlene?
(Score: 4, Informative) by tekk on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:09AM
Because he never felt like it? Even a psychopath can understand that by raping Arlene or killing Odie he's probably not getting any more Lasagna out of John.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:05PM
The entire lifetime of that comic is a psychologically thriller, like those "Friday the 13th" horror movies where the audience knows all the actors are gonna get killed. Actually its kinda like a bullfight, everyone kinda knows the bull is getting it in the end, the drama is in what happens. Is today the day Odie gets it? No? Oh god the suspense damnit garfield just get it over with I can stand waiting so anxious
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:51AM (2 children)
I don't lack empathy, slappy, I just don't let it rule my rational mind like libtards do.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:33AM (1 child)
Now look here dicky, you've shown yourself to lack empathy and have said exactly that on more than one occasion. You can't hide like Derp Donald forever and simply deny your own words when they become inconvenient. You're like all the mild racists who simply can't consciously accept their bigotry so they deny deny deny. I'm sure you have empathy on occasion, probably reserved for "your kind of people". And to be clear, I'm not accusing you of being a racist, so lets skip that whole unnecessary tangent.
You are on the spectrum of sociopath asshole, the sooner you come to realize this the sooner you can work on changing the parts of yourself that you deny exist.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 03 2017, @11:06AM
I've shown myself to lack empathy only to those who are empathy's bitch. You lot are getting pounded in the ass so hard, so regularly by empathy that you've utterly lost any perspective on what a well-adjusted human being should look like.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:50AM (1 child)
Spiders are the bugs I really don't like though. Plus no bugs belong in the house. The rest can go on about their merry business outside as far as I'm concerned but spiders gotta die.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by edIII on Thursday May 04 2017, @09:04PM
As I read that a spider about the size of a dime came crawling across the side of the wall where I'm sitting about 7 inches from my face.
He crawled up a little ways across some tacked up papers and disappeared in a second of distraction when I looked back. No idea where he is now....
You just have to let it go. Like how scientists calculated that spiders could actually eat all of the humans on this planet and still be hungry. But they don't. They let us live. So live and let live...
:)
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:39PM
I, too, save spiders, but you should know - some of them do bite people, and most of them have a nasty brew of infectious bacteria on their fangs.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @07:11PM
spiders are my ecofriendly pest control system. southern house spiders are all over my house. i only kill them if they come out and run around. if they don't break the house spider rules they stay. i had Serena the Shower Spider for a while. I almost made a sign so guests wouldn't kill her. flies and other foolish flying insects get snared in webs fairly quickly. any roaches in the walls get eaten. they are not aggressive towards humans at all. i have had one on my hand before and even though i freaked out, it didn't even try to bite me. i've had them land on me in other scenarios too. no problem, but they broke the rules. the penalty is death.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday May 03 2017, @10:43AM (1 child)
Plus you don't feel at all bad about slamming a print book down as hard as you can on a big, hairy spider.
And, having woken it up and maybe even annoyed it, how much help is your book going to be?
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday May 03 2017, @11:00AM
Ah, well you see this is not an issue in the US like it would be in OZ. Here our spiders mostly come hand-sized or smaller and a good hardback book is generally enough to at least thoroughly stun them while you run screaming like a little girl.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:36PM
That's why I wear flip-flops.
And, as others have said: save the spiders, but flip flops are great on carpenter ants and roaches.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by driverless on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:55PM (2 children)
+1. It's not "real books are back", it's "the e-book reader gadget market has reached everyone it was ever going to reach".
(Score: 3, Touché) by VLM on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:11PM (1 child)
There was a hipster greenwashing movement a couple years back to get rid of your paper books and buy everything again in ebook format.
Apparently boomers have this phenomenon where theres some Beetles album that boomers have bought on vinyl then 8trak then cassette then cd then minidisk then m4a then mp3 then streamed. I guess the closest analogy is I bought a LOTR set from some used book reseller decades ago and got rid of it and bought the ebook versions some what more recently. It turns out the silmarillion is as unreadable in ebook format as paper format. Was worth a try I guess.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:04PM
| It turns out the silmarillion is as unreadable in ebook format as paper format. Was worth a try I guess.
I have only attempted the paper(back) version, but cannot imagine how an e-reader would help.
I do, however, strongly agree with your assertion.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:43AM (2 children)
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:31AM
Agreed. Full-text search can be useful. On the other hand, physical books have consistent layout, which means I can often find a familiar passage because I remember "it's about 3/4 through, and there's a diagram of a cactus in the upper right corner, and a heading with the passage on the opposite page."
That visual/tactile memory is often still useful to me for reference books I use regularly (and sometimes easier to locate if I can't remember the right words to look for, or I'm trying to find a diagram or figure or whatever). For occasional use, full-text search is probably better.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:23PM
You sound like my 89 year old mother when she first got a tablet. She's back to real books, mostly because it's too easy to spend a lot of money on e-books without realizing it.
Most books I read I simply check out from the public library. Often after I've read a particularly good one (like The Martian) I'll buy the hardcover. Hell, you can even check out e-books now, you don't even have to physically go to the library for many titles.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:17PM (1 child)
Not just hardcovers, paperbacks, too. It's ridiculous that they charge as much for an e-book as a paperback. The e-book has practically zero shipping and warehousing costs. When I finish a paperback I can give it away--not so with an e-book.
I give my e-books away, since I'm not writing for the money. But even if I charged, they would be a hell of a lot cheaper than printed books. E-book prices are retardedly high!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:32PM
The message: you're not paying for paper, or warehousing, or shipping - those costs were optimized nearly a century ago to trivial levels. What you're paying for is profit and a tiny bit of royalty to the author and his agent(s).
It's like McDonald's ice tea - any size you want for $1. It costs more to take your money and hand you the tea than the tea and cup combined, far more.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:28PM
Depends on how you use them. A library of e-books is much more convenient than a library of paper books.
One for one, sure, the printed book _can_ be better, though, when I've lost my reader glasses, I can adjust my e-book print to a size I can read, paperbacks not so much. I ditched my collection of hundreds of disused paper books about 10 years ago because their bulk was more costly than their value to me. I've never had to face the decision to "let go" of an e-book. I actually have an electronic copy of my PC from 1996, stored in the copy of my PC from 1999, which is stored in the copy of my PC from 2004, etc. If I ever really want to reuse that clip-art icon I used 20 years ago, it's there, archived away and reachable.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:34PM
Subjective opinion is subjective. Hard copies and electronic copies both have their benefits and detriments. Neither one is strictly superior to the other over all. I prefer ebooks since I can move an entire library's worth and not throw out my back or take up all the space in my home, I don't need a bookmark, no damage to it by taking notes, infinite copies for backup, etc. But hopping on a bus/plane/whatever real books are nice to have. Try searching for all instances of a word or phrase in a real book and you're going to have a bad time, in ebook only takes milliseconds. I have no problem with people preferring real books due to tactile sense and smell. Vinyl's "nuances" however...
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:07PM (19 children)
With tech documents I'm getting used to pdfs, mainly for the search ability. Books to read for fun? Paper all the way.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:12PM (14 children)
To kick myself in the ass for hitting Submit too soon, tech docs don't tend to get re-read once the device driver or protocol stack is written. If the company goes away and the DRM that lets me re-read that doc goes away, well that product is outdated and I've moved on anyway so I'll never notice.
A good book? I'll re-read a book 5-10-15 years later, if the DRM provider goes away and I can't read the book I bought I'm pissed.
To summarize:
A) For pleasure I prefer paper
B) For tech I'm getting to prefer pdf
C) I'll never buy anything with DRM around it.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:20PM
DRM on a doc for a device driver or protocol stack? The hell you say! I must be spoiled rotten. I only write to spec from RFCs and the occasional RFC draft.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:20PM (4 children)
You know, I heard tell there were these websites that had books without DRM on them. I wouldn't know anything about that, of course. Just something I heard.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:29PM (3 children)
I heard they have "books on tape" on youtube now, which raises another kind of DRM problem, but fortunately youtube downloaders are readily available to extract the audio.
(Score: 3, Informative) by aristarchus on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:01AM (1 child)
It is called "LibreVox", public domain audio books. Try here: https://www.librivox.org/ [librivox.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:16AM
Bah! Direct links to mp3 files! Where's the challenge? Where's the guilty pleasure of using a third party tool to get to the mp3 files?
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:31PM
If all you want is the audio you need no download tool, just a computer with Audacity installed; Audacity is free and supported in Apple, Windows, and Linux. With Windows type mmsys.cpl into the search box, click on an empty space and you can unhide the hidden stuff. Then, just record the audio. There are detailed instructions on Audacity's web site. KSHE plays six full rock albums every Sunday night and I almost always record it. Sometimes I'll record music from YouTube as well.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @06:16AM (3 children)
That alone is the biggest drawback as to why I never owned a ebook player.
I saw some on sale in the bookstore, they looked neat, but when I found out how crippled they were, it was almost like Home Depot trying to sell me a screwdriver with a really wacky drive that only drove their brand of screws. And wanted $100 for it. That kinda thing is best left on the shelf at the store.
I've even had people give them to me... I pass them off to Goodwill. What's the use of the damned thing? Shoulda never been made in the first place. Waste of a perfectly good computing platform.
Circuit City (Divx ) already showed me what happens when I trust a DRM provider: They shut down the authentication server, keep the money, I am left with a useless trinket.
I simply fail to understand what folks thought was so cool with these readers. To me it was like going back to having to ask Dad for the keys every time I want to use the car. All I could figure out is some people just seem to love being controlled. Even by a machine. They seem to love saying "yes sir" all the time, and never making a fuss when someone tramples them, takes their money, and leaves them with useless stuff they pay yet someone else to haul away. Some people must really get off on paying bills.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Wednesday May 03 2017, @10:51AM (1 child)
C) I'll never buy anything with DRM around it.
That alone is the biggest drawback as to why I never owned a ebook player.
I've owned several and loved them. Never had any DRM, only read public domain books - despite Steamboat Willie's worst efforts, PD's still here. Start at Project Gutenberg and work your way out.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by gidds on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:18PM
That's one very valid approach. There are some wonderful books in the public domain, and the good people at Project Gutenberg and elsewhere deserve all our praise. There are also some legitimate non-PD books available (e.g. from Baen Books) which are free of both charge and restrictions.
A second is to buy unprotected books (e.g. from Baen Books). This is completely legal and shows support for the DRM-free side of the industry.
A third is to buy DRM-protected books, but immediately strip the DRM. (I'm sure I don't need to mention some of the tools which make that trivially easy.) Once you have an unrestricted format, there's no risk; and you gain the ability to use it on any devices and in any ways you want. If you've paid for the book (and don't give people copies) then you arguably have the moral right to do this — though the legality may vary depending on your jurisdiction.
And a fourth is to get books from more questionable free sources on the web. (They can be fairly easy to find, especially if you know a distinctive phrase or sentence from within the book.) I couldn't condone this, of course, but it's certainly possible.
In any case, it's important to realise that a DRM-protected book isn't something you own; it's something you're temporarily allowed to use in certain restricted ways, and which can be withdrawn at any time. If you care about it, set it free :-)
[sig redacted]
(Score: 1) by Goghit on Thursday May 04 2017, @03:58AM
What killed my use of ereaders was my Kobo dying 2 weeks out of its one year warranty. I looked at my bookshelf full of books from the 19th century and decided paying $100+ a year to read my new books was unacceptable, so I threw the Kobo in the garbage, broke the DRM on my purchased books, and never looked back.
I still use pdfs a lot for technical work, usually printing just the pages I need before working on a machine. It's a bitch getting grease and hydraulic fluid off a tablet.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:18PM (3 children)
tech docs don't tend to get re-read once the device driver or protocol stack is written
Yeah I wish. Maybe for linux cookie cutter ethernet driver number 325626 but for some I2C magnetometer or a A/D converter or whatever, any time there's weird operating conditions or weird results, gotta hit the datasheet. Given the circuit impedances and operating temp is 2 bits of LSB noise for this specific cheap ass A/D converter good or bad? Well it depends on your definition of good, the temperature outside, the circuit impedance today, I guess.
I'm old enough to remember you'd sweet talk a sales droid or marketing droid out of databooks. You could go to an industry show and run a net profit if you carried home enough databooks. Because if you were a plebe you got to pay for those databooks or pay 10 cents/page to photocopy someone elses databook. Then the internet and PDFs came along and instead of paying a nominal $5 shipping for, like, the 68hc11 programmers reference guide if you were a plebe, you would download the PDF and spend $25 on HP ink and paper printing it out on the inkjet for like 4 hours or pay 25 cents a page for laser printer quota meaning you spent like $25 on a 100 page data sheet to save $5 ordering the book like a plebe or spending $1 on long distance to sweet talk some sales droid in California into mailing you one for free.
Now a days put those pdf on dropbox or whatever and use the phablet giant phone or the kindle (kindles can read some pdf if manually placed on them, if I recall last time I tried...).
Its weird how easy kids have it today. In the old days you'd pay $50 to get the data books for something like a iax432 just to figure out the thing was a POS and nope nope nope right out of that project. That was an interesting chip, like in the late 80s can we be more CISC than a late 70s IBM mainframe, why yes we can, well, at least in slow vaporware! Now a days its all free to download PDFs that are also free to read portable in the lab.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:16PM (2 children)
I'm old enough to remember you'd sweet talk a sales droid or marketing droid out of databooks.
When I started I had a bookcase in my cube full of databooks. Plus shelves on the cube walls, full of databooks.
Never had to pay for one except for gas money to drive over and pick one up. Had one guy that wouldn't give me a databook, he wanted to sell it to me. Told the hardware guy about it, within an hour a different chip was being used.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:51PM (1 child)
The "having to pay" is stuff like hobby projects.
I've always been petrified of going to a sales meeting with management "So hows that kilowatt level UHF power linear RF amplifier project doing? We've been giving one of your guys all kinds of databooks and piles of free sample hardware and a really nice eval board" and I don't want to explain that's a home ham radio hobby project. I seem to recall one of the big name RF suppliers used to treat people claiming to be working on hobby projects as being some fascinating classified spaceship project so they just wouldn't leave me alone. "Oh I see you bought a C-band directional coupler from us, hows that working out for you, I was just calling to see if you'd like a qty 1000 quote on our new aerospace rated model, its great for military radar work" and after awhile its like oh god I never should have left my phone number on the order form...
I remember I took a logic class (EE not philosophy) so long ago, like 1990, that we had to buy a TI TTL databook as a textbook. They taught us how to figure out timing and fan in/out ratios between logic families and stuff. I seem to recall an open book test, maybe a final, was designing a hardware multiplier with some weird mandatory requirements to trip us up and force us to do weird things, and it was a monster of a task. It can take along time for a wide adder to settle if you don't do the look ahead carry thing, the prof tricked us / forced us into a shift-add topology where the assigned family couldn't handle the fan-out ratio, it was a real headache. I don't remember if it had to be pipelined, probably did.
Nothing takes the fun out of a hobby better than taking a class for credit, other than employment obviously.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Thursday May 04 2017, @02:07AM
Silly you. My personal projects always used chips that I used for work. Why? A) I don't have to waste my free time learning stuff I learn at work; and B) I get, um, "free" samples for the chip at work. Been 30 years since I've done that, but when I was young and struggling I had no problem appropriating chips.
/ I remember back in, oh, 1981 or so
// Company couldn't keep memory chips in stock
/// same chips home computers (TRS-80, etc) used to upgrade from 16k to 64k
//// after 6 months or so the problem magically went away
///// Not saying I know what the problem was, but I had a screamin machine for the time
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:43PM (3 children)
As part of all this "continuous improvement" bullshit corporations are undergoing because of their fear of the iron fist of the ISO, some of them are banning using printed drawings entirely. Digital-only is okay for specs and procedures, but damn-near worthless for troubleshooting large integrated systems (say, pick 'n' place machines or large medical diagnostic devices). Actually, also worthless even for troubleshooting small PCBs on which several subsystems (microcontroller/power conditioning/transmitter for example) were all on that same PCB.
To do any real hands-on work with hardware you need the ability to print drawings and scribble on them with at least 2 different color pens and 3 or 4 different color of highlighters for tracing paths. Squnting at a laptop running Foxit because your organization is too cheap to buy usable seats of Acrobat won't do. Either will running back and forth from your desktop running Acrobat and the machine you're troubleshooting. And don't even get me started on tablets. You need the ability to print paper drawings, 11X17 size.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:29AM
> paper drawings, 11X17 size.
You might like it in Detroit?
Not only do they drink a lot, they also use full size drawings of cars, pinned up to drafting boards that hang on the walls (and some work areas spread them out on large flat tables).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:25AM
*cough*
I've found the opposite to be true. My eyes are getting worse with age. I can't even see half of our drawings. Fek, I open a drawing up, squint at it, only to discover that I've got it upside down. Flip it over, squint, and realize I have the wrong drawing. Finally get the correct drawing laid out, right side up, and "Is that a gate valve? Hell no, it's the transducer!"
Those prints that come in PDF are searchable, and I can blow them up as large as the screen - in this case, a 15 inch screen. There's no question which page I'm on, blow it up as large as I need, and I can read it. All of the PDF's I've used so far are printable - I can take that section of the drawing that I need, print out a single copy, or a dozen copies, and carry it out to the machine if I want. And, as an added benefit, I don't have to feel guilty if I smear a gob of grease across the drawing - I'm going to throw the damned thing away anyway.
It wouldn't be so bad, if the manufacturers supplied full scale engineer's drawings with the machines, but the paper copies supplied with the machines are generally on 8 x 11 paper, with everything shrunk down to - not sure, I guess it would be about 20%? Fek - it would have required a little squinting to read it 40 years ago! In our print table, there are three full scale drawings, a couple dozen 1/2 scale drawings, and several dozens of 8 x 11 or something close. That just doesn't cut it for a half-blind old man.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:45PM
Or, you need a paper-weight 11x17 tablet: coming out in 2018 I hear.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by jmorris on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:19PM (5 children)
I can see many reasons to abandon ebooks for paper.
1. The hardware. Break it down to epaper and tablet/pc for reader. Both have problems.
Epaper is essentially Kindle now, unless you know about and seek out obscure products. No epaper device really delivered on the promise. Reading a novel start to end basically works on one but any other sort of book fails on current epaper due to lack of resolution, screen real estate or color. Try a work with a large table on one, the fun is guessing how it will fail.
Reading on a tablet is a vastly inferior experience vs paper, all the bad parts of a PC and many of the cramped low resolution problems of epaper, although you do get color and fast enough screen refreshes to pan around on a table... if the software (on the publication or display end) isn't broken... see epaper above. Forget reading them outside, at night in bed, etc. and be sure to stay near an outlet.
2. The DRM. The different silos of reader/app and content, the hassles of changing brand of device, and the general sense of being caught in a time warp from the 1990s and the situation with music before DRM was eliminated. And like music, the 'product' the pirates offer is easier to obtain and often better. Not a good place for 'legitimate' ebook sellers to be in.
3. Amazon. They are the 900lb gorilla in the room. They have pretty much driven everyone else out of business with their 'sell everything at a loss and make it up on volume and stock appreciation' business model but when they make everyone a 'take it or leave it' offer they have to expect some people to tell em to keep their Kindle. I will occasionally buy physical goods from them but have never and will never make the mistake of buying into their walled garden. I'm not alone in that attitude but probably not enough to keep B&N or BAM alive much longer.... alas. Hopefully paper books still remain a thing.
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:00AM (3 children)
I agree with most of your points, save the alternate Ebook reader hardware. There are two options which are fantastic in their respective categories.
The all-around amazing ergonomics, cheap-enough-not-to-use-a-case option: Nook Simple Touch. Not the glowlight, the original. This thing is overbuilt and looks a little weird, until you hold it and realize the ergonomics are way better than the other thin slabs out there. It's so durable you can - and should - give it to your kids. It will take their abuse. The resolution is high enough. I have read millions of pages on one of these. Don't underestimate them, just pick one up off Craigslist for almost nothing and get to reading. Handles all ePubs.
If you want a more "premium" experience, look at the Kobo Aura H2O or Kobo Aura One. These are at or beyond Kindle quality, except are built to accept any format you care to throw at them. Premium, high resolution screens. In my opinion, they look sharper but are actually not as good as the venerable Nook Simple Touch for ergonomics longer term. However, they can handle PDFs and are certainly slicker. Not sure I'd get my kids one of these, though.
There are other decent options as well, the point is "Kindle or nothing" is a myopic view of the market. I'd argue both of the above more than deliver on the promise for recreational reading. However, I'd agree that for PDF viewing/journals, etc., ereaders still don't cut it.
(Score: 2) by jmorris on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:51AM (1 child)
I own a Nook Simple Touch, from before the Glowlight. Will probably have to replace the battery in another year or two. Discontinued and no longer available in most places, either version. Which is why I said what I did, you have to know alternatives exist and seek them out, usually online, because nobody is marketing anything except Kindle any longer. Kindle won't read epub, lacks a memory slot or any simple (not involving Amazon's services) way of loading content.
Oh, and the Nook blows for anything but paragraph level formatting. Forget tables and it sometimes screws up simple blockquotes. As I said, for reading a typical novel from begin to end it is good. Forget about any other use of it because you are rolling the dice on making it all the way through, especially if you lack an alternate reader for the book in case you hit a problem. I don't have Windows and won't install the Nook app on my phone (it was horrible at keeping the phone out of deep sleep) so it means avoid B&N's DRM on anything that might possibly be a problem.
(Score: 2) by AndyTheAbsurd on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:21PM
Do the current-revision Kindles not show up as a USB mass storage device when plugged in to a PC, and allow you to place PDF or .mobi files on them? I know that the ones I've handled did - but that's limited to a 3rd-gen Keyboard and a not-sure-what-but-definitely-prior-to-current Glow.
Please note my username before responding. You may have been trolled.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:23PM
I switched from the Nook Glo to the Kobo Aura when the Nook finally bit the dust after about five years. Both gave good reading experiences however the OS is different: I rooted the Android Nook but it was stuck on 2.1, so most apps didn't work. Even rooted the battery life was terrible, with the device always being drained after a month of sitting in standby. The Kobo runs Linux but you cannot tell. The battery management is vastly superior, I now have to charge a couple times a year and don't worry to check the battery level when packing for a trip, even when using the backlight.
I haven't used a Kindle so I cannot compare it, but I am biased against Amazon so I probably won't. Anyway, I'm quite sold on the Kobo devices now.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:04PM
"Epaper is essentially Kindle now, unless you know about and seek out obscure products."
Nook is not obscure, thank you very much.
And Sony built the best quality ereaders. Such that I *still* use my Sony Reader today and will replace its' battery.
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:22PM (4 children)
You can't beat paper books for longevity. The oldest book in my library is from the late 19th Century. Good luck reading epub or mobi files in the 22nd Century, even without DRM.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:14AM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:45AM
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday May 03 2017, @04:57AM (1 child)
Sure you can beat paper books, but parchment/vellum is hard to come by these days. 500-year-old paper can be pretty fragile (and cheap paper held in poor conditions can degrade significantly in 50 years or less), but a lot of the 1000-year-old parchment I've handled has been in great condition, aside from wormholes and such. Linen or cotton paper can generally hold up much better than wood pulp, so be careful of books made in the past couple centuries with wood pulp paper (a lot of it has acid which will significantly increase degradation rate). Paper books older than ~150 years are less likely to be wood and are actually more durable in general.
A medievalist professor was fond of reminding us how many sheep had to die to make the manuscript we were looking at. Those books are hardy, though.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:36PM
cheap paper held in poor conditions can degrade significantly in 50 years or less
That's a myth. I have paperbacks I bough in the 1960s that are just fine, except some of them have loose covers. All still readable.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Mykl on Tuesday May 02 2017, @11:25PM (3 children)
I really do wonder how e-Books would've panned out if they had kept them DRM-free. As others have mentioned, I'm not at all keen on the idea of not being able to re-read my book a few years later just because $VENDOR has shut down and closed their authentication servers.
I do also love being able to share a good book with friends. I get why publishers hate me for being a dirty Commie doing this, but to be honest, given the printing press has been around for hundreds of years, I kinda think that factors such as libraries and sharing have already been factored into book prices.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:28PM (2 children)
I suspect it is less of the DRM, and more of the pricing scheme. We can make a comparison to movies. Movies are available for purchase in DVD form without DRM. However the convenience and price of streaming services have largely defeated physical media, and have reduced piracy too.
I use my ebook reader extensively, but I never use the official Kobo bookstore because the price is the same as the dead-tree version. Many of my books are from Humble Bundles and public domain.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday May 03 2017, @09:18PM (1 child)
Do you have any examples of DRM-free releases? Content Scrambling system [cmu.edu]
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday May 03 2017, @11:12PM
Okay, perhaps a poor example, I consider DVD open now as the DRM has been defeated and personal archival is a trivial process.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:07AM (2 children)
I want these printed on stain-resistant plastic, like the Australian currency. I want a binding that comes apart so that nothing gets permanently jammed in there. I should be able to clean the pages with a scrubber and some hot soapy water.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:33AM (1 child)
Just visited a small company (~30 people) that makes test equipment for car and tire manufacturers. They deliver test machines with large 3-ring binders. All the instructions and docs are printed on stiff coated paper, no problem if you flip the pages with greasy fingers, just wipe it off later.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:40AM
Some of my kids' books are like that too, especially the ones where you can trace or learn to write. Write with any pen, take a humid cloth, wash up and start again :).
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @12:47AM (6 children)
With all the hate against e-books and e-readers, I felt I had to weigh in on the other side. IMO, e-books on an e-reader are the best way to read novels and all "linear" books:
1) Same visual quality, no reflection from the matte display. Same rigidity as a hard-cover, same weight as a paperback, can contain thousands of books without additional memory card (very useful for long trips without internet).
2) Superior customization of the display (font size…)
3) I can toss it the same way on the table or the couch, no risk of crumpling the pages. It can get a few drops of water or sun lotion, there's no stain after I wipe it.
4) I can read lying on the side in my bed, without having to hold my hand or arm in the air, or having to change lying side with every page turn.
5) I exchange books with my friends from the internet the same way as I would with my physical friends, no DRM involved.
6) After more than 5 years, the battery still lasts an uncountable number of hours, enough to read several novels.
7) It contains an offline multi-language dictionary, very useful for those who like to read in other languages.
Of course, I would like to be able to buy a double-graphic-novel-page-sized colour and flexible e-reader. That will hopefully come in a few years…?
Of course, I would never read any technical or other non-linear documents on an e-reader.
Of course, I would never consider a glossy-display, backlit tablet to as good in reading comfort as an e-reader.
Still, I don't think I would ever willingly go back to paper novels, and I'm annoyed when people give me some and I then have to try and get rid of them once I've read them.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Hartree on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:26AM
If they work better for you, great!
And there's no hate here. I use both ebooks and paper versions. ebooks are nice for items I need to carry a lot of in a small space. The pdf versions of the manuals for the lab equipment I work on, for example. It would be impractical to carry the filing cabinets needed to hold the paper versions.
One item that is a sticking point is DRM and online only versions. Example: Textbook publishers are often moving to online only content that they provide for a limited time to college students. I work at a university and have a deadline on a German language text I theoretically "bought" but really only rent. If I buy a physical paper copy, I control it, not them, unless they get people with warrants, badges and guns to confiscate it from me.
The hate isn't for the ebooks, it's for the humans that misuse the ability to restrict them.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:46AM (3 children)
Someone should roll up a Free e-paper screen and include project Gutenberg "preloaded," I'd pay for that.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:07PM (2 children)
Someone should roll up a Free e-paper screen and include project Gutenberg "preloaded," I'd pay for that.
Amazon kindle Gutenberg book market is weird.
Most of PG is available for free download. The quality level can be quite low but technically it is there, its a free text.
A boatload of semi-scammers runs PG thru spellcheck and fixes the atrocious formatting and maybe adds a table of contents and maybe some art you probably don't want to see anyway, and sells the same PG text for 0.99 up to maybe 2.99. Most of the missspellings will be gone but 0CR mistak3s will still be in the text as will be the occasional truly weird formatting issue.
Above $3 or so you start seeing penguin press class of text where its been translated into English less than a century ago and is almost typo free and has been completely professionally formatted.
Around $20 there's a sparsely populated class of very well edited ebooks. So this is Plutarch translated into 2000's American English and utterly typo free. Flawless.
Finally you hit textbook class of price where its $20 to $100 ebook solely because its being sold as a textbook. I wonder how well those sell.
I find it interesting that ebooks are free but "bug free" modern and high quality level ebooks are still like $5 to $20. Even if the means of distribution is free and the author gets nothing, the market still supports professional editing and typesetting/formatting for a couple bucks. I never would have guessed that the last revenue to be squeezed out of the book business would be editing.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:51PM (1 child)
The quality level can be quite low
I've cleaned up half a dozen or so and put them on my web site. But Gutenberg has over 50,000 titles. Good luck reading all of them!
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday May 03 2017, @06:39PM
I should be fair and point out the source quality isn't necessarily bad but I have done ETL stuff at work and I can identify bad conversions when I see them so given a nice ASCII or UTF-8 file from PG and run it thru ten poor conversions to UCS-16 and whatever windows used to use and word and whatnot and you can end up with some pretty strange formatting. Especially if someone tried to fix accent marks for example, three or four conversions ago.
I have seen some PG stuff where the quality itself was low. Obviously the original importation was via OCR because zeros and ohs are randomly swapped.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:48PM
1) Same visual quality, no reflection from the matte display.
Untrue. Black Bead's author emailed me a copy of the book, and after reading it I bough a paperback copy. They are most certainly NOT the same, any more than a paperback and a hardcover are the same (I wish I could have gotten 11/22/63 in hardcover). And the only matte screens I've seen are on dedicated ebook readers, not general purpose tablets. Can't read a tablet outside in the daytime!
3) I can toss it the same way on the table or the couch
You toss your electronic devices???
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:11AM (5 children)
"Real Books Are Back"
Most bookaholics will never let you pry their dead tree versions from their hands. It's a technology that has been optimized over centuries for rapid access, eye comfort, and many other things. Just like a hammer, it's a hard thing to improve on.
The reduced space required for ebooks (you can carry a library) is a boon, but it's not such an advantage for some thing. In some cases, it's nice to be able to flit back and forth between different texts, but for immersing yourself in a good novel it usually isn't a big help.
Perhaps when Elon Musk gets his "neural lace" (All hail Ian Banks!) going we can equal or better it, but not yet with the current ebooks and reader.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by tftp on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:12AM (3 children)
Most bookaholics will never let you pry their dead tree versions from their hands. It's a technology that has been optimized over centuries for rapid access, eye comfort, and many other things. Just like a hammer, it's a hard thing to improve on.
Eye comfort is a variable thing as you age. I do not read paper books and don't have them anymore. I read only DRM-free e-texts, of which there is more than I am able to consume in the rest of my life. Android + FBreader is my preferred setup, but there are many other options. Digital bits have zero weight, zero size, zero cost, and they are easy to make a backup of. Paper books are the opposite. I had a few, under 50, in a box, but when I looked they all were bad - the paper is crumbling, the binding is falling apart, the pages are all wavy from humidity... do I really want to even touch them? Sure, they should not have been stored in a garage, but then how much time and money should I invest into their storage? E-books have no such issues, they are always new. I do not expect to go back to paper.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:39AM (2 children)
What device(s) do you prefer to read your e-books with?
I'm currently using a "recycled" notebook, but it's not quite as flexible as a physical book.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:18PM
I have a Kindle Paperwhite for novels, and a Samsung Galaxy S2 Tab for comic books and color PDFs.
(Score: 1) by tftp on Thursday May 04 2017, @12:27AM
Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro SM-T320, just because I have one. I'm sure there are many other devices, some worse, some better.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday May 03 2017, @03:57PM
Asimov predicted the end of print way back in the 1950s in his short story The Fun They Had. When e-book readers started coming out I thought he'd been right--until I released Nobots. When I handed it to my daughter (she was about 25 then) she exclaimed "My dad wrote a book! And it's a REAL book!"
I knew then that printed books are here to stay.
mcgrewbooks.com mcgrew.info nooze.org
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @01:58PM
To the best of my knowledge, none of the big publishers has ever "sold" a digitial book; only licence them. Therefore, digital book sales are approximately zero.
(Score: 1) by anotherblackhat on Wednesday May 03 2017, @02:52PM
Big book publishers price Ebooks higher than paper back books.
The demand curve hasn't changed, it's the supply curve being fucked with.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 03 2017, @05:23PM (1 child)
Textbooks? Of course I'll buy paper. Same for DIY guides, astronomy references, and most of my chess library.
Fiction? I much prefer my Nook (or ex Sony Reader) to carrying around a dozen new and prior paperbacks with me.
Magazines? Unless I want to save them in a library, I'll take an LCD tablet, thanks.
And "dying out" is rather sensationalist. Finding its stable marketplace is more like truth.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Thursday May 04 2017, @06:41AM
And "dying out" is rather sensationalist. Finding its stable marketplace is more like truth.
In modern Wall Street terms, stable is equivalent to dying.