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When consuming a book, I prefer it to be published in which format?
| 26% | 51 votes |
| 25% | 50 votes |
| 36% | 70 votes |
| 0% | 1 votes |
| 3% | 7 votes |
| 0% | 0 votes |
| 4% | 8 votes |
| 3% | 7 votes |
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- Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
- Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
- This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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When consuming a book, I prefer it to be published in which format?
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(1)
The meek shall inherit the earth -- they are too weak to refuse.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 23 2020, @02:10PM (35 children)
Physical hardback. When you're reading you should be reading in good light, regardless of what display media you're using. In good light, paper is much better than screens on the eyes and has no screen glare issues at all.
Physical hardbacks are also vastly superior at spider sqooshing. You can easily sqoosh thousands of the evil little fuckers before needing to replace a hardback. And when it does need replacing it will cost far less than a phone or tablet.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Touché) by RamiK on Friday October 23 2020, @03:46PM
eInk...
compiling...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 23 2020, @04:34PM (21 children)
Who has the undistracted attention span for books anymore?
Even since my eyesight went to shit, I totally understand how Readers Digest and magazine articles that can be read in one bathroom session came to be so popular.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday October 23 2020, @05:10PM (18 children)
Maybe, you need to put down that phone/tablet/phablet/remote/mouse/keyboard and pick up a book. Seriously, there is no reason you can't have time to read. Now, if you just want to rest your eyes. There's this nice place called Librivox [librivox.org].
As a modest proposal, might I suggest:
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin [librivox.org] (A very interesting read / listening?)
Works by Benjamin Franklin [librivox.org] (The guy was really good at writing.)
Works by Jonathan Swift [librivox.org] (A modest proposal is short and pretty crazy.)
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday October 23 2020, @05:24PM (17 children)
I've got no shortage of titles that might interest me.
I do have an extreme shortage of continuous time blocks available to read in (growing children will do that), and when I do have the time eye fatigue sets in and spoils the experience after an hour or so.
Last novels I read were actually e-books delivered to my 5" phone, approximately 8 years ago while on a one week vacation.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Freeman on Friday October 23 2020, @05:38PM
More inconvenient I can accept, but it's not impossible. Plus, it's good for your children to see you read.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday October 24 2020, @12:47AM (12 children)
Try a hardback print book. Far easier on the eyes. Especially if you have an incandescent light for reading purposes. They're worlds better than LEDs and don't even bring up shitty CFLs.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 24 2020, @01:21PM (11 children)
That would be admitting I'm old. I still live by The Who's My Generation lyrics [google.com].
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday October 24 2020, @03:14PM (10 children)
Nah, build yourself a library or turn an existing room into one. Then you have to get hardbacks. If anyone questions your youth, say you're getting your millennial on and doing it ironically.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Saturday October 24 2020, @05:30PM (9 children)
My take on the "My Generation" vibe isn't about what others think, it's about how I view myself.
I hope I die before I get old. 100 years of age can still be young, but as the body breaks down it wears on the spirit.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 25 2020, @12:55AM (8 children)
Plus you hopefully start seeing what a clueless idiot you used to be. I miss the lack of aches and pains but I don't miss the absolute certainty that I knew everything while actually knowing fuck-all about anything.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 25 2020, @02:27AM (7 children)
I pretty well clued in to knowing fuck-all about most things at a pretty young age. Knowing more than my High School comp-sci teacher was kind of an early primer into that... Yeah, I know more than the teacher, but I sure as shit don't know everything myself.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 25 2020, @12:20PM (6 children)
Oh, I was talking wisdom not book learning. It's the difference between knowing THC isn't especially harmful to those using it and knowing (without having to test the hypothesis first) why it's a colossally stupid idea to have a babysitter who brings along a bong.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 25 2020, @01:03PM (5 children)
You remind me of my first marriage... I knew it was bad, hell bent for implosion, and just had to ride it out - something I had to do rather than walk away from. That doesn't feel like wisdom exactly, more like: if I don't experience this for myself, I'll never really know.
Babysitter with a bong, yeah - that's a social problem rather than a bio-chemical one. Flip it over: kids can learn to handle guns responsibly, but packing a Glock at the Junior prom? Not good at all.
Back on the home library topic: in the mid 90s I built a 4'x7'6"x6" shelving unit to hold my CDs, VHS and cassette tapes, and about 8' of paperback books. Still have the shelf, but when the kids were about 8 years old (2007ish timeframe) divested of all the media - books included, just so much more convenient in digital form, and the NAS doesn't get scratches or peanut butter smears.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 25 2020, @03:02PM (4 children)
Or tooth marks, if positioned wisely.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday October 25 2020, @11:24PM (3 children)
You should see the "safe" I built to house the wife's 2003 vintage PC mid-tower while the kids were sub-toddler age...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 26 2020, @01:21AM (2 children)
Sounds like a fun project but an electric dog fence would have worked just as well and been easier.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday October 26 2020, @02:27AM (1 child)
The dog fence was in the yard (we had no dog...) didn't need electrification until they were about 7 years old.
Two diagnosed with Autism, I've forgotten all the times the police have returned them to the house (we keep hoping they'll keep the older one, no such luck yet) - probably about 4-5 times each in total, now 17 and 19 years old.
Wife insisted on using her PC in the play area, so putting the CPU in a ventilated box was a bit easier. Those "child proof gates" on the kitchen only lasted until they reached about 3 years of age, at which point they could defeat them any number of ways. Now we have combination locks on the refrigerator and freezer.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 26 2020, @03:19AM
Man, your life is just weird. You must laugh a lot.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday October 26 2020, @03:45PM
I find e-reader on my phone works - snatch the occasional 10 mins when the kids are in the playground or 20 mins to help forget whatever stuff is going on at work when I am going to sleep. ebook is also great because you can hold it one handed while bottle feeding a baby/rocking baby to sleep (depending on age of your kids).
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @01:07AM (1 child)
My eyes get tired when reading from any kind of CRT (or the equivalent, such as a typical laptop screen). They are just too bright. I read Soylent News in nostalgic green on black form.
Books I prefer to read on e-paper. It works with reflected light, like paper, so it works well even in sunlight. The background is light grey, so it isn't as offensively bright under the sun.
I use the illumination built into my e-reader when reading in bed in the dark, with brightness near the darkest setting.
-- hendrik
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday November 09 2020, @02:54AM
I do prefer "night mode" for most of my PC work, and I notice that if I'm reading dark on light screens my eyes will get very fixed-focus on the screen distance and take the better part of an hour to recover for "normal" distance vision. Still, the glowing screens of all forms I can read without corrective lenses, while books and other printed non-glowing text seems to require very bright artificial or natural sunlight for me to read it without corrective lenses. Classic aperture size depth of field, contracted pupils make a much deeper depth of field for sharp focus.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Saturday November 14 2020, @02:52AM (1 child)
Actually for me it is the reverse. I can't sit down for an hour and watch TV. I actually had a new years resolution a few years ago to watch more of it and managed to watch The Expanse. Took me several months to do it, and I haven't really watched anything since. Mostly just youtube videos that can be watched in said bathroom session. My 2 favorite teams (the Nationals and Dodgers) won the last 2 world series, and did I watch them on TV? Not really, I listened to them on the radio, usually while I was doing something else.
And my eyes went to shit too. I can't read a physical book anymore, even with reading glasses. But on the Kindle, I can adjust the fonts and brightness so I can read easily. And I do read. I have one of those Kindle prime unlimited accounts for $9.99/month, and I binge read - about 10 books a month.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday November 14 2020, @05:02AM
Personal physical situations with eyesight focus and light sensitivity, hearing acuity/tinnitus and other factors like joint pain, ability to sit comfortably etc. have a tremendous influence in preferred media formats. For instance: bladder issues and cinema movies tend to be incompatible.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2020, @11:23PM (3 children)
Yea, they're useful at smacking kids. Now get off my lawn!
Seriously though, I've moved to digital nowadays just for the convenience. Don't need to lug around a bunch of books when I travel and takes less space. I also move homes quite often, so keeps that light as well.
I do keep physical copies of my absolute fav. books though but everything else I just go digital, cheaper and cleaner. But yea, nothing beats the experience of reading from a physical copy.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday October 26 2020, @01:26AM (2 children)
Yeah, I read plenty in digital format but I look at those copies as lower in value even to paperbacks. They're ephemeral, one good drive crash and they're just gone. You can drop a paperback into the toilet and still read it after it's dried, assuming the water wasn't blue or otherwise colored at the time.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by etherscythe on Thursday October 29 2020, @01:43PM (1 child)
If a single drive crash takes it out, you're doing backups wrong. Also, most books purchased can be downloaded from the service again.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 30 2020, @02:10AM
The second is why I don't bother including them in backups. Mind you, when I pay for an ebook, I immediately grab a pirate copy and store/read that instead. This whole not owning a book I pay for business model can suck my entire ass.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @12:47AM (5 children)
From what I've seen here, the missing option is:
Any media that deprives the author of payment.
They all live exclusively for privilege of contributing to the art, of course.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 26 2020, @09:31PM (4 children)
I'm not going to lie. This is true. I look for ebooks from free sites first.
But I also look for ebooks from free sites last. That is, if I can't get it free, I don't get it at all. I can't afford it.
Each author is competing not just against the other authors of today, but all the other authors whose works are out of copyright. Almost all of it is just as available as whatever was written yesterday. An author today is competing with almost the entire compendium of human knowledge that was put in written form, not just for payment but for attention.
Any new work is a drop in the ocean, and the ocean has a vast multitude of drops already -- each new drop is essentially worthless. So an author had better be doing it to contribute to the art, because that's all they're going to get for it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2020, @04:51AM (3 children)
Ever tried recreational reading of Chaucer?
Art, taste, needs, desires, language, cognition... all evolve.
At least I hope so
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 28 2020, @02:24PM (2 children)
Yes. Quite the witty fucker he was. Would recommend.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday November 07 2020, @02:22PM (1 child)
Yeh, it was required reading for me in high school, and I resented every minute of it knowing I was going to be tested on it. It was not fun. It was enforced busy work as far as I was concerned.
I wanted to go tinker with all the broken TVs I dug out of the neighbors trash pile. I loved taking them apart then trying to build something else out of the parts.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @01:12AM
I once read Chaucer out loud to a girl that was into old text. I read it phonetically as if it were Dutch. She was impressed. Apparently Dutch phonetics produces a reasonable approximation to what Middle English is thought to sound like.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Saturday November 14 2020, @03:01AM (1 child)
I would leave those spiders alone. Almost all of them are totally harmless, at least to us, and they build their webs in a corner or somewhere else out of the way. Meanwhile, they get rid of the real evil fuckers - houseflies - who land on shit, then your food.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 14 2020, @03:08PM
Says the guy who doesn't have to squish or poison dozens of black widows and a few fiddlebacks every year for invading where he sits or sleeps.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2020, @03:12PM (1 child)
I prefer ebooks on an ereader (or AR glasses), but only for novels and other books that are meant to be read linearly. Reference books, I prefer paperback unless it's large size and more a few inches thick.
(Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Tuesday November 03 2020, @06:23PM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Friday October 23 2020, @04:52PM (11 children)
I prefer a nice hard cover paper book for the reading experience. Also, there is no substitute for flipping through a book for reference. Yes, it's super awesome to have full-text search, but what if you don't remember what was said? All you have is a random paraphrase in your head? Yeah, that's not going to cut it in a full-text search.
I really do love a nice e-ink display, it's like paper as far as how hard / easy it is on the eyes. It has days worth of power per charge and you can get ones that aren't tied to Amazon's advertisement/consumption chain. Yes, a Nook e-ink e-book reader is tied to Barnes and Noble, but you can easily load DRM-Free e-books on it, without having to go through Amazon or Barnes and Noble.
Good stuff:
Project Gutenberg [gutenberg.org]
Baen Books, Free Library [baen.com] (Nicer looking list: Baen Books, Free Library) [baen.com]
Librivox [librivox.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2020, @01:43PM
Also good stuff:
https://calibre-ebook.com/ [calibre-ebook.com] - a FOSS ebook manager. I use it to load my DRM-free ebooks onto my Kindle. Works with other readers too.
(Score: 2) by Spamalope on Sunday November 08 2020, @03:25AM (1 child)
Yep. I've got a room full of physical books and no more space.
I really like ebooks for front to back reading but dislike them for reference. I want physical book marks and notes if it's a working book like manual. We don't even have hard bound book sized e-ink readers yet... (sadly, I'd love one)
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 09 2020, @04:18PM
The Onyx Boox Note 3 is slightly larger than a standard "octavo", 6" x 9" / 15cm x 23cm hardcover book. It also costs more than 2.5 times as much as the "NOOK GlowLight Plus".https://onyxboox.com/boox_note3 [onyxboox.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_size [wikipedia.org]
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @01:15AM (7 children)
I'd like a laptop with an e-paper screen. Would be fine for editing stuff outside on bright sunlight. Should run GNU/Linux. Would not use it for animations.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 09 2020, @04:20PM (6 children)
You could roll your own or there was some weird sort of hybrid device I saw some time ago. Still, e-paper screens aren't a reasonable alternative for a computer screen as of yet. The refresh rates and life of the technology would be sub-optimal to say the least.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @05:09PM (5 children)
Refresh rate is low. But for editing plain ordinary ASCII text it's probably OK.
It's probably OK for a *lot* of things that used to be done on text-only CRTs over a dial-in acoustic coupler.
Especially because with the right hardware interface you might only have to rewrite the part of the screen that actually changes.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday November 09 2020, @06:02PM (4 children)
There are some definite use cases that could make sense, but as a general purpose screen, it's got some serious downsides. I would love an e-ink screen that surmounted the current technical problems that it has. I was almost tempted enough to fiddle with one anyway, but I changed my mind after watching a video of the refresh rate for a standard DIY e-ink screen. Sure that was a couple years ago, but it's not gotten hugely better since then. It gave me a bit more of an appreciation for what companies like Kobo, Barnes and Noble and Amazon bring to their e-reader devices. The standard devices you get from the manufacturer aren't just drop-in good to go, like an LCD screen. You've got to bring something more to get the screens to work well, as the base refresh rate for the screen is abysmally slow.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday November 11 2020, @11:14PM (3 children)
As far as I can tell, the entire secret is *not* having to rewrite the *entire* screen very often at all. Certainly not often enough to do animation.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday November 12 2020, @03:42PM (2 children)
I guess, but even a simple image on a cheaper e-ink screen takes multiple screen flashes and it's very obnoxious. I got one of the first versions of the Nook Simple Touch and had hands on with one of the original nooks with the lcd screen on the bottom of the device. Neither one was obnoxious when turning a page. Perhaps all they were doing was calculating what portions of the screen were already filled and flipped those sections that needed flipping. Whatever they did, it was vastly superior to the e-ink screen tests I saw with screens direct from the manufacturer. I would be a lot more interested, if it was much more plug and play.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday November 12 2020, @10:40PM (1 child)
It would be useless for web browsing, with the number of unnecesssary animations that bedeck almost every web page these days. But it could work for plain ascii text editing. I could develop software in bright sunlight!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2020, @10:48PM
I used an ebook reader as my primary web-reading device and it worked well. Just block images if they cause problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 23 2020, @07:13PM (1 child)
I read on the go a lot and love reading outside, so I prefer my books physically light. Order of preference:
1) DRM-free Ebook: I have >20GB of ebooks on my phone's microSD card.
2) Audiobook: Good for driving/some types of gaming, but very narrator-quality dependent. I can imagine starting an audiobook, hating the narrator, and going to the ebook instead, though I have yet to regret an audiobook that much.
3) Paperback: Cheaper than hardback and less heavy. I read Stephen King this way exclusively; horror does not do well with a bright screen.
4) Hardback: Good for things you want to last (ie. references), but not very portable.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @01:18AM
Try inverse video, that is bright letters on a black background.
Remember when that was the normal video mode, and dark letters on a bright background was called inverse video and used for emphasis?
-- hendrik
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 24 2020, @01:11AM (3 children)
Dead tree for entertainment reading, DRM-free electronic format for textbooks, training and reference works.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Saturday October 24 2020, @04:59AM (2 children)
I would almost say the opposite. For anything that is going to involve binge reading then I'd rather have it on my laptop. But if it's the electrical system troubleshooting manual for my car then the paper copy is better since I can take it in the garage and not worry about getting a little grease on it (or bringing a power supply).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 24 2020, @12:41PM
There was a time when I agreed with your preference for physical manuals and the like. As noted in my comment below, aging eyes and dead tree print don't go well together.
Especially when it comes to blueprints, circuitry, and the like, give me the ebook version. I can blow it up until everything is clear, then print it off and carry the pages I need to the shop floor or into the garage.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday October 26 2020, @01:11PM
I was working on a friend's car where the interlock wire between the brake pedal and the automatic transmission had broken so it couldn't be shifted outta park. There's a physical override button on the solenoid you can press to release the transmission ... if you can find it under the car interior parts. Anyway some google found me some great blueprints showing where the button is, and a nice long (for monetization purposes) 30 minute youtube video showed how to remove a minimal amount of trim to push the button.
Anyway the point is a printed manual is probably better, but the closest auto parts store was 2 miles away and may not have had that haynes manual and the printed manual might not have gone into enough detail anyway.
Meanwhile I NEED my phone to do mechanical work now a days because I take photos which makes reassembly easy. Been awhile since I finished a job with parts still leftover. So if I NEED the phone with me anyway...
(Score: 3, Offtopic) by Runaway1956 on Saturday October 24 2020, @12:32PM (4 children)
Who consumes books? You guys are doing it all wrong . . .
As for what I prefer, that would be physical, paper, bound books. Hardcover looks cool, but paperbacks are easy to carry in a pocket or an overnight bag.
Unfortunately, aging eyeballs need large print, which is oftentimes unavailable. I've been converted to ebooks, since I can make the print any size I want/need on the fly.
DRM? No way. Even if I purchase the "right" to read a DRM'd book, I'll pirate the non-DRM'd version. I need to be able to manage my own digital rights however I see fit.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2020, @02:49AM (1 child)
You're being too literal, albeit literarily.
As for myself, what form I prefer depends on the book and how I use it. If it's a book I'm just going to read once, as most text-only ones are, I prefer an ebook version, on an ereader. Because what I'm really interested in is the story. The ereader is a more convenient form of story delivery device than a physical book.
However, I have quite a few artbooks; most of them are large softcover with a few hardcover versions. For looking at the art, an ereader is useless. The physical form of the book itself is a better delivery device for viewing the art.
But I also have a very books that I have in hardcover, most of them leather-bound. For those, it's not only the story or (for non-fiction) the text that I want access to, but I like it to the extent that the physical object itself is something I like. These are books that I hope will long outlast my ownership of them, and that many others will read and enjoy long after I'm gone.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @01:23AM
Math books are like art books. They work well on paper. When they say, "substituting in equation 4-17", you can hold the current page with your thumb while flipping through to equation 4-17 and then see both the original and the substitution. Essential when they sneak i a little simplification diuring the substitution.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2020, @11:26PM
I wrap my books in an aluminium sheath with hidden spring loaded poison tipped shurikens! The book is the mightier than the pen! Those fools taking me for easy prey as I strut down the alley in the middle of the night have no idea the amount of education coming their way.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 27 2020, @05:10AM
They're covering-up news about Hunter Biden's laptop because it was full of pirated ebooks.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday October 24 2020, @09:17PM (14 children)
The wonderful thing about paper books is that they don't disappear because some company decided to change their DRM. And as an added bonus, the author is likely to get more per copy from a physical book than they do from eBooks.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday October 25 2020, @01:00AM (7 children)
Screw Potted Plant, it's a lousy communist! Always living off the efforts of other people. Watering, turning, repotting, it's spitting distance from slavery!
Pet Rock 2020, because it don't want shit from you or me!
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Funny) by DECbot on Monday October 26 2020, @01:37AM (5 children)
Pet Rock is just a tool for the establishment classes to be hurled at the foreheads of the unprivileged classes when they speak out.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday November 09 2020, @01:24AM (4 children)
Or vice versa.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday November 09 2020, @07:44PM (3 children)
What do you mean, hurl the unprivileged classes against Pet Rock? Your suggestions requires too much effort on the establishment class to work.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday November 11 2020, @11:18PM (2 children)
pet rocks are for the unprivileged classes to be hurled at the foreheads of the establishment classes when they speak out.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Thursday November 12 2020, @01:08PM (1 child)
That didn't come out right.
pet rocks are for the unprivileged classes to hurl at the foreheads of the establishment classes
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2020, @03:49PM
Remember not to throw your last pet rock, put that one in a sock.
(Score: 5, Funny) by maxwell demon on Wednesday October 28 2020, @01:44PM
Sorry to hear that it's so bad at being a communist. So what would be your suggestion of a plant whose communism is less lousy? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Monday October 26 2020, @01:03PM (5 children)
My research into the topic indicates the financial effects of self publishing vs signing on with a publisher swamp the difference between pbook and ebook by a factor of at least 10. By far the main determinant of author income is deciding who publishes.
Certainly its well known that a self published ebook on amazon $2 to $10 the author gets 70% minus 5 cents per delivery or whatever the stat, which is probably the highest profit possible. But will total revenue be higher if a tech author signs on with oreilly or manning or similar? How about packt?
You want a lit agent? They want 15% of any advance, but if they get you more than 15% better deal I guess both your and the lit agent win?
There's a "famous" article you can google for along the lines of 70% of authors don't earn out no royalty checks for them, just advance payments. Publishers can gamble longer than most authors can gamble. If you can't interest a professional risk taking publisher, then your personal odds of self publishing are likely even worse than 70%. So at least 70% of authors will make more money taking an advance check from a publisher than they will self publishing, all things being equal. Of course the odds of having both top 30% author skills AND publisher level marketing skills are kinda low...
I looked into the whole thing a long time ago and the marketplace is (was?) so competitive that to some extent you'll probably get about the same return no matter what you do as the market pushes every path to return about the same (arbitrage of authors LOL). There will be outlier scenarios of course.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday October 26 2020, @01:22PM (4 children)
This sounds a lot like the music industry, where if you are good enough you can sign with a big company where they put you perpetually in debt for the rest of your life with advances and recoupable costs, or you can be independent and be assured most people will never hear about you. Which isn't surprising, since many book publishing companies are part of the same conglomerates as recording companies.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by VLM on Monday October 26 2020, @04:20PM (3 children)
You can just say they're wildly overrepresented with Jewish executives and there's lots of nepotism and revolving doors. Just a coincidence I'm sure, like so many other coincidences. Like journalism where at one point like 25% of CNN employees (or was in MSNBC) were Israeli.
Publishers (music and books) and journalism are not very diverse at all.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Monday October 26 2020, @06:41PM (2 children)
They do what they do because it's immensely profitable for the publisher to do it that way. No international Jewish conspiracy of the anti-Semitic imagination required to explain it.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 28 2020, @12:57PM (1 child)
Oh none of that needed, just a coincidence of the religion of their executives, that's all.
I mean, what are the odds, assuming there's not preferential hiring, etc?
World certainly is full of odd coincidences involving those folks specifically.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DECbot on Wednesday October 28 2020, @05:06PM
It's not a sophisticated, secret international Jewish plot or anything elaborate like that. Call it what it is, nepotism. "Hey, I know a guy that would be a perfect fit for your open position. Met him at Harvard, he goes to my synagogue." This isn't unique to Judaism, the term "nepotism" comes from the practice of Catholic popes and bishops assigning or recommending their nephews to important positions [wikipedia.org].
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by ese002 on Monday October 26 2020, @05:18PM
In non-covid times I do most of by book reading on planes or at hotels where there isn't much else to do. E-books are great because I don't have to pack them or carry them around. But they are harder to read and in 2020 their transportation advantages are meaningless. So that leaves physical books. Yes, they are heavy but it doesn't matter because I'm not going anywhere.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday October 27 2020, @08:45PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Insightful) by WeekendMonkey on Wednesday October 28 2020, @12:37PM (1 child)
I used to read a lot and I would buy hardbacks out of preference, but changes to my daily routine mean that I don't have the same free time and I find it difficult to keep going with a physical book. So a few years back I switched to audio books and now I listen on the daily drive and when walking the dog. For autobiographies read by the author this is actually better than the printed form.
(Score: 1) by schusselig on Thursday October 29 2020, @08:05PM
My mind tends to drift too much to remember anything from an audiobook.
But, I would like to try a reading by the author of Franklin's autobiography mentioned above....
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 30 2020, @11:42PM (2 children)
Cellulose disagrees with me.
I *READ* books and pass them on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2020, @02:04PM
you can't read an audiobook.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday November 14 2020, @03:11PM
Try a bit of amylase. Remove that problem quite easily.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.