This discussion of ebooks has come up within the non-profit
organization we run. Our vice-president is very digitally oriented,
and wants to scan our entire library into the cloud and trash the
dead-tree books (a non-trivial task, considering the size of our
library).
A discussion
On Tue, 2014-01-07 at 20:15 -0800, Tim Bray wrote:
Obvious when one thinks of it, but I hadn’t; the adoption of various
mobile-device form-factors is likely climate-sensitive. But I bet
it’s
also gender-linked; the sizes of the purses and bags women carry seems
fairly orthogonal to the
Since we are on the subject of e-books, here is an interesting article:
As New Services Track Habits, the E-Books Are Reading You
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/technology/as-new-services-track-habits-the-e-books-are-reading-you.html?pagewanted=all_r=2;
For me, writing has always been a form
On Tue, 2014-01-07 at 20:20 -0800, Tim Bray wrote:
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2005/10/06/Edmonton#p-3
The conundrum at the end is apt.
I think e-text sharing gives more people access to written texts than
ever before, and I do believe that scientific journals should all be
I'm on the pretty luddite end of the scale on this topic. I don't have an
ebook reading device.
I agree with a lot of what SS and other quasi-luddites have said.
On the other hand, I sell books books I've written (novel, novellas), and
they're basically all ebooks. Selling paper books is just
On Sun, 2014-01-05 at 20:34 -0800, Tim Bray wrote:
Cargo pants, jackets with internal
chest pockets, or vests (waistcoats I mean, for
Commonwealth-speakers)
Ambient temperatures over most of India mean that we wear what people in
northern latitudes call summer clothes 365 days a year.
No
On Mon, 2014-01-06 at 09:51 +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
To be clear: I am not, by any means, giving up on actual paper books.
But this seems to be a useful additional option.
I believe I have exactly the same motivation as you to get a Kindle. but
it will probably be a Kindle (if at all)
On Sun, 2014-01-05 at 20:26 -0800, Mahesh Murthy wrote:
As a sideways punt on the topic, has anyone noticed how quickly Google
Play
Books has become a real contender to Kindle?
Books here are almost always cheaper (often 50% or more) than on
Amazon
Kindle, and the Google magazine newsstand
On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 7:25 PM, SS cybers...@gmail.com wrote:
No jackets. No waistcoats. No coats mostly. Cargo pants are possible -
but most offices and professions do not provide the opportunity for
people to wear cargo pants.
Obvious when one thinks of it, but I hadn’t; the adoption of
On 6 Jan 2014, at 09:51, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:
In my case, I resisted getting this device for many years. But here are
the things that finally convinced me to get one:
1. As you mentioned, font size flexibility.
2. Portability of large book collections.
3. It is, like a
On Mon, 2013-12-30 at 10:39 +0530, Udhay Shankar N wrote:
So I got myself a Kindle. And whether it is the novelty or the
device-specific aspects (doesn't need ambient light, sufficiently
booklike that one can read sprawled in bed, etc) - I have consumed 3
books in 3 days, more than in the
On 06-Jan-14 8:45 AM, SS wrote:
I find the Kindle/iPad format singularly useless for me. They are
neither here nor there, and the books I want are unavailable. They
cannot be accommodated in my pocket, which necessarily must carry keys,
wallet, glasses and pen. Incidentally I have used my
As a sideways punt on the topic, has anyone noticed how quickly Google Play
Books has become a real contender to Kindle?
Books here are almost always cheaper (often 50% or more) than on Amazon
Kindle, and the Google magazine newsstand has begun to rock.
Have spent more money there in the last
On Sun, Jan 5, 2014 at 7:15 PM, SS cybers...@gmail.com wrote:
The Kindle, iPads and 7 or 8 inch devices are too big to fit in one's
pocket and too small to serve as a laptop.
Well, that is at least partly wrong. I have a Nexus 7 (similar dimensions
to the iPad mini Kindle devices). It fits
On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 12:28 PM, Venkatesh Hariharan ven...@gmail.com wrote:
I was also thinking that with the cost of real estate hovering around
15-20,000 rupees a square feet in Mumbai, a Kindle pays for itself
immediately. Today, I simply have no space to store more books, and the
Kindle
On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 2:49 PM, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay
sankarshan.mukhopadh...@gmail.com wrote:
Kindle/Kindle_app/Flipkart_app/e-book_reader_app are somewhat
irrelevant for me when it comes to reading books in the local
languages. There is a tremendous lack of books and, this makes the
On Fri, Jan 3, 2014 at 10:48 PM, Sumant Srivathsan suma...@gmail.comwrote:
I find most of their arguments can be distilled down to devices are
different from books and I haven't bothered to adjust.
How does one adjust to DRM and bitrot?
S.
--
Homer: Hey, what does this job pay?
Carl:
For DRM, remove it.
For bitrot, I have settled on ePub format which is basically just zipped
HTML. I'm hopeful it will be relatively slow to rot.
-- Charles
As Charles says, just remove DRM.
And I'm betting that bitrot happens far slower than paper decays. Plus, if
DRM has been taken care of, surely copying files is a whole lot easier than
having to buy new deadtree copies.
On Sat, Jan 4, 2014 at 9:28 PM, Thaths tha...@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri,
Mohsin Hamid and Anna Holmes on the subject:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/05/books/review/how-do-e-books-change-the-reading-experience.html
I find most of their arguments can be distilled down to devices are
different from books and I haven't bothered to adjust.
--
Sumant Srivathsan
Well said, Sumanth.
I was also thinking that with the cost of real estate hovering around
15-20,000 rupees a square feet in Mumbai, a Kindle pays for itself
immediately. Today, I simply have no space to store more books, and the
Kindle is therefore very handy.
Another benefit with the Kindle is
On 30-Dec-2013, at 10:39 am, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:
So I got myself a Kindle. And whether it is the novelty or the
device-specific aspects (doesn't need ambient light, sufficiently
booklike that one can read sprawled in bed, etc) - I have consumed 3
books in 3 days, more
I think I got my first Kindle five years ago. It was probably the second
generation of e-ink Kindle devices. It helped that the next day, I was on
the long flight back from the US to India. In other word, my reading
immediately went up. I continue to read paper books, and enjoy them.
However the
This article (shared by Ingrid) covers significant aspects about e- vs
p-reading.
Here's my thought:
I have taken to e-reading to grab those moments of solitude, to
parallel-read numerous books on my phone. My consumption of titles/stored
articles has increased. But I am not really at peace while
BTW regardless of whether you prefer ebooks or paper books, I suggest
goodreads.com for keeping track of your I'd like to read this list and
crowdsourcing suggestions of new stuff to read.
-- Charles
On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 4:38 PM, Sharat Satyanarayana
sharat.satyanaray...@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 11:15 PM, Charles Haynes
charles.hay...@gmail.com wrote:
BTW regardless of whether you prefer ebooks or paper books, I suggest
goodreads.com for keeping track of your I'd like to read this list and
crowdsourcing suggestions of new stuff to read.
Inevitable thread drift:
On 30 December 2013 17:00, Biju Chacko biju.cha...@gmail.com wrote:
Having the books on my tablet/phone allowed me to grab a few minutes
every now and then through my day to read. My only irritation is that
they tend to run out of juice whenever I want to read.
I've been using ebook readers
On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:
So I got myself a Kindle. And whether it is the novelty or the
device-specific aspects (doesn't need ambient light, sufficiently
booklike that one can read sprawled in bed, etc) - I have consumed 3
books in 3 days, more
On Dec 31, 2013, at 11:24 AM, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay
sankarshan.mukhopadh...@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 10:39 AM, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:
So I got myself a Kindle. And whether it is the novelty or the
device-specific aspects (doesn't need ambient light,
On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 8:48 AM, Mark Seiden m...@seiden.com wrote:
my book reading has gone down, but the size of the books-i-should-read
(someday) list has grown dramatically.
now all i have to do is find time to read them.
Amen, brother!
While I love my Kindle e-ink reader, I remain a
On 30-Dec-2013, at 10:39 am, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:
So I got myself a Kindle. And whether it is the novelty or the
device-specific aspects (doesn't need ambient light, sufficiently
booklike that one can read sprawled in bed, etc) - I have consumed 3
books in 3 days, more
On Mon, Dec 30, 2013 at 12:04 PM, Thejaswi Udupa
thejaswi.ud...@gmail.com wrote:
My reading more than doubled this past year. Nothing to do with a Kindle
(I'm still firmly in the deadtree camp), but a lifestyle change where I
decided to ditch private transport and depend on public transport
So I got myself a Kindle. And whether it is the novelty or the
device-specific aspects (doesn't need ambient light, sufficiently
booklike that one can read sprawled in bed, etc) - I have consumed 3
books in 3 days, more than in the preceding 3 months.
So - have you folks noticed your reading
I use the Kindle app on a 7 Android tablet and, since I started, I read
more each month than in any of the 5 or 10 previous years. One big reason
is the instant gratification, see a notice about an interesting book in a
magazine or blog or whatever and POP, you have it.
I think that:
- the
It has happened with me too and all these days I was wondering if it
happened to others too or just to me. I attribute it more to the kid with a
new toy phenomenon though.
Best wishes,
Pradeep Kapur
+91-94370-28400
On 30 December 2013 10:55, Tim Bray tb...@textuality.com wrote:
I use the
So - have you folks noticed your reading habits change with the means of
reading? Is this a special case of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis [1]?
Short answer, yes. Slightly longer answer: yes, but eventually it became
like any other book that I ignore.
But I don't see how Sapir-Whorf is relevant
I have always been a voracious reader - but a lot of my reading is pulp,
classic and out of print pulp when and where I can get it. This gettability
varies between second hand bookstores (hole in the wall real ones as well as
amazon sellers) and ebooks of one type or the other.
So I won't say
On 30 December 2013 10:39, Udhay Shankar N ud...@pobox.com wrote:
So I got myself a Kindle. And whether it is the novelty or the
device-specific aspects (doesn't need ambient light, sufficiently
booklike that one can read sprawled in bed, etc) - I have consumed 3
books in 3 days, more than in
I stated on the Kindle but then found much lower prices on Google Play
Newsstand - and magazines too in full living color.
I've subscribed to several magazines on there of late - and have begun
enjoying being notified if new issues being automatically downloaded.
On 29-Dec-2013 9:37 pm, Ingrid
I convert all my books to ePub format and host them on a Linode instance so
that I have them all anywhere I have internet connectivity. Given our
peripatetic lifestyle it's a convenient way to access our library (though
honestly the whole library fits on on 16gb micro-sd card)
-- Charles
On
BTW, a useful fact for those just getting into this: If you’re reading
kindle books, Amazon lets you have a large number of clients, over 10. So
if you trust your family enough to share your Amazon password, the
buying/using unit for a book is, effectively, the household, which is as it
should
My reading more than doubled this past year. Nothing to do with a Kindle
(I'm still firmly in the deadtree camp), but a lifestyle change where I
decided to ditch private transport and depend on public transport
entirely--adds to my commute time, but also adds to my reading-time.
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