In praise of dead trees

[sabotabby]

You know what's great?

Books that are printed on paper.

You know why?

Because I can open up a 100-year-old paper book and it will still work the way it's supposed to. Unlike, say, my three-year-old Sony Reader, which now does not work because it's incompatible with Adobe Digital Editions and the Sony Reader software is incompatible with the new Mac OS, and Calibre, which is open source, can't manage library e-books. The device can't download from the library directly because it's full of garbage that Sony put on there and slow as shit to boot.

So now I can only read e-books that I steal or buy. Which is not something I'm in the habit of doing.

Thanks, capitalism!

Comments

[franklanguage.livejournal.com]

I think I'm on my third Kindle; I lost one, one started to go funky in the display, and surprisingly, I have the one I'm currently using for about two years.

I love/hate it—mostly hate; I wouldn't have chosen anything that came from Amazon, but if I want to read something, my roommate buys it. I have no idea if it can do library books; I'd also like to find out if I can read e-books on my iPad, but I currently only use that to play Scrabble on before I go to sleep.

You know what else e-books can't do? Get autographed.

[sabotabby]

Admittedly the screen on this one and the interface is less than ideal, as the technology has improved in three years, but I am against buying a new thing or learning a new thing when it's not necessary.

I have no shelf space and already got rid of all the books I had the heart to give up, so it's just e-books and library books for me. Preferably e-books from the library, as that takes up no space in my life after I've read them.

Good point re: autographs. Or just the cool inscriptions that people write in them. I have this old book of Mayakovsky's poetry (not the good poems, hahah) where the giver wrote a really hilarious dedication, and it makes an already special book even more special.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

I can get library books on my Kindle, but they have to be in the format that Kindle likes. It is limiting, but not entirely preventing.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Once my eyes got old, the ability to increase the font size became a necessity. I chose Kindle over illiteracy.

[sabotabby]

Mine doesn't change font sizes that well.

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I'm getting there but I'm also stocking up on magnifying glasses for the books I already own. I really want to embrace the power of And.

[stormdog.livejournal.com]

I talked about this with the archivist at my undergrad school a few times. A lot of people assume that digitizing things means you have easy to preserve copies that will outlast paper, which can burn or rot or whatever. Yes and no. There are *so* many variables to consider with stability of access and preservation of electronic storage over time....

[sabotabby]

Even digital technology a few years out is essentially unusable. One of the bits I liked best in Utopia had to do with a frantic search for a computer that could read floppies, because the mad scientist's research was all done twenty or thirty years before.

It's not even a matter of which information survives the apocalypse; it's which information will survive the next decade.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

I love ebooks for various reasons but I sympathise. It's annoying that so many ereader devices seem to have built-in features that are really pushing for the services of specific companies.

I'm confused about what the trouble is. Can't you just manually place the files in your Sony Reader? Maybe there's a way around some of these issues that is obscure but works?

[sabotabby]

I can manually (well, through Calibre) place .epub files in the Sony Reader. But library e-books aren't .epub, they're .acsm with DRM, so you have to have them in a digital reader to transfer them over.

[the_axel]

And this is why it's better to steal digital media...

[sabotabby]

I can't steal books. Too many of my friends are authors.

I did legit sign out some books and then illegally downloaded them in an act of desperation, but now I have a workaround so I won't do that anymore.

[princealberic.livejournal.com]

Do you need to use Calibre to place .epub files in your reader? I have a Kindle, so it may be different for me, but I usually never use Calibre's "transfer to device" feature -- I manually go to the Kindle's directory (like it's a USB stick) and place them in the right folder.

Is there a digital reader (like an open source one of some kind) that might work on any of your devices and let you transfer over? I find it really weird that there isn't some way to work around this issue, it can't be that highly specific since you're not using some obscure brand's ereader...

EDIT: Ah, nvm, I see you've found a way to work it out.

[sabotabby]

Yeah, I tried directly transferring them and same problem.

But I worked it out, so it's all good. Yay plugins.

[ironed_orchid]

DRM formats are the number one reason I don't own a dedicated reading device.

[sabotabby]

I thought I was clever by going with the Reader and not something more proprietary but it's finally caught up with me.

Smashwords or smash the corporations?

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

A bit of both.

I've got a Sony Reader, too. And I know you know, but I think it bears iterating: it's not the machine's problem, it's the fucking DRM that's all over the place!

My Reader works just fine, on pirated material and stuff whose publishers are smart enough to release sans digital rights management bullshit. And some of the major publishers are onboard with the latter, using open source standards and not treating readers like thieves.

Re: Smashwords or smash the corporations?

[sabotabby]

DRM is a fucking plague on humanity. It doesn't actually deter piracy or protect creators; it just makes things difficult for honest people.

Re: Smashwords or smash the corporations?

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Yup. And in fact, I think it largely screws creators.

I actually used Peter Watts tip-jar last year (no wait, that was 2014! Jeezuz ... And I owe him a god damned email! *guilt, guilt, guilt*) to recompense him directly for my pirated ecopy of Echopraxia, since I wasn't able to get it without DRM (which is weird, because I thought Tor was one of the publishers that had decided not to use it. But I digress).

In fact this whole comment is a digression. What the hell was my point?

Oh yeah. I think DRM is used primarily to try to keep paper economically viable. My impression is that the publishers who really like it are the ones who price ebooks more or less the same as (and sometimes more than) paper copies.

Re: Smashwords or smash the corporations?

[sabotabby]

Say hi for me. :)

I'm surprised TOR uses DRM. I thought all of his stuff was for free off his website anyway.

I don't know if the point of DRM is paper; ebooks are ultimately not economically viable, since they can be copied infinitely. It's to keep the artificial pricing system functional.

Re: Smashwords or smash the corporations?

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised TOR uses DRM.

I'm almost certain they don't. My best guess is that it was a new book and the merchant I tried added it by default (and by mistake). Or else, I managed to screw up somehow. In any case, I couldn't make it open and got a refund before I "stole" it, then gave the money directly to the writer.

I don't know if the point of DRM is paper; ebooks are ultimately not economically viable, since they can be copied infinitely.

I'm not so sure about that. Outfits like Tor or even Kristine Kathryn Rusch's WMG (or even Baen) claim to be doing good business in reasonably-priced, DRM-free books. Personally, I've found myself impulse-buying again, in part because some of these folks make it so easy for me to give them my money.

Re: Smashwords or smash the corporations?

[sabotabby]

Yeah, they're also banking on goodwill, as opposed to the less fandom-y based publishers.

[kryss-labryn.livejournal.com]

See, that's why everything needs to be in .txt. Because at least that one isn't going away. Probably. But you still need electricity to access it, whereas a book, all you need is light.

That's why I want them to keep teaching kids handwriting as well as printing. No, no one ever uses it; even I only ever used it for writing "Merry Christmas" on cards to my grandmother.

BUT. I can read handwriting. My six-year-old daughter can't (yet), not even her own name. Will they ever use it? Possibly, on very rare occasions. Probably not, so far as writing in it goes.

But without it, so much completely accessible knowledge will be lost...

[sabotabby]

I'm not super-convinced that handwriting is a necessary skill, but it's possibly because I never quite mastered it myself. But also I'm not an elementary educator or parent, so I recognize that I get no say in this.

[kryss-labryn.livejournal.com]

Oh, I certainly never mastered it. I can go it but it requires a lot of thought and effort.

Nevertheless, I can read it just fine, which means that I can read all the letters from my now-dead grandmother and mother from over the years that I've saved.

And my kids can't. :/