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.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

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

[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....

[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?

[ironed_orchid]

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

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.

[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...