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2013-08-01 09:43 3990658 Anonymous (e-reader-vs-book.jpg 450x303 20kB)
Given the sheer number of bibliophiles on this board, I figure that many of you will have an opinion on this. Do you consider e-readers or physical books to be superior? Or do you appreciate them both as separate mediums, equally respectable for different reasons? Why? Do you feel there is an ethical dillemma in allowing a couple of "gatekeepers" (the e-reader companies) to dictate what is published or do you feel as though the major publishers in the industry have been doing that already? Do you have a physical preference between the two? If you are a fan of e-readers, how do you solve the eyestrain issue? In my opinion e-readers are fantastic for things like magazines and short story publications because such publications are easily destroyed and fall apart quickly. They're also good for finding older works that are often times difficult if not impossible to find in print. Ditto for really popular flavor of the month works. Overall I like the feel of physical books a lot better, mostly because I grew up with them but also because there is something satisfying about running the pages through your fingers and feeling the thickness in your right hand dwindle as you near the end. That and I don't need to charge them or worry about losing them to DRM. Anyhow, opinions all?

1 min later 3990663 Anonymous
>>3990658 I don't usually waste too much time pondering about artificial, superfluous dichotomies like this particular one.

3 min later 3990670 Anonymous
>>3990663 The thing is, this actually is an important debate. If e-readers trump physical books completely we'll find all of publishing in the hands of 2-4 major companies, meaning that what lands in the public lap will have less wiggle room than at any time in history.

9 min later 3990687 Anonymous
The ereader has forgotten it’s purpose in all of the distraction that comes with the era we live in. Our kids, at this rate, will never know the feel of a paper book in their hands, or the smell that comes when opening an old favorite. This saddens me greatly, as the paper book has been always thought to be a timeless tool for gaining knowledge. With my own bookshelves overflowing, and college packing looming ever-nearer, I know that I need way to conserve space. Therefore, I plan to purchase an ereader. However, I believe that we need to be very careful in what we spend our time doing, or the art of literature may fade out in the cacophony of modern, flashy technology.

11 min later 3990692 dsadawrware
>>3990670 All the books will eventually be free and available electronically like all the classics on Gutenberg The only people who shit on ereaders are those that have too much money to waste on physical copies of books, I don't want to mention the hipsters. This debate is stupid, it's like comparing Burgers and Hot-Dogs or something, just pick what you want. I don't need to justify using or not using fucking paper as a medium for reading, unless maybe I'm in a goddamn ecology debate.

13 min later 3990699 dsadawrware
>>3990687 what you read a book off of shouldn't affect the content, have you tried reading a novel on e-ink display? you sink into the book, you forget you're even using a device, just like you don't stare at paper for hours thinking of how awesome the paper is

13 min later 3990701 Anonymous
>>3990670 >we'll find all of publishing in the hands of 2-4 major companies What? Why? I would think publishing would decentralize if it would go completely electronic considering the reduced cost of distribution.

14 min later 3990702 Anonymous
>>3990692 I completely disagree. If companies will have their way with it, and they WILL, e-books replacing regular ones means death to our wallets. Why? Because you can't buy cheap used copies from local bookstores anymore. And what about book clubs, readings, and signings and local used bookstores? What about local authors and getting to meet them in person to discuss their books? What about supporting local economies?

14 min later 3990704 Anonymous
>>3990687 >Our kids, at this rate, will never know the feel of a clay tablet in their hands, or the smell that comes when unearthing an old favourite. This saddens me greatly, as the clay tablet has been always thought to be a timeless tool for gaining knowledge.

14 min later 3990705 Anonymous
>>3990687 >MUH SMELL

14 min later 3990706 Anonymous
>>3990670 >If e-readers trump physical books completely And if my grandma develops wheels she'd trump Kimi Räikönen from his F-1 team. We could jerk off to a lot of suppositions here but, the question is, how realistic is this? Now, take into account that there's a huge world outside the U.S., so please base your arguments on a global scale.

15 min later 3990711 Anonymous
My Kindle's screen broke today. Really, no fucking joke. I dropped it before, went to sleep on it, but this one time a little drop of water touches it, it's ruined. I hope I have warranty for this. What a fucking joke.

15 min later 3990713 Anonymous
>>3990663 then fuck off

16 min later 3990714 Anonymous
>>3990692 >Burgers and Hot-Dogs Funny you picked substitute goods for your analogy. Don't read much economics, do you?

16 min later 3990715 Anonymous
>>3990670 That's quite the opposite actually. E-books are easier to make - not the actual writing, of course, I mean typesetting, accompanying art, etc. - and to ship. It will be much easier than it is today to set shop as an editor if ebooks come to replace physical books entirely. There is a flipside to this coin though: if any and all people can be editor, what grade of quality can you expect for books? The parallel with the music industry is telling: while labels and record companies are bordering on irrelevance for the actual manufacturing and shipping of goods, they still thin the herd of bands and projects for us - and do quite a bit of propaganda on the side as well.

17 min later 3990718 dsadawrware
>>3990714 Indeed I don't, please give a better analogy if you can.

17 min later 3990720 Anonymous
>>3990702 >supporting local economies GUYS WE SHOULD JUST GO BACK TO THE MIDDLE AGES ECONOMIC DECENTRALIZATION IS THE WAY TO GO

17 min later 3990722 Anonymous
>>3990658 E readers. Free books (anyone who doesn't torrent things is an idiot) make it cheaper, more durable and easier to backup/transport. I still have real books because I enjoy having a full, large bookcase. >>3990687 And they'll never drag a plough through a field by hand or hunt for meat with a rock tipped spear. How sad.

17 min later 3990723 Anonymous
>>3990701 The creators of e-readers centralized the publishing by increasing the amount of DRM on the devices. The current generations of kindle for example have made side loading nearly impossible without cracking, and e-readers can also be damaged and broken causing the entire collection to be destroyed.

18 min later 3990726 Anonymous
That picture says it all. Kindle: Greyish blue. Grey on grey. However you want to see it, the lighting is shit. Font: A GENERIC serif font that looks unappealing as hell and does not belong in a book. You get an option between that, a decent sans font, and a "condensed" font which is just the serif font mushed together Size: Look how small that is. Man ain't that some shit

19 min later 3990730 Anonymous
>>3990658 E readers are already taking the power away from publishers. That's a good thing. Any industry that has to survive purely on artificial scarcity will go the way of HMV.

20 min later 3990734 Anonymous
>>3990723 Everyone should crack their software. In no legal cases should this ever void any sort of warranty.

20 min later 3990735 Anonymous
>>3990726 >this argument again The paperwhite kills your first arguments, as you have better contrast than 90% of books out there and you can imput any fonts you want. On size, I think it's perfect, I prefer it to having to balance a monster book in my hands while trying to read.

21 min later 3990737 Anonymous
>>3990730 http://publishingperspectives.com/2 011/06/selling-ebooks-99-cents-dest roys-minds/ More cons of e-readers: They are useless without an E-reader of some description You have to worry about battery life. E-books are not always readily available, and not the most robust of tools! Copyright Laws can be a worry even though you purchase the digital book, you do not own the rights to it, which can be an issue when trying to share the eBook with friends and family. Less broad variety of books available Formatting Issues can cause trouble, as different providers distribute different formats of eBooks, which may be incompatible with certain brands of readers.

22 min later 3990741 Anonymous
>>3990670 I actually like the idea of someone being able to push his book out on the Kindle store independently. I just wish these devices weren't so FUCKING LOCKED DOWN

23 min later 3990743 Anonymous
>>3990726 kindle paperwhite has a much better screen

25 min later 3990751 Anonymous
>>3990687 >paper book has been always thought to be a timeless tool for gaining knowledge. Yeah, when my kids read Lord of The Rings and Joyce I'm sure they'll gain a shitton of knowledge, rather than just simply being literate. Oh, do you mean textbooks? No, surely you would say "textbook" instead of "paperback" if that's what you meant. But admit it, you meant to say "textbooks" right? That's what I don't get about you people. What fucking knowledge? You get knowledge out of textbooks, but no one EVER specifically says "textbooks". You know why? Because if they keep perpetuating the notion that regular ass books makes them smart as shit, they're free to go around feeling smart as they think they are.

25 min later 3990754 Anonymous
>>3990743 I prefer the Nook HD myself. I have one for magazine viewing. Interesting viewpoints so far, though I would love to see more debate than simple insults aimed at the intelligence and personality of the arguer rather than their argument...

26 min later 3990758 Anonymous
>buy ebook >"what page I'm on" >page 8 >click next >page 8 Why do they do this? i get that it's supposed to reflect the actual book, but unless I'm reading with a class or something I really don't give a shit. I like a consistent number on where I'm at, not a progressbar or a location nnumber that goes up by some random number everytime i go to the next page

27 min later 3990759 Anonymous
>>3990737 >Pricing You can download almost anything for fre if you look around. >They are useless without an E-reader of some description No shit. >You have to worry about battery life. Kindle lasts for weeks >E-books are not always readily available, and not the most robust of tools! Most are. Besides, it's going that way. It's already happened with music and is starting to happen with video games and films. Tecnophobes have always been wrong about this sort of things. >Copyright Laws can be a worry even though you purchase the digital book, you do not own the rights to it, which can be an issue when trying to share the eBook with friends and family. Torrent everything. Artificial scarcity is a mug's game. >Less broad variety of books available All those glorious cohabitation law and self help books I can't read, >ormatting Issues can cause trouble, as different providers distribute different formats of eBooks, which may be incompatible with certain brands of readers. Conversion tools exist. Most come in .mobi anyway.

28 min later 3990762 Anonymous
>>3990759 Cont.* Although granted - they're absolutely fucking terrible for reference books.

28 min later 3990763 Anonymous
>>3990751 So...nonfiction paperbacks don't get you knowledge? Classics don't teach wisdom? "Textbooks" as you are referring to them books designed for the classroom often don't teach far beyond the basics unless they are incredibly specialized and expensive.

30 min later 3990767 dsadawrware
>>3990702 Do you need hardcopy books for book clubs? I thought you just discussed the content of a book at a given meeting. I don't know about local economies, just because there are publishing houses out there doesn't mean it's all great, here for example they force translators to hurry up so that they can put the latest big English hit on the shelves in time for a certain book selling event. People are greedy no matter the situation. Also I can access (read: steal) e-books a lot easier than I can steal paper copies. >>3990726 Another guy that shits on ereaders and probably hasn't read a single book on one. My kindle 3, old by now, has 3 selections, including sans serif and various sizes making it possible to find a setting you can enjoy, and it also gets updated for better fonts or contrast. I wouldn't buy the paperwhite as this grey display is perfect for natural lighting, it won't reflect light but it will turn white under light. If you don't like the size, the narrow page, just turn it on landscape. >>3990737 You have a few valid points but: >You have to worry about battery life. No man battery life is the best out of all devices people use right now, we're talking weeks before a recharge. >Less broad variety of books available most people in the world use an ereader because many titles AREN'T available where they live >>3990751 Not everything can be learned from textbooks, regular books can give you a taste of other people's lives, thoughts, etc.

33 min later 3990772 Anonymous
>>3990715 >thinning the herd Is that a good thing? And music has become better in almost every way since the digital revolution.

33 min later 3990774 Anonymous
>>3990767 >Also I can access (read: steal) e-books a lot easier than I can steal paper copies. Copyright infringement is legally separate from theft. Not that it bothers me,. I'd steal from waterstones all the time If it were as easy as torrrenting.

33 min later 3990775 Anonymous
>>3990759 >You can download almost anything for fre if you look around. And DRM is getting more and more restricted. Also, that is illegal, but beyond that, kinda immoral. The authors get a percentage of profits, albeit a low one, and deserve to get paid for their work. >No shit. Power out? Sorry, no books for you. Oh, we don't support the operating system for your reader anymore? Say hello to the paperweight. >Most are [...] Actually, most are NOT. Only about 15% of published works are available as e-books. >Torrent everything Publishers don't know something is good unless you are willing to pay them for it. Torrenting things destroys the demand-supply relationship that governs economics, so you get less of what you actually want (good books from good authors) and more of what you don't (shitty cheap self-published garbage). >All those glorious cohabitation[...] How about books from faiths other than Christianity, groundbreaking research, and most of everything nonfiction behind a rediculous paywall. >Conversion tools exist And violate the digital agreements on most devices.

36 min later 3990781 Anonymous
Main issue here is sharing, I guess. As already brought up, there's some finicky issues with sharing and "owning" electronic books. And also, if I want a friend to read a really really cool book, I can just hand him the book rather than, uh, my whole goddamn library. Plus, notating will always be easier with physical copies. If I drop a book, I might scuff the cover a bit. If I drop an e-reader, I risk destroying the only way I have to access my library.

36 min later 3990782 Anonymous
>>3990767 >Not everything can be learned from textbooks, regular books can give you a taste of other people's lives, thoughts, etc. Ah, so by "knowledge" you mean information. I'm sure this isn't intentionally deceiving, considering may people assume you mean getting smarter. >>3990763 >nonfiction paperbacks Ha. I'm sure all the kids reading are reading that too.

36 min later 3990784 Anonymous
>>3990692 >This debate is stupid, it's like comparing Burgers and Hot-Dogs or something, just pick what you want. Well said. I for my part love my Kindle; I long struggled to get one, because I really like the haptic, look and smell of paper book. But whatever Mr. Grey on Grey says, a Kindle is easy to read, the size and weight is perfect, and the best is that with a weight of only 6 oz, I can take a whole library with me. For a person who travels a lot, that really matters... The fact that I can get most books for free (either legal or illegal) is also great, that was of course also possible before thanks to my public library, but getting them directly at home and without lending period is quite nice...

37 min later 3990789 Anonymous
>>3990767 Often times book clubs will pay for their space that they meet in from the sales of the books they read. Usually at a reduced rate from new, but still. Also regardless most will agree that the majority of what comes out of publishing houses is better than the majority of what is self published. Also battery life IS a concern because by it's nature it will degrade over time until the device becomes useless. >>3990772 If you call Niki Minaj, 2Chainz, Rhianna, "Snoop Lion", Nickleback, Maroon 5, skrillex and Justin bieber better.

39 min later 3990792 Anonymous
>>3990781 >If I drop an e-reader, I risk destroying the only way I have to access my library. You know that most readers automatically back up the library online?

40 min later 3990794 Anonymous
>>3990775 >Publishers don't know something is good unless you are willing to pay them for it That's why people don't pay for them.

41 min later 3990796 Anonymous
>>3990784 Which brings up another point. The e-reader "revolution" is taxing on libraries because instead of selling a hard copy of the book the library can care for they get digital "licenses" that they have to renew every year at a fee. The companies reserve the right to take away the license and book title at any time, something that can be done with a simple software update (since mind you the book was never yours, just a license) but can not be done short of a house raid to a physical copy.

42 min later 3990800 Anonymous
>>3990792 I know. "Access" was really, uh, really the key word there. Course I'm going to have all my .epubs and .mobis backed up somewhere, but if I drop my e-reader, welp, time to spend another $129 dollars before I can read my books again. As "portable" as e-reader are supposed to be, I guess, I always feel better taking just a book because no one's going to steal a book and if I lose it or break it or whatever no big deal.

42 min later 3990801 Anonymous
>>3990792 Only the stuff you bought, not what you torrented. Plus it is cheaper to replace one single low cost paperback than a $100 to $150 e-reader.

43 min later 3990802 Anonymous
>>3990800 You can read them on a laptop or tablet with calibre.

43 min later 3990803 Anonymous
>>3990789 >implying those artists aren't better than dadrock I would rather listen to pop music over dadrock any day.

44 min later 3990806 Anonymous
>>3990802 Part of the point of an e-reader is exactly so I DON'T have to sit at my computer desk burning my retinas on my computer screen trying to read small text for hours on end.

44 min later 3990807 Anonymous
>>3990803 Thank you for your opinion. This thread is not about music.

45 min later 3990811 Anonymous
>>3990806 >tablet >TABLET >smartphone >don't break your e-reader

46 min later 3990815 Anonymous
Physical Books > eReaders Hurts my eyes. Can't make handwritten notes. Pain in the ass to view table of contents or footnotes. Even if you could do all those things, I don't trust eReaders. We've had books since time immemorial, eReaders have been around for under 10 years. I just seriously doubt they'll take the place of books. Lastly, I simply like books better. I like the feel of a book, I like to turn pages, I like how paper feels. There is something more romantic about physical books. I don't like smudgy pieces of shit that can break if I throw it on the ground.

48 min later 3990819 Anonymous
>>3990811 I really don't see what the point you're trying to make is. "If you break your e-reader you have a back-up tablet to read your e-books on until you replace your e-reader"? Not sure what you're going for. Here, I'll outline it again: Physical Books: Easy to replace Easy to share Easy to notate E-Reader: Difficult to replace Difficult to share Not as easy to notate If you want to say something like "well then just don't break your fuckin e-reader you clumsy faggot" well then fair enough, but I am in fact a clumsy faggot and since this thread is about personal preferences I'll go with it.

49 min later 3990824 Anonymous
>>3990807 You're welcome.

49 min later 3990828 Anonymous
This thread is only a worthwhile debate if eReaders COMPLETELY, 100% replace physical books in the future. This will never happen. We will always have the option between the two. Therefore this thread is pointless.

50 min later 3990830 Anonymous
>>3990819 I agree with you here. Physical books seem more expensive because you can download books for free, but the e-readers are expensive to replace and can wipe your library at a thought. Not to mention but the backup is usually on the servers of the company that sells them, meaning if the company ever goes out of business there goes the backup.

50 min later 3990831 Anonymous
>>3990658 Intellectualy, I know e-readers are better in many ways. >Don't use paper so they help with the enviroment >Can hold an entire library of books at once Just to name a few However, I absolutely adore having the physical copy of the book, smelling it, and reading it.

51 min later 3990832 Anonymous
>>3990775 >And DRM is getting more and more restricted. Also, that is illegal, but beyond that, kinda immoral. The authors get a percentage of profits, albeit a low one, and deserve to get paid for their work. Morality is subjective. Artificial scarcity isn't. Who cares if it's illegal if you won't get caught? >Power out? Sorry, no books for you. Oh, we don't support the operating system for your reader anymore? Say hello to the paperweight. When has a new OS happened? And why would you let something that lasts so long go out of charge. If you bought a model with poor battery life then it's your issue. >Actually, most are NOT. Only about 15% of published works are available as e-books. Any how many of the other 85% are being actively called for or are easily available in paper form? >Publishers don't know something is good unless you are willing to pay them for it. Torrenting things destroys the demand-supply relationship that governs economics, so you get less of what you actually want (good books from good authors) and more of what you don't (shitty cheap self-published garbage). Then why hasn't that happened in video games, music or films? Old publisher crap that has never been shown to hold any weight as an argument. >How about books from faiths other than Christianity, groundbreaking research, and most of everything nonfiction behind a rediculous paywa Groundbreaking research is usually available through journals. There are shit tons of books on other religions in e form, there's plenty of nonfic and again - stop paying for things you can get for fuck all. >And violate the digital agreements on most devices. I'll try and not lose any sleep over it.

53 min later 3990837 Anonymous
>>3990801 Just keep the kindle library torrent and things you had to search for on your computer. It's only about 11 gig.

54 min later 3990839 Anonymous
>>3990815 >I just seriously doubt they'll take the place of books. Which is why CD shops are all doing so well?

54 min later 3990843 Anonymous
>>3990819 >Difficult to replace. Insurance like around £15. Your fault for being cheap.

55 min later 3990847 Anonymous
>>3990843 lol

58 min later 3990852 Anonymous
>>3990847 Lol, seriously. Curry's I haggled down to less than a tenner and all I had to do was go in and ask for a new one (accidental damage).

58 min later 3990853 Anonymous
>>3990832 >Morality is subjective. I won't argue that. But would you want amazing authors to stop writing because people no longer see value in the work, even if the work is fantastic? If people aren't willing to pay for something it tends to disappear. >When has a new OS happened? Support drops for old OS all the time. For example microsoft dropped support for XP and the like. It's not far off in the future. The nook color will soon lose access the the B&N library including all of the backups. Likewise with the older kindle models. >Any how many of the other 85% [...] Quite a few, actually. >Then why hasn't that happened [...] I would argue it has. Movies are worse than they've ever been. Flashier, but less well thought out. Music is going down the tube with rehashed bullshit material and no risk taking and the only innovations being the same old sounds of chaisaws fucking you get in "dubstep". Also it does actually hold weight. Looking to the gaming industry, steam over consoles. Look what happened with the Xbox One. They did that to fight assholes like you. >Groundbreaking research is usually available through journals. Expensive as hell, again locked behind a massive paywall compared to the writers that reference them. Also in dry, difficult to read form. >I'll try and not lose any sleep over it. You won't be laughing when the update nuke comes in the way it does for iOS devices.

1 hours later 3990859 Anonymous
>>3990658 Oh Jesus, OP, why do you have to bring this up again? There's literally no fucking difference. Do you prefer flying a Boeing or an Airbus? Who cares? They'll take you where you need to go. Do you prefer JPEGs or .png's? WHO CARES? Every time I see this thread (and there have been many) it's the same BS. Half of these fags go "muh smell of paper and old fashioned sensibilities" and the other half go "muh efficient data storage and muh pragmatism". I hope you choke on a dick and never make a thread this retarded again.

1 hours later 3990862 Anonymous
>>3990789 >If you call Niki Minaj, 2Chainz, Rhianna, "Snoop Lion", Nickleback, Maroon 5, skrillex and Justin bieber better. 1: Kill yourself. 2: Even within that limited selection of pop artists (who, it must be said, have never represented the best music of any period) you can see a much more diverse range of styles than would have been typical 10 years ago, thanks largely to the fact that major labels can no longer enforce an artist's popularity through cultural monopoly. If there is any benefit from this, it is that artists must now stand on their own merits rather than riding a zeitgeist to success. This would be mirrored in the book world; no longer would people be beholden to the NYTimes bestseller list. 3: The emergence of easier and "broader" (in that one can create a playlist with several conflicting genres) method of consuming music has created several splinter groups from the mainstream that can create an aesthetic to suit and further their art (vapourwave, footwork, trap). I'm not saying that books can't create a universe well already, but the potential for more consistent genres could be opened up by the e-book market place.

1 hours later 3990863 Anonymous
>>3990859 >Do you prefer JPEGs or .png's? WHO CARES? woah hey now let's not get crazy here

1 hours later 3990864 Anonymous
>>3990859 >I hope you choke on a dick and never make a thread this retarded again. *golf clap*

1 hours later 3990870 Anonymous
>>3990859 I for one, being a femanon, enjoy sucking dick. >>3990862 Personal insult before argument. Typical 4chan BS. These are the top charting artists right now in the age of "better music".

1 hours later 3990873 Anonymous
>>3990870 Nah, you're just a gay dude who loves the cock.

1 hours later 3990874 Anonymous
>>3990870 Oh, I do beg your pardon. 1: Even within that limited selection of pop artists (who, it must be said, have never represented the best music of any period) you can see a much more diverse range of styles than would have been typical 10 years ago, thanks largely to the fact that major labels can no longer enforce an artist's popularity through cultural monopoly. If there is any benefit from this, it is that artists must now stand on their own merits rather than riding a zeitgeist to success. This would be mirrored in the book world; no longer would people be beholden to the NYTimes bestseller list. 2: The emergence of easier and "broader" (in that one can create a playlist with several conflicting genres) method of consuming music has created several splinter groups from the mainstream that can create an aesthetic to suit and further their art (vapourwave, footwork, trap). I'm not saying that books can't create a universe well already, but the potential for more consistent genres could be opened up by the e-book market place. Care to actually respond now?

1 hours later 3990876 Anonymous
>>3990853 >I won't argue that. But would you want amazing authors to stop writing because people no longer see value in the work, even if the work is fantastic? If people aren't willing to pay for something it tends to disappear. It tends to be treated as art then. I really can't see the horrors of authors having to get a job on the side. Besides, my noncontribution is a fart in a hurricane. Statistically guaranteed to make no difference. >Support drops for old OS all the time. For example microsoft dropped support for XP and the like. It's not far off in the future. The nook color will soon lose access the the B&N library including all of the backups. Likewise with the older kindle models. Never heard of older kindles losing library access. Even then it's still a damn sight cheaper to buy a new ereader every few years then hundreds of paperbacks. >Quite a few, actually. Well sourced and not at all vague. >I would argue it has. Movies are worse than they've ever been. Flashier, but less well thought out. Music is going down the tube with rehashed bullshit material and no risk taking and the only innovations being the same old sounds of chaisaws fucking you get in "dubstep". Also it does actually hold weight. Looking to the gaming industry, steam over consoles. Look what happened with the Xbox One. They did that to fight assholes like you. They did that to fight second hand games because they were an increasingly popular way of buying games that publishers weren't really able to shaft people with. Companies either need to change with their times and not hold their breath and stamp their feet or they'll all go the way of Xbox and HMV. There's not really anything they can do about piracy. Where there's a will there's a way. Your argument that you don't like modern films or music isn't really relevant. Those things are torrented too and they're still popular. That's just shit media being shit media. It was all just as horrifically terrible back in the day. >Expensive as hell, again locked behind a massive paywall compared to the writers that reference them. Also in dry, difficult to read form. Difficult to read? Again, don't pay. >You won't be laughing when the update nuke comes in the way it does for iOS devices. Why would I update? Besides, I'm not stupid enough to delete downloaded things that may be useful. I'll just copy it over again. the wonders of technology.

1 hours later 3990883 Anonymous
>>3990863 my exact reaction

1 hours later 3990890 dsadawrware
What the fuck are you people talking about with the easy to destroy library argument. Sure I smash my kindle to the floor right now, my "library" is fucked, oh wait there's a 2GB torrent that I finish in a few minutes and I have it back again, gonna need a new kindle. Try replacing the equivalent of 2GB worth of kindle books if your stack of books is burned. I keep checking to see what exactly is the reason for so many of these threads, it has to be people who haven't read books on a kindle that are against it. Personal preference aside, does anyone actually think that content being available electronically as well as on paper is somehow leading to electronic monopoly of literature?

1 hours later 3990907 Anonymous
>>3990890 Yes, actually. Because the companies dictate what can be used on their products. Simple as that.

1 hours later 3990911 Anonymous
>>3990907 But they don't. You can add any .epub / .mobi file. You clearly don't know what you're talking about.

1 hours later 3990915 Anonymous
>>3990737 >They are useless without an E-reader of some description As words are useless without paper in regular books. >You have to worry about battery life. Lasts about a month in most cases. >E-books are not always readily available, and not the most robust of tools! Books aren't always readily available either, what's this point supposed to mean? >Copyright Laws can be a worry even though you purchase the digital book, you do not own the rights to it, which can be an issue when trying to share the eBook with friends and family. Why do you even care? You can just pirate them all. >Less broad variety of books available Untrue, there could be more printed books in the world, but I'm pretty certain that most people can't afford travelling everywhere or paying for deliveries. >Formatting Issues can cause trouble, as different providers distribute different formats of eBooks, which may be incompatible with certain brands of readers. Converting is easy as pie.

1 hours later 3990936 Anonymous
>>3990658 The only merit an e-reader has, indeed the only advantage it has even, is that one can carry a very large selection of texts on a very small lightweight portable device. For the purposes of actually reading physical books are far superior in every aspect.

1 hours later 3990945 Anonymous
All of the problems e-readers have books don't have. >Books don't run out of batteries. >Books aren't easily broken, and are cheap to replace in the event that they are. >You can easily loan a book to someone. >You can have a book autographed. >It's easier to mark up, highlight, and flip to marked spots in a book. >If you have a bookshelf other people who visit your home can easily see the books they have read also, which then becomes a conversation piece. >Books last longer than pieces of electronic hardware (I own books older than my deceased great-grandparents). They do not become obsolete because of file formats. >Multiple brands of e-readers result in competing file types. >If you have an e-reader or tablet it is probably worth a fair amount and is therefore a target for theft. A common thief is rarely interested in a printed book. >Tablets which people ostensibly use to read also frequently provide access to the internet, films, music, and other distracting features. >There's no chance that all of the books and printed materials of history thus far will ever become electronically transcribed. None.

1 hours later 3990959 Anonymous
I think actual books are superior, in the sense that something tangible is physically preferable to something digital. That said, I believe the e-reader to be the logical progression/evolution of book reading, and I think it encourages people to read more overall. I have no ethical dilemma towards the "gatekeeper" concept because that's just the way capitalism works, in every consumer industry.

1 hours later 3990970 Anonymous
>>3990945 >>Books don't run out of batteries. Battery life is measured in WEEKS. >>Books aren't easily broken, and are cheap to replace in the event that they are. e-books cost NOTHING to replace, and breaking a kindle should really be compared to losing an entire library (very expensive) >>You can easily loan a book to someone. You could give an e-book to 1000 people, and still retain your copy. >>You can have a book autographed. Who fucking cares >>It's easier to mark up, highlight, Conceded >>and flip to marked spots in a book. Easier to do this with hyperlinked texts. >>If you have a bookshelf other people who visit your home can easily see the books they have read also, which then becomes a conversation piece. True, but again, tangential. >>Books last longer than pieces of electronic hardware (I own books older than my deceased great-grandparents). They do not become obsolete because of file formats. Why would the file format become obsolete? It's just text, and is easily convertible in any case. >>Multiple brands of e-readers result in competing file types. Convertible file types. >>If you have an e-reader or tablet it is probably worth a fair amount and is therefore a target for theft. A common thief is rarely interested in a printed book. Fair point, but not intrinsic to the reading of a book. >>Tablets which people ostensibly use to read also frequently provide access to the internet, films, music, and other distracting features. Why is that a bad thing? >>There's no chance that all of the books and printed materials of history thus far will ever become electronically transcribed. None. No, but most noteworthy ones already have been or will be digitised by necessity for preservation.

1 hours later 3990983 Anonymous
>>3990945 >There's no chance that all of the books and printed materials of history thus far will ever become electronically transcribed. None. I beg to differ. I'd say that it's infinitely harder that everything that has been electronically written could ever be printed.

2 hours later 3991131 Anonymous
I am going to commit the act of which we all detest. I am moving to Japan in 2 weeks for a temporary job (year long) and cannot bring my books with me. So I am caving and resorting to buying an ereader. I want one with no frills etc. but does /lit/ have a preferred device? I figured I'd just torrent the books I need and convert them to the appropriate format for whatever device I buy, but I'll admit I am woefully uneducated in how these things work and so on. I know there have been numerous thread on this business in the past, but I just scoffed at them and scrolled onward, my pretensions have a bit hampering in that regard. So forgive my insolence and offer direction please! Also, I plan on buying a refurbished/used device from ebay or the like, I assume this should be OK and not a bad decision... TL;DR Kindle or Nook or something else?

2 hours later 3991149 Anonymous
>>3991131 Kindle + Calibre + #bookz happy hunting

2 hours later 3991179 Anonymous
>>3991149 So get a Kindle Then figure out how to fix shitty pirated ebooks with Calibre with their wonderful casual-friendly documentation and then figure out how to DCC from IRC Have fun with that Japanfag >not bringing books with you >why

3 hours later 3991210 Anonymous
>>3991149 >>3991179 Thanks, this is very helpful! >>3991179 I can barely afford to bring an adequate amount of clothes and necessities with me let alone an entire library. I also hear books, especially English books, are rather expensive in Osaka.

4 hours later 3991371 Anonymous
>>3991131 I prefer nook. Nicer screen, decent library, better for epubs.

4 hours later 3991394 Anonymous
It's funny that /lit/ is promoting the pirating of books and talking about how statistically one person won't matter. It's the same with people who sign grafitti onto monuments. Statistically it's one signature, but when enough people hold the opinion it's enough to defile it. The same goes for piracy. "Oh I'm a drop in the well!" You and every other bloodsucker who doesn't believe that good hard and entertainment is worth your hard earned cash. Show some fucking appreciation. The only argument I see on this board for e-readers that is repeatedly touted is "Batteries last a long time man, and and I'll never update...and e-readers let me store and steal hundreds of books rather than trying to filch one at a time from a bookstore! And it's different because it's on the internet! I'm totally just one person dude, there aren't thousands more like me driving the quality of literature and entertainment into the ground because I'm not willing to support it! I'm the only one!" Fucking really. If anything I would say physical books won because they're harder to steal mass quantities of. Unless you're taking them from the library, where again they have been paid for by an entity and there is a limited amount of time they can be used for free, e-readers have just perpetuated the notion that entertainment is worthless. I side with books.

4 hours later 3991412 Anonymous
>>3991394 Counterarguments? Anyone? Anyone? Where is mister green text spammer now?

4 hours later 3991417 Anonymous
>Ereader vs. books thread >Speedreading thread >Two feels threads Quality day in /lit/ E-Readers for having entire libraries, easy access, long battery life, and essentially free books if you know where to look Books for collectors, bibliophiles, prestige, and for the odd volume or resource that hasn't been scanned. I know you can argue all day about mean old pirates stealing books all day, but E-readers are the pinnacle of the Age of Information.

4 hours later 3991435 Anonymous
>>3990815 >Can't make handwritten notes. Pain in the ass to view table of contents or footnotes Everything else is bullshit, but these are legitimate disadvantages And I just thought of a way to fix it brb patenting and building my family's dynasty

4 hours later 3991440 Anonymous
>>3991394 What if we only pirate the works of long dead authors?

4 hours later 3991453 Anonymous
>>3991394 >more like me driving the quality of literature and entertainment into the ground because I'm not willing to support it! Emotional dribble. Piracy is a concern for shallow entertainment that escapist fiends get high on and the marketers trying to sell them. I fully support a world where twenty libraries cost 100-150 USD for anyone with internet access. That is a pure exchange of information and I will pull the namecalling card and say anyone who doesn't support that are fascists.

4 hours later 3991459 Anonymous
>>3991440 >pirate the works of long dead authors Then it's not pirating

4 hours later 3991464 Anonymous
>>3991459 Is piracy NOT filesharing?

4 hours later 3991481 Anonymous
>>3991464 I don't know if you're being ironic but that's what people get confused about. It isn't. That is the reason it is a grey area. I don't think there has been any case where someone had entire libraries of music, movies, games etc on a harddrive, disconnected the physical drive, gave it to someone, and was charged for it. It's just people trying to have control over ownership in an age where data can be duplicated in seconds.

5 hours later 3991551 Anonymous
>>3990658 What's with the versus? I like both formats. I like ereaders for the convenience they offer, but they're not the best thing for materials with a gazillion illustrations.

5 hours later 3991588 Anonymous
>>3990658 > 2013 > reading books on the backlit jew

7 hours later 3991799 Anonymous
>>3991464 It's ridiculous that people have to pay for a COPY which costs nothing to make. If you want to charge me for the piano, fine, if you want to charge me to sit with the pianist and hear them play, ok. But sharing a file? Wha? Charge me for the USB or computer, but the file? Hmmmm....

7 hours later 3991822 Anonymous (1349486319629.jpg 320x240 10kB)
I prefer reading e-books, as holding my Kindle for extended periods of time is much easier than an actual book, especially if its a long one. The fact also that the only movement I need to make is a slight pushing of my thumb to change the page, very handy when you're lying in bed. Having said that, if it wasn't for piracy I'd be reading physical books. Screw paying for digital goods when they often cost the same as their physical counter-part. If I'm paying my hard earned dosh for something I want it to be either ridiculously cheap (70-80% off, a la video game sales by Steam) or actually tangible.

7 hours later 3991827 Anonymous
>>3991588 >2034 >reading e-books on the hardcover jew

7 hours later 3991829 Anonymous
>>3991394 Morally questioning aside, I think pirating books in particular benefits more intellectually (the ability to quickly access knowledge) than defiling a monument. If knowledge is what you seek, shouldn't it be free and accessible to everyone?

7 hours later 3991842 Anonymous
>>3991822 I should add also, as there seems to be a fair bit of hate towards piracy in this thread, I'm fully aware of what I'm doing and the possible consequences. I just do not give a flying fuck, so don't be throwing your morals at me.

7 hours later 3991880 Anonymous
>>3990711 You should've got a screen protector; I've spilled coffee on it multiple times without problem.

8 hours later 3991961 Anonymous
do you guys have projectors and edison cylinders too?

9 hours later 3992133 Anonymous
>>3990945 another fucking confusion tablets are NOT ereaders, only the e-ink display devices are sure nobody will read a novel on the iPad without hurting their eyes or getting distracted by angry boirds or fb, but this doesnt apply on real fucking ereaders designed for reading, not even competing with tablets

9 hours later 3992207 Anonymous
I have to print out all of my readings. E-reading only for short things.

9 hours later 3992239 Anonymous
>>3990658 Just returned my working kindle paperwhite to best buy since I got my paperwhite from amazon today (for dat warranty) It came with two dead pixels. I'm so fucking furious it's not even funny

13 hours later 3992754 Anonymous
>>3991394 Statistically, it's still one person's signature. Slippery slope is a logical fallacy. Besides, vandalism is a more serious crime than copyright infringement - which is victimless. No, I'm not depriving the artist of money because I wouldn't have been able to buy the tens of thousands of books in that torrent. Besides, you're arguing on moral grounds. Do you really expect anyone to give a shit? Torrenting is a way to get things for free that you'd have to pay extortionate prices for otherwise. You'll have to come up with a better argument than "wahhh, you'll hurt artists feelings and wallets". I'd sooner hurt theirs than my own.

13 hours later 3992756 Anonymous
>>3991394 >here aren't thousands more like me driving the quality of literature and entertainment into the ground because I'm not willing to support it! I'm the only one!" Look at the most popular torrented media and you'll find that barely any of it could be considered quality. Stop listening to production companies.

13 hours later 3992758 Anonymous
>>3991464 No, piracy is infringing on a copyright. But given that copyrights are difficult to defend with any reason (basically being modern mercantilism) there';s no reason you should care.

13 hours later 3992759 Anonymous
>>3990658 It depends. If it's an historic masterpiece I'll get it in physical form. >tfw still have 40ish Dreams from My Father copies even after giving away a ton

13 hours later 3992760 Anonymous
>>3991481 > It's just people trying to have control over ownership in an age where data can be duplicated in seconds. This. Companies and individual white knights are simply King Canute trying to hold back the tide. Stop whining and change with the times, other companies have done this (see: Netflix) and done quite well. Ones that are simply throwing their toys out the pram because they have to adapt to changing consumer needs will all get what's coming to them. Already happened to quite a few.

13 hours later 3992761 Anonymous
>>3991394 >Home Taping is killing the music industry >Home cartridge copying is killing the gaming industry >Bootleg CDs are killing the music industry >P2P filesharing is killing music/movie industry None of those ever happened. And now: >Torrenting is killing literature industry Same shit, different story. As others have pointed out if the only way an industry can survive is through trying to force artificial scarcity then piracy isn't immoral - it's just not being an idiot.

14 hours later 3992774 Anonymous
>>3992756 For that matter an author's overheads are a damn sight lower than some shitty effects-driven popcorn flick.

14 hours later 3992786 Anonymous (whatever.jpg 478x397 89kB)
So, from reading this thread, we can conclude that none of you has something more important to invest your time in, right? Right? RIGHT?

26 hours later 3994181 Anonymous
http://www.theguardian.com/books/bo oksblog/2013/aug/02/kindle-paper-bo oks-bookseller-e-reader The jews did it

26 hours later 3994218 Anonymous
>>3992786 >he actually read this thread girlslaughing.jpg

29 hours later 3994512 Anonymous
So all of you here would write a book for free and put it up online for free for everyone to use and know that your years of work on it would amount to...nothing? You would sink thousands of dollars of your own hard earned money into a film and then...give it away?

29 hours later 3994528 Anonymous
Physical books. >dat smell >dat feel >dat bookcase

29 hours later 3994536 Anonymous
>>3992786 >reads the thread >FIND BETTER THINGS TO DO THAN TO TALK ON THE INTERNET NECKBEARDS

32 hours later 3995053 Anonymous
>>3990815 >>3991435 >Can't make handwritten notes. Pain in the ass to view table of contents or footnotes The paperwhite allows you drag over an part of the page and type a note, which also shows up neatly along with other notes in your "clippings" There's also the Go To button which in two clicks lets you look at the table of contents/endnotes (I don't get what would be wrong with the footnotes). >give me some more

33 hours later 3995118 Anonymous
I don't get what people mean when they say "smell? What smell? Go buy some Yugioh cards. Now THAT, is a fresh smell

33 hours later 3995122 Anonymous
>>3994512 >for free >give it away No, I make a deal with the publisher for some upfront money and license it, and >Implying Hollywood doesn't make you swim with money and drugs way before the movie is even in theaters

34 hours later 3995206 Anonymous
I don't get what people mean when they say "smell? What smell? Go buy a new car. Now THAT, is a fresh smell No but srsly, I also never "smell" books

34 hours later 3995229 Anonymous
Can anyone recommend a decent ebook reader for PC? I've been trying to read ebooks on my laptop but all the ebook programs look so terrible that I end up getting annoyed and giving up. All I want is just something that can show one page at a time and let me scroll down through the pages with a nice grey background like a pdf, is that so much to ask?

35 hours later 3995286 Not The Magician
>>3990796 The license fee is less than what rebindings and repairs cost a library.

35 hours later 3995291 Not The Magician
>>3995229 Calibre is fantastic, and you can change the page background to ant color you want in Preferences.

35 hours later 3995308 Anonymous (monitors.png 618x393 9kB)
I hate them both. Eyes didn't evolve to focus at arms length for long periods. Pic is my vertical monitor setup, designed to reduce eye strain. The ideal is to show text at infinite distance. A stereoscopic eyetap should do the trick. I don't understand why I can't buy one in a shop.

35 hours later 3995334 Anonymous
>>3990859 >dat 15 year old angst OP, eReaders are better. There's really no argument there. But some people still like the feel of physical books and having a personal library, so there's that, but most people I know who have personal libraries also own eReaders. You simply can't pass up the conenience if you read a lot of books.

36 hours later 3995348 Anonymous
I like to read from my kindle while I'm lying in bed. No need to awkwardly hold the book and roll from side to side every page to have a pleasurable reading experience. Plus, e-readers are awesome for comics! :D

36 hours later 3995366 Anonymous
>>3990658 All of you faggots need to read this: >>3995365

36 hours later 3995371 Anonymous
>>3995366 You can jack off in your home You can't at a theater Check and Mate

42 hours later 3995704 Anonymous (fuck off2.png 321x258 251kB)
>>3995366 >comparing books and the kindle, which you can both read anywhere, to a theater that you don't ownn and the TV Fucking retards And I bet you people are the same type that go "lol that's what they said about the cell phone" when someone complains.

43 hours later 3995712 Anonymous
>>3995348 God damn I should have got a colour one, I didn't even think about comics :(

43 hours later 3995785 Anonymous
>>3995712 That's not a ebook reader, that's a fucking tablet

43 hours later 3995792 Anonymous
>>3995371 but i can , i dont , but ive heard that some do .

46 hours later 3996013 Anonymous
I use both, where I can't get a book, or it's too expensive, or I want it asap, I download it for the Kindle. I have a good collection of books, and would prefer having physical copies of the books I've read in the Kindle. The best think about the Kindle is the ability for it to tell you how long until the next chapter. My reading progress has never been faster since this discovery. 2 hours no longer seems like a drag when I'm in boring chapters.

47 hours later 3996104 Anonymous
>>3990751 I learned a lot about Catholicism, Irish history, and aesthetic philosophy from reading Joyce. Fiction can make you smarter if you approach it critically, because it can provoke thought. LOTR, for example, made me think a lot about politics, environmentalism, and human nature. That being said, non-fiction is much better than fiction for gaining knowledge so long as you aren't reading (most) memoirs or self-help books.

48 hours later 3996134 Anonymous
For me the physical essence of a book is an art form of its own. Its form is as useless as the architecture of a baroque building, and those of the opinion that uselessness should negate any possibility of something existing lack any form of soul.

49 hours later 3996258 Anonymous
>>3996104 >I learned a lot about Catholicism, Irish history, and aesthetic philosophy from reading Joyce. Haha oh fuckingn hell Go update your knowledge by reading non-fiction and modern literature about those subjects

51 hours later 3996561 Anonymous
>>3996013 >not searching forward to find out how manny pages until the next chapter Kindle is worse because you only get locations. Page 1: Loc 4204 Page 2: Loc 5028 How consistent. They do have page numbers actually. Page 18? Hit next. Page 18 again. It coincides with the physical book.... which you're not fucking reading. My reading actually is slower on Kindle because it feels like books go on forever, no good way to keep progress besides a bar at the bottom.

51 hours later 3996574 Anonymous
>>3995785 Also tablets suck for reading.

51 hours later 3996617 Anonymous
>>3996574 I like the Nook HD+. It's got a good weight and is great for magazines and comics. It's more e-reader than tablet and it's interface is well designed. The screen is fantastic. Also the page numbers are pretty consistent with it, I've never dealt with the draggin on forever effect with Nook. >>3996561 I believe that was put in for both students who have to buy non-textbooks for college (classic works of lit for example for English) to be able to stay consistent with the page numbers given for assignments. Ditto with book club books. I know for classics the page numbers can be inconsistent depending on the publisher/edition, but for books like Hunger Games (which we actually read in an English class while looking at modern parallels and the particular literary style emulated here) there is but one publisher and two editions which remain remarkably consistent between paperback and hardcover. Just my 2 cents.

51 hours later 3996632 Anonymous
>>3996013 Agreed. It may be a cheap trick, to make it feel as though you are making progress in the same that video games do, but it works.

51 hours later 3996640 Anonymous
Personally, the conclusion that I have come to is that e-readers can be useful for their ability to store large quantities of books and purchase a new title in seconds from the home. That said the content on them is completely limited to what can be stolen online or what the companies that created the e-reader allow on them, which can be potentially damaging to the industry. The artificial scarcity thing...again, I present the argument of "would you spend a year writing a book and give it away for free?" There are some who would, but most would want to profit off of it. That is what artificial scarcity does for authors. And DRM, whether we like it or not. Good entertainment and information is worth paying for. The studies that bring us knowledge cost money. Time is money for authors. One last comment...it has been demonstrably shown in more than one study that information taken in on a screen...even identical information is absorbed much less readily than information taken in on paper. Interesting to the concept of knowledge becoming readily available.

52 hours later 3996736 Not The Magician
>>3996561 Paperwhite estimates the time left in a chapter and book based on your reading speed. And I find the opposite to be true in reading speed: because of the time estimate, I'll usually say "Reading another chapter will only take X minutes, I might as well do it."

52 hours later 3996770 Anonymous
>>3996736 What the fuck that is awesome Fuck Amazon, they gave the Paperwhite updated firmware and the regular one doesn't get diddly dick

53 hours later 3996849 Not The Magician
>>3996770 Do you have a kindle touch or the one with the d-pad?

53 hours later 3996863 Anonymous
>>3996849 The one with the d-pad i guess Not a touchscreen or a backlit one, fucking SUCKS

53 hours later 3996883 Not The Magician
>>3996863 On the Paperwhite manual it says this "When reading, select Reading Progress from the menu, then choose a display option. Options include Location in book, Time left in chapter, and Time left in book." I don't think it'll work on the Kindle 4 because it's a new feature, but it was added to the Kindle Touch in an update.

54 hours later 3996903 Anonymous
Everyone there are book fags who run and scream >MUH SMELL I, however, have been a e-reader only master race for the past 3 years. :)

54 hours later 3996938 Anonymous
>>3996903 I understand the preference for ereaders, but there are some book I just have to read in print because the formatting is so shitty for some books on the ereaders. Through the Look Glass is really good example. Weirdly sized fonts, cut out all the pictures, etc.

66 hours later 3998333 Anonymous
>>3996938 >because the formatting is so shitty for some books on the ereaders. This I am reading a book for the first time in a while and.. wow. Dat hardcover, dat formatting, size. It's such a clean look. The Kindle can't compare

66 hours later 3998373 Anonymous
>>3990658 Physical books are superior, but e-readers are OK. So, as with most things, both, depending on the need.

66 hours later 3998388 Anonymous
Reading a hardback book >Perfectly aligned text >great font >bright pages and black text >feel the pages between my fingers knowing how much I read and how much I have left to read Your average non-backlit Kindle: >Shitty font >tiny size >little options >needs to be hacked and warranty voided to make it useful >gray on gray color scheme >only a bar at the bottom and inconsistent location and page numbers to tell you how far you are

69 hours later 3998824 Anonymous
>>3996561 >>3996736 I have a normal kindle touch which does that. Just tap the area where it says 'loc xxxx'. It even says how long until you can finish the book

79 hours later 4000540 Anonymous
>>3996938 >Through the Look Glass Learn2english?

79 hours later 4000545 Anonymous
>>3998388 AGREED! Though the Nook seems better.

79 hours later 4000556 Anonymous
Take a picture of your readers guys

79 hours later 4000570 Anonymous
I got a kindle for free, so every book I read with an e-reader is infinitely less costly than every book I purchase. I use it as a kind of library. I check out books and read them. If I like them enough to want to have a copy in ten years (knowing the thing will crap out as all electronics do) then I will buy a copy.

80 hours later 4000623 Anonymous
>>4000570 My Sony Reader from like 2005 is still working. It won't crap out unless there's a defect or you just break it. People shouldn't get a reader if they think that one reader will last forever. It could, but what if it doesn't? You get a new one and sync everything to it

80 hours later 4000635 Anonymous
>>4000623 This. This whole "hurr technology is fickled im not good with computer" is a crock of shit most of the time. First thing to go would be the battery. Alreeady it has a month of life so if it goes down a week I won't exactly notice or bitch about it. We don't know how long eink can last but so far the screens hold up and it seems fine.

80 hours later 4000810 Anonymous
>>3990702 >book clubs >readings >signings >local used bookstores does lit actually partake in these sort of activities?

81 hours later 4000910 Anonymous
>>3990832 >>Publishers don't know something is good unless you are willing to pay them for it. Torrenting things destroys the demand-supply relationship that governs economics, so you get less of what you actually want (good books from good authors) and more of what you don't (shitty cheap self-published garbage). what if we had to pay for 4chan? what if we had to pay for /lit/? how many good books would you never have discovered without /lit/? the best things in life are free

82 hours later 4001153 Anonymous
>>3990911 but they govern their product. You can add something but they can take it off. But the old school publishers dictate what was allowed to be published. is there information on the internet available that isn't avail in paper form? >>3991394 not everyone makes $40/hour sitting in a office. Not everyone lives in a city with a book store on every corner. Not everyone owns an automobile, some of us have to take the bus.

82 hours later 4001199 Anonymous
>>3990723 that's just bullshit, my sony will load anything, any epub or pdf i download from anywhere.

83 hours later 4001301 Anonymous
Which eReader is best?

84 hours later 4001325 Anonymous (marble-reading-on-bed-two.jpg 900x1050 137kB)
I like e-readers better. 1. I've never had a eyestraing problem. 2. I find I read more with a e-reader where I can seamlessly read 50 books at once. With physical books that'd be hard to do. 3. Highlighting is better with ebooks. With physical books I avoid highlighting since I feel I'm marring the book. 4. I can quickly copy and paste a passage that I find interesting and share it with people. 5. I mainly read in bed and its almost impossible to read a heavy book this way. 6. Ebooks are cheaper. 7. There's a bigger chance I'll lose my books in some natural disaster or when I move then the risk that Amazon will go out of business or they'll just start deleting my books because of some copyright issue.

84 hours later 4001331 Anonymous
>>3990737 >Copyright Laws can be a worry even though you purchase the digital book, you do not own the rights to it, which can be an issue when trying to share the eBook with friends and family. I'm willing to accept the worst case scenario of my books vanishing for some copyright snafu. I don't loan out my books so lending is not a issue. >Less broad variety of books available It depends on what kind of books you like, but I personally have rarely seen a book I want not available. On the contrary I've see a ton of books that are e-reader only because they're quite controversial and no big publishing company would publish it. .

84 hours later 4001339 Anonymous
>>3990775 >Power out? Sorry, no books for you. If the powers out I have a lot more problems than being able to read a book. >Oh, we don't support the operating system for your reader anymore? Say hello to the paperweight. What exactly would the scenario for this be? Amazon releases a new OS that is incompatible with old readers? Then I'll simply not download the new OS and if I can't download new books I'm fine with that. I'll just wait until I can buy a new reader. >Actually, most are NOT. Only about 15% of published works are available as e-books. I'd challenge you to find 5 fairly well known books that are not available in the Kindle store. I mean if you're talking about some super rare obscure book maybe. But most of the mainstream titles are available.

84 hours later 4001359 Anonymous
>Do you consider e-readers or physical books to be superior? Paper is superior, but ebooks are more practical. >Why? Paper is easier to flip through and read. Ebooks are better because of no storage & carrying issues. >Do you feel there is an ethical dillemma in allowing a couple of "gatekeepers" (the e-reader companies) to dictate what is published or do you feel as though the major publishers in the industry have been doing that already? Ethical? >If you are a fan of e-readers, how do you solve the eyestrain issue? Non-issue. I don't do anything for more than an hour at a time. After an hour, I get up, pee, drink water, switch activities. Never had eye-strain issues with anything.

84 hours later 4001362 Anonymous
What if you want buy a really controversial or embarassing book like erotica but you're afraid your roomate or your significant other will judge you for it? With ebooks you don't have that problem because you can lock your ereader.

84 hours later 4001369 Anonymous
They each have strengths and weaknesses. What's important to me may not be important to you. What I don't get is this innate hostility physical book lovers have against ebooks. Its not zero sum, you can have the bulk of your library be physical books and only buy ebooks when its convinent.

84 hours later 4001384 Anonymous
Advantage of ebooks: Ability to copy and paste excerpts to bolster your argument online. For example lets say you and someone else are having a debate online about Japanese internment. So you want to provide something to back up your claims. >To buttress the argument that forced evacuation was a matter of military necessity, Bendetsen had laced the Final Report with hundreds of examples of subversive activities on the West Coast in the winter and spring of 1942. That evidence was the indispensable basis for the government's claim that its relocation program lay within constitutional bounds. But the Justice Department lawyers quickly saw that Bendetsen had cooked his facts. His statement that an FBI raid had turned up "more than 60,000 rounds of ammunition and many rifles, shotguns and maps," for example, failed to mention that those items had come from a sporting-goods store. Worse, when Biddle asked the FBI and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to review the report's charges, the responses were unequivocal. Hoover replied that "there is no information in the possession of this Bureau" that supported Bendetsen's claims about espionage. The FCC's response was even more damning. Citing its own 1942 study that had shown DeWitt's claims about supposedly illicit radio transmissions to be false, the FCC expressed its outrage that the allegations had resurfaced in the report. "There wasn't a single illicit station and DeWitt knew it," an FCC technician said.15 Source: Kennedy, David M. (1999-03-18). Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945 (Oxford History of the United States) (p. 757). Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition. Boom. Took me like 20 seconds. How long would it take you to type that up from your physical book?

84 hours later 4001401 Anonymous
Oh, I forgot. An advantage that etext has over paper: if you're into RSVP readers, you can copy and paste the text into those and go for it. Also, you can copy the text into your Spaced Repetition app for later study.That's great for non-fiction.

85 hours later 4001449 Anonymous
>>4001384 This assumes the internet people will trust the word of David M. Kennedy. Good luck on that one.

97 hours later 4003270 Anonymous (Kindle_broke.jpg 1536x2048 862kB)
>>4001384 Wow, all I need is to be able to be a pleb who reads books off my laptop so I can easily copy paste text like that

97 hours later 4003274 Anonymous (Kidle_is_shit.jpg 1280x960 576kB)
Shittiest reading experience I ever had was reading on these shitty displays

97 hours later 4003277 Anonymous (4069947739_b907b63d2c_b.jpg 1024x681 248kB)
>>4003274 It's like a newspaper, but worse, and with shitty fonts.

97 hours later 4003285 Anonymous (3627146781_fd7e4fd9cd_o.jpg 3072x2304 2099kB)
>>4003277 Why did they get rid of the larger sizes? If you don't have a Paperwhite, you're also stuck with this. Shit lighting. fucking BOOKS are brighter than regular readers. Eink can't do white. It can do gray. It's like if you called the darker shade of green on a Gameboy "black". It still don't make it black.

97 hours later 4003288 Anonymous
>>4003270 >>4003274 >>4003277 >>4003285 And this is why I waited for the Paperwhite.

97 hours later 4003293 Anonymous (kidle my.jpg 3240x4320 3027kB)
I mean you're really stuck between a pile of shit and a bag of piss if you get one of these. >>4003288 This. maybe I'm just mad because I'm stuck with a regular kindle. But it's really like reading off a shampoo bottle and turning around and going "the story's the most important part :3".

97 hours later 4003296 Anonymous (5160486981_f3ed69fea0_b.jpg 1024x686 175kB)
>>4003293 Also another point to make.... those margins. It makes it feel cluttered, I have to say, when you have no white space surrounding the text. A DX is nice, but it's also a bit larger than I'd need

98 hours later 4003312 Anonymous
Anyone else here stuck with a non-backlit Kindle?

98 hours later 4003337 Anonymous
i like them both. i have an e reader and a massive collection of physical books. i switch back and forth from time to time.

98 hours later 4003342 Anonymous (thereasonnooksucks.jpg 478x823 135kB)
The reason why the Paperwhite is better than the Nook™ (and also why I chose the paperwhite)

98 hours later 4003348 Anonymous (m80.jpg 480x810 112kB)
>>4003342 ORIGINAL CONTENT(™) PLS DO NOT STEAL(™)

98 hours later 4003356 Anonymous
Fellow warning to my bros DO NOT buy a kindle from Amazon. They will send you a fucking refurbished one, everytime, even if you're buying new. I've bought an amazon kindle that came with this annoying white dot on screen, returned it, and got back ANOTHER that was obviously refurbished (box inside was rekt). I bought them both new by the way; and I ended up returning them both for all of my cash back. Went to buy one at Best Buy. Brand new, no errors, no problems.

98 hours later 4003364 Anonymous
>>4003356 I bought my Kindle from Amazon and it was fine >being that one faggot that tells people not to buy something because you had a shitty experiennce I bet the one you got back was perfectly fine and you went HURPDERP NO REFURBISHED MEANS BROKEN

98 hours later 4003372 Anonymous
>>4003364 Nope. I complain because I got shitty service. Good for you kid, that doesn't mean they won't try to sell off their refurbished shit as new. Why don't you scoot off to google and see how many other people bought kindles with problems from amazon

98 hours later 4003381 Anonymous
>>4003372 You could do the same for any other site. People only talk about service when it's bad. >they won't try to sell off their refurbished shit as new I didn't get a refurbished and, if it was, I wouldn't notice because I'm not a stupid shit who thinks "refurbished" means "broken or likely to break". Maybe they replace broken Kindles with refurbished ones when people need a replacement >box is broken must be shit >gotta return it and tell everyone how bad buying a Kindle off Amazon is

98 hours later 4003392 Anonymous
>>4003381 >Maybe they replace broken Kindles with refurbished ones when people need a replacement This You know where your returned Kindle will go? Into refurbished. They can either waste money by selling it cheap (they already sell Kindles at a loss and make up for it with advertising) or they can use it for parts or replacement. I hate stupid people who give companies bad rep because of something like this. Who cares about the damn packaging if the product is fine?

99 hours later 4003456 Anonymous
>>4003381 >>4003392 Fanboys and hypocrites. Everything is alright and dandy since they got their stuff fine, therefore everyone else is wrong http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle? _encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSE SG&cdThread=Tx9GQKIL55X92C http://www.amazon.com/forum/kindle? _encoding=UTF8&cdForum=Fx1D7SY3BVSE SG&cdThread=Tx1B4WV7RO38FKN http://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh owthread.php?t=192735 >I had the same problem, I replaced it SEVEN times until I got one that was perfect Btw, both times that I got it from best buy they were in perfect condition with no defects. Eat dirt and learn how companies work, they take used kindles from best buy/other retailers and sell it on their site as new.

99 hours later 4003481 Anonymous
>>4003456 What part of "people only talk about service when it's bad" do you not get?

99 hours later 4003512 Anonymous
>>4003481 ...And at what point am I wrong? Amazon willingly and knowingly sent me two either broken or refurbished Kindles even though I payed the full price for a new one. And there are many, many more customers who have had the same problem And there I go, onto a regular retailer who has them in perfect condition.

99 hours later 4003531 Anonymous
>>4003481 This is my first time posting in this thread, but if I read reviews of a product that has been replaced three or four or more times, I would think twice before buying it. Amazon is a hell of a company, people say they got a replacement every time, but I just can't spend a month waiting for a device in good condition.

99 hours later 4003614 Anonymous
>>4003285 Holy shit it handles pictures a lot better than I thought it would. I bet it could handle technical books or academic journals with b/w diagrams quite nicely.

100 hours later 4003622 Anonymous
>>4003312 eBay + buy the new one if you seriously want it. But you don't seriously want it. You're happy with your Kindle, even without the backlight, you're just mildly, mildly peeved it doesn't have it.

100 hours later 4003693 Anonymous
>>4003512 Yes they willingly sent you one with a dead pixel >refurbished Maybe because it's a replacement You are upset over the fucking packaging. What a little pasy

100 hours later 4003696 Anonymous
>>4003531 My Kindle has bee working for 2 months. Screen broke by being dropped on and I got my replacement today. I contacted Amazon YESTERDAY asking for a replacement. Shit's fast Fuck focusing on negative reviews, there's way more good ones. Shit's ruined by people like this guy

100 hours later 4003698 Anonymous
>>4003622 Maybe I'll try eBay Regular Kindle is pretty awful. I don't have internal light fixtures, just a lamp. Every book i have reads fine. Kindle on the other hand is just dark and shitty, and that's really my issue

100 hours later 4003702 Anonymous
>>3990702 does nobody understand how easy it is to pirate a book?

100 hours later 4003711 Anonymous
>>4003702 Seriously If I can remember how to bypass the method 4chan uses to embed files, I could even stuff a book in an image. They're tiny ass files, it's easy as hell to download them. Here's Lolita: https://mega.co.nz/#!u0Jl0YZb!BQevx AqORfp8nrg_GyopvE6Y8hdIK8_iAoRUvTPH 55A

100 hours later 4003718 Anonymous
>>3990702 You overestimate how many people buy used books. >And what about book clubs, readings, and signings and local used bookstores? Why wouldn't you be able to have a book club with ereaders? In fact a bookclub would be more fun with a ereader because you're all instantly connected with say a Kindle and you can see each other's progress and notes instantly. As for local used bookstores if online stores like Amazon or giants like B&Noble didn't kill them why would ereader? They're two different markets, the used bookstore market and the ebook market. Signings? Is that what's going to hold up human progress? They can sign the Kindle, or you can buy a deadtree book specifically to get it signed, they can sign a special printout of the cover on durable paper. The possibilities are endless.

100 hours later 4003759 Anonymous
>Do you feel there is an ethical dillemma in allowing a couple of "gatekeepers" (the e-reader companies) to dictate what is published This is the opposite of what is happening. Ebooks are making book publishing more democratic. Amazon doesn't care about the content unless it's really objectionable. They just care about having the widest selection possible even if it sacrifices quality for quantity. And that's how it should be, the consumer should decide which are worthy and which aren't. Before you had to go through the gatekeepers, to get your book published physically. Now all you need to do is fill out a form on Amazon and upload your manuscript in the appropriate format and boom you're published.

101 hours later 4003845 Anonymous
>>3990658 >gatekeeper conventional publishers are gatekeepers. with ereaders you can publish your own stuff and anyone can access it.

101 hours later 4003851 Anonymous
>>4003364 He isn't that one faggot though. He recommended a different place to buy the same product. >>4003356 Thank you for the advice. >>4003698 You need to get overhead lighting, it's so much better and you need less bulbs. I lived in an apartment for a while that had no overhead, and coming back to overhead lighting now is so much nicer. >>4003718 I always buy used. I prefer it, since it creates less waste, and there's something transcending about holding a book filled with experiences that someone already read, and that countless more can read. >>4003759 Agreed. That and Amazon is not the only way to publish an eBook. Before eBooks (and the web) it was much more difficult to spread your work across the world. Now anyone can do it.

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