Woe be unto ye

On Jan 6, 10:36*pm, "Russell D." wrote:
On 01/06/2011 07:09 PM, Giles wrote:





On Jan 6, 5:56 pm, "Russell *wrote:

I love books. Always have. I grew up in a home without television. So
books were our escape, our entertainment. Especially during those long
Idaho/Wyoming winters.

I love to have books. I like their smell, their look, their heft. I love
to see rows of them on my bookshelves.

When I first heard of the Kindle a few years ago I considered it a
damnable object to be scorned. I saw it as a threat to those books that
I loved.

But, the more I learned and the more I thought about it the more I
realized that as much as I love books, I love more the words in those
books. I came to realize that the Kindle is a great way to carry around
those words. Lots of those words.

August 1st I preordered the new "Kindle 3" and it showed up the first
week of September. In short, the Kindle is a great reading tool. I have
read more books since September than I have in the last year and a half.
The simple reason is because I always have it with me and find all kinds
of opportunities to read. That dreaded forty-five minute wait in the
doctor's office is now a pleasant escape into some book until that
annoying nurse pops out and says, "The doctor will see you now." It is
much easier to carry around than a book (or books--I'm always reading
several books).

So congrats on the new Kindle. I think you'll enjoy it. I highly
recommend getting a cover for it. Not only does it protect it, it makes
it seem more bookish. The Amazon.com covers are very well made, but
there are lots of others out there.

I love my Kindle.

Russell

Great stuff, Russell.

I can find only one minor point to disagree with; "It is much easier
to carry around than a book...". *My Kindle (with cover.....thanks for
the advice on that, I'd have followed it, but my sister is nothing if
not thorough) is roughly the size and weight of an average trade
paperback.....actually, a bit thinner, but otherwise very similar.
Not particularly "easier" to carry than a book.....but certainly AS
easy.....and, yes, most certainly easier than several books, an
affliction we share.

Yeah, that was worded poorly. Many of the DTB (Dead Tree Books) that I
have read in the past couple of years have been rather large.
"Einstein," "1776," "D-Day," "Team of Rivals," "John Adams," etc. have
all been much larger than my Kindle. That should have read "easier to
carry around than *many* books."

Ah, books like those, yes, the Kindle is certainly eaiser to carry.
And it is easier to carry than pretty much any two books, regardless
of size, let alone many.

Meanwhile, the jury is still out as to whether these things are a
genuine damnable threat to our shared love. *A year ago I'd have said,
hell no. *Actually, I did.....although not so moderately. *Now, I'm
not so sure, for various reasons that would bore the vast majority
here. *In any case, the extinction of the book (if, indeed, it occurs
in the not too distant future.....as seems ever more likely) will be
brought about, primarily, by other more sinister agents than a device
which, after all, preserves the words you and I love so much.

Actually, I am now more convinced that they will not replace books for a
long time. Many books just do no work well on them. I purchased one book
on my Kindle that had a lot of illustrations that text kept referring
to. It was very inconvenient to try and go back and forth from the text
to the illustration. I ended up buying the book. Also, at least for me,
technical books don't work very well on the Kindle. I tend to do a lot
of flipping back and forth in books like that and that just doesn't work
well on the Kindle. At least yet. But, for novels, biographies, etc. it
work extremely well.

Ditto. Every word of it.

And there's more. The feel of myriad kinds of paper and of the words
on the pages. The familiarity of the spines on the bookshelf,
recognizable from across the room. Wandering the stacks in a good
bookstore or library, picking at random or carefully choosing by
title, cover art, author, weight, binding or a host of other factors.
The history of each individual volume, written in coffee, wine,
cheese, breadcrumbs, ashes, tears, dogears, marginalia, bookmarks,
bookplates, inscriptions, dedications, pressed flowers bodily
fluids.....

A book.....a REAL book.....is a container filled not just with words
and ideas, but with all the human effluvia that can find its way onto
or between the pages.

And I can have fifty or a hundred books circulating in a room occupied
by ten or twenty people. Try that with a bucket of Kindles. It
simply would not work without some compelling reason. The difference
is that books are in themselves sufficiently compelling reason.

Wolfgang
read on bruthas and sistas!

PTB!

?

Wolfgang

On Jan 6, 11:44*pm, georgecleveland wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jan 2011 19:22:02 -0800 (PST), Giles
wrote:

THIS is what comes of having a family! *I do not recommend it. * * * :
(

*snippage*

giles
who, like he ain't already got enough to do!

Cool. I looked at my first e-reader this holiday past and I too have
to admit that I was impressed. I downloaded books into my Palm Z22 for
years and when you had the auto scrolll set right it wasn't a bad way
to read books. But the Nook I looked at had fantastic resolution on
the print in comparison. I am considering a purchase.

Geo. C.

I used a Sony hend-held for several years. It was way cool to be able
to download books and carry them around in my pocket. But after the
inital buzz wore off, honest evaluation set in. It was a very tedious
way to read for many reasons.

The Kindle (and others of its ilk, I assume) is a vast improvement.
First and foremost, it looks and feels and reads much like a book.
This is crucially important.

However, I've already noted some things I'd change. First, a book
should open to two facing pages. Anything else is just not right.
And I'm not crazy about moving about from page to page by pushing a
button. I'd much rather "flip" the pages by swiping them with a
fingertip. And then there is the matter of pagination. A "page" on
the Kindle is whatever will fit on the screen in the given space at a
given type size. Which is to say that it can change (easily) in any
book. Books shouldn't do that (well, yeah, they should.....but they
never have.....it's weird.) It is probably this malleability that
lies behind the fact that pages are not numbered (except, perhaps, in
PDF files.....I haven't looked at any of those yet. This doesn't feel
right, either. To be sure, the Kindle has a way of tracking where you
are, and makes it easy to return there if you want to.....but it just
isn't the same as having honest and immutable pages.

And one needs to have several sizes for different reading situations
and evironments. Color graphics would also be good.....at least for
some applications.....field guides, for instance.

All that said (and there's more) I still like it.

Gotta go read now.

Wolfgang

Giles wrote:
On Jan 6, 11:44 pm, georgecleveland wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jan 2011 19:22:02 -0800 (PST), Giles
wrote:

THIS is what comes of having a family! I do not recommend it. :
(
*snippage*

giles
who, like he ain't already got enough to do!
Cool. I looked at my first e-reader this holiday past and I too have
to admit that I was impressed. I downloaded books into my Palm Z22 for
years and when you had the auto scrolll set right it wasn't a bad way
to read books. But the Nook I looked at had fantastic resolution on
the print in comparison. I am considering a purchase.

Geo. C.

I used a Sony hend-held for several years. It was way cool to be able
to download books and carry them around in my pocket. But after the
inital buzz wore off, honest evaluation set in. It was a very tedious
way to read for many reasons.

The Kindle (and others of its ilk, I assume) is a vast improvement.
First and foremost, it looks and feels and reads much like a book.
This is crucially important.

However, I've already noted some things I'd change. First, a book
should open to two facing pages. Anything else is just not right.
And I'm not crazy about moving about from page to page by pushing a
button. I'd much rather "flip" the pages by swiping them with a
fingertip.
I-Pad does all the above BUT at a price...


And then there is the matter of pagination. A "page" on
the Kindle is whatever will fit on the screen in the given space at a
given type size. Which is to say that it can change (easily) in any
book. Books shouldn't do that (well, yeah, they should.....but they
never have.....it's weird.) It is probably this malleability that
lies behind the fact that pages are not numbered (except, perhaps, in
PDF files.....I haven't looked at any of those yet. This doesn't feel
right, either. To be sure, the Kindle has a way of tracking where you
are, and makes it easy to return there if you want to.....but it just
isn't the same as having honest and immutable pages.

And one needs to have several sizes for different reading situations
and evironments. Color graphics would also be good.....at least for
some applications.....field guides, for instance.

All that said (and there's more) I still like it.

Gotta go read now.

Wolfgang


For a free reader that works pretty well grab a copy of yBook.

http://www.spacejock.com/yBook.html

Works pretty well, handles a lot of formats, and many customizable
items. Drawback is that it only runs on a computer so isn't real
portable like the E-readers.


--
Steve W.

On 01/07/2011 08:53 PM, Giles wrote:
On Jan 6, 10:36 pm, "Russell wrote:
On 01/06/2011 07:09 PM, Giles wrote:





On Jan 6, 5:56 pm, "Russell wrote:

I love books. Always have. I grew up in a home without television. So
books were our escape, our entertainment. Especially during those long
Idaho/Wyoming winters.

I love to have books. I like their smell, their look, their heft. I love
to see rows of them on my bookshelves.

When I first heard of the Kindle a few years ago I considered it a
damnable object to be scorned. I saw it as a threat to those books that
I loved.

But, the more I learned and the more I thought about it the more I
realized that as much as I love books, I love more the words in those
books. I came to realize that the Kindle is a great way to carry around
those words. Lots of those words.

August 1st I preordered the new "Kindle 3" and it showed up the first
week of September. In short, the Kindle is a great reading tool. I have
read more books since September than I have in the last year and a half.
The simple reason is because I always have it with me and find all kinds
of opportunities to read. That dreaded forty-five minute wait in the
doctor's office is now a pleasant escape into some book until that
annoying nurse pops out and says, "The doctor will see you now." It is
much easier to carry around than a book (or books--I'm always reading
several books).

So congrats on the new Kindle. I think you'll enjoy it. I highly
recommend getting a cover for it. Not only does it protect it, it makes
it seem more bookish. The Amazon.com covers are very well made, but
there are lots of others out there.

I love my Kindle.

Russell

Great stuff, Russell.

I can find only one minor point to disagree with; "It is much easier
to carry around than a book...". My Kindle (with cover.....thanks for
the advice on that, I'd have followed it, but my sister is nothing if
not thorough) is roughly the size and weight of an average trade
paperback.....actually, a bit thinner, but otherwise very similar.
Not particularly "easier" to carry than a book.....but certainly AS
easy.....and, yes, most certainly easier than several books, an
affliction we share.

Yeah, that was worded poorly. Many of the DTB (Dead Tree Books) that I
have read in the past couple of years have been rather large.
"Einstein," "1776," "D-Day," "Team of Rivals," "John Adams," etc. have
all been much larger than my Kindle. That should have read "easier to
carry around than *many* books."

Ah, books like those, yes, the Kindle is certainly eaiser to carry.
And it is easier to carry than pretty much any two books, regardless
of size, let alone many.

Meanwhile, the jury is still out as to whether these things are a
genuine damnable threat to our shared love. A year ago I'd have said,
hell no. Actually, I did.....although not so moderately. Now, I'm
not so sure, for various reasons that would bore the vast majority
here. In any case, the extinction of the book (if, indeed, it occurs
in the not too distant future.....as seems ever more likely) will be
brought about, primarily, by other more sinister agents than a device
which, after all, preserves the words you and I love so much.

Actually, I am now more convinced that they will not replace books for a
long time. Many books just do no work well on them. I purchased one book
on my Kindle that had a lot of illustrations that text kept referring
to. It was very inconvenient to try and go back and forth from the text
to the illustration. I ended up buying the book. Also, at least for me,
technical books don't work very well on the Kindle. I tend to do a lot
of flipping back and forth in books like that and that just doesn't work
well on the Kindle. At least yet. But, for novels, biographies, etc. it
work extremely well.

Ditto. Every word of it.

And there's more. The feel of myriad kinds of paper and of the words
on the pages. The familiarity of the spines on the bookshelf,
recognizable from across the room. Wandering the stacks in a good
bookstore or library, picking at random or carefully choosing by
title, cover art, author, weight, binding or a host of other factors.
The history of each individual volume, written in coffee, wine,
cheese, breadcrumbs, ashes, tears, dogears, marginalia, bookmarks,
bookplates, inscriptions, dedications, pressed flowers bodily
fluids.....

A book.....a REAL book.....is a container filled not just with words
and ideas, but with all the human effluvia that can find its way onto
or between the pages.


Exactly. Every word of it.

And I can have fifty or a hundred books circulating in a room occupied
by ten or twenty people. Try that with a bucket of Kindles. It
simply would not work without some compelling reason. The difference
is that books are in themselves sufficiently compelling reason.


I was reading my Kindle at lunch time in the local Carl's Jr. and was
approached by a gentleman and ask if that was a Kindle. He said he was
considering purchasing one and would I mind showing him a little about
it. I gladly complied and in the process showed him my Kindle "library"
of about 200 volumes. It was a fun experience.

Wolfgang
read on bruthas and sistas!

PTB!


Sorry. That was a weak play on the "bruthus and sistas." It is "Praise
the Books."

Russell

On 01/07/2011 09:45 PM, Steve W. wrote:
Giles wrote:
On Jan 6, 11:44 pm, wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jan 2011 19:22:02 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

THIS is what comes of having a family! I do not recommend it. :
(
*snippage*

giles
who, like he ain't already got enough to do!
Cool. I looked at my first e-reader this holiday past and I too have
to admit that I was impressed. I downloaded books into my Palm Z22 for
years and when you had the auto scrolll set right it wasn't a bad way
to read books. But the Nook I looked at had fantastic resolution on
the print in comparison. I am considering a purchase.

Geo. C.

I used a Sony hend-held for several years. It was way cool to be able
to download books and carry them around in my pocket. But after the
inital buzz wore off, honest evaluation set in. It was a very tedious
way to read for many reasons.

The Kindle (and others of its ilk, I assume) is a vast improvement.
First and foremost, it looks and feels and reads much like a book.
This is crucially important.

However, I've already noted some things I'd change. First, a book
should open to two facing pages. Anything else is just not right.
And I'm not crazy about moving about from page to page by pushing a
button. I'd much rather "flip" the pages by swiping them with a
fingertip.
I-Pad does all the above BUT at a price...

The biggest of which is eye strain. Extended reading on a back-lit
screen can be very tiring.

Russell

On Jan 6, 11:36*pm, "Russell D." wrote:

Actually, I am now more convinced that they will not replace books for a
long time. Many books just do no work well on them. I purchased one book
on my Kindle that had a lot of illustrations that text kept referring
to. It was very inconvenient to try and go back and forth from the text
to the illustration.

This is where the iPad has the advantage. There is a Kindle app for
the iPad so one can access the Kindle library, but with the iPad they
tell me one can integrate the graphics in a book on either the iBook
app or the Kindle app.

On Jan 8, 10:25*am, "Russell D." wrote:

I was reading my Kindle at lunch time in the local Carl's Jr. and was
approached by a gentleman and ask if that was a Kindle. He said he was
considering purchasing one and would I mind showing him a little about
it. I gladly complied and in the process showed him my Kindle "library"
of about 200 volumes. It was a fun experience.

200? Many more than I've downloaded thus far. But far from
capacity. We have much work left to do!

Wolfgang
read on bruthas and sistas!

PTB!

Sorry. That was a weak play on the "bruthus and sistas." It is "Praise
the Books."

Ah! No, not weak. Should have figured it out. Probably would
have.....in a few of weeks.

Wolfgang
who, as must be obvious by now, ain't been to meeting in quite a while.

On Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:56:15 -0700, "Russell D." wrote:

On 01/05/2011 08:22 PM, Giles wrote:
with families and such inscrutable encumberances!



I love books. Always have. I grew up in a home without television. So
books were our escape, our entertainment. Especially during those long
Idaho/Wyoming winters.

I love to have books. I like their smell, their look, their heft. I love
to see rows of them on my bookshelves.

When I first heard of the Kindle a few years ago I considered it a
damnable object to be scorned. I saw it as a threat to those books that
I loved.

But, the more I learned and the more I thought about it the more I
realized that as much as I love books, I love more the words in those
books. I came to realize that the Kindle is a great way to carry around
those words. Lots of those words.

August 1st I preordered the new "Kindle 3" and it showed up the first
week of September. In short, the Kindle is a great reading tool. I have
read more books since September than I have in the last year and a half.
The simple reason is because I always have it with me and find all kinds
of opportunities to read. That dreaded forty-five minute wait in the
doctor's office is now a pleasant escape into some book until that
annoying nurse pops out and says, "The doctor will see you now." It is
much easier to carry around than a book (or books--I'm always reading
several books).

So congrats on the new Kindle. I think you'll enjoy it. I highly
recommend getting a cover for it. Not only does it protect it, it makes
it seem more bookish. The Amazon.com covers are very well made, but
there are lots of others out there.

I love my Kindle.

Russell

Well, I guess I'll hafta blame it on you, Russell. Bought a Kindle3
today (although it'll be a couple weeks 'til it comes in, as I went
for the free shipping - hey! Had to get the cover to protect the
investment, so felt I should save some money SOMEwhere!).

On 01/08/2011 08:32 AM, Russell D. wrote:
On 01/07/2011 09:45 PM, Steve W. wrote:
Giles wrote:
On Jan 6, 11:44 pm, wrote:
On Wed, 5 Jan 2011 19:22:02 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

THIS is what comes of having a family! I do not recommend it. :
(
*snippage*

giles
who, like he ain't already got enough to do!
Cool. I looked at my first e-reader this holiday past and I too have
to admit that I was impressed. I downloaded books into my Palm Z22 for
years and when you had the auto scrolll set right it wasn't a bad way
to read books. But the Nook I looked at had fantastic resolution on
the print in comparison. I am considering a purchase.

Geo. C.

I used a Sony hend-held for several years. It was way cool to be able
to download books and carry them around in my pocket. But after the
inital buzz wore off, honest evaluation set in. It was a very tedious
way to read for many reasons.

The Kindle (and others of its ilk, I assume) is a vast improvement.
First and foremost, it looks and feels and reads much like a book.
This is crucially important.

However, I've already noted some things I'd change. First, a book
should open to two facing pages. Anything else is just not right.
And I'm not crazy about moving about from page to page by pushing a
button. I'd much rather "flip" the pages by swiping them with a
fingertip.
I-Pad does all the above BUT at a price...

The biggest of which is eye strain. Extended reading on a back-lit
screen can be very tiring.

Russell

Some day, I'll have to retire the old Palm M515 I've been using as a
"book" in favor of the real thing. It'd be nice to be able to see more
than one paragraph at a time. Still, for now it seems that all I read
are college textbooks. I'll wait a few months until I can once again
read for pleasure rather than the memorization of facts and factoids.

On Jan 8, 5:07*pm, Wayne Knight wrote:
On Jan 6, 11:36*pm, "Russell D." wrote:



Actually, I am now more convinced that they will not replace books for a
long time. Many books just do no work well on them. I purchased one book
on my Kindle that had a lot of illustrations that text kept referring
to. It was very inconvenient to try and go back and forth from the text
to the illustration.

This is where the iPad has the advantage. There is a Kindle app for
the iPad so one can access the Kindle library, but with the iPad they
tell me one can integrate the graphics in a book on either the iBook
app or the Kindle app.

The trouble with the iPad (as well as the applications mentioned by
Steve W.) is that it isn't a book. Neither is the Kindle, of course,
but it looks, feels, and behaves (more or less) like a book. I (and
most of the rest of us, I presume) already have a computer or two, a
phone with more computing capacity and memory than an Apollo
spacecraft, a camera that knows more than I do, and various other
electronic gadgets that will, eventually (and probably sooner than
later) replace me. And I don't mind any of that.....but I like
BOOKS......and if I'm going to use an electronic ersatz book, I want
one that looks and feels and behaves much like A BOOK!.....or, better
yet, a library which is, after all, simply a book to the nth power.

Wolfgang
now, if they could just capture that musty old ink, paper, and leather
smell.