Do you have Picard's Syndrome?

Batman · Post by **Batman** » 2003-11-20 07:17am

Gandalf wrote:I personally like paper books, though the pages are too brittle.

Brittle?

Mitth`raw`nuruodo · Post by **Mitth`raw`nuruodo** » 2003-11-20 12:17pm

I prefer paper books. ESPECIALLY when it comes to textbooks. Reading Orwell's 1984 had me thinking about this. When everything is electronic, what prevents people from changing it? Anyone can go in, decide they don't like what was written, and change it. If they don't like the past, they can literally rewrite it, and all future generations will have no knowledge of what it used to be. When something is printed, it stays printed, noone can change THAT.

Singular Quartet · Post by **Singular Quartet** » 2003-11-20 05:22pm

Gandalf wrote:I personally like paper books, though the pages are too brittle.

What the fuck you readn', boy?

Anyways, I have always prefered papar over silicon. Sure, I'll read stuff of the comp, but that's ionly if I know I'm not going to get it in hard copy.

Vertigo1 · Post by **Vertigo1** » 2003-11-20 10:03pm

Paper books only here.

I do my reading before I goto sleep.

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2003-11-20 10:38pm

I can lose a paper back and Im out 1 paperback. I leave a PDA on the lunch table and Im out a PDA plus all the books.

Printed paper is nice, you can flip back and forth. Attach sticky notes. A comptuer screen simply is not the same medium.

Just because something is more "advanced" does not make is better suited for the job. In this case conveying the printed word.

TheDarkOne · Post by **TheDarkOne** » 2003-11-20 11:19pm

I like having e-boks just for the searchable text.

Tsyroc · Post by **Tsyroc** » 2003-11-20 11:46pm

Gary North wrote:Yet there is no well-known free-form database, over two decades into the microcomputer revolution. College students still buy 3x5 cards for note taking. The cost advantages of electronic reading, filing, and printing out are passed over in favor of books with bindings.

I see his point but one of the reasons I always did the 3X5 card thing is that the process of filling out the cards by deciding what should be on them and then physically writing them out helped me remember what I was trying to learn. The process of making the cards was at least as helpful as the cards themselves.

The author does make a lot of good argument for e-books over those printed by a publisher. I'm sure that at some point I will be reading more e-books than paper but I'm not sure that books printed at home will take the place of books printed by professional printing companies for awhile. At least for me I need a much better printer, plus something better than the typical office stapler to bind things together.

One thing I think may be lost in going to e-books is the art form of the bound printed book. Just look at how the artwork on vinyl albums was so much more of the music buying experience before CD's came along. There's still art on them but it's not the same due to the decreased size. I picture something similar happening as e-books replace printed books.

In another thread about this subject it was mentioned that reading e-books via PDA is a very useful format. It's portable and takes up less space than even a typical paperback.