A Little Pissed Off About a Bankruptcy

[war ensemble]

As an avid video gamer, I can say it.

Until very recently, older games and game systems either required a seperate machine running slower CPU's, or the original console hardware and cartridge, to be able to play. There was no back-tech to play older games or current gen PC's, and apart from Sony's PS systems, not much back-tech to play older console systems games.

Only recently has there been some advances in third-party software to play older things on current systems (in the PC realm), consoles are (generally) still screwed.

A book made of paper is effectively eternal (for far longer than my own lifetime, if treated well). It requires no added technology to utilize or enjoy, it provides full featured content in and of itself.

A Kindle (for example) may be great today, but your Kindle book file in 20 years will almost guaranteed be multiple generations of out-dated and obsolete. You (the owner) will hence be required to constantly update the equipment, software and teh data itself to newer, more current formats and tech as time marches on. You will be required to keep a watchful eye on such things, lest you miss a step, or the conversion software become unavailable, or quite possibly no conversion software is created. Lord knows it's not in the publishers interests to create conversion software, they'd rather you rebuy it in a newer formet for their newest tablet, pod or holodeck-e-reader.

If we both do nothing, my book is as perfect as the day it was printed. Your Kindle is a formerly expensive obsolete paperweight, and the file your book is in no longer supported and may or may not work at all by that point, assuming your 20 year old Kindle still works. If you've upgraded systems over that period, perhaps multiple times, you've invested and reinvested money to do so, and if you're able to convert your files, you likely will ahve also invested into the conversion software (perhaps freeware, but I doubt it).

Beyond all that extra hassle, I have a nice looking library of books in my home, you have a cheap POS plastic pad, hard to read in sunlight or low-light, small, cold and disposable.

As for Libaries: No thanks. I'm an owner, not a borrower. I would say more, but this is not, in fact, the JI Poli-Sci section. Lets just say Public Libraries are the very FIRST places that should be 100% digitized and digitally (online) distributed, and the costly physical plants/property/books liquidated.

Eink screens are pretty readable in sunlight, and Mirasol's tech should be really good. I've never had trouble with them in sunlight...

As for libraries, you're an owner not a borrower because you can afford such a luxury. Others can't, thus the necessity of libraries in my opinion. Now if only we could get parents to bring their children there...

I don't see the software itself of the books becoming obsolete--there's nothing to add imo beyond epub, and even if there was there's no reason for it not to work on future devices. There's no one "Kindle book file" because they can read PDF, ePub, etc, and I don't think the standards for those file types will change in the future. And technically your book in the future could rip, suffer water damage, text could fade, etc. You can't really backup books unless you've got a ton of money and space, lol.

[war ensemble]

Resistance is not futile. I will not be assimilated. The only threat to my books is water and fire; I'm good with that.

But Fahrenheit 451 wouldn't have happened if they were all on ebooks. /thread

jk

[bitonti]

There were 3 really good used book stores I could get to within 30 minutes from my house. All 3 have closed this past year.

Your post is so glaringly wrong and misinformed I don't know where to begin other than saying you are wrong.

thanks for your anecdotal evidence to prove how "glaringly wrong" my opinion is...

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/14/132026420/end-of-days-for-bookstores-not-if-they-can-help-it

if Borders and Barnes and Nobles close, there's a hole in the market

I think there's room for real books and e-books, each have their advantages. I also think it's good news when a Big Box anything fails. Something could replace it... something great.

[HessStation]

thanks for your anecdotal evidence to prove how "glaringly wrong" my opinion is...

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/14/132026420/end-of-days-for-bookstores-not-if-they-can-help-it

if Borders and Barnes and Nobles close, there's a hole in the market

I think there's room for real books and e-books, each have their advantages. I also think it's good news when a Big Box anything fails. Something could replace it... something great.

We all don't live in a major market city.

Case in point.

by the way Warfish i looked up book stores in NoVa and there's a tremendous amount of Bible Book stores in that area. Not your cup of tea? perhaps it's time you changed areas my friend.

I've known all the used bookstores in CT. There use to 8 pretty good ones. There's two left. Most public libraries take donations and open their own stores and usually sell HC's for $2 and PB's for $1. That's where a lot of people are going who aren't using e-books. As borders and b &n close more people will be forced to buy e-books and you'll be able to find more book in these venues. I travel quite a bit and I'm always searching as a side hobby. Unless you're near a college or university your out of business. That's unless you're in a major market where some can survive in the more high brow, posh, pseudo intellectual areas a la Cambridge, MA Bethesda, MD etc.

[bitonti]

We all don't live in a major market city.

Case in point.

I've known all the used bookstores in CT. There use to 8 pretty good ones. There's two left. Most public libraries take donations and open their own stores and usually sell HC's for $2 and PB's for $1. That's where a lot of people are going who aren't using e-books. As borders and b &n close more people will be forced to buy e-books and you'll be able to find more book in these venues. I travel quite a bit and I'm always searching as a side hobby. Unless you're near a college or university your out of business. That's unless you're in a major market where some can survive in the more high brow, posh, pseudo intellectual areas a la Cambridge, MA etc.

HessStation my first job ever was actually at a Hess Station. I wore the white pants the summer after my senior year. Pumping gas, selling smokes and scrubbing what I assumed to be some kind of kitty litter on the oil stains during the night shift. this was roughly a year or two before they replaced all the key jockeys with robot pumps and fired 90% of the staff. Good times.

as for your point there's not book stores in Greenwich, Stamford, New Haven, Middletown, around UConn's? I seriously am too lazy to look it up but if that's the case that might be a hole in the market. it's opportunity knocking. there's a way for a book/music/coffee/whatever store to make money if it is a specialty place and also carries a web presence. i.e. if you are the best guy for gun and hunting books, dudes who like Guns and hunting will meet there... or if in a rural place and specialize in the history of the region, native American stuff etc. Just gotta find what people are into and build a community around it. Borders and B&N homogenized the experience. could be that all the CT people who want to buy books do it when they are at work in NYC? I do think there is always a local market for people who don't want to give their cash to big corporations it just has to be rediscovered.

[HessStation]

HessStation my first job ever was actually at a Hess Station. I wore the white pants the summer after my senior year. Pumping gas, selling smokes and scrubbing what I assumed to be some kind of kitty litter on the oil stains during the night shift. this was roughly a year or two before they replaced all the key jockeys with robot pumps and fired 90% of the staff. Good times.

as for your point there's not book stores in Greenwich, Stamford, New Haven, Middletown, around UConn's? I seriously am too lazy to look it up but if that's the case that might be a hole in the market. it's opportunity knocking. there's a way for a book/music/coffee/whatever store to make money if it is a specialty place and also carries a web presence. i.e. if you are the best guy for gun and hunting books, dudes who like Guns and hunting will meet there... or if in a rural place and specialize in the history of the region, native American stuff etc. Just gotta find what people are into and build a community around it. Borders and B&N homogenized the experience. could be that all the CT people who want to buy books do it when they are at work in NYC? I do think there is always a local market for people who don't want to give their cash to big corporations it just has to be rediscovered.

Most used books stores left are around a college or university. They are out there, I've been to them but a lot of these stores you can google are mostly collectible type stuff nobody really wants to read a la 2nd addition Moby Dick in leather binding etc. As far as finding stuff most people want to read such as current lit or thriller type stuff, those are the ones gone. The good ones who had a good selection of everything, mostly are gone. The few that remain will carry only mass paperback and sell for cheap. As a collector geek I'll only buy HC's or good standing pb. But I hate reading the little mass market pb's. I'm weird like that.

I honestly only came up with my name as a homage to Leon but I hear ya. I worked about every sh*tty job there was as a kid.

Also people who still want books can just buy them on amazon etc. Anything with the words "Local Mom and Pop" is dying.

[#27TheDominator]

Reading through this thread I feel like it's 5 or 6 different versions of Pierre Bernard's Recliner of Rage. Sad thing is that I mostly agree with you guys even if my chair isn't particularly comfortable.

I love the library, but things aren't all that great on that front either. They gutted a bunch of them. Literally threw the books out. My local library is almost empty.

[Barcs]

As an avid video gamer, I can say it.

Until very recently, older games and game systems either required a seperate machine running slower CPU's, or the original console hardware and cartridge, to be able to play. There was no back-tech to play older games or current gen PC's, and apart from Sony's PS systems, not much back-tech to play older console systems games.

Only recently has there been some advances in third-party software to play older things on current systems (in the PC realm), consoles are (generally) still screwed.

But we're not talking about console game systems. We are talking about computers and digital media. I've never needed to have a separate computer just to play old games. In Windows XP and higher you can run almost anything in compatibility mode (which goes back to windows 95 at least). You can also download and play virtually any rom (digital snapshot image of a console game) on emulators. I have tons upon tons of old console game roms on my computer from original NES up to PS2. This proves my original point, which is that digital media never gets outdated or unreadable because of new technology.

A book made of paper is effectively eternal (for far longer than my own lifetime, if treated well). It requires no added technology to utilize or enjoy, it provides full featured content in and of itself.

A Kindle (for example) may be great today, but your Kindle book file in 20 years will almost guaranteed be multiple generations of out-dated and obsolete. You (the owner) will hence be required to constantly update the equipment, software and teh data itself to newer, more current formats and tech as time marches on. You will be required to keep a watchful eye on such things, lest you miss a step, or the conversion software become unavailable, or quite possibly no conversion software is created. Lord knows it's not in the publishers interests to create conversion software, they'd rather you rebuy it in a newer formet for their newest tablet, pod or holodeck-e-reader.

If we both do nothing, my book is as perfect as the day it was printed. Your Kindle is a formerly expensive obsolete paperweight, and the file your book is in no longer supported and may or may not work at all by that point, assuming your 20 year old Kindle still works. If you've upgraded systems over that period, perhaps multiple times, you've invested and reinvested money to do so, and if you're able to convert your files, you likely will ahve also invested into the conversion software (perhaps freeware, but I doubt it).

The kindle is moot point because it isn't a computer. It a specialized device for a certain type of media, just like a walkman, or CD player. I don't know what format the kindle uses, but if the files are digital, people will make software to view them from any computer. In fact, I'd bet that someone already has done exactly that. And if you want to test the durability of paper vs plastic, there's no comparison. You lock a book up in a room for 50 years and lock a computer or whatever device up, the device will last longer, no question. Digital is the future, and I'm not talking about devices that can only read one certain type of media. I'm talking about digital media as a whole on computers. The formats are not changing. How long has MP3, JPG, GIF, AVI, MPG, etc etc been around? You can pull up any media file from 15+ years ago and it will work perfectly fine on a modern system. It is not the same as physical media.

Beyond all that extra hassle, I have a nice looking library of books in my home, you have a cheap POS plastic pad, hard to read in sunlight or low-light, small, cold and disposable. I have a cherished physical object (objects) to pass along to the kids I have no intention of ever having.

I'd rather dedicate a desk to a computer (which serves the purpose of stereo, book reader, TV, DVD player, and a thousand other things all in one)than an entire room or bookshelf of wasted space on physical books or other media. You can store thousands of books on a SINGLE CD. I'd much rather make 10 copies of that and pass the knowledge down to my kids or whoever's interested. It's way easier, plus if you move, you gotta haul all your books in separate HEAVY boxes, rather than a single disk that weighs a few ounces. What if your kid needs a few books for college? You gonna pay UPS to ship them or simply email the file to him? If you're buying books simply for the looks rather than the content, then I'd say you're doing it wrong.

[Barcs]

Ok Skippy, first I'm not a 'computer tech'. That's the name for people in an IT dept who chose an MIS degree because they were too stupid, drunk, or lazy to handle a Computer Science curriculum. They're the people who get lots of Microsoft certifications to hide their fear of Unix environments.

Or they might just not want to stare at code for hours upon hours, and actually enjoy working hands on and understanding how a computer works and how to fix it or network it (most programmers do not know anything outside of their programming software). A large portion of PC Techs have computer science degrees (even though it's retarded), which is why I said that.

You might want to re-read (or read completely) my original post. Things becoming obsolete is the problem, not the physical storage medium (which also becomes obsolete too quickly). With the exception of solid-state storage, digital media is exactly the same thing as physical DVDs and 8 tracks. Hard disks are glass platters coated with the same magnetic material as tape. Audio tapes store an analog waveform rather than binary data, but it's still just a long string of highs and lows dependent on a thin magnetic coating. Whether you decode the information with an amplifier or digital logic device isn't relevant.

LOL. This is why I made the PC tech crack. You clearly don't have a good understanding of computer systems and digital media if you think it becomes outdated. Durrrr, yeah, a hard drive is completely the same as CD or DVD. Again, people are having trouble with this very basic concept so I'll explain it again. I am talking about DIGITAL MEDIA. Not physical media, NOT computer hardware technology, but the media files THEMSELVES. Name me any format of audio file, picture file, document file, any type of media file from 20 years ago that you cannot play or view on a modern day computer. Take your time. I'll give you all the time you need and then prove you wrong lol. That's why digital media reigns supreme. It doesn't get outdated only improved.

Last week I dug thru an old bin and saw some cool vinyl albums my kids would like. Then I remembered I haven't owned a record player in 25yrs. This is the issue: Don't put your life's most critical information in a format you can't pick up and touch at a moment's notice.

I don't want to convert my entire library every 5 years. I have a lawn to mow, cars that break, kids to take to ballgames, and Windows PCs that continually crap down their leg. No time to chase format changes for every book I've ever owned.

What do records have to do with digital media files? You don't have to upgrade your entire library EVER. Install the software that reads the books, and keep using it. You don't ever have to change it. What makes you think you'd have to upgrade every single book, or even the software? If you burned a CD 12 years ago (around when they starting making cd burners), full of pictures and music you could easily just pop that into any PC today and read it. It's not like it won't recognize it, because the file formats are still used today. A USB flash drive is something you can VERY EASILY pick up and browse. Hell, if you even wanted to look something up, you just search for the phrase. How are you going to do that with a physical book?

I think I'll add something I didn't put in my first post. Electricity. If the world S**ts the bed, via politics, comets, or anything else, how are we going to power up our gizmoids to read anything? And if the great invention on my Ipod is found 300yrs from now, what if electricity's around but nobody's used wires or batteries in 100 years?

Yeah and if the earth gets knocked out of orbit tomorrow, how are you going to read your precious books without the light as the world turns into a deep freeze? Sparing some major extinction level event, electricity, computers, and technology are not going anywhere. They are the present and the future. Get with the times or be left behind. If you have a library of books on a CD and you back them up to the internet, you don't have to worry about fire or water or anything else. Your house could get nuked and you'll still have that backup online.

Besides the fact that it's easier, takes up less room, and is more convenient, it's also much better for the environment.

[Jetman_67]

I But Barnes & Noble, a horribad chain with worse slection, store layouts, ordering, coffee, seats, ect, ect, ect is somehow living on.

Barnes and Noble offers something people want more than books themselves, they provide atmosphere. I like a latte when I am checking out a book. Now, to be honest I rarely have time to read for pleasure, but I go there often to read up on Adobe CS applications when I am having trouble with one.

[JerryK]

I just remembered that I often loan books to friends.

I just googled 'can I loan ebooks'. Forget about it. Billionaires own the copy-protection (hence access to your book). Some vendors say no. Some vendors say 'they're considering options'.

f**k that. I bought it; I own it. And if I want to loan one to my brother, I'll do it without permission from some corporation.

[HessStation]

Borders>B&N

It's weird b/c they're basically the same store but Borders always had better deals, easier free wi-fi, much better selection of books, mags, dvd, music and better food/drink menues etc.

I was surprised Borders went out before B&N.

[HessStation]

In a Borders now getting some work done on computer. It's their last day. Very strange. This really sucks b/c it was my spot to get out of house and do work (I have a home office) or stop on my travels for emails etc.

[Aten]

I think there's room for real books and e-books, each have their advantages. I also think it's good news when a Big Box anything fails. Something could replace it... something great.

The quaint little commie co-ops have the same problem as big boxes and e-books and whatever else. People don't read, and selling sh*t people don't buy is a stupid business plan.

[HessStation]

The quaint little commie co-ops have the same problem as big boxes and e-books and whatever else. People don't read, and selling sh*t people don't buy is a stupid business plan.

You're unfortunately sorta right. Not to mention, within your own niche base the consumer can get the same product with a click of a button from home, your competition is usually right across the street, not to mention the "sheep" factor where the majority of your product demand can be found in Walmart, Target & other large Supermarket chains (Twilight, Harry Potter, Eat Pray Love, latest James Patterson etc etc.)

[Barcs]

I just remembered that I often loan books to friends.

I just googled 'can I loan ebooks'. Forget about it. Billionaires own the copy-protection (hence access to your book). Some vendors say no. Some vendors say 'they're considering options'.

f**k that. I bought it; I own it. And if I want to loan one to my brother, I'll do it without permission from some corporation.

It depends on the file format. Many ebooks are in PDF format, which is easily transferable. I have thousands of books on my portable hard drive and have no issues giving them to friends. If you use some priority based license software like itunes or some other garbage you may have that issue, but if there's an ebook out that that's not available in PDF format, I'll eat my hat. I agree that if you buy something you should be able to do whatever you want with it.

I mean if you prefer to have a collection of physical books, there's nothing wrong with it, but digital is the future of most media and don't be surprised when physical media becomes less and less available.

[ZachEY]

A lot of people say this, but there are real, non-nostalgic, logistical problems with e-readers. I think the main problem is simply a matter of convenience. E-books are NOT what MP3 players were to CD's. People don't mark notes in their music, they don't need to reference things quickly throughout their collections of CD's, and most importantly, almost straight off the bat people were able to find whatever music they wanted in MP3 format; because it was done quickly, and albeit illegally.

It's great for new releases and books you want to skim through, and reading magazines and newspapers, but it's still a niche. Regular books are going nowhere anytime soon. I bought a Nook last year and I can't stand the thing. I can't quickly highlight or write a note down, it's a pain in the a$$ to reference things, and I already have enough things in my life that I need to charge and update. I love my iPad to death, but I rarely use it for the reader.

The selection also sucks balls. Licensing isn't somewhat consolidated like it is for music. 90% of the time I can't even find the book I want to read on digital format.

This is why when I started my doctorate program last year, I decided against an eReader. Surprisingly, the selection of doctoral level text books in Clinical is pretty solid, but the biggest issue for me was the fact that I need to go back to things from time to time. In a physical book, within seconds, I can find a page I'd read a while ago, just based on the fact that I knew generally where it was. In an eReader, this would take a while.

I know I can add a 'bookmark' in an eReader, but the problem is, most times I don't know what I'll need later until something in my memory clicks and I need to go back to something. The physical books allow me to make notes and reference and re-reference easily and as frequently or infrequently as possible. For anything that isn't pleasure reading, I don't think there's any comparison.

[RutgersJetFan]

This is why when I started my doctorate program last year, I decided against an eReader. Surprisingly, the selection of doctoral level text books in Clinical is pretty solid, but the biggest issue for me was the fact that I need to go back to things from time to time. In a physical book, within seconds, I can find a page I'd read a while ago, just based on the fact that I knew generally where it was. In an eReader, this would take a while.

I know I can add a 'bookmark' in an eReader, but the problem is, most times I don't know what I'll need later until something in my memory clicks and I need to go back to something. The physical books allow me to make notes and reference and re-reference easily and as frequently or infrequently as possible. For anything that isn't pleasure reading, I don't think there's any comparison.

Academia is hands down the #1 thing that will always keep physical books going. I think classes make an e-reader an impossibility. I've had a few online-only courses in grad school, which consisted of solely online readings that I could have read easily enough on my iPad, and I still was printing all of them off. There's no substitute for making notes directly on what you're reading for future reference. And writing papers, sometimes you're sifting through 8-9 books at a time. It's just not a practical way to do work. Saves paper sure, but it doubles the time it takes to do the work.

[Matt39]

I need to become a professional student.

[slats]

Academia is hands down the #1 thing that will always keep physical books going. I think classes make an e-reader an impossibility. I've had a few online-only courses in grad school, which consisted of solely online readings that I could have read easily enough on my iPad, and I still was printing all of them off. There's no substitute for making notes directly on what you're reading for future reference. And writing papers, sometimes you're sifting through 8-9 books at a time. It's just not a practical way to do work. Saves paper sure, but it doubles the time it takes to do the work.

Rather than being the #1 thing that keeps physical books going, I suspect it will be a driving force towards improving e-readers to do what students need them to do. Having an add a note function where you can open a box and drop in some text that stays with your copy of the book forever? How hard should that be? Searching the whole book for a word or phase to find what you suddenly remembered you needed later? Again, sounds pretty elementary. Leaving multiple books open at a time, or having multiple tabs with a number of books going at the same time?

This technology is in it's infancy. I suspect you'll see all these improvements and much more.

[ZachEY]

Academia is hands down the #1 thing that will always keep physical books going. I think classes make an e-reader an impossibility. I've had a few online-only courses in grad school, which consisted of solely online readings that I could have read easily enough on my iPad, and I still was printing all of them off. There's no substitute for making notes directly on what you're reading for future reference. And writing papers, sometimes you're sifting through 8-9 books at a time. It's just not a practical way to do work. Saves paper sure, but it doubles the time it takes to do the work.

And all that aside, there's something that's just kind of cool about having the 1938 version of this on your shelf, with it's decaying book jacket and yellow pages:

http://www.amazon.com/Writings-Psychopathology-Everyday-Interpretation-Contributions/dp/067960166X

It's not worth much, but still a nice item.

[ZachEY]

Rather than being the #1 thing that keeps physical books going, I suspect it will be a driving force towards improving e-readers to do what students need them to do. Having an add a note function where you can open a box and drop in some text that stays with your copy of the book forever? How hard should that be? Searching the whole book for a word or phase to find what you suddenly remembered you needed later? Again, sounds pretty elementary. Leaving multiple books open at a time, or having multiple tabs with a number of books going at the same time?

This technology is in it's infancy. I suspect you'll see all these improvements and much more.

That's definitely true. I don't know though, if you can ever really do the multiple books thing. I have a hard enough time writing a simple paper with just my laptop when I'm scanning PDF articles. I write papers with two monitors, and even that's tight. The other issue is, to get me to switch, you would need to digitize just about everything. I wrote a paper on Winnicott, actually a pretty cool one where I conceptualized Batman from his perspective. It was a simple thing, where I could use other people's writings about Winnicott, but when the time comes, I'll need the source material, which doesn't do me much good in the eReader world.

[RutgersJetFan]

Rather than being the #1 thing that keeps physical books going, I suspect it will be a driving force towards improving e-readers to do what students need them to do. Having an add a note function where you can open a box and drop in some text that stays with your copy of the book forever? How hard should that be?

They have that already. You're not understanding. It's not the concept of being able to make a note. It's being able to make lots of notes, quickly, all over the place. And to be able to sift through them fast. Real fast. You can't replicate that with a tablet or an e-reader. I own both and I don't see it ever happening.

Searching the whole book for a word or phase to find what you suddenly remembered you needed later? Again, sounds pretty elementary. Leaving multiple books open at a time, or having multiple tabs with a number of books going at the same time?

Again, you can already do all of this. It doesn't work well enough and conveniently enough for academic work.

If you'd like to openly state that the technology could be improved to move all of this along, fine, I'm all for seeing what they can do. I have no qualms about saving paper. But I just don't see it. You can't beat jumping back and forth between reference books, flipping through pages at lightning speed, and then being able to simply fold the corner of the page, and being able to do that 100 times between several books if I need to, then being able to get back to any of them within a matter of seconds. Digital formats can't replicate that type of physical speed. Not with referencing. It's impossible.

[RutgersJetFan]

It was a simple thing, where I could use other people's writings about Winnicott, but when the time comes, I'll need the source material, which doesn't do me much good in the eReader world.

This is pretty much the icing on the cake. All it takes is for me to need just one book that's not in digital format for me to say, 'this isn't worth it.' Because now I have to be at the library anyways.

[ZachEY]

I have no qualms about saving paper.

Let's be reasonable about environmental impact.

How many books do you think you'd need to read to make up for the affects of mining and manufacturing of your eReader?

[HessStation]

Academia is hands down the #1 thing that will always keep physical books going. I think classes make an e-reader an impossibility. I've had a few online-only courses in grad school, which consisted of solely online readings that I could have read easily enough on my iPad, and I still was printing all of them off. There's no substitute for making notes directly on what you're reading for future reference. And writing papers, sometimes you're sifting through 8-9 books at a time. It's just not a practical way to do work. Saves paper sure, but it doubles the time it takes to do the work.

You say that now but watch. You're still at that age (mid-20's?) where life still revolves around your generation. It's a weird feeling when you start to see change somewhat hard to comprehend at times. And I'm only 35 but I can see and feel it watching my two daughters 9 and 7. My 9 year old works my Mac better than me.

[RutgersJetFan]

You're still at that age (mid-20's?)

Mid-20's would be nice. I could go back and have almost socially-acceptable sex with 18-19 year-olds again.

[Jets Voice of Reason]

You say that now but watch. You're still at that age (mid-20's?) where life still revolves around your generation. It's a weird feeling when you start to see change somewhat hard to comprehend at times. And I'm only 35 but I can see and feel it watching my two daughters 9 and 7. My 9 year old works my Mac better than me.

Maybe you just have smart kids?

[RutgersJetFan]

Let's be reasonable about environmental impact.

How many books do you think you'd need to read to make up for the affects of mining and manufacturing of your eReader?

Oh snap.

[Warfish]

But we're not talking about console game systems. We are talking about computers and digital media. I've never needed to have a separate computer just to play old games. In Windows XP and higher you can run almost anything in compatibility mode (which goes back to windows 95 at least). You can also download and play virtually any rom (digital snapshot image of a console game) on emulators. I have tons upon tons of old console game roms on my computer from original NES up to PS2. This proves my original point, which is that digital media never gets outdated or unreadable because of new technology.

You have to remember you are approaching this as a well-informed IT person (right?) You know alot about computers, and how to work them. The average user would not find most of what you've listed nearly as easy or convenient as you would. File COnversions, Emulators, Differing System Modes, etc, are not beginner topics generally, and almost all require unlicenced or illegal software to use (especially the emulators, none of which are generally licenced).

The formats are not changing. How long has MP3, JPG, GIF, AVI, MPG, etc etc been around? You can pull up any media file from 15+ years ago and it will work perfectly fine on a modern system.

As one who has worked on computers for a long while now, I would strongly disagree with this claim. I have tons of files in my office right this moment that are unreadable/unuseable due to obsolescence and age.

I'd rather dedicate a desk to a computer (which serves the purpose of stereo, book reader, TV, DVD player, and a thousand other things all in one)than an entire room or bookshelf of wasted space on physical books or other media.

Except a Computer (and I have apretty awesome one, as a gamer) makes a sh*tty Stereo, sh*tty Book Reader, REALLY sh*tty TV or Movie Player, and the thousand other things generaly winds down (for me) to "Playing Games, The Internet and Excel, Beloved Excel". A PC (or worse, a POS laptop or pad) is no replacement, no matter how hard they try and sell the "home entertainment center" concept. Not yet at least (in time, perhaps).

I'd much rather make 10 copies of that and pass the knowledge down to my kids or whoever's interested

You do realize thats theft, right? Forgive me, but I respect the intellectual property rights of others, unliek most of the newer generation who sees anythig digital or online as both free to steal, and free to share.

I'm no Anti-Computer or Anti-Tech guy, I thrive and work daily (home and pro) with both, all day long. But some things (like Books) I just fine the e-version of to still be VERY lacking compared to the old analog original.

I wouldn;t use a digital computer guitar either. Steel, wood and string still sounds better than any computer (although they are creeping in steadily in that area as well).

[bitonti]

the advantage of a e-book (or a collection of e-books) is if I'm doing a paper on some obscure figure in American revolutionary history i can literally search the text for that name. it's way better than using the card catalog, going to the stacks, looking in the indexes in 2 dozen different books etc.

[Warfish]

the advantage of a e-book (or a collection of e-books) is if I'm doing a paper on some obscure figure in American revolutionary history i can literally search the text for that name. it's way better than using the card catalog, going to the stacks, looking in the indexes in 2 dozen different books etc.

Agreed. For research purposes, I could see the benefit of a more searchable digital archive. Although that comes with it's own drawbacks (overload of information, try searching for "Washington" in a group of 50 books on the Revloutionary War, lol).

Students would still benefit from a E-Reader for their research materials.

[RutgersJetFan]

the advantage of a e-book (or a collection of e-books) is if I'm doing a paper on some obscure figure in American revolutionary history i can literally search the text for that name. it's way better than using the card catalog, going to the stacks, looking in the indexes in 2 dozen different books etc.

If you're doing research in that regard and you can't locate what you need to through Lexus or even Google in some instances and need to resort to an e-reader, then turn in your notes and GTFO of my classroom.

[HessStation]

Mid-20's would be nice. I could go back and have almost socially-acceptable sex with 18-19 year-olds again.

Really? Late 20's then. And If I'm way off and you're an old dirt like slats, my apologies.

[RutgersJetFan]

You guys realize an e-reader doesn't give you access to an academic library, right?