Kevin's Watch

And the tree harvesters use only clean technology? Come now, Harbinger, that argument only goes so far.

My main argument in favor of e-readers is the same as that for the iPod: you can cram a lot of reading material into a very small space. Anybody who has ever had to tote crate after crate of LPs to college can fully appreciate the technological marvel that is the MP3 player; ditto on the e-reader for anyone who has saved money on moving by renting a U-Haul for their book collection instead of having the movers take them. ()

Also, you can easily change the font size on an e-reader, which gets to be a bigger issue as you get older.

My main objection to the e-reader setup is that you can't easily loan, trade, or sell back e-books. I'm pickier about what I buy because I know I can't sell it to McKay's later on.

Actually, paper made purely from wood pulp won't last nearly as long as that made from rag paper. But that's neither here or there.

The pros to e-readers are what Ali stated. Also, at least at the Kindle store, it is possible to find classic ebooks unabridged for as 99 cents or free.

A minus that she didn't add that I would is that it's hard to go back and re-read a passage, at least in the kindle. I've run into that a couple of times in the last few days while reading Memories of Ice.

Unlike the Kindle, the Sony Reader has page numbers that appear to correspond to the dead-tree book (altho I haven't tested that to be sure) -- which I think would make it a little easier to find an earlier passage. Altho still not a pleasant activity.

Does the Kindle have a search function? My Reader doesn't, but I believe the later versions do.

And yeah, I got 100 not-under-copyright books of my choice for free when I bought the Reader.

i do love my mp3.

so a deal - someone send me, free of charge - a kindle or such - and i will learn how to use it.

and if you have a spare notebook laying about - i need a new computer.

Kindle does have a search function. I can also tag text with it, but if I don't do so, and want to read back on something specific later it can be difficult to find. More so at least than with a book, where I can often judge about what page the action happened that I'm looking for.

Yeah, I also thought of that re search/tagging (Sony calls it bookmarking). It's easier to judge where you were physically in the book than to try to figure out which virtual page you were on, or where you were in the book percentage-wise. It's almost like you're tapping into a muscle memory with a dead-tree book.

I don't pay attention to the page numbers much anyhow. One other minor annoyance with the Reader is that the table of contents is a series of links. So I can't rely on it to tell me, for instance, how many more pages there are in this chapter (i.e., should I stay up and finish reading the chapter, or bail at this break?).

On some books for kindle, there are black dots on the progress bar, that denotes chapter breaks. Memories of Ice, has the dots, but they are separating the larger parts of the book rather than chapters, since there are only 4 or 5 of them.

Sounds kind of useless, then.

technology alert - since i now have the laptop instead of the dinosaur,,, i have been thinking about updating ALL my technology.

i want a cool phone like everyone else seems to have.

i want a new mp3 player because mine is old.

and >wait for it< i am willing to consider a kindle.

you people have made me want to join this century.

but beware, the luddites may fight to keep me.

sgt.null wrote:technology alert - since i now have the laptop instead of the dinosaur,,, i have been thinking about updating ALL my technology.

i want a cool phone like everyone else seems to have.

i want a new mp3 player because mine is old.

and >wait for it< i am willing to consider a kindle.

you people have made me want to join this century.

but beware, the luddites may fight to keep me.

You'll need a new utility belt, crimefighter!

And thus, Capitalism claims another soul...

damelon - i kind of have a utility belt at work. pepper spray, radio, cuffs, flashlight, keys...

ali - i love money and i means to spend some.