Posted on 08/17/2010 2:01:07 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach
I believe it was removed completely from Amazon due to licensing questions.
People complained it just ‘disappeared’.
Doesn’t make any sense now. I don’t generally buy paperbacks myself and my husband reads everything on his kindle. I actually used to sell them on my ebay account.
LOL that is so true. I don’t know anything heavier!
I love the iPad, because among other things the iBook, Kindle and Nook applications not only allow me to change the font size, I can change the font the book is printed in. So, as I am closing in on 50 faster than I would like - I find that a larger print it more comfortable to read. I can adjust the color of the text as well as the color of the paper to allow for reading in darkness or bright areas. I can make the 'paper' sepia or white, in some applicatiosn I can make the paper any color I like, and the text any color as well - for some, this is a recipe for disaster.
I'm impressed that a $200 stereo would show the differences between vinyl and CD. I haven't listened to vinyl in close to 20 years. But, the sophistication found in even the lower-end receivers is vastly superior to what it was back in 'the day'. I'll accept your good word on the difference with today's receiver - but would be skeptical if you were using a $200 receiver from the early 80's.
I haven't purchased a CD in close to 20 years; not because my income has gone down - it's that my tastes have remained locked. Much of what passes for music today is just noise to my ears. I would be curious to know how a Telarc CD compares against a similar vinyl recording.
That is not because of the decline of books, but because of the decline of common sense in building - people commonly spend every penny on square footage, with nothing left over for trim work, such as built-in book cases. Go to your local bookstore and look for books by an architect named Sarah Susanka - she espouses a wonderful concept called the “Not-So-Big Home,” which focuses on the practical aspects of a comfortable working home, over mere square footage. Just in case you are interested.
That is interesting. And I admit I like square footage. I need to put my *stuff* somewhere. :)
While the occasional chick-lit dud works it way in the system, most of the books are excellent.
Is this same experience possible with these e-book things?
Some of my co-workers have e-readers, none of them impress me in the slightest. The iPad being a touch screen puts me off immediately, I live in sweat country and I don’t want my fingerprints between me and the content, and the thing looks very shiny too, I like to read outside. Kindle looks about the best for viewing, but it lacks the contrast of paper. And of course the punchline is I’m a library book sale guy, I regularly get 3 tote bags worth of books for around $40, I just can’t emotionally justify spending 3 trips to the library book sale on a reader that I’d still have to go get the books.
Audio technology has improved dramatically. My MP3 player has a speaker on it that’s about the size of a pencil eraser and that little thing gives out a higher fidelity than my first boombox in the 80s, and can crank a pretty impressive volume too. It’s really kind of stunning. Over the past handful of years when I head out to the pool to do some reading I’ve moved from hauling out a boombox with a bunch of CDs to a 4 GB MP3 player and speakers, to a 32GB MP3 with its own speaker, and every step has given better sound than the previous.
I’m still buying music constantly. Lots of great music comes out regularly. The only real difference between now and the “hey day” is that the radio stations of the country have gone to crap, where once good music got radio play now it doesn’t, but if you put in the effort it’s still out there. And even if my musical tastes hadn’t continued to evolve so many of the old farts are still kicking around and showing they’ve actually learned a thing or two. Which actually spins back to the technology, not only has personal audio gotten better, concert audio has gotten better too. I think a lot of the old farts haven’t hung it up because they like the new toys, any guitar players that heard to new amps and speakers really wants to plug into them.
Susanka addresses the need to put stuff places, as well. Storage and display, such as built in bookshelves, is a key part of the not-so-big design concept.
But I have big stuff. :(
Understandable. But how much of that big stuff is stuff designed to replace the built in storage lacking in modern home construction? Not-so-big as a concept is not about sacrificing bigness so much as emphasizing quality of space over floor area. It is an unfortunate limitation the everyday understanding of architectural space that they think in terms of square feet. Spaces are three dimensional, and need to be considered and described as such.
Consider the following: I cannot speak for your personal taste, but generally, high ceilings are considered to increase the appeal of an important space. However, this is only effective if lower ceiling heights provide some contrast. Consider at house has uniformly 10 foot ceilings. In such a house, the effect of differentiation is lost. However, consider a house with the exact same floor plan, but with differentiated ceiling height. Moving from a hallway with 8 foot ceilings into a bedroom with 9 foot ceilings will produce a sense of arrival which would be absent from the house with 10 foot ceilings in both the hallway and bedroom. The emphasis placed on the bedroom over the hallway by the difference of ceiling height will, all other things being equal, generally make the 8’-9’ variation more appealing than the uniform 10 feet.
None of this is effectively communicated by the square footage of a house, but does effect the price. When your budget is set, sacrificing a little bit of the square footage in favor of architectural detail can make a house eminently more livable. Of course, if you have the money, there is no reason to sacrifice square footage. Just add the detail, too.
Still, I had to wait about 10 minutes for no discernible reason.
Can you source that?
Never mind...I found it...
Very disturbing.
Sometimes there gets to be confused people in the world. It’s not necessarily the stores fault, though the clerk probably should have flagged for help sooner.
The newspapers are asking for help .
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