Posted on 07/20/2010 1:19:19 PM PDT by abb
Very cool. I write thrillers. Gonna break through to the Published ranks someday.
Oh, I’ve never worried about being labeled a “technophobe”, in fact I have a somewhat lengthy wish list over at Amazon that seems as though it gets longer and longer. Most of it consists of Civil War related books right now, but if I can find a nice, lightly used copy of a book I clearly intend to read and all I basically have to pay for is shipping, I’ll be right on it.
Thanks for that - it happened to “1984” within the last year. What about the Kindle books downloaded to the desktop computer version (which I have)?
About to check out your book!
“Books are dinosaur media?”
The MIT media lab squandered a boatload of cash (I believe it is in the tens, to hundreds, of millions) on a project looking for the electronic replacement to paper.
I guess I applaude the audacity of such a project, and I have no doubt that it has likely resulted in many patents, the idea that paper is obsolete is ridiculous on its face.
Paper is the least expensive and most dependable method of recording written information in a permanent way.
If it requires electricity to maintain, then a record isn’t a record.
Saying that, e-books are an efficient way of toting around a bunch of books. I’d be nervous about reading a Kindle in the pool. I fall asleep and dunk my paperback, I’m out $12 max maybe. Do the same thing with a Kindle and I’m out $189++.
I told my wife to wait about two years and she can pick one up for about $40 or so. Nothing magical about a Kindle.
Woe betide the company that locks their books into a format. Apple can tell you that it leads to single digit market share over time.
Love my Kindle.
For important books that I think I want my kids to see and read later, I buy a hard copy, but for the run of the mill novel or memoir, I buy on Kindle.
Also, I have found some contemporary histories from the turn of the 20th century that are out of print (thus costing $100+ for hard copies when you can find them) that have been converted to Kindle format (and free)- so you can’t beat that. The savings on two of those books paid for my device.
Print books for me. My reading is non-fiction. I can write in margins, underline what I want for reference and then give it to someone else if I want to. I also like to give books and presents and write in them. Works for me.
I look at gadget stuff as something that needs to be bought again and again ‘to have the latest’ updates because the older one will not be supported at longer.
Here is some more food for thought on the history of humankind’s communication systems.
A Tower in Babel: A History of Broadcasting in the United States, Volume I – to 1933
Erick Barnouw
Oxford University Press, New York, 1966
INTRODUCTION
Pg 3
Every medium of information has made names – and meanwhile, values. New media have meant new values. Since the dawn of history, each new medium has tended to undermine an old monopoly, shift the definitions of goodness and greatness, and alter the climate of men’s lives.
In ancient Egypt, the transition from stone – as in the pyramids – to papyrus as transmitter of truth, prestige, and doctrine seems to have brought on or encouraged many other changes. Because papyrus was portable, it helped rulers exercise authority over wide areas. But the power now had to be shared with armies of copyists, and the literate became a privileged class. Because papyrus was scarce, control of its production became crucial, and again this meant a sharing of royal power, in this case the managers of productivity. All this meant a shift away from absolute monarchy, a dispersal of authority, that is said to have penetrated deeply into Egyptian life. Papyrus begat bureaucracy.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, the arrival of paper in Europe began to undermine a church monopoly of knowledge, which had been based on the scarcity of parchment and on the skills of monastery copyists. Ample supplies of paper now encouraged the development of printing, and spread written communications to new fields and ideas. It became an instrument in the growth of trade, the rise of the vernacular, and the spread of heretical ideas via tract, story and image. It reinforced the rise of merchant, lawyer, explorer, scientist. The chain reactions echoed through centuries.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.