A poll...to DU or not to DU.

[Mythsaje]

Now, this is outside the usual range of DU operations, and I'm not going to tell anyone to vote a certain way, but I do want to make a point about this.

Ebooks are an environmentally friendly medium. They do not involve the killing of trees and they can be distributed world-wide in a matter of minutes with no expenditure of fuel reserves or contribution of greenhouse gasses. In nearly every way that matters, ebooks leave a much lighter footprint on the planet than traditional books.

I'd like to see the numbers in this poll go up, but I think it'll take some effort to educate people before we see that happening.

http://www.att.net/#dailypoll

You'll find the poll at the bottom on the left.

[salvorhardin]

1. I read books in electronic form all the time

I love that I can have 100s of books with me at any time on my Zaurus.

[Mythsaje]

2. Yeah... I like having several on my Clio...

I used to have to carry at least two paperbacks with me all the time in case I finished one too quickly. A PDA is SO much more convenient.

[DUHandle]

3. I would never touch an e book

I enjoy the feel of a book in my hands and I enjoy cruising the racks for new books.

I also like supporting the library with my patronage.

There’s tons of stuff available that is probably not available electronically and I’ll hazard a guess that what is available electronically now will not be available electronically in the future.

[lvx35]

5. I agree about the touch thing, its really important.

No matter what you think in theory, in practice curling up in bed with a hot buzzing laptop is just not the same as a nice old book.

[salvorhardin]

7. OK, at the risk of sounding like I have an unnatural fixation on my Zaurus

I read my Zaurus in bed a lot. It's lighter (than most books), no having to fumble with pages, and it's bright enough to read easily in the dark without eyestrain (actually I have to dim the Zaurus' backlight to read at night).

[lvx35]

8. hey, that looks pretty cool.

I had to look Zaurus up to see what it was, but looks nice. Does it get hot? That's the most annoying thing with my laptop, I feel like my reproductive organs are getting irradiated when I actually put it on my lap.

I think if the price comes down on stuff like that they will catch on. $700 is too rich for my college student blood. I also don't like carrying $700 dollars around in my backpack because things break/get lost/stolen. But if something like that hits around $200 I think ebooks would start to become a lot mroe dominant.

[Mythsaje]

10. My wife bought a nice PDA for about 150...

It's a Tungsten. And, no, it doesn't get hot. My wife's can hold hundreds of books, even more if you use a memory stick. She actually uses it for editing as well.

[lvx35]

15. That's very cool. I should look into that.

If e-books are cheaper, and it seems sometimes they are, that would pay for itself in a few months with me.

[Mythsaje]

17. Baen books has a large free library

of e-book versions of some of their most popular works. Usually the first one or two books of a series (the thinking is that if they can hook people on a series, they'll go out and buy the rest in hardcover or paperback).

It's a great starter option.

[salvorhardin]

12. I have an older Zaurus SL-5600

You can find them for very affordable prices on eBay.

I love my Zaurus, but it's not for everybody. Personally I like having a PDA that I can telnet into and get a BASH prompt but it is clunky and doing anything with it other than the basic PDA type stuff requires a little, umm, commitment. It's also larger than most PDAs. It's pocket sized if you have very large pockets. Normal people might be better off with a newer HP or Dell running Windows. The technology and displays have improved significantly since the Zaurus came out too.

As for heat... It produces very little. Actually it's very pleasant. After it's been on for a half hour or so it's nicely warm in your hand. Running the WiFi card causes it to become about 10 degrees warmer but it never becomes uncomfortable.

[lvx35]

14. Oh, cool. Is it running Linux?

That would be sweet if there was a C compiler for my PDA's architecture. I could do all kinds of things.

[salvorhardin]

16. Yep!

Linux Kernel version 2.4.18-rmk7-pxa3-emb
I'm also running Opie 1.5.0 from all the way back in March of 2001.
http://opie.handhelds.org


Theoretically you could put a full LAMP stack on it and serve up web pages. :-)

[salvorhardin]

6. I enjoy all those things too

That being said, books in electronic form are a great convenience. They're readable, searchable, bookmarkable and easily quotable (when I'm writing or taking notes at the computer). Depending on how they're marked up, they're also easily hyperlinkable too.

But display technology does need to get better and publishers do need to release more electronically. I hope real books never disappear, but I also hope books in electronic format become much more common. As I said in my earlier comment, it's wonderful to have 100s of books (and journal articles, and web pages, and...) with me at any time.

[Mythsaje]

9. My ex feels the same way...

It's unfortunate, really. I too enjoy the feel of a book in my hand, but the whole process of print books is extremely wasteful and not at all friendly to the environment when you get right down to it. Big House publishers routinely buy up extra stock of their own books to destroy in order to put books on the best-seller lists.

I have a room full of books, but I also have a growing library of electronic editions, as well as first run e-books. And reading on my PDA is SO much more convenient, requiring the use of only one hand. I'll whip out my PDA and read in line at the grocery store, or on break at work. You try carrying a paperback in your pocket. I can carry dozens of books in my pants pocket.

And electronic books never go out of print, so it seems more likely they'll be around long after you can no longer find a copy of your favorite print edition.

[DUHandle]

11. Libraries are an ancient institution

one of the nicest things that came out of the earliest governments.

While initially available only to the ruling classes and those who they patronized, today anyone can get most any book at no cost. I don’t think that can be said of e-books. Libraries are also paid for by local government and when circulation and support goes down funding will go down.

The publication/printing processes also adds a degree of legitimacy to what one reads: it’s not at all hard to put some doggerel out on the web and call it fact or fiction: blogs are a case in point.

I’m though with buying books (with very rare exceptions) and any other media, with the exception of music simple due to the space they require.

There’s also a concern of media saturation, not the best thing for kids, since the difference between MP3 player and a PDA has been blurred.

[Mythsaje]

13. It's not all that hard to put some doggerel in print

and call it good either. I've paid good money for some pretty crappy stuff. The mainstream houses have controlled the market for so long that there were a lot of excellent works that never saw the light of day. Readers and reviewers (often one and the same) are just as qualified, if not more so, to decide what's good and what isn't as any executive pulling down a six figure income by making that decision for the masses.

And I don't get your thing about the MP3 players and PDAs. So what? I listen to audiobooks on my MP3 player. And read books on my PDA. And write books on my laptop.

[DUHandle]

19. Response to your second point

MP3 players and e-books/PDAs are another move toward having kids dial out of the here and now.

Driving somewhere, just put in the ear buds and be out of the conversation, or look at the hand-held whatever and again, the child is somewhere else.

These hand held devices share that ability.

[Mythsaje]

20. This is a parental issue...

And has little to do with the rest of the conversation, if you ask me. My wife's PDA is what she uses to listen to audiobooks. I use my MP3 player to listen to audiobooks while I'm doing housework or during downtime at work once we've pulled all our orders and are cleaning up.

Personally I'm not sure how this issue is any different than that posed by portable tape players and disk players, the former having been around since I was a teenager. And a regular BOOK allows people to be out of the here-and-now. That's part of their function, isn't it? The same might be said about car stereos, for that matter.

I'm afraid I'm not understanding your whole issue here.

Many people I know who own PDAs don't even KNOW you can read books on them. I think this is unfortunate.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

18. Yep. Reliability is a factor too.

Paper books don't depend on a supply of energy or the integrity of delicate circuitry to be read.

And don't get me started about the Copyright Nazis and their information-blocking agenda.

[Mythsaje]

21. Copyright nazis?

Oh, yes, it's absolutely mad that anyone should want an artist to be PAID for their work.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

22. Come on. THAT straw man is really old.

Can't you come up with some new ones?

[Mythsaje]

23. You're the one that used the term "copyright nazis" without

any point of reference. What do YOU mean by that? Some people act as though they have the right to steal an artists work just because they can. Copyrights exist for a reason. What's YOUR issue with them?

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

24. Here's some points of reference:

DMCA, CBDPTA, endless copyright extensions, broadcast flag (forget about taping TV shows).

I could go on and on, but I am lazy. Copyright should exist, but the above things should not. The Copyright Nazis are the people who defend the above. Mainly media industry moguls and lobbyists, along with some (VERY few) misguided artists.

[Mythsaje]

25. I don't worry a lot about them trying to control the technology...

They'll be spinning their wheels with that one. As soon as they come up with one thing, some genius engineer will come up with a way to counter it. It's inevitable.

I personally think copyrights should last the life of the artist plus twenty years. And the copyright should reside with a HUMAN person, not a fictional corporate "person."

But that's just me, I guess.

[AndyTiedye]

4. Our House is Overflowing With Books

ebooks good.
ebooks searchable.
we have room for ebooks.