{"id":14387,"date":"2009-03-31T22:08:07","date_gmt":"2009-04-01T04:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/?p=14387"},"modified":"2009-03-31T22:08:16","modified_gmt":"2009-04-01T04:08:16","slug":"why-electronic-books-are-not-ready-to-play-a-big-role-in-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/03\/31\/why-electronic-books-are-not-ready-to-play-a-big-role-in-my-life.html","title":{"rendered":"Why electronic books are not ready to play a big role in my life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>De writes <a href=\"http:\/\/secret-hideout.blogspot.com\/2009\/03\/thoughts-on-e-readers-and-self.html\" target=\"_blank\">a fine review on the limitations (at present) of electronic books<\/a>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The revolution currently depends on getting people to read for entertainment on their computers, because the best traditionally-formatted self-published books can aspire to be is&#8230;books. And sitting in front of a computer gets old. I get my RDA of repetitive stress injuries at work, thanks. And Kindles are so <span style=\"FONT-STYLE: italic\">meh<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p> It&#8217;s not that the book format is the ultimate format, but until the alternatives are better for <i>me<\/i>, why bother with <span style=\"FONT-STYLE: italic\">meh<\/span>?<\/p>\n<p> The mighty book:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Does not require a power source except in instances where humans require power sources anyway (i.e., lighting, the ability to move).<\/li>\n<li> Can be replaced cheaply if damaged (usually); thus, can be read in the bathtub.<\/li>\n<li> Can be explored rather than searched for.<\/li>\n<li> Can be interacted with physically (smelled, touched, listened to, riffled).<\/li>\n<li> Can be collected.<\/li>\n<li> Can be illustrated in color.<\/li>\n<li> Can be loaned.<\/li>\n<li> Can be borrowed.<\/li>\n<li> Can be entrusted to a baby (board books, rubber books).<\/li>\n<li> Can be produced in different sizes (comic books).<\/li>\n<li> Can have a &#8220;total package&#8221; for marketing purposes &#8211; in fact, have covers for just this purpose.<\/li>\n<li> Are reliable<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>De leaves one one aspect of conventional books that Kindles and the like&nbsp;cannot (as yet) match: <em>ubiquity<\/em>. I have books everywhere in the house. I have a book in my briefcase, one on the breakfast table by my computer, one in the bathroom, one in my closet, one on my nightstand, one in each of our cars. I may carry a given book I&#8217;m reading and really into to various places, but if I forget it, I can very easily just pick up one of the other ones I&#8217;m reading.<\/p>\n<p>At the moment, I don&#8217;t think I can afford that many Kindles, esp. since I can&#8217;t easily have all my books available on each one. And being upstairs and realizing I left the Kindle downstairs, or off at work and realizing I left it at home, etc. &#8230; that&#8217;s just not fun times.<\/p>\n<p>The only thing I carry around with me that reliably is, probably, my cell phone. But cell phones are too small a form factor for easy reading (at least as currently designed). And I can&#8217;t afford to carry around anything bigger than that.<\/p>\n<p>Hmmm. Maybe if we had e-readers that tied into a heads-up display on my glasses &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>But of course, the other limiting factor is what De also identifies. battery life.<\/p>\n<blockquote dir=\"ltr\" style=\"MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px\">\n<p>I&#8217;m prepared to buy a cell phone when it&#8217;s my:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> cell phone<\/li>\n<li> laptop<\/li>\n<li> e-reader (and can display graphic-novel-level illustrations)<\/li>\n<li> music and video player<\/li>\n<li> and I can throw it in my backpack for a month-long expedition into the desert, with a few stretches in the ocean, and not have to worry about how I&#8217;m going to charge the thing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I can carry around a book indefinitely.<\/p>\n<p> The people, the people are ready for a revolution. But the batteries, the batteries aren&#8217;t ready.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"> Yup.<\/p>\n<p dir=\"ltr\"> But in ten years, we may all be singing a different tune.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>De writes a fine review on the limitations (at present) of electronic books. The revolution currently depends on getting people to read for entertainment on their computers, because the best traditionally-formatted self-published books can aspire to be is&#8230;books. And sitting in front of a computer gets old. I get my RDA of repetitive stress injuries &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/03\/31\/why-electronic-books-are-not-ready-to-play-a-big-role-in-my-life.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Why electronic books are not ready to play a big role in my life&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[36,20,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-books","category-hi-tech","category-my-mobile-pda"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":26895,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/03\/08\/price-fixing-ebooks.html","url_meta":{"origin":14387,"position":0},"title":"Price-fixing ebooks","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Mar-12 7:06am","format":false,"excerpt":"This will be an interesting DoJ suit -- basically that the change to \"agency pricing\" with Apple, and then forcing the same deal on Amazon, was price-fixing.I'm not sure on the argument about agency pricing itself -- an agreement between a supplier and a retailer that the supplier will set\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15228,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2009\/07\/17\/why-i-wont-be-buying-a-kindle.html","url_meta":{"origin":14387,"position":1},"title":"Why I won&#8217;t be buying a Kindle","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 17-Jul-09 3:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I really want the Kindle to be as cool as it seems. Though I have doubts about whether it would fit into my reading lifestyle, the concept of having a library of books in one's hand remains awfully tempting ... all the more so whenever I see anyone with one.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30562,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/12\/fair-use-and-digital-libraries.html","url_meta":{"origin":14387,"position":2},"title":"Fair use and digital libraries","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 12-Oct-12 10:22am","format":false,"excerpt":"A good decision that affects mostly library research and the visually handicapped.Reshared post from +Electronic Frontier FoundationA big victory for fair use and library users.\u00a0 EFF filed an amicus brief supporting this excellent decision. Embedded Link Digitizing Books Is Fair Use: Author's Guild v. HathiTrust | Electronic Frontier Foundation Good\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":32656,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/03\/01\/death-and-comics.html","url_meta":{"origin":14387,"position":3},"title":"Death and Comics","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 1-Mar-13 8:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"This article doesn't tell anyone anything they don't already know if they follow comics -- aside from noting resurrections of heroes from the dead in one way or another are standard mythological fare.Since pretty much nobody is sacrosanct (though I don't think Marvel has ever brought Uncle Ben back, have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":30015,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/08\/29\/airplane-mode.html","url_meta":{"origin":14387,"position":4},"title":"Airplane Mode","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 29-Aug-12 7:32am","format":false,"excerpt":"This article -- about the FAA reviewing rules on electronic devices -- just makes me angrier than I am about current policies.The stated big concern has been about cellular phone traffic and its effects on the airline systems (the evidence for which seems pretty light-weight). But it sounds like nobody\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;~PlusPosts&quot;","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12430,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2008\/05\/05\/marvels.html","url_meta":{"origin":14387,"position":5},"title":"Marvels","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 5-May-08 2:56pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Buoyed by Iron Man's deservedly boffo box office, Marvel today offered up some future release dates: 30 Apr 2010: Iron Man 2 4 Jun\u00a02011: Thor (dir. Matthew Vaughn) 6 May...","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Comics &amp; Comic Books&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Comics &amp; Comic Books","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/media\/media-comics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}