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Re: [OCLUG-Tech] books

Bill Strosberg <oclug [ at ] strosberg [ dot ] com> wrote:
> Although the young folks will take exception to this,

Yes, the young folks, so reliably uniform in opinion. I have friends
of about my age [21 years] who much prefer dead trees.

> eBooks are a poor, flawed approximation of the dead tree versions,

Dead tree books and eBooks are both poor, flawed approximations of the
work itself.

> Dead tree books can't disappear through DRM measures and failure
> to feed the meter every month.

Neither can my eBooks.

> They can't be tied to a platform, a vendor or an employer.

Neither can my eBooks.

> Battery life is infinite with dead trees.

True. Dead trees win here.

Tho I hope you're not exposing the cellulose to an oxygen-rich atmosphere.

> I don't get headaches from dead tree books.

I don't get headaches from eBooks.

> eBooks don't show enough readable size content per screen
> (I hate to say "page" in eBook context),

If fixed-page, it's no worse than a dead tree book. If reflowable, one
can resize the window, and perhaps get a bigger screen.

> I'm used to scanning two pages of dead tree books in a glance.

One can use a 2-page eBook view.

> There is a substance to real books I like.

That's your preference. Paper weight is wrecking my back.

> eBooks resize content based on platform, screen
> resolutions and user so there is no common frame of
> reference that can be easily shared.

Chapters. Sections.

---

I can't open arbitrarily many copies of a dead tree book.
I can't easily grep thru a dead tree book.
I can't read a dead tree book over the network.

Bill Strosberg <oclug [ at ] strosberg [ dot ] com> wrote:
> I hate Java

Here we agree ☺

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