Kindle - Good or bad.

[kabbes]

No, you're arguing that some technologies catch on quickly, some slowly, some not at all.

No I'm not. Although obviously that IS true, since it is a tautology.

 

[untethered]

Yes, if the technology keeps improving then in five years there might be a screen good enough to compete with print. I'm certainly never saying never. I don't have any strong intrinsic attachment to print media.

It's not just the screen, it's the whole interface and user experience.

Which isn't to say that it's necessarily a problem for some readers and some reading; many readers are already using them.

The key points to bear in mind here are:

- Not all texts are functionally similar. People use different texts differently (eg. novels, academic works, instructional works, reference works)

- Should development of these devices attempt to create electronic simulacra of the book or should it create a very different experience?

The idea that e-books will "kill" books is just lazy media nonsense, which likes to polarise supposed opinion around an entirely false premise.

 

[untethered]

No I'm not. Although obviously that IS true, since it is a tautology.

In which case you're simply wrong.

 

[kabbes]

I'm wrong because I'm not saying what you thought I was saying?

 

[untethered]

I'm wrong because I'm not saying what you thought I was saying?

No, you're wrong there (and here, again) because you're not saying what I think you should be saying.

 

[kabbes]

 

[untethered]

... like the original Walkman; bulky and lacking in features.

A bit like a book, then.

 

[kyser_soze]

Even Footlights would've rejected that.

 

[untethered]

Habit and interface is all this is. You don't scroll between pages on an e-book, you flick, just the same as you would printed word.

Pagination is one of the places in which the "e-book" is full of leaky abstractions.

What happens to page numbering when you increase the font size? How do we judge the extent of the text and our position within it?

These things have been tackled, of course, but they're very un-book-like. We have expectations to be able to do certain things with print and digital devices that really don't work in similar ways, if at all, in the other medium.

 

[kabbes]

You only have to compare the way paragraphs are structured on Urban compared with a book to understand the differenced between the media. Print-length paragraphs are *difficult* when read off a screen.

On my journey home, incidentally, I've been reading a first-edition Asimov that I managed to pick up in New York. There are intangible pleasures that can be gained from physical forms too. If yer know what I mean, fnarr.