I'm noticing more and more people are not allowing the forum software to do the word wrapping in the text editor. What they are doing it hitting return when their lines get to the right side of the text editor and not just keep typing so the editor wraps the lines. The short lines look rather annoying and can be hard to read sometimes. For example...

I'm noticing more and more people are not allowing the forum software to do the
word wrapping in the text editor. What they are doing it hitting return when
their lines get to the right side of the text editor and not just keep typing so the
editor wraps the lines. The short lines look rather annoying and can be hard to
read sometimes. For example...

See the difference? Which would you rather read? Me, I'd rather the word wrapped lines. It is so much easier on the eyes. So folks, please let the text editor do the wrapping. It will help you get your point across so much easier. Thanks!

i think you're talking about me.
i like to control my linebreaks.
it reminds you that i'm a poet.

-bowerbird

but it _would_ be nice if the layout of this website
were changed so that the width of the text column
resized when the browser-window was enlarged...

but, you know, maybe that's the _site_designer_
who's exercising his/her own _artistic_judgment_,
and who am i to tell him/her how it should be?...

-bowerbird

i think you're talking about me.
i like to control my linebreaks.
it reminds you that i'm a poet.

-bowerbird

Must be ee cummings reincarnate. No capitalization.

Must be ee cummings reincarnate. No capitalization.

I'm sure that's what he told his psychiatrist.

i think you're talking about me.
i like to control my linebreaks.
it reminds you that i'm a poet.

-bowerbird
it's not just you. There are others doing the same thing and it's not very nice to read.

but it _would_ be nice if the layout of this website
were changed so that the width of the text column
resized when the browser-window was enlarged...

but, you know, maybe that's the _site_designer_
who's exercising his/her own _artistic_judgment_,
and who am i to tell him/her how it should be?...

-bowerbird

You can change the forum skin in your options. Select liquid and then when you make your browser full screen, the properly word wrapping text will adjust.

See the difference? Which would you rather read? Me, I'd rather the word wrapped lines. It is so much easier on the eyes. So folks, please let the text editor do the wrapping. It will help you get your point across so much easier. Thanks!

Actually the one with shorter lines was much easier to read. The default length of a line is much too long since what you want is 60-70 characters per line maximum according to most typographical recommendations.

> You can change the forum skin in your options.

i didn't know that. thanks. i'll try it out...

-bowerbird

It was a new option that came in with the server change ... April, maybe? Anyway, it's not an obvious thing, but it is really nice to have, since folks have different preferences on how they like to see things displayed. :nice:

Actually the one with shorter lines was much easier to read. The default length of a line is much too long since what you want is 60-70 characters per line maximum according to most typographical recommendations.
I've read various guidelines on this and they don't all agree, but one nice thing about leaving the line-wrap to the browser is that the reader can adjust font size and window width to their own comfort, rather than being forced to live with what the author likes best.

nekokami said:
> one nice thing about leaving the line-wrap to the browser is that
> the reader can adjust font size and window width to their own comfort,
> rather than being forced to live with what the author likes best.

yeah, isn't it a pain when authors try to force their preferences on you?

i really hate that... :+)

-bowerbird

nekokami said:
> one nice thing about leaving the line-wrap to the browser is that
> the reader can adjust font size and window width to their own comfort,
> rather than being forced to live with what the author likes best.

yeah, isn't it a pain when authors try to force their preferences on you?

i really hate that... :+)

-bowerbird
Why is it you have to be this way? Why can't you post so it is best for most people to read what it is you post? Do you really want to be disliked for doing this on purpose? Is there any good reason you are doing this? Uing the Liquid theme, you can have the line look short like you seem to enjoy while the others can have the lines at whatever length they prefer. Let the forum software handle the user preferences instead of making a real mess.

i'm not sure why you seem to be taking it so _personally_, jon.

and i think you're missing _both_ the humor and the serious point.

i won't bother explaining the humor, because, you know,
if you have to explain it, then it ain't gonna work anyway...

the _serious_ point, though, is that self-expression matters.
if i see this as a form of self-expression, i am gonna do it...
and i'm not gonna compromise that because you want me to.

and the _flip_ side of this serious point is that it can be irritating
to a reader when their reading experience is constrained in ways
that they do not like. whether that constraint is produced by
an author, or a publisher, or a file-format, or any other way,
the end-result is reader irritation. and the lesson in all of that
is that digital text needs to be structured in such a fashion that
the _reader_ is in control of their own reading experience...

but we also need to understand that there's always going to be
a creative tension between the artist who wants to control the
experience of their creation, and the audience who receives it...

does the artist run a risk of losing the audience by insisting
the audience experience the creation as the artist intends it?
well, most definitely! the audience might leave! and so be it!
that act actively represents the fact that art is a relationship!

if people want to stop reading my posts, or turn them into
a big blotch of whitespace with the "ignore" command, fine!
i accept that as the risk that i run, with my self-expression...

do i _want_ to irritate people? well, heck no! but do i want to
buckle down into conformance to what _they_ want me to be?
well, heck no!

(and, as i sidenote, do i wonder why it's such a big deal? yes!)

you might want to construe this as a simple "wordwrap" policy,
but there are philosophical issues right underneath the surface.
philosophical issues that have _everything_ to do with e-books.

-bowerbird

Why can't you just set your browser so YOU get the tiny lines and we get what we want? How hard is that or maybe it's too hard. I am not sure.

Why can't you just set your browser so YOU get the tiny lines and we get what we want? How hard is that or maybe it's too hard. I am not sure.

I have no problem with the way bowerbird posts. Just because you do not like something does not give you the right to speak for the rest of us. You should edit your post to say: "Why can't you just set your browser so YOU can get the tiny lines and I get what I want.

The forum is setup so when a properly typed message is posted, they get to have things they way they want. When you put in hard returns in places they don't belong, you take away the power of the forum to give people what they want. You basically FORCE everyone to purt up with things the way YOU want, not the way they may want. If they want small lines, narrow the browser window. If they want long lines, widen the browser window. It's not hard to do it so everyone benefits.

Look at post #12 in this thread. You'll notice the quoted text is NOT quoted the way the ORIGINAL POSTER posted it. It's modified to have smaller lines. It's been modified from the way that the OP posted.

i
tHinK
aNyThing
IS
oK
as
LoooonG
aS
It
iS
nOt
tAkEn
2
eXXX
STreams

XXX Streams?

XXX Streams?

No. eXXX Streams. It's the digital form.

eLiptical humor :)

jon, it seems you and i disagree about what "self-expression" means.

which, i guess, is entirely appropriate, isn't it? :+)

-bowerbird

jon, it seems you and i disagree about what "self-expression" means.

which, i guess, is entirely appropriate, isn't it? :+)

-bowerbird
Yes we do disagree. But as we know, ebooks should be about reflowable text in such a way that it gives the user the experience s/he wants. The way you are typing, itf you were an ebook, you'd be sitting on some website not being purchased as your reading experience is like a poorly formatted PDF. Imagine you took your computer screen and pushed everything over to take up no more then 1/3rd of the left side. Would you really enjoy using your computer when 2/3rds on the right blank? That's basically what you are doing when you self-express. You also take what others type and reformat it fit your 1/3rd of the screen. It's not nice and a lot of people don't enjoy reading it. if they decide they want it narrow they can set the theme to liquid and adjust the browser.

jswolf said:
> But as we know, ebooks should be about reflowable text
> in such a way that it gives the user the experience s/he wants.

yeah, you know, i've agreed with that perspective for decades.

and yet, in the last 15 years, the one format that caught on
-- stole the whole show, basically -- was frozen-page .pdf...

and according to every multi-format web-library i know,
it's _still_ the runaway leader in downloads. go figure...
i guess i wasn't quite as smart as i once thought i was...

> Would you really enjoy using your computer
> when 2/3rds on the right blank?

i have a 23-inch cinema-screen, so i often work in
windows 1/3 the size of this baby. so maybe i'm the
wrong person for you to be asking that question to...

if you want my posts to fill the width of your screen,
however, then you could just jack the text-size up...
i can even make it fill the width of my 23-inch screen:

7144

but, yeah, one thing i've noticed is more and more sites
insist on limiting the column-width of the user-experience.

blogs default to put the main content in a center column
-- which generally takes up roughly _half_ of the screen --
and relegate sidebar stuff to the left and right columns.

i think they do this because browsing at full-screen width
makes lines much too long to be easily readable. at least
that's why i _assume_ they're doing it. but like i just said,
i'm not quite as smart as i once thought i was about this,
so maybe you should ask them why they're doing it...

you can start with david rothman, over at the teleread blog.
up until just recently, he had a very narrow center column.
and it was set at a fixed specified size, so even when i would
widen my window to the full 23 inches, the center column
still stayed at that puny width. for such a champion of the
"power" of the xhtml/css combo, it was funny and ironic.
he's got a new design now that turned me off even more,
so i haven't browsed there much lately, i read it in r.s.s.,
so i can't really tell you what the current problems are...
but hey, here's a screenshot to show you what it looks like
here on _my_ monitor:

7142

and then there's that khoi guy, who is considered one of the
best web-designers, which is why the n.y. times hired him.
he likes grids, and some columns on his personal website
are so narrow that even my _smallest_ lines spill over...
here's what his site -- subtraction.com -- looks like for me:

7141

or john gruber. again, narrow center column, with whitespace
(or should i say "grayspace"?) at left and right. wasted space,
in my personal opinion, but hey, whatsa person gonna do?
and gruber is reputed to have some great design chops too.
i think i remember he said it took him _6_months_ to make
the final decision on the _exact_ color of his gray background.
so now we know why the designers get the big bucks, eh?

7140

and don't forget the mecca of c.s.s., the c.s.s. zen garden.

i entertain myself frequently there by zooming the text up to
a really _huge_ pointsize -- i'm talking like 64 points and up --
to see how it breaks all those nicely-crafted designs to pieces.
not that you have to go so big to break the designs, mind you.
on many designs, if you size up the text _one_measly _notch_,
the design breaks. and _two_notches_ usually breaks it badly.

plus gee, now we have the small screens like the iphone,
actually displaying websites "the way they were intended"
-- as opposed to the "make-it-narrow" approach of opera --
so we have to include _that_ in the picture as well...

it's complicated, i tell you. i used to think it was _easy_,
and _reflow_ was the solution that solved all the problems.
but now i can see that even a ruthless reflow-minded
approach like the xhtml/css combo can't handle everything.

so now it's just plain hard to say...

-bowerbird

p.s. somehow, however, i don't think that you intended
to bring up a general theoretical question about reflowing,
did you? so let me give you a tip that you might like.
this edit-field here, where people enter and edit posts?
it's very narrow. if you were to make it _a_lot_wider_,
then you would probably find that my lines got longer...
i'm not the boss of you, and i'm not telling you what to do,
i'm just sayin'...

7143

and yet, in the last 15 years, the one format that caught on
-- stole the whole show, basically -- was frozen-page .pdf...

and according to every multi-format web-library i know,
it's _still_ the runaway leader in downloads. go figure...That's a good point. I've always been of the mind that PDF got such a large following because the PDF reader software was given away, so everyone had it, and there really wasn't anything else that approached its ubiquity. But I don't believe its popularity was in any way due to it ever being considered suited for use as an e-book format -- I don't think that was ever even considered, really. :shrug:

PDFs inflexibility really makes it ill suited for e-books: it's designed to preserve format, and it does that very well, to the detriment of readability in many cases.

That's one of reasons I've been cautiously optimistic about epub and Digital Editions. It's got Adobe's name recognition, but it's a flexible format rather than a fixed one, making it much more appropriate for e-books, in my opinion. :nice:

Blogs are narrow because of all the stuff on the right side they have due to the format of most blogs. But yeah, I do see your pont on how there are lots of things that are made with narrow columns. Teleread is a fixed size. My screen is a 19" non-wide LCD monitor at 1600x1200 and it would be nice it it was reflowable based my nmy browser window size.

The problem with a lot of sites (not just TeleRead) is that they use canned software like WordPress. This makes it a lot easier for non-techies to publish on the web. It also puts them at the mercy of what templates are available for their particular software.

It's a tradeoff. For myself, I'd probably either create a better template to use in the CMS (content management software), or I'd just do the entire site by hand. This is not an option for the majority of people and web sites, however.

Edit: There are situations where it is appropriate to limit the amount of text on a line for stylistic presentation on a web site. I don't agree with doing this in forums, emails, etc., but that is just my preference.

natch said:
> I've always been of the mind that PDF got such a large following because
> the PDF reader software was given away, so everyone had it,
> and there really wasn't anything else that approached its ubiquity.

i've always been of the mind that .pdf got such a large following because
adobe is a ruthless company that does not let competitors get a toehold,
and -- if they do -- will buy 'em out or find another way to destroy them.

but maybe that's just me... ;+)

-bowerbird

i've always been of the mind that .pdf got such a large following because
adobe is a ruthless company that does not let competitors get a toehold,
and -- if they do -- will buy 'em out or find another way to destroy them.Well, sure, that too. :laugh4:

But it mounts to the same sum, doesn't it? PDF's popularity for books has little to do with the format's being a good choice for e-books. :shrug:

natch said:
> But it mounts to the same sum, doesn't it?
> PDF's popularity for books has little to do with
> the format's being a good choice for e-books.

the _current_ popularity of .pdf put aside for a moment,
its effectiveness as a vehicle for e-books is two-pronged.

in a resizable-window world, .pdf _stinks_, unredeemably.
while it's only fair to note it wasn't made for that purpose,
it's also important to recognize that's the world we live in.

however, as we've seen, even the methodologies that are
_specifically_geared_ for a reflowable world often fail us,
and certainly don't work nearly as well as we would _like_.

so we have to look at the other prong too.

in a fixed-size-window world, .pdf is relatively worthwhile.
it offers a decent array of the functionalities that we need,
and missing ones (e.g., remixability) are not a priority yet.
its performance, though not snappy, isn't unbearably slow.
it doesn't add _too_ much bloat to a document. you _can_
rely on an assumption that readers will be familiar with it,
and already have on their machines a program to view it...

maybe the best part of all? .pdf is _very_ easy to generate.
(and _this_, i would posit, is a big reason for its popularity.)

i believe it was pioneered by another company, not adobe,
but whoever did it, the printer-driver approach is _genius_.

it is also a very terrible _curse_, as it allows a person to
create an "e-book" designed for paper, not for the screen.
but some blame needs to be put squarely on that person.
i have long advocated that .pdf creation software do this:
you're attempting to create an 8.5*11-inch .pdf.
because this size won't fit at 100% on their monitor,
almost everyone will have to shrink it, meaning that
your already-too-small 10-point type will be 7-point,
and be totally unreadable. because such documents
reflect poorly on the reputation of adobe .pdf format,
we simply cannot let you create this .pdf until you've
changed the parameters to make it work on-screen.
we're sure you understand, because you are familiar
from your _own_ experience at how _frustrating_ it is
when you attempt to read such a poorly-designed .pdf.

so we thank you for your cooperation in this matter...

here are some possible fixes. check all you'd like to apply:
o -- make the page-size smaller.
o -- make all of the type bigger.
o -- change from portrait orientation to landscape.
o -- run a wizard to make it work; i'll review the changes.

again, thanks for your understanding and cooperation.


there's another thing to consider too.

the simplicity of creating .pdf _could_ be a valuable tool
as a solution to .pdf's biggest flaw of nonreflowability.

i'm concentrating here on the fact that, though we live
in a reflowable world, based on our many screensizes,
there are lots of machines that have fixed-size screens,
range from the pda's to the sonyreader to the iliad, etc.

and even on those machines, like our computers, which
have screens big enough to support resizeable windows,
people often settle on one specific size for their reading.
and as long as a .pdf is sized appropriately, it works fine.

that's what enables mobileread to have a library, right?
the fact that there's some agreement about the variables
that need to be set to make a .pdf work on a sonyreader,
or an iliad, or a cybook, or whatever...

so, suppose we distributed an e-book in a "raw" form,
along with a conversion utility that allowed end-users
to create a .pdf to their own specifications simply by
dropping the raw e-book on the converter-utility.

so if they wanted the e-book formatted for sonyreader,
they'd just drop it on the converter, click a button, and
*boom*, there was a .pdf, at the right size, and using
their favorite fonts, typesize, header-style, and so on...

and if, tomorrow, they wanted it formatted for an iliad,
just drop it on the converter, and *boom*, there it was,
again customized to all of their personal settings...

to my mind, that might well be a _viable_ environment...
not as good as complete and instant reflow in the viewer.
but not nearly as cripped as a fixed-format unable to reflow.

-bowerbird

Since you're already talking about reflowable: I have serious problems with the formatting of your posts, Bowerbird. My eyes aren't the best anymore, hence I need to increase my browser's font-size.

Take a look at the attached screenshot what happens to your posts. :tired:

Please let the browser decide when to start a new line.

doctorow said:
> Take a look

just widen the window.

-bowerbird

Just as we have freedom of output, we have freedom of input. Though masturbation is not illegal in most countries now, I prefer to write for the widest possible audience. When I design a web page, I like the text to flow. If there is a reason for making it cellular, I use a table. If it is code or verse, I mark it so so the browser won't flow it.

But, Bowerbird, I will continue to read your stuff, because you have something to say, and it is interesting. Keep on truckin' :)

just widen the window.


Thanks for the suggestion. But I use the fixed-style layout, and this is the max width you see above.

I read your earlier posts, yet I fail to understand why you (the only person on this board with over 10'000 members) insist on adding manual line breaks. In fact, I have never seen anyone else doing this on any other forum for good reason (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_use_line_breaks).

Actually, I find the manually broken lines only mildly annoying myself: I'd rather the weren't so, but whatever. :shrug:

Clearly they're important for some reason, because it takes extra trouble to do.


@bowerbird: re: PDFs -- I agree with you on how the ease of generation has affected/sponsored PDF ubiquity, it's been kind of a building cycle. Incidentally, you should check out Hadrien's Feedbooks site, it generates PDF files on the fly in just the way you're describing, in several preset sizes, plus a customizable one. I think he uses LaTex on the backside ....

I also agree that PDF is one of the best conceived formats extant and marvelous for its designed purpose. That purpose just isn't all that well suited for e-books so its performance there is mediocre, requiring the specific formatting you refer to in order to really work well.

But with DE and epub, we have a situation where Adobe's acumen/ruthlessness is now getting behind a format that is much better suited for e-booksn and a number of e-book sellers and e-reading devices have expressly announced plans to support it. All of which could be very exciting indeed.

If we get a situation where a standard e-reading emerges then suddenly all e-books and all e-readers can be inter-compatible, and we can then focus on getting that standard format refined instead of spening a lot of effort trying to get a standard in the first place.

Mayhaps I dream, but it's a pleasant dream. :nice:

doctorow said:
> I use the fixed-style layout, and this is the max width

you could change to the liquid layout. or ask the designer of this site to
change the underlying code that limits the column to that width, even for
those of us (including you and i) who have monitors that'd go much wider.
or you can increase the font-size just a little bit more, so each of my lines
would fill out _two_ complete lines on your screen. or perhaps change to
another font, with different metrics, most particularly a "narrow" variant...
you might even make a feature request to the programmers of the software
used in this forum to code a routine that would automatically unwrap lines.
(it's easy enough to do; if they have questions about it, i can answer 'em.)
or you could just live with the chopped lines, though i agree they are ugly...

and it's very interesting, because -- in the screenshot that you showed us --
the lines _would_have_worked_ if they'd only have been a little bit shorter.
but most people are complaining because the lines are already _too_short_.
ironic, 'eh?


> yet I fail to understand why you

as i've said before, it's my form of self-expression. i'm sorry if you don't like it.
if i was writing posts to please you, i'd change. but i'm not. sorry about that...
fortunately, there's nothing compelling you to read my posts. indeed, you can
even ignore them completely -- have 'em turned into whitespace -- by merely
setting a parameter in your options. or, you know, you can just skip over them.
because of my formatting, it's easy to pick 'em out, even from across the room.
it won't hurt my feelings if you don't read my posts because of the formatting...
i promise...

-bowerbird

But I really don't care if your posts can be seen across the room. That is one really silly reason for taking the time to annoy others. As you can see, someone who has the need to increase the font size has your posts looking really nasty because you refuse to be a nice person and just do it so the forum handles the line wrapping. I'm sorry, but your reasoning is inexcusable. Because of your formatting, you make your posts look not nice to someone who should have your posts look fine. Why do you insist on doing it in a way that does bother others? Do you like to annoy people on purpose? Do you like people seeing your posts and skipping them because they don't like they way they look and therefore do not want to read them? Do your words have so little meaning that this is OK to you?

jon, i've been writing this way for over 15 years now.
hundreds of thousands of words, all over cyberspace.
if you think i am going to change now, you are wrong.
it's just that simple. so you really need to give it up...

-bowerbird

> Incidentally, you should check out Hadrien's Feedbooks site

oh, i'm _quite_ familiar with hadrien's site. :+)


> it generates PDF files on the fly in just the way you're describing,
> in several preset sizes, plus a customizable one.

well, very much like the way i'm describing. but not exactly.

for instance, you can choose the font that's used, but only from
a list of a dozen or so. they are great fonts, and that is a range,
certainly enough to make you feel like you did _have_ a choice...

but if your favorite font in the world -- georgia?, futura?, verdana?,
optima?, tahoma?, lucida grande?, baskerville?, eurostyle?, caslon?,
bodoni book?, bookman?, bembo?, hoefler?, american typewriter?,
gill sans?, stone sans?, comic sans?, benguiat? -- is not on the list...
well, it's not on the list...

hadrien also lets you control the margins, which is great, and even
the _linespacing_, which i think is one of the most important keys
in customization for each individual's greatest pleasure in reading.

so yeah, i'm already on the record: hadrien makes beautiful books.


> I think he uses LaTex on the backside ....

yep. huh. i wonder to what extent that's why his books look good.
i'll have to see what happens when i try to mimic one of his books,
see if my engine can approach the quality of the famous tex engine.


> I also agree that PDF is one of the best conceived formats extant
> and marvelous for its designed purpose.

hey, let's not get carried away. i'd call it "adequate", not "marvelous". :+)


> That purpose just isn't all that well suited for e-books
> so its performance there is mediocre, requiring the
> specific formatting you refer to in order to really work well.

i guess that's sufficiently qualified. but i'd say a _good_ designer,
who knows what (s)he's doing in regard to .pdf creation, who also
knows the target monitor, can deliver an excellent e-book in .pdf.
for instance, take a look at some of the .pdfs created by seth godin.
the guy knows how to make .pdf work well. his e-books are _great_.
and you know what, i've never even _seen_ a sonyreader or an iliad,
but i am willing to bet you his e-books will render nicely on them...


> But with DE and epub, we have a situation where Adobe's
> acumen/ruthlessness is now getting behind a format that is
> much better suited for e-books, and a number of e-book sellers
> and e-reading devices have expressly announced plans to support it.
> All of which could be very exciting indeed.

it could be. or it could all be a big dud.

i've seen all of this hype and marketing happen before.
and it was all a big dud. so i'm not holding my breath...

because, you know what?, in spite of adobe's tremendous experience
in the world of digital documents, and the head-start they had on this,
and their control of the timing of the development and announcements,
the first release of "digital editions" was a stinker. i mean, this is _adobe_
-- a rich company with a stable of software engineers and programmers --
and they released a stinker. and months later, it's _still_ a stinker. c'mon...


> If we get a situation where a standard e-reading emerges then
> suddenly all e-books and all e-readers can be inter-compatible,
> and we can then focus on getting that standard format refined
> instead of spening a lot of effort trying to get a standard in the first place.

well, gee, maybe it's just me, but that sounds terribly naive.

oh, yeah, i know that _everyone_ is saying that, so maybe that makes you all
feel more comfortable repeating it, over and over, but i think it's _malarky_.

if the publishers and all the various software and hardware entities involved
had _wanted_ a "standard format", they would have invented one long ago...

oh, that's right, they _did_. it was called "oebps", and it was gonna create
the e-book revolution. until one company did its usual "embrace/extend",
and other companies acted in contrast, with all of them trying to establish
their own little stranglehold on the distribution chain. or, in other words,
_business_as_usual_...

and now we have the "new and improved" version of oebps, and
they're just rolling out the same old hype, with a new timeline...

do you think it's gonna be any different this time around?
can you tell me who's gonna give up their piece of the pie?

amazon paid $3.5 million for mobipocket. do you think they will toss it,
in favor of epub? is microsoft simply throwing in the towel on this arena?
and the publishers still want to slap d.r.m. on everything, which means
a "standard format" won't really end up meaning much of anything at all.
they just don't _want_ you to be moving books from machine to machine.
if they _did_, they coulda solved this "problem" years ago. but they don't.

they will hold on to _every_ form of lock-in they believe they might have,
worried that if they let it go, it will prove to have been the important one.

the problem is, nobody sees how to make any money here at this time
-- and yet, they all know that _potentially_, there is a gold-mine here --
so they are jockeying for position. or, in other words, business as usual.

and sure, sometimes that jockeying for position means that they have to
mouth the platitudes about how their company is supportive of standards,
but when push comes to shove, if they think they're not gonna get a chair
on the cakewalk, then they will push and shove all those platitudes aside.
it's called "business as usual"...

i mean, i _hope_ i'm wrong about all this. but history _does_ repeat itself.


> Mayhaps I dream, but it's a pleasant dream.

well, keep sleeping. because as soon as you wake up, boom, it's over... :+)

-bowerbird

i'd just like to compare this text
that i read over at teleread, to see
how it compares to my messages.

7180

-bowerbird


N.A.E.B Cybook pricing kills the deal
for me: $375 not competitive
with Sony Reader’s $300

By Paul Biba

I’ve just noticed that N.A.E.B. (Not
Another E-Book) has posted the
pricing for the Bookeen. It’s $375,
plus shipping. They are selling the
deluxe unit with "…its own battery + 1 USB
cable + 1 USB AC charge device + 1 cover + 1
SD card 1 GB + earphones … This is the deluxe
version and it’s $75 less bought through us
than it is bought retail :
http://www.bookeen.com/shop/ebook-shop.aspx."

Personally, I think selling the deluxe version is
a mistake. There is nothing in the package,
except maybe the case, that is worth a
premium price. If I were ever going to buy one
of these then this package has certainly steered
me away. I would much rather buy the basic
unit which Bookeen sells for $350. I have
earphones, SD cards, USB cables, chargers, etc.
and I can’t see paying a premium price for
them. With their discount (they say: "Ordering
1000 readers at a time gives us a price break
and we pass that price break along to you. This
is what a buyers club does and that’s what
we’re doing.") they could have sold the regular
unit a a price competitive with the Sony Reader.
This has killed the deal for me.

I really think it about time for this thread to end. It is obvious to me that we are not getting anywhere. No one is going to change their mind. For those of you who have a problem with Bowerbird's post just put him on your ignore list. For me I think that he as provided some valuable insights and can overlook the way that he formats his posts. Apparently some people do approve of his posts judging by his Karma score of around 190 points earlier today. Now as I write this he is at negative 59. Since only moderators can take away karma points I do not think that his negative rating speaks for all the readers of this site. Of course I could be wrong, but one way to disprove my theory is to let everyone have the ability to subtract karma as they see fit.

Of course I could be wrong, but one way to disprove my theory is to let everyone have the ability to subtract karma as they see fit.

No, we are definitely not going to do this. Until now, nobody has had the need to receive negative Karma, and we do not want to encourage our members to spread negativity. Obviously, something is going on here, or it wouldn't bother so many people. Like I said before, we would completely ignore this issue had we not received any complaints from our members. Obviously this isn't the case.

No, we are definitely not going to do this. Until now, nobody has had the need to receive negative Karma, and we do not want to encourage our members to spread negativity. Obviously, something is going on here, or it wouldn't bother so many people. Like I said before, we would completely ignore this issue had we not received any complaints from our members. Obviously this isn't the case.

Thanks for your feedback Alexander. I must ask then what is the purpose of negative karma. Is there a magic number that one must meet to be banned from this site? If not I see no reason for it. Sadly there could be some who consider their negative karma as a kind of a "Badge of Honor".

Thanks for your feedback Alexander. I must ask then what is the purpose of negative karma. Is there a magic number that one must meet to be banned from this site? If not I see no reason for it. Sadly there could be some who consider their negative karma as a kind of a "Badge of Honor".

I absolutely agree with you. The benefit of negative karma is rather limited; while there is an option to automatically ban a user who exceeds a negative karma threshold, we don't use it.

...you might even make a feature request to the programmers of the software used in this forum to code a routine that would automatically unwrap lines....

Great suggestion! :D

hmm... :+)

i don't consider my "karma" rating as "a badge of honor",

no matter whether it's positive or negative, small or large.



i don't consider it at all, except as a popularity measure,

and i don't particularly care if i'm popular or not, thanks.

when integrity is important to you, popularity can't be...



the _real_ karma is out there in the universe, and i feel

supremely confident that it feeds back to me positively...

i've led a blessed life.



-bowerbird

well thanks, alexander.

My pleasure.

i do hope you'll make it _optional_ though.

Well, that would mean more coding hours, and those can be expensive. Maybe one day.

also, don't forget my earlier suggestion to make the edit-field where people compose their comments _wider_

Good suggestion, we'll look into this.

interesting. i want to see how this code change impacts the boards in general...

i could extend the game, too, but there's little point. you win. i'll go away.

i'll just finish up a few threads, and be gone.

but an _outright_ banning would've been less cowardly...

The problem is someone nicely mentioned having an eye sight issue and your posts with their strange formatting were a problem. You did refuse to accommodate this. That in my opinion was not nice. But, if you feel it's not OK to play by the rules of being polite, then so be it.