So, I got caught in this e-reading thing...

[Kumabjorn]

Writing about that T-shirt brought back some memories. My Japanese boyfriend at the time took me to the beach. I had learned by then that the T-shirt created some giggles, so I brought it along. We rented some "space" in a hut and changed into bathing suits, the hut was some 400 meters from the actual beach, it being a scorching day I wore the T-shirt over my bikini. He didn't look to happy, a kind of wry smile. We walked a narrow path between the dunes. Halfway there a young couple came towards us.
When she saw my T-shirt she started to laugh, uncontrollably actually. Japanese girls usually cover their mouth and giggle a lot. This girl was splitting her spleen, she laughed so hard she couldn't stand up and had to lay down on the ground. I kind of smiled in appreciation, thinking how great that I made her day. But then it began, her boyfriend started yelling at her to get up from the ground, calling her all kinds of names (my vocabulary expanded considerably that day) and then he started kicking her. Now there was a shocker. Getting some laughs, great. Having people kicked at because of those laughs, not a pleasant experience.
I asked my boyfriend, and he said that he tried to tell me. I said "You never told me this could happen". Goes to show the need to understand the unspoken. Needless to say I never wore the T-shirt open in public again.

[Stitchawl]

Cross-cultural lifestyles can be difficult. Fun... but difficult. I've been married to a Japanese woman for the last 18 years, and living in the country for almost 25 years. I still don't have a clue to what's right or wrong.


Stitchawl

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

You'd be safe now, Kumabjorn. Most of the trains have a 'Ladies Only' car in the middle of the line just to stop all the groping.


Stitchawl

How do they determine who is a "lady" and who isn't? Does one have to provide evidence of social class when boarding?

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

How do they determine who is a "lady" and who isn't? Does one have to provide evidence of social class when boarding?

They hand you a tea cup and watch your pinky.


Stitchawl

[HarryT]

Thanks - that would do it .

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thanks - that would do it .

No probs... I specialize in culture. (Yogurt is your friend.)


Stitchawl

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

They hand you a tea cup and watch your pinky.


Stitchawl

That explains why they never let me ride in that car. :banghead:

[Quexos]

I like my e-reading, I don't have any issues with it, other than my reading too slow for my taste but that is not e-book specific.

[Lima Bean]

I'll cough up $9.99 for a paperback book, but somehow paying $9.99 for an ebook doesn't set right with me. An ebook can't easily be passed around to friends and family, you can't use it to prop up an uneven table leg, and it can't be burned on a cold winter's night. Paper has weight and mass--and I like that. Don't get me wrong, I LOOOOVE my ereader, and I love all the freebies, but they should be priced considerably lower than a physical book. Just my opinion...

[piperclassique]

So, how many authors have given you free paperbacks? Can't have it both ways.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by twowheels

For subscriptions you forgot the fact that you "own" it even less than you do a book. After two weeks [Kindle] it gets deleted, unless you say to keep it, but even then it's only kept for that one device, forget it if you ever want to upgrade and keep your back issue magazines!

Actually Amazon seems to have gotten a bit better about periodicals management (albeit, in a very confused manner) - if I mark periodicals as 'keep' on my Paperwhite, they stay available on other devices as well, as far as I can tell. I seem to be able to re-download old issues on my Kindle for iPad, for example.

But I think the main point stands - and I think this is truly relevant. Amazon and others are now telling us that when we click on 'buy', we really mean 'rent', and shame of us for not understanding that. But this 'rent' is priced at the buying price of printed editions - or, in the case of periodicals, at a higher price.

[vxf]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I get where vxf is coming from. Few things annoy me as much as obvious typos in print (despite making them myself), yet I'm fairly acceptant when they appear in eBooks (probably OCRd in the Philippines, what can you expect). Obviously a dichotomy that shouldn't be accepted, and vxf has reached that stage, whereas I'm probably still enamored with the new technology, hence my acceptance threshold is for some irrational reason higher.
The whole deDRM process is fairly smooth, as soon as I purchase an eBook it goes into Calibre, yes it is a process but for me it is so ubiquitous that I no longer think about it. Then the Calibre library is automatically backed up to the cloud every fortnight and to an external HDD every other fortnight. Hence my backup is never more than a week old. Unless I've been on some splurge, I don't stand to lose more than one or two books, hopefully they will still be on my device.
The annotation mess I completely understand. Working in academia the ability to take notes and refer back to them including citations is probably the most laborious part of research. Streamlining and digitalizing that part would be a tremendous efficiency booster, and not a single eReader producer seems to have understood the benefits available.
As for some titles not being available in the US, all I can say is welcome to my (and the rest of the) world. Consider yourself lucky to be in America, you have more titles available than anywhere else. You can even buy foreign language versions from foreign countries without being geo-restricted, exactly the thing the rest of us non-native English speakers are trying to do when we look into VPN setups and pre/paid credit cards. The things we are willing to submit ourselves to for the love of reading, is now a little more clear, my dear vxf.

Yes, apparently my level of tolerance has been filled. I was reading the Economist today on my Kindle - full of formatting problems, despite being regularly purchased on Amazon's store. The opening section (the 'politics this week') had repeated missed spaces. I counted 12 instances on a single page. I, truly, had to re-start reading the sentence every time - perhaps because I am getting, despite my better judgment, distracted by my aggravation.

And yes, I know what you mean with 'welcome to the rest of the world'. I live in the USA, but I have lived in Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, and England. And I still prefer reading in Italian. So I am fully conscious of how much worse it is elsewhere. I was just, egoistically, hoping that MY problems would be solved now that I am permanently (???) here. The rest of the world may burn. I am a big, fat, American now (was a big fat Italian before).

[Lima Bean]

The rest of the world may burn. I am a big, fat, American now (was a big fat Italian before).

Ha, I love that!

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by vxf

Yes, apparently my level of tolerance has been filled. I was reading the Economist today on my Kindle - full of formatting problems, despite being regularly purchased on Amazon's store. The opening section (the 'politics this week') had repeated missed spaces. I counted 12 instances on a single page. I, truly, had to re-start reading the sentence every time - perhaps because I am getting, despite my better judgment, distracted by my aggravation.

And yes, I know what you mean with 'welcome to the rest of the world'. I live in the USA, but I have lived in Croatia, Italy, Switzerland, and England. And I still prefer reading in Italian. So I am fully conscious of how much worse it is elsewhere. I was just, egoistically, hoping that MY problems would be solved now that I am permanently (???) here. The rest of the world may burn. I am a big, fat, American now (was a big fat Italian before).

I agree that it is inexcusable to have that many errors in something that is produced on a modern computer setup, with auto-correction, grammar checking and whatnot. That just seem sloppy, and if anything The Economist is not thought of as sloppy. So that is surprising, perhaps they all do a PDF output and run it through some automated meat grinder? I don't know, but it sure seems that few hands and even fewer eyes are involved in the production. Maybe if you got off your fat ass (your words ) and complained directly to The Economist, something will happen? Their stake is higher than Amazon's.

[twowheels]

Originally Posted by piperclassique

So, how many authors have given you free paperbacks? Can't have it both ways.

Quite a few, actually.

In addition, I've received more paper books for free, second hand, than I know what to do with.