Quote:
Originally Posted by foghat
While I don't remember the specifics, it is not arbitrary. But it is not based in any way on a physical copy of the book.
Regardless, I too used to to not like the locations and wished for page numbers (maybe I still do...), but all I do is take the location and drop the last digit (basically divide by 10) and that gives me a close enough page number equivalent.
The main reason I liked page numbers was so I had an idea as to how 'big' this book is compared to past books I've read. And of course so you have an idea of how much further you have to go in a given book.
Locations give me this info just fine - and more consistently than a page number would, as locations are not font/page size specific.
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From what I understand, 1 location unit is 128 characters. That's 2^8 bits - definitely not an arbitrary figure in terms of computers and programming, but it is an arbitrary figure to pick for a human to measure where they are in a book.
Your tip on dropping the last digit sounds helpful. Locations are much more useful if they are at least loosely comparable to average page length