Paper books still have an advantage

[theducks]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Man, let that happen and their will be much bigger fish to fry.

I am not sure if EMP will wipe a CD.
It probably will destroy the player, but I have a backup deep in the bat cave.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by theducks

I am not sure if EMP will wipe a CD.
It probably will destroy the player, but I have a backup deep in the bat cave.

I was thinking of the nuclear EMP or solar flares DNSB brought up.

When I hear mention of EMP, I always flash back to that scene in the film The Day After when the cars all die just before the mushroom cloud rises on the horizon.

As I mentioned, if that happens, there will be bigger problems than who has leisure reading material available.

And I suppose the hoarder whose home is full of old Reader's Digest will be king of the world in that scenario anyway.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Unless, of course, you are the type who finds apocalypses to be humourous.

I mean, there's the Fallout games. (Except the first one. The first Fallout game was just grim.)

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by theducks

I am not sure if EMP will wipe a CD.
It probably will destroy the player, but I have a backup deep in the bat cave.

No it won't.
Also a PC in metal case is OK, but ONLY if no cables attached.
A radio, CD player, ereader and power-bank with solar panel in a biscuit tin (or maybe even a metal filing cabinet) would be OK. So will a phone, but there will be no network for it.

An HDD lying loose might suffer damage to the electronics, but on older models you can swap the PCB (I've recovered drives with exploded ICs on the PCB). An HDD, SSD, SD card or USB stick will likely be fine in a biscuit tin.

Steel provides RF, electrostatic and magnetic shielding. Aluminium foil only provides RF shielding.

Some old valve (tube) radios would survive an EMP.

You need to also have iodine tablets. They are long shelf life.

A pressed CD, DVD, BD is very robust. The re-writeable kind also have a pressed spiral track but the 1 and 0 are bistable dye rather than pressing. Both sorts need a reflective layer. I imagine any EMP strong enough to damage that will be so close you'll be dead of radiation or blast. Keep windows open and close them after the blast and before the fallout.

You only need to bury stuff to hide it from invaders, not for EMP.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

Is there any ebook that can compare to seeing the Rothschild Prayer Book, in person?

Yes. The eBook I'm reading now can compare. One I enjoy. The other I don't care at all about. So seeing this prayer book (to me) is just meh!.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

Absolutely. The typography can even be a part of the expressiveness and author's design ideas.

No ebook or ebook reader will ever be as valuable as collector books in paper form.

https://themarketherald.com.au/fancy...pts-ever-sold/

Is there any ebook that can compare to seeing the Rothschild Prayer Book, in person?.

An ebook is about consuming content, but the Rothschild Prayer Book or the Book of Kells are both now artefacts visually admired rather than read like a book, or used for the original purpose. You aren't comparing like with like. An ebook is always better than a mass-market paperback with often some combination of too small text, bleed through and even smudged too heavy inked plates. Or all of those. Easier to backup. Cheap wood pulp paper also discolours and then needs brighter light than older eink.

Some Poems are depending on appearance, and most of that can be done in ebooks, but ideally poems need to be heard (and plays heard or acted). So even an old 78 rpm disc can trump paper print; audio books are great for poetry.

But I prefer paper books for art, wildlife, architecture, antiques, maps, some text books and graphic novels/comics (especially colour and classics like Tintin and Asterix). Those usually need colour and no colour eink compares and also often larger format than possible on enink or tablet.

For fiction, most poetry, all plays and many text books the eink reader and ebook is fine if the formatting is sensibly done rather than a slavish attempt at duplication of a particular print style.

The EMP is an unrelated issue and good luck decontaminating paper from fall-out, or a paper library surviving blast, earthquake, fire or floods. Early in the unprovoked attack by Russia the Ukrainians were archiving data outside the country. Thev'e lost libraries, schools, had museums stripped etc.

[ekbell]

I started collecting ebook replacements for some of my paper books because they were falling into pieces (or disappearing altogether due to borrowers). I decided that as I couldn't afford the money or space for hard wearing paper copies with proper sewn binding, best to get ebooks. I do have a number of properly bound hard covers of art books where the format would not work on my preferred screen size.

Ebooks do require some care and maintenance if I want them to last but not as much as mass market paperbacks that have been literally read to pieces.

I've a copy of Pride and Prejudice (annotated), publisher Bethany House, where the annotations are embedded as sidebars to the main text. So some interesting formats are possible with HTML.

I, personally, find the ability to have popup footnotes enough reason to prefer most academic works to be in HTML rather then in print format.

And I love the hyperlink, interconnected, with scholarly tools baked into the platform, nature of the Faithlife Logos/Verbum software and strongly regret that their attempt at a secular classics platform was short lived.

[fduniho]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Maybe the last link is a humor piece since it lists waiting for the download as an ebook disadvantage.

If I had to travel to Brooklyn from the Champlain Valley every time I wanted to borrow a new Discworld or Wild Cards book, that would be a much bigger disadvantage than waiting for a book to download.

Here's the part of the article where I laughed out loud:

And what if you run out of space on the e-reader because of all the books you’ve been downloading? That would be the ultimate nightmare!

I just bought a Scribe with 64GB, and even before that, my 4GB Kindle Touch never ran out of space. Meanwhile, I have lots of physical books stored in boxes in another building, because I don't have the shelf space for them.

[fduniho]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

• Why Ebooks Will Never Replace Physical Books

I wanted to address the ridiculous points and lies made in this article.

Physical Books Can Last Forever

No, I used to handle very old books while working in a bookstore, and it was awful. Particles from leather covers would flake on my pants, and some books would be in need of repair. Meanwhile, electronic books can outlast physical books in the same way that DNA can outlast its biological hosts. An ebook is not the electronic device used to read it. It is a computer file that can pass from one device to another. As long as the infrastructure remains, ebooks will preserve literature in a way that keeping paper copies cannot.

You Don't Need to Charge a Paper Copy

And you don't need to restore or repair or carefully handle a computer file that has deteriorated with age. Charging ereaders could become difficult in an apocalyptic scenario in which we no longer have AC, but it's not otherwise an issue.

Ebooks Aren't Easy on the Eyes

They are if you use an ereader and not a phone or tablet. Contrary to the claims made here, ereaders do not shine light in your eyes and do not have problems with glare.

Online Ebook Shops Can't Compare

I grew up in a bookstore, and while I'm likely to find different books in a physical bookstore than while shopping online, I also find plenty of books online that I would not find in a bookstore. These include old books that would be rare and out-of-print as physical books and various new books I'm able to get for free or at low cost online. The shopping experiences are different, and ebook stores do have the advantages of having a much larger selection and quick database searching.

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Quoth

An ebook is always better than a mass-market paperback with often some combination of too small text, bleed through and even smudged too heavy inked plates

But at least a paperback can do advanced page layout without resorting to pictures.

[Renate]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

But at least a paperback can do advanced page layout without resorting to pictures.

But I mostly don't want any fancy page layout. I don't want to give the publisher any say in font, justification or layout. I want the clearest, plainest layout.

Ok, for a play I would like a fine-tuned presentation, but the way I like. A quoted poem in a novel could have indentation. That's about it.

Since I'm not the ruler of the world you are welcome to whatever reading material in whatever format you like.

[fduniho]

Originally Posted by theducks

To me 'real' means I have physical possession of the media. I don't rely on an outside (my possession) 'connection' to view that content. It still works if the Internet is down.

An ebook still works if the Internet is down. While the Internet makes it easier to buy ebooks, it has no more to do with ebooks than roads have to do with physical books. In the first science fiction novel to describe ebooks, Return From the Stars by Stanislaw Lem, the main character bought them as crystals in a walk-in bookstore that also sold the reading device. And if we didn't have the Internet, we could buy ebooks on physical media like we have long done with movies, music, and software. With ebooks, you have physical possession of them just as much as you have physical possession of the music on CDs or the movies on DVDs.

I can use my media if I have a source of energy.
A candle or sun provides light to read paper media.
A battery or generator can run a media player-display.

If you get a solar-power USB charger, the sun can also power an ereader.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by fduniho

If you get a solar-power USB charger, the sun can also power an ereader.

We have two large capacity power banks with solar charging capability in our emergency go bags, in addition to 4-6 other power banks. I should be set for reading on my Kobos for quite a while

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by fduniho

An ebook still works if the Internet is down. While the Internet makes it easier to buy ebooks, it has no more to do with ebooks than roads have to do with physical books. In the first science fiction novel to describe ebooks, Return From the Stars by Stanislaw Lem, the main character bought them as crystals in a walk-in bookstore that also sold the reading device. And if we didn't have the Internet, we could buy ebooks on physical media like we have long done with movies, music, and software. With ebooks, you have physical possession of them just as much as you have physical possession of the music on CDs or the movies on DVDs.



If you get a solar-power USB charger, the sun can also power an ereader.

And some (many or even all?) physical bookshops can only order if the Internet is working. Applies now to many businesses. Also many businesses in the West can't do sales, especially cashless, without working Internet.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by Quoth

And some (many or even all?) physical bookshops can only order if the Internet is working. Applies now to many businesses. Also many businesses in the West can't do sales, especially cashless, without working Internet.

Here in Canada, the outage of a major ISP a few months back managed to take down Interac.