Vaporpapers as slang term for ebooks and such?

[loveangel]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo View Post
Another disadvantage to the name is the excessive syllable count with multiple plosives.

I agree with ldboblo

[taglines]

And I agree with Ldboblo. Actually, I don't like the word. But the idea behind is interesting, no?

[taglines]

Originally Posted by Ben Thornton

I don't understand the incentive for a new word. In time, I expect that "ebook" will evolve into "book", with the differentiation being required for old-style, physical books.

Probably right, BT. In time, "reading" will mean reading off a screen, and book will mean an ebook. I think you are completely right.

[taglines]

Originally Posted by LDBoblo

ebooks is already slang enough, is it not? It doesn't extend to nuance of magazines or other diverse media the way "e-reading" does, but it serves the pragmatic function more than adequately with far simpler phonological structure than almost all the more contrived terms that have been proposed. It also boasts broad acceptance as a loan term outside English, as well as establishment within both technical and nontechnical English fields.

Pretty much all of the forced attempts at new nomenclature for differentiated reading that we've seen here do nothing but highlight an individual's (or various individuals') desire to coin a phrase. It's not derived in a naturalistic sense, but rather one of contrived wit. It does not help that the logics behind such word choices yield no benefit to any social group. The paradigm shift just isn't substantial enough to demand it.

yes yes, ebooks is fine, there is no need to replace that term. Fits perfectly. I think this professor guy is more interested in how e-literatuer on ebooks and e-info documents will be preserved for future generations, given all the different platforms .....AND.....what if one day the power grid goes out, what then? Kind of like sci fi questions but worth pondering. i would throw the word vaporpapers out. If vaporsphere makes any better semse i like that better, but I think it is also meaningless. Ethersphere already exists. And Electronic library is fine, or e-library. Thing is , what happens if the power goes out and if future devices cannot "read" what's been written before. Not being a tech expert, I don't know answers. But as a layman, would love to learn more frm you. Dish.

[taglines]

http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub107/waters.html

good report here!

Good Archives Make Good Scholars: Reflections on Recent Steps Toward the Archiving of Digital Information

by
Donald Waters

[Ben Thornton]

Originally Posted by taglines

what if one day the power grid goes out, what then? Kind of like sci fi questions but worth pondering.

As in "The Machine Stops"? Lots of fiction contemplates what would happen without the technology we've come to rely on - I liked "Fade Out" by Patrick Tilley.

The problem of being able to read current formats on future devices is well recognised - frequently raised in relation to DRM (which makes it difficult to convert).

[khalleron]

Just another outbreak of Dan's nuvoleximania.

I knew I'd get to use that sometime!

Doesn't matter how many sock puppets you create, Dan, if you're pleading to have a new word for anything, we know it's you.

Obsess much?

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by taglines

I think this professor guy is more interested in how e-literatuer on ebooks and e-info documents will be preserved for future generations, given all the different platforms .....AND.....what if one day the power grid goes out, what then?

Ebooks will be preserved the same way that paper books are-- with effort, by people who care about their survival. Do you think that, once produced, paper books last forever without assistance? They don't. They have to be stored inside buildings-- buildings that must be maintained (a leaky roof will destroy a book as easily as leaving it in the rain.) There has to be someone to keep them away from the rats, and the roaches, and the silverfish, and from sunlight (which will fade the ink and crumble the pages.) They have to avoid being used by people who are less literate or more desperate for fires or for toilet paper, or simply tossed away to make space. They have to survive readers who brutalize them by writing in them and dog-earing pages. They have to be handled carefully or repaired when their glue crumbles, or the pages are made fragile by acid. Keeping books takes effort. There are many, many works of fiction and non-fiction lost in the past, not because they were electronic versions, but because there were too few copies, or too little interest in preserving them, or some monk wanted a prayer book or some encroaching culture/religion wanted the books of the old culture/religion destroyed, or the language died, or the people were too damn busy dealing with war, famine, or collapse of their civilization to bother with them.

Here's what will happen if the power grid goes out-- the majority of the population of the world will die. Those who survive will be the toughest and those already so poor they didn't much notice the difference. There will no longer be taxes to run the governments, and there will no longer be governments to run the libraries. The people will be too busy trying to not die to worry about pampering books. If the power grid goes out, or WWIII happens, the majority of paper books will be moldy, sodden lumps or ashes within one or two generations. Anyone who thinks that, post-apocalypse, digital books will disappear and paper books will be alive and well either isn't thinking or is pushing an emotional argument.

So-- there are TWO things needed for both paper and electronic books-- people who care to make the effort to maintain them, and a civilization for the people to live in.

[desertgrandma]

[QUOTE=ardeegee;793123
Here's what will happen if the power grid goes out-- the majority of the population of the world will die. Those who survive will be the toughest and those already so poor they didn't much notice the difference. There will no longer be taxes to run the governments, and there will no longer be governments to run the libraries. The people will be too busy trying to not die to worry about pampering books. If the power grid goes out, or WWIII happens, the majority of paper books will be moldy, sodden lumps or ashes within one or two generations. Anyone who thinks that, post-apocalypse, digital books will disappear and paper books will be alive and well either isn't thinking or is pushing an emotional argument.

[/QUOTE]

Thank you. Have been trying to figure out how to verbalize what you just did.

At least ebooks on sd cards or in computers can be kept safe until the power comes back on.

And it will come back on.

Eventually.

[Conor]

Originally Posted by taglines

But you must admit, there's still no plan for the long-term preservation of e-book contents. Is there? If so, dish here.

Mobileread? Gutenberg? Google books? Even if those names disappear, I'm sure the ebooks they've created will always be available online.
As long as our technological civilisation exists, there will always be an Internet in some form.

[taglines]

Originally Posted by khalleron

Just another outbreak of Dan's nuvoleximania.

I knew I'd get to use that sometime!

I love that word!

But really, khalleron, this vaporpapers word is NOT mine, i swear swear swear on a Nuvoleximania bible that it is not mine. Really. It's true i like to read about new words, and once in while try my hand at coining one, most of which are worthless and don't stick -- but a recent one I coined was reported by the New York Times on January 31 (On Language column by Ben Zimmer, he emailed me out of the blue and asked me how i came up with that word -- "crash blossoms" for weird strange headlines that are grammatically correct but look and sound strange at first glance -- and then the N Y Times factchecker dept emailed me and asked if I was the person who coined the term etc etc, they really do employ factcheckers at the Times still, that's good to know, the article was titled "Crash Blossoms" with artwork by some design team in Verona, Italy, .....but this vaporpapers is not my cup of tea and not my word at all, please believe me. And please also know that i do have a sense of humor about my neurotic nuvoleximania (thanks for giving me that word, now i can tell my shrink there's a word for my illness! ha! ) and vaporpapers was really coined by another person.

That said, and i hope you will believe me, really, ....this discussion has been intersting and Darren's last comment was good, too. Yes, if ww iii does break out, paper books will not last long, sure, and i do hope future people can keep digital books alive on disks until the power comes back on, which as dessertgrandma said, it will come back on eventually.

So I am in agreement with everyone here, Darren, too.

[JSWolf]

Vaporpapers as slang term for ebooks and such?


NO!

[taglines]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Vaporpapers as slang term for ebooks and such?


NO!

I agree. The term is too long and meaningless. I think the professor who coined it wanted to set in motion a discussion not about a new slang word, which is not needed at all, but about the future storage issues for paper books and ebooks. And Darren has addressed both issues very well. Enough said, I think.

[DawnFalcon]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Ebooks will be preserved the same way that paper books are

Really? I didn't know that there was a paper version of PDF/A