Funny article about the future of paper books

[J. Strnad]

I still have my slide rule. I'm waiting for the day when atomic blasts render all computing devices inoperable. Then, my friends, me and my slide-rule-savvy homeboys will RULE (so to speak). Hah! I can hardly wait! Go ahead! Make fun of us! Give us wedgies and stick our heads in toilets! YOU'LL BE SORRY ONE DAY!

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Format C:

"on average studies have shown rough 29% have a visual preference, 34% auditory and 37 kinaesthetic" SMITH (IN TRUNER,T & FROST, T. 2005, 146)

So you're quoting (blindly, I have to assume) from "Jenny Frost & Tony Turner [eds], Learning to teach Science in the Secondary School"? This book is about "teaching science", not reading per se.

And, no, I don't have any hard numbers either, but my experience shows me that the non-visually-oriented readers are clearly a minority.

[mbovenka]

Originally Posted by J. Strnad

I still have my slide rule. I'm waiting for the day when atomic blasts render all computing devices inoperable. Then, my friends, me and my slide-rule-savvy homeboys will RULE (so to speak). Hah! I can hardly wait! Go ahead! Make fun of us! Give us wedgies and stick our heads in toilets! YOU'LL BE SORRY ONE DAY!

I have a number of them. My personal favorite is the Pickett N500T: http://sliderulemuseum.com/Pickett/S...T_HiLogLog.jpg

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Tom Swift

From the Huffington Post

Is Print Dead?

That's hilarious. Thank You!

[omk3]

Originally Posted by Format C:

Car is more efficient than horse (*) when it comes to transportation.
But when you eat it, it's a no brainer. I've never see people eating Fords.

So, my point is: compare different things on the same field.
And reading for pleasure is not aonly about efficiency.

I don't eat either Fords or horses!!!

For me, and for many people, some of whom don't realize it, reading is about the WORDS in your HEAD, and how you visualize them after they entered your brain by whatever means. So audiobooks and ebooks and paperbooks accomplish the same goal. Some people have trouble concentrating if the medium is something they are not used to (I often lose my concentration with audiobooks, but as I'm getting used to them I'm getting better). In the end for me, it's the same result. The book is the words and their power alone. A book is ready the moment a writer finishes a manuscript, or a word document, or even recording his voice. Non when it is bound in hard cover, that's just one possible means of transmitting the words to the reader. That's the way I think, at least. And I've known people who really hesitated to give up all that you describe about paper books (smell, touch, etc) but when they were convinced to try ebooks never looked back. My mother was one of them. I was -partly- one of them. So I can now safely say, for me at least, that all I thought I would miss from paper books is now not only irrelevant, but sometimes actively avoided.

And having said all that, I think we are missing the point of the article. Which was to give in a funny and lighthearted way a warning to the publishing industry, which is doing all it can to accelerate its own death, because instead of embracing the new technology it tries to invent obstacles, like delayed publishing, high prices, drm, geographic restrictions and so on.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by omk3

I don't eat either Fords or horses!!!
....

But don't Dodges eat Fords?


I've seen it on bumper stickers.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by omk3

And having said all that, I think we are missing the point of the article. Which was to give in a funny and lighthearted way a warning to the publishing industry, which is doing all it can to accelerate its own death, because instead of embracing the new technology it tries to invent obstacles, like delayed publishing, high prices, drm, geographic restrictions and so on.

Hear! Hear!
Finally something on the topic.

I have read the article may times and every time I read it yet again, I have to chuckle ;-)

I have even moved all the free books J.A. Konrath is offering for download to the top of my To Be Read queue.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

Originally Posted by Format C:

No, I don't.
But there are people who do.

Well, they'll get over it.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by omk3

I don't eat either Fords or horses!!!

For me, and for many people, some of whom don't realize it, reading is about the WORDS in your HEAD, and how you visualize them after they entered your brain by whatever means. So audiobooks and ebooks and paperbooks accomplish the same goal. Some people have trouble concentrating if the medium is something they are not used to (I often lose my concentration with audiobooks, but as I'm getting used to them I'm getting better). In the end for me, it's the same result. The book is the words and their power alone. A book is ready the moment a writer finishes a manuscript, or a word document, or even recording his voice. Non when it is bound in hard cover, that's just one possible means of transmitting the words to the reader. That's the way I think, at least. And I've known people who really hesitated to give up all that you describe about paper books (smell, touch, etc) but when they were convinced to try ebooks never looked back. My mother was one of them. I was -partly- one of them. So I can now safely say, for me at least, that all I thought I would miss from paper books is now not only irrelevant, but sometimes actively avoided.

And having said all that, I think we are missing the point of the article. Which was to give in a funny and lighthearted way a warning to the publishing industry, which is doing all it can to accelerate its own death, because instead of embracing the new technology it tries to invent obstacles, like delayed publishing, high prices, drm, geographic restrictions and so on.

Well said!

I don't think I'm missing the point.
I'm just saying, in my boring, serious and ungrammatical way that Publishers may know what they're doing, and to foresee their death without considering that there are ways to enjoy books diffrent from ours (in this forum we are all ebook fans, so it's a nonsense to take statistics here) is a partial view of a rather complex equation.

I also said the some of the comparisons made in that funny and well written article are simply wrong and don't stand.

[Format C:]

Originally Posted by rogue_librarian

So you're quoting (blindly, I have to assume) from "Jenny Frost & Tony Turner [eds], Learning to teach Science in the Secondary School"? This book is about "teaching science", not reading per se.

And, no, I don't have any hard numbers either, but my experience shows me that the non-visually-oriented readers are clearly a minority.

No, I'm not.
That's just one example. If you look, you'll find similar percentages about buyers, movie-goers, salesmen, executives, and so on.

I'm just saying that there are people with different "input channels", and visuals are about one third of them.
Auditive people are not blind. They can see, and they read, also.

But if your experience is different, and you don't have nothing to support it, I'm definitely wrong, and you're right.

You win.
I'm out.

Thank you.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Steve Jordan

Well, they'll get over it.

Or die eventually. SCNR.

[rogue_librarian]

Originally Posted by Format C:

That's just one example.

I'm afraid it's not a very good one, though, and the only one you've given so far. Well, you're entitled to your opinion. Let's just move on.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by omk3

For me, and for many people, some of whom don't realize it, reading is about the WORDS in your HEAD, and how you visualize them after they entered your brain by whatever means.

I have actually asked people if they visualize a book when they read and less than half of the people did that. Most people said that they visualised at least some scenes but it was very rare to find people having an "internal movie" of the book.

The most common now at least I think is that the experience of reading a book is more then just reading a chunk of text.

[charleski]

Originally Posted by DawnFalcon

Of course, that doesn't tell the whole story, does it? Sub-pixel rendering certainly has advanced in the last 10 years, as have contrast ratios and other factors.

Yes, it does tell the whole story.

Sub-pixel rendering is a hack that only really works when specific conditions are met. Why do you think MS released the 'C' fonts with Vista? Those are fonts that are specifically designed to work with sub-pixel rendering, and they (generally) do a very good job of it.

Apple went with a far more low-tech solution that was designed to be more generally applicable and provide a better match to page colour in print, that's why Macs are blurrier than PC's. The advantage is that they avoid the issues that happen when sub-pixel rendering goes bad (and when it goes bad, it goes horrid).

Sub-pixel rendering only works for fonts in specific situations. It's not some magic fairy-dust. It does nothing for image resolution.

Contrast ratio has nothing to do with resolution, it only affects how far the basic resolution can be manipulated, I've covered this before.

If electronic displays want to rival print (and I'd love to this that really happen), then there's only one thing they can do - double the current resolution. It's not going to be done with software trickery, it can only be done with more pixels. A lot more.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by charleski

Yes, it does tell the whole story.

Sub-pixel rendering is a hack that only really works when specific conditions are met. Why do you think MS released the 'C' fonts with Vista? Those are fonts that are specifically designed to work with sub-pixel rendering, and they (generally) do a very good job of it.

Apple went with a far more low-tech solution that was designed to be more generally applicable and provide a better match to page colour in print, that's why Macs are blurrier than PC's. The advantage is that they avoid the issues that happen when sub-pixel rendering goes bad (and when it goes bad, it goes horrid).

Sub-pixel rendering only works for fonts in specific situations. It's not some magic fairy-dust. It does nothing for image resolution.

Contrast ratio has nothing to do with resolution, it only affects how far the basic resolution can be manipulated, I've covered this before.

If electronic displays want to rival print (and I'd love to this that really happen), then there's only one thing they can do - double the current resolution. It's not going to be done with software trickery, it can only be done with more pixels. A lot more.

Well, how many years before we get to 300 dpi? That should be good enough.