Kindles

[JPsuff]

I'm not a big Stephen King fan. When I read Salem's Lot years ago - I slept with a cross. Then I read It, which scared the daylights out of me. When I read his books, I felt like I was being sucked into them.

I'm a King fanatic and I read him as much as I can. Some of his stuff occasionally misses the mark, but other things he's written have left an imprint which will be there forever.

I like him as a horror writer, but I find that his "psychological" work is often far more satisfying. Stories like "Rage", "The Green Mile", "Shawshank" and many others are true masterpieces. But when I'm in the mood for classic King horror, I look to stories like "The Shining", "It", "The Stand" (which is actually more of a hybrid), "Carrie", "Needful Things" and some others.

I've also found that many of his short stories are very compelling and are very much like quick, powerful jabs to the psyche. A good recent example would be a collection called "Just After Sunset". All quick reads and most very good and very quirky.


-JP

 

[JB]

I read a great deal and am curious about the Kindle. I'd like to be able to actually hold one and play with it to see how it compares to a real book.

It is so much more like a book than people think. With the page turns and everything else. You can always go to Barnes and Noble and try the Nook. Similar format.

Lets keep this thread about the kindle guys. We have a thread or two already on books.

 

[JPsuff]

OK, as far as Kindle itself is concerned, like so many other things it has its place but will never substitute for "the real thing".

For example, if someone is an avid reader but is always traveling, Kindle provides a way for that person to take along an assortment of reading material without having to lug around an actual book or several actual books. In that situation, Kindle appears to be a great idea. After all, who wants to carry an extra bag with them just for books?

But when a person has the opportunity to sit in their den or living room and has the time to crack open an actual book, I can't see them turning to Kindle instead. Most "real" readers are also people who love the feel of a real book and Kindle will never substitute for that.

It's like digital clocks. They tell time just like any other clock, but they'll never be a substitute for the look, sound and presence of a Grandfather clock.



-JP

 

[Craig Mac]

Have you used Kindle JPsuff? Or are you just going off of what you think your opinion would be of it? Just curious because I think more of the younger generation is now prefering to read online or eBooks and such due to the fact they are used to doing most of their reading on computer screens. My parents prefer books because they have always read books.

 

[yahtzee]

Barnes and Noble is releasing their competitive stab at the Kindle and it looks like a winner. It's called the Nook. nook, eBook reader, eReader - BarnesNoble

 

[Sean]

It is so much more like a book than people think. With the page turns and everything else. You can always go to Barnes and Noble and try the Nook. Similar format.

Lets keep this thread about the kindle guys. We have a thread or two already on books.

I will have to try that. When I travel I usually take multiple books this may be a good alternative.

 

[JB]

People that try them say that they are extremely similar to reading a book and will never go back. There will always be a place for books. But these are truly taking over. They always say that "XXX will always be the way to go" and things take the place. Streaming video, downloadable video, CDs, DVDs, etc....

Books are no different.

 

[JPsuff]

Have you used Kindle JPsuff? Or are you just going off of what you think your opinion would be of it? Just curious because I think more of the younger generation is now prefering to read online or eBooks and such due to the fact they are used to doing most of their reading on computer screens. My parents prefer books because they have always read books.

No I haven't.

But I don't need to try it to be able to tell that it will never replace a real book. Try building a library in your home stocked with Kindle books.

One small shelf with this gadget parked on it.

That's not a library. There's no ambiance. You can't duplicate the feel of two or three walls of dark-stained shelves filled with real books - many of which have a special meaning or special memory associated with them.

Like I said, I think it has its place, just as a lot of technology does, but it will never substitute for a bookcase full of actual books just as that digital clock will never take the place of a finely crafted Grandfather clock.

It's like an IKEA sofa taking the place of a hand-crafted Queen Anne...it's never gonna happen.


-JP

 

[JB]

Not saying they are the same thing, but a whole lot of people said the same thing about email. All we heard was that people wanted to be able to feel an actual letter.

 

[Craig Mac]

I thought we were talking about reading books not displaying books:confused2:

But yeah the ipod will never replace a 1000 cd collection, oh wait... it is doing just that!

 

[Fourputt]

Just another technological fad. Real readers are too attached to reading real books.

or

Print is dead, and the makers of bookcases are in for hard times.

Kevin

I read a great deal and am curious about the Kindle. I'd like to be able to actually hold one and play with it to see how it compares to a real book.

I've seen a held them.... fantastic invention. It doesn't give the same feeling as reading on a computer monitor... the text is just black on white and looks like a page from a book. No extraneous colors, ads, or doo-dads.

My wife and I will both be getting either the Kindle or the Nook. Once she retires and we move to our cottage in the Bahamas, it only makes good sense to be able to download any books we want online. We are both avid readers, and we will have no room to store 1000's of books. Just the basic unit plus one SD card will hold some 17,000 books. That's some kind of library.

 

[JPsuff]

I thought we were talking about reading books not displaying books:confused2:

But yeah the ipod will never replace a 1000 cd collection, oh wait... it is doing just that!

And a thousand CD's will never replace vinyl not only because of the album jacket but in terms of sound as well.

Any recording engineer worth his headphones will tell you that digital sound lacks the warmth and tone of analog. Yes, it's more convenient and a lot easier to work with, but it's not the same.

You know, there will always be a need for "real" things. Not everything is better because it exists in a binary world. It may be more practical or more convenient, but better?

Not always.

In the words of Spencer Tracy's character "Henry Drummond" in "Inhertit the Wind":

"Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it.
Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, 'All right, you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline.'"


Words of wisdom, if you ask me.


-JP

 

[JPsuff]

I've seen a held them.... fantastic invention. It doesn't give the same feeling as reading on a computer monitor... the text is just black on white and looks like a page from a book. No extraneous colors, ads, or doo-dads.

My wife and I will both be getting either the Kindle or the Nook. Once she retires and we move to our cottage in the Bahamas, it only makes good sense to be able to download any books we want online. We are both avid readers, and we will have no room to store 1000's of books. Just the basic unit plus one SD card will hold some 17,000 books. That's some kind of library.

Yes but there's a big difference between a digital library and one that's made from Cherry.


-JP

 

[JB]

And a thousand CD's will never replace vinyl not only because of the album jacket but in terms of sound as well.

Any recording engineer worth his headphones will tell you that digital sound lacks the warmth and tone of analog. Yes, it's more convenient and a lot easier to work with, but it's not the same.

You know, there will always be a need for "real" things. Not everything is better because it exists in a binary world. It may be more practical or more convenient, but better?


-JP

Yet your example proves exactly the opposite. While Vinyl may sound better and look better, it was replaced. COMPLETELY REPLACED. Less than 1% of music sales is vinyl right now according to Rolling Stone in June, 2008.

So whether it is right or wrong, it happened. Just like most are predicting this will happen with books.

 

[JPsuff]

Yet your example proves exactly the opposite. While Vinyl may sound better and look better, it was replaced. COMPLETELY REPLACED. Less than 1% of music sales is vinyl right now according to Rolling Stone in June, 2008.

So whether it is right or wrong, it happened. Just like most are predicting this will happen with books.

So does that make it a good thing?

I don't think so.

Just because you CAN do something doesn't necessarily mean that you OUGHT to do it.

And as far as being replaced is concerned, why is it that solid state guitar amps haven't replaced tube amps? Because no matter how technologically advanced solid state amps may be, they simply cannot faithfully replicate the odd harmonics created by vacuum tubes. So as primitive as vacuum tubes are by today's standards, they are still being produced because nothing better has come along.

Not everything is replaceable.


-JP

 

[JB]

Your argument is changing. You did not say it SHOULDNT be replaced, you said it WOULDNT be replaced.

 

[Fourputt]

Yes but there's a big difference between a digital library and one that's made from Cherry.


-JP

When you're living in a beach cottage on the ocean, with large windows on every wall, where were you planning to put your bookcase?? Even now living in a 2 story home in Colorado, we don't have room for 10,000 real books. We have shelving for perhaps 1000 in the 5th bedroom in the basement, but we sort through them and give away the overage about every other year. The only real books that have any durability are hardcovers, and they are prohibitively expensive any more. Even paperbacks are ridiculously costly, yet in the dry climate here they start to fall apart after a few years because the binding glue dries out and breaks. There's a lot to be said for books made from nearly indestructible bytes of information.

You can live in your gloomy dark cherry library.... I'll take bright sun, sand and my Nook, lying in a hammock on my deck, listening to the surf as I read. :banana:

 

[JPsuff]

When you're living in a beach cottage on the ocean, with large windows on every wall, where were you planning to put your bookcase?? Even now living in a 2 story home in Colorado, we don't have room for 10,000 real books. We have shelving for perhaps 1000 in the 5th bedroom in the basement, but we sort through them and give away the overage about every other year. The only real books that have any durability are hardcovers, and they are prohibitively expensive any more. Even paperbacks are ridiculously costly, yet in the dry climate here they start to fall apart after a few years because the binding glue dries out and breaks. There's a lot to be said for books made from nearly indestructible bytes of information.

You can live in your gloomy dark cherry library.... I'll take bright sun, sand and my Nook, lying in a hammock on my deck, listening to the surf as I read. :banana:

Gloomy is in the eye of the beholder.

I love a dark library with a winged backed chair and a reading lamp surrounded by walls of books on shelves. There is no digital equivalent of that and there never will be.

Kindle works perfectly for your vacation home in the Bahamas because it's impractical to physically move dozens or hundreds of books to such a place, not to mention the humidity and its effect on paper products. So it has its place in the world. But I really don't see how Kindle is BETTER than a real book. More practical, more economical and more efficient perhaps, but not "better".


-JP

 

[JB]

When you're living in a beach cottage on the ocean, with large windows on every wall, where were you planning to put your bookcase?? Even now living in a 2 story home in Colorado, we don't have room for 10,000 real books. We have shelving for perhaps 1000 in the 5th bedroom in the basement, but we sort through them and give away the overage about every other year. The only real books that have any durability are hardcovers, and they are prohibitively expensive any more. Even paperbacks are ridiculously costly, yet in the dry climate here they start to fall apart after a few years because the binding glue dries out and breaks. There's a lot to be said for books made from nearly indestructible bytes of information.

You can live in your gloomy dark cherry library.... I'll take bright sun, sand and my Nook, lying in a hammock on my deck, listening to the surf as I read. :banana:

YOu are clearly in the majority fourputt. The sales for both the Nook and Kindle are FLYING off the shelves for the holiday. Even the Sony reader is doing well.

 

[Esox]

I'm on JPStuff's side on this one. I love books. I love to hold them and read them. I love the artwork on their covers. Not long ago I was in a used bookstore, Half Price Books, they had a cart full of science fiction novels written in the 1960's and 1970's. All had the really cheesy covers from that era. They were $1.00 a piece. I bought about fifteen of them. They look great on my shelves, or in this case piled with about 50 others lining the wall next to our bed. Most of them were pretty darn good reads, too.

I for one, often judge a book by its cover. Can you do that with e-books? Maybe you can, but it can't be the same. How do I take my family out for a couple burgers and then a trip to the Kindle store? We visit a bookstore at least three or four times a month. Without artwork, an inside panel synopsis, or a short bio with a picture of the author, it's just words on a screen. Even if that stuff is included with an e-book download, it's not tangible.

I have a job that puts me into people's homes on a daily basis. I love seeing their books, and often use it as a conversation starter. I love to display my books because I'm proud of owning them, and I think the types of books I read says something about what kind of person I am.

While the Kindle type products are certainly practical, indeed they are beyond practical to a person like Fourputt, I don't see them being my scene. It's not that they are inferior, it's that they are very different. If downloading books becomes so popular that it means the eventual end of bookstores and libraries as we know them, I'm sorry, but the world will not be a better place. It will be a much less warm place.

I also hate iPods, that's a rant on it's own, and am not crazy about the compact disc. I loved vinyl albums. I like big sedans, too, and there's not many of those left either.

I should have been born about 20 years earlier. Change blows in a lot of cases, though I do like the changes in golf technology, especially as I get older.

Kevin

 

[Craig Mac]

Any recording engineer worth his headphones will tell you that digital sound lacks the warmth and tone of analog. Yes, it's more convenient and a lot easier to work with, but it's not the same.


-JP

That argument may have held up a dozen years or more ago. That statement sounds like all the old soundguys that we worked with that swore they were never going to digital now they all are using it.

The sampling rate of digital is so high now that it goes well beyond ranges that are audible to the human ear. Just about every major recording studio nowadays is using a Pro-Tools or HD audio setup. Tape or Digital is more of a preference to people and that is it, with Digital being a more complete format(Recording, Mixing, & Mastering). If there are any producers/engineers out there that use analog anymore I gaurantee you they don't mix and certainly can't master using analog.

But back on the Kindle subject... There are a lot of people that this has replaced buying books for many reasons, cost and storage would be a big one and convience of being able to get it "on demand" would be another.

I got some old 8 tracks and betamax videos if you have the room in your library for them(that is meant to be a joke).

 

[Diane]

I don't know why you guys bother to argue with JP about modern technology. He is opposed to everything except his GPS and that's only because he realized it could help his game. You think he's stubborn about his golf views - he's a bigger mule on this stuff.

 

[JPsuff]

Your argument is changing. You did not say it SHOULDNT be replaced, you said it WOULDNT be replaced.

Some things should be replaced and other things shouldn't or can't be.

I think that there are many modern technologies that beat out "old" technologies by a long shot and definitely have a place in this world. But there are other things that can be replaced by technology, but that lose something in the process and that's a shame.

And then there are some things that are just resilient enough to resist technology no matter how flashy or versatile that technology may be. In the 80's, for example, there was a genuine concern in the music industry that real drums and even real drummers would be replaced by electronic drums and beat boxes and for a while, that's the way it seemed. But in the early 90's, the rise of "Grunge" and it's devotion to real instruments and real players came to the rescue and now technology exists side by side with tradition and that's fine.

But saying that Kindle will one day replace real books is an Orwellian step that I hope we never take because once we do that, we will lose something that we may never be able to have again.

Technology should augment society and its traditions and not replace them forever simply because it can. If a modern version of something is truly better, then by all means replace what came before, But many things can be replaced, but they're still here because people want them to be here; not because they're better, but because they're important in other ways that have nothing to do with efficiency or convenience.


-JP

 

[Craig Mac]

I don't know why you guys bother to argue with JP about modern technology. He is opposed to everything except his GPS and that's only because he realized it could help his game. You think he's stubborn about his golf views - he's a bigger mule on this stuff.

It's sparkly just for you Diane:

 

[JB]

Some things should be replaced and other things shouldn't or can't be.

I think that there are many modern technologies that beat out "old" technologies by a long shot and definitely have a place in this world. But there are other things that can be replaced by technology, but that lose something in the process and that's a shame.

And then there are some things that are just resilient enough to resist technology no matter how flashy or versatile that technology may be. In the 80's, for example, there was a genuine concern in the music industry that real drums and even real drummers would be replaced by electronic drums and beat boxes and for a while, that's the way it seemed. But in the early 90's, the rise of "Grunge" and it's devotion to real instruments and real players came to the rescue and now technology exists side by side with tradition and that's fine.

But saying that Kindle will one day replace real books is an Orwellian step that I hope we never take because once we do that, we will lose something that we may never be able to have again.

Technology should augment society and its traditions, not replace them forever simply because it can.


-JP

Once again, while all that may be true, that was not your statement. You stated that it WOULD NOT replace books and used the argument that albums were better. Albums GOT REPLACED. Just like books are getting replaced now and movies are getting replaced now.

Whether something should or should not be was not your statement and why a few brought up the music to begin with.

I hope that books go away, because I like convenience over clutter. That is just my opinion.