|
Author
|
Topic: Rant alert!!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Osi Osgood
Film God
Posts: 10204
From: Mountian Home, ID.
Registered: Jul 2005
|
posted August 10, 2009 11:23 AM
NOW! Here's a rant after me own heart!
I am a writer, having twelve movie scripts, three large books of poetry and even three books of theology to my name, not to mention hundreds of pop songs I've written.
It's never made me all that much money but I have enjoyed it immensely. There is nothing like picking up a book for a good read!
What happens if they're laptop battery goes out? There goes the reading? It's a sad statement of our modern world that fewer and fewer people are actually reading books. I liberally read, (more often than not in the bath tub! Try reading like that with a laptop!).
A few years back, I had a joke that was part of a comedy routine about the increasing illiteracy of youth in our society. The young adults find something on the ground. The fumble around with it, flipping through pages, looking at each other in amazement and awe.
"This is a ... book?"
They look further, looking up like a child, they're collective eyes widening, pushing the book back and forth in between them ...
"What are those things?"
"Words ... words!"
Then, they begin to read ...
"See, see Spot ... rrr, run!"
... and then clapping, applauding themselves that they did something wonderful! They read ... they read!!
It used to be a lot more funny years ago. Now it feels dreadfully prophetic.
--------------------
"All these moments will be lost in time, just like ... tears, in the rain. "
| IP: Logged
|
|
Stewart McSporran
Master Film Handler
Posts: 272
From: Glasgow, Scotland
Registered: Nov 2003
|
posted August 10, 2009 03:19 PM
Hmm, I guess I'm not going to be popular... ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) ...but I like the idea; if not the execution.
Now before the lynch parties start out I have to say that I love books, indeed have even written one (and had it published!) and have more on my shelves than I should have. There's nothing like the smell of ink on paper to take one back to a place and time; there's nothing like the tactile feel of paper to enhance the joy of reading, but... I work in IT. I have hundreds of reference books and journals, each of which is so large that just one would make up my carry on allowance on a plane.
So, the current solution is to load up pdf versions of these books onto my laptop. That's fine, but it's really hard to read from a laptop in any posture other than sitting upright and unless you're in business class you're limited to your battery life.
Now, give me one of these new things loaded with my reference books (and a few hundred public domain books that I keep meaning to get round to reading) and I'll be happy. I can view (and easily search and annotate) my reference books without damaging my back.
The downside is that I don't actually know if it will read pdf and text files and there have been some negative comments about Amazon's retention of your already paid for books. It also appears to be chock full of DRM gotchas.
If this thing was available as a standard platform of some sort (i.e. not proprietary to Amazon) I'd jump at it, but at the moment I'm holding off.
Stewart
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
UBBFriend: Email this page to someone!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Printer-friendly view of this topic
