/lit/ - Literature

>any year in history or future
>he doesnt pay for books or read the physical thing

twogirlslaughing.jpg

boring

It costs £110 and the books on it are more expensive than hardcopies

secondhand stores ftw

it adds an aleatoric element to my reading, which has helped me discover many out-of-the-way-yet-awesome authors.

plus chicks dig bookshelves. cant deny it

>>1429349
>chicks dig bookshelves
>mfw

>>1429357

u must live in the wrong part of the world bro

>>1429345

>Implying I have paid for one of the over 500 texts I have on my nook

>>1429349
chicks dig the minimalist lifestyle.

Guys, you still can't show of the title of your book in public.

Feels good, its like telling christians a teapot analogy

The criminals who manufactures these thief tools should have to pay publishers the majority profits from their sale, since they are only used for stealing.

>>1429372

whatever shall i do with my big penis now
they'll all go for your small kindle dick

Personally, I don't know what to think about this. You can't deny the pleasure of turning a page, and of having a nice bookshelf. These two are some of the most repeated defenses for paper books, however, they might be just romanticism and a mythification of books. The advantages of e-books are obvious: no more paper, more space... really, I don't know what to think.

>>1429349

>mfw you can't just say 'an element of chance' like a heterosexual person.

sure is babby's first troll in here

I seriously doubt physical copies will ever die out. Even if the quality of ebooks and ebook readers becomes so great that it becomes the norm, there will still be a place full of real books, even if noone ever reads them.

I own a kindle btw and I love it. Only downside is certain books aren't pirated yet and that most books are poorly formatted. And btw, if anyone has a problem with piracy, I don't care, and I'd say the majority of 4chan is with me on that.

>>1429404
>Only downside is certain books aren't pirated yet and that most books are poorly formatted..

If the formatting bothers you that much, you can always edit them in Calibre.

>he pays 130 dollars to read free books

Library here. Been giving people free books with no price of admission for hundreds of years.

>>1429345
>implying you can't just pirate everything like we all do for music and movies and video games

I still like to feel paper in my hands :(

Recent Nook Color owner here. Yes I still buy stuff from the eStore and I have only pirated 1 book ("The Haunted Vagina" by Carlton Mellick III) based on it sounded awful and I didn't want to pay money for something that would infuriate me. I had to give him a fair shake before dismissing him as a hack and using profanity for the sake of being profane and to cover up a shoddy story.

To my surprise the book is much better than I originally thought and has me entranced. FUCK

Oh well, will actually buy a few of his books now.
Authors, no matter how small a percent they get from the book or eBook sales are, deserve to get paid for their work.

>>1429404
>Only downside is certain books aren't pirated yet and that most books are poorly formatted

Hardly the only downside.

- They're fragile and expensive, so you can't use them in hazardous conditions without a thought. Even if you're using it to read pulp trash you have to treat it like a treasure. It's like always using a loaned book.

- Many will cease to work after the Chinese use EMP blasts to disable America prior to the 2013 invasion. Real books will still work.

- They're rigid, so no flexing pages to mitigate glare or shadows, you have to reposition the entire "book".

- It's still clumsy and awkward to add original writing such as signatures, margin notes and highlights. Moreover, it's impersonal and doesn't add meaning. A copy of the great "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" with a handwritten note from JK Rowling means something, one with a digital signature, even one written with a stylus, means almost nothing.

Not that there aren't likewise advantages, but there are some benefits to a physical book.

>>1429444
>The Haunted Vagina

Oh shit nigger, I own that book. It started good and got lame pretty quick.

>>1429444

Most authors get a flat payment from the publisher independent of actual book sales.

>>1429444
why would you buy a nook over a kindle or an ipad?

>>1429447
I only have 15 pages left to read in it, so I don't know how it ends up, but I feel that the middle section with the exploration is the best part while the beginning started of slow with tons of character development and at the end it is winding down because it seems like there really isn't any place else to go or anything left to do once the entrance is sealed off.

>>1429379
>>1429379
>>1429379
Hey workaholic! you having fun being a bitch to someone that sits around & writes all day (& whose output is probably complete trash compared to what's in the public domain)

>>1429414

Yes, I have Calibre too, but unfortunately I can't get my head around how to format stuff on it. I can't even remove headers and footers lol anything remotely like code is inncomprehensible to me.

>>1429445

You're right. They both have their pros and cons. I'll admit ebooks can be impersonal. An ebook for your birthday wouldn't be very impressive

And yes, when the EMP blast goes off we are fucked. But by then I aim to have read about 400 books on my kindle, thus making it great value for money.

>>1429444
>Recent Nook Color owner here. Yes I still buy stuff from the eStore and I have only pirated 1 book
too many things wrong with this post

>>1429419
pic related library, i cant do et anymore

>>1429379
just downloaded 40 gigs of books. feelsgoodman.jpg

>>1429453
Simple
Over the iPad:
>Nook Color supports flash
>much cheaper
>if I want a tablet like an iPad I will hold off until someone does it right, like Microsoft or google

over the Kindle:
>can't use my BN memebership card for 10% in the store
>prefer using a touch screen over tiny keyboard
>can't go into an Amazon store for free reading
>can lend books to and borrow books from my friends with Nooks

The Kindle is a great piece of machinery, however I know people with Nooks and I frequent BN stores, so the ideas of borrowing/lending is what sold me.

The iPad is just an over priced garbage pile that does a lot of stuff poorly instead of something like a Nook or Kindle that does a select few things very well.

>>1429445
>It's like always using a loaned book
idk i dont feel stress. if i was going to a dangerous country or something i would probably just borrow the book from the library then continue on kindle when i get home.

>hey're rigid, so no flexing pages to mitigate glare or shadows, you have to reposition the entire "book"
doesnt glare really. the fact that its not two pages wide is a plus really as you dont need to fold it or have the comfortability of two hands.

>it's impersonal and doesn't add meaning
nostalgia people have said this about everything new ever but i agree unless its a touchscreen with stylus that notetaking isnt as good.

>>1429453
>iPad
>not e-Ink screen
no dice

>>1429478
>until someone does it right, like Microsoft or google
>doing it right
>microsoft
yeah the hardware might be ok but the software will be as fail as the windows 7 phone. google are doing an android tablet i think

>>1429502
that's exactly what I am waiting for, something like an android tablet.

And I agree with what you said about Microsoft, their first party software will be poor, but they will most likely have some great third party software that would take full advantage of the hardware they put into such a device

>My Kindle was $139
>I get all my books for free
>I dropped my Kindle from a height of more than 6 inches
>My Kindle's broken.
>Pay another $139 for a new reader because I don't want to pay $14.99 for a physical copy of the book like a sucker

The core of the flaw in the e-reader argument

saged, reported, hidden.

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>>1429541
>dropping anything outside your house
>implying the kindle would even break when dropped outside
lol bookfags clutching to the past XD

>>1429551
when did /b/ become mildly literate?

>>1429478
>implying microsoft hasn't been trying to make a good tablet since forever

>>1429506
>implying there was ever any good third party software in the decade microsoft had tablet pcs to themselves

apple revolutionized the industry in their first try, while microsoft was on failtablet #9001

>>1429377

That's what I like about it, personally. But if anything, you'll just have people amazed that you have an e-reader and proceed to ask what you're reading.

> mfw

>>1429541
Actually Amazon's customer service is amazing. They'll just send you a new one, no problem.

So Tybrax, are you, like, bipolar or what?

You desperately pander for /lit/'s approval one day and the next you're heading the troll front. You complain that nobody on /lit/ likes you and then you make shit threads like this instead of lurking and giving your literature-related opinions when and where they are necessary.

There's a reason the oldfags of /lit/ don't like you.

>>1429462

I don't understand. Calibre is so simple to use. Don't want headers and footers? Check the box that says you don't and it removes them :/ no code involved.

It formats it to different reader styles if you like - by choosing from an in-plain sight menu, and you can also change the margins easily yourself for use on laptop etc.

Page breaks are a different beast, because there are two options to get rid of them, and sometimes you have to use both - i always forget the second, but again, it's right there.

Everything is pretty straightforward if you just read it lol

>>1429570
someone sounds like an ass hurt iFag.
And really what is so revolutionary about an over-sized, over-priced iPhone that doesn't make phone calls?

>>1429284
>difference is as negligible as FLAC

Hearing the difference now isn't the reason to encode to FLAC. FLAC uses lossless compression, while MP3 is 'lossy'. What this means is that for each year the MP3 sits on your hard drive, it will lose roughly 12kbps, assuming you have SATA - it's about 15kbps on IDE, but only 7kbps on SCSI, due to rotational velocidensity. You don't want to know how much worse it is on CD-ROM or other optical media.

I started collecting MP3s in about 2001, and if I try to play any of the tracks I downloaded back then, even the stuff I grabbed at 320kbps, they just sound like crap. The bass is terrible, the midrange...well don't get me started. Some of those albums have degraded down to 32 or even 16kbps. FLAC rips from the same period still sound great, even if they weren't stored correctly, in a cool, dry place. Seriously, stick to FLAC, you may not be able to hear the difference now, but in a year or two, you'll be glad you did.

I do both, problem? I don't pay for either, k. My local library even loans out ebooks now.

What I really want is a ebook reader / tablet that's the same size as a DS.

>>1429574
>Pre-order game on amazon.
>Email from Amazon: Yeah the item you pre-ordered can no longer be sold in it's entirety due to the game developer fucking up, here is 30 dollar credit and the regular game.
>mfw this is great thanks amazon.

>>1429589
I should rephrase. Their KINDLE customer support. The damn thing is their baby, they'll bend over backwards to keep you using one.

>>1429577
but i am an oldfag :/

i've been on /lit/ since 2008!

>>1429599

0/10

>>1429610
ok so April, same thing. you act like i'm not one of you. i am one of you. if i was a little nicer you would like me

>>1429615

If you wouldn't fucking GIVE A SHIT about if /lit/ likes you /lit/ would like you. You're like the hyperactive 9-year-old cousin who wants to look cool in front of their older cousins and fails miserably at every attempt.

Please, say even one thing remotely related to literature that is either insightful or indicative of a unique and valuable viewpoint instead of filling this board with blather. Just ONE thing.

>>1429585
Hey. Hey Guy.

Digital data does not decay. It's either there, or it's completely lost, under usual circumstances (a harddisk with standard error correction). If you're taking averages, you might get to the mentioned 12kbps/year degradation. Suppose all your MP3s are at 256kbps, and a harddisk has a 5% failure rate per year. Then, on average, you would lose about 12kbps of data per year. But it's far from a degradation over time - you would just be losing 5% of all your mp3s each year, but all the remaining mp3s are still at 100% of their original quality. Proper RAID setups would almost completely eliminate the chance loss of data, and would almost certainly allow you to retain all your mp3s, unchanged (and thus without decay) over decennia. Unilynx (talk) 18:52, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Reference_desk/Archives/Computing/2010_August_24

http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/451369/why-flac-is-better

Fuck you. Stop being a dick.

>>1429628
actually, i know what i'm talking about, albeit, petty or nonsense to most people. when i've gone back to some really old mp3's from way back 'in-the-day' (90's, Napster, 56k modem) most of my mp3 library sounds like crap, mostly due to the technologies available at the time. i notice an unusually large amount of "pops" in a lot of songs and a 128k rip sounds more flat than a new 128k rip (both sound terrible regardless). anybody who knows how data is written to a disc would know that bits do get lost over time.

i'm an arrogant, elitist, analog snob with 2 vintage hifi systems (1 solid state/1 tube based) that can expose every imperfection in an mp3 file. it absolutely cracks me up when people think their crappy OEM soundcard, crappy best buy cables, and crappy desktop speakers are suitable benchmarks for judging sound quality.

it's pathetic how nowadays people have allowed themselves to compromise quality over convenience and cost. i'm only 34 but just as bitter and scornful as someone twice my age. just wait until i get my FLAC vinyl rip blog up and running!

>>1429565
>implying /lit/ wouldn't be a better place if tybrax were dead
>implying this topic isn't just a troll

I particularly like the fact that I can annotate my e-books

>>1429585

It is delicious copypasta... you must appreciate it as being fine trolling of a stupid thread.

Seriously, either use an ereader or don't. All the eink ones are practically the same. Don't know why /lit/ gets its knickers in such a twist over the issue.

And the guy who keeps saying 'I just like the feel of the paper' in every such thread: WTF, man? Pic related.

I can't afford it. Most of the books I read are used books that I buy for $0.50-1.00, or $5.00 for a whole bag of them when they are on sale.

I really want one though. My mom just got a Nook and it's fantastic.

>>1429628
dude he was trolling you. i have music from fucking 2001. shit is exactly the same. you're fucking insane.

Pay money for physical copies of modern works because ebooks cost only slightly less than paperbacks, and if you're going to spend money, you might as well get a physical copy. Also, it's good to support current writers.

Use the ereader for anything written over a hundred years ago, since public domain works are free and legal. If you buy hard copies, all you're doing is giving money to Penguin or whomever.

The library should still be your main source of books, but the chief advantage of the ereader is that you do not have to give your books back.

As far as problems regarding the physical limitations of ereaders go, I personally never write in my books, or treat them in a way that would cause an ereader to break. So I guess that one's just personal preference based on how hard you are on your books.

>>1429673

He's not insane, he's correct. Seriously, I posted the "rotational velocidensity" bullshit last night in another thread (which obviously makes me an authority, right), but yeah, disks either fail or they don't, and copypasta or not, there is seriously a failure rate for all hard disks, which is what dictates the average "degrading of quality". Even if this were true, the actual distinction between lossless and lossy is actually meaningless in this context. "Lossless" formats and transfers refers to formats and file transfers that preserve all the data of an original representation. "Lossy" is anything else. The data is still on the disk to "degrade" by the possibility of a disk failure.

The average person is, apparently, an idiot.

>>1429728
and this is surprising to you why?

>page turning is faster

lol'd my fucking ass off at that

>>1429585

I've seen this copypasta on two threads now. Who's reviving this faggotry.

>>1429784

I did last night, and then someone copied me. I really regret doing so, and I try to contribute original content as much as possible, especially considering the people here seem to enjoy my actual opinions. Someone posted the equivalent of "LOL computer files degrade" as evidence for their poorly-thought-out apocalyptic ideology, and I therefore found the pasta deeply relevant, but it is what it is, and most people can't appreciate the humor of the misinformation. I apologize deeply to everyone that has to deal with this bullshit in the future. It won't happen again, at least from me!