Kindle books versus oldfashioned ones ??

[Grunkins]

We'll have less because we'll be hunting and foraging for food and water, and trying to survive attacks from vicious EMP Mutants.

I hadn't considered the mutants. And really, EMPs probably won't be a problem until we have enough cyborgs to make them count.

 

[Vertigo]

Don't forget the zombies!

 

[Overread]

Don't most modern EMPs currently come with a big mushroom and fireball and radiation I'd like to see a regular library survive any of those things.

That said I was half sceptical about e-readers, though after spending 10 mins trying to peel off the plastic cover sticker on my kindle before realising that it wasn't a see through sticker, but the actual screen - I was thus converted. It's a fantastic unit just for reading text books page to page.
Thereafter from that point things get a little more tricky - as said flicking page to page is more troublesome, you can't just flick back to check a map or flick to the end to check a character details list or family tree display. Images also display poorly and can be a very tricky to navigate (though I lay a good part of this blame at publishers that use really small and poor scans as the display images).
It can also be a pain for reading PDFs or charts (again images are not its strong point). However much of this isn't hardware, but software based so with the right codes it should work smoother/easier.

It's just a case of getting the companies to expand the program side and not just the hardware - my one annoyance being that I suspect any major overhaul of codes will be given out as a new unit not as a software upgrade (though I'd happily be proven wrong).


The other major gripe is Amazon USA having a much bigger library than Amazon UK!

 

[Montero]

@ Ovveread
EMP - see Wikipedia. Basically can be very high altitude nuclear weapon, or just a magnetically generated pulse.
If large high altitude nuclear weapon pulse, it can travel up at least 1,000 miles from source. So way beyond anything that would destroy a paper library.

 

[Overread]

Hmm maybe maybe, but still you'll have radiation monsters and zombies to contend with before you can curl up in a corner of a cave, fire burning (all those tax theory books of course) quietly as you read.

 

[Vertigo]

I may be wrong about this but my understanding of EMP's is that they affect electronic devices by generating a very large current very quickly in electrical conductors. That being the case they will have no effect at all on data stored on hard drives as the hard drive material is not a conductor. The hard drive electronics might get destoryed but the data itself should be unaffected.

 

[Montero]

But if all the circuit board based devices to read the stuff off CDs, hard drives etc are fried, then you'd need a lot of years to get the industry back up to the level that you could repair things to the point you could read all the stored data.

Also, I thought you could wipe hard drives with a big magnet might be wrong there - so are you sure EMP doesn't affect hard drives? I don't know either way.

 

[Grunkins]

Hmm maybe maybe, but still you'll have radiation monsters and zombies to contend with before you can curl up in a corner of a cave.

Yeah, and no cyborgs left to defend us.

But if all the circuit board based devices to read the stuff off CDs, hard drives etc are fried, then you'd need a lot of years to get the industry back up to the level that you could repair things to the point you could read all the stored data.

And while all the ebook guys are sitting around bored I'll be knocking out my TBR stacks.

 

[anivid]

I’ld like the minimal space electronics take – if I could get my whole life on electronics, I think I would – all those physical gadgets are under the law of gravity, needs a lot of space, and cleaning not to forget.
Cleaning under, over and in between ;-)

 

[Alex The G and T]

Like Ebony and Ivory
My kindle and my bookcases
Live together in perfect harmony

I found that I was not actually required to tidy-out (or up) my bookcases on the day my kindle was delivered. The disordered heaps stand, to this day.

To the best of my knowledge, I still appear to be welcome in bookstores, if I keep the kindle well hidden. ( I think that there still may be a bookstore open, about thirty miles up the road in that University Town.)

Some nights, on the bedside table, the kindle is on top of a book, other nights the book is on top of the kindle. Some nights, it's a sort of a sandwich affair: book, ereader, magazine.

I've never actually caught them engaged in sexual activity. Neither have I ever seen them fighting.

I live in The Peaceable Kingdom. I enjoy having options.

 

[merritt]

I am on the Ebook bandwagon, it's just so lightweight & I can access so much vintage sci-fi online.

I never thought I would feel that way, because I have boxes & boxes of sci-fi I'm saving for a future library.

 

[steve12553]

I may be wrong about this but my understanding of EMP's is that they affect electronic devices by generating a very large current very quickly in electrical conductors. That being the case they will have no effect at all on data stored on hard drives as the hard drive material is not a conductor. The hard drive electronics might get destoryed but the data itself should be unaffected.

Hard drives along with many other storage devices such as SD chips store data magnetically. They can be erased by exposing them to a magnetic field. Optical drives such as CD and DVD drives use lasers to write the data so the discs might survive (although the many of the components to the drives might be fried along with it. Any way you look at it the disadvantages of an apocalypse vastly outway the advantages (better parking, shorter lines at the store, et.al.)

 

[Vertigo]

Yes that is true but (and I may well be wrong here) the nature of an EMP is not the same as a magentic field. An EMP is an electromagnetic wave (not a field). If picked up by an antenna (any significant length of wire) it will induce a very high voltage. This is what destroys electronic components; frying sensitive transistors. However something like an electronic watch, for example, is unlikely to be affected as it does not have anything that will really act as an antenna.

There are a lot of myths about EMP and there is a reasonably good page on them here: http://www.futurescience.com/emp.html

Here is a quote from that page (however I cannot vouch for the correctness of this page as I am not personally that knowledgeable about it).

Although computer hard drives would not be erased, the electronics in hard drives that are not specifically protected against EMP would probably be destroyed, making it very expensive to recover the data that was still magnetically stored on the hard drive. Also, some of the data would be corrupted on any computer hard drives that were spinning at the time of the EMP attack.

Interestingly enough (and similar physics) an old fashioned magnetic core memory is also robust against EMP. From this Wiki article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic-core_memory:

Core memory is non-volatile storage – it can retain its contents indefinitely without power. It is also relatively unaffected by EMP and radiation. These were important advantages for some applications like first generation industrial programmable controllers, military installations and vehicles like fighter aircraft, as well as spacecraft, and led to core being used for a number of years after availability of semiconductor MOS memory

 

[Daezarkian]

I've gotten spoiled by my Kindle. I actually find it hard to read "real" books anymore. ;D

 

[Vertigo]

Me too! I'm like what I can't up the font size and Oh hell, I can't be bothered to go get the dictionary!

 

[Catswold]

I was an avid book collector and have a library of over 3000 books (about 2/3 paperback). Unfortunately they are in storage and it was a big hassle to retrieve any of them . . . so I began having to buy second copies of some I wished to reread.

Enter the Kindle . . . I got mine Christmas 2010 and I never looked back. Oh yeah, some of my favorite rereads still aren't available--Clifford Simak's pastoral SF books for example--but I now have more books on my Kindle than I expect to be able to read in the next decade.

Anytime I expect to be waiting (say the doctor's office for example) I cart my Kindle with me and I read from it every night. I am a convert.

The only thing I truly miss about physical books is being able to thumb back to something I want to check, or to maps for the stories I'm reading . . . with a Kindle, it's a real PITA. So, while not perfect, I still love my Kindle.

 

[starfyre7]

I read almost every piece of fiction that I read on my kindle. Nonfiction, I still buy. I agree with Catswold in that it is very annoying to try and thumb back and find something in a book, but for reading the book through, it is pretty good. The battery life is great and multiple books (like the next book(s) in the series being read) can be brought along with ease.

 

[Shomofo]

The one thing I am really liking about the Kindle is all the free or really cheap independant Fantasy Authors.
I have read books by so many different new authors in the last 2 years since I got the Kindle.
Some of them are good, some are average but I read them all anyway. Most of the first books in any new series by a new Author are generally either free of £0.79 (don't know why) it's a good way to find a new Author

 

[Galacticdefender]

There is something about having a physical book on my shelf that a kindle cannot give me. Though the stack of Warhammer 40,000 novels is starting to grow quite large.

 

[Timba]

Bought a Sony reader years ago and really enjoyed it, still have it but passed it on to my wife as I now read on an android tablet. My tablet has a screen that makes reading in bright sunlight easy to do and of course inside is backlit for ease of reading in a dim corner or in bed so as not to disturb my better half. Recently picked up a Nook tablet for her and while she is still floating back and forth between the Sony and the Nook I have to say the Nook tablet really impresses me. When I went on an extended vacation I use to have to pack a separate bag with books which was both heavy and a pain, having the ability to load up as many as I want on a small, easily transported device has been a wonderful experience.

I will say the publishers are missing the boat on this, e-books have the capability to be much more interactive with easily recalled maps, brief bios on characters, maps that show the characters journey detailing where they are based on how far you are along in the book. Sadly nobody seems to be doing this. If they are going to charge hardcopy prices they should be enhancing the product.