Here's what a cursory click-through on tfa showed - article with pic.
In essence, the creators appear to have thoroughly understood this. It doesn't have to do everything, just enough of the most relevant things for most people. Now, if only it were exported here, I'd love to get one.
It might have something to with the fact that (for all his good points) Ira Glass seems to be a grade A luddite =) [his interview with Jesse Brown on Search Engine told me so]. NTTAWWT - that probably helps him make the show as wonderful as it is. I'm amazed he actually did a TV series (available on Netflix instant if you're interested).
That link may be the most depressing thing I've read today =(. What's sadder is that the impermanence of these books actually plays into a manufacturer's instinctive desire for planned obsolescence (the cynic in me would say that publishers (not printers though) would actually prefer to use groundwood even if it was 10 cents MORE expensive). I guess 5 years down the road, we shouldn't expect to see any hardcovers at garage sales eh?
Also, this -
Until several years ago, groundwood paper was traditionally used for printing newspapers and other more disposable publications, and freesheet, or permanent, paper was used for printing books. As the newspaper industry faces declining readership, groundwood paper manufacturers have promoted their paper for lower-cost book production.
Now, that's one externality (of rising electronic media usage) that I could never have foreseen. In hindsight, it makes sense. An enormous groundwood supply, suddenly made useless due to a rapidly declining newspaper industry - where's it gonna go? Into our beloved hardbacks =( I wouldn't mind actually subsidizing these groundwood suppliers to NOT sell to publishers.
Having never looked into this before, I was surprised to find that acid-free has nothing to do with this particular issue. See here and here for example. Turns out that most commercial paper today is acid-free. If it wasn't, the acid residues would be an additional culprit in yellowing/deterioration of the paper. The groundwood just means that the lignin in the wood is mashed together with the cellulose (the lignin induces the yellowing and the mechanical grinding means that fiber strands are shorter). Freesheet is paper made from chemically processed pulp (lignin and resins are removed and the gentler process produces longer and stronger strands). They are both still acid-free in most cases.
That's another reason ebooks are such a boon! I don't have to worry about off-topic book covers when reading them in public =). Have you seen some of the covers for otherwise serious science fiction/fantasy??? They're an adolescent's wet dream *sigh* but a distinct blow to my dignity when all I'm trying to read is some serious 60s-70s science fiction.
Mobipocket does, which for many years was a staple on a slew of pre-WebOS Palm products (including the Centro and Treo family). Of course, since Amazon bought it and took over the MOBI format (which is merely a file extension change from the old PRC format - everything else remains the same), they have been content to keep old Mobipocket customers frustrated with a lack of DRM-capable reader for them. Feh!
Anyway, a pox on Amazon for this but I just wanted to point out that their format may not be as widely used as ePub but is about as widely used as any other format (except ePub). Besides, Mobipocket still offers its publisher software for free so it's actually much more open than any other format (except again, ePUB). Just wish it hadn't been hijacked by Amazon.
I'm still looking forward to being able to get textbook style books (like all my programming books) in e-form....
Ugh! Tell me about it. It's even worse in physics/math (with proper typesetting support). Unfortunately, you (and I) might have to splurge on bigger screens than the current Nook/Kindle (non-DX). The Kindle DX or the new large format B&N device coming up (I forget its name and couldn't re-find it on the web). It's really all about screen size as textbooks are notoriously difficult to re-flow like novels can. Anytime you have graphics, equations, sidebars, etc. embedded with text, re-flow is simply not an option (as any TeX use would remind you of - painfully:). "No, I don't want it to go on the page of floats, I want it here. Gahhhhh.)
As for "no DRM", if we wanted our works out there totally free, that is the way we would do it. His second book is and it still gets Amazon and paperback sales, but lower than the others. On Scribd.Com it has been read thousands of times, lots of free downloads from E-Junkie.com.
All of the stories are priced low, most below $4, except for one that is a collection of the first four books. Kindle has a preview function and they are also on Google Books where 20% (or 30%, can't remember) can be browsed without having to buy.
I'm afraid you're mistaking "no DRM" for "free". If there's a big enough market for your work (which, as an author, I assume you would find pleasing) and if there's any kind of ebook out there, piracy (Scribd, torrents, etc.) is a fact of life. DRM is not just a bad solution to the problem - it is simply NO solution. Stops only the law -abiding people (who wouldn't have downloaded illegally in the first place). Otherwise, as you might have read before on this site through numerous examples, DRM is largely a feel-good con (much like airport "security").
No one is stupid enough to think that authors should put up their works for free (at least I hope not). What we're simply saying is that once I buy an ebook, I have the right to read it on any device I want to. I personally do not think that that extends to loaning a copy to a friend or anything like that. Simply put - a legal owner of the book should be able to read it any way he/she wants to. DRM prevents us from doing that. Some people therefore break the DRM (which is so laughably simple to break that airport security is actually very effective in comparison:)) so that they can read it on a Kindle or a Nook or on their phone or PC. You, as an author lose nothing by it, unless you also feel that I should buy several physical copies of a book (one for bedside reading, one for the bus, one for the office and one for the bathroom:))
For some reason, I have seen pro-DRM arguments from authors a lot lately. I wonder if the publishers are trying to trick you into being their spokespersons for this issue. The DRM thing is a tired old cliche that no pragmatic person would take seriously. It's a childish response to a real problem but is rather like trying to secure your gingerbread house with padlocks made of gingerbread. All it does is keep the diabetics at bay but they wouldn't want to steal your gingerbread house anyway. Oh, and awkward analogies like these is why I'm not an author:) but I really really like to read;)
... go to any extra effort to satisfy someone else's views on right or wrong.
And why should they? Its is absurd for someone to fight for a cause unless he/she strongly believes in that cause. It's simple arithmetic - there are a billion causes on this planet; we choose a few and fight for them. If you don't do that, you have (what I see in Berkeley all the time) the pure political junkie. At some point you have to step back and pick your fights. Mind you, the DRM fight is one that I believe in, strongly. But I can understand why not everyone would be as strongly involved in it. The slightly pompous attitude that fighters-for-a-cause tend to have for the people who don't really care saddens me because they are equally guilty of ignoring some (perhaps worthier) causes themselves.
Once upon a time, books were expensive and well made. These days, they are cheap and start yellowing before you are done reading them.
I'm sure you're exaggerating to make a point but unless it takes you a year to read a book (or you're Xorgg from the planet Gnarrh in the Magellan sector and you read in a Chlorine atmosphere), I find this highly unlikely =). I will say though that what's called a "trade paperback" these days is made with paper that my ass would refuse to be wiped by. It really wasn't that way once upon a time and that's not just my 'get off my lawn' gnome talking =p. Hell, I have Del Rey paperbacks of Asimov printed 20 years ago that are still quite robust (though just a trifle yellowed but the paper is still topnotch). I have not (thankfully) had your experience with hardcovers being equally crappy though. That's very troubling - I do hope they don't do this for textbooks (for reasons made clear soon).
eBooks hang around longer on my hard drive (or in my Kindle library), but I don't have any real attachment to them. I can see if you are a physical book collector or like to maintain a collection, eBooks will seem stupid. To each his own.
Interesting. Just to provide a different perspective, I tend to use both heavily, albeit for different genres. Fiction of any kind (novels, anthologies) have been banned entirely in my apartment since I filled my second bookshelf (a matter of necessity or I'd have to sleep in my car). I got rid of most of my cheap paperbacks and all my hardcovers (except for some irreplaceable treasures - some old Clarke, Asimov and Crichton classics as well as books with nostalgic value). Switched over to ebooks entirely (for fiction). All my math and physics textbooks and other non-fiction that I plan to keep all my life stayed. Now, the dichotomy is simple - ebooks for fiction and hardcovers for "keeper" non-fiction (limited to textbooks of one kind of another or at the most, good quality popular science/economics books). This system seems to work really well since the latter category is (sadly) not very prolific, while the former category has nearly infinite space to expand in. Seems to me that each kind has its uses. Of course, (if and ) when ereaders become so ubiquitous and open that any book can be read anywhere and scientific typesetting (in ebooks) is not the freak of nature that it is today, I'll probably switch to all ebooks. I can sacrifice any of the usually mentioned tertiary qualities of paper books if it means that I can read more and with greater fidelity than before. One just has to keep one's priorities straight...
Laudable no doubt, but in this case doesn't make a particle of difference to the status quo. You pick your fights - life is too short to make an issue of every single thing (but that's just me). What makes it worse is that I think he's confused about whom to fight in this case. From Amazon's point of view, it's a global business and they know that they can never make everyone happy. I'm sure they don't give a crap either way about DRM (and hence lock-in) as long as they can sell the ebooks. It's the publishers who have been scared into the whole DRM thing by the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned RIAA/MPAA farktards. And the same publishers recently bullied Amazon into the Agency 5 model (where Amazon is no longer free to unilaterally set ebook prices - so expect even the $9.99 to start going up steadily). Yes, the initial decision on Bezos' part to go with the MOBI format instead of EPUB was a bit douchey but as I've written elsewhere in this thread, ebook format conversion (through Calibre for instance) is 100% flawless, except that DRM prevents that. So, without DRM, format would be completely irrelevant - buy anywhere and read anyhow.
Boycotting Amazon while continuing to buy these publishers' books in paper form from some other retailer is foolishness in the first degree. There are enough online retailers now that the loss of Amazon (it's so unlikely that I can barely write that phrase) would merely remove a thorn from the publishers' side and leave them free to set ebook prices arbitrarily high and they do with hardcovers - $25 for a hardcover novel - are they fucking insane?).
Could you give me an example please? I've heard this before elsewhere but never actually seen the numbers. Ballpark estimates would be fine, I just have no sense of what it is at the moment.
Agreed. It's probably been mentioned to death on here by (by myself more than a few times) but it must be said again - Baen usually sells their ebooks (even new releases) for $5-6. Unfortunately, there's only a handful of excellent authors in their stable that I like (and perhaps a dozen or so objectively good authors otherwise) - also, it's largely SF & Fantasy. Good thing Flint, Weber and Bujold have been so prolific over the past decade.
While that $9.99 price tag does make me puke every time I have to shop on Amazon or B&N for ebooks, I think of it as an easing in period. Unfortunately, I still haven't decided whether it's an easing in period for the consumers (to get used to high prices for ebooks notwithstanding the almost comical lack of material resources needed to produce digital books) or for the publishers (to get used to lower prices for ebooks notwithstanding the usually high prices they extort from the consumer for new release hardcovers). If you're a Stephen King fan, you might recall the unbelievably honest disclosure from the publisher preceding Under the dome (to the effect that they would be delaying the ebook release to avoid stepping on hardcover sales - the worthless assholes!)
When mainstream publishing stops pulling egregious stunts like this on its customers, you can expect the price tag to dip a little. Until then, might as well get used to it (or start moving towards the independent publishers - of which there are several popping up now, many that are ebook only now that the ereader market has gone mainstream with the Nook and Kindle [*sigh* yes, and iPad too, though that's the last time I admit it in public =p]).
Obviously. Good thing Steam isn't run by ol' Jobs so they have no problem letting the user decide. Gawd, I love console tweaks. Just wanna thank submitter for bringing this game (and the tweak) to my attention. /rarely log on to Steam
*sigh* Indeed. In my more charitable moods, I like think of it as "a grammatical misunderstanding of the proper scope of the first person plural". (And I just understood the full implications of your statement. Bravo good sir! =D)
Write a story bound by x and y, does it fit this label, yes or no. Can't get too much more precise than that.
*sigh* it probably was precise. But,
I asked for a clarification because I didn't fully understand your sentences. Didn't get it.
Dunno why you didn't just help me out there. Here it is again, since you didn't go back and look:
What do you mean by me "having a $10M budget for modern, existing tech"? In any case, whether your example is SF or not would have nothing to do with the absolute level of tech of the fictional world since the question is always whether the tech is advanced or speculative compared to our own (the 'our' being whoever is contemplating this categorization).
I sincerely did not understand the point of the $10M line. Ignoring that, what I said next answers your question sufficiently. If I INTERPRET your first line to mean that the society in your story would have technology that is comparable to "modern, existing" tech, then no, it clearly would not be SF. It would be like "24" or a Tom Clancy novel or any kind of high tech-but-contemporary story, of which there are many. I ask again though, given that you know my views on the matter of SF labels are lukewarm at best, why would my opinion on a test case be of interest to you? (By the way, I should mention that I'm really not trying to be a pain here - I'm just procrastinating on something I should be doing and hence posting much more than usual =)
Why would I need to go anywhere? =) I have the basic ingredients I need already in my head. Input from the outside world, a steadily growing store of tools to play with it and the ability to learn from the experiences of others. That's the first assumption I threw away a long time ago - that you need to embrace a certain method to find satisfaction. Who knows? Perhaps a feedback approach (feeling your way to it through trial and error) rather than a mapped out approach is more suitable eh? To explicitly answer your question though, 'nowhere'; because it's all right here, just waiting to be found. Also, intellectual satisfaction is something that I hope is always temporary because there is literally no end to intellectual inquiry. I wouldn't want to be intellectually satisfied, ever! Spiritual satisfaction, I've always equated to making your peace with the universe (in a vague way). I made a truce and I find that to be sufficient =).
By the way, I've never had a real time conversation on/. before. Heady =)
Well then, if I could only meet more true followers*, I guess I would be truly satisfied eh? (Have we just come full circle? Woot =)
________
*because the ones that I have met so far are the basis for what I wrote. Poseurs, the lot of the them (if what you say is the norm rather than the exception).
The first noble truth of Buddhism, sometimes translated: "Life is filled with a deep sense of unsatisfaction."
I do wish religious groups would stop projecting their own failings on all of humanity (even though I admit that's a common psychological defense mechanism). I am quite satisfied with my life thankyouverymuch. I'm not entirely happy but that's a small price to pay for satisfaction and I imagine there's lots of people like that in the world.
If you are happy it's because you have found a way to live that overcomes the suffering and dissatisfaction that one often experiences in life.
See emph.
That sounds like a categorical judgment of an entire belief system based on a one-liner appearing in Slashdot.
To be honest, it was more of a judgment about the one-liner. If what you said about Buddhism is true, I'll gladly take back the larger judgment and humbly apologize. Buddhism (provisionally) aside though, it is a deep-seated feature of religious groups that they attribute their own failures to some fundamental failing of humanity by the simple act of spouting grand one-liners such as the one I was replying to ("I am unhappy" => "There is unhappiness in the world" => makes it seem like it might not be my fault). It's intellectually and factually dishonest and it irritates me enough to respond to it even when that leads me off topic (such as now).
Actually, that's not a bad point at all and in fact, has a lot in common with spiritual/intellectual satisfaction. A permanent state of satisfaction is about as pretty as a vegetative state. A permanently satisfied mind is a stagnant mind, just as a permanently sated appetite is a symptom of death. I have to force myself to be dissatisfied so that I can have some ambition (and this dissatisfaction can be intellectual, economic or about pretty much anything).
lol I'm sorry you didn't catch the irony of the statement, "satisfaction can be found with a drug injection" for surely a drug injection (such as heroin) is in no way satisfying: as soon as the rush is over, you need to find more to keep yourself up. How can it be called satisfaction if it is only temporary? As for consumerism, if you need to rush to the next shiny object to get your fix of happiness, that is not satisfaction. Satisfaction and happiness can only be found from inside, not from external objects and pleasures. Buddhism as a religion can help you reach this, but as even the Dalai Lama says, it is not the only way (although he feels it is certainly the best way).
I certainly don't disagree with any of that (well, except to point out that that's not irony but that's a minor point). It's just that I would add religion to your list of "quick happiness fixes". Also, I resent the fact that a statement to the effect that someone is satisfied automatically means (to you) that it must be either drugs or consumerism. Profundity and intellectual/inner satisfaction is not the sole province of the religionist/spiritualist. Indeed, in this day and age, that is the last place I would go to look for it. The search for meaning has surpassed these methods for quite some time now.
I'm glad the Dalai Lama agrees that his is not the only way. Perhaps there is something to his much vaunted wisdom after all. Again though, eastern philosophies and cultures (and I come from one) tend to focus too much on questions and not enough on the effort needed to at least try to answer them. Nothing irritates a dabbler in eastern mysticism (that last word used in its technical sense, not the popular one) more than a profound question that is finally answered - hence the 'obscurantist' accusation.
There is at least one publishing house (Baen) that is probably the most enlightened (out of self-interest, not altruism, so I trust it) corporation to ever exist. No DRM in their ebooks. Ebooks cost ~$5-6 (and their hardbacks and paperbacks cost the standard market price on their site as well as with other retailers). Further, they have a free library where selected works of their authors (with the blessing of the author) are posted for free. There's an article by Eric Flint (one of their authors) about this on the front page of their free library. I would encourage you to check it out, if for no other reason than to show you that there is still hope for humanity =) with everyone winning out financially, the idiots at the RIAA, MPAA and the Agency 5 (publishers) notwithstanding.
I used to do the same thing you do (ebooks for classics and pbooks for new stuff) but the problem is simply one of space. I live in a small but comfortable apartment but two large bookcases are the limit (unless I want to start sleeping in my car =)) and they are now full. I only buy books that I want to keep and reread at some point (the rest is library stuff). At this point, ebooks are the only way to expand. Maybe I should just go to war and annex my neighbor's place =). I wonder if that's the origin of war. More space for your library.
Slashdot Mirror
perhaps because /. + IT + India = wharrgarbl? =)
Here's what a cursory click-through on tfa showed - article with pic.
In essence, the creators appear to have thoroughly understood this. It doesn't have to do everything, just enough of the most relevant things for most people. Now, if only it were exported here, I'd love to get one.
It might have something to with the fact that (for all his good points) Ira Glass seems to be a grade A luddite =) [his interview with Jesse Brown on Search Engine told me so]. NTTAWWT - that probably helps him make the show as wonderful as it is. I'm amazed he actually did a TV series (available on Netflix instant if you're interested).
You'd think the seeders would be more helpful. How about a legal/illegal tag on the torrent?
GP has a point. Dredged up some bad memories did he? =)
Also, this -
Until several years ago, groundwood paper was traditionally used for printing newspapers and other more disposable publications, and freesheet, or permanent, paper was used for printing books. As the newspaper industry faces declining readership, groundwood paper manufacturers have promoted their paper for lower-cost book production.
Now, that's one externality (of rising electronic media usage) that I could never have foreseen. In hindsight, it makes sense. An enormous groundwood supply, suddenly made useless due to a rapidly declining newspaper industry - where's it gonna go? Into our beloved hardbacks =( I wouldn't mind actually subsidizing these groundwood suppliers to NOT sell to publishers.
Having never looked into this before, I was surprised to find that acid-free has nothing to do with this particular issue. See here and here for example. Turns out that most commercial paper today is acid-free. If it wasn't, the acid residues would be an additional culprit in yellowing/deterioration of the paper. The groundwood just means that the lignin in the wood is mashed together with the cellulose (the lignin induces the yellowing and the mechanical grinding means that fiber strands are shorter). Freesheet is paper made from chemically processed pulp (lignin and resins are removed and the gentler process produces longer and stronger strands). They are both still acid-free in most cases.
That's another reason ebooks are such a boon! I don't have to worry about off-topic book covers when reading them in public =). Have you seen some of the covers for otherwise serious science fiction/fantasy??? They're an adolescent's wet dream *sigh* but a distinct blow to my dignity when all I'm trying to read is some serious 60s-70s science fiction.
Mobipocket does, which for many years was a staple on a slew of pre-WebOS Palm products (including the Centro and Treo family). Of course, since Amazon bought it and took over the MOBI format (which is merely a file extension change from the old PRC format - everything else remains the same), they have been content to keep old Mobipocket customers frustrated with a lack of DRM-capable reader for them. Feh!
Anyway, a pox on Amazon for this but I just wanted to point out that their format may not be as widely used as ePub but is about as widely used as any other format (except ePub). Besides, Mobipocket still offers its publisher software for free so it's actually much more open than any other format (except again, ePUB). Just wish it hadn't been hijacked by Amazon.
I'm still looking forward to being able to get textbook style books (like all my programming books) in e-form....
Ugh! Tell me about it. It's even worse in physics/math (with proper typesetting support). Unfortunately, you (and I) might have to splurge on bigger screens than the current Nook/Kindle (non-DX). The Kindle DX or the new large format B&N device coming up (I forget its name and couldn't re-find it on the web). It's really all about screen size as textbooks are notoriously difficult to re-flow like novels can. Anytime you have graphics, equations, sidebars, etc. embedded with text, re-flow is simply not an option (as any TeX use would remind you of - painfully :). "No, I don't want it to go on the page of floats, I want it here. Gahhhhh.)
As for "no DRM", if we wanted our works out there totally free, that is the way we would do it. His second book is and it still gets Amazon and paperback sales, but lower than the others. On Scribd.Com it has been read thousands of times, lots of free downloads from E-Junkie.com. All of the stories are priced low, most below $4, except for one that is a collection of the first four books. Kindle has a preview function and they are also on Google Books where 20% (or 30%, can't remember) can be browsed without having to buy.
I'm afraid you're mistaking "no DRM" for "free". If there's a big enough market for your work (which, as an author, I assume you would find pleasing) and if there's any kind of ebook out there, piracy (Scribd, torrents, etc.) is a fact of life. DRM is not just a bad solution to the problem - it is simply NO solution. Stops only the law -abiding people (who wouldn't have downloaded illegally in the first place). Otherwise, as you might have read before on this site through numerous examples, DRM is largely a feel-good con (much like airport "security").
:)) so that they can read it on a Kindle or a Nook or on their phone or PC. You, as an author lose nothing by it, unless you also feel that I should buy several physical copies of a book (one for bedside reading, one for the bus, one for the office and one for the bathroom :))
:) but I really really like to read ;)
No one is stupid enough to think that authors should put up their works for free (at least I hope not). What we're simply saying is that once I buy an ebook, I have the right to read it on any device I want to. I personally do not think that that extends to loaning a copy to a friend or anything like that. Simply put - a legal owner of the book should be able to read it any way he/she wants to. DRM prevents us from doing that. Some people therefore break the DRM (which is so laughably simple to break that airport security is actually very effective in comparison
For some reason, I have seen pro-DRM arguments from authors a lot lately. I wonder if the publishers are trying to trick you into being their spokespersons for this issue. The DRM thing is a tired old cliche that no pragmatic person would take seriously. It's a childish response to a real problem but is rather like trying to secure your gingerbread house with padlocks made of gingerbread. All it does is keep the diabetics at bay but they wouldn't want to steal your gingerbread house anyway. Oh, and awkward analogies like these is why I'm not an author
... go to any extra effort to satisfy someone else's views on right or wrong.
And why should they? Its is absurd for someone to fight for a cause unless he/she strongly believes in that cause. It's simple arithmetic - there are a billion causes on this planet; we choose a few and fight for them. If you don't do that, you have (what I see in Berkeley all the time) the pure political junkie. At some point you have to step back and pick your fights. Mind you, the DRM fight is one that I believe in, strongly. But I can understand why not everyone would be as strongly involved in it. The slightly pompous attitude that fighters-for-a-cause tend to have for the people who don't really care saddens me because they are equally guilty of ignoring some (perhaps worthier) causes themselves.
Unfortunately, as GP also mentioned, the state of the art of the printed book appears to be regressing (sadly).
Once upon a time, books were expensive and well made. These days, they are cheap and start yellowing before you are done reading them.
I'm sure you're exaggerating to make a point but unless it takes you a year to read a book (or you're Xorgg from the planet Gnarrh in the Magellan sector and you read in a Chlorine atmosphere), I find this highly unlikely =). I will say though that what's called a "trade paperback" these days is made with paper that my ass would refuse to be wiped by. It really wasn't that way once upon a time and that's not just my 'get off my lawn' gnome talking =p. Hell, I have Del Rey paperbacks of Asimov printed 20 years ago that are still quite robust (though just a trifle yellowed but the paper is still topnotch). I have not (thankfully) had your experience with hardcovers being equally crappy though. That's very troubling - I do hope they don't do this for textbooks (for reasons made clear soon).
eBooks hang around longer on my hard drive (or in my Kindle library), but I don't have any real attachment to them. I can see if you are a physical book collector or like to maintain a collection, eBooks will seem stupid. To each his own.
Interesting. Just to provide a different perspective, I tend to use both heavily, albeit for different genres. Fiction of any kind (novels, anthologies) have been banned entirely in my apartment since I filled my second bookshelf (a matter of necessity or I'd have to sleep in my car). I got rid of most of my cheap paperbacks and all my hardcovers (except for some irreplaceable treasures - some old Clarke, Asimov and Crichton classics as well as books with nostalgic value). Switched over to ebooks entirely (for fiction). All my math and physics textbooks and other non-fiction that I plan to keep all my life stayed. Now, the dichotomy is simple - ebooks for fiction and hardcovers for "keeper" non-fiction (limited to textbooks of one kind of another or at the most, good quality popular science/economics books). This system seems to work really well since the latter category is (sadly) not very prolific, while the former category has nearly infinite space to expand in. Seems to me that each kind has its uses. Of course, (if and ) when ereaders become so ubiquitous and open that any book can be read anywhere and scientific typesetting (in ebooks) is not the freak of nature that it is today, I'll probably switch to all ebooks. I can sacrifice any of the usually mentioned tertiary qualities of paper books if it means that I can read more and with greater fidelity than before. One just has to keep one's priorities straight ...
Laudable no doubt, but in this case doesn't make a particle of difference to the status quo. You pick your fights - life is too short to make an issue of every single thing (but that's just me). What makes it worse is that I think he's confused about whom to fight in this case. From Amazon's point of view, it's a global business and they know that they can never make everyone happy. I'm sure they don't give a crap either way about DRM (and hence lock-in) as long as they can sell the ebooks. It's the publishers who have been scared into the whole DRM thing by the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned RIAA/MPAA farktards. And the same publishers recently bullied Amazon into the Agency 5 model (where Amazon is no longer free to unilaterally set ebook prices - so expect even the $9.99 to start going up steadily). Yes, the initial decision on Bezos' part to go with the MOBI format instead of EPUB was a bit douchey but as I've written elsewhere in this thread, ebook format conversion (through Calibre for instance) is 100% flawless, except that DRM prevents that. So, without DRM, format would be completely irrelevant - buy anywhere and read anyhow.
Boycotting Amazon while continuing to buy these publishers' books in paper form from some other retailer is foolishness in the first degree. There are enough online retailers now that the loss of Amazon (it's so unlikely that I can barely write that phrase) would merely remove a thorn from the publishers' side and leave them free to set ebook prices arbitrarily high and they do with hardcovers - $25 for a hardcover novel - are they fucking insane?).
Could you give me an example please? I've heard this before elsewhere but never actually seen the numbers. Ballpark estimates would be fine, I just have no sense of what it is at the moment.
Agreed. It's probably been mentioned to death on here by (by myself more than a few times) but it must be said again - Baen usually sells their ebooks (even new releases) for $5-6. Unfortunately, there's only a handful of excellent authors in their stable that I like (and perhaps a dozen or so objectively good authors otherwise) - also, it's largely SF & Fantasy. Good thing Flint, Weber and Bujold have been so prolific over the past decade.
While that $9.99 price tag does make me puke every time I have to shop on Amazon or B&N for ebooks, I think of it as an easing in period. Unfortunately, I still haven't decided whether it's an easing in period for the consumers (to get used to high prices for ebooks notwithstanding the almost comical lack of material resources needed to produce digital books) or for the publishers (to get used to lower prices for ebooks notwithstanding the usually high prices they extort from the consumer for new release hardcovers). If you're a Stephen King fan, you might recall the unbelievably honest disclosure from the publisher preceding Under the dome (to the effect that they would be delaying the ebook release to avoid stepping on hardcover sales - the worthless assholes!)
When mainstream publishing stops pulling egregious stunts like this on its customers, you can expect the price tag to dip a little. Until then, might as well get used to it (or start moving towards the independent publishers - of which there are several popping up now, many that are ebook only now that the ereader market has gone mainstream with the Nook and Kindle [*sigh* yes, and iPad too, though that's the last time I admit it in public =p]).
Any time one can get remuneration to the actual content creators instead of the middle-men is a good idea in my book.
I agree wholeheartedly. I can't help being afraid of the publishers' backlash though. As the good Captain Reynolds would say -
"About 50% of the human race is middle-men and they don't take kindly to being eliminated"
Hopefully, there's not much they can do in this case, but ya never know :/
Obviously. Good thing Steam isn't run by ol' Jobs so they have no problem letting the user decide. Gawd, I love console tweaks. Just wanna thank submitter for bringing this game (and the tweak) to my attention.
/rarely log on to Steam
*sigh* Indeed. In my more charitable moods, I like think of it as "a grammatical misunderstanding of the proper scope of the first person plural". (And I just understood the full implications of your statement. Bravo good sir! =D)
Write a story bound by x and y, does it fit this label, yes or no. Can't get too much more precise than that.
*sigh* it probably was precise. But,
I asked for a clarification because I didn't fully understand your sentences. Didn't get it.
Dunno why you didn't just help me out there. Here it is again, since you didn't go back and look:
What do you mean by me "having a $10M budget for modern, existing tech"? In any case, whether your example is SF or not would have nothing to do with the absolute level of tech of the fictional world since the question is always whether the tech is advanced or speculative compared to our own (the 'our' being whoever is contemplating this categorization).
I sincerely did not understand the point of the $10M line. Ignoring that, what I said next answers your question sufficiently. If I INTERPRET your first line to mean that the society in your story would have technology that is comparable to "modern, existing" tech, then no, it clearly would not be SF. It would be like "24" or a Tom Clancy novel or any kind of high tech-but-contemporary story, of which there are many. I ask again though, given that you know my views on the matter of SF labels are lukewarm at best, why would my opinion on a test case be of interest to you? (By the way, I should mention that I'm really not trying to be a pain here - I'm just procrastinating on something I should be doing and hence posting much more than usual =)
Why would I need to go anywhere? =) I have the basic ingredients I need already in my head. Input from the outside world, a steadily growing store of tools to play with it and the ability to learn from the experiences of others. That's the first assumption I threw away a long time ago - that you need to embrace a certain method to find satisfaction. Who knows? Perhaps a feedback approach (feeling your way to it through trial and error) rather than a mapped out approach is more suitable eh? To explicitly answer your question though, 'nowhere'; because it's all right here, just waiting to be found. Also, intellectual satisfaction is something that I hope is always temporary because there is literally no end to intellectual inquiry. I wouldn't want to be intellectually satisfied, ever! Spiritual satisfaction, I've always equated to making your peace with the universe (in a vague way). I made a truce and I find that to be sufficient =).
/. before. Heady =)
By the way, I've never had a real time conversation on
Well then, if I could only meet more true followers*, I guess I would be truly satisfied eh? (Have we just come full circle? Woot =)
________
*because the ones that I have met so far are the basis for what I wrote. Poseurs, the lot of the them (if what you say is the norm rather than the exception).
The first noble truth of Buddhism, sometimes translated: "Life is filled with a deep sense of unsatisfaction."
I do wish religious groups would stop projecting their own failings on all of humanity (even though I admit that's a common psychological defense mechanism). I am quite satisfied with my life thankyouverymuch. I'm not entirely happy but that's a small price to pay for satisfaction and I imagine there's lots of people like that in the world.
If you are happy it's because you have found a way to live that overcomes the suffering and dissatisfaction that one often experiences in life.
See emph.
That sounds like a categorical judgment of an entire belief system based on a one-liner appearing in Slashdot.
To be honest, it was more of a judgment about the one-liner. If what you said about Buddhism is true, I'll gladly take back the larger judgment and humbly apologize. Buddhism (provisionally) aside though, it is a deep-seated feature of religious groups that they attribute their own failures to some fundamental failing of humanity by the simple act of spouting grand one-liners such as the one I was replying to ("I am unhappy" => "There is unhappiness in the world" => makes it seem like it might not be my fault). It's intellectually and factually dishonest and it irritates me enough to respond to it even when that leads me off topic (such as now).
Actually, that's not a bad point at all and in fact, has a lot in common with spiritual/intellectual satisfaction. A permanent state of satisfaction is about as pretty as a vegetative state. A permanently satisfied mind is a stagnant mind, just as a permanently sated appetite is a symptom of death. I have to force myself to be dissatisfied so that I can have some ambition (and this dissatisfaction can be intellectual, economic or about pretty much anything).
lol I'm sorry you didn't catch the irony of the statement, "satisfaction can be found with a drug injection" for surely a drug injection (such as heroin) is in no way satisfying: as soon as the rush is over, you need to find more to keep yourself up. How can it be called satisfaction if it is only temporary? As for consumerism, if you need to rush to the next shiny object to get your fix of happiness, that is not satisfaction. Satisfaction and happiness can only be found from inside, not from external objects and pleasures. Buddhism as a religion can help you reach this, but as even the Dalai Lama says, it is not the only way (although he feels it is certainly the best way).
I certainly don't disagree with any of that (well, except to point out that that's not irony but that's a minor point). It's just that I would add religion to your list of "quick happiness fixes". Also, I resent the fact that a statement to the effect that someone is satisfied automatically means (to you) that it must be either drugs or consumerism. Profundity and intellectual/inner satisfaction is not the sole province of the religionist/spiritualist. Indeed, in this day and age, that is the last place I would go to look for it. The search for meaning has surpassed these methods for quite some time now.
I'm glad the Dalai Lama agrees that his is not the only way. Perhaps there is something to his much vaunted wisdom after all. Again though, eastern philosophies and cultures (and I come from one) tend to focus too much on questions and not enough on the effort needed to at least try to answer them. Nothing irritates a dabbler in eastern mysticism (that last word used in its technical sense, not the popular one) more than a profound question that is finally answered - hence the 'obscurantist' accusation.
There is at least one publishing house (Baen) that is probably the most enlightened (out of self-interest, not altruism, so I trust it) corporation to ever exist. No DRM in their ebooks. Ebooks cost ~$5-6 (and their hardbacks and paperbacks cost the standard market price on their site as well as with other retailers). Further, they have a free library where selected works of their authors (with the blessing of the author) are posted for free. There's an article by Eric Flint (one of their authors) about this on the front page of their free library. I would encourage you to check it out, if for no other reason than to show you that there is still hope for humanity =) with everyone winning out financially, the idiots at the RIAA, MPAA and the Agency 5 (publishers) notwithstanding.
I used to do the same thing you do (ebooks for classics and pbooks for new stuff) but the problem is simply one of space. I live in a small but comfortable apartment but two large bookcases are the limit (unless I want to start sleeping in my car =)) and they are now full. I only buy books that I want to keep and reread at some point (the rest is library stuff). At this point, ebooks are the only way to expand. Maybe I should just go to war and annex my neighbor's place =). I wonder if that's the origin of war. More space for your library.