The biggest problem... shlomo there at the pawn shop... isn't probably going to know about this "feature" and will happily accept these games until he gets the first pissed return customer.
You start the game for the first time, you're thrust into the action from the beginning. You start the game the second time you're thrust into the action starting with your last checkpoint. You start the game after you've won, you're thrust into the credits. Game over.
Please, for the love of all that is sane, do not press enter just because you've reached the edge of the textbox. Some of us actually have desktop sized screens, and reading a column of text that only occupies 1/4 of it is excruciatingly painful.
I know you're just a troll... but trolls need to be fed too.
I type, so people can READ. Maybe you type to get your typing nut off... but I want people to read and comprehend.
Typing with REASONABLE column widths and starting paragraphs with new thoughts and creating summary based sentences, allows higher and quicker reading comprehension.
If you read that article, which I doubt you will, you will see: "Shorter line lengths result in increased comprehension. The optimal number of characters per line is between 45 and 65."
Further:
"Examination of Fast versus Slow Readers
Originally, participant reading rate was not considered as an independent variable in this study. Dyson & Kipping (1997) propose that fast and slow readers use different reading strategies that may impact comprehension. They suggest that faster readers are able to scan narrow columns more efficiently and increase their comprehension. Based on this idea, the fastest readers in this study were compared to the slowest readers by condition. Reading speed, reading comprehension, reading efficiency, and reading satisfaction were then analyzed using a 2 x 2 x 3 ANOVA.
In general, results from these analyses indicate that the fastest readers benefited most from the 2-column justified text, while the slowest readers performed best at the 1-column left justified format (see Figure 8). In addition, satisfaction levels were found to be higher for the fast readers at the two-column full-justification condition than the other conditions."
So.... PLEASE EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME, if I try to make reading comprehension EASIER for those that a) know how to read and b) know how to comprehend.
I guess I could do like the school system and pander to the lowest common denominator. No slashdot reader left behind... right?
-AI
btw.., I presume the troll there, with the 5, insightful will keep his 5... while my ACTUALLY INSIGHTFUL DUE TO CONTENT post will probably get modded into oblivion (if seen at all). I remember when the crux and the core of this group was nothing but upper intelligent people who regarded other intelligent beings with more than petty ridicule. Sigh for the good ole days.
especially Linux netbooks - no consumers will want windows once they've seen ubuntu...
Yeah, but then you get into things like... Crysis 2 doesn't play on Linux... and that makes me have to dual boot. And if I don't feel like shutting the game down, to run another app... then I have to stay in Windows. Then the whole thing kinda breaks down after that. Why dual boot at all, since I'll hit another wall with another program I want to run soon enough.
My time is valuable and even at a super fast boot... I really don't want to wait that long plus the time to launch the app and then back again.
Which leaves me in Windows most of the time.
I really want to see Linux succeed... but the drivers and Windows only apps, kills it every single time.
Exactly the same issue when I try to explain to someone else why they should switch over. It's always well what about this program or this peripheral. And that typically kills it.
I even tried to run Ubuntu on most of my laptops, here's how that went. The two that only browse web... no problem. Home theatre lappy... no go. Dual monitor support sucks, audio sucks. Great, back to Windows.
This laptop... 1 damn program that has no Linux analogue... great, back to Windows.
Linux is almost ready for the desktop =) but everything else we need to use... isn't ready for Linux for the desktop. And the adoption stagnates.
Well, one person started to, then kinda went on a weird other-topic rant.
The biggest issue, which makes this entire idea, sound pretty worthless... for the majority of Wikipedia users, I presume and have no idea of a source that would vet that or refute it? What good is 1 or two minutes of computing time?
Even the longest articles I might read on there are barely 5 minutes for me. I am a quick reader though.
Do many users 'stay' on the site for extended periods of time? I honestly have never researched anything for any long stay. If I need to do serious research. No offense, Wikipedia, but you are not going to be the source.
I guess you can break down the work, or only schedule work that can be broken down into 1 minute chunks, you could dole out work units based on the length of article, with a maximum of maybe 3-5 minutes (the average attention span) so when someone gives up on "all the words" the work isn't lost.
Then you get into, how long is the download time of the chunks. Will that be affected throughout the day, as server latency scales up and down? Or localized traffic scales up and down? That eats into compute time, since you have to send the work unit back. Which may be an order of size more.
Next point... why not just create the "Wikipedia Distrubuted Computer Project" and have frequent (or whomever) users download a client and run it...... because then it would be just like all the others and then you see why the answer to this is...
1) Yes, Wikipedia could become a supercomputer. [even though it wouldn't be Wikipedia in the sense that it was THEIR computers.]
2) So, that makes it in a way... NO, they can't become a supercomputer because of the feasibility, etc but they can be a hub for a distributed network, which really isn't a supercomputer
> It's NOT ridiculous to expect them to disappear completely. > It IS ridiculous to expect them NOT to... because on the > timeline we all live on, EVERYTHING will cease to exist > at some point. Believing in the contrary is insane.
Of course, this also applies to digital copies! Perhaps even more so. I believe, counting on huge, thus "indestructible", numbers of copies to be floating around somewhere, is a fallacy. The more complicated the technology in use, the more prone to failure. E-Readers & E-Books, while they certainly have their good uses, are no exception. Trust me...after one or two EMP's paper-copies of ANYTHING will be all the rage again...
Ok, I may be in for a whoosh... however and perhaps this is the fault of TV/cinema... and their glorification of the effects of an EMP pulse but the platters in a hard drive are fairly isolated and as long as the drive is not energized or grounded or near other long runs of metal... will probably not have an issue with EMP.
The same with USB drives.
And DVDs and CDs (although not known for their long life) will survive EMP.
Plus it is a trivial issue to put small important electronic items into a ammunition box, metal lunchbox, aluminum or copper lined envelope, etc, etc.
And your car, yes, the government's tests with EMP and cars has shown that while some may suffer, most will benefit from the pseudo-faraday covering around the car as well as the rubber keeping the car from grounding.
All bets are off, if you're driving in the rain, thru a puddle, etc.
And I would be the first to jump on the "in the event of..." we will need paper books to survive except, people are soooo stupid nowadays 'wholesale' that a book telling someone how to 'do anything that they are not used to doing for themselves' is going to be absolutely worthless the second they get to a word they don't know and don't have google to look it up or a cell phone to call someone to tell them what it means.
Survival of the fittest will be the book of the day, if the world goes to heck. And I have my 30 day supply of food, water, medicine and bullets.
And aside from that... the way the brain receives information from the eyes and interprets text... it is MUCH easier to scan 32-64 col instead of trying to "read" an entire essay that has no {br}.
And it's been even longer since I saw a Motorola Starmax.
I can't believe you said StarMax!
Hardly anyone knows what those are anymore... I put together a $12k a week ad publication on 4 of those and an IBM 'server'. It was "robust" in the 90s. And it's period counterpart... we sent the 'book' on, on a ZipDisk =)
I still have one left (a starmax). Want to buy it? -=)
I can't think of many things other than weight and the sound and feel it makes as you drag a nail across the grooves... that would make seeing a record in real life any more of an experience than if you saw it in a book, on a google search, on TV.
Dinosaurs are perhaps a different and not exact analogy in this case, as all evidence to their actual visage is conjecture.
Better analogies... anywhere on the planet, you haven't been but you have seen pictures or video of.
Tactile understanding of an area is definitely different than 'seeing' an area. But as an odd example, let's take the Washington Monument. It has been snapped so many times, it exists in Google Street View, there are probably some 3d views... you can see it from satellite, from airplane, how much more are you going to gain from "seeing it" in person?
One hint, you'll see a shit-ton of rats, if you go at night like I did. I probably could do without the mental image of them... but they are there, indelible.
I digress though... we have chosen "in person" as the subject.
So, yeah... for 99.999% of the population, the world doesn't exist then =)
I guess it's possible for someone under the age of 20 to have not seen either format. I'm certain there are children who have never seen either.
For this to go any further, I guess we would have clarify what we mean by:
"Since I saw" "Have never seen"
For me, I take it as seen anywhere, not just in person. I mean, we don't learn everything we are taught by being at the point of origin or subject.
Is that where we are having a divide?
For instance, I was watching a show the other day and in one of the scene pans, there was a collection of gold records on the wall.
I consider that... "seeing a record".
Plus, I DJ'd for quite a while and until the Pioneer CDJ came around, I was still handling a lot of vinyl, a very esoteric experience not shared by a large pop.
And that is why I would allow the 8-track as "never having been seen" Because unless you see a period movie or show or documentary, you won't even see one of those on "TV". And no one uses or refers to them either. Well, casually, I mean.
Very valid points, thanks for sharing and I read up some more on the sequestering properties of old growth trees and it does seem that there is a linear taper to the voracity of the trees for sequestering over their lifespan.
So, I guess we just need to send lumberjacks in with horse teams and handsaws =)...and lots and lots of seedlings.
Young growing trees are air scrubbers. My understanding is that once fully grown there is a significant drop-off. That would suggest that wood based products are green. Assuming of course the harvesting and replanting are done in a reasonable manner. Also look at books as a carbon sequestration device.:-)
Until they clear cut (with diesel bulldozers and tree pullers) and raze the remaining brush... thus UNSEQUESTERING the carbon =)
'It still amazes me that after 20 years the only publicly available back up of the internet is the privately funded Internet Archive."
That's just plain ignorant... I don't think it would be feasible to try to chase 'the end of the internet'.
I'm sure the scale of what is added to the internet outpaces the ability to mirror it. Thus, without a curve-breaking introduction of non-volatile storage, I don't think a whole mirror will ever be achieved. [Short of search engines... who claim that they can't reach the deep/dark net]
Which is another point. Who will ever be able to claim they have mirrored the entire internet... if you don't have access to the deepest parts, you don't have a true mirror.
I've never seen a vinyl record or and 8 track cassette.
Really though? That sounds facetious... and improbable.
If you would have just stuck with 8-track, I wouldn't have said anything... but it's next to impossible to exist on this planet, not be blind, surface from the subterranean cave you live in occasionally and NOT have seen a record... somewhere.
Which you could say, if I've never seen one, how do I know I saw one, if I did. And that's where I say... it's called anecdotal knowledge. Such as the lion that is involved in this protracted analogy. The roar and the sheer ominousness of the creature you would see, would lead you to believe it was a lion from supposed knowledge that you should have at this point.
I can mail you an Elvis 8-track if you like. It's in stereo. };-)
A few generations until seeing a paper book is as rare as seeing a lion? Thats a bit absurd, I dont know anyone who has thrown out their book collection after getting a kindle. I have a rather extensive collection and though they mostly collect dust now I have no plans on ditching them. I can see a day where new books are no longer published but just expecting all of the old ones to just disappear is ridiculous.
Yes and no dude... you forget one thing... moving!
I love and covet my bound-paper collection... I even have an authentic ENCYCLOPEDIA set. (3, but who's counting).
During a move... my book collection takes roughly one hour of labor with 2 people to move (from & to). Yeah, I move enough and I'm anal enough to calculate that fact. That makes it $16 labor bucks a move... which isn't expensive it is a non-zero expense and the time is "expensive" in a move and . Especially when you live in the desert. And the space they take up since they need to be in a temperature/humidity controlled area is bad as well.
So, here's the scenario... I donate/sell/giveaway all my books. They have thus "disappeared" from my possession. At some point, whoever received them, does the same thing. Eventually they reach an area or person that doesn't want to take the time to move them or store them properly and disposes of them ala Fahrenheit 451 (or a landfill, whichever)... those books have then disappeared, completely.
It's NOT ridiculous to expect them to disappear completely. It IS ridiculous to expect them NOT to... because on the timeline we all live on, EVERYTHING will cease to exist at some point. Believing in the contrary is insane.
Digital technology has been around long enough that we should have stopped killing trees A LONG TIME AGO!
This bullshit of clear cutting damn rainforests to supply the world with paper is absolutely insane. Of course this probably goes along the lines of petroleum products, first world countries will be able to give it up easier than third world areas.
Trees are part of our air scrubbers... it's like... hmm we need a car analogy... it's like, using a car for a paperweight. I would MUCH rather leave the trees to do their jobs (not to mention providing an area for tens of thousands of the world's species to live) than to have a "piece of paper" handy.
I went back to McD's to return it and the machine wouldn't take it because the box was full. Drove across town to two other boxes with the same result. Same thing the next day, and the next. So I payed for 3 days, and drove all over town 3 times for a movie I could have bought at the cutout bin for 99c.
You might not get a chance to read this since articles are usually forgotten about by the next day...
But I had the EXACT same thing happen to me and I called and raised holy hell with them about their so called "system".
Got comped for all the dollar days I was charged and given two free rentals (two bux) for my troubles. Didn't pay for my gas but definitely kept me from swearing them off for good.
Now I just swear them off cause the movie season that led to the DVDs out right now.. sucked... so the current selection sucks. =)
Slashdot Mirror
The biggest problem... shlomo there at the pawn shop...
isn't probably going to know about this "feature" and will
happily accept these games until he gets the first pissed
return customer.
-AI
You start the game for the first time, you're thrust into the action from the beginning. You start the game the second time you're thrust into the action starting with your last checkpoint. You start the game after you've won, you're thrust into the credits. Game over.
I can tell you where the thrusting is being done.
I wouldn't bend over if I were you.
-AI
Please, for the love of all that is sane, do not press enter just because you've reached the edge of the textbox. Some of us actually have desktop sized screens, and reading a column of text that only occupies 1/4 of it is excruciatingly painful.
I know you're just a troll... but trolls need to be fed too.
http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/72/columns.asp
I type, so people can READ. Maybe you type to get your
typing nut off... but I want people to read and comprehend.
Typing with REASONABLE column widths and starting
paragraphs with new thoughts and creating summary
based sentences, allows higher and quicker reading
comprehension.
If you read that article, which I doubt you will, you will see:
"Shorter line lengths result in increased comprehension.
The optimal number of characters per line is between 45 and 65."
Further:
"Examination of Fast versus Slow Readers
Originally, participant reading rate was not considered as an independent variable in this study. Dyson & Kipping (1997) propose that fast and slow readers use different reading strategies that may impact comprehension. They suggest that faster readers are able to scan narrow columns more efficiently and increase their comprehension. Based on this idea, the fastest readers in this study were compared to the slowest readers by condition. Reading speed, reading comprehension, reading efficiency, and reading satisfaction were then analyzed using a 2 x 2 x 3 ANOVA.
In general, results from these analyses indicate that the fastest readers benefited most from the 2-column justified text, while the slowest readers performed best at the 1-column left justified format (see Figure 8). In addition, satisfaction levels were found to be higher for the fast readers at the two-column full-justification condition than the other conditions."
So.... PLEASE EXCUSE THE FUCK OUT OF ME,
if I try to make reading comprehension EASIER for
those that a) know how to read and b) know how to
comprehend.
I guess I could do like the school system and pander
to the lowest common denominator. No slashdot reader
left behind... right?
-AI
btw.., I presume the troll there, with the 5, insightful will
keep his 5... while my ACTUALLY INSIGHTFUL DUE
TO CONTENT post will probably get modded into
oblivion (if seen at all). I remember when the crux and
the core of this group was nothing but upper intelligent
people who regarded other intelligent beings with more
than petty ridicule. Sigh for the good ole days.
Git off my lawn!
touche'
50 goto 10
Thought it was bad programming to form goto loops?
=)
-AI
When version 1.0 of your product has no "Cut & Paste", you can only go up.
But they have it now... and isn't that all that matters?
=)
-AI
especially Linux netbooks - no consumers will want windows once they've seen ubuntu...
Yeah, but then you get into things like... Crysis 2 doesn't play on Linux...
and that makes me have to dual boot. And if I don't feel like shutting the
game down, to run another app... then I have to stay in Windows. Then
the whole thing kinda breaks down after that. Why dual boot at all,
since I'll hit another wall with another program I want to run soon enough.
My time is valuable and even at a super fast boot... I really don't want
to wait that long plus the time to launch the app and then back again.
Which leaves me in Windows most of the time.
I really want to see Linux succeed... but the drivers and Windows only
apps, kills it every single time.
Exactly the same issue when I try to explain to someone else why
they should switch over. It's always well what about this program or
this peripheral. And that typically kills it.
I even tried to run Ubuntu on most of my laptops, here's how that went.
The two that only browse web... no problem. Home theatre lappy... no
go. Dual monitor support sucks, audio sucks. Great, back to Windows.
This laptop... 1 damn program that has no Linux analogue... great, back
to Windows.
Linux is almost ready for the desktop =) but everything else we need
to use... isn't ready for Linux for the desktop. And the adoption stagnates.
-AI
Well, one person started to, then kinda went on a weird
other-topic rant.
The biggest issue, which makes this entire idea, sound
pretty worthless... for the majority of Wikipedia users, I
presume and have no idea of a source that would vet that
or refute it? What good is 1 or two minutes of computing
time?
Even the longest articles I might read on there are barely
5 minutes for me. I am a quick reader though.
Do many users 'stay' on the site for extended periods of
time? I honestly have never researched anything for any
long stay. If I need to do serious research. No offense,
Wikipedia, but you are not going to be the source.
I guess you can break down the work, or only schedule
work that can be broken down into 1 minute chunks,
you could dole out work units based on the length of
article, with a maximum of maybe 3-5 minutes (the
average attention span) so when someone gives up on
"all the words" the work isn't lost.
Then you get into, how long is the download time of the
chunks. Will that be affected throughout the day, as
server latency scales up and down? Or localized traffic
scales up and down? That eats into compute time, since
you have to send the work unit back. Which may be an
order of size more.
Next point... why not just create the "Wikipedia Distrubuted ... because then it would be just like all the others and then
Computer Project" and have frequent (or whomever) users
download a client and run it...
you see why the answer to this is...
1) Yes, Wikipedia could become a supercomputer.
[even though it wouldn't be Wikipedia in the sense that it was
THEIR computers.]
2) So, that makes it in a way... NO, they can't become a
supercomputer because of the feasibility, etc but they can
be a hub for a distributed network, which really isn't a
supercomputer
-AI
I use subsonic to access and listen to mine and I love it.
Bump parent to 5...
I never heard of SubSonic... thanks!
-AI
> It's NOT ridiculous to expect them to disappear completely.
> It IS ridiculous to expect them NOT to... because on the
> timeline we all live on, EVERYTHING will cease to exist
> at some point. Believing in the contrary is insane.
Of course, this also applies to digital copies! Perhaps even more so. I believe, counting on huge, thus "indestructible", numbers of copies to be floating around somewhere, is a fallacy. The more complicated the technology in use, the more prone to failure. E-Readers & E-Books, while they certainly have their good uses, are no exception. Trust me...after one or two EMP's paper-copies of ANYTHING will be all the rage again...
Ok, I may be in for a whoosh... however and perhaps
this is the fault of TV/cinema... and their glorification
of the effects of an EMP pulse but the platters in a
hard drive are fairly isolated and as long as the drive
is not energized or grounded or near other long runs
of metal... will probably not have an issue with EMP.
The same with USB drives.
And DVDs and CDs (although not known for their
long life) will survive EMP.
Plus it is a trivial issue to put small important
electronic items into a ammunition box, metal
lunchbox, aluminum or copper lined envelope,
etc, etc.
And your car, yes, the government's tests with EMP
and cars has shown that while some may suffer, most
will benefit from the pseudo-faraday covering around
the car as well as the rubber keeping the car from
grounding.
All bets are off, if you're driving in the rain, thru a
puddle, etc.
And I would be the first to jump on the "in the event
of..." we will need paper books to survive except,
people are soooo stupid nowadays 'wholesale' that
a book telling someone how to 'do anything that
they are not used to doing for themselves' is going
to be absolutely worthless the second they get to
a word they don't know and don't have google to
look it up or a cell phone to call someone to tell
them what it means.
Survival of the fittest will be the book of the day,
if the world goes to heck. And I have my 30 day
supply of food, water, medicine and bullets.
-AI
Why do you format your text like a twat?
Just curious.
Because I'm an old twat from the 32 column days.
And aside from that... the way the brain receives
information from the eyes and interprets text...
it is MUCH easier to scan 32-64 col instead of
trying to "read" an entire essay that has no {br}.
-AI
And it's been even longer since I saw a Motorola Starmax.
I can't believe you said StarMax!
Hardly anyone knows what those are anymore...
I put together a $12k a week ad publication on
4 of those and an IBM 'server'. It was "robust"
in the 90s. And it's period counterpart... we
sent the 'book' on, on a ZipDisk =)
I still have one left (a starmax). Want to buy it? -=)
-AI
TV doesn't count. It's seeing it in real life.
I can't think of many things other than weight and the
sound and feel it makes as you drag a nail across
the grooves... that would make seeing a record
in real life any more of an experience than if
you saw it in a book, on a google search, on TV.
Dinosaurs are perhaps a different and not exact
analogy in this case, as all evidence to their
actual visage is conjecture.
Better analogies... anywhere on the planet,
you haven't been but you have seen pictures
or video of.
Tactile understanding of an area is definitely
different than 'seeing' an area. But as an odd
example, let's take the Washington Monument.
It has been snapped so many times, it exists
in Google Street View, there are probably some
3d views... you can see it from satellite, from
airplane, how much more are you going to gain
from "seeing it" in person?
One hint, you'll see a shit-ton of rats, if you go
at night like I did. I probably could do without
the mental image of them... but they are there,
indelible.
I digress though... we have chosen "in person"
as the subject.
So, yeah... for 99.999% of the population, the
world doesn't exist then =)
-AI
I guess it's possible for someone under the age of 20 to have not seen either format. I'm certain there are children who have never seen either.
For this to go any further, I guess we would have
clarify what we mean by:
"Since I saw"
"Have never seen"
For me, I take it as seen anywhere, not just in person.
I mean, we don't learn everything we are taught by being
at the point of origin or subject.
Is that where we are having a divide?
For instance, I was watching a show the other day
and in one of the scene pans, there was a collection
of gold records on the wall.
I consider that... "seeing a record".
Plus, I DJ'd for quite a while and until the Pioneer CDJ
came around, I was still handling a lot of vinyl, a very
esoteric experience not shared by a large pop.
And that is why I would allow the 8-track as "never
having been seen" Because unless you see a period
movie or show or documentary, you won't even see
one of those on "TV". And no one uses or refers to
them either. Well, casually, I mean.
In fact, you're more likely to see a reel to reel than
an 8 track on a show. I was watching a rerun of
"The Wire" and they popped out a reel to reel.
http://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1119&bih=812&q=reel+to+reel+tape+recorder
http://www.pimall.com/nais/pivintage/aiwarecorder.html
-AI
Everyone believes your product is crap...
... because we told them that.
You need better PR and management.
We can suggest a company.
lol
-AI
Very valid points, thanks for sharing and I read up some more
on the sequestering properties of old growth trees and it does
seem that there is a linear taper to the voracity of the trees for
sequestering over their lifespan.
So, I guess we just need to send lumberjacks in with horse ...and lots and lots of seedlings.
teams and handsaws =)
-AI
Trees are part of our air scrubbers...
Young growing trees are air scrubbers. My understanding is that once fully grown there is a significant drop-off. That would suggest that wood based products are green. Assuming of course the harvesting and replanting are done in a reasonable manner. Also look at books as a carbon sequestration device. :-)
Until they clear cut (with diesel bulldozers and tree pullers)
and raze the remaining brush... thus UNSEQUESTERING
the carbon =)
-AI
By book he probably means codex. Sill a little short but about right.
A lot short... codices were BC.
And then there's the Diamond Sutra, 868AD
Off by 50% is a little more than a little short.
-AI
'It still amazes me that after 20 years the only publicly available back up of the internet is the privately funded Internet Archive."
That's just plain ignorant... I don't think it would
be feasible to try to chase 'the end of the internet'.
I'm sure the scale of what is added to the internet
outpaces the ability to mirror it. Thus, without a
curve-breaking introduction of non-volatile storage,
I don't think a whole mirror will ever be achieved.
[Short of search engines... who claim that they
can't reach the deep/dark net]
Which is another point. Who will ever be able to
claim they have mirrored the entire internet... if
you don't have access to the deepest parts, you
don't have a true mirror.
-AI
I've never seen a vinyl record or and 8 track cassette.
Really though? That sounds facetious... and improbable.
If you would have just stuck with 8-track, I wouldn't have
said anything... but it's next to impossible to exist on
this planet, not be blind, surface from the subterranean
cave you live in occasionally and NOT have seen a
record... somewhere.
Which you could say, if I've never seen one, how do I
know I saw one, if I did. And that's where I say... it's
called anecdotal knowledge. Such as the lion that is
involved in this protracted analogy. The roar and the
sheer ominousness of the creature you would see,
would lead you to believe it was a lion from supposed
knowledge that you should have at this point.
I can mail you an Elvis 8-track if you like. It's in stereo.
};-)
-AI
A few generations until seeing a paper book is as rare as seeing a lion? Thats a bit absurd, I dont know anyone who has thrown out their book collection after getting a kindle. I have a rather extensive collection and though they mostly collect dust now I have no plans on ditching them. I can see a day where new books are no longer published but just expecting all of the old ones to just disappear is ridiculous.
Yes and no dude... you forget one thing... moving!
I love and covet my bound-paper collection... I even
have an authentic ENCYCLOPEDIA set. (3, but who's
counting).
During a move... my book collection takes roughly
one hour of labor with 2 people to move (from & to).
Yeah, I move enough and I'm anal enough to calculate
that fact. That makes it $16 labor bucks a move...
which isn't expensive it is a non-zero expense and
the time is "expensive" in a move and . Especially
when you live in the desert. And the space they take
up since they need to be in a temperature/humidity
controlled area is bad as well.
So, here's the scenario... I donate/sell/giveaway all
my books. They have thus "disappeared" from my
possession. At some point, whoever received them,
does the same thing. Eventually they reach an area
or person that doesn't want to take the time to move
them or store them properly and disposes of them
ala Fahrenheit 451 (or a landfill, whichever)... those
books have then disappeared, completely.
It's NOT ridiculous to expect them to disappear completely.
It IS ridiculous to expect them NOT to... because on the
timeline we all live on, EVERYTHING will cease to exist
at some point. Believing in the contrary is insane.
-AI
Books have been around for almost EIGHT centuries.
Sorry man... but WOW... where did YOU go to school? lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrus
http://www.onlinedegree.net/the-10-oldest-books-known-to-man/
-AI
. One hard drive crash can wipe out all your books.
One fire can wipe out all your books. And they provide pretty good fuel for the fire too.
A little harder to catch that USB drive on fire.
Can you fit those 100's of books into one firesafe?
Why would you have a flammable object not protected by a firesafe?
That's almost like having $500,000 in BC laying around in a file on your computer.
Wait... what?
-AI
Digital technology has been around long enough
that we should have stopped killing trees A LONG
TIME AGO!
This bullshit of clear cutting damn rainforests to
supply the world with paper is absolutely insane.
Of course this probably goes along the lines of
petroleum products, first world countries will be
able to give it up easier than third world areas.
Trees are part of our air scrubbers... it's like...
hmm we need a car analogy... it's like, using
a car for a paperweight. I would MUCH rather
leave the trees to do their jobs (not to mention
providing an area for tens of thousands of the
world's species to live) than to have a "piece
of paper" handy.
-AI
I went back to McD's to return it and the machine wouldn't take it because the box was full. Drove across town to two other boxes with the same result. Same thing the next day, and the next. So I payed for 3 days, and drove all over town 3 times for a movie I could have bought at the cutout bin for 99c.
You might not get a chance to read this since articles
are usually forgotten about by the next day...
But I had the EXACT same thing happen to me and
I called and raised holy hell with them about their so
called "system".
Got comped for all the dollar days I was charged and
given two free rentals (two bux) for my troubles. Didn't
pay for my gas but definitely kept me from swearing
them off for good.
Now I just swear them off cause the movie season
that led to the DVDs out right now.. sucked... so
the current selection sucks. =)
-AI