So, libraries having limited resources will buy titles in one maybe two formats. And considering the popularity of ereaders, I'm guessing that Kindle versions of titles will be purchased with the books on tape version - no expensive printed books. Which means, if I want to read some of those titles, I'll have to buy a Kindle. It's not like they'll buy Kindles for patrons use and if they do, they'll have to be kept on the premises.
So, this is just a way for Amazon to sell more Kindles.
None of you thought they were doing this for the public good, did you?
Except that isn't what's happening. That one copy (or two, or however many for popular novels) the library buys will, as I understand it, be available in any format, but only one of them checked out at a time, of course. If the book's in, you can choose your format and go. There's no "I'll have to buy a kindle" or "I'll have to buy X e-reader".
Considering it's just Overdrive, which has been around for a while now, yes, libraries have set lending periods. Mine is a choice of 7, 14, or 21 days. Yes, they do automatically get "deleted" (actually they just stop working, at least for ePub titles), but you can re-borrow them if you'd like. The bigger issue is with publishers imposing artificial scarcity on digital titles, forcing libraries to purchase a new copy after it's been borrowed a certain number of times (in order to maintain the same revenue stream they have with dead-tree books, which actually degrade).
Here's the thing, she isn't real. This is a common BS comment, I'm really disappointed that no one recognized this for what it was, since it had no bearing on the article whatsoever. See here for more examples of this idiocy that people are, for some reason, taking as fact just because it says "From the article".
I'm still scared-- stockpiling on water and going to bunker down in my basement, as the projected path of the 'cane brings the eye with a near-direct hit over my residence. Just gotta tough it out and hope they can restore power in a reasonable period of time and damage to life and proprety is minimal.
I know what you mean; I'm in the same boat. I plan to stay safe in the basement until the worst of this storm is over. Of course it's not likely to help much, since I'm in Iowa. Still, better safe than sorry, right?
Seriously though, I don't mean to make light of your predicament, and here's hoping the thing dissipates at least some before pounding the city.
I specifically didn't mention the Kindle. Mobi is atrocious, and Amazon cares more about the bottom line than presenting an acceptable reading experience. You're right, not everyone uses the same algorithms to determine hyphenation and line-breaking, but in my experience, ePub and the readers that use ePub (at least the Nook - I really can't speak for others such as the Kobo or iRiver readers, not having used them) do a better job than the atrocity in that article. Of course, none of it matters if the publishers don't bother putting a little bit of care into their e-books. I may have come on a little strong, but I believe e-readers are not all as bad as you and the article you linked are making them out to be. http://www.the-digital-reader.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/nook.jpg is at least an improvement on the look of the Kindle's page, however I agree, it's not perfect.
Congratulations, you've just earned the "I don't know what I'm talking about!" achievement! All modern e-readers, when using their proper formats (generally ePub for pretty much anything worth using) handle line-breaking and hyphenation just fine, and unless you're reading from some badly OCRed plaintext copy, will look as good as the paper version. PDF is a bad format for e-readers, and you're a bad person for suggesting it.
Thank you for the clarification. I can see a "new loudness" button emerging, and as someone else said, portable players can do this automatically, it seems. It makes more sense to do the compression on the fly without damaging the original track than it does to master it in a way that makes one's ears bleed, so here's hoping the loudness war truly is over.
I don't see why this could not also be applied to music. Just have a setting on the player to turn on the compression (or even better - adjust how much compression to use).
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but hasn't this been around for quite some time: the "Loudness" or "Loudness compensation" button on stereos/equalizers/amps from the 70s and 80s? Perhaps it's a concept whose time has come around again.
Funny, I've been using Linux to check out e-books from my local library for several months, at least. And B&N's DRM is just as easily defeatable as the ADEPT scheme. Please don't bother posting ignorant comments unless you've bothered to do a rudimentary search first. Hell, the page where you get the info for removing B&N DRM? It's the same as for removing ADEPT! Not to mention there are plugins for Calibre that make it a simple matter of dragging and dropping the DRMed files into Calibre, and getting wonderful DRM-free files out the other side, nicely organized, too.
You can always grab the ePub for that same $1 and use Calibre to convert it to a format the Kindle can use. I just bought it myself, looks great on my Nook.
Oh, absolutely no argument, HDDs are, if not more reliable, certainly faster than writable optical media, regardless of whether it's CD, DVD, or BD. My biggest issue was that you said HDDs were far cheaper per GB, which isn't really accurate. The benefit is that a HDD or USB flash drive is rewritable, but I definitely see a market for BD-R, especially as (or, I suppose, *if*) discs come down in price. This was about the cost for CD-Rs in their infancy if I remember right, and I probably don't. DVD-R as well. Dual-layer discs will likely continue to cost more than twice what single-layer discs do, unfortunately.
Verbatim discs seem to be a little more expensive, but not drastically so. One of those is a cheaper brand that comes in at exactly $1/disc but still gets positive reviews. Drives are still fairly expensive at this point, but not nearly as bad as one might expect.
These days CDR has been practically obsoleted by DVD+/-R(W) and writeable blu-ray.
Yes, it has been obsoleted by DVD+/-R(W), but not BD-R. I've never even seen a BD-R drive or disc outside of a Fry's store, and I don't think anyone's bothering with them now that you can get 16GB USB drives for under $20 and 32GB drives for $35, USB hard drives are cheap and huge (1TB for well under $100), etc. BD-R media is far too expensive to be competitive with the other options, esp. when you consider it's write-once and only a measly 36GB.
If you're transporting smaller amounts of data, USB keys are much simpler and quite cheap, and are rewritable. If you're storing huge amounts of data, like for backups, terabyte hard drives are far, far, far cheaper per GB, and probably a lot more reliable than optical media too. It would take a big stack of BD-R discs to back up a common 1TB hard drive.
Going rate from a quick look is ~$1/disc for BD-R. 25GB. that's $40 to equal your sub-$100 1TB drive (usually around $70 or so), and 1/20 the price of that 16GB usb drive for 9 extra GB. Sure, it's not rewritable, but it's a whole lot cheaper than you're making it out to be. Yes, it's still a decent stack of BD-Rs if you're backing up a 1TB drive, but try using DVD-R and see how long that takes. It's not pretty at all. BD-R is being adopted faster than you think. Now I just need to get my hands on one.
Two things that you don't seem to realize: 1) Development on Synaptic seems to have stopped already, or at least slowed way down. http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/ gives the last update as January 2009. However, I believe Debian has adopted it and maintains it. It hasn't changed enough to make a difference in that timeframe outside of bugfixes, at least that I can see.
It really isn't that much of a hardship to drop Synaptic from the default install, as useful as it may be. The people that want it know where to get it, myself included.
Actually they did need the space: Deja Dup was just added as an included backup package. So they may have planned to drop it for quite some time, but they're at least replacing it with something useful.
And of course, as everyone and their dog points out, Synaptic is only an apt-get away if one really needs it.
Slashdot Mirror
And there are scripts (and calibre plugins) to do that as well. So it's no different than before.
I've found that the classic search is much better: http://search.overdrive.com/classic/
So, libraries having limited resources will buy titles in one maybe two formats. And considering the popularity of ereaders, I'm guessing that Kindle versions of titles will be purchased with the books on tape version - no expensive printed books. Which means, if I want to read some of those titles, I'll have to buy a Kindle. It's not like they'll buy Kindles for patrons use and if they do, they'll have to be kept on the premises.
So, this is just a way for Amazon to sell more Kindles.
None of you thought they were doing this for the public good, did you?
Except that isn't what's happening. That one copy (or two, or however many for popular novels) the library buys will, as I understand it, be available in any format, but only one of them checked out at a time, of course. If the book's in, you can choose your format and go. There's no "I'll have to buy a kindle" or "I'll have to buy X e-reader".
On another note: would you rather they didn't expire so you can pay exorbitant late fees?
Considering it's just Overdrive, which has been around for a while now, yes, libraries have set lending periods. Mine is a choice of 7, 14, or 21 days. Yes, they do automatically get "deleted" (actually they just stop working, at least for ePub titles), but you can re-borrow them if you'd like. The bigger issue is with publishers imposing artificial scarcity on digital titles, forcing libraries to purchase a new copy after it's been borrowed a certain number of times (in order to maintain the same revenue stream they have with dead-tree books, which actually degrade).
Here's the thing, she isn't real. This is a common BS comment, I'm really disappointed that no one recognized this for what it was, since it had no bearing on the article whatsoever. See here for more examples of this idiocy that people are, for some reason, taking as fact just because it says "From the article".
Were illegally spying on all those Americans??? Surprise, they still do, except now it's legal!
Yes, were illegally spying. Sure, they're still doing it, but if it's no longer illegal, the past tense is accurate since now it's not illegal.
Mre lap.by er,b!!!
I'm still scared-- stockpiling on water and going to bunker down in my basement, as the projected path of the 'cane brings the eye with a near-direct hit over my residence. Just gotta tough it out and hope they can restore power in a reasonable period of time and damage to life and proprety is minimal.
I know what you mean; I'm in the same boat. I plan to stay safe in the basement until the worst of this storm is over. Of course it's not likely to help much, since I'm in Iowa. Still, better safe than sorry, right?
Seriously though, I don't mean to make light of your predicament, and here's hoping the thing dissipates at least some before pounding the city.
I think what he said was that if he ever went to 3.0, it would mean he had gone insane and rewritten the entire thing in Visual Basic.
http://www.questionablecontent.net/random/winfail.png pretty much covers it.
I specifically didn't mention the Kindle. Mobi is atrocious, and Amazon cares more about the bottom line than presenting an acceptable reading experience. You're right, not everyone uses the same algorithms to determine hyphenation and line-breaking, but in my experience, ePub and the readers that use ePub (at least the Nook - I really can't speak for others such as the Kobo or iRiver readers, not having used them) do a better job than the atrocity in that article. Of course, none of it matters if the publishers don't bother putting a little bit of care into their e-books. I may have come on a little strong, but I believe e-readers are not all as bad as you and the article you linked are making them out to be. http://www.the-digital-reader.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/nook.jpg is at least an improvement on the look of the Kindle's page, however I agree, it's not perfect.
Congratulations, you've just earned the "I don't know what I'm talking about!" achievement! All modern e-readers, when using their proper formats (generally ePub for pretty much anything worth using) handle line-breaking and hyphenation just fine, and unless you're reading from some badly OCRed plaintext copy, will look as good as the paper version. PDF is a bad format for e-readers, and you're a bad person for suggesting it.
Thank you for the clarification. I can see a "new loudness" button emerging, and as someone else said, portable players can do this automatically, it seems. It makes more sense to do the compression on the fly without damaging the original track than it does to master it in a way that makes one's ears bleed, so here's hoping the loudness war truly is over.
I don't see why this could not also be applied to music. Just have a setting on the player to turn on the compression (or even better - adjust how much compression to use).
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but hasn't this been around for quite some time: the "Loudness" or "Loudness compensation" button on stereos/equalizers/amps from the 70s and 80s? Perhaps it's a concept whose time has come around again.
(and I missed the "in Australia)
Mr. Carrey? Is that you?
Funny, I've been using Linux to check out e-books from my local library for several months, at least. And B&N's DRM is just as easily defeatable as the ADEPT scheme. Please don't bother posting ignorant comments unless you've bothered to do a rudimentary search first. Hell, the page where you get the info for removing B&N DRM? It's the same as for removing ADEPT! Not to mention there are plugins for Calibre that make it a simple matter of dragging and dropping the DRMed files into Calibre, and getting wonderful DRM-free files out the other side, nicely organized, too.
Oh come on, it's not like everyone doesn't already know your real name. Just switch to Anakin Skywalker...
Of course not! Due process is a laugh, the court of public opinion is the only thing that matters anymore.
And for the life of me, even I can't tell if that's supposed to be sarcastic or not. Makes me a sad monkey.
You can always grab the ePub for that same $1 and use Calibre to convert it to a format the Kindle can use. I just bought it myself, looks great on my Nook.
Oh, absolutely no argument, HDDs are, if not more reliable, certainly faster than writable optical media, regardless of whether it's CD, DVD, or BD. My biggest issue was that you said HDDs were far cheaper per GB, which isn't really accurate. The benefit is that a HDD or USB flash drive is rewritable, but I definitely see a market for BD-R, especially as (or, I suppose, *if*) discs come down in price. This was about the cost for CD-Rs in their infancy if I remember right, and I probably don't. DVD-R as well. Dual-layer discs will likely continue to cost more than twice what single-layer discs do, unfortunately.
Oh, citations.
http://www.amazon.com/Optical-Quantum-Blu-ray-Single-Layer-Recordable/dp/B002LU80QS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1308884257&sr=8-1
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817130187&cm_re=bd-r-_-17-130-187-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817501067&cm_re=bd-r-_-17-501-067-_-Product
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827118049&cm_re=bd-r-_-27-118-049-_-Product
Verbatim discs seem to be a little more expensive, but not drastically so. One of those is a cheaper brand that comes in at exactly $1/disc but still gets positive reviews. Drives are still fairly expensive at this point, but not nearly as bad as one might expect.
These days CDR has been practically obsoleted by DVD+/-R(W) and writeable blu-ray.
Yes, it has been obsoleted by DVD+/-R(W), but not BD-R. I've never even seen a BD-R drive or disc outside of a Fry's store, and I don't think anyone's bothering with them now that you can get 16GB USB drives for under $20 and 32GB drives for $35, USB hard drives are cheap and huge (1TB for well under $100), etc. BD-R media is far too expensive to be competitive with the other options, esp. when you consider it's write-once and only a measly 36GB.
If you're transporting smaller amounts of data, USB keys are much simpler and quite cheap, and are rewritable. If you're storing huge amounts of data, like for backups, terabyte hard drives are far, far, far cheaper per GB, and probably a lot more reliable than optical media too. It would take a big stack of BD-R discs to back up a common 1TB hard drive.
Going rate from a quick look is ~$1/disc for BD-R. 25GB. that's $40 to equal your sub-$100 1TB drive (usually around $70 or so), and 1/20 the price of that 16GB usb drive for 9 extra GB. Sure, it's not rewritable, but it's a whole lot cheaper than you're making it out to be. Yes, it's still a decent stack of BD-Rs if you're backing up a 1TB drive, but try using DVD-R and see how long that takes. It's not pretty at all. BD-R is being adopted faster than you think. Now I just need to get my hands on one.
Two things that you don't seem to realize:
1) Development on Synaptic seems to have stopped already, or at least slowed way down. http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/ gives the last update as January 2009. However, I believe Debian has adopted it and maintains it. It hasn't changed enough to make a difference in that timeframe outside of bugfixes, at least that I can see.
2) USC has been the *default* package manager since 10.04, though Synaptic still shipped. (see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoftwareCenterFAQ)
It really isn't that much of a hardship to drop Synaptic from the default install, as useful as it may be. The people that want it know where to get it, myself included.
Actually they did need the space: Deja Dup was just added as an included backup package. So they may have planned to drop it for quite some time, but they're at least replacing it with something useful.
And of course, as everyone and their dog points out, Synaptic is only an apt-get away if one really needs it.