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Chopping up books when they're physically too big

attainablefelicity.mattkirkland.com

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Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big

#111

Post by SmasherEpilepti »

WalterBright wrote: post #93

I use an ereader a lot. They have glaring lacks that nobody seems to have addressed: 1. Two page layout. This gives you more context when reading. 2. Imperfect printing. Older books have imperfect impressions of letters. 3. Tan colored background, which varies across the page and from page to page. Grey is so sterile. 4. Cannot stick a thumb on a page and flip forward and backward with your other thumb.

These are valid. I vastly prefer physical books for things like academic and reference material (and TTRPG books) because of 4 in particular. Many kinds of books, it's very important to be able to flip quickly between arbitrary points, using your digits as quick temporary marks.

I still prefer ereaders for novels and most non-fiction books, though.

Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big

#113

Post by Dylan16807 »

davisr wrote: post #41
SmasherEpilepti wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's cool and all, but I generally prefer my text reflowable, and find PDF reading on any not-huge e-reader to be a pain in the ass. It's worth it for things that are rich in figures and formatting (like House of Leaves, many textbooks, comics and manga, etc), but for the typical novel or non-fiction book, I really do want just text and the most minimal formatting and layout instructions possible, so I can configur…

You must have forgotten the point of this thread was about chopping books.

You replied to someone comparing it to e-readers; you do not get to complain they say more about e-readers.

Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big

#114

Post by Rendello »

robocat wrote: post #70
Rendello wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned French mostly through conversation and immersion. This next language is pretty simple phonologically, and I'm not concerned about having a good accent in it, so the reading-puzzle route is something interesting to try.

Yeah, why you want to know the language strongly matters. My natural bent is strongly focused on reading and words. Learning by talking and mimicking is not my strength at all. I suspect that is why I've noticed the pattern that natural mimickers are the ideal language learners (who I would like to emulate). Although my beliefs are incoherent... I want software that starts with substituted latin letters into a Korean…

> My natural bent is strongly focused on reading and words.

I wonder what mine is. I feel like I don't take to reading in a foreign language too easily (though I have trouble focusing on reading generally), but I definitely struggle mimicking as well. Some times I really wonder how I learned French at all, I got to my current level of ability quite quickly, though I'm sorely lacking a lot of fundamentals both in writing and in speech.

I agree though, you can see a big difference in language learners on Youtube between those who practice speech vs those who mostly read. For example, Alexander Argüelles [1] is a famous polyglot who's written quite a few foreign-language grammar books, but the few videos of him speaking show his heavy accent.

For Korean, I wouldn't bother with Latin letters. Hangul is simple:

> A wise man can acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; even a stupid man can learn them in the space of ten days.

– King Sejong on (what would become known as) Hangul

Reading in Korean would have been quite difficult historically, when it was mixed with Chinese characters à la Japanese [2], eg.

> 悠久한 歷史와 傳統에 빛나는 우리 大韓國民은 3⸱1 運動으로 建立된 大韓民國臨時政府의 法統과 不義에 抗拒한 4⸱19 民主理念을 繼承하고, 祖國의 民主改革과 平和的統一의 使命에 立脚하여 正義⸱人道와 同胞愛로써 民族의 團結을 鞏固히 하고, 모든 社會的弊習과 不義를 打破하며, 自律과 調和를 바탕으로 自由民主的基本秩序를 더욱 確固히 하여 政治⸱經濟⸱社會

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Arg%C3%BCelles

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_mixed_script

Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big

#115

Post by fortran77 »

Isamu wrote: post #80
hamdingers wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or Disney releasing a movie called "Frozen" so that web searches for "Disney Frozen" stopped returning macabre rumors about Walt Disney's possible posthumous cryogenic preservation.

Ah, so that’s why they released one of their most successful blockbusters, it was all an elaborate plot to bury the well known and long debunked story of the frozen Walt Disney.

When I took the two day Disney "Walk in Walt's Footsteps" executive employee training 25+ years ago, the training that takes you to his secret apartment above the firehouse, and makes you spend an afternoon as a costumed (minor) character, at the end the woman leading us said "Ok! Now it's time for all of you to kiss Walt's frozen head."

Fortunately, she was kidding.

Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big

#116

Post by kulahan »

stronglikedan wrote: post #26
spudlyo wrote: post #20

This seems like a lot of work for not a huge payoff. I get that the feel and experience of a physical book has a certain nostalgia, but for me, I'd just leave the big monster on the shelf and grab an epub from Anna's Archive. You have already ensured the author and publisher get paid, you might as well read on an e-reader, which is in my opinion superior in nearly every way to a physical book. Ebooks sync across devi…

The problem with ebooks is that you cannot be 100% certain that you're reading the original text. That can only be preserved in physical copies. That's why the destructive book scanning for AI is such a tragedy. There's already plenty of examples of original texts being surreptitiously revised, and it happens with videos too.

Well no, you can only be 100% certain you're reading the text found in that book. Books often change over releases. It's not some sacred tome containing an ever-updating reflection of the author's ideals. It's just the draft at the time the book was printed.

Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big

#117

Post by protocolture »

prydt wrote: post #9

I came to a similar realization recently. I used to care so much about how pristine my books looked and then I realized that some of my favorite books I have found in used bookstores are ones which are written all over and have a well-worn feel to them. I now annotate all my books with pencil and also write my name in them. I love seeing a history of who's owned a given book when I open the front cover and see a name…

I bought a copy of Warhammer Quest, a board game, from Lifeline for 5 bucks.

It came with annotations, some kids custom rules, their character sheets and the outline of a custom campaign they were writing. Its got so much texture.

Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big

#119

Post by fortran77 »

WillAdams wrote: post #107
jimnotgym wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once read that the only way you can actually damage a book, is by not reading it.

Well, one can damage a hardcover by not opening it properly the first time: https://www.reddit.com/r/lifehacks/comments/7sry7v/open_a_ha... (which was a lesson in 2nd grade, when we got our first-ever hardcover textbooks)

When I was in grade school in the 60s (I'm old) they showed us this film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHe2hx1JL7U

For some reason, the lessons learned stuck with me.

Re: Chopping up books when they're physically too big

#120

Post by WalterBright »

vintagedave wrote: post #109
WalterBright wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was shocked to discover that "How To Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie was heavily rewritten by his wife after his death. I had two copies of the book, and sure enough, one was the old version and the other the new. The new one did not withstand scrutiny.

May I ask: what was different? This is the first time I’ve heard of this and I’ve only seen what was, likely, the new edition.

My original copy was printed in 1977. His wife's version that I have was printed in 1981.

Parts V and VI were removed from the wife's version.

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