Chopping books in half • Hacker News Board

Re: Chopping books in half

#41

Post by levesque » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 2:09 PM UTC

adventured wrote: post #12

hirundo wrote: post #3

Funny, I've flipped to thinking of my electronic copies of books as the permanent ones and the hard copies as just convenient printouts. With a few sentimental exceptions. Damaging a physical book is for me becoming less taboo than failing to properly backup my book drive. Every spare corner of my house is crammed with books but every year they feel more anachronous. Like an 8 track collection.

The last time I moved I had to throw out a large collection of books. I tried to give them all to numerous organizations and nobody would take them, including a public library that didn't want them (for free). They were all in pristine condition. I love physical books and I just can't stand to lug them around with me when I move. So now it's all Kindle, for better and worse.

Do you really own those ebooks locked in various DRMs and only accessible from specific devices?

Re: Chopping books in half

#42

Post by bregma » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

wbl wrote: post #16

BurningFrog wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are some very rare exceptions, if we're going to take this argument seriously. Something like 99.999% of the books from 1020 are gone.

That is incorrect. The big loss was papyrus to vellum where the monks had to make hard choices. Anything written on vellum was expensive so carefully prserved: there weren't a lot of books.

One word: palimpsest.

Re: Chopping books in half

#43

Post by arkades » Mon, Feb 03, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #40

If a paperback is sufficiently old, it might just break apart on you. I can think of at least two that have come apart in my hands during the last few years. I recycled them. A book once severed is going to keep shedding pages. It's fine to read once, but probably will not stand up to a second or subsequent reading. On the whole, I'd just as soon not buy books that I'm not going to look into again after the first rea…

He's rebinding them, too, with cardboard - which is to say, turning them into half hardcovers. You could argue he's not even reducing their lifespan.

Re: Chopping books in half

#44

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 4:15 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #7

yoz-y wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least one of the reasons why is that there were no hard drives a thousand years ago. Sure, stone and to some extent paper might be more durable. But the replication and transfer capabilities of digital media can ensure that the knowledge will not disappear in a fire, as long as the civilisation persists.

Digital media evidence stark access problems even over the course of a few years or decades. We do have century-plus-old digital media archives -- the Hollerith card was invented for use on the 1880 US Census. Paper, punched-tape, mag-tape (I've held steel rolls, they're ... fairly massive), and numerous hard and floppy-drive formats have come ... and gone. The advantages of ink on paper (or chisled stone or stylused…

Correction: 1890 census.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Census,_1890

Though antecedents existed dating to the 18th century.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card

Re: Chopping books in half

#45

Post by Kaiyou » Tue, Feb 04, 2020, 8:57 AM UTC

peapicker wrote: post #11

hirundo wrote: post #3

Funny, I've flipped to thinking of my electronic copies of books as the permanent ones and the hard copies as just convenient printouts. With a few sentimental exceptions. Damaging a physical book is for me becoming less taboo than failing to properly backup my book drive. Every spare corner of my house is crammed with books but every year they feel more anachronous. Like an 8 track collection.

Until there is an EMP that blows away all those stored electrons - and backups. Books looks a lot better after that.

All books in existence can be stored on my harddrive, while they won't fit into my bag.

Re: Chopping books in half

#46

Post by vidarh » Sat, Feb 08, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

baroomba wrote: post #38

vidarh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My books are increasingly decoration and a statement of identity that utility objects. I buy hard-copies of books I might like to have on display, mostly, and mainly care about keeping those books I have a sentimental attachment to because of where and when I read them rather than for the sake of maybe one day re-reading it. It's increasingly rare for me to pick them up to read. But one thing that has made me think a…

There’s something to be said for the pedagogical value of furniture. A sense of literary chronology, at least, can be absorbed by way of a shelving order, just living life in a house with books so shelved. A selection of books can and almost must, given physical limitations, indicate importance—see the Project Gutenberg index for the opposite.

We went on an off-site a while back,and stayed in a house that had been the home of a major Spanish publisher,and I spent every spare moment just looking through the book shelves. It says so much about someone.