The Deep Space of Digital Reading
nautil.us
The Deep Space of Digital Reading
1–10 of 45 posts
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#2Huge obnoxious pop-up when I tried to view the page.
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#3Huge obnoxious pop-up when I tried to view the page.
If that was the one advertising the $29 special offer one year print subscription then I think they probably need the money.
I just subscribed to the print edition because I like glossy magazines with high resolution illustrations. I can take it in and show it around to students and other teachers.
Because I'm in Europe, I got to pay $30 postage (always an issue) and had, as always, to sign up through a registration process, select product and postage and then finally nominate PayPal at the checkout.
The subscription is non-repeating, so a definite limit: I get 6 glossy magazines for about £7 each.
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#4Ever since I lost my physical library of books to a fire, I've been an e-reader zealot. There are so many advantages: instantly start reading virtually book you want, effortlessly take digital highlights and annotations, carry a whole library in your pocket while you travel, read at night while your partner is asleep... I could go on.
As an e-reader evangelist, I've encountered all kinds of resistance. In fact, it's the norm. There is a widespread emotional, aesthetic attachment to physical books. To me, it's purely irrational. My favorite author, Nassim Taleb, tries to explain it:
> Whenever I sit on an airplane next to some businessman reading the usual trash businessmen read on an e-reader, said businessperson will not resist disparaging my use of the book by comparing the two items. Supposedly, an e-reader is more “efficient.” It delivers the essence of the book, which said businessman assumes is information, but in a more convenient way, as he can carry a library on his device and “optimize” his time between golf outings. I have never heard anyone address the large differences between e-readers and physical books, like smell, texture, dimension (books are in three dimensions), color, ability to change pages, physicality of an object compared to a computer screen, and hidden properties causing unexplained differences in enjoyment.
The only shortcoming of e-reading, in my opinion, is the inability to display the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in your home or office. You can tell so much about a person by their library. I've been testing some solutions to this problem.
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#5There is a good point in this article about the perception of effort and how that affects comprehension, rather than the medium.
I've met and worked with many people who think that just because it is being read through a computer that they don't have to read it carefully.
As a so-called 'digital native' with an unapologetic love for text, I find it extremely frustrating that people don't take online text seriously. Some people even like to speed-read, racing through text faster than they can recall the pronunciation of the words.
You might think you can speed read and still understand the content - most of the speedreaders I know hold that belief quite dear - but you aren't getting the whole story. A single missed word can profoundly alter the meaning of a sentence. I've seen many conflicts and miscommunications caused by lazy reading and misinterpreted messages.
If I took my time to write a clear, concise, meaningful message/email/post/document/etc, please pay me the courtesy of truly reading it.
/rant
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#6Ever since I lost my physical library of books to a fire, I've been an e-reader zealot. There are so many advantages: instantly start reading virtually book you want, effortlessly take digital highlights and annotations, carry a whole library in your pocket while you travel, read at night while your partner is asleep... I could go on. As an e-reader evangelist, I've encountered all kinds of resistance. In fact, it's…
> inability to display the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in your home or office.
Print the cover pages and make a beautiful wall of those ?
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#7Ever since I lost my physical library of books to a fire, I've been an e-reader zealot. There are so many advantages: instantly start reading virtually book you want, effortlessly take digital highlights and annotations, carry a whole library in your pocket while you travel, read at night while your partner is asleep... I could go on. As an e-reader evangelist, I've encountered all kinds of resistance. In fact, it's…
> The only shortcoming of e-reading, in my opinion, is the inability to display the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in your home or office. You can tell so much about a person by their library. I've been testing some solutions to this problem.
1. Can't re-sell, 2. tend to be significantly more expensive to begin with (no used market), 3. annotations, footnotes and such tend to be much worse, 4. often have severe formatting/editing issues (see: all the 1-star reviews for many books on Amazon, which are often full of "book's fine, but don't get the kindle version, it's terrible"), 5. lending can be tricky 6. two-pages-at-a-time and page-flipping is a really stellar interface that e-readers don't even come close to beating, 7. relatedly, use of spatial memory help with real books in a way they don't in ebooks, 8. on that line of though, shelved books aren't just for showing off: they can aid memory, and their arrangement can even help with finding related content and with learning (my literature is arranged chronologically for those reasons—I learn and reinforce some information just by existing in the same room as my books, basically), 9. can only have one book active per device. Switching is a PITA.
Ebooks' main selling points AFAIK are 1. space (admittedly a huge advantage!), and 2. full text search (OK, but not that great—there's such a thing as an index in most books for which this is seriously important, which will usually be better than full-text search). They're worse in just about every other way (though, again, the space thing is really nice)
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#8Ever since I lost my physical library of books to a fire, I've been an e-reader zealot. There are so many advantages: instantly start reading virtually book you want, effortlessly take digital highlights and annotations, carry a whole library in your pocket while you travel, read at night while your partner is asleep... I could go on. As an e-reader evangelist, I've encountered all kinds of resistance. In fact, it's…
> The only shortcoming of e-reading, in my opinion, is the inability to display the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in your home or office. You can tell so much about a person by their library. I've been testing some solutions to this problem. 1. Can't re-sell, 2. tend to be significantly more expensive to begin with (no used market), 3. annotations, footnotes and such tend to be much worse…
The main selling points of e-reading for me are the ones I listed previously:
1. I can get a new book immediately instead of visiting the book store or waiting for Amazon.
2. I can effortlessly take highlights and notes and then access those annotations through the cloud. I can't stand trying to write in the tiny margins of physical books and even if I did, I'd rarely reference my own notes because it's so much more laborious.
3. I can read at night without needing the light on (i.e., while in bed with my sleeping spouse). This is my main reading time. More generally, the form factor is better while lying down (and to the point above, I can still take notes).
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#9I read a lot of text on screen. One of my main enjoyments of HN is it is text heavy so my screen space is not wasted with subpar graphics.
I also read in print I enjoy the tactical feel and the lack of a back light. I also tend to buy beautiful physical books that stand out as objects on their own.
PDFs, I only read now on an IPad given the high dpi.
If I have a point it is in my reading I switch back and forth so generously it is hard to tell the difference.
Re: The Deep Space of Digital Reading
#10Ever since I lost my physical library of books to a fire, I've been an e-reader zealot. There are so many advantages: instantly start reading virtually book you want, effortlessly take digital highlights and annotations, carry a whole library in your pocket while you travel, read at night while your partner is asleep... I could go on. As an e-reader evangelist, I've encountered all kinds of resistance. In fact, it's…
> The only shortcoming of e-reading, in my opinion, is the inability to display the books you've read and the books you want to read somewhere in your home or office.
An secondary advantage of pysical books is that they're much more beatiful to destroy. Burning books make a striking image, and not only because the ominous historical connotations.
Nobody would be bothered by an ereader melting in a fire or being crushed by a steamroller (unless it is their own, of course!) Even CDs were better for that.