November 2009 - gutvol-d - lists.pglaf.org

Re: it's that time of year again]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Nov '09

28 Nov '09

rothman said: > I could care less if somehow Pixel Qi or an equivalent tech > instead shows up three or four years later. since you've blown years past your original projections anyway, and thereby shattered your credibility into a million tiny pieces, i can see why you "could care less"... of course, the real damage is that -- for over a decade now -- you've managed to convince lots and lots and lots of people that the e-book revolution is "around the corner", but not here yet... -bowerbird

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Re: it's that time of year again]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 28 Nov '09

28 Nov '09

walter said: > Basically you are going to hit the point that it becomes > feasible to start producing them in larger quantities > which in itself will cause a price drop. that's the same kind of "logic" that rothman has been using. except the process is not invariable, not by a long shot, and it certainly doesn't operate nearly as quickly as we might like. first of all, e-ink is burdened with a lot of patents. second, it has had a very long history of owners who have bought in at a high price, learned the setbacks over years, and then "flipped" the technology to a new set of owners, who bought in at a high price, learned the setbacks, etc. in other words, there are a lot of investors who still want to see the profitable return that they believed was "inevitable". so they have a desire to produce "in larger quantities", but they have little inclination to drop the price, even a little bit. moreover, it's expensive to scale up their production facilities, and they've already overextended their ability to borrow money, not to mention the normal blah-blah about today's economy... so i wouldn't look for a quick drop in the price of e-ink screens. and that means you won't get a quick drop in the price of the machines that utilize such screens. sorry. it just won't happen. -bowerbird

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Re: it's that time of year again]
by Michael S. Hart 28 Nov '09

28 Nov '09

On Fri, 27 Nov 2009, Walter van Holst wrote: > David H. Rothman schreef: > > > And, yes, thanks to Pixel Qi and E Ink, some interesting possibilities are > > ahead to reduce hardware prices and sharpen the view. Exactly when will > > these good things happen? As I've said before, who's to say for sure > > precisely when? But we should be looking ahead to the time when e-book > > technology is going to get much better. > > Not anywhere near the $50 (which won't buy you a good diner over here > anymore), but I've seen Cool-ER's in mainstream electronics stores for under > 300 Euro nowadays. When I got my iRex iLiad a few years ago, you could only > get it at a specific bookstore chain, not mention at a somewhat different > price point. To me this means that e-readers are becoming 'normal'. I don't consider it "normal" when someone pays 300 euros for a dedicated eBook gizmo at the same time I pay 275 dollars for a full Windows netbook. Actually, given that this was "Black Friday" in the US., I saw a name brand of 10" netbook, 8 hour battery, 160G hard drive, wifi, ports, etc., for $229, the thing was even cheaper over the counter at the store than online. Go figure. Other places were offering similar netbooks for $99 if you signed up for stuff via two contracts, but I never recommend that, nor do I usually mention brand. I still don't understand why anyone would pay so much for "dedicated hardware" when the full featured computers are even less money. I could understand in certain very specific cases when a professional writer's preference for a certain keyboard might be involved, someone who spends months or years working on a novel or the like that should make millions, but I think we are talking a bit more mainstream here. I just can't see a world where people are walking about with dedicated readers the same way they walk around with iPods, and I also notice that iPods will be more and more full functioned as the generations progress. The iPod and iPhone will become full tilt computers long before the world will turn to dedicated ereaders, except for specific situations. mh

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it's that time of year again
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 27 Nov '09

27 Nov '09

i wait all year for this time. what, you ask, thanksgiving? well, yeah. but not exactly... see, 4 years ago, david rothman of teleread.com -- who's affectionately known as "the idiot" by david moynihan -- made me a little bet, and every year at this time i revisit it. david, like his best buddy jon noring, had repeated for years that "within 5 years, we will have cheap high-quality screens, and e-reader-machines will be readily available for just $50." well, along about 2001, i started pointed out to jon noring that he had been spouting that line for 5 years already, all without his big "prediction" ever coming true. finally, after a few years of that, noring finally stopped spewing that particular untruth. but rothman never got the message, and kept on babbling his insane prediction. i called him on it, repeatedly, such as: > http://www.teleread.org/blog/2005/11/29/you-can-buy-the-mit-100-laptop-for-… rothman responded, in november of 2005, with: > Folks, tune in a year from now, and we’ll see who’s right. > The MIT Media Lab has suffered its share of debacles, > but I’d bet my money on it in this case so i took rothman up on the offer, even extending out the bet. i said that if there were a $50 e-book machine within 5 years, i would buy it for him, or -- if he preferred -- a tofu turkey... so every year, around this time, i "check back" to laugh at him. 2006 came and went, and i was right. 2007 and 2008 as well. now it's 2009, and there's no $50 e-book-machine out there. so, after checking back for 4 straight years, i'm _still_ right... rothman's crystal ball is severely cracked. it always has been. that people listen to the man is a testament to their stupidity. tech-wise, he couldn't punch his way out of a wet paper bag... and has david learned anything? nope. he's still just as stupid as ever, still acting like a cheap machine is "around the corner", still using his blog to trumpet up whatever bucket of gullibility a screen-technology p.r. person is willing to type up for him... meanwhile... my bet that it would take until 2011 to hit an inexpensive price-point is looking to be accurate as the years roll by. key to it is if/when the pixel qi screen attains its promise. but now in 2009? well, david, you were wrong, i was right. at any rate, have a very lovely thanksgiving, everyone... even you -- david -- and i hope that crow tastes good. -bowerbird

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Re: Joey Re: Re: it's that time of year again
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 25 Nov '09

25 Nov '09

if you really want a cheap machine for e-books, rather than futz around with some used p.d.a., just pay the $90 that ebookwise now wants for one of their rocketbooks, or whatever they are called nowadays; people still love that machine. and if you want a good machine, buy an itouch; you will not feel that you wasted your money... -bowerbird

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Re: it's that time of year again
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 25 Nov '09

25 Nov '09

joey said: > Who defines the requirements to meet this particular bet? rothman is the one who's been making all the promises, so you'll have to get him to specify the exact conditions. which, of course, he won't do, because he specializes in vague. which, of course, is what he must do since he is selling snake-oil. (roll-up screens! color e-ink! more!) but if we must be pedantic for you, joey, i'll specify that it has to be new (no refurbs) at a widely-available price. of course, if we want to interpret rothman more liberally, he implies these cheap e-reader-machines would be sold "like calculators", in blister-packs at the local drug-store. (his whole notion was based on price-cuts via large scale.) as you will see, if you go back and read the original post, i predicted that such a machine _would_ become available, at that price, around the time that _lunch_ costs that much. but rothman would have had people believing that it was "right around the corner", some 5-10 years ago. wrong! -bowerbird

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Re: it's that time of year again]
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 25 Nov '09

25 Nov '09

david said: > Exactly when will these good things happen? good question. some things are pretty obvious, the only question is about their exact _timing_... > As I've said before, who's to say for sure precisely when? david, for years and years and years, you've been saying -- directly and indirectly -- that these developments are "right around the corner..." and you breathlessly promote every press release on the next "upcoming thing" as if it were _real_, when it's perfectly clear it's hype and marketing. you're a sucker, plain and simple, one born every minute. > But we should be looking ahead to the time when > e-book technology is going to get much better. yep. there's always jam tomorrow, but never jam today. every day, day after day, there's always jam tomorrow... -bowerbird

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Re: Real Competition to PG
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 19 Nov '09

19 Nov '09

just as a reminder, in regard to the word "competition" in the subject-header of this thread, michael hart's emphasis on "unlimited distribution" means that _any_ use of the p.g. e-texts is to be considered as a "win", and thus the term "competition" would be out of place. good to remind ourselves of that every once in a while. -bowerbird

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Re: the creator of the cyberspace library
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 18 Nov '09

18 Nov '09

michael said: > It all depends on whether you think Amazon has us working for them, > or whether you think Project Gutenberg has Amazon working for us... and this is why you are the most brilliant man in e-books, michael, the person who invented them, the creator of the cyberspace library. -bowerbird

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Re: is this the beginning of the end?
by Bowerbird＠aol.com 15 Nov '09

15 Nov '09

don said: > It's pretty hollow. not surprising. even the article put it all in the future tense. and h.p. talked about "potential", while amazon merely confirmed. > > This book has not yet been processed, > > but if you preorder we’ll process it faster > > and notify you when it’s ready. > Right. it makes perfect sense to me. how else would you prioritize which books should be done first? as for skepticism on the time-frame, how much time do you think it'll take 'em to prep a book? i would guess that it's a matter of mere minutes. (seconds for the scripts to run, and then a minute or two for a human to execute the quality-control.) *** jim said: > bookprep thanks for running that down, jim. good info. *** gardner said: > What's your point? "what's my point?" well, it's pretty obvious, i would think, isn't it? if h.p. is correcting the o.c.r., that's a big deal. but if they're just printing the scansets, it's not. so there is an informational asymmetry at work. > If there are pages missing or illegible sections, > then it might be better to skip that volume, > versus go ahead selling it to folks who are > likely to complain or return it. ok, i see what you meant when you said "proofing"; i consider checks like that to be "quality control"... those problems were common in the first few years of the google scanning, but are fairly rare nowadays. > But if you're lazy, you'd skip that step and let the > customer inform you if a given volume is unusable. well, we differ on terminology again, because i wouldn't call that "lazy", as it's more like a business decision, but i'd think a quick screening for those types of problems would be cost-effective, as opposed to making good on any complaints that your customers would have later on. shipping is gonna be one of your biggest expenses, and shipping a book twice, to make-good, will be expensive... (not to mention a costly infrastructure to field complaints.) > If you get a lot of complaints about a specific volume, > you can then go and figure out what exactly is wrong > maybe find a fill-in source or what have you. the "fill-in" source is likely right there in the umichigan stacks. > But why take on that work up front? again, google and michigan have each separately worked on correcting these problems, so i'd think very few remain. and a quick check by h.p. can eliminate any glitches that do. i'd guess most of google scanning nowadays is clean-up work. > People will pay the same whether you invest up front or not. but people will only pay once for a book. so if h.p. has to print and ship _two_ books to make that customer happy, they've lost money on that sale. that's why they'd "invest", up-front, to ensure they won't have to face that prospect. at least that's _my_ take on your particular point here... i guess real life will show us whether you're right or i am. -bowerbird

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