On Sat, 28 Nov 2009, David H. Rothman wrote:
let's contrast that with the message of michael hart, which is that "we can make e-books happen right now."
We've done our share of posts at TeleRead.org about PG and other valuable "now" resources--and the availability of inexpensive used hardware. Not to mention TeleRead's advocacy of the e-book standards you've resisted. BOTH Michael and I have helped e-bookdom in different
Just because these last two sentences are so consequtive, I must add that I have NOT done any "advocacy of the eBook standards." Any. I don't believe any of these standards will last terribly long, and I don't want to give any standards MORE gravitas that would allow them to keep new ones from developing. I like certain things about many of the standards, even MS Word, as it would allow one document to contain all the varied editions of Shakespeare in a manner that would switching back and forth to compare any edition[s] to any other[s].
ways. Just the other day I complained that a Harvard professor had NOT mentioned Michael and PG in a book. I've even called for federal funding of grassroots digitization projects like PG/DP's.
I fear that any time any "grassroots. . .projects" that get taste of federal funding might get so weakened by it that they were not more likely, but less likely, to survive after such funding. Of course, if the copyright trend, and there is only one, as far as length of copyright terms goes, will continue just a few more decades, then there really won't be much more of such to do, not another copyright will ever expire. . . .
suffice it to say for now that you're a tool of the industry, david, the corporate dinosaur publishing industry..
Wow. TeleRead again and again has said publishers should stop selling encrypted books to consumers--contradicting the standard dino line--and this unimaginative smear is the best Bowerbird can do. See URL below. I will confess to wanting publishers of all sizes to thrive; big crime.
If there WERE publishers of all size, just as with other company types, then the normal distribution will still put vast majority stakes in the hands of just the top handful of such companies as it is via paper publishers, music publishers, radio & television publishers, newspaper publishers, etc., etc., etc., all with the same business model subject to the same downfalls, just as with, are you ready. . . Just as with the dinosaurs. Any time the gene pool gets going too much in one direction, the odds of epidemics, pandemics, and other ELE's ["Extinction Level Events] goes up and up and up. Just as it did with the financial markets in 1929 and again now. No matter how much genetics and other sciences prove diversity's power over the centuries, there are still plenty of people quite literally and vocally against it. "DIVERSITY ISN'T WORTH IT" Is a bumper sticker I have seen right here in my home town. http://www.cafepress.com/+diversity_isnt_worth_it_bumper,31591635 I prefer to see a wide variety of eBook formats for wide variety usage on everything from mainframes to netbooks to cellphones to PDAs and MP3 players, and everything in between. eBooks should be ubiquitous and so should the hardware/software! mh
OK, I've spent too much time feeding the troll.
Happy post-Thanksgiving, everyone!
David
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9128139/DRM_a_drag_on_e_book_growth_s...
On Sat, Nov 28, 2009 at 4:03 PM, <Bowerbird@aol.com> wrote:
rothman said:
Same old troll, BB ;-).
right. i deal in facts, and you call me names, and somehow it's _me_ who is the "troll" here. ;+)
My big point here
oh please. your "big point" is *censored*. <- fact!
and i've told people precisely _why_ it's *censored*, and you have no rejoinder. you don't even _try_ to mount a counter, because you don't have one.
My big point here is that schools and libraries and the rest of us should be preparing--
your message -- whether you know it or not -- is that people should _wait_, because the tech is "right around the corner", but not _here_ yet.
so everyone is sitting around waiting, while google raids the library. thanks for the catatonia, david...
the capabilities will be coming sooner or later.
your message is that they will be coming _later_.
let's contrast that with the message of michael hart, which is that "we can make e-books happen right now."
Glad BB himself has been so 100 percent infallible, especially about ePub (Sony signed up for ZML lately?).
i already have my response written concerning all that... i'm waiting to send it until people get back from holiday.
suffice it to say for now that you're a tool of the industry, david, the corporate dinosaur publishing industry, and there is no future for the dinosaurs, zero future at all...
sony will never sign up for z.m.l., because they can't slap d.r.m. on it, so they chose the publishers' .epub instead...
that's quite some victory, david. just like the "victory" you had a decade ago, when microsoft slapped d.r.m. on the earlier version of .epub. now this time it's adobe, but the story will turn out the very same way, just watch.
but oh well, the executives bought themselves some more quarters, even if profitability wasn't as good as they hoped.
As for E Ink, it's just one of several possibilities out there. My pointer in fact was to Pixel Qi.
yeah, see how quickly you disown your own past, david.
you promoted e-ink unceasingly, for years and years, in hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of your blog entries.
and now pixel qi is about to prove that you were _wrong_ about e-ink being "the future" that was "around the corner".
so you ditch e-ink as if you never knew it.
you chase every technology that sends you a press release, instead of having the real-world discipline that requires working models, or at least something more than vapor...
-bowerbird
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