looking at the most meaningful indicator
keith said:
It is true that publishers have to change towards the digital to survive. Yet, the complete demise of the printed book is still far off.
people conflate "publishers" with "the printed book". what a huge mistake. is there a printer attached to your computer? if there is, and you have enough paper on hand, you can print a book. you could print a few of them, every day, each and every day, for a year or two, enough printed books to overflow your house. and speaking of your house, is there a copy-shop down the way? if there is, it could print enough books in a week or so to overflow every house on your block, and then the next block over, and so on. in the future, every book written has a chance to be "a printed book", not just those which publishers think they can sell for profit, meaning we will have _far_more_ "printed books" than we've _ever_ had before... -bowerbird
Am 14.11.2011 um 20:05 schrieb Bowerbird@aol.com:
keith said:
It is true that publishers have to change towards the digital to survive. Yet, the complete demise of the printed book is still far off.
people conflate "publishers" with "the printed book".
what a huge mistake.
is there a printer attached to your computer? if there is, and you have enough paper on hand, you can print a book. O.K. I will bite! You call that what comes out of a consumer printer a book! Nahhh! just a bunch of loose sheets of paper. Even if I had a binding machine (true there are copy shops), and the high quality paper for those nice color spreads (costs to much for normal consumers), why print it! I am very happy with sitting in bed, on the couch, or where ever reading on my 17" lap top. The earth disapating from its bottom is, almost as good as a warm fire place(I do not have one).
Why would anyone waste all that paper. As for me I do not print anything any more unless I have to. It is just a waste. I had a friend (has died), he use to print his emails and read them from paper. He simply could not get himself accostumed to reading off a computer screen/monitor. As for me I am pretty much digital.I can carry very thing I need around with me. Thousands of songs, pictures and hundreds of books, also some that I do not need very often. Quite practical.
you could print a few of them, every day, each and every day, for a year or two, enough printed books to overflow your house.
and speaking of your house, is there a copy-shop down the way?
if there is, it could print enough books in a week or so to overflow every house on your block, and then the next block over, and so on.
in the future, every book written has a chance to be "a printed book", not just those which publishers think they can sell for profit, meaning we will have _far_more_ "printed books" than we've _ever_ had before…
Sorry, I think the future should be digital. regards Keith.
The time I check a biology book the human has just one visual system. Though I do admit, my reading habits are unusual for most. Even for my partner. ;-))) regards Keith. Am 15.11.2011 um 22:49 schrieb Jim Adcock:
Why would anyone waste all that paper.
Again, the visual systems of various human beings vary exceedingly. What to you might be a "no-brainer" -- reading off a 17" laptop -- would be "totally brain dead" for some of us who have different visual systems.
The time I check a biology book the human has just one visual system.
The biology books lie, as do ophthalmologists and optometrists. How people read, and how they visually perceive varies greatly from person to person. As the very simplest, consider the wide variety of visual orthotics something more than half of all humans wear, and how varying various people's mental and emotional responses are to the same book -- the brain is part of the visual system.
O.K. This is OT. Tongue in cheek, too! I can no disagree with you more. With your assertion to the facts, which can be asserted in the different fields of science involve with the perception of a the animal called a homo sapiens sapiens. First of all one must differential which systems are sub-system of which. Furthermore one should define what is meant by perception and the different kinds of perception and which perceptual systems interact and at what level this is controlled by a overlying perceptual systems. 1) The perception of its environment by a human being is governed by a cognitive process which takes place in its brain. This process has many sources of input which come for different sub-systems. In the case of a book from PG these are visual, tactile, olfactive, aural and taste. We can consider these to be external sub-systems of perception. 2) It perception of its environment is also governed by internal input which is stored in it brain. This input contain the experiences and emotional data. This we can consider to be internal sub-systems of perception. 3) It is also know that the amount of visual input, by itself, a human (to be more exact it brain) must process is more than can processed in real time. This data, as with all external input, is filtered. The filtering process thereof is governed by various other sub-systems both internal and external. Yet, as the visual input passes these filters it is no long purely visual, or at least no long belongs to the purely visual perception, but belongs to the cognitive perception process of the human. Now, the human body, as biological entity, and its system underlie the many variations. Thereby, these biological systems will pass the same stimulus, a PG book, input as different data. For example, a shade of green is not the same for me as it is to others as I have a color dysfunction that other do not. On the other side a human as a thinking entity, will process the same data differently as it thought process have been formed though out its life experiences and no two human share the exact same life experiences, partially also due to their biological differences. Yet, in order to discuss a particle system of human beings as a whole we must, idealize somewhat. What we have not done is defined exactly what a visual system is. If we consider visual as the perception of light the there are actually two biological systems involved. One optical and the other is tactile, as heat is another form of light energy. On the other side we have not defined what light is! If we define it just as that part of the electro-magnetical spectrum that the optical system that the human animal can take as input there is only one. To conclude: I have beyond any doubt shown that the human body has only one biological system for inputing visual data and thereby has only one visual system. The perception of this data is all together a different matter. Furthermore, it is clear that one can construe almost anything by choosing the definitions thereof in the most arbitrary way. Also, the introduction of other concepts and mixing them arbitrarily into the argument one can make a point, yet it leaves the realm of what was being discussed in the first place. Though this is somewhat tongue in cheek, I hope that you do understand that we agree on many views concerning the below mentioned. It is only a matter of which functionality one is discussing or which particular field one is interested in. regards Keith. ;-)) Am 20.11.2011 um 04:17 schrieb James Adcock:
The time I check a biology book the human has just one visual system.
The biology books lie, as do ophthalmologists and optometrists. How people read, and how they visually perceive varies greatly from person to person. As the very simplest, consider the wide variety of visual orthotics something more than half of all humans wear, and how varying various people's mental and emotional responses are to the same book -- the brain is part of the visual system.
O.K. This is OT. Tongue in cheek, too!
Consider one (like me) who has a less-than-perfect visual system -- however one defines that. Most of us have imperfect visual systems -- whether we realize that or not. Certainly if reading ever gives one a headache then one has a less-than-perfect visual system. You are reading late at night a challenging book. You say "Man, I just can't read this anymore, time to go to bed!" OK, but WHY -- what was the problem? Glasses prescription off? One eye went lazy? Secondary eye just went dominant? Eye tremor? One eye stopped tracking? Too much emotional content? Too much intellectual content? Now add in the effect of the reading device, say a 600 dpi printed text vs. a 100 dpi LCD backlit display: Screen door effect? Lack of sharp edges for the eyes to focus on? Lack of sharp edges for eyes to converge on? Color bifringement problems? Etc. One can say "Oh, I was just tired" -- yes, but *what part* of the display system made what part of *your* "visual processing system" tired? For many of us the low resolution backlit color LCD displays are MUCH more tiring than a high resolution laser printout, or eInk display. I've talked to MANY eInk display users who have told me "well the screen door effect on LCD displays is just too tiring for me." And just as I am writing this on a backlit LCD display system my left eye decided to "check out" and stop focusing...but my right eye continues to work. ;-) Thirty years ago I worked on high-resolution monochrome CRT displays which were absolutely beautiful and easy to read -- not at all like the crap color displays we read on now -- and it sounds like the expectations on color display are now going *down* not up in quality! Certainly when I went to buy a new laptop for one of my teenagers recently I was not even able to buy a laptop nowadays that has the resolution of the display I could get on a laptop five years ago. Bad displays, ugly printouts, ugly formatting, crappy content: equals more tired and less productive readers having less fun and reading less.
Hi Jim, This could become an never ending story. Yes, there are many factors that can contribute to eye strain or problems while reading. Lighting, posture, size of print, muscular problems, heart conditions, stress from other sources, stomach problems, … Many of these external influences can be avoided. As to computer screens and monitors. I can not tell you how many times I come to help someone and I take one look at their display and I say good God how do you have your screen set. Too much contrast, color, brightness. Also, many are to lazy to actively change these settings throughout the day. I can remember using my trusty Apple IIe with a CRT. When I work late at night with ambient light. The next morning I would start up the computer and the screen was virtually black. Good ready habits are not a well used practice for the average user. regards Keith. Am 20.11.2011 um 17:29 schrieb Jim Adcock:
O.K. This is OT. Tongue in cheek, too!
Consider one (like me) who has a less-than-perfect visual system -- however one defines that. Most of us have imperfect visual systems -- whether we realize that or not. Certainly if reading ever gives one a headache then one has a less-than-perfect visual system.
You are reading late at night a challenging book. You say "Man, I just can't read this anymore, time to go to bed!"
OK, but WHY -- what was the problem?
Glasses prescription off?
One eye went lazy?
Secondary eye just went dominant?
Eye tremor?
One eye stopped tracking?
Too much emotional content?
Too much intellectual content?
Now add in the effect of the reading device, say a 600 dpi printed text vs. a 100 dpi LCD backlit display:
Screen door effect?
Lack of sharp edges for the eyes to focus on?
Lack of sharp edges for eyes to converge on?
Color bifringement problems?
Etc.
One can say "Oh, I was just tired" -- yes, but *what part* of the display system made what part of *your* "visual processing system" tired? For many of us the low resolution backlit color LCD displays are MUCH more tiring than a high resolution laser printout, or eInk display. I've talked to MANY eInk display users who have told me "well the screen door effect on LCD displays is just too tiring for me." And just as I am writing this on a backlit LCD display system my left eye decided to "check out" and stop focusing...but my right eye continues to work. ;-) Thirty years ago I worked on high-resolution monochrome CRT displays which were absolutely beautiful and easy to read -- not at all like the crap color displays we read on now -- and it sounds like the expectations on color display are now going *down* not up in quality! Certainly when I went to buy a new laptop for one of my teenagers recently I was not even able to buy a laptop nowadays that has the resolution of the display I could get on a laptop five years ago.
Bad displays, ugly printouts, ugly formatting, crappy content: equals more tired and less productive readers having less fun and reading less.
participants (4)
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Bowerbird＠aol.com -
James Adcock -
Jim Adcock
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Keith J. Schultz