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Blogs I Heart WikiBooks

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Sifter3000, 29 May 2010.

  1. Sifter3000

    Sifter3000 I used to be somebody

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  2. Er-El

    Er-El Minimodder

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    I love Wikibooks. I started to learn C programming from a wikibook.
     
  3. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

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    I still am not impressed with eBooks and eReaders.
     
  4. frontline

    frontline Punish Your Machine

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    I was sceptical for a while, but purchased a Sony PRS-300 pocket reader recently and love it. Within minutes i had downloaded 150 free books, including works by Shakespeare, Dickens, H G Wells etc.

    The only down side is the price of most e-books from the likes of Amazon and Waterstones etc, there should be more of a saving when compared to the paper version, particularly on those books that have been out for a few years and the author/publisher has already recouped a decent amount in sales.
     
  5. l3v1ck

    l3v1ck Fueling the world, one oil well at a time.

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    Paper books Cheesecake!
    They're just so much nicer to read.
    It's not the same as digital media such as music or films. There the end experience of the user is identical to the hard copy. The music on a CD is the same a high quality MP3, a film on DVD has the same viewing experience as a film downloaded over the internet.
    But Ebooks are different. The user experience is just lower than when reading a book.
     
  6. frontline

    frontline Punish Your Machine

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    There really isn't any difference to be fair, the quality of the e-reader screens are generally excellent, easy to read and you don't even notice the difference in experience.

    Saying that, i will still buy books in their usual format as well.
     
  7. _Metal_Guitar_

    _Metal_Guitar_ What's a Dremel?

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    I think there is a difference. Music, films and games are all electronic, unless you go to a gig. Books are a good way of not looking at a screen for a while.

    And they never run out of juice if you forget to charge them.

    That said, I have no doubts that eBooks are the future. Until all the publishers and authors start complaing about piracy, of course.
     
  8. Xir

    Xir Modder

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    After having read straight through the entire free Scifi/alternate history collection at BAEN and beeing somewhat underwhelmed by the choice in Project Gutenberg (Mostly very, very old stuff) I find this project also lacking "readable" books.
    Are you sure Alfred Bester is in there?
     
  9. steveo_mcg

    steveo_mcg What's a Dremel?

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    What exactly is wrong with "Very, very old stuff"?

    Thanks to some chat on here i've discovered Aldiko for Android and found that having the book your currently reading on hand at all times makes it that much easier to get through, i never seem to have time to sit down and read a novel.

    The fact that there is a full catalogue of public domain books available makes it an excellent way of reading through the classics with out having to spend money to find you're not really that keen on war and piece. As we speak i'm currently working my way through the journals of Doctor Watson concerning his adventures with Mr Sherlock Holmes.
     
  10. CardJoe

    CardJoe Freelance Journalist

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    No, Bester isn't in there. As the caption says, he's only linked to because The Demolished Man is my favourite book - it doesn't qualify as an Wikibook - which, if you read the article, is mostly built out of textbooks and article collections.
     
  11. Hamish

    Hamish What's a Dremel?

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    disagree, i prefer reading on my eReader even when i have a paper copy of the book
    for manybe reasons but not limited to
    weight - my ereader is lighter than all but the thinnest paperback and i prefer long books anyway
    convienence - i can very easily 1-handed read and flip pages on my ereader, in fact i can flip pages on my ereader without taking my hands out from under the duvet on a cold night :hip:
    font-size - this is a really minor point but it bugs me when you get a book thats printed in 18pt font or some **** and you have to turn pages every 2 seconds, on my ereader i can set font to minimum and every book is in that size. the inverse applies too if you have bad eyesight or something so you can set the font size higher

    there are basically no downsides that i've experienced so far
     
  12. stuartpb

    stuartpb Modder

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    I have always seen myself as being pretty tech savvy and someone who embraces new tech readily, but I have never been able to get into e-readers, e-books etc. In this respect I am still very much a printed form lover. It's the same when I am studying too, with e-journal articles, I have to print them off to read them.
     
  13. Xir

    Xir Modder

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    The dutch section is pretty much medieval :D
    Comparable to Shakespeare in "Ye Olde Engishshshsh" That's what I meant by "Old"
    There's nothing wrong with it, i've read some of it, but it's not exactly a light read.

    Sherlock holmes and co. I'd probably read in English anyway, so I'll check that out.
     
  14. steveo_mcg

    steveo_mcg What's a Dremel?

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    ah you meant old ;)
     
  15. lacuna

    lacuna Minimodder

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    Urgh, I hope not but your're probably right. The 'future' is all about trading in quality for convenience and charging people more for the privilege of owning less.

    Last time I checked a new released album from itunes cost more than the CD from amazon. I can't understand this at all, regardless of what 'lossless' format you download the file in you will inevitably still ruin in by playing it from an mp3 player of straight from the computer. Its the same story with films.

    Im not sure I see the point in those wiki things either. I have the 'wikipanion' application on my phone so what is the need to carry around a bulky ebook reader when the information is so easily accessible anyway?

    Regardless of this there are more real books in publication than I will ever be able to read in my life so I need not concern myself with being forced to 'get with the times'
     
  16. Xir

    Xir Modder

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    Well if you consider 16something only old and not very, very old.
    Dutch language has been around since 11something...runes before that.
    16something "modern" dutch was noted.
    I guess the bible is very old then (not the merely "old" new testament), and for very, very old you've got to learn babylonian runes.:D

    Apropos Babylonian...King Gilgamesh of Uruk is a nice read :D
     
  17. Hamish

    Hamish What's a Dremel?

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    how is playing a lossless format back through a PC going to ruin it compared to a CD?
    sure if you play it back using some ghetto onboard sound from the 90's and £20 pc speakers it will sound ****
    but if you spend £20 on an alba cd player from argo your cd will sound ****
    theres no reason you cant get hifi sound out of a PC ( digital out -> external dac -> amp -> speakers)
    and how is it possibly the same story for films?
    hdmi out from a blu-ray player or hdmi out from a pc? oh look its exactly the same quality for a given source :eyebrow:

    wikibooks is not so much about having wikipedia on an ereader as textbooks and the like
    eg. http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Category:GCE_Advanced_Level a whole selection of A-level textbooks

    edit: i agree with you on the cost thing tho
    charging the same or more for an ebook is ridiculous
    personally i'd like to see some kind of nominal extra fee to get an ebook version when i buy a physical book
    buy paperback for £5-6 pay 50p on top to get ebook version would be awesome
    for someone like amazon this would be trivial but in the end it all comes down to publishers being dicks :(
     
  18. phuzz

    phuzz This is a title

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    It's worth pointing out Charlie Stross's series of articles on the publishing industry here, especially the one about eBooks.
    Short version, about 90% of the costs of a book are to do with publishing and admin, the cost of printing on actual dead trees is a tiny part of it, so you shouldn't expect eBooks to be magically cheaper. Also, right now the eBook market is less than 1% of the total book market, so publishers don't give a crap about ebooks, yet.
     
  19. frontline

    frontline Punish Your Machine

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    Surely the storage and distribution costs (whether publisher or retailer) added to the printing costs are a major factor? I can't imagine that it is cheap to ship paper books in bulk. What about when stores order in individual copies of a book. That outlay must be passed onto the buyer? An e-book need never be out of print or out of stock.
     
  20. phuzz

    phuzz This is a title

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    That is what I thought, but apparently not, I only know what I've read though.
     
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