Long Live Books!
A comment on a technical review that says that paper books will survive.
While I agree with most of what the commenter has to say, I disagree with one proposition which I cannot determine from context whether it belongs to the reviewer or the original article. All of the stuff on my Kindle, or at least nearly all of it (because I make my own e-books) will continue to be readable into the future because I will simply convert the files into whatever format comes forward as the next e-reader. Worst comes to worst you extract them to html or xml and you have ultimately repurposable files without much concern about backward compatibility. I've done it from palm to kindle to iPad and will continue to do it into the future. I like portability. I like being able to have a choice among thousands of books if I'm away from home. I like being able to walk to the corner of Grafton Street across from the Fusilier's Arch and read Dubliners or to Davy Byrne's and sit down with Ulysses, all for the ultimate cost of toting around the weight of perhaps two paperbacks. (With the iPad it is more, but still work it). The arguments against the technology hold no water for me--partially because I'm not addicted to the medium but to the art and it little matters to me where it is--newspaper, cereal box, iPad, Kindle, or book. Any one of them will suffice for me.
While I agree with most of what the commenter has to say, I disagree with one proposition which I cannot determine from context whether it belongs to the reviewer or the original article. All of the stuff on my Kindle, or at least nearly all of it (because I make my own e-books) will continue to be readable into the future because I will simply convert the files into whatever format comes forward as the next e-reader. Worst comes to worst you extract them to html or xml and you have ultimately repurposable files without much concern about backward compatibility. I've done it from palm to kindle to iPad and will continue to do it into the future. I like portability. I like being able to have a choice among thousands of books if I'm away from home. I like being able to walk to the corner of Grafton Street across from the Fusilier's Arch and read Dubliners or to Davy Byrne's and sit down with Ulysses, all for the ultimate cost of toting around the weight of perhaps two paperbacks. (With the iPad it is more, but still work it). The arguments against the technology hold no water for me--partially because I'm not addicted to the medium but to the art and it little matters to me where it is--newspaper, cereal box, iPad, Kindle, or book. Any one of them will suffice for me.
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