mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Nov 22, 2011 10:10:31 GMT -5
I too have a little plaque in my house.
Tomorrow my dental hygienist will get rid of it.
Mickey
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Post by Steeler Fan on Nov 22, 2011 10:17:04 GMT -5
Steeler, take my advice: do away with shopping lists. That way you always buy what you have plenty of and forget what you really need. If ssems to make life so much more interesting.  Been there and done that more times than I would like to remember! Have the T-Shirt too...I think?  |
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Nov 22, 2011 19:05:34 GMT -5
Steeler, T-shirt: that gives me an idea. You know when say the Rolling Stones go on tour they make T-shirts with the touring list printed on the back. Well you could T-shirts with your shopping lists printed on. As long as you were wearing the right one it would all be ticketyboo.
Mickey, I didn't know your dental hygienist did home visits. Does she scale the outside of the house and break-in through an upstairs window?
Dave.
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Post by Steeler Fan on Nov 23, 2011 7:24:40 GMT -5
Dave the "touring" T-shirt sounds like a great idea except in my case I would have to keep taking it off to read the list! Ooops I guess I would be on another web site then "The People of WalMart"!  |
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Post by brucesallen on Nov 25, 2011 19:51:38 GMT -5
Paper books give you a feeling of security, a continuum of knowledge dating back to the beginning of printed books. eBooks are fleeting, a year or two and they might not be accessible, a change of server, different means of saving data that you have not bought yet and ....poof, gone. Same argument about archiving any information on the net, or cloud, or even on your floppy disk, er, CD. As computing advances, your files don't, unless you update your data. Who owns a floppy disk reader today, and is it compatible with what you currently have? No one, and No. Photographs are the same, no more negative files. Never mind film being scarce, try finding darkroom chemicals.
I'll keep buying books and film for as long as I can.
Besides, try reading in bed with a Kindle, falling asleep and rolling over on it....
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 25, 2011 22:09:02 GMT -5
Paper books give you a feeling of security, a continuum of knowledge dating back to the beginning of printed books. eBooks are fleeting, a year or two and they might not be accessible, a change of server, different means of saving data that you have not bought yet and ....poof, gone. Same argument about archiving any information on the net, or cloud, or even on your floppy disk, er, CD. As computing advances, your files don't, unless you update your data. Who owns a floppy disk reader today, and is it compatible with what you currently have? No one, and No. Photographs are the same, no more negative files. Never mind film being scarce, try finding darkroom chemicals. I'll keep buying books and film for as long as I can. Besides, try reading in bed with a Kindle, falling asleep and rolling over on it.... For every new format--image or writing--there is someone creating a program to convert the old to the new -- usually automatically. I loved film. But today's digital cameras--even some of the point and shoots, produce images better than any I did in my film days--even with high end equipment. I still love the feel of mechanical cameras but they cannot match the quality of images from modern digital cameras. I spent the final 14 years before my retirement creating books printed on paper. I have more than 500 books in my library. But now I do all of my recreational reading on a Kindle. The books are cheaper and it's handier (and I don't think rolling over on it in bed would ruin it). The world continues to change. There are some changes I will never accept (texting is destroying the ability of younger people to communicate face-to-face). But there are other changes that are wonderful. For instance, I took 2,800 digital images on a recent trip to Europe. I could not have afforded the film, let alone the processing for 2,800 film images. On the trip I had 30 books on my Kindle to chose from and they took up almost no room and weighed almost nothing. I also had a small net book that allowed my to send messages and photos to the people back home every day. All of those conveniences came from the fact that someone invented the transistor and the printed circuit. My father was an old time "hot metal" printer --in the days when the type in newspapers was cast on a lead "slug" created with a machine called the Linotype which was the mechanical marvel of its day. My dad always told me if I could run a Linotype I would never be out of a job. He was dead wrong about that. The only Linotypes now are in museums or in some small print shops in South America. Computers did away with melted lead. Even though my father thought the Linotype was one of man's greatest creations, I don't think he would have had any trouble embracing computers and digital cameras. For him it was more about the message than the method. If computers had showed up in printing earlier he might have lived longer, too, as he wouldn't have had to inhale the fumes from that melted lead for 50 years. There's an old saying: "Nostalgia isn't what it used to be." That's sort of the way I've grown to feel about photography and printed material. I think many (but not all) of the changes are for the better. Wayne |
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Nov 26, 2011 3:50:25 GMT -5
Wayne, I pretty much agree with all that. In some ways modern cameras aren't as pleasant to handle as the old mechanical cameras but results, good results, are certainly easier to get.
My cousin worked at Bemrose, printers in Liverpool. His part of the trade was replaced by more modern technology (I'm going back 40+ years). At the time he had a 'job for life' but opted to leave (and became a central heating engineer). Of course what replaced his speciality has now been changed further by the computer. (Bemrose printed, and still do (I think), the likes of colour supplements for the newspapers.)
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Post by barbarian on Dec 30, 2011 18:24:19 GMT -5
I would bet that this group has more than it's share of biblophiles.
I once mentioned to a professor that I didn't have enough shelves for my books. He replied:
"Of course you don't have enough shelves for your books. No one worth knowing has enough shelves for their books."
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Dec 30, 2011 18:33:44 GMT -5
Shelves? Floor space is at a premium too. ;D
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Post by herron on Dec 31, 2011 12:20:18 GMT -5
I just donated 175 hard cover novels to charity. I'm down to four floor-to-ceiling bookcases in my office (along with the two barrister cases of cameras), two in the bedroom, two more in the family room, one in the upstairs hallway and several in the basement. I also have a whole room in the basement with boxes of stored books (and cameras). I never thought I would enjoy something like the Kindle, but I got one in January of this year (2011). We were headed to Florida to watch our grandkids while my son and daughter-in-lae took a much needed vacation...to New Zealand. We were there for six weeks. I bought the Kindle because I knew I would run out of reading material. I simply could not carry that many books on the plane. Turns out, I enjoyed it! I read 20 books while I was down there, and now read novels almost exclusively on the Kindle. I'm not about to let go of all my printed books, though...and I intend to buy others. At least, as long as they keep publishing them that way (I also once said digital cameras would never replace film...so much for my prognosticating ability). I even write. Have not yet ventured into e-publishing, but it's going to happen. Probably in 2012. Have even started a web site for my writing. ;D  Ron Herron www.ronaldherron.com----- P.S. One of my poems, "Woodland Avenue" has been accepted by the online literary forum Slow Trains. |
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Dec 31, 2011 17:43:53 GMT -5
Wayne said, "For every new format--image or writing--there is someone creating a program to convert the old to the new --"
I volunteer.
I just can't figure out how, on a kindle, to insert a bookmark.
I do have some interesting bookmarks and would hate to see them go to waste.
Mickey
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Post by Steeler Fan on Jan 20, 2012 8:09:41 GMT -5
At the moment I am reading "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest" which is the third book in Stieg Larsson's trilogy. My wife has read all 3 of the books and is "patiently" waiting for me to finish this one. After each book I finish we watch the Swedish movie version, and we have watched the American version of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo". Hands down the books IMO are much better than any of the movies. Which is why as long as I am able I will always read.
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Post by grenouille on Feb 22, 2012 8:41:43 GMT -5
Reading has been a way of life for me, thus I'll stick to it, as for writing, I'll type it on the PC and sign it, not that I do write a lot of letters.
Hye
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Post by Michael Fraley on Feb 25, 2012 0:13:33 GMT -5
Congratulations Ron! Slow Trains is a good online poetry site. Do you have any other online sites you can recommend?
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Feb 25, 2012 5:16:43 GMT -5
I'm not sure what I have said so far on this thread, but just looking at the title again, "Does anyone read or write anymore?", I think I have the answer. Of course, I don't profess to be the first find the answer, which is, as no doubt you all know, 42: The Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything. Douglas Adams certainly knew a thing or two. However, 42 doesn't answer our question here, at least not in an obvious way. The real answer is "yes". People do read and write. The problem is that much of it is poor. Poor takes many forms and this poorness is illustrated everywhere one cares to look. Even some eminent newspaper and television journalists seem unable to use correct English at times.
Forums, or fora, either is apparently correct, are frequently the worst purveyors of language. They are the one chance many get to actually write anything down on paper, and it shows. Yes, I know many errors are just typos. It's not those that worry me, but what does is the inability to use words and grammar correctly.
This forum, however, has far fewer problems in its usage of English than do most. That is in spite of English not being the first language of several posters. Unfortunately we have lost some of the best word smiths. Gene and Ron have gone to write more serious stuff. Peter will write no more, but how lucky we were to have met him and be able to share his interests. I miss John Parry too, and his nicely silly interjections, interventions and inventions. There was always a wit in his witterings.
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