Comments for BigDaddyBlog

Comment on Why e-book readers are a stupid idea by bigdaddymerk

bigdaddymerk — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:43:01 +0000

Hi V,

Thanks for your comments, I take on board what you say about the battery life, but I still can’t see the major benefits of a e-book reader, beyond the reference idea that I’d already mentioned. Businessmen can just as easily pick up a real newspaper in their native tongue in most parts of the world, for instance I have bought English newspapers (Alas it was the Times) in various European cities.

I’m not seriously suggesting no one should *want* one any more than they want any other gadget but I really struggle with why anyone would want one. I read somewhere there are now 400k+ e-books available and that e-books were out selling real books on Amazon, this is all well and good until you realise that they are outselling Hardback books (which are generally still quite expensive and cumbersome) but they are no where near selling paperback, and while 400,000 sounds impressive, there are 14 MILLION books printed in the English language. 14 Million!

Comment on Why e-book readers are a stupid idea by Angela

Angela — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 09:31:48 +0000

i was thinking about buying an ereader but after reading all the comments you have all made my mind up. Books are better!!!!!!!!!!!!! Choosing a book in a book shop is great, sharing them with family and friends would be impossible with an ereader
thank you all for helping me decide

Comment on Why e-book readers are a stupid idea by V

Wed, 04 Aug 2010 01:13:14 +0000

A few points in favor of the ebook reader:

1. Nobody is improving or forcing upon any type of change. The ebook reader is just an accessory that some people might find useful (students and professionals who require technical documents in particular). Businessmen who enjoy reading the news in the morning can enjoy their favorite paper anywhere in the world (anywhere where there is a point in dealing business that is) and keep in touch with the news in their native tongue.

2. The horrible eye-killing backlit screens of monitors are a thing of the past with the invention of the e-ink display (unless you want the e-reader/tablet/game platform/web-browser/movie-player/ mp3 player/ vacuum-cleaner that is the iPad). The e-ink display, instead of shining the image into the reader’s face, uses an array of microcapsules that contain charged black and white particles to mimic a natural solid surface similar to a book page.

3. With a battery life of almost two weeks (this is not on stand-by, but actual reading time) the ebook readers can outlast most other mobile devices that offer the same capabilities, making it an item which can be charged once and carried around for weeks like a regular book, yet occupying the space of small magazine and having the ability to be any book you wish it to be at the touch of a button.

Of course the ebook reader has limitations such as not being able to deliver the feeling of opening a fresh new book (or perhaps even an old aged one), or making you look like a twat on the train ( ), but going as far as to calling it a useless invention is a bit much.

Comment on Sherlock – The case of the missing Deerstalker & the Pipe… by Stavros

Stavros — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 17:17:11 +0000

It looked pretty good, but I didn’t watch it. I’ve never read any of the stories either. I have seen Hound of the Baskervilles with Peter Cushing. Which wasn’t great. Tim from the Office seemed good in the 15 minutes I watched and Benedict thingy struck me as a passable Holmes (perhaps the most Doctor Who-ish about the program). I read someone complaining that the lack of gas-lamps and London fog made it feel a bit sanitised and not really scary or edgy. I thought the modern rewriting worked well for the most part. Although some of the “modern” touches were a little jarring and the current fondness for this kind of shoe-horned zeitgeist isn’t half gonna date it when it’s repeated on Dave 3D+1 in 20 years time (“what’s a blog Uncle Stav?”). I will try and watch it in it’s entirety though, especially as it’s only a 3-parter (there’s bound to be a Christmas spesh though eh?).

Comment on Can’t we all just get along? No. by Stephen Haynes

Stephen Haynes — Sat, 15 May 2010 00:35:45 +0000

You just wait for the Labour Party leadership battle, that’s going to be like summat out of The Sopranos. I can just see Ed Balls as Bobby Baccalieri all shot up falling onto the miniature guage train set.

Comment on YES, I hate Coldplay by connor

connor — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:14:55 +0000

Coldplay are legendary so are Muse so are Radiohead full stop please

Comment on Happy Blogday by Daniel Hoffmann-Gill

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 09:46:47 +0000

7 years? Well done that man, I wish you blogged more but glad you’ve not given up all together.

Comment on Electioneering… by Daniel Hoffmann-Gill

Daniel Hoffmann-Gill — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 09:46:11 +0000

I’m wit Brendon, an awful bit of bloody fence sitting that, what a moral coward.

Comment on Electioneering… by Sim-O

Sim-O — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 19:29:07 +0000

and yet if you were to abstain from from voting at the GE through disgust at the lack of genuine choice between parties it would be because you were apathetic.

Comment on Electioneering… by Brendon Kenny

Brendon Kenny — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 21:38:49 +0000

Phwoarr, this fence looks reight comfortable. Think I’ll sit on it.

Oh yes. That gets my vote. Twat.

Comment on Electioneering… by Stuart

Stuart — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 18:05:21 +0000

This is also interesting:

http://petedotnu.tumblr.com/post/506152026/john-redwood

Comment on Dissolution by Links and stuff from between April 7th and April 9th - Chicken Yoghurt

Links and stuff from between April 7th and April 9th - Chicken Yoghurt — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:23:41 +0000

[...] Dissolution – Sorrow and anger from the Big [...]

Comment on Dissolution by Justin

Justin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:10:04 +0000

A fine post. I felt the same wrench when I made the same decision: I’m from a staunch Labour family on my dad’s side. It’s a small comfort but don’t forget – we didn’t abandon the Labour Party, it abandoned us.

There will be plenty of people using guilt and emotional blackmail as a weapon to get us to vote Labour at this election. That it should come to that says more about them than us. It just about all they have left.

Comment on Dissolution by Morti

Morti — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:42:12 +0000

Can you still vote Natural Law? I always fancied Yogic Flying.

Comment on Dissolution by Kitch

Kitch — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:05:01 +0000

I was going to vote Labour but I’ve been having my doubts

Comment on Dissolution by John Franklyn

John Franklyn — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:18:29 +0000

An excellent piece Merk, can’t say any more than that, you’ve just said it.

Comment on Why e-book readers are a stupid idea by Iain

Iain — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:22:13 +0000

I think that the ipad or an ereader is a good idea in principle being able to take a lot of books around with you and being able to pick and choose what you want to read. I just don’t think that the technology is there yet for it to be a suitable alternative. The screen needs to be more like paper, it needs to be more durable so you can chuck it about, dunk it in water, put a cup of tea on the opposite page, it needs to be thicker and more flexible so you can curve the it like you would a book

Comment on Why e-book readers are a stupid idea by Fulla

Fulla — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:58:36 +0000

Good bloggage Merk, I wrote a long comment but i scrubbed it instead for this bit of wisdom.
‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it’.
Books are brilliant, as are the many book shops where they can be found.
Imagine a sterile little world with no books filled with e-book readers. Dreadful, I’m sure you’d agree.
George Orwell 1984, that’s my favorite book. I’ve got Penguin Classic copy from the 60′s I think? Its pages are almost orange with age and it has a price written in pencil on the front, in old money!
I love it when you open a secondhand book and it has a hand written message in the front cover, a Christmas present to a friend with a date or a dedication. Lovely stuff.

Comment on Why e-book readers are a stupid idea by bigdaddymerk

bigdaddymerk — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:34:37 +0000

Well I did kinda touch on the text book element when I talk about the hundreds of technical manuals we have and use at work, like I said great for looking things up but horrible for reading cover to cover.

Comment on Why e-book readers are a stupid idea by Uncle Brandolf

Uncle Brandolf — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 12:24:35 +0000

I agree wholeheartedley – give me a good old tangible book over yet another retina burning piece of technology any time. I’m no luddite but there’s nothing like the smell of the pages of a brand new book, or the glimpse into its history when you see a scrawled message in the front page of a musty old second hand book.

One perspective that hasn’t been mentioned here though, and as far as I can see it’s the one big advantage of e-books, is the ability to have a massive amount of text books easily accessible for reference if you’re in academia.

After all, you wouldn’t want to carry around a bookshelf full of bulky text books just to call upon when you need them. An e-book gets around that very effectively, and the search function is infinitely more efficient than using the index too.

I suppose it doesn’t do much to counter the ‘twat-factor’ but I’m sure that’ll be offset by the tweed, leather patches and the enviable ability to look natural smoking a pipe.