Elmofongo: why would I want to carry 40 books with me when I am going somewhere instead 1 or 3? especially since books have a lot of pages which gives me alot of time to invest in one book
We obviously don't read the same kinds of books ;).
KyleKatarn: Actually, power companies lobby quite hard as well. They don't mind renewables as long as they are the only ones allowed to sell it on the grid...
Elmofongo: sadly we will not see solar,wind,or hydro becoming the norm in where we get energy because the oil compenies will lobby government to not let that happen
Actually, a big chunk of our electricity here is produced by a public company that uses dams to produce hydroelectricity.
Because of this, our energy bills are very low compared to other places.
It's our little pride and joy.
Granted, erecting the dam causes some environmental damage, but then it allows us to produce energy in a renewable manner without further damage.
Very few modes of energy creation can claim to do better.
Immoli: I was interested in getting an e-book a few years back. Decided against it because of the DRM and the lack of a universal standard like MP3. Didn't like the idea of getting a kindle, buying kindle versions of e-books, and then being shit out of luck if in the future I got a nook or something. Not sure if the format issue is still there or not, but the DRM is.
Once those two problems are solved and an e-book comes out with e-ink or something better then I'll pick one up.
Doesn't Kindle read pdf though? That was a big selling point for me.
The screen size, not so much. Paying triple the price to have a decent sized screen, no thanks.
Tarm: All would be well and good if people only read ebooks on a device purely created for that and it didn't need to be replaced until it broke.
But that's in a perfect world. People read ebooks on all sort of devices and people also replace those devices all the time.
Can't speak for other people, but I can speak for me.
I get a lot of mileage out of my hardware and only replace it when I must.
My desktop is close to a decade old. My laptop is already 3 years old (main reason I got it is because I needed to be mobile). My MP3 player is almost 5 years old (bless Microsoft for making the Zune... very durable). My cell phone is an old piece of junk that is close to a decade old (but more importantly, it's functional).
Some people get off on hardware which I find strange (afterall, what really matters to the end user is the software), but to each his own.
I can't say I really approve and hopefully, this sort of attitude will be rectified in the future (especially once China, India & al. fully enter the hardware marketplace).
Tarm: I wasn't only talking about ebooks either. More and more stuff get digitalised all the time. Music, various services, movies and other things. We're living in a digitalised revolution after all.
If you only saw how much space all that stuff takes in my home (hint: many, many shelves), there would be no doubt in your mind that the digital revolution is for the better.
Tarm: Cutting down a tree and making books of it isn't as bad as damming a river to make a new power plant for example. The paper can be recycled and a new tree planted while the environment on the river is damaged for a very long time.
If only the trees grew fast enough to supply the demand. They don't.
Hydroelectric dams are better in the long term and also, non-electronic books use up more energy as you'll discover once peak oil hits us (and the costs of transportation skyrockets).
