Interesting Links for 9-10-2011

[andrewducker]

• The 99c novel. I already know people buying these. I wonder where the market is heading
  (tags: books business amazon ebooks)
• Blackboards in Porn - just how accurate are they?
  (tags: porn sfw blackboard maths science)
• You can't have closure. I want to know if it makes you happier if you stop trying to get it.
  (tags: closure emotions life psychology)
• Fascinating piece on how we think can read each other's emotions, even when we can't
  (tags: emotions perception AmandaKnox)
• The Judge Dredd movie is having problems...
  (tags: JudgeDredd comics movies)

Comments

[steer.livejournal.com]

The Kindle standard is not widely used.

In the same way that .doc is not widely used. It's 80% of the ebook market by most recent figures. I can only see that growing in the short term at least.

Everyone else uses ePub, which is generally well regarded, in my understanding.

Kindle freely converts epub to its own format. Nook started out with ereader pdb as the preferred format I believe but now uses epub as preferred format. The sony reader used BBeB Book as preferred format but also read epub.

Book sellers, a quick survey has a few epub, a few "ipad/iphone format" (whatever the hell that means), googlebooks and Foyles sells PDF and ebook... as I said "the good thing about standards is that there are so many...

Don't get me wrong, I don't like proprietary formats... at all... it would be great if epub somehow rose to be the dominant standard, but pretending it is at the moment is like pretending that ODF is the standard format for documents.

[andrewducker]

It's not widely used in that nobody else by Amazon can use it.

I've not heard of Amazon converting epub itself. Last I heard you needed something like Calibre to do conversions for you.

Waterstones sell in ePub and PDF. WHSmith sell ePub and PDF. Google Books do ePub and PDF. Foyles do ePub and PDF.

So it seems that everyone does ePub and PDF. Except for Amazon.

If I get get a new eBook reader because my Sony one dies then I have a wide selection that I can use - pretty much anyone except Kindle, unless I'm willing to start converting formats myself.

I despise monopolies that use non-standard methods to keep people locked in. It's why I won't use iTunes, and I won't buy Kindle books.

[steer.livejournal.com]

You're right actually... you need the (freely available) software to do epub. I've never actually converted from that format myself so I didn't notice it wasn't on the emaillable forms.

I despise monopolies that use non-standard methods to keep people locked in. It's why I won't use iTunes, and I won't buy Kindle books.

And presumably why you wouldn't use .doc format documents (or perhaps why you wouldn't until people reverse engineered the format) and (to a lesser extent I admit) .mp3 music files? :-)

Seriously though, for me, it's not a "lock in" as I can convert to and from any other format with ease. As the kindle itself is such a nice toy and the convenience of having all the books I buy archived with a single publisher, I'm willing to see it as the kind of relatively benign DRM that steam also provides. It keeps all my stuff centralised in one place so if I lose it I can get it again, I can shop at alternative places if I want and if the whole situation turns evil then I can rip the books to another format or steal them elsewhere and it's of the same "crime" class as ripping my CDs to mp3.

Mind you, there's still no actual substitute for MS Word on a PC or Mac to read .doc formats as everything else mucks up things royally.

Seriously, I don't think we actually disagree on the preferable hierarchy:
1) Widely used, open standard. (By far preferable)
2) Widely used closed standard.
3) No widely used standards but many competing standards some open, not freely convertible.
4) No standards but many ad hoc solutions.

[andrewducker]

Actually, I use DocX, which is a nice open format :->

And MP3s are playable by oodles of different players. I know there's a fee to pay for it, and I'd rather that, say, Ogg was the standard, but I'm not forced to use a single provider, so I'm happy enough to compromise.

In fact, if Amazon were willing to license out their encryption so that other ebook providers could allow you to read AZW files on their readers then I'd be happy enough with that.

And yes, I think we agree on the general hierarchy.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Actually, I use DocX, which is a nice open format

Heh... my question was in past tense for a reason...

I'm happy enough to compromise.

I'm willing to bet though that, like my kindle compromise, at least some of your mp3 compromise is illegal in this country (feel free not to answer).

[andrewducker]

A chunk of the older stuff is. I stopped torrenting MP3s when they became available to buy DRM-free. :->

[steer.livejournal.com]

I was more thinking of ripping your CD collection... (assuming you had one, could be bothered to rip it, and didn't rebuy everything as mp3s). I still actually buy my music on CDs and illegally rip to mp3 simply for the convenience of knowing where the back up is (it's on the CD rack in the hall). Mind you, that's not an issue with mp3 format as it would be just as illegal to rip to .ogg or .flac.

May be time to rethink though as an entire bookshelf of CDs is bloody huge as a backup system.

[andrewducker]

I haven't bought a CD in about eight years...

New music is coming in 90% through Spotify nowadays anyway.

(Which I don't mind being DRM-ed up, because it's a rental/streaming system, I'm not buying a permanent license.)

[andrewducker]

And, of course, DocX has the advantage that anyone can write a reader for it, or write to it. The standardisation method might have been a tad iffy, but it's out there and documented, not wrapped in proprietary encryption that only MS Office can read/write.

[steer.livejournal.com]

Heh... well if you count "reverse engineering" then anyone can also read and write kindle format.

[andrewducker]

Except that doing so is a violation of the DMCA (and probably similar things in some other countries).

So you _can_ (and I would if I was buying Kindle books), but it's not something people should be openly recommending if they don't want a visit from the police :->

[steer.livejournal.com]

And as I said (elsewhere)... you mean like ripping your CDs to mp3s (which, let's face it, we almost all do or have done)? I've never been visited by the police and nor (as far as I'm aware) have people who sell such tools.

(Actually, the government did plan to make that legal though I don't think they have yet done so.)