TDPL is an Amazon Kindle bestseller

[Walter Bright]

On 6/19/2011 2:18 PM, Jonathan M Davis wrote:
> On 2011-06-19 13:26, Walter Bright wrote:
>> I just bought a Kindle and I'm running my unread paperbacks through the
>> scanner and then trashing them!
>
> I _much_ prefer reading actual, solid, paper books. I don't particularly like
> reading books in electronic form at all. It works well for documentation and
> searchability, but beyond that, I don't see it as an advantage at all. And in
> those cases, I'd be reading them on the computer, not an e-book reader. And of
> course, then there's the issue of DRM and all that....
>
> So, I don't own an e-book reader and I hope that e-books never become so
> prominent that I'm forced to.


Your last sentence is interesting. I've read many accounts by people who had 
such a sentiment, and then skeptically thought they'd give an ebook a fair try. 
After a year, they completely changed their minds.

Anyhow, I hear you.

I've been buying books my whole life. I have shelves creaking with them, boxes 
of books in the basement, etc. They've simply become a burden. I'd simply like 
to get all my information properties - pictures, books, papers, music, movies, 
letters, documents - onto a disk. They'll be always there, sorted, categorized, 
instantly available, weighing nothing, and taking up no space.

The advent of enormous and cheap disks has finally made this practical.

The migration of my books to the computer has awaited an easy way to read them. 
The Kindle has finally solved that problem, at least for paperbacks. It doesn't 
work well for larger books (I presume the Kindle DX will, but I think I'd prefer 
an ipad for large format books.)

I'm scanning my paperbacks to PDFs, and the Kindle will display them one page 
image at a time. DRM is not an issue for that. After a bit of a learning curve, 
I've got it where it doesn't take much time at all to whack off the binding and 
run a paperback through my sheet fed scanner.

The one thing I'm not ripping are movies. Netflix has changed everything for me. 
With so much available to watch, I don't care to rewatch any old movies. There's 
no reason to buy, own, archive, or collect a DVD anymore.