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It's not easy being green
Feb. 9th, 2008 02:46 pmI'm taking a break from being neck deep in chaos house (tm). I am determined that today I *WILL* finish my long aborted spring cleaning. That or I'll toss in a match and start over again from scratch :P (Not likely).
So while I slam down a glass of water and some pb&j I have something on my mind:
A week ago, Bossman's new Kindle arrived:
Admittedly I have been very BLAH about the device. It's single purpose (more or less), gives you no real net connection, you cannot view PDFs or Blogs on it. It is a simple screen black text on a white background. You can read ebooks, magazines, and newspapers. It has a wireless transmitter to go up to Amazon and pull down said books, mags, and papers that you have purchased. It has no back light, and as such promises 40 hours of readability between charges. I can see where it would be very nice on long flights, rather than carrying 4 or 5 books (as I often do). He is on his way to Palawan in the Philippines next week, and he's taking his Kindle with him, instead of a bunch of books which are heavy and take up a lot of space in your carry-on bag.
My big issue with the Kindle is this: The more I'm involved in and entrenched in technology the more I crave the escape that a physical book provides me. The tactile feel of the binding in my hands, the smell of ink on paper.
Fast-forward a few days. Bossman is complaining about his newspaper delivery. I look at him cross-eyed and ask why on earth he still takes a paper? The rate goes up every year, the size of the paper increases every year, but the only content added is advertising--not journalistic content. I stopped taking a paper at home about five years ago now. I read a dozen newspapers online daily, from around the globe.
His big issue with not taking a paper is his morning ritual of reading, coffee, and doing the crossword or jumble. That's his quiet time, the mental peace and waking-up ritual he treasures before the day eats away at him.
He looked at me and grinned. "As many books as you read, how can you call yourself green for not taking a newspaper, how many books do you own? That's why I got a Kindle."
Touche.
He's right of course. My inherent desire to hold and touch and smell and read books wars with my concern over paper consumption--my own and that of the communities I live in. Yet, I'll go into any bookstore just to browse, thumb through, pick up and buy: cards (I now send ecards 99% of the time), books, magazines, etc. What a CONFLICT!!!
Now, granted, I buy MOSTLY used books (but not always). I haunt Half Price Books and Moe's Books and Pegasus, Black Oak, and many other used book stores, not to mention my trusty dusty library card. I rarely buy magazines and I do not subscribe to them, except online, or again, I go to the library and read them there. But books?
Having just joined Good Reads along with a few others here, I realize just how many books I have devoured in my lifetime. I don't own all of those books now, but at one time I owned just about all of them. In 1985, when we moved my parents into storage for a few years while they went to Virginia to live, My father and I packed 18 dish-packs filled with nothing but books--mostly his, but many were mine. Talk about amassing a personal library of PAPER...
Mea Culpa and Ke Gharne. What to do?
Bossman has subscribed to the NYTimes on his kindle. Yesterday he told me that now that he has a laptop (he bought a 13" black Mac Book this month), he's going to try reading comics and doing the jumble online. He actually thought about what I said...the conflict of his desires to conserve and his natural wish to be tactile in his joy of reading early in the morning.
This now has me thinking about my precious, precious books. My to-read list, which grows daily, and how I am going to solve that conflict with my desire to consume less and less of our hard to replace resources.
I find myself looking at the Kindle again, and at the Sony Reader released a few years back and pondering... Don't know what I'll decide just yet, but I'm pondering.
So, MY Question for the day:
How much do you read? And what do you usually read from? What would you do if suddenly we didn't publish books, magazines, or newspapers in the traditional way any more? Can you see yourself moving to just digital media? Explain, please. I'm curious your thoughts.
So while I slam down a glass of water and some pb&j I have something on my mind:
A week ago, Bossman's new Kindle arrived:
Admittedly I have been very BLAH about the device. It's single purpose (more or less), gives you no real net connection, you cannot view PDFs or Blogs on it. It is a simple screen black text on a white background. You can read ebooks, magazines, and newspapers. It has a wireless transmitter to go up to Amazon and pull down said books, mags, and papers that you have purchased. It has no back light, and as such promises 40 hours of readability between charges. I can see where it would be very nice on long flights, rather than carrying 4 or 5 books (as I often do). He is on his way to Palawan in the Philippines next week, and he's taking his Kindle with him, instead of a bunch of books which are heavy and take up a lot of space in your carry-on bag.
My big issue with the Kindle is this: The more I'm involved in and entrenched in technology the more I crave the escape that a physical book provides me. The tactile feel of the binding in my hands, the smell of ink on paper.
Fast-forward a few days. Bossman is complaining about his newspaper delivery. I look at him cross-eyed and ask why on earth he still takes a paper? The rate goes up every year, the size of the paper increases every year, but the only content added is advertising--not journalistic content. I stopped taking a paper at home about five years ago now. I read a dozen newspapers online daily, from around the globe.
His big issue with not taking a paper is his morning ritual of reading, coffee, and doing the crossword or jumble. That's his quiet time, the mental peace and waking-up ritual he treasures before the day eats away at him.
He looked at me and grinned. "As many books as you read, how can you call yourself green for not taking a newspaper, how many books do you own? That's why I got a Kindle."
Touche.
He's right of course. My inherent desire to hold and touch and smell and read books wars with my concern over paper consumption--my own and that of the communities I live in. Yet, I'll go into any bookstore just to browse, thumb through, pick up and buy: cards (I now send ecards 99% of the time), books, magazines, etc. What a CONFLICT!!!
Now, granted, I buy MOSTLY used books (but not always). I haunt Half Price Books and Moe's Books and Pegasus, Black Oak, and many other used book stores, not to mention my trusty dusty library card. I rarely buy magazines and I do not subscribe to them, except online, or again, I go to the library and read them there. But books?
Having just joined Good Reads along with a few others here, I realize just how many books I have devoured in my lifetime. I don't own all of those books now, but at one time I owned just about all of them. In 1985, when we moved my parents into storage for a few years while they went to Virginia to live, My father and I packed 18 dish-packs filled with nothing but books--mostly his, but many were mine. Talk about amassing a personal library of PAPER...
Mea Culpa and Ke Gharne. What to do?
Bossman has subscribed to the NYTimes on his kindle. Yesterday he told me that now that he has a laptop (he bought a 13" black Mac Book this month), he's going to try reading comics and doing the jumble online. He actually thought about what I said...the conflict of his desires to conserve and his natural wish to be tactile in his joy of reading early in the morning.
This now has me thinking about my precious, precious books. My to-read list, which grows daily, and how I am going to solve that conflict with my desire to consume less and less of our hard to replace resources.
I find myself looking at the Kindle again, and at the Sony Reader released a few years back and pondering... Don't know what I'll decide just yet, but I'm pondering.
So, MY Question for the day:
How much do you read? And what do you usually read from? What would you do if suddenly we didn't publish books, magazines, or newspapers in the traditional way any more? Can you see yourself moving to just digital media? Explain, please. I'm curious your thoughts.
