derfunkatron

@derfunkatron@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: Little Free Library is a group that promotes local access to books on a more micro level, to build a stronger community of readers across the world⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, when I was a kid my favorite things where always electronics, TV, radio, music, so if I had children I would never deprive my children of electronics, no matter what the “experts” say.

  Not electronics, screens. My kid has lots of music and electronic toys, just not a tablet or smartphone to play with independently (yet). And it’s not about deprivation, it’s about moderation. The screen moratorium is mostly for children under age 3 or 4 as very young children are pure hedonists and they lack emotional regulation and impulse control.

  Well, I have to disagree on this one, if I’m dealing with complicated texts where I need to quickly refer to multiple sections then nothing beats being able to crtl + f. Also scrolling is much faster than turning pages. But I guess it can be a personal thing.

  I concede that this heavily determined by personal flow and I even noted that point in my original comment. I think both our perspectives on this are valid, but I just wanted to clarify that by “complicated texts,” I mean texts where you need to have immediate or quick access to jump back and forth between sections e.g. scholarly editions or books like House of Leaves that are literally “complex text.”

  Yes you can lend a book from a library, but in my experience libraries never have anything worth reading…

  This may be determined by the libraries that you have access to, but where I live I can get almost any in print book from my library. Granted, I can’t get it immediately, but through inter-library loan, I get a lot of books that aren’t in my local libraries’ collections that I would otherwise have to purchase. The main thing is to have a reading queue and place requests in advance which, I admit, is its own skill. My neighborhood is also full of the little free libraries that the original thread is in reference to, which have been a great source of free books (I also give away books to the free libraries, too).

  I think you are also greatly exaggerating the technical skills needed to download a book, sometimes even just searching “book name pdf download” is enough to download a book, which can be done on a smartphone that most people already own.

  I’m not exaggerating at all. Sure, it is easy at face value, but it really does assume a lot of preexisting digital literacy and technical knowledge. We might be reaching a point where enough people have these skills from youth, but older generations are still lacking a lot basic tech literacy.

  …buying a physical book online or lending it from a library also means the book is registered to the reader’s name electronically, in this case tied to the user’s real name and payment details.

  Okay, so two things here:

  1. I’m not talking about privacy regarding purchasing goods online (good point, but that’s a different privacy concern), I’m talking about the privacy ecosystem on the device itself e.g. bloatware infested tablets, proprietary walled-garden e-readers, and apps that exist to collect data and serve ads.
  2. All libraries in the United States, at least for now, are very protective of patron data. Some libraries even regularly purge the check-out history. Bullet three of the America Library Association’s code of professional ethics even states: “We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.” It’s baked into the modern library profession to protect the patron’s privacy. I haven’t heard of any entity or group hacking (or subpoenaing) public libraries for check-out history other than the Federal government.

  Now I actually favor reading on a screen…

  You might be a monster. 😂

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: Little Free Library is a group that promotes local access to books on a more micro level, to build a stronger community of readers across the world⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s widely accepted among pediatricians and psychologists that you should delay introducing your kids to screens as long as possible. We started reading to our kid when they were a newborn and there is no way in hell that I would be blasting them with a tablet screen (children’s ebooks tend to be pdfs because of all the graphics, which also rules out using e-ink readers). Reading to a child is also a pre-bedtime activity in low light where stimuli should be reduced; a tablet or e-reader is far from ideal here.

  A lot of children’s books in the 0-4 range are also tactile, include lift-the-flaps, have mirrors or noisemakers, and are safe to chew on. The other thing is that in order to teach independence, the kid needs to be able to access and choose books on their own which is something a physical books and a shelf is really good at and an e-reader is really bad at.

  One may argue that physical books are expensive, impractical, or whatever, but there are several organizations that send free books monthly to kids (we are subscribed to two of them). Public libraries are really good for exposing kids to books that don’t have to be purchased as well as teaching additional skills like:

  • patience (can’t have a book another kid has, or have to wait until we can go to the library),
  • spatial awareness (where the library is, where the children’s shelves are), and
  • temporary possession of objects (the books have to be returned).

  And to your earlier point about physical books being “a novelty of the past,” I would counter by saying that physical books and ebooks are not a binary pair and using them to read is not an exclusive or (the exception being children’s books).

  • Textbooks are great candidates for ebook versions because of their intended use and unintended bulk; there are also enhancements to ebooks that work really well for textbooks and manuals, like search/find.
  • Fast-paced novels, especially those in a series, are great candidates for ebooks particularly when the reader knows they will consume multiple books quickly.
  • Physical books are preferable when dealing with images or large formats. I can’t imagine reading a coffee-table book or art book is as effective on e-reader.
  • Physical books are also better options for complicated texts, especially ones that the reader needs to quickly refer to multiple sections of text while reading e.g. indices, appendices, or that chapter where a character is first introduced. I know there’s digital analogues, but they don’t work for everyone.
  • E-books make sense when you want to have hundreds or thousands of books immediately on hand, or don’t want to clutter a dwelling with bookshelves.
  • Physical books are great for acquiring out-of-print titles. Sure, someone may have created a decent pdf or epub of it, but there are texts that are easier to find used physical copies than a digital version.
  • In a complete reversal of what I just wrote, e-books are great for finding out-of-print titles that are prohibitively expensive to acquire. Thanks to that random internet user who created that spectacular pdf.
  • Digital versions of manga or comics make a lot of sense, especially when considering the amount of space those collected items require.

  At the end of the day, the medium you use to read is a preference and I am a strong advocate for audiobooks, ebooks, and physical books being simultaneously available. What I am not an advocate for, is the dismissal of the print on physical media as if it is not one of the most stable and easily accessible methods for communication. No matter how you argue it, at the end of the day, ebooks and audiobooks still require mediation and energy. Those formats also impose technical and financial barriers to access (you may be savvy enough to access thousands of books for free and maintain your own e-reader that respects your privacy, but the majority of people to whom e-books are marketed to cannot). I can lend or give away a physical book to anyone I meet and they can immediately read it; the same cannot be said for digitally reformatted texts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Informative review ⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Another more practical reason (besides free bags for use around the house) is that produce is often wet from the misters and refrigerated items condensate once you go outside (especially in the south). Double bagging helps prevent the bags from tearing if/when they get wet. Also, for people buying lots of canned goods, single bags can rip if they’re overloaded. Cashiers and baggers will still double bag plastic bags when they are filling it with a lot of heavy items.

  Another reuse for brown paper grocery bags was DIY textbook covers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Losing my resolve⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have to use Windows and Teams for work and I’m starting to feel like a computer historian or an operating system archeologist every time I use my work PC.

  Someone called me directly on Teams the other day and the old Skype ringtone played; now I already knew that MS absorbed Skype but it was weird because the actual ringtone is sort of low-fi, like it’s probably the same 20 year old .wav file.

  I’m pretty sure the new W11 file explorer is just Edge which is just Chrome.

  I feel like I’m looking at geological layers whenever I dive into OS settings.

  Some window skins are clearly from Vista.

  Aesthetically it is a nightmare, but it also clearly demonstrates that W11 is six operating systems in a trenchcoat.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are there no universities/colleges that start in the afternoons?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This was my experience as well.

  I did, however, have the unfortunate experience of studying a degree that required four sequential semesters of courses that started at 8AM. Granted, I could have solved that problem by changing majors, but here I am. Once those classes were over, all of my classes were between 11AM and 3PM.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨“You can't be expected to have a successful AI program when every single article, book or anything else that you've read or studied, you're supposed to pay for” Donald Trump said⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  My univeristy library would often have one or two copies of the current textbook on course reserve in the library. This meant that 1) you had to know where the course reserves were, 2) hope you could get it before one of the other 100-150 students also taking that course got it first, and 3) hope some dickhead didn’t just take it off the shelf and hide it in their study carrel or in a quiet corner of the library. Number 3 gets worse the higher the level of degree you are studying.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kid gave a reasonable answer without all the math bullshit⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ha, fair. I was concerned you were about to drop some non-Euclidean Cthulhu deep-magic on us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kid gave a reasonable answer without all the math bullshit⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  How? Doesn’t this run afoul of the inequality theorem?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Senators in the US senate serve 6 year terms and there are only 2 per state. This means that there is always an even number of senators and they have a lot of time in office before needing to focus on campaigning for re-election. Compare this to the House of Representatives where the terms are 2 years and states get allocated different amounts of representatives based on population.

  Other things to note about senators is that there are certain procedural elements in government that only originate or happen in the senate: approving presidential appointees, judges, generals and admirals, authorizing treaties. The senate also has various committees that advise or manage various aspects of governance. Bills, including the budget, must pass both houses of Congress; in the case of the budget, it originates in the House of Representatives but must be approved by the Senate. The Senate has a lot of power to kill/block legislation because legislation requires both houses of Congress to pass it.

  Historically, the Senate was the states’ representative in the federal government and, in fact, state legislatures used to select senators. Although senators are now voted for by the populations of each state, they still have a legacy of being “more prestigious” than the House of Representatives and often vote more conservatively (read as deliberate or less reactively).

  Candidly speaking, senators are known to become legacies often staying in office for more than 20 years and it is not uncommon frontje children of senators to also become senators. I mention this, because socially senators are often perceived as being part of a supposedly “non-existent” US aristocracy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bobby won’t live long.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Amazing! Thanks for taking the time to share. I figured there was an aesthetic interest in addition to the morbid curiosity.

  I went through a phase where I wanted to build a library of weird, bizarre, cult, occult, and outlandish books (which I why I had a copy of Dianetics among other religious texts). I abandoned the idea mostly because I didn’t want to dedicate space to books that I never wanted to read or felt repulsed by reading.

  If you like kitschy and bizarre books, I recommend checking out the following (if you haven’t already encountered them before):

  • Telecult Power by R. Durbin
  • Apocalypse Culture by A. Parfrey

  Telecult Power makes me laugh since it’s a how-to for developing telepathy and telekinesis. Apocalypse Culture creeps me out and reading parts of that book is like dropping into a conversation midway while no one cares to explain what’s going on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bobby won’t live long.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Bibleman and A History of Christian Hymnody are wildly different theological materials; what’s the criteria for your collection?

  Do you study religions or is the there something else, like an aesthetic thing, that drives your collection?

  Also, how much of this have you read and is there any of it that you believe?

  Sorry for the barrage of questions, but I find the notion of collecting cult and religious media to be fascinating, especially if it’s for reasons other than faith.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bobby won’t live long.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wow, you’ might be serious.

  I used to keep tabs on the weird religious stuff for fun, but most of it turns my stomach these days to the point that I can’t even laugh at it.

  Definitely got super drunk and riffed on Kirk Cameron videos back when he had that Way of the Master series (e.g. the banana video).

  I used to have a copy of Dianetics that you would have thoroughly enjoyed.

  You should try to acquire a copy of a Mormon seminary textbooks. There should be a series of four of them: Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants/Church History (this is one is a gold mine). The Mormons apparently make them available as PDFs for the current versions, but the older ones are sure to be better.

  I’ve got you tagged now as “collects weird religious stuff”. Congrats.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bobby won’t live long.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You want me to send you free copies of the Book of Mormon and the Watchtower, too?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bobby won’t live long.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I consider it a civic duty to collect these whenever I find them and throw them in the trash.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨90s band alignment chart⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Weezer is a tough call because most of the time they’re sad because they’re horny.