So long Bass Player magazine

I donated some to a book drive by the library

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My outlook here is simple. I hate all physical media. Digital all the way.

I was so happy when we killed off vinyl the first time, for example :slight_smile:

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I prefer paper. The tablet strains my eyes greatly. However I hardly ever read anything anymore except for technical documentation for work, or personal research online.

Modern paper companies have great tree management and replanting programs. They have to in order to stay in business.

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You and I keep the universe in balance my friend. :rofl:

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As in most things it’s a complicated subject. I live a province that’s a huge forestry employer. However speaking to friends who are employed on the periphery of these industries. The main driver for businesses moving away from paper and going digital isn’t to save the planet. It’s for the most part cheaper.
Old article but still relevant

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Frustrating as only subscribed a month ago after spending 2 weeks going in to every newsagent I could find locally to try and find a copy.

Turns out I’ll never actually see what the magazine looks like as I apparently won’t be receiving the final issue…

Always preferred magazines in physical form, as everything is too small on a phone screen, and often on a tablet it’s just not the same.

For book reading I have converted to kindle reading but only for fiction, for non-fiction stuff I’m more likely to refer back to, and for things like poetry I’ll go for a physical book.

I should probably add a disclaimer that I generally don’t like smartphones and modern tech where they tend to be invasive and distracting - went a blissful 6 months without a smartphone at all until a combination of needing an authentication app for a new job and my tablet being incapable of playing the BassBuzz lessons (for some reason it’ll play Youtube fine but if a video is embedded in a page it won’t play it…)

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Kindles use e-ink, which isn’t any harder than books on the eyes.

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:frowning:

What will remain of us to our kids? A bunch of files in an old kindle which you cannot even turn on any longer because the charger is missing and security updates stopped being issued years ago? When my grandma passed away I was sure to get all of her books that I could save from being thrown away. I have a personal connection to those curled up pages, those “ears” or those pencil underlinings on some passages which had captured her attention. Sometimes I find a small writing on the side of the page where she had noted something, maybe even mentioning me (she made a point of sharing with her older nephew her favourite passages). I am happy when it happens and a file would not be the same. I actually learned to type on a small programmable calculator, so I am as digital as one can be. Call me old fashioned if you want…

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Good article, I think shipping/transport is also a bigger problem these days if we are talking about carbon footprint.

Apparently most modern books have an expiration date because of the acid that is used on the paper. So you might end up with lots of unreadable books in 100 years unless you preserve them really well (vacuum wrap, non-humid, no light, etc.)

For me it’s Kindle all the way, but I do like physical books for design, photography, architecture type of stuff.

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This is a real problem, in particular when printing photographs it’s important to use acid free paper. On the other hand I have books more than one century old and photographs in that same range, and they are still here with me. On the other hand my first generation Kindle is not useable any longer and my PC doesn’t support some hardware requirements so will be bricked in a short while…much faster than acid degradation. In any case keep anything you want to preserve far from direct light and umidity !

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BUY PHYSICAL BOOKS. Definitely not a Kindle (Amazon can go to hell). If you really want a portable device, get a Nook from B&N. Or get an app that lets you check out electronic books from the library.

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You could start a Little Free Library. Or find a used bookstore to sell or give them to, if they are in good shape.

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I still remember the first issue I ever saw. It had Victor Wooten on the cover and I was like “Who the fuck is this guy?” :joy:

I do love my Kindle Paperwhite. I keep hoping for a color eInk Kindle to come out…

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I do love the culture around books. I was lucky enough to grow up with an exceptional bookstore in town, that encouraged hanging out and reading their books, even providing a cafe to do so.

The thing I dislike about most kinds of physical media is that they all can run befoul of all sorts of issues that then deny you your stuff.

Plus, storage.

Then again, I read much more now than at any point in my life, and yet I don’t remember the last time I finished a novel, or even the last novel I attempted to finish. Pretty sure it was yet another attempt at Infinite Jest, but it’s been years, and that is indeed unfortunate.

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This. My dad has over 17.000 vinyls :face_with_peeking_eye:

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Sounds like an SEP (someone else’s problem):upside_down_face:

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Funny, we are begging my dad to start selling his vinyls before he dies :joy:

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My youngest brother told my father that he had the solution as to how he was going to manage the ‘estate’ when he dies. By estate I mean rooms full of books, records etc.
He said “I’ll put a big sign up in front of the house. It’ll say ‘Do you want to buy this charming Georgian 18th Century town house with beautiful garden? Then you’ve got to deal with all the crap that’s inside’

Seems reasonable.

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btw i should clarify, i always just say “kindle” when what i actually use to read is a kindle fire. specifically the cheap-o $50 one. i cannot personally see any value in the actual “kindle” which isn’t a tablet but a really expensive single purpose book reader. it does do an amazing job of recreating a paper page however, and a lot of people really love this.