Words Per Minute?

Lady Fitzgerald said:

BorisTheAnimal said:

Lady Fitzgerald said:

Many, if not all, schools in the U.S. have scrapped cursive. I had to use lettering (non-cursive) for my jobs for so long, I have serious trouble writing cursive for anything other than my signature.

Face it, with everyone using computers, the need for cursive is pretty much gone. Frankly, I don't miss it since it often was so hard to read. Writing from people with a bad fist (poor penmanship) is almost always easier to read when it isn't in cursive.

True but it just feels kinda wrong, I mean the humans have always used a pen and a paper but now suddenly it has to be taken away and I don't think it is such smart thing to do. I think humans will become less intelligent by taking away these small things, like there are Finnish politicians that want to take away the Swedish language making it a language you can choose but it wouldn't be a must to learn, and for me that is reducing knowledge, but hey that's just my way of seeing it.

Using that logic, we would still be using the Sumerians' clay tablets. Keeping documents on paper is primitive and inefficient as is writing with pen and paper. The only way I will buy a dead tree book anymore is if I cannot get it in e-book format. It's ironic that we can transmit moving pictures around the world in little more than an instant, travel into outer space, sending probes outside our solar system and putting humans somewhere other than Earth, etc. and yet people miss and cling to outmoded technology such as handwriting and dead tree books.

Well milady, there is also the horror that everybody will get stuck in a screen and I see daily small accidents when people do not look from their screens and bumps into other people, what would you do if that was your kid walking over the road and a car came and smack. I don't think milady that clinging to outmoded technology is bad, I think it is a personal choice. And I would never change a book to an e-book, because upon buying it I would wonder how many kids slaved to produce this device.

Layback Bear said:

Don't waste the trees is my motto...

I totally agree which is one reason I why I pretty much buy only e-books now and try to run my life as paperless as possible.

BorisTheAnimal said:

...Well milady, there is also the horror that everybody will get stuck in a screen and I see daily small accidents when people do not look from their screens and bumps into other people, what would you do if that was your kid walking over the road and a car came and smack. I don't think milady that clinging to outmoded technology is bad, I think it is a personal choice. And I would never change a book to an e-book, because upon buying it I would wonder how many kids slaved to produce this device.

Technology is not the cause of people allowing themselves to make poor judgment calls; people are. Before cellphones, etc. there were plenty of other distractions while driving: men shaving, women applying makeup, eating messy foods, smoking, drinking, etc. Heck, I've seen people reading while driving. When properly used, technology can improve our lives. It's when it's improperly used that it becomes detrimental. That's not the fault of the technology and it should not be the bearer of the blame; it's the fault of the people misusing it and it them who should bear the blame and clean up their act.

If you are worried about how many kids slaved to make an e-book reader, what about all those who made our computers, computer components, monitors, TVs, game devices, cell phones, etc. Are you going to give all those up (obviously, you haven't given up computers)?

One e-book reader can hold several hundred to several thousand books. A computer can hold even more (I use my computer to read my e-books at home from my 32" TV; I use the e-book reader when away from the house). One e-book reader uses far fewer reasources than several thousand books will. Making enough paper for all those books is far more polluting than making that one e-book reader. That's not including the environmental impact from killing all those trees

Then there is the space needed to store all those dead tree books. Several thousand books in boxes can fill an entire room; on shelves, a large building. E-books can be easily indexed for quick access to their content. Retrieving content from dead tree books takes far longer and is grossly inefficient. E-books can be easily, economically, and efficiently backed up; dead tree books require killing more trees, more physical space to store the backup books, etc.

I buy all my books ( but really all ) 2e hand, I see that as recycling and it's incredibly cheap, some old books ( I like old books ) go for 1 cent. The bad part of it is ( when not bought on a flea market ) the transport of coarse.

Love the feeling of a book in my hands, but I agree that things like encyclopaedia have become useless and are always old news a the moment they appear, because things change to fast.

Lady Fitzgerald said:

BorisTheAnimal said:

...Well milady, there is also the horror that everybody will get stuck in a screen and I see daily small accidents when people do not look from their screens and bumps into other people, what would you do if that was your kid walking over the road and a car came and smack. I don't think milady that clinging to outmoded technology is bad, I think it is a personal choice. And I would never change a book to an e-book, because upon buying it I would wonder how many kids slaved to produce this device.

Technology is not the cause of people allowing themselves to make poor judgment calls; people are. Before cellphones, etc. there were plenty of other distractions while driving: men shaving, women applying makeup, eating messy foods, smoking, drinking, etc. Heck, I've seen people reading while driving. When properly used, technology can improve our lives. It's when it's improperly used that it becomes detrimental. That's not the fault of the technology and it should not be the bearer of the blame; it's the fault of the people misusing it and it them who should bear the blame and clean up their act.

If you are worried about how many kids slaved to make an e-book reader, what about all those who made our computers, computer components, monitors, TVs, game devices, cell phones, etc. Are you going to give all those up (obviously, you haven't given up computers)?

One e-book reader can hold several hundred to several thousand books. A computer can hold even more (I use my computer to read my e-books at home from my 32" TV; I use the e-book reader when away from the house). One e-book reader uses far fewer reasources than several thousand books will. Making enough paper for all those books is far more polluting than making that one e-book reader. That's not including the environmental impact from killing all those trees

Then there is the space needed to store all those dead tree books. Several thousand books in boxes can fill an entire room; on shelves, a large building. E-books can be easily indexed for quick access to their content. Retrieving content from dead tree books takes far longer and is grossly inefficient. E-books can be easily, economically, and efficiently backed up; dead tree books require killing more trees, more physical space to store the backup books, etc.

Yes of course there has always been things that have been distractions.

And I think you are wrong to say that, I'm not an engineer but I can most certainly say that we need more factories to make an electronics unit of some sort than what it would take to make one piece of paper or one book.

Well you'll be blind before you go nuts, milady.

BorisTheAnimal said:

...I can most certainly say that we need more factories to make an electronics unit of some sort than what it would take to make one piece of paper or one book...

You're comparing apples and kumquats. The world's paper supply comes from more than one factory; there are multiple factories spread all over the world. Making paper is a process that doesn't occur in only in one location. Timber has to be felled, then transported. Even when recycled fibers have been used in the making of the paper, the waste has to be collected, sorted, and transported before the paper making process itself has to begin. These are separate processes that occur in separate locations.

Paper making uses huge amounts of water which becomes heavily polluted with the chemicals use to pulp the raw fibers. It's a filthy power and resource hungry industry that pollutes far more massively than the electronics industry due to the sheer volume of its waste even though the electronics industry uses more hazardous materials.

Also, paper for books is a tiny portion of the daily output of these factories. The vast majority of the paper made is for temporary use, such as packaging materials (including the packaging and shipping of electronic devices), newspapers and other periodicals that only get read less than a handful of times before discarding, etc. The volume of electronic devices manufactured pales compared to the volume of paper being made in this world.

Electronic devices are capable of almost infinitely more uses than paper even though their volume is fare less than the volume of paper being made. Condemning electronic devices for the reasons you cite is pretty much like saying automobiles can be used to kill people so we should get rid of ALL automobiles instead of promoting their proper usages. I've been alive for well over half a century and have seen first hand how new technology has improved our lives; heck, I wouldn't be alive now if it hadn't been for technology; I would have died during childbirth, let alone the other things that would have killed me later in life. If you want to go back to more primitive times, go for it and see how well you fare.

As long as you continue to use computers, TVs, telephones (not just cell phones), automobiles, etc. your rants against e-book readers, etc. are pure hypocrisy.

I'm not one that has anything against E-Books. If one wants to use E-Books, please do so and enjoy it.
I like old fashion books but some day I will probable start using E-Books.
E-Books to my limited knowledge have some other advantages. One being the ability of changing font size. Is that correct?

It would help with my 70 year old eyes.

Layback Bear said:

...E-Books to my limited knowledge have some other advantages. One being the ability of changing font size. Is that correct?

It would help with my 70 year old eyes.

You most certainly can change the size of fonts on most e-book formats. Depending on the e-book reader you are using, you also can change font type and color, the color of the background, and how bright the readout appears. I'm almost as old as you and I doubt my eyes are any better than yours (although I always thought polar bears had excellent eyes).

I use Kindle for PC when reading off my TV screen. Besides dramatically increasing the size of the font, I use a white font on a black background and turn the brightness way down so the characters appears gray in good lighting but is white in low lighting or in the dark without eye-straining glare.

I can also change the font size and typet on my little, el cheapo Kindle. Its e-ink screen can be easily be read in bright, direct sunlight, and the little, flip-out LED in the cover can provide light for low light conditions that has less glare than backlit LCD screens.

At 1/2" x 4-3/4" x 7" (including the cover), my little Kindle is a little bigger around than most paperback books but is thin enough to fit in my purse and can hold hundreds to thousands of books. These books can be backed up so they aren't lost if the reader dies, gets lost or stolen, etc.

E-books eliminate the need to manufacture books, warehouse them, ship them, waste retail space to display them, etc.

Thanks for the information Lady Jeannie.

The sun glare off the snow and ice get to even a Polar Bears eyes after time.