On Fri, 22 Jun 2001, Tony Duell wrote:
[someone else, ?, wrote:]
> > I'm against the idea of destroying the original as well, but I think your
> > point about losing the digital copy is pretty silly. It's digital... just
>
> OK, which would you rather have to read? A book (printed in English)
> written about 150 years ago, or a magnetic tape from an Elliot 803?
The answer is quite simple to arrive at: a printed book. Alas, too
many books have been printed on acidic paper... of course, the
solution is rather simple, a good photocopy on acid-free paper. :-)
> Point is, as we've argued many times before, digitally-recorded data has
> a much shorter life than dead trees (both due to degredation of the
> magnetic media and the fact that the equipment used to read it becomes
> obsolete).
As to the "dead trees" argument made by rabid environmentalists: not
all paper comes from trees, such as 100% cotton paper. Alas, the
idiot biz-'droids often label it as "resume paper" or somesuch; why
waste such good quality paper on resumes that will be tossed into the
wastbasket within minutes of their receipt, I don't know... on the
otherhand, 100% cotton paper is nice for photocopies of valuable
things as well as for use as stationary (yes, some of us still like
stationary and a fountain pen for writing letters).
> I'm all for making copies of such things and distributing them digitally
> if the copyright owner agrees, but I am not in favour of keeping digital
> versions of a book/document rather than the original.
I agree completely. Furthermore, printed books are much more pleasant
to read than a computer screen.
--
Copyright (C) 2001 R. D. Davis The difference between humans & other animals:
All Rights Reserved an unnatural belief that we're above Nature &
rdd_at_perqlogic.com 410-744-4900 her other creatures, using dogma to justify such
http://www.perqlogic.com beliefs and to justify much human cruelty.
Received on Fri Jun 22 2001 - 18:27:55 BST