Re: eBook Ignoramus Authors

Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 17:30:59 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<seawasp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:37:19 -0500, "Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)"
<seawasp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Jaimie Vandenbergh wrote:
I don't want to carry yet another special purpose tool around when I
can use a general purpose phone/pda/internet browser/bookreader/mp3
player/GPS, maps and routefinder/emailer. It won't be ideal, but I'll
be carrying a phone around anyway so why not make it useful?
My iPhone is great for use as a phone, a music source, directions, finding answers to crucial questions.

I would NEVER try reading a book on it. Screen vastly too small. And making the text large enough to read would probably result in less than a paragraph per screen, meaning that I couldn't possibly scroll it fast enough and controllably enough to read comfortably.
I use Stanza on my iPhone, and set it to a size that gets this in one
screen, plus the phone status topbar:

------------------------------------------------------------
or the powers of reason. This in itself constitutes an
unimpeachable indictment of weakness. Then, influenced
doubtless by an illogical feeling of sentiment, you permitted
her to walk abroad in the fields to a place where she was
able to make an almost successful attempt to escape.
Your own reasoning power, were it not defective, would convince you that you are unfit. The natural, and
reasonable consequence is destruction. Therefore you will be destroyed in such a way that the example will be
beneficial to all other kaldanes of the swarm of Luud. In
This is where it would cut off for me in viewing comfort -- 10 lines (having just found some text and enlarged it until it was comfortable to read). But as my lines would then be larger characters, I'd presume there'd be even less text, maybe at "Therefore you..." In any case, that's less than 100 words, which is a few seconds of reading.

After some fiddling to get ten lines (the font size is a slider, not a
numeric field in Stanza) it comes out like this:

This in itself constitutes an unimpeachable
indictment of weakness. Then, influenced
doubtless by an illogical feeling of sentiment, you
permitted her to walk abroad in the fields to a
place where she was able to make an almost
successful attempt to escape. Your own reasoning
power, were it not defective, would convince you
that you are unfit. The natural, and reasonable consequence is destruction. Therefore you will be destroyed in such a way that the example will be

So there's a line and a half difference at that size. 8-12 seconds
reading per page, depending.

Half that.

Once you're reading you don't notice the
next-page tap happening, and the tap zones are in appropriate places
for where your thumb will be as you're holding the phone, and
next/previous can be switched round to suit your handhold.

Sounds slightly more convenient, but the necessity to "turn" pages that fast is still a pain.



I realise that I am lucky to have eyes which have no problem at all
with reading screens, particularly LCD type.
Eyes with no problems are useful. Mine have always been nearsighted, but now I have developed presbyopia as well.

Ow, bad luck. I'm short sighted (-3 diopters) and astigmatic (+1.25,
with the axes at 100 degrees to each other! Who designed this crap?),
but nevertheless when corrected have no trouble with reading screens.
Never have. I'll enjoy it while I can.

I'm shortsighted (-7 diopters), astigmatic, with some other odd asymmetry (pyramidal?) so that my glasses are hard to make, and are REALLY only clear when I look straight through them.

And now when things get too close they start to blur. I *used* to be able to read microfilm (titles, anyway) without any assistance.


Hopefully by the time I start going long-sighted too, eyeball medical
technology will be able to fix/replace the focussing gear, or do
something with direct nerve induction, or at least give me some sort
of retina-painting laser HUD tech that'll work around it.

Oh, the VRD (Virtual Retinal Display) is the real way to go -- would permit as high a resolution as you like, allows both visual overlay and straight display, etc. There's a reason I chose that as A.J. Baker's preferred viewing method.

But it's a long way from being perfected.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: eBook Ignoramus Authors
    ... or the powers of reason. ... In any case, that's less than 100 words, which is a few seconds of reading. ... the same physical size as the width of text in a hardback novel, ... with reading screens, particularly LCD type. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)
  • Re: What do you dislike about OSX?
    ... But no, that's not the reason. ... I have two screens ... was about - so when I open a new windows it is the same size and there is no ... Most end users don't even know the bug exists. ...
    (comp.sys.mac.advocacy)
  • [HPADM] [SUMMARY] ERROR bad magic number/system id for dld.sl
    ... It looks like it was a time-out while reading the file, ... last week because of the named reason. ... Krankenhaus Mara gGmbH. ...
    (HP-UX-Admin)
  • Re: The end.
    ... The best and simple documentation will become complex when complex tasks ... as much as reading the introductory pages to lshort.pdf (the not so short ... Well perhaps you should open your mind. ... chili symbols to indicate a 'red hot tip'); as I say, there's a reason why ...
    (comp.text.tex)
  • Re: eBook Ignoramus Authors
    ... I would NEVER try reading a book on it. ... Your own reasoning power, were it not defective, would ... Tap zones - three zones for next page, previous page, and options. ... but nevertheless when corrected have no trouble with reading screens. ...
    (rec.arts.sf.written)