Zompist Bboard Again

alice wrote: ↑Sun Aug 02, 2026 2:30 pm You can count them separate from the books, surely, assuming you have a reasonable way to tell them apart?

The issue was to devise a reasonable way to distinguish them. They were bible-based Christian teaching, some of them apparently for examinable courses.

Perhaps xxx's method of quantifying books by the metre would have been more appropriate.

jcb wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2026 10:58 pm Recently, XBox and Playstation proclaimed that within a couple years, they will no longer produce discs with games on them. Many gamers were/are outraged at this decision. It made me think about the physical media that I own. I realized that I treat media differently depending on its type.

So:
- Books: 99% physical. I sometimes even like to print off PDF files to read them if they're long. Reading a book on a computer screen is not fun.
- Music: 100% digital. I've never liked CDs or DVDs. I've always found them easy to destroy, and difficult to edit. A flash drive full of songs is superior.
- Movies/Shows: 100% digital.
- Games: Old stuff is physical, new stuff is digital. The newest console I own is a PlayStation 1, but I mostly play PC games on Steam nowdays anyways.

So, how much and what kind of physical media do you own?

We have about 1,300 physical books (not counting the recently culled ones that are stored in the garage until we get around to selling them or giving them away). About 300 ebooks. Generally books in French are physical, books in English digital, but there are many exceptions.
I have a Kindle which is a really neat piece of technology. But Amazon recently dropped support for mine, also I'd rather not give money to Jeff Bezos anymore; I'll have to figure out a replacement.
Music is 100% digital (though we still have some CDs lying around).
Movies and Shows are almost 100% digital -- though I still have maybe 70 DVDs

As for ebooks: ebooks are fine for fiction and especially well-suited to huge fantasy behemoths such as ASOAIF. For non-fiction it depends on the subject matter, anything with tables or illos is right out. But for me it's a matter of convenience, for English-language works (I used to go through Amazon, but I have to find some other bookstore. I hear good things about B&N), also because I like to travel like and for storage (shelf space is a pretty big problem.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 5:36 am
I have a Kindle which is a really neat piece of technology. But Amazon recently dropped support for mine, also I'd rather not give money to Jeff Bezos anymore; I'll have to figure out a replacement.

Are there no Amazon competitors in the ebook market in France?

Raphael wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 9:23 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Mon Aug 10, 2026 5:36 am
I have a Kindle which is a really neat piece of technology. But Amazon recently dropped support for mine, also I'd rather not give money to Jeff Bezos anymore; I'll have to figure out a replacement.

Are there no Amazon competitors in the ebook market in France?

For English-language books, no, not really, not that are any good anyway.

For French-language books, the local libraries are lovely so I'd rather buy there

Bummer. I guess some publishers might offer DRM-free epub files for sales directly on their websites. That's a matter of luck, though.

I prefer physical where possible. Hence we have :

58 linear metres of books
7 of CDs
6 of board games
5 of DVDs
2 of magazines
2 of newspapers
2 of piano
less than 1 of cassettes and other instruments

However, because of Wikipedia Library, Internet Archive, ResearchGate and Academai.edu among others, I have more than 16,000 pdf or epub files.
Likewise, I save borrowed CDs so I have more than 14,000 mp3s.

MacAnDàil wrote: ↑Sat Aug 22, 2026 11:32 pm I prefer physical where possible. Hence we have :

58 linear metres of books
7 of CDs
6 of board games
5 of DVDs
2 of magazines
2 of newspapers
2 of piano
less than 1 of cassettes and other instruments

However, because of Wikipedia Library, Internet Archive, ResearchGate and Academai.edu among others, I have more than 16,000 pdf or epub files.
Likewise, I save borrowed CDs so I have more than 14,000 mp3s.

*Impressed whistle*

Books: 100% physical. Or well, I have a few PDFs for conlanging purposes, but I don't count those as books.
Music: I only have Spotify and play lists on YouTube.
Games: I have two games on Steam. Everything else is physical.
Movies: 100% physical. I have a few DVDs and a lot VHS tapes. I really should digitalize my old VHS tapes, if they even work anymore.

Man in Space wrote: ↑Tue Jul 28, 2026 11:39 pm Some of this is likely driven by the recent trends of deleting or removing access to content you've already purchased, and a hard copy is something not as easily seized or destroyed.

As has already been mentioned a few times on this thread, this is not safe either. Old game CDs don't work on modern computers, if they even have CD drives. Old game consoles deteriorate or can't be plugged into modern TVs. Things get obsoleted and discontinued.

I have lost my physical library 3 times. I've given up trying to organize it. I only have a handful of books left.

The second time, American Airlines lost 2 suitcases full of books.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2026 8:17 am
The second time, American Airlines lost 2 suitcases full of books.

Oh wow. Fucking shitheads.

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2026 8:17 am I have lost my physical library 3 times. I've given up trying to organize it. I only have a handful of books left.

The second time, American Airlines lost 2 suitcases full of books.

What happened the first and third times?

jcb wrote: ↑Tue Aug 25, 2026 12:22 am

rotting bones wrote: ↑Mon Aug 24, 2026 8:17 am I have lost my physical library 3 times. I've given up trying to organize it. I only have a handful of books left.

The second time, American Airlines lost 2 suitcases full of books.

What happened the first and third times?

The first time, my mother passed away while I wasn't living in the country. My uncle took my books including the complete works of Tagore since I didn't have a place to put them. If you put all the volumes on one shelf, it will span the length of a room.

The third time was when I couldn't afford to mail my library to India, so I left four giant cardboard boxes in my cousin's house. Hopefully, I'll be able to afford it eventually.

These are the travails of a modern day nomad. I still have several books with me, at least a dozen. Like my brother said, "Our family doesn't discard books."