Buy physical copies of any book you plan to read in the future. Do it now | Hacker News Reader

Buy physical copies of any book you plan to read in the future. Do it now

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32 pointsmemish29 comments

Good comment there:

> @JenLance

> As a librarian, I think people need to be aware that what you choose to read is personal information (Librarians have gone to prison to protect patron info). If you're buying digital, your data is being cataloged. #privacymatters

What you check out from a library is protected as personal information. What you buy from a bookstore will most likely end up in a database somewhere. Whether physical or digital there will be a record of the purchase. Digital copies are perfectly fine as long as they're stored on your own media in standard formats such as EPUB, without DRM. (For DRM-free ebooks I'd recommend starting here: <https://www.libreture.com/bookshops/>.)

> What you buy from a bookstore will most likely end up in a database somewhere.

Unless you buy in a real bookstore by cash.

The sale will still be recorded, and your visit will be recorded on the security cameras; there is enough information there to associate the purchase with your identity if someone wants to make the effort. This also limits you to buying whatever happens to be in stock—if the store has to order a book for you there will be a record with your name for pickup, even if you pay for it in cash.

Not that your reading habits are really worth investigating. Or trying to hide.

> security cameras

Masks for the rescue.

> there is enough information there to associate the purchase with your identity if someone wants to make the effort.

Which information?

> Masks for the rescue.

You can be identified by your gait these days, and even facial recognition has been modified to work even in the presence of (medical) masks. More exotic forms of mask covering the whole face would just make you stand out even more.

> Which information?

They just need to know what time you were in the bookstore making your purchase. From there they can follow the security footage forward or backward until they have enough clues to piece together your identity. If you're a regular at physical bookstores in your area the odds of remaining anonymous in the face of a proper investigation range from slim to none.

It's all probably technically possible, but requires a lot of resources currently. I doubt that bookstores do that on scale, unless you are targeted by a state actor.

Security cameras do not store their recordings indefinitely. After a few weeks (at most), any record of your visit will be wiped when the cameras record new video that overwrites your face.

If the author had anything meaningful to say, they would have given more context; this just comes across as pointless attention seeking.

Agree. I couldn't decide if:

* Supply chain issues were going to cause problems * Bookstores are closing * Books are going to be banned some how? * We should buy the books because it forces us to read more * The power grid is going to fail and we will be bored * Something else?

To me it's twitter being used as it was born to be used. Instead of a multi-chapter set of tweets to try to prove some complex point the author just threw a short, vague statement into the void. Judging by the responses it worked well. Followup comments uncovered good reasons to get physical copies of books you want to read again.

World War 3. EMP. no more downloadable shit (unless you got your stuff in a giant faraday cage)

I live in an old farm house where the humidity gets high in the summer. I try not to keep too many books because in the long term they get moldy.

You could always put them in plastic bins with desiccant packs inside. Won't look too good on your bookshelf, though. But neither does a Kindle.

I use plastic bins and desiccant packets in a tropical environment but not together; the lids on standard plastic bins are too loose-fitting for this to work. The packets will be too rapidly spent. If you get the kind with color-changing pellets to tell you how saturated the packet is, it's obvious. You need something that's actually airtight. Best is if you can vacuum seal the item together with some desiccant packets. Second best is a Ziploc bag.

But for books, this is all a bit too much effort for me, too. Kindles don't mold.

That's good information, thank you.

I'm definitely not going to push people one way or the other - just pointing out that if you wanted to buy physical books for long-term storage you surely can.

> Kindles don’t mold.

Plus they’re so thin that you can fit way more of them on a bookshelf!

Or more importantly books you want your kids to read. Same goes for movies (too late to easily find many) and music.

His point is probably something about cancel culture.

That's a bit narrow. It's probably about ownership.

I think the thing that makes it a rather useful Tweet is that there are so many reasons to justify what he's saying.

The big one in my mind, and I expect his given his other comments as of late, is that there is an increasingly real possibility of WW3 (alongside more ambiguous possibilities of general social disruption). It's still very improbable but WW3 going from nigh impossible to very improbable is about the time you start preparing for the worst and hoping for the best. And if the worst does happen then one of the first things that's going to happen is the internet is going to go poof.

The underseas cables we rely on for the internet are completely vulnerable and there are endless motivations for various sides to clip them for either domestic or foreign purposes: strengthening domestic propaganda, preventing foreign propaganda, sparking social disorder, disrupting communication pipelines, etc.. Satellites, GPS, and so on will follow shortly thereafter.

This exact logic motivated me to recently download Wikipedia. If anybody else is interested in doing so: https://www.kiwix.org/en/ Wikipedia is about 87GB in total with pictures included. I hope that 87GB is just completely wasted and never touched, but the value gained if I ever do end up needing to access it creates a nice risk:reward ratio.

>The big one in my mind, and I expect his given his other comments as of late, is that there is an increasingly real possibility of WW3

And yet the "Doomsday Clock" that was moved to 100 seconds to Midnight under Trump, hasn't budged since Biden has been President, despite us being on the precipice of WW3. Maybe it was always political.

Kindles have adjustable type sizes. If I survive the end of the world, I'll just have to search the rubble of the nearest Walmart for a sufficiently powerful pair of reading glasses.

Is anyone interested in a plain text zip file with a connected local search engine? I have the text of 30K+ out of copyright books in a folder. I backed them up in my website here:

https://www.locserendipity.com/LocalData.html?q=

He must be worried about a power shutdown and probably via EMP. Scary to hear this kind of thing from someone who must be in the know about what is coming.

If things are blown up badly enough that I need dead tree versions things are blown up badly enough I'm not going to be here to read dead tree versions.

What is the maker of the web saying?

Why?

wut

Just do it!

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