5 ms·

You’re criticizing the author for not making the ebook freely available? You only buy books for which you can obtain the ebook for free? I’m lost.

schoen 8y ago
Evidently so, see downthread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18643589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18643589.
enriquto 8y ago
> You’re criticizing the author for not making the ebook freely available? Not at all. > You only buy books for which you can obtain the ebook for free? Yes, I do.
- Myrmornis 8y ago
  On reflection I think my comment sounds rather thoughtless. You clearly have an interesting philosophy. Could you explain it a little more? You say > I just want to encourage the practice of authors allowing everybody to read their books. And yes, that would be great. You're hoping for a world in which essentially voluntary paid contributions (e.g. for paper books) is sufficient incentive for authors, correct? I say essentially voluntary because in your world an electronic copy would be available to everyone for free. My main question is: how far do you depart from the conventional incentive structure of capitalist/market-based societies? Do you think food should be free, also paid for by voluntary monetary or in-kind donations? Or only digitally-encoded information? Can you explain why information as a commodity should be treated differently?
  - enriquto 8y ago
    Nothing too deep. I just loved the idea from this book : http://www.inference.org.uk/mackay/itila/ http://www.inference.org.uk/mackay/itila/ , where you can download even the .tex source and compile it yourself (and read the tex comments, they are great fun!) Then I bought a few copies of this one, and I found that there are many books of the same kind. I enjoyed the concept and decided to buy all such books that I found (and ask my library to buy one or two copies as well). > My main question is: how far do you depart from the conventional incentive structure of capitalist/market-based societies? LOL, this is just a silly criterion of mine for buying books. Do not read too much into it. By the way, it acts as a great filter: authors who are obsessed in spreading their knowledge no matter what, tend to write very interesting things.
    - diego898 8y ago
      Hello! A tangential question: how did you manage to compile the book yourself? I find many errors that are hard to track down and Im not sure if its due to missing custom packages.

schoen 8y ago

Evidently so, see downthread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18643589 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18643589.

enriquto 8y ago

> You’re criticizing the author for not making the ebook freely available? Not at all. > You only buy books for which you can obtain the ebook for free? Yes, I do.

Myrmornis 8y ago
On reflection I think my comment sounds rather thoughtless. You clearly have an interesting philosophy. Could you explain it a little more? You say > I just want to encourage the practice of authors allowing everybody to read their books. And yes, that would be great. You're hoping for a world in which essentially voluntary paid contributions (e.g. for paper books) is sufficient incentive for authors, correct? I say essentially voluntary because in your world an electronic copy would be available to everyone for free. My main question is: how far do you depart from the conventional incentive structure of capitalist/market-based societies? Do you think food should be free, also paid for by voluntary monetary or in-kind donations? Or only digitally-encoded information? Can you explain why information as a commodity should be treated differently?
- enriquto 8y ago
  Nothing too deep. I just loved the idea from this book : http://www.inference.org.uk/mackay/itila/ http://www.inference.org.uk/mackay/itila/ , where you can download even the .tex source and compile it yourself (and read the tex comments, they are great fun!) Then I bought a few copies of this one, and I found that there are many books of the same kind. I enjoyed the concept and decided to buy all such books that I found (and ask my library to buy one or two copies as well). > My main question is: how far do you depart from the conventional incentive structure of capitalist/market-based societies? LOL, this is just a silly criterion of mine for buying books. Do not read too much into it. By the way, it acts as a great filter: authors who are obsessed in spreading their knowledge no matter what, tend to write very interesting things.
  - diego898 8y ago
    Hello! A tangential question: how did you manage to compile the book yourself? I find many errors that are hard to track down and Im not sure if its due to missing custom packages.