On 10/07/2005 09:14 AM, Carl Hartung wrote:
On Friday 07 October 2005 06:47, Darryl Gregorash wrote: <snip>
They should get rid of the CDs too, as all those plastics factories are bad for the environment -- far worse, in fact, than cutting down a few trees.
"cutting down a few trees" is a poor attempt to gloss over the plain truth that hard copy books are manufactured goods requiring lots of raw materials, <snip>
I was thinking of the relative environmental impact of producing 100 thousand paper books vs. producing the half million CDs that go along with it. My money would be on the CDs being worse, but I could be wrong.
In fact, now that I've pondered this sufficiently, maybe it's a good idea to start encouraging Novell/SUSE to build a "pay as you download" subscription site for the retail version and scrap shipping a physical product entirely! (Is that too much like Linspire?)
An attactive alternative for those who want it, but just as the cost of everyone's product shouldn't be driven up just to meet the needs of a few, such an offering to satisfy many should not unfairly limit the options of the few. Quite a few people here have suggested they don't want a manual aimed at the average home user, rather they want something for the experienced Linux user (as do I). I see no reason why both audiences could not be targetted. As for electronic bookmarks in an electronic file, they don't work for me. I remember the general contents of entire paragraphs, not chapter or section titles, and certainly not the names of electronic bookmarks. The text files that seem to work for you are useless for me -- I have to wade through everything to find the reference I want, which is what I have to do with the bare file anyway.
Besides, there is just some quality about a printed SuSe manual on one's bookshelf, that "SuSE admin manual.pdf" doesn't quite seem to match, particularly if you went to a SuSE trade show and asked Andreas to autograph it for you.
I could see this with a first edition, or something. But somehow, I think the time and expense and investment made in producing hard copy books should be limited to those you'd expect would be worth owning decades or even centuries from now. At this stage of the game, with everything going digital, big, heavy "consumable" ("disposable"?) books are now almost offensive to me they are so wasteful.
You still have to pay the piper, Carl. What is the environmental cost of building a hydroelectric dam? When you have no more rivers available (they are a rare commodity in the USA and western Europe now), you start flooding other nations' land. If you cannot do that, up go the coal burners or the nukes. Ever thought about the cost of decommissioning a nuke? Very expensive, both environmentally and fiscally. At least there are paper options which are environmentally less harmful than the standard, "easy", method. You cannot say that about the agricultural land lost to a new dam.
Who knows? Maybe I've just worked myself up into a lather over nothing... maybe I should chill out, throw caution to the wind and order a couple of extra phone books or something. Maybe that would make me "fit in" better...
If you have an ongoing need for them, by all means -- otherwise, your sarcasm is unbecoming.