And there are scripts (and calibre plugins) to do that as well. So it's no different than before.

I've found that the classic search is much better: http://search.overdrive.com/classic/

Except that isn't what's happening. That one copy (or two, or however many for popular novels) the library buys will, as I understand it, be available in any format, but only one of them checked out at a time, of course. If the book's in, you can choose your format and go. There's no "I'll have to buy a kindle" or "I'll have to buy X e-reader".

On another note: would you rather they didn't expire so you can pay exorbitant late fees?

Considering it's just Overdrive, which has been around for a while now, yes, libraries have set lending periods. Mine is a choice of 7, 14, or 21 days. Yes, they do automatically get "deleted" (actually they just stop working, at least for ePub titles), but you can re-borrow them if you'd like. The bigger issue is with publishers imposing artificial scarcity on digital titles, forcing libraries to purchase a new copy after it's been borrowed a certain number of times (in order to maintain the same revenue stream they have with dead-tree books, which actually degrade).

Here's the thing, she isn't real. This is a common BS comment, I'm really disappointed that no one recognized this for what it was, since it had no bearing on the article whatsoever. See here for more examples of this idiocy that people are, for some reason, taking as fact just because it says "From the article".

Yes, were illegally spying. Sure, they're still doing it, but if it's no longer illegal, the past tense is accurate since now it's not illegal.

Mre lap.by er,b!!!

I know what you mean; I'm in the same boat. I plan to stay safe in the basement until the worst of this storm is over. Of course it's not likely to help much, since I'm in Iowa. Still, better safe than sorry, right?

Seriously though, I don't mean to make light of your predicament, and here's hoping the thing dissipates at least some before pounding the city.

I think what he said was that if he ever went to 3.0, it would mean he had gone insane and rewritten the entire thing in Visual Basic.

http://www.questionablecontent.net/random/winfail.png pretty much covers it.

I specifically didn't mention the Kindle. Mobi is atrocious, and Amazon cares more about the bottom line than presenting an acceptable reading experience. You're right, not everyone uses the same algorithms to determine hyphenation and line-breaking, but in my experience, ePub and the readers that use ePub (at least the Nook - I really can't speak for others such as the Kobo or iRiver readers, not having used them) do a better job than the atrocity in that article. Of course, none of it matters if the publishers don't bother putting a little bit of care into their e-books. I may have come on a little strong, but I believe e-readers are not all as bad as you and the article you linked are making them out to be. http://www.the-digital-reader.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/nook.jpg is at least an improvement on the look of the Kindle's page, however I agree, it's not perfect.

Congratulations, you've just earned the "I don't know what I'm talking about!" achievement! All modern e-readers, when using their proper formats (generally ePub for pretty much anything worth using) handle line-breaking and hyphenation just fine, and unless you're reading from some badly OCRed plaintext copy, will look as good as the paper version. PDF is a bad format for e-readers, and you're a bad person for suggesting it.

Thank you for the clarification. I can see a "new loudness" button emerging, and as someone else said, portable players can do this automatically, it seems. It makes more sense to do the compression on the fly without damaging the original track than it does to master it in a way that makes one's ears bleed, so here's hoping the loudness war truly is over.

Correct me if I'm mistaken, but hasn't this been around for quite some time: the "Loudness" or "Loudness compensation" button on stereos/equalizers/amps from the 70s and 80s? Perhaps it's a concept whose time has come around again.