> Maybe I'm just an old grouch.

Yes.

Reading on iPad is great.

I find when I have digital documents, things are easier to find when I'm looking for them. But physical documents are ones I'll just pick up and idly read. Which is the value I'd (personally) take in a shelf of, in this case, ACM journals in my house. Admittedly this isn't a key consideration for the ACM.

It really isn't, at least not generally.

I think tablets are a decent secondary substitute for print-form only for publications like this with figures and images, and where the activity is more browsing rather than linear.

For general reading (eg fiction) I think print is optimal, followed by e-ink with normal tablets considerably down the list.

The ease of access to a library bumps up the utility of the ereader and tablet considerably.

The ease of access to my book on my phone to read when I have 10 minutes spare is far better than access to print.

> I think tablets are a decent secondary substitute for print-form [...] where the activity is more browsing rather than linear.

Interesting that my impression is more or less the opposite: I can read on a tablet all right, but leafing through is annoying and switching back and forth between three or four places in a big (thousand-page) reference book is so annoying as to be nearly impossible. The first, because rendering PDF pages (understandably) takes time, and the second, because I’ve seen no bookmarks interface as seamless and convenient as leaving a loose sheet of paper or even just your finger in the necessary place—they’re all fiddly.

I'd be interested to know both of your ages; I'm assuming, mananaysiempre, that you're probably under 30, and that mellosouls, like myself, is over 40. With some exceptions it seems like there is a generation gap between those of us who prefer the written word on paper, and those who prefer it on a screen of some sort, with the latter group tending to be those who've essentially grown up with digital gadgets of all sorts.

You’re not wrong on the facts, but I don’t think they support your conclusion. I’m 30, but I’ve only had a broadband internet connection since I was 15 and a touchscreen smartphone since I was 18.

I’d say there are two reasons from my reading from screens a lot: as far as the last couple of years go, if you know of a way to ship two bookcases or so from Moscow, Russia, to somewhere in the sane(r) world without spending prohibitive amounts of money (or having to return there in person), I’d very much appreciate it; before that, it’s not like ex-Soviet libraries stock any English-language technical or scientific literature issued after 1990, and paying the extra 50% for a two- to three-month-long Amazon delivery on top of the already-insane prices was hardly an option for a teenager or a college student.

Perhaps the issues is with the software rather than the format. I use KOReader and it offers a number of tools for browsing through a book. Which is fantastic. Yet most of the software out there is incredibly linear (with the only exceptions being keyword search, table of contents, and maybe an index provided by the publisher).

For normal fiction, the Kindle is ideal for me. Much more comfortable to hold than even a small paperback, can increase the font size (getting old) and can illuminate the screen. Plus, I can carry a full library with me.

I haven't found anything better than paper for technical docs, but getting a PDF and printing the few pages I need is amazing.

My eyes disagree, reading papers on any digital medium that isn't powered by e-ink is a big pain.

Remarkable is good. Would love an even larger size.

Yeah, it is on my list when my Kidle eventually dies.

In my experience, Remarkable is mediocre at best ... Battery life is not spectacular, page turning is slow, reading experience is subpar (worse than my 10+ year old Kobo). I mean the screen is great and I enjoy writing on it, but it's not a book/magazine replacement by a long shot.

The Remarkable 2 is very underpowered as an e-reader and the manufacturer is doing themselves a disservice by mentioning it as an option in their marketing. It's a digital notepad, no more.

You gotta check your eyes out then first. Since the introduction of retina displays there’s no reason healthy adjusted eyes will have to feel tired or strained looking at them..

One reason might be the backlit display and the glossy screen. Glossy screens, especially, really strain my eyes.

I am not a physist, but I have a hunch that the light hitting your eye from a direct light source is higher energy than that from a relected light source?

E-ink is mechanical [1] so also relies on reflected light rather than being a light source.

More energy would mean more stimulation?

The eye was designed to look mainly at reflected light?

There is potential damage from consistant over stimulation?

Maybe its not a great idea to constantly shine light directly into your eyes?

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E_Ink

> I am not a physist [sic]

Correct!

> but I have a hunch that the light hitting your eye from a direct light source is higher energy than that from a reflected light source?

Incorrect!

There's no concept of photons that have or have not been bounced, or are "direct" or "indirect". Also, you probably want to talk about intensity, not energy. Energy has to do with frequency (the color of light), intensity has to do with the amount of total light.

> More energy would mean more stimulation?

As it stands this says that blue light is more stimulating than red. Amusingly, this is true! But not in the sense that you meant it. It has to do with how our rods and cones work and how your circadian rhythm is calibrated. People use red light not to screw up their night vision so much.

Perhaps you mean more intensity? That's actually false!

Sunlight is incredibly strong. Far stronger than any artificial light you have normally.

> Maybe its not a great idea to constantly shine light directly into your eyes?

I'm sorry to say this would require the removal of your eyes.

But seriously. What matters is not "direct" or "indirect" light, which is a meaningless concept. What matters is relative contrast. E-ink feels better because the contrast in intensity between it and the background you're on is lower.

> Sunlight is incredibly strong. Far stronger than any artificial light you have normally.

A few years ago, I wanted a photo near a window with one half on sunlight and the other half is shadows. I tried to adjust the camera, the distance, direct or indirect sunlight, the illumination inside the room to illuminate the "shadow". It was impossible, the sun is too bright compared with usual light sources. I finally gave up and faked it with gimp :) .

A normal camera does not have as great a dynamic range as human vision. However, you can take multiple photographs at different exposure settings and combine the images in software afterwards to achieve the same result as a single photo with a larger dynamic range — that is to say, a high dynamic range (HDR) image.

Thank you!!

I’m in my twenties and strongly prefer to read on paper over any screen. Partly because it’s easier on my eyes and partly because I like to markup the paper. I have yet to use something as seamless as a pen and paper for that.

Well, this is still in realm of using your own printer for the intended purpose.

How many times researchers go find article PDF on notnamed site, then print it for reading and annotating, just as one would do with a copy from a printed journal.

+1 for reading on iPad. Especially the 12.9”. Not sure it’ll replace my eInk reader for pulp fiction, but for technical materials, it’s usually more convenient than going to my shelf to grab a physical book.

It certainly adds insult to injury that the ACM Digital Library redesign from a couple years back has been a huge downgrade in usability across the board.

Yeah, it is quite annoying. A very typical flow is to find the papers that cite a given paper, and that is now hidden beyond a 3-click flow that involves an icon and a weird popover sidebar. Just show the citing papers as a list already, like it used to. It's clear that whoever designed the site doesn't actually use it. Don't get me started on all the completely unnecessary stuff that floats around in response to scrolling. Just stop with that crap already.

Yeah, but now it's easier to crosspost the good articles to HN :)

Luckily Communications will remain being printed:

> The magazines Communications of the ACM, ACM InRoads, interactions, and XRDS: Crossroads will continue in print.

> it's impossible to have multiple documents open side by side.

if that was the main problem, the problem could solved with some investment be equipping oneself with multiple e-readers.

The speed of flipping pages is annoying but improving year after year and IMO it's borderline acceptable nowadays if all you need is to go on the next page.

But I totally agree on the utter unbrowsability of e-books; and for technical content that matters a lot

> it's borderline acceptable nowadays if all you need is to go on the next page.

Technical documents are exactly the sort of thing with which you need to repeatedly flip back and forth to random pages of the document, checking figures, tables, definitions etc. That experience is intrinsically difficult to manage on an e-reader.

Digital bookmarks, as well as search features are better in in electronic documents though. And the interesting emerging category of "chatting with documents" offers some interesting capabilities. The UX isn't there yet in the form-factor of an e-reader - but it already there for desktop based access of technical documents for may use cases.

all those features you listed are immensely useful and enrich the way we access technical documentation, to the point of often outweigh the losses. That said, I do dream of a future when one could have a searchable book you can talk to but also use your hands in a natural way to flip trough the pages, hold your place with fingers etc. Our current touch screen gestures only scratch at the surface of what our hands can do, by focusing only on what you can do with the tips of the fingers.