Unhappy Chairman

[melonhead]

Fcuk off kindles

lol!

Seriously though...kindles are brilliant for the world. Both for the enviornment( save the amazon) and also for the average user. Benefits all round. Apparently there is a colour one available now?

luckily i couldnt car less about the amazon, or the trees in general
i love books better than this entire planet
the though that in ten years most books wont be published in paper fills me with dread

[Royal Rother]

[FiNeRaIn]

luckily i couldnt car less about the amazon, or the trees in general
i love books better than this entire planet
the though that in ten years most books wont be published in paper fills me with dread

Whilst I agree the smell of a fresh book is quite lovely, this is the age where its all about practicality and convenience. Books are not convenient or practical in many scenarios, you also don't get much use out of them after the first time read. Times they are a changing melon. In 20 years kids won't know what books even were ' wtf you all had these paper things with 400 pages...how evil".

[Extended-Phenotype]

Fcuk off kindles

lol!

Seriously though...kindles are brilliant for the world. Both for the enviornment( save the amazon) and also for the average user. Benefits all round. Apparently there is a colour one available now?

luckily i couldnt car less about the amazon, or the trees in general
i love books better than this entire planet
the though that in ten years most books wont be published in paper fills me with dread

Horrible, ain't it? Finding an old book is like a little memory capsule of senses that a screen just can't recreate.

And to think we are swapping our once great libraries, full of free information written by experts, for google, full of treacle-piss written by c/nts.

Humankind passes the baton of evolution to technology, and stagnates.

[under the tin]

The coming of the bloody kindle highlights exactly why as a species we're making a royal f\/ck up of our planet.
We in the developed world can source virtually any manuscript written by absolutely anyone in any language you can care to think of, in an already portable format.
But oh no, that's not good enough. It's soooooooo yesterday.

Now, to enjoy literature, you need a little plastic box, crammed with scarce precious metals, that needs an ongoing supply of electricity, giving jobs to workers on the other side of the world.

"Oh, but I can store 90 novels on mine"

How many pairs of eyes have you got?

This is progress isn't it.
Kindle? phooey.
Dr. Seuss once alluded to this. You need a thneed.

[Terminal Boardom]

Fcuk off kindles

lol!

Seriously though...kindles are brilliant for the world. Both for the enviornment( save the amazon) and also for the average user. Benefits all round. Apparently there is a colour one available now?

What a load of old tosh! The trees around the Amazon are hardwood. The wood used to make paper is softwood. The Scandanavian paper industry manages its plantations the same way as a farmer does with crops. Do you know that for each tree harvested for paper that 3 are planted in its place?

The later comment regarding the precious metals in the manufacture of new technology is way more relevant if you want to talk about the environment.

[RoyalBlue]

He told workers that a pay cut of "more than 10% but not more than 20%" would be required.

Would be interesting to see how some of these badge kissing, "love the club" footballers would react in a similar position.

Like those badge kissing "love the club" footballers, I should imagine those workers that have value/talent will leave and join another employer, just as soon as they are able to.

And we all know what happens when you lose your most valuable/talented staff.

Were it that easy!.

Most printing operations these days work on the law of diminishing returns. Across the sector it's an industry in crisis and many of these places are leveraged to the hilt.

The £2 million the CEO of Goodhead reckons the Group is away from making a profit might as well be £20 million. The only way companies are making any profits - or in most cases minimising losses - is by cuttings costs. And that invariably involves staff reductions.

Newspaper and commericial print centres across the country are closing at an alarming late. There's nowhere for many of these valuable/talented staff to go, as the likes of David Holland know and exploit only too well.

The print industry still needs accountants (much as it pains me to say so!), IT staff, procurement specialists, sales people etc. all who have easily transferable skills and can work outside the print industry. It is likely the best of those will walk rather than face a 20% pay cut.

[RoyalBlue]

So, in a nutshell, the only profitable business that SJM has been involved in was when he set up Auto Trader in the 1970s/80s and sold his share for a reported £166m there or thereabouts. Meanwhile, the rest of his investments and businesses are all losing money hand over fist. Does this explain why he has never taken part in Dragons Den?

He got lucky once. End of!

I'm not his greatest fan (something of an understatement!) but even I would give him a bit more credit than just getting lucky. He spotted an opportunity and, I'm sure, put a tremendous amount of hard work in to ensure he maximised the potential of that opportunity.

It appears that, despite hard work, he hasn't been as successful in some of his other business ventures and I certainly don't think he is quite the brilliant businessman some make him out to be.

[Bowman's Quiver]

That depends on your running costs, doesn't it? The Metro doesn't even charge for it's paper and makes a great profit.

The Metro is a publisher. It outsources the printing (Trinty, Watford I think). That's a totally different ball game although even newspaper publishing is being hit by the perfect storm with little prospect of things getting better soon and it will certainly never return to the days it was a licence to print money.

[Bowman's Quiver]

That depends on your running costs, doesn't it? The Metro doesn't even charge for it's paper and makes a great profit.

It's a free newspaper, they probably outsource the printing, and take advantage of the market where there's not enough demand compared to the supply.
So they can print cheaply at placed like SJM's printing company, and make a profit.

Isn't the Metro published by the same group that publishes The Express? If so, they will have their own presses - as all newspaper publishers do. They may issue it as a loss leader or the advertising revenue generated covers the costs. Newsprint (the paper used) is crap quality and subsequently cheaper than the stuff that would be used to print a glossy magazine if you were comparing similar print runs.

Most newspaper publishers most certainly don't have their own presses. At national level maybe (not the Metro though) but even many of those that do have printing divisions are consolidating operations. Northcliffe and Harmsworth have shut a number of press centres down because they were considered unviable. A lot of that work has ended up at Didcot.

Meanwhile, the cost of printing has become prohibitively expensive for some of the smaller regional newspaper publishers in the market and they are closing down at an alarming rate. These are papers that have been in existence for over a hundred years or more in some cases. It's not the fault of the printers who are on their knees themselves. It's simply the cost of the raw materials (newsprint has gone up nearly 30% in 18 months alone) is killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

[marcusopp]

Ideal:

Printed newspapers are in fact dying.

>> Not denying print businesses are collapsing. Just stating the industry is not dead, profits are still there to be made and are being made by those who adjust their business model to cope with the new market.

Even the simpsons ran a gag a few years ago, where that "ha-ha" kid pointed at some newspaper dude and shouted "ha ha, your medium is dying!".

>> Wouldn’t know about that as I get my business and finance news from Peppa Pig.

What you think they're made from? Plastic.
Plastic comes from oil. Remember when you last filled your car up, £70. It was £35 a few years ago.
What are all these shitty things going to be made from then? At least wood is renewable. There will be a time when print comes back and plastiv will be like gold, because there's none left.

[Harpers So Solid Crew]

The print industry is shrinking, companies will have to go bust, simple supply and demand, some will survive and make profits, firms cannot keep losign money and survive.

[under the tin]

What you think they're made from? Plastic.
Plastic comes from oil. Remember when you last filled your car up, £70. It was £35 a few years ago.
What are all these shitty things going to be made from then?
At least wood is renewable. (Providing we dont oxf*rd the atmosphere up and stop planting trees)
There will be a time when print comes back and plastiv will be like gold, because there's none left.

Abso- oxf*rd lutely.
Mad Max is our future, if we're not careful

[melonhead]

luckily i couldnt car less about the amazon, or the trees in general
i love books better than this entire planet
the though that in ten years most books wont be published in paper fills me with dread

Whilst I agree the smell of a fresh book is quite lovely, this is the age where its all about practicality and convenience. Books are not convenient or practical in many scenarios, you also don't get much use out of them after the first time read. Times they are a changing melon. In 20 years kids won't know what books even were ' wtf you all had these paper things with 400 pages...how evil".

what is really so convenient about a kindle?
its about as big as a book in its case.
the only time i can see it being good is if youre on holiday being able to take multiple ebooks at a time- but theres no way id like leave mine by the pool when i went for a dip.
i like physically owning them, and piling them up on bookshelves. i often also read books numerous times.

and most importantly, when western civilisation inevitably collapses, your kindle will be worth less than a bit of firewood.
fcuk off kindles

[Royal Rother]

Can you not read a downloaded / kindled book more than once then?

[melonhead]

Can you not read a downloaded / kindled book more than once then?

i was answering the point in the post i quoted, which was its piojntless owning real books cos you only read them once anyway

[Royal Rother]

He didn't say that.

[M-U-R-T-Y]

He didn't say that.

Books are not convenient or practical in many scenarios, you also don't get much use out of them after the first time read.

[melonhead]

thats certainly the bit i was referring to anyway

but thankyou for showing an interest

[under the tin]

Can you not read a downloaded / kindled book more than once then?

Only if the kindle has sufficient charge in it's battery.
I'll let you know when my paperbacks need recharging.

More power to your elbow, Melonhead.
F\/ck off kindles. I don't need a thneed