As to the margins issue, yeah that’s exactly what I was doing. I don’t know what’s up with that.

.entry-content img {
margin:0 15px 10px 0;
}

,you will get a margin of empty space 15 px from the right of the image and 10 px from the bottom of the image.

If you want to modify the margin an individual image, you can go to the image properties in the post edit page, click on “Advanced Settings” at the top, and then type into the “styles” field: “margin:0 15px 10px 0;”.

As for captions, I am not sure why you would have problems. Are you going to the image properties and typing entering a caption into the “Edit Image Caption” field? That seems to work for me.

I think that ebooks will take over for almost everyone in the long term. Books will be shoved to the very top and bottom of the market. But they’ll persist for the kind of people who don’t, as you seem to assume is necessary for the keeping of books, have a maid. Both of your posts seem to assume that I’m talking about the middle class and above. I’m not really. I’m talking about the lower middle class and the poor. People who do not have ipods still buy CDs. There are not a lot of them, but they’re still out there.

And I do think that libraries will necessitate some book production. I was not trying to draw a line between libraries and personal book ownership; I was connecting libraries and a usefulness that books have and ebooks do not. I was trying to point out a way that libraries share information that ebooks do not, and particularly, a section of the populous that they reach that ereaders will not get to for a long while yet. Some day ereaders will be as prevalent as cell phones, but I don’t think it’s going happen as quickly. I really don’t, there is not the same kind of necessity in a portable digital media station as there is in a phone you can keep in your pocket. Now, when the phone in everyone’s pocket is an iphone that changes the game a bit. You could read a book on that, it’s uncomfortable though it can be done, but it raises the issue of the libraries themselves. I think that libraries will figure out how to store and loan ebooks, but I do not think they will be particularly quick on the up take. On the whole, they don’t have the money to buy the servers and pay someone to set them up and keep them going. Libraries also lend CDs, DVDs, and even VHS. Most of that content is consumed digitally now. How many libraries do you know of with a digital lending service for music and movies? I think that for ebook users amazon and itunes are going to be the libraries of the future, as itunes and netflix are now for music and movies. I think that most people are going to get used to paying for their book downloads without batting an eyelid. I think that someone is going to realize that people are not going to want to store all the books they download on their e-readers forever. So for a small monthly fee you can download, one, two, four, five, even seven books on your ereader (depending on your payment plan) and when you delete one you can download another! Simple as that!

But back to what I was really talking about, I think that libraries will persist because when I go to the New York Public library, it is not filled with the kind of people who own ipods. Either because they can’t or choose not to, but they’re there. And will continue to be there for a very long time. Perhaps my argument is less that libraries will keep books going, but that books must keep going for the libraries. Because I really don’t want libraries, aka free information available for anyone who can read regardless of ownership of any other secondary device, to be phased out by the digital future. That’s what it all boils down to for me.

You could imagine that in the long term library collections will be almost completely digital, except for those monographs and leather bound tomes, and will instead be places filled with light where children go for reading circle and students go for the quiet and little old ladies go to chat with librarians; who are still sitting desks but now instead of running through the stacks to find that old lady’s book, the librarian can just load it onto her iKindle. And that all sounds fine. It really does. But it’s not coming anytime soon. And it still won’t be here even when it’s technologically viable. Because it will not be socially viable for a good long time yet.

As to your Kindle on the T, you may not mean ‘look at my brain’ when you use it, but I assure you that is part of what you are projecting; along with ‘look at my money’ even if you did get it for free. Even if you’re reading Twilight, there’s the assumption that you’ve got enough reading going on in that head of yours for so many other books that you need this new fangled digital book thang and enough disposable cash do go out and get one. Just as much as you are projecting ‘I am a stylish young person’ when you wear your pea coat, or ‘I am a design person’ when you wear your trendy glasses. That slight but ever present social projection. But don’t worry too much, the kindle associations are changing pretty rapidly. I’m sure you won’t have to put up with the minor social embarrassment, that I have recently alerted you to (sorry), much longer.

Now, what kind of comments to I have to write about your cruise to get you blogging again?

- This is essentially a question of predicting the future, and how much farther in advance. The argument that books will always remain economically more accessible thank ebooks is difficult to support when you look very far into the future. Infrastructures will change and that takes time. The biggest problem with books is that they take up space and material resources, both of which are finite. On the other hand, digital storage means are supposedly doubling in efficiency every 2 years. And text is cheap byte-wise. Just think, expensive would it be to keep a vinyl collection vs. iTunes? Paying for storage, buying a house with a basement, paying a maid to dust it all off? Furthermore, costs will only multiply as the production capacities to support the physical give way to the digital.

- There’s a gap in your argument about ownership and libraries. I don’t believe libraries have ever facilitated ownership, unless you’re into paying fines. Really what a library is doing is “licensing” you the book for a set term. I think ebooks can be quite compatible with the whole idea of lending. New systems would have to be invented obviously, but there would be interesting benefits? Book is due? It automatically disappears off your device unless renewed, freeing it to go to someone else’s device. I would personally love that. Imagine in the future where a device as ubiquitous and accessible as a basic mobile phone will serve as the e-reader of tomorrow. This scenario is not totally unworkable.

Now I am self-conscious about reading my Kindle on the T, even though it allows me to flip pages single-handedly, freeing the other to cling for dear life with. I am not saying look at my brain. For all you know I could be reading torrid pulp romance. How would you know? You can’t see the cover =)