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back to article What's on the mind of the Freetard eBookworm?

To Mayfair, where at the crack of dawn we find a huddle of eBook technology companies and investors. On display were a couple of prototype readers, with next generation screen tech, and a sober assessment of the market. I'll report on this later. But in the presentations I saw a Top 10 downloads chart that's too good not to …

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  1. Alex-TheManfromUncle
    Pint

    So basically..

    ... a freetard i a lonely someone that tries to find women, and has a penchant for solar DIY..?

    Glad you enabled the comments for this one Andy... ;-)

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  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Going by the numbers..

    Reads 9 - as way of meeting attractice members of the opposite sex

    Reads 1 & 6 - to try and get some inspiration for thier compositions

    Reads 8 - as that's the only way they'll get thier 'target' to try those poses

    Reads 3 - in the hopes of getting lucky with thier muse

    Reads 2 - to touch up the nude photo's, impressing the target of thier affections allowing 3 to be put into practice

    Re-reads 1

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    While at mayfair

    What's the status of the fifty dollar ebook reader?

    As to ebooks, mine are mostly technical references (programming languages, algorithms, networks and systems programming, what have you) and so on, that I then forget to read, though a few are well-used and tend to be copies of paper works I already have. Sometimes a pdf or djvu turns out to be easier to lug around together with a laptop than the original thousand page tome. Some are out-of-print and put up online by the authors themselves. Some are on the shortlist to buy (as paper books). Some get tossed. Most so far stay unsorted.

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  4. Quxy
    WTF?

    Freetard, or just clueless?

    Odd choice for the top spot: why should anyone search for torrents for books that are in the public domain -- and why should this worry publishers? Certainly "The Kama Sutra of Vatsyayana" has long been out of copyright, regardless of how popular it might still be. Or was this "The Illustrated Edition"?

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    1. Jerome 0
      Reply Icon

      Why so?

      For the same reason people torrent anything, copyrighted material or otherwise: the fact that it's the easiest way to locate and download the file. Were you under the impression that the bit-torrent protocol was only used for illegal activity?

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    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Flame

      Almost like I am back in high school

      Kama Sutra was one of the most popular text files being traded on Apple II and IBM XT floppy disks. On par only with LoadRunner and Castle Wolfenstein. It is amazing how little have the interests of humanity moved ever since.

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    3. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      The Kama <yawn> Sutra

      I dunno 'bout the illustrations (I don't believe the original was illustrated), but having read it (in German translation) I would have to say it wasn't what I would regard as spellbinding erotic literature; rather, it was more of a mildly interesting glimpse into the mind of a very different era and culture as seen by someone obsessed with arranging things into neat, artificial categories. 'Twas full of stuff like, "If A does B with one leg extended toward the ceiling, this is called Bending the Bow."

      With that in mind, it's quite a puzzle as to why this should be the #1 "pirated" e-book.

      As to why pirate something that's public domain, I think the answer is that most modern translations (i.e., anything new enough to be in machine-readable form) are still under copyright by the translators. Sir Richard Francis Burton's "translation" of 1883 is still in print, and thus might be an exception. (That one should be out of copyright, but copyright practice is somewhat weird, so who knows?)

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  5. Sean Timarco Baggaley
    Coat

    It'll end in beers.

    The dearth of alcohol-related reading material in that chart is *cough* sobering.

    (Thankyew, thankyew! I'm here all evening! Try the fish!)

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  6. Ian Stephenson
    Alert

    No illustrations, though, please

    Then how are we supposed to apply (2) and (9)?

    Guess we'll just have to use (6)!

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Adobe Photoshop Secrets?

    I think that's a mistake... maybe the list got mixed up with something else... that book has no reason to be there. Seriously.

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    1. El Zed
      Reply Icon

      Maybe its not quite the Photoshop Secrets you're looking for

      Big problem with these sort of list things based on what BT sites etc say are their most downloaded/active files/torrents, but when is a pdf file not a pdf file?

      Have been, *ahem*, bitten on more than one occasion by downloading something of a technical nature from a p2p network only to discover it to be pr0n (albeit technically interesting, but not the CAM stuff I was looking for).

      Face it, any pdf file, especially anything technical, being seeded by well over a couple of hundred people usually ain't a pdf file...(especially this Photoshop thingie, had a look at it once, istr it wasn't that special)

      Should add, this goes for a lot more than just pdf files. I've seen a rather amusing Orcad iso file on one of the p2p networks which mplayer then reveals to be, ach, you get the picture..

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    2. Tim #3
      Reply Icon

      Accidents?

      What's the chance that freetards thought they were downloading a software suite, or a grumbleflick as appropriate, and got an ebook accidentally instead?

      @ AC 15:07, Have you never been asked upstairs to check out someone's collection of Leonardos, or to admire their solar panels? Just one remaining now.

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    3. Bob Bobson
      Reply Icon
      Pirate

      photoshop

      Well after you've gone to the effort of warezing CS4 with the intention of putting a hilarious logo on a picture of your pet, you've got to learn how to use the damn thing (red 24 point impact, 4 point stroke)

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  8. The Indomitable Gall

    The full story.

    Immature sexually frustrated nerd reads teenage trash -- number 7.

    Wants woman: needs photo for lonely hearts site -- number 9.

    Photo not having desired effect: needs to "enhace" his package -- number 2.

    Woman bites -- now needs to talk his way round the obvious doctoring -- number 8.

    Failed attempts using info from number 1.

    Falls back to number 3 for simpler explanation.

    As stated, this leads to a domestic situation requiring number 10

    Woman goes on line looking for number 4.

    In the process she discovers number 6 on the hard drive.

    Woman calls power company and broadband provider demanding immediate disconnection.

    Man uses remaining battery in laptop and neighbour's unsecured wifi to download number ´5 and restore his access to number 6 and its ilk...

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  9. Hate2Register
    FAIL

    Need to know..

    It's need to know, and I didn't need to know. Anyone who's visited Project Gutenberg knows of these top 10 lists.

    Anyway, everyone likes free books except you, the paytard.

    What next? Will newspapers sue people who pick up and read a discarded newspaper, for non-licencing. If paytards like you had there way...

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  10. David Webb
    Joke

    7 - Twilight

    Twilight, it's about a guy who pretends to be a 17 year old kid and even fakes his way to get into school with other underage teenagers. He then hit's on an underage girl before finally revealing his age to be over 100 years putting the teenage girl into dangerous situations with another stalker (after he stalks her himself, including sneaking into her bedroom to watch her sleep and probably stealing her panties to wear). It's one of the modern dangers of the internet age that, people lying about their age to hit on underage girls.......

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  11. Petrea Mitchell
    Pirate

    A complete narrative...

    1, 3, 6, and 9 are what's on their minds. 2 and 8 is them attempting to put it into practice. 4, 5, and 10 because they're a tad paranoid, and like saving money in other ways beside getting free books.

    7... okay, having trouble with this one. Maybe a noble but misguided attempt to figure out what goes on in women's minds.

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  12. Gav
    Megaphone

    Freetard top 10 feedback

    1 - "FAIL! This is lame, but I thought I'd read about it on 4chan"

    2 - "LOL! I can cut 'n' paste my teacher's head onto this body"

    3 - "Step 1: Get a girlfriend. Damn."

    4 - "OMG! I didn't know he was a f*g!"

    5 - "Oops. I thought this was Fall Out Boy's new album"

    6 - "I just did a search on 'porn' and I got this crap"

    7 - "I thought with was a video stream. But it's all just words!"

    8 - "LAME. Does not show mind control or list of drugs you could use."

    9 - "WIN! They are nekkid!"

    10 - "My Mom found the above and now I have chores and am grounded FOREVER!"

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