Regarding music, I see albums as integral wholes, so I very rarely listen to a single track, and almost never use the "shuffle" feature of my music player.
When working, I just play an album in its entirety- I have about ~80 albums that I would say make up for 90% of the music I listen to (and I've been slowly but surely collecting the vinyls for these albums- there's something nice about owning a physical object containing the very essence of something I love). For this very reason, I have loved Spotify ever since I got in its early days beta, and have never gotten the appeal of services like Pandora/Rdio/etc.
I do have a quite large collection physical books, most of them on various academic topics. I wouldn't want to have them in a digital format: because of their low print runs, they are comparatively expensive and hard to find, so I have some (shameful) pride in my curated collection; additionally, it'd be hard to read them digitally because you often go back and forth between sections, which is a nightmare on a tablet.
I tried using a kindle for reading novels, and I really loved it; but after a year or so, I just naturally migrated back to physical paperbacks. Not sure why, but being able to have a nice curated collection on a bookshelf and being able to lend them painlessly definitely contributed.
Your point about magazines reminds me of all the magazines that I accumulated as a kid, that got thrown out by my parents when I moved because they would just pick up dust in the attic; oh, how I wish that I had scanned them before they did so! Sometimes I want to refer someone to some article I read years, if not decades ago, and I just can't find it because it was written in a magazine pre-ubiquitous web era.
Just a small note, I use Rdio. If it has Pandora like features, they are as off to the side as Spotify would have them. I only use Rdio to listen to whole albums I choose. Though no real reason for why Spotify/Rdio would be better than the other
I'm surprised that even old computer magazines are simply not available online. I subscribed to QST as a boy, I wish I had those now!
I hear what you say about expensive books, I have several that I was surprised to find out were worth more than $100. Those I just put at the back of the scan queue to decide later, there are plenty more $2 books to go first.
My comic book collection has vanished. Arggh.
One of the reasons I prefer my books digital now is I can blow them up on a large monitor - makes 'em easier to read with my old eyes. If my eyes get as bad as my dad's, I plan on installing a projector and blowing them up on the wall.
Regarding music, I see albums as integral wholes, so I very rarely listen to a single track, and almost never use the "shuffle" feature of my music player. When working, I just play an album in its entirety- I have about ~80 albums that I would say make up for 90% of the music I listen to (and I've been slowly but surely collecting the vinyls for these albums- there's something nice about owning a physical object containing the very essence of something I love). For this very reason, I have loved Spotify ever since I got in its early days beta, and have never gotten the appeal of services like Pandora/Rdio/etc.
I do have a quite large collection physical books, most of them on various academic topics. I wouldn't want to have them in a digital format: because of their low print runs, they are comparatively expensive and hard to find, so I have some (shameful) pride in my curated collection; additionally, it'd be hard to read them digitally because you often go back and forth between sections, which is a nightmare on a tablet. I tried using a kindle for reading novels, and I really loved it; but after a year or so, I just naturally migrated back to physical paperbacks. Not sure why, but being able to have a nice curated collection on a bookshelf and being able to lend them painlessly definitely contributed.
Your point about magazines reminds me of all the magazines that I accumulated as a kid, that got thrown out by my parents when I moved because they would just pick up dust in the attic; oh, how I wish that I had scanned them before they did so! Sometimes I want to refer someone to some article I read years, if not decades ago, and I just can't find it because it was written in a magazine pre-ubiquitous web era.