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Comment by mdwrigh2 | Hacker News Reader

And now you know someone who does read his monthly copy of CACM from cover to cover. And I pay extra for it (again, student pricing doesn't include physical copies -- something I think they should extend to professional members).

So are you suggesting that I should have to print it out because people shouldn't be forced to pay for it? Or because I'm using some dead trees? Because if it's the second, there about a million more useful places you could recommend people cut down consumption, than on my monthly magazine with about 100 pages, that, again, I pay for.

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CACM always seemed like a waste. In the 80s every other issue seemed to be full of "women in computing" and "minorities in computing," and while that's a worthy cause, I got mighty sick of it.

Most of the CACM articles were technically weak or about subjects I had no interest in. I would have been happy to not receive it (better, get some other SIG newsletter instead).

In the era of digital distribution, I just print out the stuff I want on dead trees and leave the rest as bits.

CACM was reformed a couple of years ago. In one issue, it became vastly better and it has sustained its quality since that time pretty well. There are always two journal articles with nice introductions for those of us who don't follow their respective fields regularly.

The rest of the articles tend to be pretty solid too; there's very little IT drivel or academic navel-gazing left. It probably doesn't hurt to have some awareness of what's going on in academia even for those of us who work in industry anyway.

Not that any of this really refutes your main point that digital distribution is inherently more personalizable.

I think you're talking about different things-- there's the monthly CACM magazine, and then there are the huge books of conference proceedings and journals.

I have enough SIGOPS conference proceedings to make a nice coffee table ;p They are quite ridiculous in size and 95% of it I don't usually read.

Perhaps. I'll agree that the huge conference books are pretty useless (though I can see why university libraries want them), and not something I'd ever purchase. Those papers I _do_ print out. But I did specify monthly magazine in my original comment.

1. CACM is more of a magazine than a journal or conference proceeding.

2. You aren't paying for all the externalities associated with your choices, so I wouldn't be so sure you are truly paying for your 100 odd pages. Maybe you could look into a KindleDX or something similar for your mobile reading pleasure?

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