Re: Common Sense Prevails In Georgia

In article
<gmgravesnos-D687F0.21045510082005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
George Graves <gmgravesnos@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> In article <msyKe.1395$XL3.505@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
> TheLetterK <theletterk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

[snip]

> > In 60, many people might not even know what one is. They're
> > *obsolete*. They serve *no function*. They're inherently limited means
> > of communication that have outlived their usefulness.
>
> I see no reason to believe that would be true. It's like this,
> electronics has caused a revolution in film making. People can build
> libraries of the worlds great films without actually touching the film
> stock. DVD has made that possible, BUT, there are thousands of movies
> that have never been converted to DVD and never will be. Why? Because
> they aren't very popular. Popularity decides which works get transferred
> to DVD, and the same would be true of the written word. Do we want a
> world where we are limited in our access to the world's literature based
> on popularity? There are millions of books that will never be converted
> to electronic form, yet many have existed for more than a millennium in
> that *obsolete* form that serves no purpose and has outlived its
> usefulness.

It's not as bad with books as with movies, though, because with books
there seem to be many more efforts to just digitize entire collections
for the sake of simply having them, while with movies odds are something
won't be digitized unless someone thinks it'll make money.

> And as a personal aside. I myself HATE to read long text documents off
> of a computer screen. I usually print them out and sit in a comfy chair
> to read them. I don't know if anyone else shares this characteristic
> with me, but it's one reason why electronic books don't sit well with me.

Two recommendations:

1) Try reading off a good palmtop. Most have screens that are
significantly higher DPI than computer screens.

2) Try reading on your computer screen with Tofu:
<http://homepage.mac.com/asagoo/tofu/index.html> and make the background
color gray rather than full white. Tofu also provides a service that
lets you open the selected text with it -- great for reading long web
pages.

It's possible neither of those will work for you, but they're worth a
shot.

Of course, electronic paper will solve this problem once and for all.

--
"It's in our country's interests to find those who would do harm to us and get
them out of harm's way."
-- George W. Bush in Washington, D.C., April 28, 2005
.

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