[ExI] Post-Mortal Syndrome

spike spike66 at comcast.net
Sun Jul 15 21:50:43 UTC 2007


> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien Broderick
>...
> 
> ... I suspect a lot of people
> are too used to reading a paperback when and where they wish...
> 
> Damien Broderick


Ja, but consider that this effect will surely be reversed RSN.  The soft
copy medium has some critical advantages, at least one of which is obvious
to me as presbyopia set in when I was aged 40 years ten minutes.  The soft
copy can be adjusted to any size font one wishes, using the wonderfully
competent and inexpensive flat panel displays that technology has generously
bestowed upon those of us fortunate enough to be alive today.  

Another advantage is that one can do a universal search with soft copy for a
single paragraph or sentence.

The RSN is for wearable computers, which seem to have stalled for the past
few years.  Real Soon Now we might reasonably expect good wearable displays
in which we can walk about, sit anywhere and read our books, hands free.  In
those displays I expect the afore-mentioned freedom of font and search
ability.

Such a device would allow us to carry much of our personal libraries with us
as well, but allow me one more point, perhaps the most important one.

I have been thinking about trying a combination of novel and adventure game,
in which one guides the story line to some extent.  My yet-unpublished story
has a lot of different characters, 8 main players, at least 20 other smaller
parts and perhaps fifty bit players, most of them composites based on
friends from college.  If written in traditional paperback, it would be a
Michener-esque tome, which no one has the time or patience to read in these
modern times.

In any story, one has one's favorite personalities.  It be cool to be able
to filter a story, to follow the adventures of one or two characters.  We
could have the software keep track of what material one has already read,
then keep offering more detail on one's chosen characters, or go on to
others at will.  Then reading a novel becomes more like doing a modern
google search, nibbling at one's areas of interest but not trying to
actually absorb the entire contents of the internet.

Such a format requires soft copy and specialized software.

spike


  






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