Reconsideration of Values

It has been just over a year since I started this blog. The core idea was to examine the phenomenon of digital technology gradually replacing the physical objects it is based on, concentrating especially on ebooks. How's it all going?

I still don't have a Kindle, but I did try out the Kindle app on my late smartphone (broke in a moment of frustration and abandoned). I downloaded 'Ulysess' and read bits of it at work in spare moments, but then I started playing online chess on my phone again and stopped reading Ulysees. It was fun for a while, and also it's looks slightly less lazy if you're sitting in the staff room looking at your phone. If you've got a large book in your lap, you might as well have your feet up.

Max, the French boy at work, has a Kindle. He brings it in to work to read in spare moments. He has read all the Game of Thrones books on it. I suppose it's handy because he can easily get French language books. I wonder whether the flour of the bakery will affect the Kindle, but then they do seem like very robust things, surprisingly close to imitating non-computers.

Though I don't want a Kindle and still regularly read physical books, I'm considering publishing a novella I have written as an ebook. It's so easy. You just upload it to Amazon with a picture and there it is: anyone can buy it and read it. I have misgivings, one of which is the fact that Amazon don't pay enough taxes and I've been trying to avoid them. It's certainly not the ultimate dream of getting published, but it might be a way to get there. Perhaps one must embrace technology wholeheartedly or not at all.

The Luzhin Defense Defence

I got 'The Luhzin Defence' by Vladimir Nabokov out from the library. I had just read 'Lolita' by the same author and enjoyed it very much, and on a whim I thought I'd read another of his works. It was concise and poetic, a lyrical exploration of the complex metaphorical and metaphysical powers of chess. I hope to write a longer post about the book for Pixelled Wheels World of Books. 

As I came to the final page of the afterword by author, John Updike, I discovered this note:

Look at that indignation! It almost seems like a threat. 'Watch out, Updike! Bad move.' Imagine how angry you would have to be to write a note like that and put in a library book, for everyone to see, more so than if you just posted on a Nabokov message board online. 

The afterword that this reader was so enraged by was mostly complimentary - in fact I thought it was a bit over praiseworthy in places - and only slightly critical towards the end, concerning the young Nabokov's weaknesses. I suppose some people get very protective over their heroes.

As it happens, I know who wrote the note, because he wrote it on what was presumably his library ticket. It says he got the book out at 11:03 on 9th August 2011 along with 'True at First Light' and 'Labels: A Mediterranean j…'. I won't reveal his name.

Google Glass As Extended Mind

Using Google Glass, the glasses which project an interactive digital interface onto your field of vision, is like being the Terminator or Iron Man. Instead of looking at what's in your environment and using just your brain to interpret the information, now you have a computer always there to do it for you. You don't need to try and remember something manually, you can just look it up on your ever-present search engine. You can say 'google maps' and a map system appears over the real roads, then you say 'go to Fleet Street' (or something) and Google Glass shows you arrows to guide you. You don't have to work out your own position on the map or orientate yourself, you don't even have to get your phone out.

We have a situation where it becomes so convenient to use technology, it would be illogical and highly inefficient to use our own brains to work something out. It would be the stubbornness of a sentimental  Luddite. You don't try and remember your shopping list in your mind; you write it down, you accept the limitations of your brain and seek help from technology. The rationale for using Google Glass is just a simple extrapolation of this logic.

David Chalmers, philosopher, talks about 'the extended mind' (see video below). He thinks that we should not see ever-present technology as separate to our minds but as an active part of them. If we always have the technology with us, then it may as well be an extension of our brains. It's not lazy to look something up on Google as opposed to trying to remember it, it's efficient, it's evolution. Google's memory is your memory. 

When Google Glass becomes widespread, technology will finally be part of us, one step closer to a ubiquitous chip in the brain. Futurologists of the past got it wrong: the robots won't become sentient and take over, we will become robots ourselves, and this might be a good thing.

'Le Papier a un Grand Avenir'

The case in favour of real vs. digital made by a French toilet paper company. 'Paper has a great future.'

The Insidious Power of Google Books?

Following on from the 'libraries of the future' cartoon below, the library of the closer, foreseeable near-future might well be 'Google Books'. 

There was a documentary on BBC Iplayer (it's not on there any more) about Google's quest to scan all the books existing in the world. It focussed on the illegality of Google's venture - they didn't ask the permission of any of the authors - but also on the power it would give Google. 

Books are information. Information is power. Not only will Google have all this  information about us and our online activity, but they will have direct access to every page of every book in the world. What can they do with all this information? That's not completely clear. The implication is that they might have some evil world-conquering scheme in mind, and even if they don't at the moment, they would certainly have the potential for such domination, and that's scary enough.

Of course we must consider the potential for good in Google's scheme. The idea of having a library of every book ever goes back to Alexandria in 300BC, and it's a noble quest. Maybe Google just want to make the world a better place, a world where as much information as possible is available to everyone. If that is the case, we have nothing to worry about, but we must consider the possibility of our (or our children's) downfall at the hands of a powerful digital monopoly.

In the BBC Horizon documentary, impressive, dreadlocked technology prophet, Jaron Lanier leads the scaremongering, laughing at the ignorance of the old-world fools in charge who don't understand the future that is awaiting them if they don't do something about Google. And it is quite convincing. If the general tendency towards digitalisation continues, you can't help but believe we might all be putting ourselves in quite a vulnerable position by living our lives through the internet and leaving detailed digital crumb trails everywhere we go.

Read more about Google Books here.

Libraries of the future

Cartoon by Tom Gauld in the Saturday Guardian Review. Website here: http://myjetpack.tumblr.com/post/43399808071/a-book-of-my-cartoons-will-be-out-in-late-april