Conversation With A Geek
Posted 29 October 2008 in Strange Conversations
NICK: I’ve discovered a new way to read the old classics.
ME: The what?
NICK: The old classics.
ME: I don’t know what you mean by that.
NICK: You know—books written more than three years ago.
ME: Ah. So, “the classics,” then.
NICK: Yes.
ME: How, then?
NICK: An iPhone app.
ME: Right.
(Pause.)
ME: But it’s not as though you needed an easier way—they’re scattered all over the house!
NICK: Yes, but if it’s on a computer, it’s more interesting.
Share your thoughts [2]
1
heretic wrote at Oct 30, 08:37 AM
You have to take the Cult Of Apple into account. Everything is worthwhile so long as it fits on an iPhone screen ;)
If you can multi-touch the classics, you can sell an app… “double touch Jane Austen! finger scroll your way through War and Peach!”
I suspect Nick would also contend that the classics aren’t scattered around the bus…
2
Catriona wrote at Oct 30, 09:27 AM
(On another note, “War and Peach” is the funniest typo I’ve seen all day. I bet it’s shorter, too . . .)
Those are, essentially, Nick’s arguments, except there’s nothing to stop him taking a flesh-and-blood (so to speak) book onto the bus, and he does so when he has a new Charles Stross or Steven Brust.
It just doesn’t make any sense to me how reading on that tiny little screen is easier than reading a paperback. And it never will.