[mdp]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

Not sure where you're going with this, or what sort of comment you thought I was making about Japan?

'High tech' and 'civilized' are not synonyms, to me anyway

Sorry for the delay.
The poster that triggered yours wrote he «consider[s] that Japan is a very "hi-tech" country but still having so many bookstores just boggles my mind where people are still reading printed books & buying them».
My answer contained references to your replies but reacted to the grounds of such "boggling". People are still reading printed books and buying them because yes, why not? It depends on those bunny quotes embracing "hi-tech" what the poster thought: "advanced" cannot detrimental to sales; "fatuus" is probably not a faithful image of the Country.

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

But they are not the high tech, 'twenty years ahead of the West' dynamo they were in the eighties. From what I've read and watched elsewhere, they think the USA is very high tech.

I would have thought differently considering their GDP curves. In general, I would have considered them "an island": in Artificial Intelligence, I am intrigued on how they developed advanced fuzzy logic systems, that may kind of present them as specialized. In other words, a few elements make me think of them as progressing in directions that may not be adhering to the global ones (happily, still some diversity under the sun).

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Originally Posted by ZodWallop

I dunno. That clerk seems to have me figured out pretty well.

I am in first line to defend the rights of Exploration (vs Exploitation), hence my defence at length in this thread and elsewhere of the Bookstore as the Place, the opportunity, the service, to check what is available.
But Exploration is otium and Exploitation is work, so if somebody comes and ask for that one Java text praised by Gosling it cannot be dreamed that he can be served or proposed a different text, especially not one about Python or C, and especially not a book about honey based pastry or a XIX century feuilleton novel, and especially not a car or a cabbage or a chest of drawers. A proper place can serve you what you want/need. Limited collections are for leisure.