Hamlet's BlackBerry (and hinges)

taglines · 12-09-2009, 01:31 AM

William Powers is a well-known media critic, used to write weekly columns for the National Journal, who in 2007 published a 75-page essay for a Harvard think tank concerned with the future of newspapers and journalism, with a very eye-catching title: "Hamlet's BlackBerry" and subtitled "Paper is Eternal."

You can read the essay online for free in pdf versions or print it out on paper via a simple Google search. You might wonder why Powers called his essay "Hamlet's BlackBerry". It has somethhing to do with some old technology from the Middle Ages that was called an "erasable tablet" and I think Hamlet spoke of one these tablets in one of his monologues.

[Google "erasable tablets" or "erasable tables" and you will see more, especially at Wikipedia.]

Mr Powers' essay caught the attention of so many people in the newspaper and publishing industry, from editors to reporters to literary agents to book editors that, as things happen, a major New York publishing house asked him if he could expand his 75-page essay into a book-length volume and the book will be published in hardback sometime in 2010, not sure of the date yet.

It might have the same title; it might have a new title.

Powers is, of course, a big fan and booster of paper, but he also understands the Digital Age we are living in and sees the potential for e-readers as well. He is an observer of the scene, and a very good writer and researcher. The essay he wrote was excellent, as you will see when you read it, and the book will be even better and more thorough, I am sure.

He is pro-ereaders, too, and believes that digital can do some things better than paper, as you can see in this snippet from the [May 23, 2008] NPR interview linked to below. And see his take on how door hinges never went the way of the dodo bird, as many people had predicted they would. And see his last bolded statement below.

http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2008/05/23/03

[hinges excerpt here:

WILLIAM POWERS: ..... there are many old-fashioned devices that people have been predicting would go away for generations. I cite a professor from California named Paul Duguid who talks about the hinge. Futurists have been predicting the death of the hinge for generations.

NPR's BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS]

WILLIAM POWERS: Science-fiction movies since time immemorial, and stories, have always had sliding doors, doors that disappear into walls.

BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS]

WILLIAM POWERS: No hinges.

BOB GARFIELD: Shoo-shoom! Yeah.

WILLIAM POWERS: Hinges are old-fashioned. Doors that are hinges take up space needlessly and so forth. And yet the hinge lives on because hinged doors do things for people that they like. They are expressive. You can slam doors. You can use doors to send messages. There's something about hinges that continue to work for us.

And I argue in [my essay from 2007] - and I know many other people sort of feel this, I think, in their guts when they use paper - there is something about paper that really, really works that has worked for 2,000 years and it's going to be very hard to replace it.

BOB GARFIELD: Couldn't this all come down just to the mundane issue of cost, that it's just a lot cheaper to do things digitally than to deforest the landscape?

WILLIAM POWERS: Yes. That could well kill off paper. I think it is already killing off certain kinds of paper media. And, in fact, I get into this in the essay. There are kinds of content that don't require paper. And I actually think that most of what newspapers do, the breaking news function, is much better suited to digital media. And this is why people have migrated to the Web for breaking news, and are moving away from newspapers. That intuitively makes perfect sense to me.

FlorenceArt · 12-09-2009, 08:45 AM

There were clay and wax tablets that could be erased and re-used (unless, for the clay tablets, you baked them, in which case the writing became permanent). I don't know if they were still in use during the Middle Ages.

Thank you for the info, it's nice to read about a rational and balanced view for a change

12-09-2009, 01:31 AM	#1
taglines Banned Posts: 96 Karma: 334 Join Date: Nov 2009 Device: nook	Hamlet's BlackBerry (and hinges) William Powers is a well-known media critic, used to write weekly columns for the National Journal, who in 2007 published a 75-page essay for a Harvard think tank concerned with the future of newspapers and journalism, with a very eye-catching title: "Hamlet's BlackBerry" and subtitled "Paper is Eternal." You can read the essay online for free in pdf versions or print it out on paper via a simple Google search. You might wonder why Powers called his essay "Hamlet's BlackBerry". It has somethhing to do with some old technology from the Middle Ages that was called an "erasable tablet" and I think Hamlet spoke of one these tablets in one of his monologues. [Google "erasable tablets" or "erasable tables" and you will see more, especially at Wikipedia.] Mr Powers' essay caught the attention of so many people in the newspaper and publishing industry, from editors to reporters to literary agents to book editors that, as things happen, a major New York publishing house asked him if he could expand his 75-page essay into a book-length volume and the book will be published in hardback sometime in 2010, not sure of the date yet. It might have the same title; it might have a new title. Powers is, of course, a big fan and booster of paper, but he also understands the Digital Age we are living in and sees the potential for e-readers as well. He is an observer of the scene, and a very good writer and researcher. The essay he wrote was excellent, as you will see when you read it, and the book will be even better and more thorough, I am sure. He is pro-ereaders, too, and believes that digital can do some things better than paper, as you can see in this snippet from the [May 23, 2008] NPR interview linked to below. And see his take on how door hinges never went the way of the dodo bird, as many people had predicted they would. And see his last bolded statement below. http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/2008/05/23/03 [hinges excerpt here: WILLIAM POWERS: ..... there are many old-fashioned devices that people have been predicting would go away for generations. I cite a professor from California named Paul Duguid who talks about the hinge. Futurists have been predicting the death of the hinge for generations. NPR's BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] WILLIAM POWERS: Science-fiction movies since time immemorial, and stories, have always had sliding doors, doors that disappear into walls. BOB GARFIELD: [LAUGHS] WILLIAM POWERS: No hinges. BOB GARFIELD: Shoo-shoom! Yeah. WILLIAM POWERS: Hinges are old-fashioned. Doors that are hinges take up space needlessly and so forth. And yet the hinge lives on because hinged doors do things for people that they like. They are expressive. You can slam doors. You can use doors to send messages. There's something about hinges that continue to work for us. And I argue in [my essay from 2007] - and I know many other people sort of feel this, I think, in their guts when they use paper - there is something about paper that really, really works that has worked for 2,000 years and it's going to be very hard to replace it. BOB GARFIELD: Couldn't this all come down just to the mundane issue of cost, that it's just a lot cheaper to do things digitally than to deforest the landscape? WILLIAM POWERS: Yes. That could well kill off paper. I think it is already killing off certain kinds of paper media. And, in fact, I get into this in the essay. There are kinds of content that don't require paper. And I actually think that most of what newspapers do, the breaking news function, is much better suited to digital media. And this is why people have migrated to the Web for breaking news, and are moving away from newspapers. That intuitively makes perfect sense to me. Last edited by taglines; 12-09-2009 at 01:34 AM.

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12-09-2009, 08:45 AM	#2
FlorenceArt High Priestess Posts: 5,761 Karma: 5042529 Join Date: Jul 2008 Location: Montreuil sous bois, France Device: iPad Pro 9.7, iPhone 6 Plus	There were clay and wax tablets that could be erased and re-used (unless, for the clay tablets, you baked them, in which case the writing became permanent). I don't know if they were still in use during the Middle Ages. Thank you for the info, it's nice to read about a rational and balanced view for a change

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