Open Thread: Douglas Adams and eReaders

If you like Douglas Adams and eReaders, you may find this delightful, if a bit staticky.

It's always pleasing to me when a writer predicts the technological future. 

OPEN THREAD BELOW!

12 comments:

Will Wildman said...

My own predictive hope for technological development is/was that cellphone interconnectivity would eventually get linked up to government participation. Handwaving the billion security concerns, I think it'd be cool if we could have regular and low-cost referenda on a regular basis and everyone was just a thumbprint-on-their-phone away from casting their vote. (This would of course not eliminate the need for actual voting stations, for various reasons, but participatory democracy is a good thing that it'd be nice if we had more of.)

---

I think I have set upon my August writing goal, which will be a bit of NaNo rebellion - I really must stop this business of unfinished stories, so my goal is to write a complete story arc ranging between 40K and 50K. Reaching 50K is secondary to actually having an ending. If time permits, I will make up the difference with random short scenes of varying canonical value.

Anyway, because I don't want to be too emotionally invested in Making It Perfect (because my goal has very quantifiable parameters) I'm hauling a cast of characters and a setting out of my high school era. It concerns a bunch of adventuring heroes who got sick of the sword-and-sorcery tumult out in the wider world and towns getting rolled over by ogres or burned to the ground by imperial armies, and decided to settle down with their wealth and start building a city that would actually be peaceful. They handle their shift to administration and bureaucracy with varying levels of ease - the templar and the channeller are fine with books and councils and meetings, the wererat and the Priest of Sun and Steel are rather less so.

At the moment, I am just brainstorming issues that would come up in attempting to grow and administrate a peaceful city in the sort of merciless fantasy-kitchen-sink sort of land where every traveller's origin story seems to start with the tragic obliteration of their tribe/hometown/royal family.

This is the sort of thing I suspect Ramblites would be really good at if the inclination struck. It's not quite the type of thing that I would line up with Sorcerers & Secretaries; the administrative side will probably not play a huge role (not least because ugh there is nothing so boring as writing a committee meeting - I have tried and my skills are most definitely not yet up to the task) but I do want it to provide impetus. Possibly multiple impetuses. Impeti. Hippos.

Smilodon said...

I have tried, so far unsuccessfully, to convince people that they need to write "Don't Panic" in large, friendly letters on the case of their ereaders.

Will Wildman said...

You'd think that would be the most popular casemod ever, but for some reason it hasn't caught on.

chris the cynic said...

For the record, Snarky Bella has a highly modified kindle with the words don't panic etched (by her) into the back. Via a combination of alien technology, wires, and duct tape it is keyed into the standard repository for all knowledge, which (unfortunately) contains much that is apocryphal or at least wildly inaccurate.

I just haven't had an opportunity to work that tidbit in, nor the bit about the symbolism of the time traveler's pendant she's taken to wearing.

cjmr said...

Well, Douglas Adams did kinda sorta predict Wikipedia in the early 80s, too.

cjmr said...

*contemplates writing 'Don't Panic' on her nice purple leather Kindle cover in gold Sharpie*

Timothy (TRiG) said...

As long as you do it in large friendly letters.

TRiG.

cjmr said...

But of course!

Fitcher's Bird said...

It's no "Don't Panic" but I do have "noli me tangere"* (do not touch) engraved on the back of my iPod Touch for those who enjoy a nerd joke.

*For me, it's a little tribute to Sir Thomas Wyatt because I can be incredibly pretentious.

Ana Mardoll said...

Not a Wyatt buff, but I'd get it for the Anne Boleyn context. Nice. :)

Ice said...

Well, now you've been successful. I will get that done before day's end!

Smilodon said...

Yay! :)

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