<nettime> books and cdroms

[Roberto Verzola <rverzola@phil.gn.apc.org>]

 >language, disappears. But how does that compare to the fact that a book
 >can only be in one place at a time, whereas an electronic document can be
 >at many places simultaneously.

I would argue that, like a book, a file can only be in one place at a
time too. You are perhaps referring to *copies* of the file, which,
like copies of a book, can be at many places at the same time.

The difference is in the marginal cost of making a copy. To reduce
this marginal cost, you can rely techno solutions like CDROMs, or you
can use social solutions like public libraries. I wish we had more
public libraries.

But for those who love technofixes, I have a suggestion too. I've seen
Taiwan-made VCD players sell here in the Philippines for as low as
$US65. It should not take much to include an HTML browsing capability
with these players, so you can browse any HTML file on any CDROM with
a sub-$100 appliance.

Cheers,

Roberto Verzola

#  distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net