[iDC] Media dies more slowly than some would like

[Brian Holmes]

Paul B. Hartzog wrote:
Just as we no longer
> refer to a horse-drawn carriage as transportation (although it is
> perhaps a vehicle), we might no longer refer to a book as
> authoritative (i.e. "edition" may pass from our vocabulary).

Yeah, that is a deep and truly interesting potential change, it will be 
very curious to see how it plays out. The big thing about the paper book 
is the sense of closure, achieved by the unchangeability of the final, 
ready-for-print text, and reiterated each time you close the cover and 
that literary universe becomes a simple, portable object again. It's not 
certain that sense of closure will pass over to the electronic medium.

In the meantime, are there betting pools concerning the probable dates 
of the Ultimate Kindle-Hack? When will I be able to transform any 
digital file into a nicely presented, hand-annotatable text that I can 
read on the train?

very curious, Brian