eBooks

If you have been reading this blog for quite some time, you would have known that I hated eBooks. I detested them. Don’t get me wrong, I love to read; softcovers or hardcovers, but ebooks just get me. It feels weird in your hands, it doesn’t look right, it’s uncomfortable, blah blah blah. But yesterday something remarkable happened. We can say the impossible became possible. I read two books, over 500 pages in total… on my iPad. When a software as elegant, efficient, simple, and advanced as Overdrive pops up, it becomes impossible to resist the electronic era. Why  carry a stack of books around when you can still have them all, literally on a thin piece of glass weighing less than 1.5 pounds?

I came home two days ago thinking “I totally forgot my book!!!” I didn’t want to go to the library, so I did the only thing I could. I opened up my iPad, slid my finger across my mirror image and tapped on Overdrive. I connected to our local library’s eBooks catalogue and found my book. Then after I plugged in my library card, I tapped open the cover. The experience wasn’t like what I remembered last year, maybe the app updated, maybe I changed  No matter, I enjoyed it and found myself drawn to tapping the “Get more books” icon and downloading the next few books in the series.

We, as in our Western 21st century generation are more than cyborgs now. We aren’t dependent on electronics and the internet. Our technologies are what we are made of. We don’t seem to see a difference between our beds, tables, or chairs and our computers, credit card, internet, or cell phones. Both lists are things that we need, things that if taken away will literally completely change our world.

I am not trying to say that anything is bad, just that if credit card companies’ servers were attacked, or if we have a shortage of computer chips, we would be in big trouble. Our minds are wired to rely on technology, I hope by 2012 being “the end of the world”, this is not what it means 🙂 . Anyways, onto my 3rd eBook!!!

Associations

Just something I came to realize.

Why do we suddenly associate computers and operating systems with their inventors and CEOs, while we have no idea who’s the CEO of the car we drive? Or the coffee we drink? Or the pens we write with (not that we use them very often…)?

My opinion is that technology advances really fast, you have to watch the CEO to see what’s going to happen next. You can’t just use it and care nothing about it. Most things in life is just there. There is no point in caring about who is behind all this because it is not going to change, it is not going to get better, it is not going to have similar product that will change your life (hint hint, nudge nudge). Also, it is new and people like new things that are cool for some reason.

However, the newspaper disagrees, it says it is because we are all cyborgs, we adapted to technology so much that we can not live without it, our most private moments are on it, and our most public ones. It is a communication tool, a way to pass time by talking and surfing about weird stuff (like me). But it also said that the Mac was special, it has a more human touch, it really was attractive.

We don’t think about it, yet it is true.

So what do you think?