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Not related to the content, but perfectionists take note: He misspelled Boys By.. and simple overwrote the y with o until it looked right. He even crossed out a word further in. He did not throw away the paper and restarted from scratch. Yet still he sent this message and now we look at it and praise it 40 years later.
He did correct his mistakes, though. In modern terms, this would be the equivalent of publishing something without the mistakes, because there is no time or materials cost associated with correcting misspellings. When Asimov wrote this letter, though, it would have cost him a sheet of paper to type the letter without mistakes, and he apparently did not find that a worthwhile investment.
Note also that none of his books have overwritten words :)
Asimov did all the typing himself (no dictation, no longhand). IIRC he was proud of his very fast typing skills.
I am struggling to find a very specific source (because graphology has much fluff surrounding it), but, graphology / handwriting analysis suggests the type of corrections one uses can be indicative of personality traits. Such as confidence; in not furiously destroying or scribbling a typo (or even a full sentence) vs a simple line strike-through.
General website with some interesting examples. http://graphicinsight.co.za/writingsamples.htm
Maybe I'm just a Luddite, but I really don't like reading long-form literature on a computer or Kindle. Mostly because of the eyestrain, but also because of the physicality of the book (and the kindle/computer's lack of it).
Still waiting for electronic paper...or something that lets me access the web's info in a physical, eye-pleasing way. Until then, I'll still be looking for the deadtree version first.
How do you consider what the Kindle does different from electronic paper? Matching the true physical dimensions of paper seems impractical when you no longer need more than one page.
After about a year on the Kindle, I just finished re-reading a set of novels. Maybe I just don't find it as important, but the impossibility of losing my place and inline dictionary beat out any physicality problems.
Well, I don't know much about electronic paper, so I could be mistaken. I was thinking the ideal would be a physical book-like object whose pages were changeable.
It's about physically having a book in my hands. The kindle, while more efficient, just feels awkward. To me, it's the same as reading on a computer, minus the eye strain. It has no style or substance, like a book; it's just a piece of plastic/metal.
I actually had the opposite experience. I have both the electronic version and the paper version of a very large book. While it is fun in a nostalgic way to read it from the book, it's really awkward to read it anywhere other than a table with something to tilt it. The kindle I can take anywhere and be quite comfortable with it. For example, reading it while lying sideways in bed is a piece of cake.
Luddites were against technology that cost them jobs and made them generally obsolete. They'd weren't simply anti-technology. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
Given that, you may be set in your ways, or have standards that don't match the trends, but I wouldn't say you are a Luddite. (Though, perhaps, you are a deadtree publisher..?)
Oh, yeah, I know what a Luddite is, and yeah, it wasn't the best word choice. I jokingly grasped at the word nearest to my situation - guy-who-doesn't-like-LCDs isn't quite as catchy. :) I'm as tech-savvy as anyone, but I prefer to work/read on standard paper if possible.
(not a deadtree publisher though - just a guy with irritable eyes)
I am with you on the LCD. I was annoyed that B&N went to them. I love e-ink. I swear my eyes sigh with relief when I go from coding to reading it.
I wish that there wasn't the stranglehold on the libraries, so I could get a real selection of epub and the like.
Kindles don't have LCD displays. E-ink is as easy to read as newsprint, at worst.
There is a very good comment: http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/03/isaac-asimovs-letter.ht... why you shouldn't close the libraries but just reinvent them.
It's not so good, in my very humble opinion.
It basically says that the library should survive because it can be a) a free internet point b) a provider of free online access to stuff c) some things are better as dead tree format
I come from a small town where we _did not have a bookshop_. If I had not had the small and crappy town library I would not have become a reader, I was one of the few users who actually got them to buy stuff _for me_, so please don't consider me as someone who wouldn't want libraries to survive.
But the above listed reasons are not compelling at best. The second especially: why couldn't you have a nation-wide public access system? Why is every library reinventing this?
I tend to agree with you. It would be better to have a free access public access system (something like a minimal tap water access). But IMHO it's more difficult to setup something from scratch (on the political level) than to have at least the libraries providing the free access services. By closing them, we just loose this opportunity.
I wonder what he might have said of the Internet ;)
Recently, after the discussion about making Wikipedia a cultural heritage site, I began to wonder if Wikipedia is the first step towards Asimov's Encyclopedia Galactica.
Or a hitchhiker's guide
You do not need to wonder, the video of what he thought is on the internet at:
http://www.wimp.com/predictedinternet/
Asimov, what a great guy.
Ted Nelson (you can look him up on Wikipedia) tells a story where he's explaining hypertext to Robert Heinlein in the 70s, and Heinlein says "So it's like The Source?" (which is an early AOL).