Thursday, August 31, 2006

When I Was Your Age We Didn't Have Laptops.

On my way home from work last week I saw a guy walking home from school with his two young kids. It was very sweet, but then I got to thinking. The guy was carrying their backpacks, the smaller child had a tiny pack easily slung over the shoulder. While the (slightly) older child had one of those wheeled backpacks more similar to carry-on luggage. And here's where I get to thinking. When I have kids, I am in no way ready or qualified to have kids, and they reach the point that they can no longer lift the required books I'm getting (or making) them ebook readers. I'll buy the books in paperless format, or failing that I'll work out some machine for scanning them.

See, I hated carrying books around in school. Its ridiculous carrying 1600 pages around when you use like 15 a day. Finally in high school I got the idea to hide my books in the classrooms around school. Which worked well till I got caught by an unreasonable teacher. Then I got the idea not to bring my books at all, which worked out surprisingly well. But its not like I had any other options. Why aren't schools embracing ebooks rather than shelling out for quickly outdated and easily (and hilariously) vandalized pages?

I understand there's something nice about leafing through a book, but we're definately past the point of 8 year olds lugging 70 pounds of paper home and back again. Google knows what I'm on about. And many college text books are now available for download to students who are trying to save on book bills. The future is as close as you're willing to allow.

  • Google offers free book downloads - Lifehacker


  • Update
    Oh yeah. By the time I have kids in school ereaders will be bad-ass.
    Philips READIUS E-Reader Scroll Prototype - Gizmodo
    LG Phillips E-book: Flexible Means Flexibility - Gizmodo

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