You know books? The chunky rectangular things, made out of paper? And you know how they increasingly seem to be the perfect form for their function? People tried to replace them with e-readers but humanity collectively said “We’ll use them in certain circs, sure. But overall we’ll be sticking with the rectangular paper chunks because they never run out of battery, you can lend them to folk, you can drop them in the bath and they survive, and remember your page better – even if you haven’t used a bookmark – because the whole topography of the thing just makes it easier somehow.” So the e-reader market stalled long before it had reached the saturation point everyone madly investing in the project thought it would.
There are, in other words, still times in this crazy, technologically madcap world of ours when the ideal mode of conveyance for an idea or an art form is hit on quite early and need not be fussed about with after that. This struck me with increasing force the longer I watched Nathan W Pyle and Dan Harmon’s new animated series, Strange Planet.
