ISN NEWS
Chris Lawrence explains why people will still want newspapers in the future–and even gets a Babylon 5 reference in!
Chris Lawrence explains why people will still want newspapers in the future–and even gets a Babylon 5 reference in!
Of course, the subtext is that Star Trek got it wrong; anyone over the age of 25 in the Federation would be unemployable because they wouldn’t be able to read the stupid PADDs any more (Trek’s “Palm Pilot”).
Maybe it’s stuck in my mind since I just watched season 2 of B5 on DVD a few weeks ago, including the episode with the scene where Sheridan and Delenn are at the “Universe Today” machine (can’t remember which episode it is; maybe “All Alone in the Night”?) – one of their good early character moments, if you’re into the S/D thing.
Yep. 🙂 Steve Tayor (Poliblog) and I have a longrunning convo going on the merits of the B5 version of the future vs. that of Trek, and we both agree the former is far more plausible and consistent with the human animal.
As to the specific issue of newsprint, I’m less sure. In my own case, I find actual newspapers annoying because of their large size and tendency to be continued on odd jump pages. I still read the Sunday WaPo most weeks, but find linkable web pages better.
Well, IIRC “Universe Today” was tabloid-sized. Broadsheets in general are a gaint pain in the butt to read–though at least ours are smaller than British ones, for some odd reason. You could probably wallpaper a house with the Sunday Times of London, the pages are so big.
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