Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!bbn!rochester!cornell!batcomputer!pyramid!hplabs!hplabsz!taylor
From: jrk@computer-lab.cambridge.ac.uk (Robert Kennedy)
Newsgroups: comp.society
Subject: Re: The Aesthetics of Computers
Message-ID: <1714@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM>
Date: 16 Mar 88 16:00:43 GMT
Sender: taylor@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM
Lines: 73
Approved: taylor@hplabs
Organizaation: University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory


Earlier, David Li at SIMVAX.LABMED.UMN.EDU wrote:

>[books are cheaper, smaller, easier to loan than computers]

This is true, and a major selling point of books for me.

>[there are things you can do with a book that you can't do with a 
> computer, so books must be better]

It is true that books are not computers and vice versa.  Books have 
some strengths that computers don't share, it's true, but there are 
things you can do on a CRT that you can't do with a printed book, too. 
Many is the hour I've spent looking for some passage in a book, knowing, 
"It's about halfway up a left-hand page, and it's about Jenny's going to 
the grocery store."  With a printed book, I sometimes give up, because it 
seems the only way to find the passage I seek is to read the entire book
again. But on a CRT, given the right text-reading system, I can type 
"/Jenny.*store" and stand a fairly decent chance of finding what I'm after.
A few other simple constructions, and I can almost certainly find it. 
There are advantages to both the printed word and to reading on a CRT. 
For each "printed word" advantage you give me, I can give you a "CRT" 
advantage. 

But this isn't the point.

The point is that I believe there are many people who would disagree
that they wouldn't be interested in whether a reference in fiction is 
based on fact or not. Many people find sitting upright a perfectly 
comfortable (or aesthetic, if you will) reading position.  How do 
you know what I am not trying to do, or what I am not interested in, or 
what I am constrained to do?  And how can you say that reading for pleasure 
"...should not be and cannot be... performed via computer"?  I do it 
all the time.

Further, I have found that I am much more comfortable reading a
computer screen for long periods than I am reading a book for the same 
amount of time . If you have found a comfortable way to read a book, please 
tell me what it is.  I always find myself adjusting lighting, rolling over,
stretching my back, keeping my legs from falling asleep, etc.  I am 
serious -- please e-mail me if you have a comfortable reading position in 
mind. At a computer terminal, the lighting is much less important, so I can 
sit at a more comfortable angle.

Have you ever read fiction on a computer terminal?  I have.  I claim
that you are faulting the type of material you choose to read on the 
computer, not the computer itself.  I get all the pleasure out of reading 
fiction on a computer screen that you say I should get from reading in a 
book.  Try it sometime. I maintain that you are completely out of line with 
your statement that "... reading for pleasure... cannot be... performed 
via computer."  It sounds as if you have never tried it.  Even if you have,
the most damning thing you can say about it in good conscience is that you 
don't like it.  How can you tell me with a straight face what is and isn't 
aesthetic?!?

It gets worse, ladies and gentlemen! "Factual information... is not
generally read for pleasure", you say?!? How could you possibly think this? 
I READ FACTUAL INFORMATION FOR PLEASURE ALL THE TIME!!!  Don't you wonder what
goes on in the world?  Don't you enjoy reading newspapers?  What about
scientific non-fiction?  Philosophy?  Have you ever read anything at all?!?

> The computer becomes a tool.  Whether there is an aesthetic quality in the
> operation of that tool is based more on personal attitude than on the 
> (factual) information being read.

Except for your un-called-for use of the word "factual" again, this is 
exactly what I'm trying to say.  I don't require that you like computers, 
read fiction on them, or read non-fiction for pleasure. But don't try to 
tell the world that I don't do these things.  Don't even think of trying 
to tell them I shouldn't.

Thank you.

Robert Kennedy