on Dec 19 04 12:14, Robert Bull wrote to Kay Shapero:


 RB> Sounds good; perhaps I should look at prices again...  they're still 
 RB> pretty expensive if you're not convinced.  A copy of VANITY FAIR in the 
 RB> local library weighs in at nearly 900 pages, which seems an awesome 
 RB> amount of text to read on a small screen.  Or small book-print, come to 
 RB> that.

That it is.  And how much text is it to read off of the screen?  :)  

Two years ago, Baen Books released an edition of the latest (at the time)
David Weber novel, "War of Honor" including a disk with all of
the previous Honor Harrington novels (think outerspace "Horatio
Hornblower"), some other novels, and various other things (including
the lyrics and recordings of two songs.)  I bought the book specifically
because of the disk, and having not read the series before, started at the
beginning.  I read a few on and off, given that I had to read them off the
computer, then eventually when I got the handheld started using it to read
them, and am now reading "War of Honor".  On the handheld, it
takes up 2 MB of space, and the word count feature informs me that there
are 326,965 words in the text.  As a hardback, it takes up 869 pages.  It's
heavy, cumbersome, and while I've read part of the book in HB, it's been
mostly because I already HAVE the thing.  Yes, the text is larger in the
hardback than on the screen at normal settings, but it's perfectly readable
at those normal settings, and if I wanted I could make it even bigger than
in the hardback trivially.  I can read in line without lugging it around, I
can read in bed without a nightlight (backlit screen...), I don't have to
worry about losing my bookmark...  the only real advantage the hardback has
is that it hasn't got a battery to recharge.  

 RB> BTW, what do you use to maintain your Web site?  A proper knowledge 
 RB> of HTML and a text editor, or some kind of HTML editor that supposedly 
 RB> reduces the hard work?

Both, heh heh.  When I have to make changes on the fly, I just open the
file with a text editor and use my knowledge of html.  When I don't, I use
"Homesite 5", which is basically an extended text editor which
also contains a html manual, shortcuts for various features (like links,
fonts, line breaks et all), and a way to display what the results will look
like using whatever browser you link it to.  It does reduce the work,
without writing code for you (you do NOT want to know what it looked like
the time I used Word to mock up a page to see what I wanted to do with it. 
By the time I edited the result in a text editor to remove the excess
garbage, the file shrank to half its original size.)

 KS>> some of the implants.  And of course inevitably those who have "seen
 KS>> the elephant" are changed by the experience in ways generally not
 KS>> understood by those who haven't.

 RB> "seen the elephant???"

Actually been in combat.  

A colloquial expression referring to experiencing something overwhelming. 
The idea is that until you've actually *seen* the animal you have no idea
what it's really like.  Could be related to the story of the blind men and
the elephant, but I've no idea.

 RB> Hmmm.  Does that mean that Mordred's descendants are somehow tainted, 
 RB> congenitally dishonourable, or whatever?  Mordred never had a good 
 RB> press...

Nope, it means that Arthur is remembered as a wicked tyrant.  Among other
things either he attempted to forstall Mordred by having a number of babies
murdered, or else his story has been conflated with that of Herod.  We have
no way of telling the truth of the matter since the story takes place far
later.

 RB> Be interesting to hear how it works out.

The immediate problem was solved, and while there is sequel potential,
there is no sequel necessity.

 RB>      Elliott still didn't answer another puzzle.  Why are so many 
 RB> American fantasy authors, all of them presumably firm believers in 
 RB> democracy, apparently so obsessed by hereditary kingship?  

I think it's partly due to the prevalence of kingdoms in fairy tales,
coupled with the influence of JRR Tolkien.  I agree it lacks imagination.

--- Msged 6.0.1