#754. Overheard June 2014

This month I'm mostly going to provide links.  The first two will be interrelated (one directly references the other):

• ebooks vs. Paper Books [Infographic] from Nigel G. Mitchell
• Some thoughts on ebooks versus real books. from Briane Pagel over at Indie Writers Monthly.

I'm including them because, especially in the latter, I've heavily inserted my thoughts into the comments sections.  The latter explains itself.  In the former, I'm thinking of a story I read in The Best of McSweeney's, "Can a Paper Mill Save a Forest?" from Nicholson Baker, which explores the curious facts of life under a digital cloud and the myths of how paper mills only negatively impact the environment.  As it turns out, all those files we save have to be saved on computers servers somewhere, that just because personal devices have gotten smaller that there isn't a need somewhere else for those giant things computers used to be to still exist.  This is something I'm fairly certain has been conveniently overlooked in our rush to digitize everything, arguably for the sake of progress.  But it's also another instance of the emperor wearing invisible pants, hiding unpleasant realities in plain sight with a collective willingness to overlook the obvious.

In much lighter Internet discoveries, I read on Pearls Before Swine creator Stephen Pastis's blog about a far more pleasant con job, the secret return of Bill Watterson to the comic strip page.  Even though Calvin & Hobbes ended nearly twenty years ago, it remains the gold standard for the medium.  The whole reason Watterson ended it was because he feared the format had been irredeemably compromised, whether by newspapers or capitalism.  I hope one day he releases a treasure trove of material he's done since his self-imposed exile.  In the meantime, he popped up in a strip that seems to be the polar opposite of everything he used to do himself.  (Though make no mistake, Pearls is brilliant.)

via Go Comics