11 May
2001
11 May
'01
11:21 a.m.
Tony Duell skrev:
> Tony Duell skrev:
>
> >> I don't really understand why people care about originality. Isn't
that
> >> mainly a metaphysical matter? Or am I being too post-modern?
>
> >It depends on what you mean by 'originality'.
>
> I'm sorry, I can't find the right word...
No, it's not that, it's just that
'original' means different things to
different people. People collect computers for various reasons.
Exactly, original is quite ambiguous.
> >Why? Old chips (meaning those made in the last
30 years or so) seem to be
> >pretty reliable most of the time...
>
> I agree that there has occured some kind natural selection WRT those chips,
> but... Eventually things become worn out, even solder points, traces and
> joints in electronics.
Considering I use equipment that's over 50 years
old here, and that many
of the soldered connections have never been touched since it left the
factory, I don't think this is a major problem. Nor have I ever had any
problems with (correctly stored) wire-wrap going unreliable in a
reasonable time period (10's of years) either.
That's odd, I've read quite often that Amigas are getting more unreliable by
the day due to the contruction being worn out. That certainly seems to hold
true WRT to the Amigas we use at the usergroup. They just start behaving
irrationally as they age.
> >True, which is why I spend far too much money
on Lindsay Publications
> >reprints of old books on radio, electical stuff, engineering, etc. The
> >_information_ is what matters to me.
>
> >But, I would not be happy paying a high price for a 'rare book' and then
> >finding out it was a Lindsay reprint that is still 'in print'. Because I
> >have then not got what I paid for.
>
> OTOH, why would it be rare in the first place if it's still "in print"?
Lindsay Publications reprints old books that are no
longer in print. For
example, the original on 'The Boy Mechanic' is out of print (AFAIK). But
I can easily buy a Lindsay reprint that contains exactly the same
information.
Exactly, and then it no longer is out of print.
I would assume the original (which is out of print)
will now be fairly
rare (I have never seen it in a second-hand bookshop, for example). The
reprint is common.
I would therefore be annoyed if I'd paid for what I
thought was an
original, and ended up with the reprint. It is not the same thing, for
all both are equally useful to me in the sense of providing information.
But isn't that the purpose of the book?
--
En ligne avec Thor 2.6a.
And don't tell me there isn't one bit of difference between null and space,
because that's exactly how much difference there is. :-)
--Larry Wall in <10209(a)jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV>