Re: PC--What is it good for?

On Mon, 10 Dec 2007 01:11:34 +0000 (UTC), phoenix@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Damien
Sullivan) wrote:

>Taki Kogoma <quirk@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
>>Hrm.  So *that's* what's so old-school about Bujold.  She still has
>>humans working with fixed or semi-fixed comconsoles instead of toting
>>around mobile communnications/entertainment/computation devices...
>
>Well, I think they have data tablets.  I think Miles whipped up the
>Dendarii regulations on something ****table.  I know Illyan was given a
>****table electronic map and note-taker.  

"****table" in the sense of built into his *brain*, yes.  I'm not seeing
that as terribly "old-school", myself.


>I'm not sure it was wireless, though.  Aral usually has some sort of 
>****table device; he has his heart attack when left without it.

>Still... yeah, "phone calls" on Barrayar are via fixed comconsoles.
>Which work as videophones, so it's both old and super-new school.  But
>little use of wireless.

>Don't know how much of that is Lois's "oops" vs. Barrayar's lack of
>development.  

And don't forget, there's also Barrayar's security paranoia.  It's too
late now, of course, but now that I think about it there's a wonderfully
comic scene when Illyan finds out that his little bit of cybernetics
not only had a wireless ****t all along, but the password was left set
to the factory default...

I don't think there's anything of an "oops" about this on Lois's part.
The Barrayarans are backwards, backwards enough to still be doing lots
of things the 20th-century way, because that's the best way for Lois
to tell her stories to a 20th-century audience.  Between poverty,
isolation, and paranoia, they'll be bringing in new technology one
little bit at a time, so that we can see how that new technology
impacts a society not incomprehensibly different from our own.

Communications-wise, as you may recall, the Barrayarans not only prefer
wired to wireless, they prefer non-standard wires they keep locked away
in a safe when they aren't in use :-)


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