aglew@crhc.uiuc.edu (Andy Glew) (11/18/90)
[You know, it might be time to create a header line "Old-subject: Re: Costs of High-resolution graphical displays" - I don't like stuffing that on the new subject line] >> Consider the longevity of paper as a medium for information >> display, despite its many disadvantages. Its primary advantage is >> that it can display much more information simultaneously than any >> computer display, and at a cost that can be very low. > >I think there is an additional, and more important, barrier to paper's >demise. copyright. If the ideal display were announced tomorrow, >paper would still exist because you can't get information from publishers >in digital/on-line form. This isn't being rectified as we speak, either. While copyright is undoubtedly a problem, I think cost and convenience is the main reason why I keep printing out copies of my thesis to read: I cannot easily surround myself with screens (if I did the flyback noise would be horrendous). I also note the comment in the Kahaner group report on computing in Japan, to the effect that Japanese researchers have very little deskspace, so are motivated to produce flatscreen displays. On a Green note, I would like to reduce the amount of paper that I print once and then throw away. Recycling is a start, but reuse would be nice. In old science fiction stories one often reads about printouts on reusable plastic paper - one imagines that the ink is easily washed off, or could, eg. be exposed to high UV to fade quickly. If such a paper were available and durable, eg. if it could get 1000 re-uses and cost only 100x as much as regular paper, I would be very likely to use it. Especially if, given such a re-useable paper technology, and the landfill crunch in the U.S., "trash taxes" were placed on regular, non-re-useable, paper. Continuing on the Green note, I have heard that more than 50% by volume of landfill is newsprint - newspapers, advertising inserts, etc. News distribution by electronic means, such as Clarinet, is almost sufficient for my needs, except for the lack of pictures. It is good enough that I am seriously considering a personal subscription to Clarinet for my daily news-reading, with only a weekly (Saturday or Sunday) subscription to a local paper newspaper, and a god national newspaper. Maybe newsprint is another item that should be subjected to a "trash tax" to encourage people to pursue non-paper, non-trash-producing, means of receiving information? Posted to comp.arch, because that is where the conversation started, talk.environment and sci.environment, because my main topics are Green proposals about taxing paper to reduce trash, and comp.periphs.printers because someone in that group may be better able to comment on the possibilities of re-useable paper. Followups to sci.environment, but if you want me to respond you'd best email - sci.environment is on my reading list, but I don't get there often[*]. [*] something I'd like to see in a newsreader: give priority to any news conversations that I've posted into or started. -- Andy Glew, a-glew@uiuc.edu [get ph nameserver from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu:net/qi]