[Swordmaker]

"In Japan, millions of novels have been written on cell phones. My great-grandfather wrote his Ph.D. dissertation with a #2 pencil. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Jefferson wrote their brilliant works with bird feathers. Yet the iPad's critics say creation is impossible using a device that would have been a Pentagon supercomputer 20 years ago. The computers that today's writers say are absolutely necessary for writing didn't even exist 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Is that when they think literacy started?"

[avenir]

"In Japan, millions of novels have been written on cell phones. My great-grandfather wrote his Ph.D. dissertation with a #2 pencil. Chaucer, Shakespeare and Jefferson wrote their brilliant works with bird feathers. Yet the iPad's critics say creation is impossible using a device that would have been a Pentagon supercomputer 20 years ago. The computers that today's writers say are absolutely necessary for writing didn't even exist 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Is that when they think literacy started?"

I find this fascinating. Tools, however sophisticated, cannot create quality content.

I watched THE SEPTEMBER ISSUE--a documentary about Anna Wintour and the making of the biggest issue of Vogue ever--and was pleasantly surprised at how old school the master assembly was. In this small room Anna and the other power people at Vogue would work with small magnetic thumbnails and basically do a mechanical storyboard. Behind the scenes all kinds of computer work was being done--on Macs--but the final say was done using physical media.

[SunkenCiv]

...the iPad's critics say creation is impossible using a device that would have been a Pentagon supercomputer 20 years ago. The computers that today's writers say are absolutely necessary for writing didn't even exist 10, 20 or 30 years ago. Is that when they think literacy started?

Heh, well said, whomever said it.