[G]But while printing quickly caused the hand written book to die out, handwritinglingered on (继续存在) wellinto the 16th century. Very special books are still occasionally produced onvellum, but they are one-of-a-kind show pieces.
[H]Sometimesa new technology doesn’t drive the old one out, but only parts of it whileforcing the rest to evolve. The movies were widely predicted to drive livetheater out of the marketplace, but they didn’t, because theater turned out tohave qualities movies could not reproduce. Equally, TV was supposed to replacemovies but, again, did not.
[I]Movies did, however, fatally impact some parts of live theater. And while TVdidn’t kill movies, it did kill second-rate pictures, shorts, and cartoons.
[J]Nor did TV kill radio. Comedy and drama shows (“Jack Benny,” “Amos and Andy,”“The Shadow”) all migrated to television. But because you can’t drive a car andwatch television at the same time, rush hour became radio’s prime, while music,talk, and news radio greatly enlarged their audiences. Radio is today a verydifferent business than in the late 1940s and a much larger one.
[K]Sometimes old technology lingers for centuries because of its symbolic power.Mounted cavalry (骑兵) replacedthe chariot (二轮战车) onthe battlefield around 1000 BC. But chariots maintained their place in paradesand triumphs right up until the end of the Roman Empire 1,500 years later. Thesword hasn’t had a military function for a hundred years, but is still part ofan officer’s full-dress uniform, precisely because a sword always symbolized“an officer and a gentleman.”
[L]Sometimes new technology is a little cranky(不稳定的)at first. Television repairman was a common occupation in the 1950s, for instance.And so the old technology remains as a backup. Steamships captured the NorthAtlantic passenger business from sail in the 1840s because of its much greaterspeed. But steamships didn’t lose their sails until the 1880s, because earlymarine engines had a nasty habit of breaking down. Until ships became largeenough (and engines small enough) to mount two engines side by side, theyneeded to keep sails. (The high cost of steam and the lesser need for speedkept the majority of the world’s ocean freight moving by sail until the earlyyears of the 20th century.)
[M]Then there is the fireplace. Central heating was present in every upper-andmiddle-class home by the second half of the 19th century. But functioningfireplaces remain to this day a powerful selling point in a house orapartment. I suspect the reason is a deep-rooted love of the fire. Fire was oneof the earliest major technological advances for humankind, providing heat, protection,and cooked food (which is much easier to cat and digest). Human control of firegoes back far enough (over a million years) that evolution could have produceda genetic leaning towards fire as a central aspect of human life.
[N] Books—especiallybooks the average person could afford—haven’t been around long enough toproduce evolutionary change in humans. But they have a powerful hold on manypeople nonetheless, a hold extending far beyond their literary content. Attheir best, they are works of art and there is a tactile(触觉的)pleasure in booksnecessarily lost in e-book versions. The ability to quickly thumb through pagesis also lost. And a room with books in it induces, at least in some, a feelingnot dissimilar to that of a fire in the fireplace on a cold winter’s night.