Are the Kindle and the iPad the harbingers of death for the object commonly referred to as the book? The growing number of e-reader owners tout the net money savings and convenience of a library in your hand, but purists stubbornly point to these power-sucking gadgets as yet another instance of the techno-savy reinventing the wheel.
At the forefront of this debate are the simple, quippy complaints that a book doesn't run out of batteries, or need software updates, but these are readily combated by the space and trees savings of e-readers. An e-reader can download a book in less than a minute right from your chair, but again this is offset by the loss of the bookstore browsing experience, for online bookstores are hardly a suitable replacement for wandering the narrow canyons of stacks seemingly formed by the countless footsteps of the wizened readers that came before. Nor are the slapdash reviews in online comments a replacement for the judicious advice of a kindly librarian.
The other afternoon, Jenni and I succumbed to the desire for Panera Bread for lunch. For those of you that have never had the pleasure, Panera Bread occupies a weird niche in the restaurant scene, high-quality fast food in a warm, inviting environment. Think the sitting area of Barns & Noble or Borders that serves artisan sandwiches, soups, and salads on, in, or with its own delectable breads.
The weirdly cool thing about Panera Bread, at least at the three locations I've been to, is how amazingly fast they are at preparing damn tasty food. You'd be hard pressed to get your drink and find a seat before your coaster pager goes off. That's pretty impressive considering how long it takes McDonald's to get me sub-standard sustenance.
After commenting to Jenni about their super-speediness, she pointed out that it's really not that surprising, given the little they really needed to do to serve sandwiches and soup. Admittedly, whereas a sandwich of elaborate complexity or even a panini still only requires minimal cooking time, just microwaving a Big Mac will take a while. "It's not like they're roasting a chicken back there," we joked (we had some friends over last week for homemade roast chicken).
This got me to thinking.
Let's say humanity discovers the technology to travel between stars and colonize other planets. Soon after that point we'd probably send out our first colonizing ship (for the sake of the narrative, let's call it NewEarthOne), but due to the immense distance between stars, the journey could take several lifetimes. Science-fiction tells us that, in order to cut down on supplies needed for the journey, the colonists and crew would be kept in a state of suspended animation, only awaking from this deep sleep when the autopilot calculates that they have arrived.
Back on earth, technological advances are still being made and in another 20 years or so, we develop substantially faster technology. Once the technology is perfected, they send out another colonizing ship. However, due to the scientific advances, this one will arrive before the first ship. When NewEarthOne arrives many years later, they awaken to find a thriving and futuristic NewEarth colony already established on the virgin soil they were seeking.
This concept could be taken even further because if the first trip takes hundreds of years, then there is time for many technological leaps. Perhaps the fifth group to set out is actually the first to arrive and every few decades a ship full of people shows up from further in the past.
It would be a cruel fate to be a pioneer, leaving your old world behind and setting out to create a new one from scratch, only to find that the old one beat you there.
