Tinyfool's diary

The era of before paper and paper

If counting from the Egyptian papyrus, paper history has more than 5,000 years, this convenient but almost exclusively produced in the medium of writing in Egypt who helped build the world's most brilliant ancient civilization of Egypt. Greece after the conquest of Egypt, the cultural center of the empire and the largest library built in Egypt, but also because the best writing of that era media produced in Egypt. The Library of Alexandria has collected the world can gather to books.

But, really gave the world the global impact of the writing medium is paper, invented by Cai Lun in 105 years BC. The biggest difference of this paper and papyrus raw materials. The Egyptian papyrus raw materials is a major plant grown in Egypt - Lufthansa papyrus. Because a single place of origin of raw materials, lack of production materials, this paper is expensive. The papyrus is not moisture-proof, it is difficult to fold, there are a lot of shortcomings.

After the birth of Chinese paper and slowly spread to the world, the end from clay tablets, the search and selection of human beings as long as 3,000 years writing media.

AD 3200 years ago, the Sumerians began writing cuneiform on clay tablets; probably around 3150 AD, the Egyptians began to write papyrus hieroglyphics; Greeks beginning is followed by Egyptians use papyrus, but then I was too your save inconvenience (not related to Egypt where dry), parchment, etc.; Chinese used tortoise shells and animal bones (Oracle period), bronze (Clementi), bamboo, etc..

All civilizations of the world, the beginning of the choice of a wide variety of writing media, and some major from resource considerations, some consider writing demand for convenience and to save, but in the end, are unified to the Chinese paper.

This is first of all a huge contribution to world civilization, and then to show that any customs, personal preferences, could not withstand the real technological change, who will be more, who are not stupid. On a historical scale, the humanity of every media selection are well justified, are reasonable.

From the invention of paper in China and now has gone through 2,000 years, this medium has been human primary writing medium. It is undoubtedly the greatest invention in the world, it is the material basis of the everyday we read the book. Achievements brilliant book, it inherited thousands of years of human civilization, and record all the joys and sorrows, all great dreams, all the hard efforts, all brilliant ...

The impact of the medium on the content and performance situations

The Sumerians use sharpened sticks and reeds write ooze board, so they write out the word triangle strokes, are horizontal and vertical oblique lines, so this modern man is called cuneiform text .

After writing using clay tablets, baked hard in order to save and carry, but can not do too thin clay tablets, the archaeological discoveries of cuneiform have a great way to use the small label in front of the shelves or warehouse plaid. We can imagine a 50 cm x 50 cm clay tablets to write many words, La La will weave mad postman in that era.

Egyptian media papyrus easy to use too much than clay tablets, papyrus characteristics that can not be folded, so the the papyrus books are stored with the form of scrolls, so can only write single-sided, and reading, and must be read in order , her hands full. This reel formed the Western concept of books (Volume). Greeks began to use parchment, very soft and can be folded parchment can be stapled, before the formation of the concept of the household registrations (codex) Although the material is not a cheap Chinese paper, but has not much difference with the present book binding a.

China's ancient books have volumes and volumes of the argument, but the causes are completely different from Western. Tortoise shells and animal bones completely impossible to fold and curl, bronzes more impossible. In fact, the earliest volumes and volumes of the concept from bamboo. The bamboo is a strip bristling bamboo, and all subsequent written line to string together to form a book, and then curled kept on deposit formation volume. Of course, here the album is very different books of Western.

Future development in China With Paper bindings, with books of Westerners are very similar. However, the word order in Western books horizontally, left to right, from top to bottom. The ancient Chinese books in the word order is vertical, from top to bottom, then right to left. We now see that most of the Simplified Chinese books is horizontal, from left to right, top to bottom, this is the way of the May Fourth period before the proposed new typesetting.

Western using horizontal reason is very simple, the Western text letter text very reasonable with the horizontal, from left to right is because of the time of writing, in turn, can easily contaminate dry handwriting.

But why for thousands of years in China continues vertical it? Write pollution writing it? Chinese people do not also a right-handed writing mainly what? This is because the ancient writing brush, when there is a requirement of the right hand Lift can not fall, thus avoiding the problem of pollution handwriting.

But the origins is how formed? Different opinions, I personally think that the writing of Chinese bindings, inherited a bamboo writing. Bamboo reading should be, the left hand holding the volume pulled out his right hand, the first column on the far right, with the look with the pull; placed or a few on the left to expand. Written, wrote a set aside to air dry, and then wrote a and no pollution writing problems. Thus formed a habit of produce content and reading content. Change to paper, binding style until the writing medium adapted for wire-bound, you can double-sided write, but still used the vertical reading vertical writing, although had to laborious hand lift.
All paper before the media are too expensive, and the writing is very inconvenient. So, I think this constitutes the main source of the traditional classical Chinese refining. The fact that some of the ancient novel and popular literary works, reveals to us the ancients in fact two completely different system of writing and language.

Classical and classical Chinese is the main language of scholars with the exchange of the Bookend books and intellectuals within. The use of ordinary people called vernacular, usually little verbal communication for written records, only some of the popular literary works will have a vernacular.

The Qing Wu Jingzi "Scholars:" a business people; stay, then I saw these archaisms people terms; feel repulsive; non-stop day. "Even the ancients, ordinary people do not like" archaisms " .

Junior high school textbooks was selected from the group consisting of "Outlaws of the Marsh" the "Luti jurisdiction punches town Kansai," Outlaws of the Marsh "a book time for the Yuanmomingchu of the. Inside in addition to some words "noisy", "Nendi filthy splashed only too jerky on the modern, the content is not difficult to understand, junior high school students can understand the ancient Chinese and modern language habits and not many of us to imagine such a big difference.

Understanding of modern and contemporary history who should know, the Vernacular Movement May 4th set off so that the average person does not mean that said vernacular, ordinary people has always been said in the vernacular, but let the vernacular language of ordinary people become intellectuals and society as a whole passage language. The vernacular movement is not to create a new style, but a popular stylistic become formal style official stylistic.

Ancient scholars have to use the the jerky classical record history (causing inconvenience to a lot of interpretation on), even in life classical Chinese to allow ordinary people to hate, I think the key is a continuation of the paper before the era of the inconveniences writing habits .
We have experienced some of the media change and its impact

The medium of the the earliest human voice / music storage Edison in 1877 invented the the drum phonograph (Phonograph cylinder), dating back only 100 years. This is a very regrettable thing, for example, you may be the words of the ancient Chinese can sing out, almost with the modern meaning of the lyrics, but the ancients sing what that smell is, Su Shi singing "Thinking of You" with Faye a feeling of what? You do not know. Yue Fei sing "Azolla" and Rowan (83 Condor) sing feeling it? Yue Fei should not Cantonese, right?

Interestingly, however, the sound / music storage medium 100 years before the birth, and have been very many times of change.

Later from the drum gramophone disc jukebox (Gramophone 1887 was invented) wire recorders (Wire recorder, 1890's invention), tape recorder (of Tape recorder, the 1935 invention), LPs (Long Play, 1948). CD (1985 invented), Mp3 (invented 1991), MD (1992 invention), the entire development process of the whole record, modify, save more and more convenient.

Sound / Music storage media, most of us are familiar with the changes from the CD to Mp3 (actually contains Mp3 like other physical storage is not required to sell the format here Mp3 representatives).

Now many people are the witness of Mp3 age, but Mp3 success too fast. Many people even clue did not touch on the success, so it looks Mp3 is an out to change the world.

But in fact not the case. Outset Mp3 just a format, he did not show up any power. For a start, you can only repression from their own CD Mp3, which resulted In fact, with the different media you can appreciate the song completely with your CD collection is no different.

But by 1999 all happened a radical change, a few college students to write out a p2p Mp3 sharing software called Napster, the first number of each student Mp3 school exploded, then the whole world Mp3 explosion in the number. Perhaps within a few days, everyone in the whole world Mp3 collection can be comparable with a large record company's music library. This time Mp3 unique content piracy, hardware profitable industry chain model.

Consumers are the beneficiaries of Mp3 player makers are beneficiaries of various Mp3 download websites, P2P software companies are the beneficiaries. All people are Happy, in addition to the record companies and artists have.

In fact, from the historical data easily seen CD media and record manufacturers in decline, basically from 1999 to 2000. (See http://www.businessinsider.com/these-charts-explain-the-real-death-of-the-music-industry-2011-2)

Some people see this as the inevitable result of digital media, but I think this should blame the lack of awareness of the Phonographic Industry. They did not advance to create and embrace the future, and so the future to not read, do not understand, only fear, but do not know how to deal with.

This time, the medium changes will look forever destroy the Phonographic Industry. Station in 2003 until Apple launched the iTunes Music Store. From 2003 to 2010, iTunes Music Store has sold 10 billion songs, 11 years, 15 billion songs sold, although the entire record industry has not returned to its highest level in history, but to some extent slowed considerably LP The industry's recession.

There are video / image storage media (photography, film, TV, etc.), although the birth is relatively late, with the phonograph as a history of only 100 in the coming year, but also experienced a lot of change. These areas to the recent years, the common is a change from physical media to virtual media from analog media to digital media.

The only books and papers have not completely changed, and why?

The advantages and limitations of the paper at

The paper has many advantages, thin, writing and printing convenience and low cost.

Take cost for example, a lot of people the impression Bamboo is also a lot of the cost of the item can be how high. This is a very assumptions taken for granted.

"Historical Records", for example, the book is probably 520,000 words, and now the paper printed, can be a not very thick book (Word A4 paper analog print about 600).

"Historical Records" book before Cai Lun Paper is mostly written in bamboo and saved. We assume that one the bamboo can write 20 word, the "Historical Records" book is 26,000 bamboo slips, assuming a long bamboo can be made of 100 bamboo, also need 260 bamboo enough. Assuming 100 bamboo slips Volume 1, "Historical Records" The book is 260 volumes bamboo. Need a bookshelf to put it. So, in fact, have not been difficult the bamboo era, voluminous.

Talk about copying, talk about reading, in accordance with our earlier assumptions, Volume 1, bamboo only 2000 words, if you carefully read the day "Historical Records", you need to go to how many shelves and how many times to replace the next roll?

Jin Yong's The Complete Works of more than 10 books, roughly 10 million words, I have all read in the middle and high school age. Bamboo to write and save 5200 bamboo, made of 5200 volumes of bamboo, and a warehouse in order to put down. At that time, writing not refined, related to Jin Yong cheat royalties so the royalties it touches a small problem, when a book is simply an environmental disaster.

Paper well, are much better than all of it in front of media, However, the paper also has disadvantages, and its physical properties also constitute a book all the limitations.

Although it looks so thin and light, but quality, and volume. These years, every time I move, the books are the heaviest few boxes of content. Books and more people at home need to purchase bookshelves, very local account.
From paper to books, printing, binding, and a series of complex processes. Book in our hands from the factory to the need to go through a lot of circulation. These constitute the time to publish a book, hardships, cost and resource consumption.

Of books in China, there are two return a contribution fee, a royalty. Royalties are often very low, the current level of the royalties is basically not much different after the Cultural Revolution, but the level of social consumption do not know how many times up. Generally only book sales, publishers will royalties, sales volume is very high in order to get higher royalties to the author. I have a friend who has been out of a book, royalties of 7%, In other words, the book sold $ 100, sold 1000, he was assigned to the 7000 money.

He later made electronic version of the new book (do not need to participate in the Press), and only sell more than 600, a 80, he earned 50,000 dollars.

Of course, the cost of the book, but of hard work should be the more important part, but not the cost of the paper. But because of the existing publishing system, if you are a paper book, must ISBN, must go from the Press, you can not even contact printing to print. Press became a book published before only the control of the parties and investors.

3000 from India's rule in the publishing industry in China, if a book is expected to sell less than 3000, no matter how good Press also refused, because the breakeven point in 3000. The electronic media do not have this problem. 600 users to buy the book can also make money.

Current publishing system, there is a book called out-of-print books, as expected buyers will not reach the breakeven point, so even if readers need only out-of-print book will not be reprinted, but in the electronic media do not have this problems.

Book electronic medium revolution

Kindle's appeared in. I was pleasantly surprised, when you move vertical rolls of collections can also single-handedly mastered. More importantly, the author of a book, you can finish it after the moment, see this book. With the development of electronic publishing, we should be able to more easily and cheaply and enjoy all the wonderful knowledge in the world, at the same time, the author also possible to obtain a more lucrative income.

However, there are a lot of people do not understand, can not even accept, they said, no longer have paper flying scent of ink, the digitized medium like paper transfer feelings digitized.

I understand these people forget the past, new media, however, will always be in the maturity of the technology to replace the old media. Now how many people buy the tape to listen to pop music? With CD have less. The vinyl like something only the continuity of life in the small circle of enthusiasts. All new songs to the CD version, or even directly Mp3 version.

You can continue to like the old media, but when your favorite content go to the new media and their distribution, you have no choice, only forward.

Electronic ink screen is half revolution, has many advantages: It looks very comfortable, very close to the feel of the paper; very power, not flip only do not even cost electricity.

Limitations very obvious, is not supported color screen content switching is very slow, and is not suitable for any animation and interactive content (even with color screen, principle, can not fast refresh).

It's like almost people in all have been black and white TV, doomed intermediate. Once the TV price down to an acceptable level of the average person, black-and-white TV is quickly eliminated. In the 1970s and 1980s, many urban households in China has a black and white TV, and after 10 years, they have been replaced by a color TV. Now, even in the relatively backward regions, black and white TV is relatively rare.

In more than 10 years ago, I used to put a piece of colored plastic sheet before seeing a peasant family in the black and white TV, to see the black-and-white television like plus the color through the colored plastic pieces, at that time, felt pretty good but once spotted the true color TV, I felt the thing is nothing but rubbish.

Like electronic ink screen does not agree with this point of view, they say, the E Ink display screen is softer than the iPad's screen, not to hurt the eyes, can be a long time reading.

They are often read aspects of the the severe players, of course, need to respect their needs. However, like any market, severe players are just one class of people, but also relative to the mild players, they are always a few.

More people is not to specifically buy a reading machine, but want to buy a can listen to music, watch videos, the Internet, play games, and so on, while reading something. The perfect solution to all these needs is the iPad.

However, just a few days ago, I purchase the electronic version of the paper version of the book "Lean Startup". Did not feel any difference, do paper version I see the paper version, and have at hand the iPad, I can see the electronic version, I have not found that to the iPad bring any benefits.

I'm not advocating media shake-up? Why I will feel less than the benefits of the electronic media? Actually, this is a lot of readers did not turn to the main reason of the electronic media.

First of all, this book is very thin, if Cambridge World History of this tome, the advantages of the electronic version of the very obvious killed I am not going to put on the backpack tome that multi-Shen ah.

More importantly, almost no difference in the manifestations of the book on a paper medium and an electronic medium. In addition to own, I can adjust the font size on the iPad, there is no difference.

So, if this is the change we are talking about the media, I do not believe our readers will pay for, unless the production of the paper immediately appear cost.

Medium change, it is more important and should bring new forms of content for new media, electronic ink screen due to the limitations of their own media, in fact, only perfectly reproduce many features of the paper medium, there is not much on the content and form of innovation contribution. Although many books have landed on the iPad, but also did not take advantage of this new medium to bring new imagination and possibility.

We should imagine the future of the book is what new media.

First of all, most of them should be in color, color is better than black and white, no doubt about that.

There may be sound, there is a lot of narration, or with an automatic reading function.

There may be video, reading a book of World War II, the author mentions a battle of a film interpretation of a very exciting time, can click on that play video, is not cool and comfortable with it?

Do not even have to be so complicated, when you see Han's new book, with a period of instant win in a racing video, OK?

Or book should be filled with a variety of interactive, in the development of the plot to the climax, you can help the hero to choose the next step to development and so on and so on.

Or children's books, simply is a game for children to understand the world in entertainment.

What is the book? Worth us to think back to the essence.

Now, we might imagine, to the existing books with more pictures, information and interactive media characteristics and more writers may write a book for the first time, to consider not paper book Instead, the e-book can give full play to how to help them spread the ideas, experiences, feelings, etc..

Is worth noting that already have some of these tools and platforms, such as Apple's iBookAuthor, it can be used to make almost all of the new book I said earlier, imagine the effect, and the difficulty of the operation, Words, PowerPoint nothing big difference. Similar Inkling's interactive book platform, Epub3.0 standards, and so on.

If you want to know the future of the book is what it looks like, Life on Earth, you can download in the iPad iBooks store or download Arnold, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore wrote the Our Choice App Store looks most like The next thing.

Course, we are on the eve of this media revolution, the publishing industry, the authors have not fully ready to meet the future, the eve of may be slightly too long and need a little imagination, the courage to imagine the future at this time. However, it seems that the revolution represented by an infinitely beautiful, wireless imaginative future worth looking forward to, participate in, and pay for our efforts.

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