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Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

gutenberg.org

21–30 of 62 posts

Re: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

#21
post #11

I like this book and I’m never quite sure how some of the terms were Doctorow capturing what’s going on and writing it down vs inventing it. I think how whuffie was described here seems like something that will really exist and I don’t know if there were any sites displaying cumulative karma for people. It was at least the first time I read it. Also, I think the “comm” described in Eastern Standard Tribe is the first…

> I wondered if phone designers ever drew inspiration from Doctorow’s specific books.

I'm sure at least somebody was thinking about that because Doctorow's books are popular, but all that specifically happened is vendors discovered if you tell people that the handheld computer you're selling them is a "phone" they'll buy that, and then of course they actually wanted a handheld computer, so they'll keep buying them even as actually they now realise they don't want to make telephone calls.

Both Android Inc. and the Apple secret project to develop their smartphone pre-date Doctorow's novel. Which doesn't mean he knew about them, but it means he couldn't have inspired these efforts.

The handheld computers aren't specifically doing those things, they can just do whatever, because they're a general purpose computer, and the features you listed are among the popular things to use that for. I guess maybe they needn't have happened to have cameras, but given how cheap that is to do it's not a big surprise.

The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer from Diamond Age is maybe more directly inspirational, various technologies are clearly inspired by the Primer which substantially pre-dates them because it's from a time (the mid-1990s) where many people don't have Internet access.

Re: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

#22
post #8
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I remember reading a blog post explaining why one was not free, but I can't find it now. There's a reference to it here: https://old.reddit.com/r/printSF/comments/rub7ff/is_corey_do...

Typical commercial publishing contracts, you can't just stick the book up online for free.

But up to that point, Doctorow had custom contracts where he could put the books online for free.

Re: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

#23

I read this book on an iPod because Doctorow releases the vast majority of his work freely, so I could just upload a text file to my clickwheel. Weird, but awesome. The book itself is great too. I still think about a lot of the concepts to this day.

Me too! Read a few of his books on a Nano. I had several people ask me about what I was doing with my Nano.

Was a small screen, but workable at the time.

I used iPad note format to read my copy.

Re: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

#24

I read this book on an iPod because Doctorow releases the vast majority of his work freely, so I could just upload a text file to my clickwheel. Weird, but awesome. The book itself is great too. I still think about a lot of the concepts to this day.

Ha, I had completely forgotten this was a thing I used to do. Thanks for bringing back good memories of scrolling through .txt files. It might sound tedious to those who never tried it, but the Clickwheel was a genuine pleasure to use for so many things. I still miss it to this day.

Re: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

#25
post #3

As far as I know, all of Doctorow's books are on his website for free download anyway. E.g. here is Content ... https://craphound.com/content/download/ DAOITMK is here: https://craphound.com/category/down/

Wow every format imaginable. Even the ebook as gba rom

Re: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

#27
post #3

As far as I know, all of Doctorow's books are on his website for free download anyway. E.g. here is Content ... https://craphound.com/content/download/ DAOITMK is here: https://craphound.com/category/down/

I don’t think the newer ones (like Walkaway) are Free like the early ones?

Looks like that could be the case, yes. Maybe his publishers changed their minds. I know he and Charlie Stross had great difficulty getting Charlie's publishers to agree to a free ebook of Rapture of the Nerds.

It looks like there was briefly a giveaway of Walkaway and as a result it's on the Internet Archive, but I've not checked it.

Re: Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom (2003)

#28
post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think the newer ones (like Walkaway) are Free like the early ones?

Looks like that could be the case, yes. Maybe his publishers changed their minds. I know he and Charlie Stross had great difficulty getting Charlie's publishers to agree to a free ebook of Rapture of the Nerds . It looks like there was briefly a giveaway of Walkaway and as a result it's on the Internet Archive, but I've not checked it.

Regardless, you can easily find the ebook online which Cory Doctorow won't have any problem with
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