* File-formats go obsolete, paper has lasted for a long time

None of these seemed like very good explanations for the
"failure" of ebooks to me. If screen resolutions are too low to
replace paper, then how come everyone I know spends more time
reading off a screen every year, up to and including my sainted
grandmother (geeks have a really crappy tendency to argue that
certain technologies aren't ready for primetime because their
grandmothers won't use them -- well, my grandmother sends me
email all the time. She types 70 words per minute, and loves to
show off grandsonular email to her pals around the pool at her
Florida retirement condo)?

The other arguments were a lot more interesting, though. It
seemed to me that electronic books are *different* from paper
books, and have different virtues and failings. Let's think a
little about what the book has gone through in years gone by.
This is interesting because the history of the book is the
history of the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Pilgrims, and,
ultimately the colonizing of the Americas and the American
Revolution.

Broadly speaking, there was a time when books were hand-printed
on rare leather by monks. The only people who could read them
were priests, who got a regular eyeful of the really cool
cartoons the monks drew in the margins. The priests read the
books aloud, in Latin [LATIN BIBLE] (to a predominantly
non-Latin-speaking audience) in cathedrals, wreathed in pricey
incense that rose from censers swung by altar boys.