[Avodah] People of the E-Book? Observant Jews Struggle With Sabbath in a Digita

[Simon Montagu]

On Wed, Jan 5, 2011 at 9:21 AM, Hankman <salman at videotron.ca> wrote:

>  RSM wrote:
>  However the image
> on your computer monitor will remain in place until a person actively
> is involved in its mechika
>
> The writing on the computer screen disappears automatically without
> anybody being actively involved in its mechika, and this is an inherent
> property of the medium (unlike your attempted analogy to writing on a
> box filled with dynamite).
>
> CM responds:
>
> Your response seems to contradict itself from one sentence to the next, I
> presume you mean a monitor or screen with the difference being with or
> without a screen-saver. But, programming the computer to bring up a
> screen-saver is not an inherent property of the medium it is an active
> involvement. My analogy (if I recall) was the similarity of your case of
> screen-saver to programming the dynamite to blow up, neither of which are
> the inherent property of the medium (screen or box).
>
>
??

The first sentence is quoting your message, was that not clear? In the
second sentence I am disagreeing with the first sentence, not contradicting
myself.

I admit that my use of the word "computer" isn't accurate, since the
discussion is about ebook readers, not computers with programmable
screen-savers. My ebook reader automatically switches itself off after a
period of inactivity. I don't know if this behaviour is configured in
hardware, or firmware, but as far as I can tell there is no way for the user
to change it.

IMHO another reason why there is no ketiva by computers and ebook readers is
that there is no direct human action that forms the letters -- the operating
system copies bits from one part of the memory to another, and any changes
in the memory that make things that look like letters appear on the screen
are caused by human interaction only after many levels of indirection.
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