Thank you both for these suggestions. I recall reading E. M. Forster's story at school and my contribution to English class was that he was wrong about there being a separate button for everything: in reality things would have been multiplexed and the person would have used a keypad or similar :-)

I have not read Walden. Will put it on my Kindle.

"I have not read Walden. Will put it on my Kindle"

I think that sentence sort of encapsulates what you are saying in your article. It certainly pulled me up sharp.

The flip side of this is that without the Kindle, it would have been "I may go pick up a copy from the public library, if I find myself visiting it soon and remember this thread when I'm there."

He's a lot more likely to actually get around to reading it when it's instantly and freely available. Hurrah for the public domain.

Upvoted for using a Kindle