Book burning has never been easier: the match head IS a full- verse copy of the book. This cuts down on the messiness of paper ashes, plus allows for simultaneous burning on a scale never before possible. The business model requires a eBook purchase, and custom match books with personal libraries are ordered online. A cloud service makes this even easier: just buy the eBook, and you can see the match head, zoom in to the nanometer dimension image and activate the ignition via a web interface.-- molecat, Sep 11 2010 Terry Jones http://www.youtube....watch?v=zrzMhU_4m-gPresiding over a burning [nomocrow, Sep 12 2010] XKCD http://xkcd.com/750/e-book burning [hippo, Sep 14 2010] [+] heheh-- FlyingToaster, Sep 11 2010 // activate the ignition via a web interface //
[+]-- 8th of 7, Sep 11 2010 Marvelous. Salman Rushdie could get rich off this. But, for the web version, how do you reassure people that a fresh match is burned each time, rather than replaying video of the same, single burning?-- mouseposture, Sep 11 2010 You control a robot with ignition laser (CO2) at a custom angle and magnification, time stamp and 128 bit UID. This would require an infinite library of videos. However the true joy of the product can only be appreciated in hand. What's the fun without danger?-- molecat, Sep 11 2010 I like this.
It also suggests various alternatives. For example, suppose one were prepared to make the effort to encode a book (I dunno - any old book, I guess) in DNA (an old idea, and by no means impossible, just expensive) and clone it as a large-insert plasmid in good ol' E. coli, and then release these bugs into the environment.
The simple act of cleaning or disinfecting anything would then have a finite risk of destroying one or more copies of the text.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 11 2010 //custom angle and magnification// Like Google Earth?-- mouseposture, Sep 11 2010 //the point of book burning, which is to seek out and destroy existing copies of certain books to rid the world of their influence//
I disagree. In many cases, the burning of the book is symbolic (otherwise, why not put the books quietly into landfill)? The kerfuffle over the planned burning of the koran is not because they're worried about losing a few copies.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 11 2010 //the burning of the book is symbolic// Perzactly. This way, the publisher profits, and the author, if any, gets royalties. Everybody wins. (Alternatively: the book-burners get rooked.) [molecat] that was the point, was it not? (I mean, in addition to the advantages [8th_of_7] alluded to.)-- mouseposture, Sep 11 2010 //I disagree//
Ridiculous response because that suggests it's a subjective matter. It's just flat-out wrong. Religion relies on illiteracy not an abundance of paper paperweights.-- rcarty, Sep 11 2010 // It's just flat-out wrong.//
It's just flat-out childish is what it is. If someone wants to burn some paper which has been darkened by ink in a particular pattern, who cares? I use a Mac, other people use PCs: am I particularly concerned if someone thinks it's symbolic to burn a pile of OSX manuals? No, not really.
4 billion years of evolution, and the majority of people still act like five-year olds. Wipe us all out and start again.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Sep 11 2010 I love it. It demonstrates the lack of interpretive powers religious folk have, something that is clearly exercised by reading, for instance by the dynamism of changing contexts etc. It interests me that the sole interpretation of the symbolic book burning by the religious folks is as a statement they are making about someone else rather than a statement they are making about themselves, for example about their commitment to literacy, and the very powers of interpretation it exercises. This provides an excellent example of noumenon and phenomenon where the thing itself is interpretation or literacy as an abstract notion, and the phenomenon is the book burning.-- rcarty, Sep 12 2010 That's taking literacy too literally.-- rcarty, Sep 12 2010 [rcarty] why do you suppose that's their sole interpretation of book burning? I believe it's a very deliberate statement they're making about themselves, and that statement is "We are different from those outsiders." We're the outsiders: we, who can't stomach book burning any more than the Ephraimites could pronounce "shibboleth."
Their leaders, at least, understand that the more they make the outsiders hate and fear them, the stronger their sense of community.-- mouseposture, Sep 12 2010 They are the absurd, and I don't intend to impose meanings on the absurd. It's the symbolic action that I'm commenting on.-- rcarty, Sep 12 2010 It's the multitude of possible interpretations that renders it meaningless. It's an absurd action, by those without the capacity to interpret meaning.-- rcarty, Sep 12 2010 Alternatively, we can put Fahrenheit 451 on the match head for irony.-- Alx_xlA, Sep 12 2010 //4 billion years of evolution, and the majority of people still act like five-year olds. Wipe us all out and start again.//
This calls for a book-burning video game.-- ldischler, Sep 12 2010 // Wipe us all out and start again //
You'll manage it any day now. That's why we're here.
And then we shall post the video on the galactic equivalent of YouTube.-- 8th of 7, Sep 12 2010 fervently waiting for the YouTube video of the guy slipping a cardboard-bacon bookmark in between the pages... "Take that! Muslimism".-- FlyingToaster, Sep 13 2010 Excellent idea. [+] I could also see a market for books that doubled up as fire-lighters or winter fuel (log-books?)-- xenzag, Sep 14 2010 //You're missing the point of book burning// [Marked-for-tagline] - made me chuckle anyway :)
Proper bookburning should be considered a kind of ideological equivalent of a lynching, and to be done properly, really needs to be conducted by an angry mob.
This production-line facilitation of book-burning completely removes these romantic elements (faces lit by firelight, the sense of community) - this idea totally ignores those aspects of a proud and long-held tradition. Tusk-tusk etc.-- zen_tom, Sep 14 2010 + you can make match-head flags, too!!-- xandram, Sep 14 2010 I disagree! A real match has warmth and a small measure of comfort!-- molecat, Sep 15 2010 random, halfbakery