{"id":403,"date":"2007-08-05T13:13:37","date_gmt":"2007-08-05T03:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2007\/08\/05\/you-cant-judge-a-cover\/"},"modified":"2007-10-07T19:30:35","modified_gmt":"2007-10-07T09:30:35","slug":"you-cant-judge-a-cover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2007\/08\/05\/you-cant-judge-a-cover\/","title":{"rendered":"You can&#8217;t judge a cover"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>The Electric Crocodile<\/em> by D.G. Compton, was first published in 1970.<\/p>\n<p>When I read the book in high-school, I read the 1973 paper-back edition with this cover.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/theelectriccrocodile_cover.jpg' alt='Cover of the Electric Crocodile' \/><\/p>\n<p>It was a largely forgettable science-fiction story. It had a story line about paranoia-inducing future with a super-computer running the entire economy, government, world, whatever..<\/p>\n<p>As you can see, the front cover showed an artist&#8217;s depiction of what this futuristic computer might look like. The standard Star-Trekesque version of a computer interface comprising of largely of knobs and buttons.<\/p>\n<p>I think my attention was drawn to the weirdly cropped finger.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/electriccrocodilecropped.png' alt='Zoomed in on the cover of Electric Crocodile' \/><\/p>\n<p>Is this supposed to be attractive?  <a href=\"http:\/\/somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/2005\/09\/08\/you-re-touch-my-comments-ill-re-touch-your-face\">Excessive photo re-touching<\/a> to imply a thinner model? Surely not. So perhaps the artist is suggesting that, in the future, we will evolve pointed finger-tips?<\/p>\n<p>I soon was distracted from this line of thought. What is that behind the finger? Why does it look vaguely familiar. Wait a moment!<\/p>\n<p>I turned the book upsided-down and looked more closely.<\/p>\n<p><img src='http:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/theelectriccrocodile_flippe.png' alt='Electric Crocodile cover, flipped upside-down' \/><\/p>\n<p>That, my friends, is no super-computer.<\/p>\n<p>That is the centre-console of the dashboard of an old Volvo!<\/p>\n<p>The top row contains a green rear demist switch, a red hazard light switch and an unlit red seatbelt light. The second row contains the air-conditioning controls, with the fan knob on the right turned to setting 2. The bottom row is the cigarette lighter knob on the left and ashtray to its right.<\/p>\n<p>I have seen the future of super-computing, and it is much like the present, except ruled by upside-down Swedes with over-clocked cars.<\/p>\n<p>I bet those bloody Volvo drivers won&#8217;t install on Windows Vista.<\/p>\n<p>We should have seen the warning signs of our impending doom, when Intel released the new <sup>o<\/sup>^l<sup>o<\/sup>^ chipset.<\/p>\n<p>Okay, that&#8217;s it, I have it out of my system now. Thank you for your patience.<\/p>\n<p>Oh wait, just one more&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I, for one, welcome our new inverted car-part masters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In which I review the cover of an old book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[30,21],"tags":[77,371],"class_list":["post-403","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humour","category-observation","tag-graphic-design","tag-humour"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.somethinkodd.com\/oddthinking\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}