The “maximum” in MaximumPC means doesn’t just mean the fastest speed or the highest ratings—it means more than best.  It means pushing the envelope to be the best possible. 

As geeks and nerds, we are always striving for the best possible, because we’re never satisfied with where we are or what we have.  We want more.  That’s everything you need to know about the forward thrust of technology—the unsatisfied human desire to have more, better, and different.  In the long stumbling, bumbling, fumbling history of our weird little species, we have invented so many marvelous tools to expand the power of our muscles, but only one tool to expand the power of our brains—the computer.

As a species, for the first time in history, we have the opportunity to be more accurately informed and make wiser decisions than ever before.
—assuming we use our technology wisely. 

Too often, we forget that the most important component in any system is the user.  We forget that we are the authors of our own choices.  Even worse, we forget that we actually have a choice.

What’s interesting about the shift from an industrial age to a technological age is that we keep inventing new media:  movies, records, radio, television, the internet, and now ebooks—and one of the things that’s most interesting about the invention of a new medium is watching it reinvent itself as it penetrates the culture. 

In the study of mass communication, we see that a new medium always starts out building on the formats of preexisting media.  A couple quick examples:  

As movies grew up, especially in the first decade of sound, they went to novels and broadway plays for source material.  (They still do.  In fact, now they go to comics and TV shows too for ‘inspiration.’)  

As radio spread, radio stations went to records and concerts for material to broadcast.  Radio networks also went to vaudeville for performers and made stars out of Jack Benny, Fred Allen, George Burns, and others.  (This is what killed vaudeville.  You could stay home and listen to live performances.)  Eventually radio started doing drama, mysteries, soap operas, game shows, and sitcoms.  

When television began, it modeled itself after radio.

For more about what technology's history says about ebooks' future, read on!

I have a holiday tradition. Every December, I buy myself a present. That way I guarantee I will get at least one gift I actually want. (I have a closet full of sweaters and shirts that other relatives thought were “just perfect” for me. No. Just no.) 

This year, I ended up standing in the aisles of Fry’s Electronics, debating with myself. I really wanted a new camera—the Sony DSC-F828 is 7 years old and I’ve been studying the specs on various high-end DSLRs. But there’s also this great new game from Disney called Epic Mickey. I don’t have a Wii, but Epic Mickey looks so good that I was tempted to buy a Wii just for Epic Mickey alone. 

But … I hesitated. 

One of my nephews has a Wii, and he got Epic Mickey for his birthday early in November. So I invited myself for dinner one Sunday and afterward he set up the game for me. He showed me where all the controls were and walked me through the first few moments of the game. 

I’m a big Disney fan and Epic Mickey opens up with some great references to classic Disneyana: Mickey Through The Looking Glass, The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, all those Disney anthologies with the animated paint brush creating whole landscapes with a stroke, early Disneyland, Night On Bald Mountain (and/or The Blot), and a calendar that acknowledges Mickey’s early films as the pages fall off. 

After a spectacular setup, the game reveals Mickey in a place called The Wasteland. We meet Oswald the Rabbit, who Walt created before Mickey, in the laboratory of a mad scientist. This is an introductory level, a teaching level for the mechanics of the game. Your job, playing as Mickey, is to destroy one control console by spinning (shake the controller), leap across a broken platform and destroy a second control console. You leap by holding down the A button. 

Like all platform and jumping games, it requires fast reflexes. 

I do not have fast reflexes.