At the end of Little Clarendon Street one used to find the nicest video rental shop in Oxford, called “Movies”. But times change, and nobody rents videos any more. The shop closed. What would replace it?

Today I walked by and learned the answer: it is now a bookstore. But this is crazy! Books are much, much older than videos! If videos are out of date, then surely…?

Ah, no, for different processes unfold on different time scales. Videos were never older than decades; one could never have trusted them to last longer than decades. Books have been around for centuries and will be with us for centuries more.

[9 January 2015]