What's it good for?

No. The medium can influence the message, but only after people die. Mimesis: the tendency of new forms of information to mimic old forms of information. Then, as the oldsters die off, the medium takes over. I'm taking a fascinating class at Stanford Continuing Studies: "The History of Information" (Beyond Bits and Bytes) taught by Thomas S. Mullaney (Professor of History.) Professor Mullaney is teaching us about how information is put "in formation" by different technologies. How those technologies govern how the information is transformed ("transformation") and how it starts out always the same, but eventually the medium wins out and takes over what can be done. The Gutenberg bible looks like it was written by a scribe. Why is that? Tonight's lecture was particularly interesting. And one concept was a real shock to me. I've read Marshall Mcluhan's book: "The Medium is the Message" (a really fun book) but never really go