IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019 - 12

cognoscenti. This kind of observation applies to much else in the book.
We probably all recall the predictions of a "paperless society." Sax
confronts these seers in his chapter
"the revenge of paper" pointing out
that "paper is the oldest analog technology to be seriously challenged by
digital." Paper is best seen in Sax's
argument in a product called the
Moleskine - a handsomely bound
hardbound book filled with blank
creamy white paper. The name has
nothing to do with moles or their
skins. It is the creation of an Italian
company called Modo & Modo. One
would like to think that the books
are created by an ancient guild of
Italian craftsmen, but they in fact
come from China. They are, however, hand sewn, and have a nice
little pocket in the back. Typically,
20 million are sold a year; twenty
thousand stores in the world market
them. The author observes that (like
the Prius) use of the book proclaims
one's "values, interests and dreams
... when everyone is using a phone
from Apple or Samsung, a paper
notebook stands out. "Moleskines
are not advertised - their users tacitly do it for them.
Moleskines are praised by their
adherents as an aid to creativity.
The head of a global branding agency Landor Associates informs Sax
that a decade ago all the designers
in his firm received copies of Adobe
Photoshop. The quality of their work
seemed to diminish. The team was
then given Moleskines and banned
from using their computers for the
first week on their newest project.
The belief was that their ideas would
flow more freely before the seductive creamy white page. The move
worked, and the ban remains in
place. Sax reveals that all the notes
for his book were written in his
Moleskine and that the cool people
he interviewed for this book project
also used them.

Do any of you readers use a camera that shoots film? Most likely the
question makes you think of the
rich, elderly, white guy who sat next
to you on an airplane the one time
you flew business class. He blathered on at length about his film cameras: Leica, Hasselblad, or Nikon,
which he pulled out of the luggage
rack to show you. But the stereotype
he just reinforced might give you a
bum steer on film.
Sax, in his "revenge of film,"
tells us about a film camera you
might never have heard of. This is
the Lomo, which began life in Russia as the Lomo Kompakt Automat
in 1984 - a cheap plastic camera
for the proles. Two young people
from Vienna, Sally Bibawy and
her then boyfriend Matthias Feigl,
learned of the device while on a
trip to Prague in 1991. They tried
it and loved it, embracing what
purists would regard as defects:
bizarre light leaks and color saturations, darkened edges, dubious
focus. The unpredictable images
carried with them an air of surrealism. The couple were so taken with
the camera that they established a
Lomographic International Society
with its own manifesto, which they
published and which encouraged
society members to "always carry
their camera, use it anytime, shoot
from random angles, shoot quickly
without thinking, embrace the camera as part of life." They became
international distributors of the
device and launched a web site for
users to upload their images. This
marriage of an analog technology
to a digital one is a theme running
through Sax's book - there are
Moleskines that are designed now
to be scanned with smartphones.
When the Russians stopped making the camera, the couple got into
the business by opening a factory
in China. Today their company markets a broad spectrum of film prodIEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

ucts: medium format, 35 mm, and
even instant cameras that produce
a print. They gross about 20 million
Euros a year with these instruments,
which are not generally cheap. For
the price of one you can get a good
used digital Nikon with a perfect lens
and focusing. But people seem to
love the Lomo.
There are other revenges in Sax's
book. In his "revenge of retail" you
find that retail stores have their
revenge in the growing number of
American bookstores, although you
never learn here that retail stores in
general are in very big trouble worldwide thanks to the Internet. The
New York Times recently reported
that from October of 2016 until May
of 2017, 89 000 Americans working
in general merchandise stores lost
their jobs. Macy's, a major American department store brand, has
announced plans to close 68 stores
and lay off 10 000 workers. The venerable Sears, dating to the 19th century, has expressed doubts whether
it can continue in business. Sax's
"revenge of print" tells us that 20
new magazines are being started in
the United States each month; these
are usually niche publications, which
began as on-line blogs, e.g., Gay
Wedding Magazine. But nowhere is
this bit of bad news: in American
newspaper publishing, since 2000,
over 270 000 people have lost their
jobs - two thirds of the workforce.
The general pattern of much of
the book is to present niche enterprises and activities that have grown
or remained strong in the face of
the digital Leviathan. Sometimes
this is a great comfort: I like to think
of new bookstores opening, and of
the board game geeks so colorfully
described in his "revenge of board
games." An overriding leitmotiv is
certainly the manifestation of a deep
human desire for activities presenting a live three-dimensional experience involving our senses as well
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JUNE 2019

IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2019