I was confused by your post at first because “The Light of Other Days” was also a short story by Bob Shaw. Given that it won a Hugo and was shortlisted for a Nebula, it’s probably the better known of the two titles.The gimmick of the story was “slow glass” that takes years for light to pass through, and it is typically used to export scenic views elsewhere.
Same idea, mirror universe result (and since we are obviously in the mirror universe…):
Contrast to The Eyes of the Dragon (by Stephen King), where one of the key lessons - at least to me reading it as a kid - was to never spy/snoop on someone because what’s seen can’t be unseen and some things are best left unseen. Knowing things that you’d be better off not knowing can be a bad thing.
This definitely happens in software too. Software bloat is sometimes discussed here, but one thing often overlooked is that much of the massive sets of dependencies and modules isn’t even used (at least not on purpose). It’s often completely forgotten unless something in it changes and breaks things, some change accidentally triggers it, or some side-effect causes a bug or chews through too many resources while it’s doing nothing.
Somewhat related:
1 Like
Yeah, I’ve read that one too. Pretty memorable. It seems the common title actually comes from a Thomas Moore poem.
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
