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W.G. Sebald and the Malthusian Tragic
- leoc 9y ago> One such contraption is a teas-maid, a kind of physical portmanteau of an alarm clock and a tea-making machine that starts boiling the water right before it wakes you. The word is 'Teasmade' ("tea's made") not 'teas-maid'. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teasmade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teasmade . They were probably never quite mainstream and fully accepted in the UK, but they certainly did sell pretty well for decades. They seem to have fallen by the wayside over the past roughly two decades, but they're still notable as, effectively, one of the earliest and most successful IoT gadgets.
- zwieback 9y agoI still have a Chef's Choice "TeaMate" stored in the basement. Interesting machine - it makes a samovar-style brew where it steeps a concentrate for 5 minutes and then dumps that into the pot and dilutes it with the remaining water in the tank. Given that it takes about 5 minutes to make tea with an electric kettle it's not really worth the trouble, though.
- bookofjoe 9y agoWhen I read the news that Sebald had died in an automobile accident at the age of 57 (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/dec/17/guardianobituaries.books1 https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/dec/17/guardianobituar...), I was so sad. A magnificent author who likely would have won the Nobel Prize.
- zwieback 9y agoRecently his name kept popping up so I decided to read Austerlitz. I don't read enough books in German, which is my mother tongue, so I thought I'd give it a try but, honestly, it's a slog. Lots of interesting bits but the language is too pretentious and strained for my taste. I wonder if he's better in English, will give it a try.
- bookofjoe 9y agoInteresting observation. It has never occurred to me until I read your comment that something could be better after translation than in the original.