Elon's E-book Enthusiasm

Industry insiders have been speculating upon the cause of a recent surge in demand for Gallium orthophosphate and other substances with piezoelectric properties, with companies owned by Elon Musk being responsible for most of the forward orders. He has not told me so, but I suspect it follows an indiscretion of mine at a dinner party last week at which he had asked to be placed at my table, hoping, no doubt, to advantage from hearing the insights I am known to share from time to time. After all, it was a comment of mine about the need for a ubiquitous online payment system that led him to invest in Paypal- I say nothing about my subsequent predictions concerning the opportunity to market electric cars.

The subject of piezoelectricity arose as we discussed the soporific effects of a certain author’s books (I will not mention his name). I mentioned a plan I had to guarantee readers an electrifying literary experience through a new development at my research labs, where we had produced books with piezoelectric crystals in the spine, arranged in such a way that every time a page was turned, the reader was subject to a minor electric shock- no more than a tingle, really, of the sort one might enjoy when reading one of my own books. But what, one of my companions joked, if the reader nodded-off between pages? No problem, I quipped, as the Mark II version of the new e-book also harnessed the piezoelectric effects to turn a page automatically if the reader had not performed the task for herself within a predefined time, while increasing the tingle to a shock sufficient to startle the reader back to consciousness.

I predicted a huge demand for the new e-book technology, given the number of atrocious authors whose work would be guaranteed to send the reader to sleep.

I did not imagine at the time that anyone might take my joke seriously, but judging by his recent investments, it seems that Elon did. I can’t blame him. After all, his SpaceX initiative arose after he heard a speech of mine in which I criticised the atrocious recent record of NASA, a speech which ended with the suggested that someone should give them a rocket.